Actor D.C. Douglas has produced and released an online music video today entitled “A Sarah Palin/Michele Bachman Ticket” in an effort to galvanize the Tea Party and ultraconservative Republican base. The music video features imagery of America’s Founding Fathers against a political anthem for the GOP primary race and an ultimate Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann ticket.
You may remember Douglas from having been fired by GEICO for having left a disparaging voicemail for the folks at FreedomWorks.
Hannah Giles, the partner of right-wing propagandist James O’Keefe, who assumed the role of a prostitute in a series of videos designed to smear ACORN, is very upset about a documentary that she says intends to “shape a narrative that will change public opinion through the use of deception.” This critique will surely go down in the Annals of Irony with Colonel Sanders’ denunciation of animal cruelty.
Giles has taken to Andrew Breitbart’s BigHollywood blog to post a scathing critique of a documentary set to air on PBS’s POV series this fall. It’s called “Better This World” and PBS describes it as…
“The story of Bradley Crowder and David McKay, who were accused of intending to firebomb the 2008 Republican National Convention, is a dramatic tale of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal. Better This World follows the radicalization of these boyhood friends from Midland, Texas, under the tutelage of revolutionary activist Brandon Darby. The results: eight homemade bombs, multiple domestic terrorism charges and a high-stakes entrapment defense hinging on the actions of a controversial FBI informant. Better This World goes to the heart of the war on terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America.”
I haven’t seen this documentary and cannot comment on its presentation or accuracy. But I do find it ironic that Breitbart chose Giles to articulate this preemptive hit piece. It was Giles who gave birth to the ACORN project. She worked closely with O’Keefe to produce a video crockumentary that has since been proven to have been deliberately edited in order to embarrass its subjects and destroy the reputation of an organization they considered to be a political enemy.
Giles is, therefore, poorly suited to be a custodian of journalistic virtue. The only contribution she can offer this discussion is her intimate, personal knowledge of how to produce a dishonest work of fiction and present it as fact. To demonstrate her skill in this area she misrepresents the comments of the two filmmakers by juxtaposing answers to two completely different questions and reversing their chronological order to give the impression that they were related. Then Giles contends that this mash up was an admission on the filmmakers part to falsifying the narrative. Hannah sure knows her stuff.
In addition to the ironic absurdity of relying on someone like Giles to defend documentary integrity, Breitbart commits the sin of failing to disclose a glaring conflict of interest. The “revolutionary activist Brandon Darby,” who is an integral part of the story in the PBS doc, also happens to be a contributor to Breitbart’s web site. But rather than have Darby author his own first-person account of the events, Breitbart hands the job to Giles and nobody mentions Darby’s connection. They are, in effect, disparaging a documentary that they believe is unflattering to one of their associates without disclosing the association.
This is typical of Breitbart’s modus operandi: Lash out viciously at perceived enemies while accusing them of heinous acts that he engages in himself. You have to admire the audacity of Breitbart and Giles stepping up to accuse others of misleadingly editing film. These people have made lying an art form.
Ken Vogel at Politico has published a story that examines what he portrays as a new effort by Republicans and the right to dig up dirt on Democrats. The article raises an important question, but not the one Vogel may think. The question is: What rock has Vogel been residing under?
While the article correctly notes the recent arrival of Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS to the Dem Bashing party, the notion that the right has not been sufficiently aggressive with their opposition research is absurd to the point of delusion. In past election cycles we’ve seen Barack Obama slimed with “oppo” aimed at his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayres. We’ve seen John Kerry’s military service demeaned by the Swiftboat Liars. Established media hacks like Bill Kristal, George Will, and Rush Limbaugh have been hammering the left for decades. And Fox News was built from the ground up for that purpose. What’s new about any of this?
The article quickly descends from delusion to comedy when Vogel quotes Matthew Vadum, a conservative activist who puts forth his view that the right is just too darned principled to immerse themselves in the dirty side of politics:
“A lot of conservatives think that you have to abide by Marquess of Queensberry rules even if you’re in a knock-down, drag-out bar fight,” said Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a conservative non-profit that researches liberal donors. “And it’s good to be ethical, but sometimes maybe you need to explore new frontiers to reflect the changing nature of political combat in modern America.”
I would love to see a list of the conservatives who abide by any rules of civility and eschew negativity or hardball tactics. Vadum says there are a lot of them, but I can’t think of a single one.
Vogel briefly mentions rightist propagandists like Andrew Breitbart, Tucker Carlson, and James O’Keefe, but despite the impact they’ve had on people (Van Jones) and policy (health care), Vogel shirks them off as afterthoughts. He asserts that the right has nothing to match Media Matters or the Center for American Progress. Someone should introduce him to the Media Research Center’s Newsbusters, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute.
The right could justifiably be credited with inventing the most vile tactics of political combat in modern America. Yet Politico publishes this article that asks its readers to take seriously the contention that conservatives are floundering politically because their hearts are just too pure.
Right. And all Hannibal Lechter wanted was a tasty appetizer that went well with a supple Pinot Noir.
[Update:] Matthew Vadum takes umbrage at my comments and at the same time proves that right-wingers are a-holes by calling me a moron.
Also, he doesn’t bother to make any sort of substantive rebuttal to anything I said. I guess he thinks that lying about a veteran’s war record and saying that a presidential candidate is “palling around with terrorists” isn’t “sliming.”
Once again the evil winds of Fox News are blowing across the land and threatening to whip up a Perfect Storm composed of nothing but disinformation and unfounded fears. As part of their all-to-predictable criticism of President Obama’s efforts to prevent carnage in Libya and to support democratic reformers, the Fox brigades have unleashed a torrent of lies and irrational arguments that amount to siding with Qaddafi against American interests.
As usual, Glenn Beck is leading the charge with his typically factless assault and incitement to panic. The target this time is Samantha Power, the Senior Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights for the National Security Council. Just as he did with Van Jones last year, Beck has begun a barrage of invective aimed at slandering Power. Day after day he repeatedly denounces her while playing a context-deprived video in an endless loop.
The thrust of Beck’s squabbling is his contention that Power is the source of the administration’s policy in Libya. In his pseudo-professorial style Beck mis-educates his gullible viewers as to the roots of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) initiative endorsed by the United Nations. R2P sprung from the post-WWII determination that the community of nations are morally obligated to act in opposition to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.
In short, Beck falsely asserts that the UN got the idea from George Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only flaw in that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of a UN commissioned report on the subject, so it could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. And the UN’s report was based on the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” when Soros was a poor, eighteen year old Holocaust refugee and student in London, and well before Power was even born. Also notable is the fact that R2P was adopted when John Bolton was the ambassador to the UN and both Israel and the Bush administration supported it. These facts, however, don’t prevent Beck from inventing a conspiracy that defies the linear confines of time.
The video Beck has on auto-replay shows an excerpt of Power discussing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and suggesting that a “mammoth protection force” may be required. Beck alleges that she is promoting this protection on behalf of the Palestinians against the Israelis, and he extends that dimwitted analysis to imply that Power, Soros, and Obama have designs on attacking Israel under the provisions of R2P. In fact, a full playing of the video reveals that Power was not advancing her own solution to the ongoing Middle East hostilities. She was responding to a question that posed a hypothetical scenario wherein one side or the other was engaging in genocide. Her answer proposed a protection force that would be neutral, along the lines of a conventional UN peacekeeping mission.
The reality could not be further from Beck’s gyroscopic spinning of an imagined international military assault on Israel. Beck couples these allegations with a reference to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator, Cass Sunstein, whom Beck calls “the most dangerous man in America.” Sunstein is Power’s husband. Consequently, Beck now calls her “the most dangerous woman in America.”
The problem that Beck’s vile disinformation campaign presents, other than advancing the progress of stupidity, is that the Obama administration has been notoriously hypersensitive when it comes to criticism, especially from Fox News. In addition to their knee-jerk reaction to Beck’s demonization of Van Jones, the White House also jettisoned Yosi Sergant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture, over phony controversies promoted by Fox and other right-wing media.
This Foxophobia manifests itself in dangerously careless decision making that not only unfairly punishes staffers who did nothing wrong, it encourages the Becks of the world to persist with their character assassination crusades.
In this regard it is imperative that Obama not buckle under to the smears that Samantha Power is now suffering. The President needs to demonstrate that he has the fortitude to ignore Beck and Fox and the rest of the conservative hate machine that is itching to claim another scalp. Power is a brilliant, dedicated, and effective public servant and deserves the support of the President. She must not become another casualty in the war on competent White House advisors (which is really just a war on the White House by proxy).
My message to Obama is this: You cannot placate your foes by giving in to them. They feed off of that sort of weakness and become even more voracious. By denying them their little victories you retain trusted advisors, enhance your reputation, and starve the beast that stalks you. So, Mr. President, don’t make the same mistakes you made with Van Jones and the others. Stand by Power. Scoff at Beck. And exhibit some of the backbone that your position imparts onto you.
[UPDATE 4/6/11:] Just a few days after this startling April 1st revelation was published, Glenn Beck and Fox News announced that Beck’s program will end later this year.
[BREAKING: April 1, 2011, New York, NY]
In recent weeks there has been growing speculation as to the future of Glenn Beck on Fox News. Several events seem to be foretelling an imminent severance between Fox and their resident End Times correspondent. For instance:
1) Beck’s ratings are in an unrelenting freefall. The latest quarterly numbers reveal that, compared to just one year ago, Beck has lost 30% of his total audience, and amongst viewers between the ages of 25-54 he’s dropped 37%. He was even bested by Rachel Maddow a couple of weeks ago.
2) David Carr of the New York Times reported that Fox insiders have begun “contemplating life without Mr. Beck.”
3) Joel Cheatwood, Fox’s dedicated executive nursemaid for Beck, is leaving Fox to join Beck’s production company, Mercury Radio Arts – a sign that the network no longer requires a minder for Beck.
4) When Beck was on vacation last month, Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano filled in for him and the ratings barely budged – a signal that Fox could replace Beck at any time without suffering any ill effects.
5) Growing numbers of conservatives are repudiating Beck’s increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories.
6) Seven radio stations have dropped Beck’s show this year (so far). This corroborates the weakness seen in his television ratings.
Apparently these facts are being taken very seriously in the Fox News executive suites. News Corpse has exclusively acquired a confidential memo that cryptically discusses the “WK Day 5pm” time period and lists potential hosts that are under consideration.
The document identifies ten notoriously conservative “candidates” that could conceivably fill Beck’s shoes. The list is duplicated below along with a brief appraisal of the candidate’s pros and cons.
This memo is the strongest evidence yet that Beck’s days are numbered. His contract expires at the end of the year, but there’s even money that he doesn’t even last that long. Perhaps this is what Beck is referring to when he warns of the Coming Insurrection. It isn’t so much a Perfect Storm that is threatening to engulf the world – just Beck’s world.
Sarah Palin, the Alaskan governor most famous for sinking the GOP’s presidential campaign and quitting half way through her term, is in the midst of yet another controversy. This one pits her against Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller in a Fox News contributor’s cat fight.
It seems that the company that produced “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” was the beneficiary of over a million dollars in tax credits that were made possible by a law that Palin signed while still governor. When news of this got out, many conservatives took Palin to task for the apparent hypocrisy. As a Tea Party leader, and possible Republican candidate for president, Palin has been a vocal advocate of small government, so this legislation should be as repugnant to her as say…funding for NPR.
Chris Moody of the Daily Caller posted an article on the swirling debate amongst conservatives who found Palin’s position to be inconsistent with her public stance. Palin called the article “ludicrous” and accused Moody of “spinning” the story to give a false impression.
Palin: The accusation hinges on the notion that I signed the legislation into law knowing that it would personally benefit me. That’s absurd.
That is absurd. Because that is clearly not what that accusation hinges upon. The accusation addresses the hypocrisy of opposing big government intrusions on the free market except when they are used to advance her television career. And Despite recently declaring that she was through whining about the media, she opens her Facebook defense by saying…
“Goodness, cleaning up the sloppiness of reporters could be a full time job. In response to The Daily Caller’s online inquiry, I gave them a statement that the writer buried on his story’s second page (which most people won’t even notice – I didn’t even notice it)…”
First of all, what does it say about Palin that she didn’t notice the bright red text immediately following the article that said “NEXT PAGE: Read Palin’s full statements on the tax credit.” Is that her idea of “buried?” Is she really so lazy that, in an article about herself, she fails to observe such an obvious link? Secondly, the statement she gave was a lengthy 671 word defense that was 35% longer than the article to which she was responding.
Ironically, I agree with Palin that the state is justified in providing incentives to boost business. Many states offer tax credits for production companies in order to persuade them to bring their projects and checkbooks. The problem here is that Palin doesn’t agree with Palin. She is an adamant evangelist for small government and regards these sort of initiatives as outside the role of the state.
What’s more, the Alaska measure takes into account the likelihood that an out-of-state film production company may not have significant tax liabilities in Alaska, making the tax credits of little value. So they permit the producer to profit by selling his tax credits to other Alaska-based firms. That means that local oil companies or foresters or fisheries can acquire the deductions at a discount and reduce their contributions to Alaska’s treasury. So the visiting producer and some big corporations are benefiting at the expense of Alaska’s citizens.
Nice work, Sarah.
Our Kenyan, socialist, terrorist sympathizing, tele-prompted President is apparently also a devious, evil mastermind. Despite frequent assertions from the right that he is an incompetent, inexperienced, failure, he has somehow managed to lure Fox News and innumerable Republican politicians and pundits into his web of deceit, reducing them to nothing more than his unwitting lackeys.
The talk about whether or not Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States with a valid birth certificate to prove it has accelerated in recent days. Fox News anchors and guests are ratcheting up the speculation as to his eligibility to serve as president. The Birther Brigade, led by conspiratorialists at WorldNetDaily, believe that they are on a crusade to rescue America from an evil, dark-skinned, interloper, but now another leader of the white-wing suspects something even more insidious:
Karl Rove: Barack Obama wants Republicans to fall into this trap because he knows it discredits us with the vast majority of the American people when they do.
That’s right. All the talk of Obama’s birth certificate is part of an over-arching plot to bring down the Republican Party. And with the vast majority of that talk emanating from Republicans you can see the danger inherent in this brilliant scheme. Obama has GOP candidates, Fox News analysts, and much of the Tea Party effectively doing his bidding as they sabotage their own agenda. Just last night on the Bill O’Reilly program Donald Trump escalated his Birther rhetoric:
“People have birth certificates. He [Obama] doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim.”
Who knew that Republican presidential candidates could so easily be suckered into phony White House plots? Who knew that the president Rush Limbaugh refers to as a “man-child” (a synonym for “boy”) could execute such a sophisticated strategy to destroy his enemies? And who knew that so many supposedly intelligent, conservative, patriots would succumb to his scheme?
Who knew? Only the omnipotent Obama. And maybe George Soros.
Listen up brothers and sisters, for the Word of God is nigh and sinners must repent with all haste. The End Times prophesied in the Good Book are upon us and there is no time to delay if you desire salvation.
Take for instance the wayward soul we know as Glenn Beck. With three months of the year expired and thrice a ratings calamity. The latest quarterly book of numbers reveal that, compared to just one year ago, Beck has lost 37% of his most valuable audience, those between the advertiser-blessed ages of 25-54. And the loss amongst the whole of the viewership is 30%. He was even defeated by the dreaded Maddow twelve days past.
The signs are clear and cannot be ignored. God is pissed! He has said so unambiguously. Deuteronomy 28:27-29, describes the punishment from the Lord if you should fail to follow his laws:
27: The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
28: The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart.
29: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.
We hardly need to speak of Egypt and how badly Beck botched that. The emerods (or hemorrhoids) he has already had, and it nearly killed him. The potential blindness he announced tearfully last year. The madness is self evident.
And now the third curse attacking his prosperity is upon him. And this only days after whispers that his program might be cast into the television ether by the Pharisees of Fox. His audience is fleeing, as are his sponsors. And five radio stations denied him just since the new year.
Let us all pray that Beck has his affairs in order – and I don’t mean the ones with interns and altar boys. These are surely the End of Days and for Beck the seasons are coming to a close. The Lord works in mysterious ways, but we knew that when S/He created Beck in the first place.
Politics is a dirty business. Its history contains some of the most unsavory and slanderous conduct imaginable. In recent years there seems to have been an escalation by conservative activists who were never able to accept the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States.
[This is a re-post of an article I wrote for Alternet]
From Inauguration Day, when Fox News immediately began speculating that Obama was illegitimate because Supreme Court Justice John Roberts flubbed the oath of office, to the present where we see the president still shirking off allegations of treasonous sympathies for Muslim terrorists, America’s right-wingers have orchestrated an aggressive assault on those they consider to be their enemies. Well, we don’t have to lie down and take it. Here are some of the ways we can fight back:
1. Trust, No. Verify, Yes: The easiest way to smack down a conservative is to do some cursory research. In all likelihood whatever they are using against you is filled with errors or is entirely made up. It shouldn’t be too difficult to expose their attacks as vacant smear tactics. Mike Huckabee’s recent assertion that President Obama holds views that are different than the average American due to his “upbringing in Kenya” is a perfect example of right-wing disinformation. It was quickly debunked, which led Huckabee to offer even more ludicrous falsehoods to cover his original deceit. We are fortunate to be blessed with opponents who are, more often than not, idiots. Let’s exploit that good fortune.
2. Mock Treatment: When you’re dealing with the sort of people who vote for former witches for the senate there is sometimes little you can do other than laugh. And while the antics of right-wingers are often indistinguishable from satire, it is still an effective response to their attacks. The latest inanity from Sarah Palin can be addressed at length in a point-by-point rebuttal or a brief skit by Tiny Fey. Which do you think has a more enduring impact?
3. Talk Back: The purpose of most attacks from the right is to influence public opinion, and eventually, social behavior and legislation. They must not be left alone on that field of battle. A concerted effort should be made to inform the media that the attacks are baseless. That means letters to the editor, op-eds, call-ins to radio shows, and speaking out at public forums. The PR response is critical. The latest, loudest assertion is often the one most remembered. Don’t let it be a Tea Partier.
4. Consider the Source: Attacks from the right often emanate from notoriously disreputable characters whose grousing is better ignored. Their hypocrisy is legendary. Why should we care when the corpulent Rush Limbaugh calls Michael Moore fat? And the next time Ann Coulter proposes that the way to deal with violent extremism (or in her view, with anyone of the Muslim faith) is to “invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity,” we ought not to pay attention to the violent extremism she espouses. This isn’t giving up. It’s tactical disregard, but it should only be employed against irrelevant figures whose opinions are widely ignored anyway. I know, that’s a pretty big chunk of the rightosphere.
5. Hit the Streets: Nothing has been more illustrative of the power ordinary people have to effect change than the determined and courageous example set by the people of Wisconsin. They have been relentless in asserting their rights to speak, assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. Sadly, their governor and his GOP minions have resisted the will of the people — so far. But this battle is far from over. And the example set by Wisconsin Democrats, unions and citizens, has inspired a national movement in support of working families and the notion that tough economic times require sacrifices from everyone, including wealthy individuals and corporations. This movement has flourished despite scant attention from the conventional media. That’s the power of numbers and a public presence.
6. Sue the Bastards: This action can only be undertaken by actual victims of right-wing attacks, but it is effective and underutilized. Recently lawsuits have been been filed by Shirley Sherrod (against Andrew Breitbart) and Juan Carlos Vera (against James O’Keefe). These suits can serve as notice that people will not tolerate being slandered or otherwise harmed by spurious attacks. They can also preoccupy conservative evildoers who will have to spend both time and money on their defense. The publicity from these suits can help to advance progressive activism, particularly if they are successful. But just keeping their dastardly exploits in the news has a beneficial effect all its own. It would be great to see more of this from aggrieved parties like Van Jones and George Soros.
7. Get Up, Stand Up! Last, but not least, it is imperative that we coalesce into a culture of pride and conviction for the ideals we cherish. We must cease to buckle under pressure from rightist factions who will oppose us even after we make every concession they demand. Has the criticism of the White House declined since the departure of Van Jones? Did the opposition relent after we removed language from the health care bill that was falsely lambasted as “death panels?” Has there been any let-up on charges of over-taxation and socialism from Tea Partiers despite the extension of Bush-era tax relief for the rich? Of course not. So why on earth would we continue to try to appease an opponent who is insatiable and resistant to compromise?
Our side has to stop firing people just because they were subjects of criticism from the right. That just empowers the other side and highlights our weaknesses. It’s long past time for us to stand up for ourselves and our own. And when we get hit, as we will, we need to hit back. We have a moral obligation to stand up for the principles that we share with the majority of the American people. And now we must augment that with the will to advance those principles even in the face of dishonest, dirty dealing by our opponents.
One more thing: Have fun! There is no reason we can’t pursue our goals with a positive demeanor that reflects our hopes and aspirations for a country that cares about its people and the people of the world.
The New York Times published a disturbing article yesterday about how giant, multinational corporations are robbing the U.S. treasury (and people) by exploit tax loopholes and the political clout to obtain them. The marquee revelation in the article is that General Electric, who made $14 billion dollars worldwide last year ($5 billion domestically), paid ZERO dollars in taxes.
“Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. […]
Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less. […]
Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts – from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.”
This really doesn’t qualify as a press-stopping scoop. The trend toward corporate domination of our nation’s economy and politics has been evident for decades. Their success in wrangling beneficial treatment from Congress and the courts (i.e. Citizens United) through adept distribution of cash and favors has been decried in liberal circles repeatedly. But the effect of that criticism was itself suppressed by more corporate cash raining down on Tea Partiers, who have been exploited by AstroTurf inventions like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, to demonstrate against their own interests. Thanks, Koch brothers.
Nevertheless, it is good to see a mainstream media source shining a light on this repugnant unfairness orchestrated by wealthy special interests and their benefactors. However, there is a surreal quality to the reaction in the press to this article. Right-wing politicians and pundits are suddenly praising the Times for outing GE. Ordinarily they regard the Times as irremediably biased and unreadable, but if they are attacking another of the right’s favorite foes they are considered sufficiently rehabilitated and trustworthy.
The most surreal response to this is the one emanating from Fox News. They have glommed unto this story like a shark on virgin surfer.
There were several reports on their daytime broadcasts. It was featured on their Fox Nation web site. And Bill O’Reilly devoted a segment to it complete with his trademark bluster and animosity toward his long-time nemesis GE and CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whom he has called “a despicable human being.”
O’Reilly: Last year General Electric made 14 billion in profit worldwide, including $5 billion in profit in the USA. Yet General Electric paid zero – nothing – in taxes to the feds. As you know GE boss Jeffrey Immelt – big supporter of President Obama, and vice versa. So the question is how could GE pay absolutely nothing to the government, and how could I get that deal?
Unsaid in all of this is that Fox News’ parent company, News Corp, did get that deal. As I reported earlier this week, there was another Times article a few years ago that revealed that…
“By taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows expanding companies like Mr. Murdoch’s to defer taxes to future years, the News Corporation paid no federal taxes in two of the last four years, and in the other two it paid only a fraction of what it otherwise would have owed. During that time, Securities and Exchange Commission records show, the News Corporation’s domestic pretax profits topped $9.4 billion.”
So the company that employs O’Reilly is banking almost twice the domestic profits of GE and paying nothing in taxes, yet they are the ones throwing tantrums and lobbing insults. This is the sort of behavior for which the word hypocrisy was coined.
I have no problem with Fox flogging GE over this issue, which is an important one that involves many more corporate scoundrels and deserves more attention. But it would have been nice if they could have at least acknowledged that they are engaging in the very same tax shenanigans as GE. However that would have required them to be an honest news provider, which is contrary to their mission.
[Update 3/28/11:] And finally there is some media attention on the fact that there are many U.S. corporations brazenly shortchanging the country. MSNBC via Daily Beast.