Fox Nation Follies: The “Stupid People Are Ruining America” Edition

Posted by Mark NC on June 22, 2014 at 9:30 am. 13 Comments :

We at News Corpse will risk life and limb to ride the rapids of the ridiculousness that emanates from Fox News, but there are times when the flow is difficult to keep up with. At times like these it may be necessary to compile some of the most significant stories into one article. But rest assured, we will always persevere in order to bring you, our readers, the critical information that you need to get through your busy day. You’re welcome.

First out of the gates is a ripe bit of nonsense from pizza magnate, and former GOP presidential front-runner, Herman Cain. Cain spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference last week. This is an affair produced by Christian Coalition founder, and Jack Abramoff accomplice, Ralph Reed. The competition for “Most Ludicrous Comment” is stiff at this conference that hosted rightist luminaries like Michelle Bachmann, Ted Cruz, and Rick Santorum. It’s the classy sort of gala where one can find Obama figurines in urinals. But it was Cain who came away with the zinger of the week:

“I have even heard people say, ‘Well I don’t vote because I don’t know what’s going on.’ And I say good. Stupid people are ruining American and I’m glad some of them stay home. The solution is real simple folks. Those of us who are informed have got to out-vote the stupid people.”

Exactly! What this nation needs is more people like Herman Cain deciding America’s fate at the polls. After all this is the man whose encyclopedic knowledge of the world gave birth to the state of Uzbeckibekistanstan. And the coverage of Cain’s comedy routine at the conference provided additional examples of the not-stupid by the geniuses at Fox Nation:

The Fox Nationalists also reached out to their ideological allies at Infowars, Alex Jones’ ultra-fringe conspiracy theory website, to find an article that alleged that border agents were resigning en masse over their objections to foreign-born gang members being allowed to freely invade our peaceful, white, Christian neighborhoods. These alleged gangsters were reputed to be coming from the ranks of the immigrant children being housed at federal facilities while awaiting deportation or unification with their families.

The problem with this story is that the local newscast from which it was derived interviewed a border patrol union official who said only that some of his agents were suffering from low morale and were looking for other jobs, but that none had quit. He was also asked how many gang members he estimated were crossing the border. His answer was “A few, not too many,” thereby dispensing with the whole false premise of the article. And the photo in the Fox Nation posting is of gang members in Central America who have nothing to do with the current crisis of minor children immigrating unaccompanied into the U.S.

But what’s really troubling is that the Fox Nationalists saw fit to cite Infowars as the source for their disinformation. And this isn’t the first time. They have previously sourced articles to Infowars with similarly absurd reports. For instance:

Homeland Security to Purchase 141,000 Rounds of Sniper Ammo
Ex-TSA Screener: Officers ‘Laughing’ At Passengers’ Nude Images
DHS Video Characterizes Terrorists as White Americans
TSA Deploys Weiner Watchers at Super Bowl
Anarchists Plan War on Tea Parties April 15th

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Finally, Fox News has shamelessly exploited the terrorist attack in Benghazi for their craven political objectives. In the process, they have tried to cast Hillary Clinton as responsible for the tragedy and uncaring about the consequences. However, it is Fox, and their right-wing cronies, who have sullied the memory of those killed in the service of their country. Fox, and their GOP pals, has even used the deaths as a means of raising money for Republican organizations.

Now another example of that callousness is on display on Fox Nation. Jason Mattera, a blitheringly idiotic wingnut who has carved a reputation out of embarrassing himself by attempting to embarrass others in foolishly contrived ambush videos, makes an appearance in a new video where he approaches Hillary Clinton at a book signing. When Clinton asks for his name, Mattera asks that she make it out to Christopher Stevens, the murdered ambassador who was also a friend of Clinton’s. Clinton refused his crass request and politely dismissed him saying “I think it would be great if you read.” the book. Mattera then made a couple of snarky remarks about Clinton’s security, who quickly ushered him away. However, he did successfully demonstrate how to disparage the memory of fallen patriots in pursuit of self-serving publicity.

And that’s today’s episode of the Fox Nation Follies. We hope you enjoyed the parade of repugnant imbeciles that populate the Fox newsroom. And with any luck, Herman Cain’s vision for America will come to pass and the sort of dimwits who make up the Fox News/Tea Party audience will stay home in November and stop wrecking the country for the rest of us.

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FACT CHECK: ISIS Leader, Baghdadi, Was Released By Bush, Not Obama

Posted by Mark NC on June 20, 2014 at 10:48 am. 44 Comments :

In yet another example of journalistic malpractice, the folks at Fox News broadcast a number of reports that got the most significant facts completely wrong. In order to do so, they relied on the assertions of a single, uncorroborated account, and failed to do the most basic follow-up with the people in a position to know.

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The latest lie-riddled reporting on Fox concerned the circumstances of the capture and release of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of the terrorist group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Fox and other conservative media outlets are endeavoring to place the responsibility for Baghdadi’s brutal march through Iraq on President Obama. Representative commentaries include these by Fox hosts Jeanine Pirro and Megyn Kelly:

Pirro: The head of this band of savages is a man by the name of Abu al-Baghdadi. The new Osama Bin Laden. A man released by Obama in 2009, who started ISIS a year later.

Kelly: We are also learning more about the leader of the terror group, a man described as the new Bin Laden, the heir to Bin Laden. It turns out he had been in U.S. custody until 2009, over in Iraq, when he was then turned over to the Iraqi government as part of our troop drawdown. And then he was released.

On Pirro’s Saturday program she led into the subject with a mouth-foaming harangue about Obama’s “feckless” leadership and socialist designs on America. On Kelly’s primetime program she interviewed Col. Kenneth King who claimed to have been present when Baghdadi was transferred from the custody of U.S. forces to the Iraqis, who later allegedly released him to go on to form ISIS. However, an investigation by PolitiFact uncovered a very different story, confirmed by the Defense Department, and branding the Fox report as “false.”

“Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry, also known as ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ was held as a ‘civilian internee’ by U.S. Forces-Iraq from early February 2004 until early December 2004, when he was released,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “He was held at Camp Bucca. A Combined Review and Release Board recommended ‘unconditional release’ of this detainee and he was released from U.S. custody shortly thereafter. We have no record of him being held at any other time.”

Since the right-wing is so intent on assigning blame for Baghdadi’s campaign of terror on the president who was in office when he was set free, then according to their logic it is all Bush’s fault. But don’t expect Fox News to report the facts as laid out by actual journalists. They won’t even report the comments of their own witness, Col. King, who appeared on another network (ABC) and admitted that he “could be mistaken.” It turns out that he never knew the name of the man he presumed to be Baghdadi, he just thought there was a resemblance to the man he encountered. Nor will they report Col. King’s remarks to the Daily Beast where he downplayed the threat posed by Baghdadi, saying that “He was a bad dude, but he wasn’t the worst of the worst.”

PolitiFact went on to note that, even if Col. King’s account were correct, and Baghdadi was still in custody in 2009, Obama still could not be held to blame for Baghdadi’s release. The terms of the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq required the U.S. to turn over all prisoners to the custody of Iraq’s criminal system. That agreement was negotiated and agreed to by the Bush administration in 2008.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So virtually everything reported by Fox News was wrong. And, not surprisingly, all of the misinformation leaned toward blaming President Obama for the mistakes of President Bush. It’a pattern that is all too familiar. Now that the truth has been revealed and confirmed, we can expect Fox to issue a correction at the earliest opportunity. And if you believe that you are probably already a dimwitted, gullible disciple of the Fox Disinformation Society.

The New GOP Majority Whip Is A Climate Change Denying Koch Brothers Flunkey

Posted by Mark NC on June 19, 2014 at 4:32 pm. 4 Comments :

When Eric Cantor lost his primary bid to run for reelection to his Virginia congressional seat, he set off a game of musical chairs within the Republican leadership ranks in the House. Today the GOP caucus chose Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy to replace Cantor as Majority Leader. Subsequently, they needed to fill the new vacancy in the Whip’s post. for that role they chose Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise.

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Scalise is regarded as a far-right conservative aligned with the Tea Party. He is currently the chair of the Republican Study Committee, an offshoot of the GOP caucus with an avowed ultra-rightist slant. Wikipedia notes that…

“The organization has long had ties to outside groups closely allied with the most conservative elements of the Republican Party, such as the National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the conservative magazine National Review, as well as the libertarian Cato Institute.”

Last year Scalise authored a resolution that falsely asserted that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy” and “to American families and businesses,” and that it would “fall hardest on the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes.” The bill was backed by the Koch brothers who spent heavily on lobbyists to insure its passage.

But for a real taste of the idiocy that is being incorporated into the highest ranks of the GOP elite, you need look no further than Scalise’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last year where he had this to say about Climate Change (video below):

“He [President Obama] talked about global warming at his inauguration, I found it ironic that the President was wearing a trench coat it was so cold, but he’s talking about global warming.”

So Scalise is one of those anti-science dimwits who doesn’t know the difference between weather and climate. He believes that the 97% of the scientists who affirm that climate change is real and man-made are perpetrating a hoax. He is an advocate for Big Oil, going so far as to defend BP after the disastrous 2010 calamity in the Gulf of Mexico, saying that “This job killing ban on drilling is causing more problems right now than” the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

And now he is the Republican Majority Whip and the third highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. Well, at least for the next few months, when there will be another vote. If Democrats will get off their duffs and vote in November, we may not need to worry about him or the rest of the Republican Dark Agists.

Bill O’Reilly Launches His Fourth Feeble Boycott Of Mexico

Posted by Mark NC on June 19, 2014 at 12:23 pm. 21 Comments :

The people of Mexico must have woken up this morning shuddering in abject fear. The day began with an ominous threat directed at them by a frightful behemoth of American power.

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That’s right. Bill O’Reilly is mad and his anger cannot be assuaged. Whether it’s immigration, or the arrest of Americans who broke Mexican laws, or heartburn that flared up suspiciously after consuming a Fiery Doritos Taco Supreme, O’Reilly is inconsolable. His fury has been unbound and woe be unto his foes.

Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, the irascible host had had enough and announced that he was not going to go to Mexico. He called on every American to join his boycott of the nation that he said is “not our friend”.

“It is time for all of us to stop going there. That country is not our friend. It knows and helps the millions of people that are crossing its territory to enter the USA illegally. Mexico is allowing that to happen. Why? Because they don’t really like us and they are corrupt. They get money to allow the human trafficking.

“Add to that the Marine, Sergeant Tahmooressi who has post-traumatic stress disorder incarcerated down there. And you have Mexican President Nieto giving us the middle finger. Well you know what Mr. Nieto? You know what? I’m not going to your country. And I’m asking every American to boycott you because you, and your government, is harming the USA.”

And this is no idle threat. O’Reilly is dead serious. Just as he was when he initiated Mexican boycotts on three previous occasions:

May 17, 2006: I will call for a total boycott of Mexican goods and no travel to your country.
December 19, 2012: I’m calling for a national boycott of Mexico. No one goes and the airlines stop flying there.
May 29, 2013: I think this is the end of Mexican tourism. […] Well, guess who’s gonna lead that boycott?

As the world has seen, those previous economic actions devastated Mexico. Mexican tourism has ended. Unless you count the over 20 million Americans who traveled to Mexico last year making it the most popular destination for American tourists.

Further evidence of O’Reilly’s influence on international travel is evident in his boycott of France in 2003 because they refused to support George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Media Matters compiled the damage done by the boycott, including O’Reilly’s claim of declining revenue (which was false) as reported by the Paris Business Review (which doesn’t exist).

Nevertheless, O’Reilly is adamant that the Mexicans deserve to be punished for the unsatisfactory quality of their friendship. This despite the fact that he never offered proof that Mexico doesn’t like us, or that they help millions to cross the border illegally for profit. They have earned his wrath and they shall suffer it. He so upset that he is pushing this boycott even though he regards boycotts as un-American. This is what he said about a boycott aimed at Rush Limbaugh after he insulted then law student Sandra Fluke by calling her a prostitute:

“The entire boycott movement is garbage. The far left threatening sponsors who advertise on programs they don’t like is flat-out un-American. […] The boycott movement from the left right now is driven by threats.”

So good luck, Mexico. You are in for some trying times as O’Reilly and his minions revamp their travel itineraries to avoid the southern border. I’m sure you are crushed by his criticisms and even more anguished by his personal promise to stay away. There will be no book signings, or paparazzi brigades, or arrogant lectures on the immorality of Spring Break. From now on, Mexico, you are on your own. You will have to find some way to endure without Bill O’Reilly.

GOPee Yew: What The Media Isn’t Telling You About Obama’s Poll Numbers

Posted by Mark NC on June 18, 2014 at 2:48 pm. 5 Comments :

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) has some decidedly bad news for President Obama. The American people, according to this survey, are losing patience with the President and expressing it with low opinions of his job performance, foreign policy, and leadership. It is a distinct concern for him as his administration heads into its final two years.

That said, the news isn’t all bad. But far be it for the media to put the results in context so that people get a balanced perspective of the nation’s mood. In addition to the floundering numbers, there are some areas that ought to produce some optimism for the President and those aligned with his policies. First among them is the fact that, while Obama’s numbers are nothing to write home about, his political rivals are doing so much worse that may want to run away from home.

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Both the President and his party are putting the Republicans to shame. He is 30% more popular than the Republican Party, and nearly 50% more popular than the laughably inane Tea Party. If his presidency is over, as some right-wing pundits are gleefully claiming, what does that mean for conservatives?

And that’s not all. When asked which party they prefer to control Congress, respondents chose Democrats over Republicans by 45% to 43%. The poll also reports that progressive positions on prominent issues are far more popular than those of conservatives. For instance, respondents support the Common Core education initiative 59/31. They believe that immigration helps rather than hurts the nation 47/42. They advocate action on climate change 61/37. They approve of Obama’s recent move to set strict carbon dioxide emission limits 67/29.

Clearly the electorate is in a bad mood, and they are taking it out, with justification, on their representatives. But when directly asked about solutions to the problems that affect them most, they consistently respond with agreement for the liberal agenda.

So why doesn’t the press report that? This is the so-called “liberal” media we’re talking about. Apparently they are not as driven by partisanship as right-wingers would have you believe with all of their childish carping. More likely the media is driven by ratings and revenue. In that regard, conflict and drama have always been a bigger draw than harmony. It’s the same reason that local news features murders and car chases, rather than more uplifting stories.

Obama has some work to do to counteract the effect of the relentlessly negative coverage he receives. Even the arrest of a suspect in the Benghazi attack drew absurd criticisms from Fox News and other wingnut media. But in the interim, it is important to look below the surface to see the whole story. And what this survey is telling us is that if Democrats run on progressive policies they are more likely to achieve success at the polls later this year and in 2016.

Obama Captures Suspect In Benghazi Attack To Distract From Benghazi

Posted by Mark NC on June 17, 2014 at 1:34 pm. 22 Comments :

You might think that today’s news that a suspect in the Benghazi terrorist attack was captured in Libya would be greeted with satisfaction and relief. You would be right with respect to the reaction of the American people, but over at Fox News it’s a different story.

As usual, nothing that Obama does can be characterized positively at Fox News. They work studiously to maintain their warped view that Obama is a foreign-born, anti-American, terrorist-sympathizing, incompetent, evil genius. And so it is with the apprehension of Ansar al-Sharia commander Ahmed Abu Khattala.

Within seconds of the report, Kennedy, co-hosting today on Outnumbered, launched into a paranoid rant infused with suspicion and conspiracy that dismissed the arrest as a political stunt (video below). Following an absurdly presumptive statement by Fox News analyst Pete Hegseth, who asserted that “we all have questions about the timing.” Kennedy offered a thinly veiled swipe at Hillary Clinton:

Kennedy: “You have the former secretary of state, who is in the middle of a really high-profile book tour, and I think this is convenient for her to shift the talking points from some of the things that she’s been discussing.”

Hegseth agreed and added that the administration had some sort of motivation to execute this mission today, again slyly referencing Clinton. And for some reason they all seem to be afraid to say her name as if saying it three times might cause her to appear in the studio. (Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetleju…)

Hegseth: “I think this thing needs to be tied in a bow for certain individuals to have a clean break from an incident that has become, and will continue to be a scandal — an anchor around a certain individual’s neck, who may want to run for president.

Kimberly Guilfoyle picked up on the theme and added that “She’s having an interview today on Fox News.” That clinched it for Hegseth who, appearing quite pleased with himself, laid out the reasoning for this dastardly plot:

Hegseth: “What a great thing to announce on an interview tonight at Fox News, that the perpetrators have been brought to justice. It’s all too neat, and it’s too cute.”

Exactly! The impulse to bring to justice someone who was responsible for the deaths of Americans had to be inspired by a desire to create something to talk about in a TV interview. Because otherwise there would have been nothing to talk about except the newly published book that was the whole reason for the interview. Surely Clinton didn’t want that to come up.

It’s ludicrous in the first place to suggest that Obama contrived the timing of this capture to help Clinton. The timing isn’t all that helpful to her being two years before a presidential race for which she hasn’t even announced her candidacy. Then, of course, why wouldn’t he have timed it to help himself when the health care rollout was floundering? Or when the IRS was accused of targeting the Tea Party? Or when the Veterans Administration affair erupted? Let’s face it, no matter when this terrorist was apprehended something else would be going on somewhere in the world that conservative nutcases could claim it was a distraction from. And they would have.

The shockingly obvious determination to turn this good news into an evil scheme is typical of Fox News to the point of being cliche. They have made it their mission to defame this president, and all liberals, from their inception. And the uniformity of thought suggests that they were given orders to present this news in the twisted manner that they did. And the fact that they conspicuously avoided uttering Hillary Clinton’s name even once in the segment, despite making her the single subject of their conversation, it is likely they were forbidden to do so by Roger Ailes or their other handlers.

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This isn’t the first time they have done this sort of thing. They similarly attributed ulterior motives to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, which many wingnuts saw as an attempt to distract from his “fake” birth certificate. And they assigned a half dozen different news events as alleged distractions from the travails of the ObamaCare launch (although now that it’s a success, it is Fox that is playing the distraction game).

So you can bet on it. Before too long somebody is going to accuse Obama of orchestrating the capture of this Benghazi terrorist as an attempt to distract from Benghazi. More times than I can count, these delusional rightists have proven that their reality is funnier, and more far-fetched, than any satire that I can concoct.

[UPDATE:] The New York Times is now reporting that Khattala “was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.” Which means that everything that Obama, Clinton, and Rice (and the whole intelligence community) said in the initial stages of the attack was true. Which means that one of Fox’s most desperate lines of attack is shredded. Whatever will they say now? (Don’t worry. They will ignore this detail and continue to make up whatever they want, just like they always do.)

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Banned In Fresno: Veterans Demand Fox News Be Turned Off – Fox News Whines

Posted by Mark NC on June 16, 2014 at 4:14 pm. 17 Comments :

A local TV station in Fresno, California did a rather trivial story about a waiting room at a Veterans Administration pharmacy. The story concerned an allegation that Fox News had been banned from the televisions at the facility. So the reporter sent one of his veteran buddies into the pharmacy to pretend to want to view Fox News. Whereupon they discovered that the channel was not accessible.

That set off a flurry of outrage over at the Fox News mothership. They aired panicky segments on this massive censorship plot on multiple programs, including America’s News Headquarters, The O’Reilly Factor, and Fox & Friends. In each case they characterized the situation as a blatant attempt to silence Fox News due to their reporting on the scandalous backlogs and corrupt management at some V.A. hospitals. The only thing wrong with these reports was – well – everything.

First of all, there was no attempt to censor Fox News. A spokesperson for the facility made it clear that that the channel was removed because of patient concerns. At least some of the patients explicitly objected to Fox News and the resultant controversy created an uncomfortable environment.

“It was just a misunderstanding. We’ve had a lot of veterans with diverse personalities. A lot of veterans complaining about one news station or the other, so the intent was really to be fair and equitable and take all stations off. […] We’ve had several incidents of veterans actually arguing, fighting over the different news stations. Some wanted to watch news, some did not. Others wanted to watch specific stations.”

In addition, while Fox News did air reports on the V.A. scandal, so did every other news network. Fox had no more coverage of the affair than their cable news peers. Although they certainly had more spittle-inflected animosity directed at President Obama than some of the others. However, It was CNN that originally broke the story, so if there was an intent to censor the source of bad news about their operations, the pharmacy would more likely have banned CNN. Here is how Politico reported the evolution of the story:

“The slow-burn story at the Phoenix VA went from a largely ignored congressional hearing and a local news report before it landed on CNN and then exploded in the national media and seized the White House.”

Particularly disturbing was the framing of this phony whining about censorship by the Fox & Friends crew, where co-host Brian Kilmeade packaged the segment as “Abandoned Brothers.” They actually employed language generally reserved for prisoners of war or fallen soldiers on the battlefield to describe people waiting to get their prescriptions filled in a downtown Fresno drug store who weren’t able to watch a gaggle of Fox News blondes in short skirts mutilate journalism.

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It’s pretty nauseating that Fox regards not being able to watch their network for a few minutes as comparable to being abandoned in wartime. Especially so soon after their repulsive coverage of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, whom they defamed as a deserter, a traitor, and a jihadist, before any hearing or even getting his version of events.

Some Fox commentators literally advocated for Bergdahl to be abandoned to his Taliban captors. So Fox hardly has the moral authority to use rhetoric about “abandoned brothers” in their programming. But you can always expect them to make themselves a part of every story with an emphasis on how victimized they are by the rest of the media. That’s the sort of behavior generally exhibited by crybabies who can’t accept not getting their way.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Hillary Clinton’s High Ethical Standards Infuriate Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on June 16, 2014 at 12:34 pm. 5 Comments :

The folks at Fox Nation are working overtime to unearth scandals they can attribute to Hillary Clinton. Lately their crack(head) reporters have discovered that, although Clinton did leave the White House in debt, she later made lots of money (Oh my!). They ferreted out that she is no longer young (You don’t say?). They alleged that she had suffered brain damage (Uh-oh!). And they continually try (and fail) to blame her for Benghazi. But now they may have hit on a charge that could stick: Hillary Clinton is an ethical attorney! (Yikes!)

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The Fox Nationalists posted an article that they sourced to the ultra-rightist Washington Free Beacon announcing the discovery of “The Hillary Tapes” from deep within the – well, the very public archives of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. The release of these tapes were intended to tarnish Clinton’s reputation as an advocate for abused women and children. The article began saying that…

“In 1975, the same year she married Bill, Hillary Clinton agreed to serve as the court-appointed attorney for Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old accused of raping the child after luring her into a car.

“The recordings, which date from 1983-1987 and have never before been reported, include Clinton’s suggestion that she knew Taylor was guilty at the time. She says she used a legal technicality to plead her client, who faced 30 years to life in prison, down to a lesser charge.

“The full story of the Taylor defense calls into question Clinton’s narrative of her early years as a devoted women and children’s advocate in Arkansas—a narrative the 2016 presidential frontrunner continues to promote on her current book tour.”

Apparently the Fox Nationalists, and their ignorant pals at the Free Beacon, are unaware of the constitutional provision that grants all defendants the right to competent counsel. It is the responsibility of the attorney to work on behalf of the client’s best interests regardless of guilt or innocence. And in this case Clinton did just that after being assigned the case by the court. It would have been unethical to do anything else.

What’s more, the “technicality” that Clinton employed was that the lab contracted by the prosecutor had lost the material evidence in the case. That’s a pretty significant technicality. The defense can’t examine or rebut, nor can the state convict, on evidence that doesn’t exist.

So Clinton did her job as the law requires her to do. And for demonstrating those strong principles Fox tries to twist the story into something negative. Instead, they expose themselves as opponents of the Constitution and those who respect it. Descending to these depths of dishonesty in order to demean Clinton tells us something about Fox in the clearest terms: They are staggeringly scared of Clinton and the prospect of her candidacy in 2016.

FOX NEWS HYPOCRISY: Lost IRS Emails vs. Lost Bush White House Emails

Posted by Mark NC on June 15, 2014 at 11:32 am. 3 Comments :

On Friday the IRS reported to the House Ways and Means Committee that some email from the account of Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations division, were missing due to a computer crash that occurred in 2011. That morsel of news set the conservative media to salivating with hopes of a new controversy to wrap around the neck of the Obama administration. Never mind that after a year of congressional hearings, independent investigations, and media scrutiny, there has not been an iota of evidence tying any of the IRS activities to the White House, right-wing pundits and politicians scurried to spread innuendo and place blame.

Leading the pack, as usual, was Fox News. They pounced on the missing email story with a barely disguised glee, despite the fact that they had little information to report. However, they did succeed at what they do best: spewing outrage over alleged improprieties by President Obama that they cavalierly dismissed during the Bush years.

Shameless self-promotion…
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To be sure, it is reasonable to be concerned, even suspicious, when government agencies announce that data critical to ongoing investigations is unavailable. But when a media enterprise pretends to exhibit such concern for blatantly political purposes, it can hardly be regarded as credible. What’s missing in Fox’s reporting is the context that would put this story into perspective. Their reporting went straight for the jugular with premature conclusions of wrongdoing and dishonesty. The story was presented as an outrageous and unprecedented act of probable criminality.

Flashback to April of 2007. The Bush administration was in the midst of dual scandals regarding: 1) the outing of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent whose identity was deliberately compromised as payback for her husband’s criticism of the Bush lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, and 2) the unethical firing of eight federal attorneys for politically ideological reasons. Additionally, there were questions about Karl Rove improperly using a Republican National Committee e-mail account that the White House later said disappeared. While Congress was investigating these activities, the White House announced that two years of emails were lost and unavailable to the committees of jurisdiction.

Hmmm. Sound familiar? In fact, it is identical to the story now being pushed by Fox. However, Fox News never blew a gasket over the lost emails from the Bush administration. Dana Perino, a co-host of the Fox News program The Five, was among those expressing outrage on Friday when the news of the missing IRS emails was released. She and her fellow co-hosts lit into the topic, bemoaning the administration’s “ignorance” and “incompetence.” And without any proof whatsoever, they implied that the administration was lying and covering up.

What makes this even worse is that Perino was Bush’s press secretary when it was revealed that two years of White House emails were lost. This, of course, cannot be waived off as an isolated problem that occurred at another agency. This was the White House itself that lost emails that were presently being requested by investigators. And it was Perino who came to the defense. Here she is downplaying the matter in a report on CNN by Ed Henry (now at Fox News):

Here is Perino & Co. aghast at the revelation that IRS emails went astray:

It is astonishing that Perino could be so rattled by the IRS email report when she herself was so intimately involved in spinning an identical controversy when she worked for Bush (Of course at Fox, she’s still working for the same gang). Either she has the memory of a gnat or she is purposefully deceiving the gullible waifs who watch Fox News. And since deception is an integral part of the Fox News mission, we can safely assume it’s the latter.

See also part II of this story featuring another hypocrite, Darrell Issa.

How The Media Got EVERYTHING Wrong About Cantor’s Primary Defeat

Posted by Mark NC on June 14, 2014 at 1:51 pm. 6 Comments :

Last week a tsunami of shock washed over the Washington press corps as the second highest Republican in congress was swept overboard in a primary race against an unknown Tea Party opponent. Eric Cantor’s embarrassing loss has sparked debate as to how such a powerful GOP leader could have been caught looking. Unfortunately, the media contribution to the debate is rife with speculation and error.

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First off all, the characterization of Cantor’s opponent, Dave Brat, as an outsider who sprung from the grassroots to slay Goliath is a reflection of the shallowness of the research conducted by the mainstream media. Thom Hartmann went deeper and discovered that Brat was on the radar of the billionaire Koch brothers long before he launched his allegedly underdog campaign. Koch-affiliated financiers endowed Randolph-Macon College with half a million dollars to seat the Ayn Rand disciple as a trickle-down economics professor. Then, when the campaign commenced, radio talk show hosts like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin took the baton and fervently promoted Brat’s candidacy. Ingraham and Levin are just a couple of the radio talkers who are sponsored by Koch front groups like Americans for Prosperity.

This brings us to the second point. The media repeatedly cast a spotlight on the campaign spending differential between Cantor and Brat. Cantor raised more than $5,000,000 compared to Brat’s $200,000. Many reporters latched onto the amusing anecdote that Cantor spent more on steak dinners than Brat spent in total. However, what they failed to take into consideration was the value of the airtime contributed by the likes of Ingraham, Levin, Beck, Limbaugh, Fox News, et al. It could cost a couple of hundred dollars for a thirty second spot on a high performing radio program. Extrapolate that to twenty or thirty minutes of direct advocacy by the the program’s host every day for a month or two and you could easily have exceeded Cantor’s budget for broadcast advertising.

Adding in the value of the donated airtime rips apart the third fallacy peddled in the press – that Brat’s low cost campaign disproves the contention that money makes the difference in elections. This is a target that has been in the sights of conservatives since the Citizen’s United debacle in the Supreme Court. The rush to exonerate wealthy donors of having any untoward impact on electoral outcomes was head-spinning. Every right-wing pundit with a microphone hailed the demise of the theory that cash-laden campaigns had an unfair advantage. In truth, Brat’s campaign was far richer than acknowledged due to the media support detailed above. But even if there were no other factors, a win by a single candidate in one race surely doesn’t negate the fact that in 99.99% of other races the better financed candidate prevails. If the right is so convinced that Brat’s showing proves that money doesn’t matter, I dare any of them to announce that they are halting their fundraising and capping their spending at $200,000.

Fourth: Tea Party supporters were quick to jump on Brat’s win as evidence of a Tea Party resurgence. In just about every other race this cycle, the Tea Party challenger lost to an establishment incumbent. With Brat’s resounding victory, they claim to have regained their mojo. But the only way they can make that argument is if they forget that they lost just about every other race this cycle.

Finally, the Washington set is dead certain that Brat’s triumph was due to his stance against immigration. After all, he did feature it in his campaign ads and it was a point of departure between him and Cantor. Unfortunately for those who seem to have a desperate yearning for that to be true, polling on the day of the election proved otherwise. Public Policy Polling released the survey showing that “72 percent of registered voters in Cantor’s district polled on Tuesday said they either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ support immigration reform.” And the anti-immigration forces conveniently ignore the fact that on the same day Sen. Lindsey Graham, an establishment, pro-immigration candidate, from an even more conservative state, handily dispatched a slew of Tea Partiers. More likely, the problem for Cantor was that he mustered only a 43% job performance approval, just a couple points off of his losing election results.

So Dave Brat won a peculiar contest in Virginia where he had hidden support from billionaires and an opponent who was widely disliked. Then he disappears and refuses to speak to the voters he hopes will be his constituents. It’s been three days and he hasn’t held a post election press conference. And yet the press continues to misrepresent the realities that produced the results of this election. It’s a state of affairs that proves that Cantor wasn’t the only loser last week. The voters and others who rely on the media to provide useful information and analysis also lost. But they should be used to that by now.

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