The Ostrich Effect: Fox News And Right-Wing Media Bury Their Heads (And Truth) In The Sand

Posted by on March 25, 2013 at 3:48 pm. 9 Comments :

It’s more difficult being a shill for ultra-conservative propaganda than you might think. On the surface it appears to be merely an exercise in fabricating false narratives and phony scandals. Any two-bit, dime-store, novelist can whip up a salacious melodrama in short order and disseminate it to a gullible flock of lemmings.

However, to be really good at shaping fantastical versions of unreality, you need to be alert and organized to prevent your plot lines from getting away and destroying the illusions you worked so hard to create.

One of the techniques that Fox News has perfected is to broadcast a slanderous allegation as widely as possible when it is no more than a wispy speculation. Then, after it is discovered that the whole affair was constructed from lies and innuendo, simply neglect to ever bring it up again.

Fox News

This was expertly demonstrated recently when Fox News participated in blowing up a smear job aimed at Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. The story sprung from the right-wing Internet rag, The Daily Caller, which happens to be run by Fox News flunky, Tucker Carlson. TheDC purported to have evidence that Menendez hired prostitutes in the Dominican Republic and ran several articles on the subject. Fox News and other right-wing media picked up the story and turned it into a mini-scandal that erupted in the closing days of Menendez’s reelection campaign.

However, in the past couple of weeks the story has disintegrated as the prostitutes were questioned by police and recanted their statements, even going so far as to confess that they were paid to make false statements incriminating Menendez. And last week the deceit escalated as the man on whom TheDC based its story changed his tune and told the Domincan district attorney that he too was paid – by TheDC – to find and coach the prostitutes.

In the wake of these revelations, Media Matters has scoured Fox News for any sign of a retraction, correction, or apology, or even just an acknowledgement of the new disclosures. But for some reason, the network that aired segments of this story twenty times has ignored it completely since it has been debunked.

This is nothing new for Fox. Here are some additional stories where they heavily hyped questionable reporting that reflected poorly on Democrats or anyone to the left of center, only to scuttle the matter when it backfired on them:

  • Fox News gleefully pounces on any hint of scandal involving a competing news enterprise, but when their parent corporation News Corp was found to have hacked hundreds of phones, including one belonging to a murdered schoolgirl, Fox feverishly ran from the story, even agreeing on the air not to question Rupert Murdoch about it.
  • Fox News ran multiple stories about donors to Democratic candidates with implications of some dubious relationship, but when Rupert Murdoch gave $1 million to the Republican Governor’s Association and the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce, it was not considered newsworthy.
  • There has been no shortage of reporting by Fox that negatively frames the issue of marriage equality, but when a Republican senator, Rob Portman, announces that because of his gay son he now supports it, Fox nearly ignores the subject entirely.
  • One of Fox’s favorite stories of the past several years involved the videos of James O’Keefe, whose editing was deliberately misleading and dishonest, but when one of his victims, Juan Carlos Vera, forced O’Keefe into a $100,000 settlement, Fox abstained from reporting it.
  • Perhaps the most significant news story in last year’s election was the release of the infamous “47% video” wherein Mitt Romney admitted that he didn’t much care about half of the country. When the identity of the man who made the video, Scott Prouty, was finally made public, Fox chose not cover the news. Well, other than to report that Prouty might have been delinquent on his taxes (which Prouty denied).

The behavior of Fox News is less like a journalistic organization than a frightened ostrich who sticks its head in the sand to avoid confronting what it fears. This pattern of blaring disparaging news aimed at Democrats, and cowering when that news is discovered to be false, reflects the cynical attitude of an enterprise that doesn’t care about accuracy or ethics. Fox simply wants to take a sledgehammer to their ideological foes, and if the tables turn, Fox slips away hoping that no one will notice.

It’s even worse, however, than what one might expect for an anxious ostrich. When Fox buries its hyperbolic head it isn’t immersed in a cavernous darkness. Rather, it sees more of the fictional world it created for itself. Fox, and it’s glassy-eyed audience, remains blissfully unaware of realities that the rest of take for granted. That’s why they were so astonished by the results of last November’s election that they were certain would result in a Romney landslide. It’s why they think that Benghazi is the biggest scandal since Watergate although the facts fail to indicate even a hint of wrongdoing. And it’s why a boneheaded congressional creature that has come to be known as the “Sequester” can threaten to wreak havoc for the economy and produce tens of thousands of personal hardships, but the big takeaway for Fox is that there may be a suspension of White House tours.

Living in the Fox bubble must be an endlessly painful experience. In case after case they are jolted by news that is at odds with the fragile pseudo-reality that cloaks them. But the most intriguing question has got to be: When will they cast it off? How many times must they get burned before they learn?

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NRA Says Bloomberg ‘Can’t Buy America’ After They Spent Twice As Much

Posted by on March 24, 2013 at 11:20 am. 11 Comments :

The National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre appeared on Meet the Press this morning to lambaste New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to educate voters about the gun safety legislation currently being debated in congress.

LaPierre is furious that the Mayor is joining with other mayors in an advertising campaign (video below) to help convince voters and congress to adopt responsible gun safety reforms. What outrages LaPierre, and what Fox News made the headline for their report, is that Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) is planning to spend $12 million on the campaign. LaPierre pounced on that disclosure accusing Bloomberg of trying to “impose his will on the American public,” and insisting that “He can’t buy America.” That stretches the boundaries of irony to stratospheric new levels.

Fox News - NRA

The budget for MAIG is less than half of what the NRA spent in the last election cycle, $2 million of which was spent directly on lobbying members of congress. If MAIG is trying to buy America then the NRA is brazenly outbidding them. It takes a double-barreled load of gall to accuse someone of something you are doing to a far greater degree, but that’s the sort of dishonest hyperbole that LaPierre is known for.

The allegation that MAIG would impose Bloomberg’s will on the American public is also blatantly false. In fact, the public overwhelmingly supports the proposals in the MAIG’s platform that include universal background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. One needs look no further than the Fox News poll released this week for confirmation.

Fox News - Guns

The issues advocated by MAIG have broad support from the American people in general, and some are also supported by majorities of gun owners and even NRA members. LaPierre purports to represent the entire membership of the NRA, but that is clearly not the case. The NRA is primarily a lobbying organization that serves the interests of firearms manufactures, not citizens.

If anyone is trying to buy America and impose his will on the people, it is LaPierre and the NRA. And Fox News is happy to help them deceive the public by reporting the MAIG expenditure but not put it in context by reporting the NRA’s spending.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns Video:


Right-Wing Rag Allegedly Paid Prostitues To Malign Democratic Senator

Posted by on March 23, 2013 at 12:40 pm. NO Comments :

Tucker CarlsonFox News flunkie Tucker Carlson is in deep water over allegations that his web site, The Daily Caller, orchestrated a smear campaign against Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) that included paying prostitutes to make up stories about having had sex with the senator.

The story originally published by TheDC featured a pair of alleged prostitutes who claimed to have been hired by Menendez. The web site did not identify the women or most of the other sources they relied on. Subsequent to the posting of that article it was severely ripped apart by a Washington Post investigation that turned up a prostitute who confessed that her allegations were false and that she was paid to lie.

Now the already tattered reputation of The DC has been shredded further with a new report from WaPo that the attorney who represented the prostitutes in the scandal was himself paid to solicit women willing to make the false allegations, and that the source of the payments was [insert trumpet here] The Daily Caller:

“A top Dominican law enforcement official said Friday that a local lawyer has reported being paid by someone claiming to work for the conservative Web site the Daily Caller to find prostitutes who would lie and say they had sex for money with Sen. Robert Menendez.”

The lawyer making this assertion is Melanio Figueroa, who was the only named source in TheDC’s original story. Now TheDC is in the uncomfortable position of having to denounce their primary source as a liar without retracting the story that relied on his testimony. It isn’t easy for a “news” enterprise to say “The guy that we relied on for everything is a big liar, and we stand by everything he said.”

In response to WaPo’s latest revelations TheDC, not surprisingly, issued a blanket denial that they had paid anyone connected to the affair. However the article they posted containing the denial was blatantly spun to misrepresent the facts. TheDC’s Vince Coglianese wrote that…

“Figueroa blamed four news outlets — CNN, The Daily Caller, Telemundo and Univision — for allegedly encouraging him to fabricate false accusations about Menendez.”

That sentence is an artificial blending of responsibility for the dishonest reports in an obvious attempt to distribute the blame. However, a more detailed account of events appeared in the WaPo and pointed to just TheDC as the instigator.

“In comments reported by Univision, [District Attorney] Polanco said that Figueroa stated he was been contacted by four media outlets — Telemundo, Univision, CNN en Español, and the Daily Caller — that were interested in having interviews with the women. But Figueroa told police it was only ‘Carlos,’ who identified himself as working for the Daily Caller, who came to the Dominican Republic and paid him to arrange the recorded interviews, according to an interview with Polanco.”

In TheDC’s account all four media outlets were accused of encouraging false statements. But in the WaPo’s story it was only TheDC who did so, and the other three only sought to interview the women. The is evidence that The Daily Caller is scrambling desperately to extricate themselves from a web of deceit of their own making.

To be sure, the credibility of the persons connected to this affair is suspect all around. But that only affirms the careless and/or corrupt practices at TheDC. If their primary source, Figueroa, is telling the truth about receiving payments from TheDC, then they are guilty of bribing a source to lie. If he is lying about the payments, then they are guilty of publishing a story based on the testimony of a liar. It’s a lose-lose for Tucker Carlson whose own credibility is not much better than the cretins he hangs around with.


Hey Tea Baggers: Did You Know That You Are Supposed To Be Boycotting Fox News NOW?

Posted by on March 23, 2013 at 1:13 am. 4 Comments :

Attention all Tea Partiers. The massively humungous national boycott of the pinko liberal Fox News network is currently in progress. Join the movement that is demanding that Fox News cease to be a mouthpiece for the left.

tea-party-fox-boycott

This crusade is being undertaken because Fox has betrayed the Tea Party and its far right members. They will no longer allow themselves to be taken for granted by an allegedly conservative network that is really just exploiting and deceiving them. The charade is over and these stalwart patriots are standing up to the powerful media moguls who run Fox News.

These “Tea Party Fire Ants” have a list of demands that they insist be heard and obeyed:

  1. We want FOX to become an active, investigative news organization serving the needs and wants of the “far right” audience.
  2. We want FOX to have at least one segment on Benghazi every night on at least two of the three shows in prime time.
  3. Yes, the BIRTH CERTIFICATE. Obama’s birth certificate. You know, that thing you mocked and the people you mocked who turned out to be right when they said it was a fake?
  4. We’re not interested in “Fair and Balanced”.

You got that Fox? You can no longer enjoy a free ride. The Tea Bagger Brigade is locked and loaded and ready for battle. Enough already with the leftist BS you have been shoving down their throats. They are already claiming a victory from their first boycott earlier this month which they say caused a 22% decline in Fox’s ratings (even though no such decline occurred). And they are prepared to take their wingnut business elsewhere if Fox doesn’t straighten up and fly (even farther) right. After all, they have Drudge and Breitbart (who they suspect Obama murdered) and this summer will see the launch of the One America Network from the “Moonie” Washington Times.

So if you are a Tea Bagger, be sure to shut off Fox for the remainder of this weekend. Fox needs to learn that the Tea Party will not be taken for granted. Until they commit to 24/7 programming of Benghazi-gate and a pledge to expose Obama’s Kenyan birth, Fox is no friend of the Tea Party or any other conservative.

[Editors note: These freaks are for real, but if they want to stop watching Fox for a few days it couldn’t do them any harm. It would be a brief respite from the brainwashing and lies to which they subject themselves.]


Fox Nation vs. Reality: Fox News Exploits Dead Rock Star To Bash Obama

Posted by on March 22, 2013 at 2:15 pm. NO Comments :

In a particularly repulsive display of insensitivity and brazen dishonesty, the folks at Fox Nation posted a article that falsely declared “Obama Exploits Dead Rock Star For Gun Grab.”

Fox Nation

The first and most obvious problem with that article is that it is patently untrue. The allegation is that President Obama was responsible for Tweeting a photograph of John Lennon’s bloodied glasses with a message about the tragic consequences of an armed and violent society. The message in the Tweet is:

“Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the U.S. A. since John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980.”

However, the President was not responsible for that Tweet. The message and the photo was Tweeted by Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. If anyone has a right to express outrage over the proliferation of deadly weapons, it is Yoko.

It is clear that she sent the message and the photo out with the intent that it be disseminated by her followers online. And that is precisely what someone working for the pro-Obama organization (not Obama or his White House), Organizing for America did. Re-Tweeting Yoko was not in any way exploitative. To the contrary, it was respectful because it was exactly what she wanted.

In addition, Fox misrepresented the meaning of the message by twisting it to suggest advocacy of a “gun grab.” However, it should be noted that no one – not Yoko, not Obama, not any proposal before congress – is calling for anything like the sort of confiscatory distortion advanced by Fox.

If anyone is guilty of exploiting Lennon’s murder, it is Fox. They are the ones lying about both the source of the message and the meaning of it as well. It is a disgraceful affront to Lennon’s memory (like Yoko, he was a peace activist) and to those who loved him both in his actual family and the worldwide family of his fans. So screw you, Fox. You have no standing to criticize Yoko or to speak for her late-husband.


Is Glenn Beck Going BROKE? Filing Seeks $40 Million From Outsiders He Once Renounced

Posted by on March 22, 2013 at 12:21 pm. NO Comments :

Glenn BeckFor several years Glenn Beck has been bragging that his enterprise was totally self-supported. He insisted that rejecting outside funding enabled him to speak freely in manner that would not be possible with outside investors and boards of directors dictating what he could do and say. Beck was very adamant about this principle and said so firmly on multiple occasions that sound eerily like televangelical appeals:

Aug 17,2011: We are running out of time. […] I do not want outside investors. We have talked about it. We have had outside investors come to us. We have had hedge funds come to us. People want to invest in my business because we are creating jobs and creating wealth. I do not want outside investors because I do not want to have to answer to anyone else.

Nov 7, 2012: This network, this company is funded by me and by you. That’s it. […] I thought we’d have more time and I’m telling you we’re going to run out of time. I need to double our subscriptions. […] I am not doing this to get rich. Believe me I don’t think money’s going to be worth an awful lot very long. […] If you haven’t subscribed, I need you to go to theblaze.com/TV and sign up now. Please. Please. Please. Right now about 300,000 people keep this network up and running, and may God richly bless your sacrifice.
Already I’ve lost quite a tidy sum, in fact figures that I never thought I would earn in my lifetime, let alone lose.

This admission that he is losing money contradicts the press releases his company issues that celebrate how richly successful he is. I can’t say whether his PR department is lying or he is himself, but either way he is deceiving his audience for personal gain. His financial woes are also evident in his recent effort to get cable companies to carry his dinky web cast. As I reported in February, this directional shift proves that his Internet business must be suffering:

“He is presently charging between five and ten dollars per month to subscribe to his programs online. If he does secure cable carriage that programming will be available for free to all of the current cable subscribers on the system. Consequently, they would no longer need to pay for the Internet access. If the Internet subscription model was working for him, Beck wouldn’t risk cannibalizing his online customers by offering them the same content for free on cable.”

All of this makes the news released today particularly significant in that it goes against much of what Beck’s image factory has been putting out. A new filing with the SEC says that Beck is seeking $40 million dollars in funding for TheBlaze, his media enterprise. That revelation would suggest that he has abandoned his belief that only by self-funding could he truly be able to express himself and expose the myriad conspiracies and plots against liberty and goodness that only he can see. This filing also suggests that Beck doesn’t have the funds to finance his glorious vision of an international media conglomerate and merchandising outlet. To say nothing of his homage to Jonestown, a residential community/theme park tucked away in some heartland hideaway.

Glenn Beck's Jonestown

Beck claims to have already raised $1.5 million of the $40 million goal. Along with everything else he says, that needs to be taken with a barrel of heavily salted Freedom Fries. One has to wonder who would invest in this sort of enterprise. Most savvy investors are aware that Beck was booted from Fox because he had alienated the advertising community that would be necessary to support this venture. They can also see the evidence of the financial struggles that are noted above. That leaves only committed propagandists and true believers in Beck’s nightmarish narrative of an apocalyptic future. Are there enough of them to bankroll Beck’s dementia? Well, maybe we should ask Pat Robertson and Alex Jones.

Update: As of July of 2014, Beck had received only $6.4 million of the $40 million he sought.

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So F**king What? Fox News Bigots Falsely Tie Islam To The Aurora Theater Massacre

Posted by on March 21, 2013 at 8:28 pm. 3 Comments :

In this edition of “So F**king What?” we are treated to a repulsive display of bigotry by the Islamophobes at Fox News. Their Fox Nation web site (renowned as world-class liars) saw fit to republish a story from the uber-conservative Washington Times that alleged that James Holmes, currently in prison for the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre, has converted to Islam.

Fox Nation
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The story in the Washington Times was based on uncorroborated information from an anonymous source. The basis for the assertion that Holmes is now a Muslim is, according to the source, that “the beard James Holmes sported in court last months represents his new-found faith.” Were that the criteria, it would make everyone from Abraham Lincoln to George Clooney Muslim.

So F**king What?

The first question any reasonable person would ask is “What difference does it make if Holmes did convert?” How would that change any aspect of his prosecution? The facts of the case are the same and the jury will decide the outcome based on the evidence and not (hopefully) on what religion he practices.

The point of this Fox posting is to malign Muslims by associating them with a mass murderer. The implication is that Holmes, by adopting Islam, validates what right-wing bigots regard as the heinous nature of the religion. They point to this news as proof that homicidal maniacs like Holmes have an affinity for the Islamic faith.

The problem with that shallow attempt at logic is that many more homicidal maniacs have converted to Christianity while in prison. They include murderers like Tex Watson of the Manson family and serial killer Ted Bundy. If conversion to a religion is to be regarded as an endorsement of criminal behavior, then Christians have a lot for which to answer.

The posting by the Fox Nationalists carefully edited the text from the Washington Times to exclude a paragraph that substantively altered the impression that the article would have. That paragraph said…

“[M]ost Muslim inmates are not happy with the convict’s new religion. ‘None of them condone forms of terrorism or extremism,’ the source added. ‘And they don’t want their religion to be connected to that awful shooting.’

Isn’t it interesting that that part of the article didn’t make it into the Fox posting? If it had, it would have been a lot more difficult for Fox Nation’s commenters to engage in a rabid feast of bigotry and hate. The majority of the comments expressed the belief that it was expected that a sicko like Holmes would be a Muslim. And some of the more creative cretins attempted to tie President Obama to the story, suggesting that he shared both the faith and the madness of Holmes.

Ultimately, that was the purpose of posting the story to begin with. It was an opportunity to bash the President and Muslims at the same time. For the editors at Fox it was the perfect alignment of politics and religion and they surely knew that their readers would slobber it up. There is one thing you can say about Fox: They do know their audience.


Roger Ailes Kept Glenn Beck On The Air To Irritate MoveOn And Media Matters

Posted by on March 21, 2013 at 2:25 pm. NO Comments :

Roger AilesThe new biography of Roger Ailes by his hand-picked fluffer, Zev Chafets, is getting some exposure in the press via reviews and excerpts. News Corpse recently reported that Ailes agreed to cooperate with Chafets in order to make a preemptive strike against a more critical look at his career by journalist Gabriel Sherman, whose book will be published in May. The New York Times published a scathing review that ripped Chafets for producing a book that…

“…reads like a long, soft-focus, poorly edited magazine article. For the most part Mr. Chafets serves as little more than a plastic funnel for Mr. Ailes’s observations […] he doesn’t ask his subject many tough questions about Fox News’s incestuous relationship with the Republican Party, its role in accelerating partisanship in our increasingly polarized society or the consequences of its often tabloidy blurring of the lines between news and entertainment.”

Now the New York Observer has posted another excerpt that reveals the lengths to which Ailes will go to annoy his enemies. Chafets writes that Ailes had already decided “he would have to get rid of Glenn Beck,” but he didn’t take any actions to do so for many months. This stalling occurred even though he was aware that “An advertising boycott organized by ColorOfChange.org hurt revenues, and Beck’s ratings declined.” This reference to the Color Of Change action is the first time that Ailes has admitted that Fox lost money due to the boycott. He previously made emphatic denials that there had been any impact on revenue. The reason Ailes gave for putting off Beck’s departure, according to Chafets, was that he “didn’t want to give MoveOn and Media Matters the satisfaction.”

So there you have it. The CEO of a news network had concluded that Beck’s rhetoric was divisive and “over the top,” but he permitted him to continue broadcasting his race-baiting, Nazi-inflected, conspiracy theories for several more months because he was afraid to give his critics something they might celebrate. Ailes would rather poison the airwaves (and the minds of his viewers) with lies and hatred than to let his ideological adversaries think they had scored a victory. That’s the true nature of Fox News and its philosophy of journalism.

It goes without saying that Ailes’ ego-driven decision-making was flawed from the start. Delaying the cancellation of Beck had zero effect on how his critics would respond. Removing Beck from the air was a victory whether it occurred in January or July. The only person whose “satisfaction” was affected was Ailes himself. Chafets never recognizes this fact and the excerpt irrationally concludes with him asserting that “Ailes was right again.”

Chafets further sucks up by saying that, as a result of his maneuvering, “Ailes could plausibly say that he had moved Fox safely away from the fringe.” Where he gets that notion from is a mystery. Particularly in light of Fox’s acquisitions since the election that include Mark Levin, Herman Cain, Scott Brown, and Erick Erickson (who once called a Supreme Court Justice a “goat-fucking child molester”). They join fringe all-stars Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, and Steve Doocy, among others. This is not what most people would describe as plausibly moving away from the fringe, but it is the Fox way.


Ann Coulter’s Advice To The GOP: Murder Unelectable Republicans

Posted by on March 20, 2013 at 8:38 pm. 5 Comments :

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Republican Party is in pitiful shape. The “autopsy” of the 2012 election released by RNC Chair Reince Priebus spelled out the awful truth that his party is perceived as a “narrow minded,” “out of touch” party of “stuffy old (white) men.” Unfortunately, nothing in the report recommends any practical solutions other than adjusting their messaging. In other words, shout louder but don’t revisit any of the policies that have earned you the disdain of the American voters.

Which brings us to one of the premiere Republican shouters, Ann Coulter. In a column on her blog (republished on Fox Nation), Coulter makes some pretty cogent points with regard to the Republican Party being the source of its own woes. She notes that the GOP has embraced some questionable figures who had little chance of success and, as a result, gave up winnable seats to Democrats. She cites Todd Akin, Linda McMahon, and perennial candidate John Raese. And now the GOP is about to add Mark Sanford to the list. The picture she paints of the party is one that repeatedly shoots itself in the foot. So she is now suggesting that they aim significantly higher.

Fox Nation - Ann Coulter

For those who don’t remember, Luca Brasi is a character in The Godfather. He is Don Corleone’s principle “enforcer,” meaning he is a brutal and merciless killer. And that is the sort of person that Coulter thinks the party is missing. In a thinly disguised way she is advocating a Mafia-style hit on Sanford and any other wayward Republican whose candidacy is deemed too risky by Coulter and company.

Sure, she probably doesn’t really want to rub out Sanford, but the symbolism is representative of a repulsive streak of violence that permeates today’s GOP. Just yesterday a Massachusetts sheriff joked about assassinating President Obama, and the senate candidate he endorsed refused to disassociate himself from the sheriff.

This is the rhetoric of the NRA, right-wing militias, secessionists, and Second Amendment cultists who misread the Constitution. It is the rhetoric of Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. It is an attitude that reeks of bloodlust and final solutions, and is held by sore losers who despise democracy.

Coulter is actually right about the folly of South Carolinians choosing Mark Sanford as their candidate for congress (he still needs to win a run-off in May), but her advice is tainted by the gruesome notion that he be dealt with by a mob hit man. Ironically, the savior for whom Coulter pines was himself offed in a bloody ordeal and the news of his passing was delivered in a memorable way. The killers wrapped a fish in his vest and sent it to the Don.

The message was clear, and it is one that the GOP should heed: Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes, and so will the Republican Party if it continues to revere people like Ann Coulter. And the party is not helped by Fox News either when they endorse this sort of treasonous garbage by rewarding it with a featured spot on their web site.


Question: Is The Tea Party Dead? Answer: It was Never Alive

Posted by on March 20, 2013 at 12:56 pm. 10 Comments :

Dave Weigel at Slate has done some fun sleuthing and discovered that the House Tea Party Caucus, launched by Michele Bachmann, is, if not dead, in critical condition and slipping away fast:

Today, the membership page for the caucus is defunct. The caucus hasn’t met since July 2012; it has posted no news since July 2012. In the press, “Tea Party caucus” has become an offhand way to refer to conservatives. In her speech to CPAC, which included a typically Bachmann-ian error about how much TANF money is wasted on administration, Bachmann didn’t mention “the Tea Party.”

The only dispute I have with Weigel’s analysis is that the Tea Party cannot be dead if it was never alive. It has long been my observation that there never was a Tea Party. All of its constituents are Republicans (or vote Republican). All of the elected representatives who associate themselves with it are Republicans. All of its policy positions are straight from the GOP Party platform. Much of it’s original organizing muscle was provided by establishment Republican operatives like Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks and GOP flacks Russo Marsh & Rogers. The Tea Party is, and always has been, a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP, and everyone from Republican leadership to the GOP PR agency (aka Fox News) knows it:

John Boehner, House Minority Leader: There really is no difference between what Republicans believe in and what the tea party activists believe in.

Michael Steele, Republican Party Chairman: It’s important for our party to appreciate and understand that so we can move toward it, and embrace it.

Mark Skoda, Tea Party Leader: This movement is beginning to mature … not as a third party but a force to be reckoned with in the traditional party structure.

Carl Cameron, Fox News: They plan to establish separate spin off political action committees to fund raise for candidates who back Tea Party goals and the official Republican National Committee platform.

Newt Gingrich, Former GOP House Speaker: If the Republican Party offers a positive alternative in a way that Tea Party activists and independents join them, the tide could turn.

GOP Tea PartyConsequently, the Tea Party could not have died. Its purpose was to promote the most extreme, far-right positions of the GOP and to denounce compromise and cooperation. That stubbornness has resulted in unprecedented gridlock in Washington and decline in support for the Republican Party to historic lows. The Tea-publican bonds are tightly wrapped and they cannot pretend they were never an item. The GOP web site even featured a page explicitly aligning themselves with “Tea Bagging” (which is interesting because they now consider the term derogatory).

So, no…the Tea Party is not dead. It was never alive. And its place in the GOP is as firm as ever despite their failure to acknowledge it. Bachmann’s defunct caucus is a joke and the infighting between the GOP establishment and their Tea Party wing is just more fertile material for humor. Karl Rove and Sarah Palin are at each others throats. RNC chair Reince Priebus and Rush Limbaugh are feuding fiercely. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces a Tea-publican primary challenger. And John Boehner is being ostracized from within his own ranks.

Aah yes, these are good times.