Now Bill O’Reilly Needs To Apologize For Being An Idiot To The NAACP

Posted by on July 13, 2012 at 3:54 am. 4 Comments :

Bill O'ReillyLast March, Bill O’Reilly engaged in an on-air brawl with a constitutional expert who told him that ObamaCare would be upheld by the Supreme Court. Bullheaded Bill vehemently disagreed and and promised to replay the segment and apologize for being an idiot if he were wrong. Well, he was wrong, but still declined to make a genuine apology.

Tonight O’Reilly reprised his idiocy. During an argument with NAACP Washington bureau director Hilary Shelton. O’Reilly once again browbeat his guest with assertions of his warped version of reality. Shelton attempted to point out that the booing Romney endured was unique and a result of Romney’s disrespect of his audience.

Shelton: We’ve had Republican candidates for president at the NAACP before. As you know, four years ago, John McCain. As you know, when George Bush ran for president the first time…
O’Reilly: And McCain got jazzed too, by your crew.
Shelton: No he didn’t. Neither one of them did. That’s absolutely not true.
O’Reilly: He got jazzed by your crew and you know it.
Shelton: I hope you’ll go go back and actually play that on your show.
O’Reilly: We covered it. I remember covering it.
Shelton: What you’re saying is simply untrue.

Since O’Reilly already demonstrated his cowardice when he refused to apologize in the prior incident, it is unlikely he will will bother to show any more integrity this time. So for anyone who is interested, here is the speech that McCain gave at the 2008 NAACP conference. There was not a single negative reaction from the audience. No booing, no heckling, no “M-Fer, I want more iced tea.” No one got “jazzed.” But don’t hold your breath waiting for O’Reilly to apologize for, once again, being so desperately wrong.

The few hisses Romney suffered were entirely deserved. He seemed intent on baiting the audience. But this was not a pattern of behavior on the part of the conferees, as McCain’s video proves. Then again, McCain was a far more gracious guest. His demeanor was respectful as he solicited their support.

McCain: I’m here today as an admirer and a fellow American. An association that means more to me than any other. I’m a candidate for president who seeks your vote and hopes to earn it. But whether or not I win your support, I need your good will and your council.

Compare that to the condescending attitude Romney exhibited wherein he belittles his audience by declaring that the only reason they would not vote for him is because they are incapable of understanding how righteously awesome he really is.

Romney: I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African American families, you would vote for me for president.

Yeah, sure. It’s too bad that they’re just too stupid to see the real you. Or are they? Romney affirmed his scornful tone at a fundraiser he rushed off to following the NAACP event. When asked about the mixed reception he received he said of the NAACP crowd…

“I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy – more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free.”

See? People who simply want to be able get affordable health care without being gouged by greedy insurers; who want to take care of their family’s needs without losing their homes or going bankrupt; who want an end to cancellations when they file claims; who don’t think that preexisting conditions should be an obstacle to getting coverage; to Romney these people are freeloaders looking for a handout.

So Romney should not be surprised if he encounters more booing or other public condemnations. He’s earned it. And O’Reilly should stop pretending that he knows anything. He doesn’t.

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Mitt Romney: Original Bankster

Posted by on July 12, 2012 at 2:58 pm. 1 Comments :

Purchase “RMoney: Original Bankster” Stickers here.
Mitt Romney - Original BanksterMitt Romney (or RMoney, as his Highlife Homies call him) is relying on a resume of alleged financial acumen to propel him into the White House. Unfortunately, his expertise lies more in the area of sucking the wealth out of companies, terminating employees, and sending those jobs overseas – along with his own lavish proceeds so as to avoid contributing his fair share to America’s prosperity.

Romney is the quintessential candidate of the GOP (Greedy One Percent) who callously admits that he likes to fire people, that his wife drives two Cadillacs, that corporations are people, and that he’s not concerned about the poor.

He advocates an agenda that reeks of plutocracy, favors the wealthy, and if I can quote Ice-T, he’s “Dazed by the game in a quest for extreme wealth.” He’s OB – The Original Bankster.

Now you can get your very own “Original Bankster” stickers.

Help spread the word about a presidential candidate…

  • Who maintains an unprecedented camaraderie with the Wall Street Hoodlums and Vulture Capitalists that thrust this nation into an enduring recession.
  • Who refuses to level with the American people by releasing his tax returns even though his father set the standard for such transparency by releasing twelve years worth.
  • Who has been untruthful regarding his expatriated finances, his stewardship of Bain Capital, and pretty much everything else he says.
  • Who embraces endorsements from far-right, extremists like Allen West and Ted Nugent, who recently lamented that the south lost the Civil War.
  • Who is incapable of empathizing with average Americans, but who is right at home with Donald Trump, the Koch brothers and other greedy elites.
  • Who resists disclosing his plans for the nation he seeks to lead, but when he does he reveals an overt favoritism for others in his class and a determination to punish the less fortunate.

Mitt Romney is singularly unfit to represent the American people or to set the nation on a course of recovery. He is the embodiment of the policies that drove the country into an economic ditch. And he doesn’t have the experience or the vision to advance the sort of progress that is the best part of America and its legacy in the world.


Not So Breitbart: Biden Does NOT Address Empty Seats, Nor Jeremiah Wright

Posted by on July 12, 2012 at 1:55 pm. 5 Comments :

The mental deficients at Breitbart News have done it again – twice.

Breitbart News

The picture above shows a packed house at the NAACP conference for the appearance by Vice-President Joe Biden. The speech was well received with the crowd even booing when he announced that he was wrapping up.

Nevertheless, the Breitbrats found a photo that was tweeted prior to Biden’s arrival and decided to post that with an article that said that “Biden Addresses Empty Seats at NAACP Convention.” Obviously, that was not true. The larger photo of an enthusiastic crowd was taken by an actual reporter from Reuters. Not surprisingly, the mysterious editors at Fox Nation (who Fox refuses to identify) re-posted the Breibrat item as if it were certifiable news.

In addition to the false assertion of an empty hall, the Breitbrats sought to portray their fabricated story as a “misstep for a presidential campaign unable to find its footing.”

“The low turnout could be due to weather, as Hawkins suggests, or perhaps it could have been in protest because the NAACP was snubbed by Obama. Or, maybe people didn’t feel it imperative to hear America’s Grandpa ramble on about how much he learned in a Reverend Wright’s church.”

Of course, neither the weather, nor an alleged snubbing, prevented the conferees from attending in force. But what’s worse is the reference to Rev. Wright. That bit was cribbed from Michelle Malkin. As it turns out, Biden was not referring to Jeremiah Wright at all. It never occurred to these goofballs that there might be more than one Rev. Wright in America.

Andrew Breibart’s ghost must be so proud of these idiots.


Fox News Conservatives Suddenly Opposed To Free Enterprise

Posted by on July 12, 2012 at 12:16 pm. 1 Comments :

A few days ago the kiddies at Fox & Friends went all limp because of a report that the American Olympic team would be donning berets as part of their official apparel. Steve Doocy and the others on the curvy couch were aghast that our athletic heroes were being forced to wear unpatriotic chapeaus from France that made them look foolish. But the Foxies apparently forgot that berets are also worn by some other Americans:

Fox Nation

Now the outrage at Fox continues as reports reveal that the Olympic uniforms are being manufactured in China. Conservatives across the media landscape are slamming the decision to outfit our athletes in clothes produced by the same communist nation that produces almost all of the clothes that the rest of us wear – as well as our computers, cars, televisions, etc.

So now the right-wingnuts are in a frenzy because of the off-shoring of sports apparel. However, the Olympic Committee is privately funded. The decision to manufacture the uniforms in China was made solely by the Ralph Lauren Company for purely financial reasons. The Committee could have required sponsors to source all Olympic manufacturing in the U.S., but that would be the sort of “regulation” that conservatives adamantly oppose.

The evils of regulations are a core principle of the Republican Party and the right. But when they can exploit some purely partisan pseudo-patriotism in order to induce mouth-frothing anxiety from their glassy-eyed followers, then all of a sudden regulations are the American Way.

So which is it, Teapublicans? Blind adherence to pure free enterprise, or rational policies that advance the interests of all Americans? If you choose the former than STFU about Chinese-made Olympic wear. If you choose the latter than stop pretending that unfettered free enterprise is a sacred rite that cannot be defied.


The Battle Hymn Of The Republican

Posted by on July 10, 2012 at 8:36 pm. 9 Comments :

Reince Priebus, the chair of the Republican National Committee, appeared on Fox News Sunday this weekend and delivered an oratory that can only be described as a nightmarish rendition of some perverse patriotic anthem from hell. I call it…

Battle Hymn of the Republican

These sentiments would be bad enough if they erupted from some fringy, Apocalyptic, Tea Party zealot, but when someone as establishment as the chairman of the RNC spews this sort of patriopathic gibberish, there is something very troubling afoot.

To assert that liberty, freedom, and even America, are at risk of coming to an end because of a popularly elected Democratic president is not only symptomatic of acute paranoia, it suggests a total absence of faith in the strength and endurance of America. Do these miscreants really believe that our nation is so weak that it will crumble into dust if their candidate is not victorious?


Did Mitt Romney Lie To The SEC About His Management Of Bain Capital?

Posted by on July 10, 2012 at 12:47 pm. 3 Comments :

Mitt Romney’s core argument for supporting his candidacy for president is the assertion that his business experience has prepared him to deal with the economic challenges that the country faces. But that case is muddled by the many unanswered questions about his past that he refuses to reveal. Unlike his father, who released twelve years of tax returns in his White House bid, Mitt Romney has released tax filings for only one year. Then he expects everyone to take at face value his insistence that he has never sheltered income off-shore and has always followed the law. OK, fine, then why not release the documents to prove it?

Swiss Mitt Romney

The problem with taking Romney’s word for anything is his proclivity for telling lies about almost any subject he discusses. With regard to his tenure at Bain Capital, Romney has declared emphatically that he was not responsible for any of the reported instances of terminating domestic employees and sending those jobs overseas. His principle claim is that he left Bain in 1999, before any such actions occurred.

However, new evidence has emerged showing that this is just another false statement from Romney. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Romney was identifying himself as the Managing Directer of Bain as late as 2001.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, DC 20549
SCHEDULE 13D
February 11, 2001

Bain Capital, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Bain Capital”), is the sole managing partner of the BCIP entities. Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital and thus is the controlling person of Bain Capital.

Romney has said that, despite what official filings may say, he could not have been running Bain at the time because he was too busy working on the 2002 Olympics. If that’s true, then he lied to the SEC when he signed the Schedule 13D cited above. So Romney is either lying on an official government form, or he is lying to the American people. That’s not a choice that has any positive outcomes.

Another example of Romney’s blatant disregard for the truth is his claim that any off-shore investments in his name were made in blind trusts without his knowledge. Just yesterday he told an Iowa radio show that “I don’t manage them. […] I don’t even know where they are.” But records reveal that he did, in fact, own off-shore assets in 1997, prior to having created his blind trust. And furthermore, despite his denial, he knew of other such investments that were reported in the one tax return he released for 2010.

Mitt Romney Pathological LiarAll of these incidents illustrate that Romney has no shame when it comes to lying about his past, even when those lies can be exposed with information from public records. It makes one wonder what is in the tax returns that he is so feverishly struggling to keep from becoming public. How much worse can it get?

In the wake of these controversies, the response of the Romney campaign appears to be a rather childish “I know you are, but what am I” approach. His operatives are now saying that they plan to go on TV and call President Obama a liar. That’s the sort of projection that is typical of the tactics employed by Romney surrogate, SuperPAC kingpin, and Fox News contributor, Karl Rove. But it’s a dangerous strategy for someone who’s veracity is already so tarnished.

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Fox News Can’t Stop Lying About Tax Cuts For The Middle Class

Posted by on July 9, 2012 at 10:33 am. 12 Comments :

The announcement today that President Obama is committed to preserving the current tax rates for middle class Americans has been met by Fox News choosing to frame the issue in a more negative and dishonest manner.

Fox News

On the Fox News web site the story was featured with a headline reading, “Obama ‘100% Committed’ To Tax Hike.” Later, on Fox News as the President was speaking, the network displayed a caption reading, “Pres Urges Congress To Pass Tax Increase On Households Earning More Than $250,000.”

Both of those statements are false. The President is neither committed to, nor urging, a tax increase. The tax increasing was passed and signed into law by Republican president George W. Bush. The legislation implementing the Bush-era tax cuts included a sunset provision for when the cuts would expire. That was Bush’s doing, not Obama’s. What Obama is trying to do is to preserve the tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans who actually need them and will spend them to help the economy grow. It is flat out dishonest to say that, because Obama supports allowing the cuts to expire for a few people at the top of the economic scale, that he is proposing a tax increase as characterized by Fox News.

Deficit FactorsMost independent economists agree that lower taxes for the middle class is more likely to fuel economic growth because the middle class spends more of their money on cars, clothes, food, appliances, electronics, travel, etc. The rich, on the other hand, disperses more of their income to savings or retirement accounts that do nothing to stimulate the economy. And studies have proven that the Bush-era tax cuts are one of the biggest contributors to the deficit.

The President is making a rational proposal that Congress come together and agree to pass the middle class relief that both sides insist is necessary to spur growth. There is simply no reason not to do so. The question of whether to cut taxes further for the rich can be debated separately and need not put everyone else at risk. If Republicans refuse to do this because the wealthy are being left out, then they are effectively holding the majority of Americans hostage on behalf of helping millionaires become even richer. But then, that’s the mission of the GOP (Greedy One Percent).

These facts are available for everyone to see and factor into their appraisal of the current economic debate. Everyone except for Fox News viewers, that is. They will continue to be misinformed and subject to opinions that are contrary to reality and harmful to their own interests.


Fox News Crosses Over Into Conspiracy Theory Territory

Posted by on July 9, 2012 at 4:06 am. 4 Comments :

Fox News has long been a source of blatant dishonesty and partisan propaganda. Most conscious observers are aware that much of what is broadcast on Fox is tainted and unreliable. That accounts for why so many independent surveys show that Fox News viewers are significantly less informed and/or misinformed, than consumers of other news media. Some studies even show that Fox News viewers know less about news events than people who watch no news at all.

But now Fox News has taken a step over the edge into pure Wackoland by linking to a known conspiracy theorist on their Fox Nation web site.

Fox Nation

The article on Fox Nation, headlined “Soros Promotes UN Control Over Gun Ownership,” links directly to the Infowars web site run by Alex Jones. Jones is a noted proponent of some wildly off-kilter (and debunked) notions including FEMA-run concentration camps and 9/11 Trutherism. His imagination is boundless and he has provided the raw material for other looney fabulists like Glenn Beck. In fact, Jones accuses Beck of ripping off most of his material, such as the delusional fear mongering of a global caliphate engineered by a cabal of radical Muslims and western socialist atheists.

It’s not surprising to see the Fox Nationalists glom onto this nonsense because this single fable hits on three of the conservative community’s favorite phobias: George Soros; the United Nations; and federal agents coming for their guns. And in every case there is not even a sliver of reality to their nightmarish ravings.

First of all, the core issue centers on a United Nations initiative to address the proliferation of international “illegal” arms trading. There is nothing in the proposal that would infringe on the rights of any nation to set their own standards for gun ownership. The actual resolution explicitly states that countries will “exclusively” maintain the right within their borders to, “regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership, including through national constitutional protections on private ownerships.“

Secondly, George Soros has nothing whatsoever to do with the UN’s activities in this matter. The only association that Jones/Fox News can assert is that the media watchdog group Media Matters has written about the NRA’s obsession with this issue and Fox’s frequent promotion of that viewpoint. Jones writes that…

“George Soros is financing the fight to give the United Nations control of your guns.

“Through his Media Matters organization, Soros is dumping pro-UN gun control propaganda into the mainstream media to coincide with the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty”

Soros has contributed to Media Matters and therefore, according to the conspiracy theorists, Soros is exerting his omnipotent control over every charitable organization to which he has donated. Since Soros has given away billions of dollars to hundreds of organizations, he must be busier than God as he enforces his will on a defenseless world. Never mind that there has been no “dumping” of “pro-UN gun control propaganda.” All that Media Matters has done is to respond to the pro-NRA propaganda that Fox News has been disseminating.

Finally, if there is any conspiracy to be unveiled, it is the one engineered by Fox News to advance the agenda of the NRA. The NRA’s CEO, Wayne LaPierre, is a fixture on the Fox network, and his commentaries are never challenged by guests with opposing views, and certainly not by Fox hosts. Fox permits LaPierre to express his irrational belief that Obama is determined to confiscate all of the guns in America. His proof of that is that Obama is trying to lure us all into a sense of false security by doing nothing to inhibit gun ownership. It’s a demented logic that argues that the more Obama refrains from any gun control, the more his gun control aspirations are revealed.

That’s the sort of absurdity that makes for the most entertaining, albeit dangerous, conspiracy theorism. And it’s the sort of thing that has made Alex Jones a leading figure amongst conspiracy theorists. The fact that Fox has now joined up with Jones says a lot about the direction that Fox is heading during this election year. Apparently the lunacy and lies generated by the Fox News regulars is not sufficient for the current situation, so they have called in reinforcements from the masters of mayhem at Jones & Company. Just when you thought that the credibility of Fox News couldn’t get any lower.


Fox News Latino: Voter ID Laws Could Block Thousands in November

Posted by on July 8, 2012 at 8:38 pm. NO Comments :

In another example of Fox News pandering to Latino audiences, the Fox News Latino web site featured an article today that contradicted everything that Fox News reports to their non-Latino audiences.

Fox News Latino

This article is a reprint from the Associated Press and it covers the issue of voter suppression in a manner that respects the truth. The author correctly notes that instances of in-person voter fraud are nearly non-existent, but that the photo-ID laws advanced by Republicans will disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters:

“The numbers suggest legitimate votes rejected by the laws are far more numerous than are the cases of fraud that advocates of the rules say they are trying to prevent. […]

“Supporters of the laws cite anecdotal cases of fraud as a reason that states need to do more to secure elections, but fraud appears to be rare. As part of its effort to build support for voter ID laws, the Republican National Lawyers Association last year published a report that identified some 400 election fraud prosecutions over a decade across the entire country. That’s not even one per state per year.

“ID laws would not have prevented many of those cases because they involved vote-buying schemes in local elections or people who falsified voter registrations.”

On Fox News the typical approach to this story is the ludicrous accusation that opponents of ID laws are proponents of fraud. Even though they can never cite actual incidents of fraud, people like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, Megyn Kelly, and the juvenile miscreants on Fox & Friends, persist in spreading falsehoods about imaginary illegal voters. Then they use their fairy tales to justify legislation that will result in valid voters being turned away at the polls. And just coincidentally, the vast majority of those turned away are seniors, students, and minorities, who are likely Democratic voters.

Republican governors and legislators are the ones pushing these discriminatory policies, with the help of Fox News. However, on Fox’s Latino-focused web site the story is completely different. It is treated with the proper attention to the harm that would befall Latino voters. This is a perspective that never appears on the Fox News mothership.

The purpose is obvious. Fox News is working in concert with the GOP to purge Democrats from the voter rolls. However, they don’t want to completely alienate the fast growing Latino population. So they segregate their news coverage in order to mollify Latino audiences who are rightfully concerned about this issue, but Fox hides this honest reporting from the dimwits who watch Fox News. It’s a cynical ploy that could only be hatched by people who think that Latinos are stupid enough to fall for it. Fortunately, that’s where Fox went wrong.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Happy DNC Chair

Posted by on July 8, 2012 at 4:29 pm. 2 Comments :

On today’s Fox News Sunday, fill-in host John Roberts appeared to be filling in for Mitt Romney’s press secretary. Roberts conducted an interview with Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz that was more debate than journalism. He countered her remarks as if he were making the case for Romney rather than merely asking challenging questions. Some of his reactions to her comments were not even questions at all, but rebuttals.

But that doesn’t even compare to how Fox Nation mangled their presentation of the interview. The Fox Nationalists posted a 32 second clip of the segment with the headline: “DNC Chair “Happy” With 8.2% Unemployment.”

Fox Nation

There was only one small problem with that characterization. It is contrary to the truth in every aspect. Even worse, the video that Fox Nation posted to support their headline proves that the headline is a lie. Here is the transcript of the segment:

Wasserman-Schultz: I’m pretty happy about 28 straight months of job growth in the private sector.
Roberts: But are you happy about 80,000 jobs last month, 69 the month before that? Are you happy with those numbers?
Wasserman-Schultz: Like I’ve said, and President Obama has said, we need to continue to improve, and we need to do more, and we need to work together.

Wasserman-Shultz never said that she was happy with the unemployment rate. In fact, she wasn’t even asked about it. She did say that she was happy with job growth, which has produced over 4 million jobs in the past two years, but reiterated her position that it wasn’t enough and that more needs to done. At no time in the entire segment did she say that she was happy with the 8.2% unemployment rate.

Fox Nation is so wedded to their mission of dishonesty that they will even post videos that disprove their own lies. Now that’s commitment.

Bonus Item: Also appearing on Fox News Sunday was RNC Chair Reince Priebus (whose name spells “RNC PR BS” if you remove the vowels). In a discussion about Romney’s record of eliminating American jobs and replacing them with labor in foreign countries, Priebus dropped what he must have thought was a clever soundbite: “The only job we’re going to outsource is Obama’s.”

So Priebus is suggesting that the Republican Party is planning to nominate a president based in India or China or some other off-shore location. That would fit perfectly with the GOP agenda of free market capitalism. I bet you could get someone to serve as president much cheaper by going off-shore. But where would that leave Romney? I suppose he could join his bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and then qualify as an outsourced candidate.