Only On Fox News: McKinney Pool Party Kids Are Just Like Dallas Cop Shooter

This morning’s Fox & Friends featured a segment that sought to examine the motives behind violent attacks on police officers like the one that just occurred in Dallas, TX. The premise of the discussion (video below) was essentially that there is a cultural trend that has led to a general disrespect for law enforcement resulting in direct attacks on the police. As evidence of that alleged disrespect, co-host Pete Hegseth cited the recent incident at a pool party in McKinney, TX, where an out-of-control cop brutalized a fourteen year old girl who had broken no laws.

Fox News

The audacity of that association is almost too much to comprehend. The notion that a deranged adult who assaulted a police station with pipe bombs and gunfire from an armored van was the product of a societal breakdown of respect for authority is just plain idiotic. While all of the facts regarding the motives are not in, clearly this was not a case of bad manners or upbringing. And the suggestion that kids who were the victims of police abuse are emblematic of some sort of creeping epidemic of delinquency makes no sense at all.

This ludicrous juxtaposition was offered by Hegseth who introduced the segment by asking “Is growing anti-police rhetoric at all of this partly to blame for the situation [in Dallas]?” A question he answered himself saying that “It really does get to the question of respect for authority.” Right, because the problem with the guy who shot up the police station was that he never learned proper courtesy. One has to wonder why no one at Fox News ever connects the disrespect shown to members of law enforcement by Cliven Bundy’s Tea Party Militia in Nevada who threatened to kill federal agents and, in fact, did murder two police officers in Las Vegas, a story that Fox actively suppressed.

The panel Hegseth assembled consisted of three right-wingers who all agreed with his premise. Particularly disturbing was John Rafferty, a retired NYPD detective, who advocated a police-state tactic commonly used in places like Iran. He wants to arrest anyone who captures incidents of police abuse on video.

“If we walked down the block and I was shoving a camera in your face, harassing you for no other reason, you could be arrested. I don’t understand why these cops are being told not to arrest these people. We should be arresting them.”

Hegseth eagerly agreed with Rafferty that citizens should be denied their constitutional rights and incarcerated merely for documenting the bad behavior of the public servants whose salaries they pay.

On a side note, the fact that Hegseth is co-hosting Fox & Friends is notable in itself. While he has been a Fox News contributor for some time, his main occupation is as CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a right-wing activist front group for the Koch brothers. By moving into the host’s chair, Hegseth is merging Fox News with the Kochs operation, a move that is all the more ominous considering that the combination of Fox News and the Kochs are usurping the functions of the Republican Party leading to the privatization of democracy by ultra-partisan billionaires and corporations.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


(h/t Raw Story)

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Surprise: Hillary Clinton Speech Panned By Fox News As “Class Warfare”

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivered a speech today in New York at a rally of thousands of excited supporters. It was the first major event since the declaration of her candidacy. The speech covered many of the issues that are uppermost on the minds of American voters including the economy, national security, immigration, climate change, and civil rights. But that didn’t stop Fox News from narrowing the scope of their perception of the speech to a single divisive concept: Class Warfare.

Hillary Clinton

It is notable that Fox did not air a segment analyzing the speech for about twenty minutes after it was over. That contrasts with the other news networks who immediately brought in analysts to discuss the substance and impact of the speech. It appears that Fox needed some time to decide how they would frame the speech and the speaker in the most unflattering way before committing to covering it.

When Fox did come back to the subject of Clinton’s address, they first interviewed their own media reporter, Howard Kurtz, whose response was lukewarm and devoid of any insight. Then Fox let a couple of pundits spar over Clinton’s event in Crossfire fashion. Finally, after stalling for more than an hour, anchor Uma Pemmaraju introduced conservative pollster and GOP “word doctor” Frank Luntz to lead a segment with the pejorative premise that “Hillary Clinton [is] really playing up the class warfare theme” and that “She’s taking this hard-left turn.” It’s the sort of typical wild swing that Fox News uses to fan the embers of anti-liberal cliches when they haven’t got any coherent argument to make.

Clinton’s full 45 minute speech was actually much more diverse as she offered some personal stories about herself and her family, along with a platform of “four fights” that she intends to lead as a candidate and a president:

  • The first is to make the economy work for everyday Americans, not just those at the top.
  • Now, the second fight is to strengthen America’s families, because when our families are strong, America is strong.
  • So we have a third fight: to harness all of America’s power, smarts, and values to maintain our leadership for peace, security, and prosperity.
  • The fourth fight – reforming our government and revitalizing our democracy so that it works for everyday Americans.

It was likely the “first fight” that triggered the criticism that Clinton was engaging in class warfare. It’s funny, though, that economic policies that favor the wealthy are never called a class war until the people start fighting back. As Bernie Sanders recently said, redistribution of wealth has been going on for decades, from the poor and middle-class to the rich. Policies aimed at reversing that trend are merely to bring back some fairness.

It was that “fourth fight,” however, that produced some of the most striking rhetoric in the speech. Clinton insisted that “Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations.” She made a good case for reform that would restore the the ideals of democracy that have withered at the hands of corporations, billionaires, and the politicians they’ve bought:

We have to stop the endless flow of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political process, and drowning out the voices of our people. We need Justices on the Supreme Court who will protect every citizen’s right to vote, rather than every corporation’s right to buy elections. If necessary, I will support a constitutional amendment to undo the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. I want to make it easier for every citizen to vote. That’s why I’ve proposed universal, automatic registration and expanded early voting. I’ll fight back against Republican efforts to disempower and disenfranchise young people, poor people, people with disabilities, and people of color. What part of democracy are they afraid of?

As the campaign season heats up Fox News will predictably try to frame Clinton, and all Democrats, as evil, socialist, godless, incompetents. But it will useful to remember what they were saying about Clinton before they decided she was the next anti-Christ. Here’s a sampling that was compiled by Media Matters:

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What Republican Party? Fox News And The Koch Brothers Have Replaced The GOP

Everyday there is more and more evidence that the Republican Party is dissolving into the ether of a new political atmosphere. It began with Fox News usurping the PR responsibilities of the party. For anyone to advance in the GOP they had to go through Fox News. At the same time, the Koch brothers have been moving in on party operations and raising more campaign money than the party could ever hope to.

Koch Brothers

News Corpse has covered this phenomenon in some detail here and here, examining how the interests of Fox News came to supersede those of the GOP:

Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). […] The problem is that by elevating bona fide nutcases, they are debasing honest and informed discourse. The mental cases are crowding out any reasonable voices that might exist amongst the more moderate Republicans (if there are any left). Fox appears to have made a tactical decision to permit the inmates full run of the asylum. […] So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders. That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party.

The trend is accelerating as we go into the 2016 presidential campaign season. Now Fox has appointed itself the gatekeeper of the GOP primary, wherein they will only permit the top ten Republican candidates, as determined by certain unnamed polls, to participate in their televised debates. Even Republican party operatives are opposed to this power grab by a media company.

In addition to Fox News assuming the roll of party spokesman, the billionaire Koch brothers are angling to replace the party’s electoral architects by building and distributing the voter access tools and outreach capability that used to be the sole province of the political party. Yahoo News published an in-depth investigation that shows how the Koch’s syndicate has moved in on party territory, much to the consternation of the party chieftains.

“The RNC is now openly arguing, however, that the Kochs’ political operation is trying to control the Republican Party’s master voter file, and to gain influence over — some even say control of — the GOP.

“‘I think it’s very dangerous and wrong to allow a group of very strong, well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone to have control over who gets access to the data when, why and how,’ said Katie Walsh, the RNC’s chief of staff.”

So if the Koch brothers end up running the electoral operations of Republican candidates, and Fox News continues its role in media strategy and execution, the only question that remains is: What’s left for the remnants of the Republican Party to do? They become an organization with no authority, responsibility, or relevance.

If they don’t take steps to reverse these trends, and do it soon, the GOP will drift into an ignoble and faded history. Ordinarily, that might not seem like such a horrible idea. But if their replacement is Fox News and the Koch brothers, we might all be better off rooting for the GOP.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Respecting Police Fox News Style: Pool Party Kids vs. Tea Party Militia

The relentless punditry being applied to the McKinney pool party by less than credible media commentators has produced a flood of useless blathering that contributes nothing toward understanding the situation. And leading the pack as, as usual, is “doctor” Keith Ablow, the disgraced Fox News “psycho” analyst best known for diagnosing President Obama as an anti-American sociopath.

On yesterday’s episode of Fox & Friends (video below), Ablow chimed in on the McKinney affair with his familiar fetish for finding the President at fault for everything from the Kennedy assassination to diaper rash. He also exhibited his famous hate-focused tunnel-blindness that stretches the boundaries of hypocrisy to new extremes. This exchange with fellow defamer Elisabeth Hasselbeck covered well-worn territory for the Fox irregulars.

Hasselbeck: What is the mentalitiy a cop needs in a situation like this and why are so many people quick to reject authority right now?
Ablow: I think that some leaders in America have fractured the trust that Americans placed, properly, in police officers […] I don’t think our president or our former attorney general did anything to help people out when they seemed to side with folks other than the police or, for that matter, the mayor of New York. So, these messages are very powerful. And they’re heard by young people who may think of it as a cause celebre to sort of resist police officers when the right thing to do is…do as you’re told.

So it’s “some leaders in America,” specifically President Obama, who are responsible for fracturing the trust placed in police officers. It wouldn’t be the police officers who have murdered unarmed kids or brutalized peaceful citizens who made trusting law enforcement so difficult, would it? And if an enraged cop drags you by your hair and orders you to put your face in the grass, just do as you’re told. If only our leaders excused and supported such violent tactics by militarized police departments, there wouldn’t be any problem at all.

Ablow’s assertion that the President, or any other national figure, is advocating disrespect for the police is a figment of his perverted imagination. Most rational observers would hold that siding with folks other than police who act criminally IS siding with the police. It’s siding with the majority of officers whose reputation is shredded by the bad apples. But Ablow’s opinion that there is a breakdown in the social compact between citizens and the police is shared by his colleagues at Fox. For instance…

Charles Krauthammer: The only consequence of this is to undermine the police, it’s to undermine their respect for the police, and it’s essentially to undermine law and order.

O’Reilly: It’s clear that there is a growing disrespect for police officers in some American neighborhoods and that attitude is going to lead to violence. If citizens don’t obey the police then law and order completely breaks down.

Fox News

What makes these remarks all the more absurd is the inference that victims of excessive force by the police are themselves responsible for their injuries (or deaths). All they had to do was obediently comply with the abusive cops and they would have been fine. After all, it’s just a matter of respect for authority. The kind of respect that Cliven Bundy and his Tea Party terrorists showed when the authorities arrived to enforce the law and prevent him from continuing to unlawfully graze his cattle on land that did not belong to him.

For some reason, conservatives, and pundits at Fox News, considered Bundy a hero for defying law enforcement. Bundy’s Tea Party Militia came armed to the teeth and threatened to blow away any dirty copper that tried to make Bundy obey the same laws to which every other American is subject. Maybe if the teenagers at the pool party waved American flags, pointed automatic weapons at the police, and threatened to kill them, their respect would have been more appreciated by the “patriots” on Fox News.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


Glenn Beck Returns To Cable News – On MSNBC? (Sort Of)

The ratings troubles on MSNBC have been the subject of much hand-wringing by executives at the cable network and their corporate bosses at Comcast/NBCUniversal. In an attempt to reverse the downtrend MSNBC canceled Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid, moving anchor Thomas Roberts into those time slots. That left an opening in Roberts’ old program, “Way Too Early,” that precedes “Morning Joe.” It appears that Joe Scarborough has now assumed control of his lead-in which is leaning more toward his conservative brand of politics. And that is evident by the person currently anchoring the early show.

MSNBC Amy Holmes Glenn Beck

That’s right – Amy Holmes has been at the helm of Way Too early all this week. For those unfamiliar with her, she is host of a program called “The Hot List” that is part of Glenn Beck’s Internet media venture TheBlaze. Prior to that she was a speechwriter for Bill Frist, a former senator from Tennessee and Republican majority leader.

Giving Holmes this high profile spot as a “news” program anchor is a disturbing step toward the sort of wingnut media that even Fox News couldn’t handle when they fired Beck. Now Beck’s fringe media has a foothold on what has been regarded as the “liberal” cable news network. It’s a foreboding development and one that creates suspicion as to where the new management team at NBC plans on taking the cable net.

One thing that this should put an end to is the talk that MSNBC is the liberal answer to Fox News. That has never been true, mainly because, while MSNBC was generally more progressive, it remained fact-based as opposed to the blatant lying that is the hallmark of Fox. More to the point, Fox News would never give a three hour block of airtime to a liberal ex-congressman, but Scarborough not only has that, but is also featured on NBC’s Meet the Press. Just imagine if Fox & Friends was hosted by Anthony Weiner. [Note: Scarborough also left office amid controversy over the death of intern Lori Klausutis]

Putting Holmes in the anchor chair on MSNBC is the equivalent to replacing Sean Hannity with Rachel Maddow. Fox would never consider such a thing. Even though Fox pretends to be fair and balanced, their schedule is rife with right-wingers and former GOP operatives. There are even four candidates for the Republican primary for president who are former Fox News employees (Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rick Santorum, and Ben Carson). And now Glenn Beck’s voice is being heard daily on MSNBC to balance that right-wing cable news bias with some crackpot, conservative, evangelist bias. If MSNBC thinks that this is going to help their ratings, they are sorely mistaken.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.


On Fox News: A White Sexual Abuser Was “Curious” But A Black Victim Of Police Abuse “Was No Saint”

A couple of recent news reports involving children who become entangled with law enforcement matters reveals a striking difference in how they are portrayed by Fox News.

Fox News Megyn Kelly

Fourteen Year Old White Child Molester Was “Curious”

After it was discovered that Josh Duggar of the reality TV show “19 Kids And Counting” had sexually abused several young girls, including his sisters, when he was fourteen, Fox News went out of their way to avoid covering the story. There was hardly a mention of it on the network until Megyn Kelly succeeded in booking members of the Duggar family (not including Josh) for exclusive interviews. The pre-taped conversations were split up to air on two separate nights, multiplying the ratings possibilities for Kelly and Fox.

During the interviews Kelly, a lawyer prior to her work at Fox, acted more like the Duggar’s defense attorney than a journalist. She repeatedly fed Josh’s parents and sisters leading questions that contained the answers she was looking for. The Duggar family played along and joined Kelly in characterizing the controversy as a fabrication of the liberal, secular media that sought to defame their “strong Christian” family. The result was a narrative that cast Josh as “a young boy in puberty and a little too curious about girls.”

So, nothing to see here. Never mind that a budding pedophile never faced criminal consequences for his unlawful acts, nor that he never received professional counseling for a severe psychological problem that is notoriously difficult to treat and is often repeated. And never mind that the parents failed to report Josh’s behavior for a year, or that they agreed to launch a television show that delved into their personal lives knowing the awful secret they were concealing. If anyone was exploiting the media it was the Duggars on the cable show that was making them rich, and later on Fox News as they tried to salvage their slimy career.

Fourteen Year Old Black Girl Brutalized By Rogue Cop “Was No Saint”

After attending a pool party in McKinney, Texas, Dajerria Becton was caught up in one-man police rampage that resulted in her being savagely mistreated. The party dissolved as adults in attendance argued and may have fought over alleged racial slurs directed at African-American kids who were invited guests. When the police arrived witnesses reported that they targeted the black kids, ordered them to the ground, and placed them in handcuffs. Note that these were non-violent, unarmed kids who had broken no laws.

One officer in particular, Eric Casebolt, was noticeably out of control. He was chasing down kids who had done nothing wrong, and even drew his gun on a couple of boys who were clearly not threatening him or anyone else. Among his victims was Becton, a young girl in a swimsuit, who Casebolt grabbed by her hair and threw violently into the pavement. As she called out for someone to call her mother, Casebolt continued to brutalize her, forcing her face into the grass and kneeling with his full weight on her back. You have to wonder what ominous danger he thought she was capable of.

The coverage of this incident by Fox News predictably slanted toward the side of the police. And once again, it was Megyn Kelly who summarized the network’s general take by baselessly slandering Becton saying that “the girl was no saint either.” What did Kelly regard as her sinfulness that justified the beating she took? The only thing Kelly mentioned was that Becton was told to leave the area and she didn’t immediately do so. Apparently Fox News considers that a sufficient crime to warrant throwing a child onto concrete by her hair and pinning to the ground.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Moral Equivalency?

Juxtaposing these two incidents, both involving fourteen year old kids, puts the repulsive biases of Fox News on display. It is inconceivable that a rational person would defend the young Josh Duggar as a curious, but essentially good kid who simply made some mistakes, while condemning young Dajerria Becton, who did nothing wrong, as a sinful delinquent who deserved what she got. Yet somehow, Fox News still regards itself as the spokes-network for conservative values including personal responsibility. I suppose they just mean personal responsibility for African-Americans, not white, right-wing Christians.

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Breitbart’s Asinine Advice To Wreck ObamaCare: Don’t Buy Health Insurance

There are times when one encounters political punditry that makes you genuinely question the mental health of the alleged pundit. One of those times is at hand with today’s article by Breitbart News editor John Nolte titled “Break ObamaCare’s Back: Do Not Purchase Health Insurance.”

Breitbart ObamaCare

BreitBrat Nolte is offering this blitheringly stupid advice to his dimwitted readers based on a series of falsehoods and a fetishistic aversion to the availability of effective, affordable health insurance. He begins his rant by revealing some personal reasons for putting his health – physical and financial – at severe risk.

Nolte: Running around uninsured for the first time in my adult life has not been easy. The tax penalty isn’t cheap (2.5% of your taxable income) and there is the constant uneasy fear of an expensive medical problem, a cancer or car accident, the kind that can bankrupt you.

“History has shown, though, that there is almost always a personal price to pay for social change through civil disobedience — a price I’m willing to pay to help break the back of ObamaCare, an immoral and illegitimate government program sold with serial-presidential (and media) lies and enacted into law using one-party procedural tricks.”

Nolte is portraying himself as the Gandhi of the anti-healthcare movement. He thinks he is taking a principled stand to save America from having to suffer the torment of access to doctors and medicine. But to him the the sword dangling over his head is worth the risk if it can contribute to forcing everyone in the country to face the same risk he is foolishly assuming voluntarily.

In his first attempt to provide a substantive reason to forego healthcare, Nolte praised pre-ObamnaCare policies that he ludicrously described as “these wonderful catastrophic policies.” Now there’s a turn of phrase that cries out “oxymoron.” Nolte has to be the only person who has ever had a catastrophic policy who thinks it was “wonderful.” The rest of the world regards them as a last resort and prays that they don’t get sick.

Even so, Nolte’s praise of these wonderful policies comes with the criticism that President Obama made them illegal. But then, in his very next sentence, he contradicts himself saying that “Actually, what ObamaCare did was make these catastrophic plans unaffordable.” He’s still wrong. Nolte’s evidence of this was his assertion that he would have to pay close to three times more were he to get a catastrophic plan through ObamaCare. However, he offers no proof of that claim and his numbers are utterly unbelievable. He says that he would have to pay a premium of $400.00 per month, but the average cost of a Bronze plan under ObamaCare is only $209.00.

Nolte goes on to claim that his out-of-pocket costs would increase because providers offer lower fees to people without insurance. However, they provide the same discounts to people with high-deductible insurance plans. Plus, many preventive services (annual exams, vaccinations, colonoscopies, mammograms, etc.) are paid in full with deductibles waived.

The real motivation for Nolte’s tirade is stated when he writes “I want to do my part to break the back of ObamaCare. I just can’t live with the idea of doing anything that will benefit Obama’s and the media’s serial lies.” Nolte is admitting that his agenda is political, and not based on his best medical interests. He is simply opposed to the “greedy takers enjoying these subsidies.” That tells you something about how he feels about low and middle-class Americans seeking access to health care.

Nolte closes by misrepresenting the public’s view of ObamaCare. He cites a recent poll by the Washington Post that shows 54% opposed and 39% in favor. But Nolte is leaving out a lot of pertinent information. For instance, the Post admits that their results “contrast with other recent polls finding softening opposition and support above record low levels.” What’s more, the Post survey also shows that a similar majority (55/38) say that the Supreme Court should not rule against the ObamaCare subsidies in the King v. Burwell case that is presently being decided. That includes 65% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and even 34% of Republicans.

Another thing that ObamaCare opponents frequently use to misconstrue public opinion is the fact that many of those who say they oppose ObamaCare do so because they think it doesn’t go far enough. When the numbers for those who favor ObamaCare are combined with those who want it to be even more comprehensive (i.e. universal, single payer), they are a solid majority.

The right’s crusade to sabotage ObamaCare is nothing new. They have been trying to kill it since before it became law. That campaign has included brazenly lying about the law’s effects, including ancillary nonsense like threats of prison for those who don’t sign up. PolitiFact has ruled at least twelve times on “Pants on Fire” lies by ObamaCare opponents bent on scaring people away.

But what Nolte is doing is much worse. He is giving his personal advice to go without health insurance. That could lead some people to suffer terrible consequences should they become sick or injured and not have the ability to seek medical care. And even if they do get treatment, they could be find themselves in a financial morass that could leave them bankrupt or homeless. This is something that conservatives have tried before. Fox News even advocated what they falsely called alternatives to health insurance, but were mostly shams that failed entirely to cover people for real-world needs.

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These attempts to steer people away from health care are irresponsible and dangerous. And whether it is Fox News or John Nolte or any other partisan hack, they should be held accountable for the harm they cause. And there are real victims like this guy and this guy, and even this guy.


Tempest In A Tea Bag: Marco Rubio’s Traffic Ticket Troubles And Right-Wing Hypocrisy

The “liberal” New York Times is taking heat for having published an Internet blurb detailing the rap sheet for the Rubio family on file with the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. It seems that the senator, and aspiring presidential candidate, and his wife racked up some seventeen tickets for speeding, careless driving, etc. The Times’ item was posted on Friday at a time generally reserved for “news dumps.”

It is unlikely that anyone at the Times regraded the story as an earth shattering bombshell and, absent any assistance from self-serving demagogues, it would probably have rolled off the media radar in half an hour or so. And that’s where the self-serving demagogues come in.

Fox News Marco Rubio

The conservative media regulars snapped to attention and immediately began castigating the Times for having reported a true, albeit trivial story. The effect of their accumulated outrage was to turn an online throwaway into a three day (and counting) event. Participating in the bash-fest were…

  • Fox News: Bias Alert: NY Times under fire for ‘scoop’ on Rubio traffic citations
  • Daily Caller: Marco Rubio And His Wife Have Gotten A Bunch Of Traffic Tickets
  • NewsBusters: NY Times ‘Scoop’ Exposes 17 Traffic Tickets for Marco Rubio
  • Breitbart: Media: Never Mind Hillary’s Scandals, Let’s Talk About Marco Rubio’s Wife’s Driving Habits
  • Townhall: Impeach: Rubio and Wife Have Received 17 Traffic Tickets Since 1997
  • RedState: Breaking: Marco Rubio Does Not Abuse his Influence
  • National Review: Marco Rubio — Traffic Violations Like Everyone Else
  • Washington Times: NY Times Goes After Rubio, Wife — For Traffic Tickets

There were, of course, many more, and Fox News has repeated the story numerous times. But perhaps the most offensive contribution to the Times thump-a-thon came from BreitBrat Ben Shapiro, who Tweeted a photo of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s car submerged at Chappaquiddick forty-six years ago. Talk about straying off-topic. Kennedy is not currently a candidate for president and he is, sadly, not here to defend himself. Maybe Shapiro would like to comment on the guy that Laura Bush killed in a tragic car accident. That would be just as relevant. Even more so, since her brother-in-law is running for president and she is around to comment on the matter. [This just in: Greg Gutfeld of Fox News also joked about Kennedy as he dismissed Rubios’s poor driving by saying that “At least he didn’t drive anybody off a bridge.” This even caused his co-hosts on The Five to groan disapprovingly]

Most noticeable in this orchestrated defense of the Rubios, however, is the typical wailing of wingnuts who have been caught doing something wrong. Their first response is always to cry “media bias” and to lament their victimization at the hands of the cold-hearted press. It’s the very same reaction that is currently being deployed by the despicable Duggar family’s defense of their pedophile son Josh. These people think that the media reporting on alleged crimes is worse than the the crime itself.

Unfortunately for them, the facts don’t fit with their fantasy narrative. If the media is demonstrating some sort of bias by reporting Rubio’s traffic tickets, then what were they demonstrating when they reported Barack Obama’s parking tickets back in 2008? As published in a story by the “liberal” Washington Post…

“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama got more than an education when he attended Harvard Law School in the late 1980s. He also got a healthy stack of parking tickets, most of which he never paid.

“The Illinois Senator shelled out $375 in January _ two weeks before he officially launched his presidential campaign _ to finally pay for 15 outstanding parking tickets and their associated late fees.”

Did any of the usual right-wing suspects noted above come to Obama’s defense and condemn the Post for smearing him? Was there any expressed outrage over how the media resorts to trivialities when there are much bigger problems facing the world? Was there any forgiveness from the right because Obama at the time was a poor student and these were just parking tickets, not moving violations like Rubio’s.

Nope, none of that Christian mercy that conservatives are so fond of flashing was on display. That’s because, they don’t really care about the substance of these issues.

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Instead, they are singularly interested in furthering the spread of their favorite fairy tale that the media is hopelessly liberal and that this unwarranted attack on Rubio is just another example of it. That’s how they can justify stretching this trifling news bite into a multi-day tribulation. It feeds their manufactured stereotype of the media and they will continue to chomp on it until the flavor is gone.


Are Voters Willing To Pay To Combat Global Warming? Don’t Ask Fox News

For anyone looking for additional evidence that Fox News makes people stupid, another splendid example popped up on the Fox Nation website today.

Fox Nation

The article’s headline posed the question “Are Voters Willing To Pay To Combat Global Warming?” Both the question and the original source for the article came directly from the ultra-conservative pollsters at Rasmussen Reports. The folks at Rasmussen answered the question by stating flatly that “Most voters still aren’t ready to pay much, if anything, to fight global warming.” Fox News repeated the same thing without any critical assessment of its accuracy.

It would not be surprising, then, for Fox’s audience to come away believing that the poll showed that Americans are unwilling to pay up in order to prevent the scientifically verified dangers of Climate Change. And if they won’t pay to mitigate the harm, then they must not think it’s very important.

The problem with that conclusion, however, is that it flies in the face of both reality and the actual results of the Rasmussen poll. Reading further on the Rasmussen article (which Fox did not report) reveals a very different representation of the public opinion:

“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% of Likely U.S. Voters say they are willing to pay nothing more in higher taxes and utility costs annually to to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming. But that’s down from 48% last August and the lowest level measured in regular tracking since January 2013. Another 24% are willing to spend only $100 more per year, unchanged from earlier surveys. Twenty-six percent (26%) are ready to spend $300 or more a year to combat global warming, with six percent (6%) who are ready to spend at least $1,000 more annually.”

To sum up, with 24% willing to pay at least $100.00 per year, plus 26% willing to pay over $300.00 per year, plus another 6% willing to pay more than $1000.00 per year, you get 56% (a clear majority) of Americans who believe that Climate Change is a problem that is serious enough to shell out significant funds to address. Yet somehow Rasmussen, and subsequently Fox News, spun the poll results as saying that “most voters still aren’t ready to pay much, if anything.”

So how did they arrive at that obviously contrary conclusion? One guess is that they simply decided that either $100.00 or $300.00 is not “much” money. But that’s a subjective analysis and many Americans would dispute it. Even Fox News would dispute it under different circumstances. For instance, if they thought that someone’s health insurance premium was going to increase $100.00 per year they would regard it as an outrage and renew their calls to repeal ObamaCare.

Another possible explanation for how the poll results were so absurdly twisted is Rasmussen’s methodology wherein they split the responses into four groups (pay nothing, $100.00, $300.00, or $1000.00). The effect is to divide all the responses where there is willingness to pay into three answers, while leaving a single answer for those unwilling to pay anything. Consequently, you get a plurality of 41% who won’t pay, compared to smaller numbers who will pay different amounts. So long as no one adds up those other amounts and realizes that they total 56%, a deceptive pollster could claim that those who won’t pay are the largest single group.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Rest assured that the Fox News audience won’t do the math. In fact, they probably won’t even click through to read the article. And for the foreseeable future they will believe, falsely, that the majority of the American people are against any attempt to address Climate Change if it is going to cost them anything. Nice work Fox. Your dishonesty will keep your audience mired in ignorance, just the way you like them.


Remember: Newly Minted GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Perry Is Under Felony Indictment

Last year Rick Perry was indicted by a Grand Jury in Texas on criminal charges of abuse of power. The charges stemmed from his attempt to unlawfully coerce an elected District Attorney into resigning. Today this alleged felon announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. Isn’t that cute? What follows is the News Corpse article detailing the case against Perry and the efforts by right-wing media to dismiss it.


[August 17, 2014] Ever since a Texas Grand Jury handed down an indictment against Gov. Rick Perry, most of the Republican establishment and right-wing press have deliberately mischaracterized the nature of the criminal allegations. They all are marching lock-step in an effort to defend official abuse of power by pretending that the violation was due to the execution of a veto, something that is entirely permissable by a governor in Texas.

Fox News Rick Perry

The problem with their defense of Perry, which he has adopted himself, is that the indictment is not for his having issued a veto. It is for his having threatened an elected public servant in an attempt to coerce her to resign.

Rosemary Lehmberg, the District Attorney for Travis County, has problems of her own. She was arrested and pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and behaved poorly during the arrest and initial incarceration. However, a Grand Jury investigated her situation at the time and found no cause to indict her for official misconduct.. Indeed, her misconduct, while egregious, was all personal and unrelated to her duties as a D.A. All of her misbehavior occurred while she was drunk, and when she sobered up she took responsibility, paid her price to society, and promised not to run for reelection.

That wasn’t good enough for Perry. He demanded that she resign immediately and threatened political vengeance if she refused to obey his command. Lehmberg stood fast and Perry carried out his retribution by slashing funds to her department. And that is where he went wrong.

Perry defended himself against the indictment by saying that he has the authority under the Texas constitution to issue vetoes. And in this case he was taking action because he had lost confidence in Lehmberg and that the public deserved better. Perhaps. But that is not within his jurisdiction to decide. Lehmberg was elected to her office by the voters of Travis County and does not answer to the Governor. Perry has no authority to demand the removal of elected officials or to exact retribution on them if they defy his orders. Perry’s own remarks following the indictment reveal the flaw in this line of defense. He said that indictments are…

“…not the way we settle political differences in this country. We settle [them] at the ballot box.”

Exactly (and he may want to relay that message to John Boehner). And since Lehmberg had already pledged not to run, the issue was settled. Perry cannot unilaterally overturn the choice of the voters. And he cannot threaten elected officials as a means of carrying out his unlawful bullying. By vetoing the funds to the D.A.’s Public Integrity Unit, Perry was attempting to force his will on Lehmberg. Even worse, he was actually doing harm to the people of Texas who rely on that agency to keep politicians (like Perry) from engaging in corruption.

It is typical of right-wing media to absolve Republicans of any criminal wrongdoing on a strictly partisan basis. It’s the reason why every investigation of a conservative is portrayed as political. That’s how they reacted to the charges against Dinesh D’Souza (who later pleaded guilty to election fraud), and Sen. David Vitter (who later pleaded guilty to his association with prostitutes), and James O’Keefe (who later pleaded guilty to unlawful activity in the office of a U.S. senator), and more recently New Jersey governor Chris Christy who is being investigated for abuse of power himself. I could go on and on and…

Perry’s fate will rest on a jury’s decision of whether or not he exceeded his authority in threatening Lehmberg to resign, not on the veto he used as his muscle. In the meantime, the media is also on trial, and when Fox News and others misrepresent the facts in order to whitewash the crime, they must be judged guilty as well.


Perry is going to have some trouble gaining any traction after his latest humiliating campaign. But truth be told, he’s a pretty good standard bearer for the Republican Party. He’s an evangelical wingnut with criminal tendencies who gets his snake oil straight from the well.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.