Trump Says His Supporters Who Beat Homeless Latino Man ‘Love This Country’

Posted by Mark NC on August 20, 2015 at 3:48 pm. 5 Comments :

There is an unshakably nauseating streak of hatred that permeates Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It seems that every day more proof of it is provided without hesitation or shame. The latest examples were included in Trump’s remarks yesterday in New Hampshire and began with his insistence on using a term that is widely known to be an offensive epithet.

Tom Llamas of ABC News asked Trump about his use of the term “anchor babies.” The term refers to the alleged practice of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally in order to give birth to children who could then sponsor the parents for legal residency and citizenship. However, it is an entirely bogus notion because a citizen has to be twenty-one before they can sponsor a family member. So for this scheme to work the parents would have to wait twenty-one years for the child to grow up and then another ten years as punishment for having entered the country illegally to have the baby. That means it would take thirty-one years for the parents to be eligible for residency and another five years after that before they could apply for citizenship.

Nevertheless, Trump not only used the term, but stood by it defiantly when told of its derogatory meaning.

Llamas: Are you aware that the term ‘anchor baby,’ that’s an offensive term?
Trump: Excuse me! I’ll use the word anchor baby!

This isn’t any different than being told that the phrase “tar baby” or the “N” word is derogatory but ignoring the warning and using it anyway. The larger point that Trump was making was to affirm his opposition to birthright citizenship, a 150 year old provision of the Constitution (14th Amendment) that Trump thinks won’t hold up in court. And following his ignorant and racist comments, at least four of his GOP colleagues (Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, and Ted Cruz) joined in the immigrant bashing fully agreeing with Trump’s position.

Making matters worse, a couple of brothers in Boston were arrested for assaulting a homeless Latino man. When questioned by the police about their motives they said that “Trump inspired them.”

This is a predictable result of the kind of hostile rhetoric that Trump and other right-wing haters use. Under ordinary circumstances it might not be fair to hold Trump accountable for this violence, even though it is something he could have anticipated because it has happened before. What makes Trump liable in this case is his reaction upon learning of the incident. As reported by the Associated Press (and posted on Fox News Latino, but not Fox News), Trump said that it would be a shame and added…

“I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country, and they want this country to be great again.”

WTF? So Trump regards the thugs who viciously assaulted an innocent Latino man as passionate patriots who love their country. And for all he knows the victim was actually a citizen, In Trump’s view they were just trying to “make America great again.” And he must know that giving that kind of praise and public tribute to violent racists can only encourage more of the same.

This is worse than any of the idiotic statements Trump has made yet. It is deliberately inciting bigots to engage in violence. And it tells us exactly what Trump means by “great” when regurgitating his campaign slogan. Furthermore, it tells us what his party and his GOP rivals think when they fail to repudiate these remarks. And mostly it tells us what Fox News and Republican voters believe, because they are the ones propping up the Trump candidacy and its open embrace of savagery and prejudice. That’s something they have to own even after Trump’s campaign inevitably crashes and burns.

Fox News Takes Donald Trump’s Stupid Immigration Policy And Makes It Even Worse

Posted by Mark NC on August 18, 2015 at 8:39 pm. 2 Comments :

This year’s Sarah Palin is really stirring up the LIV (Low Information Voter) constituency. With an astonishing flair for melodrama, Donald Trump’s candidacy has assumed Palin’s role as both village idiot and court jester. And his rhetoric is certainly living up to his campaign slogan.

This weekend Trump solidified his position by releasing an utterly absurd immigration policy that not only fails to solve any problems, but actually exacerbates them in most cases. Among the more ludicrous proposals are:

Mass deportation of an estimated eleven million undocumented residents.
This would cost billions of dollars, take decades, ruin businesses, and rip apart families. Trump was asked by Chuck Todd about the family matter and he responded that he would keep them together by deporting all of them, including the ones who are U.S. citizens.

Ending birthright citizenship.
To accomplish this Trump would have to get a constitutional amendment passed to repeal the 14th Amendment, which takes years and the cooperation of a huge majority of Congress and state legislatures. Clearly Trump knows nothing about the subject because he later told Bill O’Reilly that the 150 year old constitutional law had not been tested and would not hold up in court.

Triple the number of Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement officers.
Small government conservatives will probably be thrilled with the thought of hiring 10,000 more federal employees, plus the staff to support them and affiliated hiring at other agencies to handle the legal and administrative duties that would be required. And all to reduce illegal immigration which is already on the decline.

Defund sanctuary cities.
By this Trump means cutting off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement. So he thinks that giving the feds more power over the states will excite his right-wing base.

Requirement to hire American workers first (before granting visas for foreign workers).
Somebody should tell Trump that this is already required by current law. Although he probably knows because he is a notorious abuser of these regulations. Reuters has reported that Trump’s businesses “have sought to import at least 1,100 foreign workers on temporary visas since 2000, according to U.S. Department of Labor data.”

With all of the ridiculousness in this alleged immigration policy, it is interesting to note that it wasn’t yet ridiculous enough for Fox News. In an interview today (video below), Fox anchor Bill Hemmer asked his Fox Business Network colleague Lou Dobbs about Trump’s immigration plan. Dobb’s was wholly supportive and praised Trump for being “the only candidate who’s had the guts to say we’re going to deport them all.” However, Dobbs, like Trump, could not explain how it would be possible to do that. He was then asked about Trump’s ludicrous assertion that birthright citizenship, and not jobs, “remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” Dobb’s agreed and elaborated saying…

“I think he’s partly right. I would argue that also our welfare system that is sitting here being handed out without hesitation. ObamaCare is being provided without even a question about legal status. People are being allowed to vote by the millions in this country who are illegal because we’re not checking citizenship and we’ve got a government actively fighting voter identification which assures the integrity of our electoral system.”

Dobbs’ attempt to enhance Trump’s already faulty set of proposals only makes it much worse. Either Dobbs is frightfully ignorant or he is deliberately lying. First of all, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most types of welfare, including food stamps and housing assistance. What’s more, they actually pay far more into the federal treasury than they will ever see come back from any source. They pay about ten billion dollars annually in state and local taxes. And over a decade they have contributed over 100 billion dollars to Social Security, which they are not eligible to receive.

Secondly, Dobbs assertion that undocumented residents are getting ObamaCare is simply false. The Affordable Care Act explicitly prohibits undocumented immigrants from purchasing health insurance from the marketplace or from receiving any premium credits or other benefits.

Finally, Dobbs’ completely unsupported allegation that “millions” of undocumented immigrants are being allowed to vote is just plain nuts. Not only are there not millions, the evidence of more than a handful is hard to come by. The American Immigration Council compiled research that shows that “repeated investigations over the years have found no indication that systematic vote fraud by non-citizens is anything other than the product of overactive imaginations.”

Lou Dobbs offered up three theories that he felt compelled to add to Trump’s already bogus claim that birthright citizenship was the “biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” And on all three counts he was wrong. Nevertheless, his disinformation was broadcast to Fox’s gullible audience without comment or correction or rebuttal. Anchor Hemmer simply smiled and nodded in agreement and plugged Dobbs’ show on FBN. And that’s another reason why Fox News viewers have been found to be more ignorant than viewers of any other news network.

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Donald Trump Cites Racist Hate Group To Support His Anti-Immigrant Rants

Posted by Mark NC on July 20, 2015 at 11:13 pm. 1 Comments :

There is no one currently in the Republican Party who is more rapidly assuming the role of the new Sarah Palin than Donald Trump. It seems with every utterance from his spittle-inflected mouth he demonstrates an ever more ignorant and repulsive caricature of a throwback Jim Crow era bigot. This is, after all, a candidate running on the theme that “America Is A Hell Hole.”

The beating that Trump is taking for his recent remarks belittling John McCain’s war record may actually be a welcome respite from the beating he was previously taking for his slander of immigrants as criminals and rapists. However, he is still not letting go of the immigration issue that has won him so much adoration from the hate-mongers of the GOP. Late yesterday Trump retweeted a link to an article by Matthew Boyle of Breitbart News that supposedly supported his argument against undocumented immigrants. The article was headlined: “TX Taxpayers Pay for Illegal Aliens to Use State Services.” But there are a couple of problems with this article.

First of all, it is over two years old and it uses as its source a report from an organization called the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR is a notoriously dishonest group whose mission is to end all immigration by anyone who is not a white European. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated FAIR a hate group and noted that “Although FAIR maintains a veneer of legitimacy that has allowed its principals to testify in Congress and lobby the federal government, this veneer hides much ugliness. FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements.”

It is not surprising that Trump would affiliate himself with a known purveyor of rancid bigotry. That is pretty much the hallmark of his public profile. However, the report referenced by Trump via Breitbart is riddled with inaccuracies. An analysis by the American Immigration Council provided a detailed account of the fallacies in the report and the deliberately dishonest conclusions. For instance…

“According to FAIR’s calculations, unauthorized immigrants are costing Texas taxpayers $12.1 billion dollars every year. However, $7.4 billion of this estimate, or 61%, consists of K-12 education for the children of unauthorized immigrants — of whom 71% are native-born U.S. citizens.”

The entire project is a fraud intended to smear both immigrants and citizens of Latino heritage. It appears that Trump had to dig back two and a half years to find a flawed article, published by a disreputable “news” site, and based on the allegations of a horde of avowed racists, in order to buttress his ignorant biases. At least this provides more evidence of his ingrained prejudices and the lengths he will go to promote them.

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Wingnut News: Ultra-Rightist Group Blames California Drought On Immigrants

Posted by Mark NC on May 26, 2015 at 9:34 pm. 5 Comments :

Conservatives are fond of attributing all manner of perceived evil on the nearest liberal or Democrat who happens to be handy. The blame game reaches epic levels of absurdity at times with right-wing accusations that gays are responsible for hurricanes and that the poor caused the banking collapse and Great Recession of 2008.

However, the competition for the the most ludicrous assignment of liability for society’s ills is heating up with the charges brought by an organization called “Californians for Population Stabilization” (CAPS). This group pretends to have an environmental mission that consists of reducing population in order to save natural resources. But its real goal is to lobby against immigration, particularly from our neighbors to the south. Their allegedly environmental activities have spanned everything from opposing drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants to overturning the Constitution’s provisions for birthright citizenship. A real “back to nature” outfit.

The Los Angeles Times is now reporting that CAPS has launched a television campaign that asks the question on everyone’s mind, “If Californians are having fewer children, why isn’t there enough water?” They answer this question by asserting that immigrants, legal and otherwise, are the reason that the state is running dry. Of course, it’s so obvious. Among their allegations is that “Every newcomer to California adds 140 gallons of water demand per day.” There is no explanation for how they arrived at that ridiculous figure.

A saner analysis would recognize that the number of immigrants in California have little impact on the availability of water. The state’s problems were not the result of overuse, they are the result of an historic years-long drought that has depleted the snowpack and drained reservoirs throughout the state. What’s more, residential water consumers are hardly the main draw for these resources. Agriculture is consumes the majority of water in the state by far.

But mere facts are not sufficient to blunt the accusations of such determined racists. For evidence of the underlying motives of the Folks at CAPS you need only look into their funding. The group is supported almost entirely by grants from the uber-rightist Scaife family. And the projects they bankroll have included the notoriously anti-Latino activists at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and NumbersUSA. Additionally, at least three organizations deemed hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center have benefited from CAPS grants, including the vile bigots of VDARE.

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So just when you thought you’d heard it all, a pseudo-environmental nativist enterprise pops up to blame a major drought on the presence of immigrants. What must they think of Texas right about now, where there is also a large immigrant population, but they are suffering from torrential rains and flooding? I suppose they are just waiting for the frogs and locusts so they can declare this the Apocalypse and get it over with.

Fox’s Bitch: Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller Axes Article Critical Of Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on March 18, 2015 at 10:43 am. 4 Comments :

The Right-Wing Media Machine operates on the principle of keeping a united front for propaganda. They nurture fringe elements in print, television and on the Internet from which they mine the raw lies and slander that gets molded, refined, and eventually presented on the mother ship, Fox News. One of those fringe sites is the Daily Caller (DC), which was founded by its Editor in Chief, Tucker Carlson.

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In order to be accepted into the family you must swear allegiance to the Fox Nation and its Divine Monarch, Rupert Murdoch. That mandate was articulated explicitly by Fox’s Grand Wizard, Roger Ailes, who decreed that there be no “shooting in the tent.” Unwavering loyalty is compulsory, and on Tuesday there was an example of what happens when that edict is breached.

In an article for the DC titled “Fox Makes It Easy for Amnesty,” Conservative blogger Mickey Kaus criticized Fox News for not being sufficiently anti-immigrant. Kaus accused Fox of deliberately soft-pedaling the issue and, by extension, supporting President Obama who he believes is a lawless tyrant whose executive actions violate the Constitution. Kaus went on to assert that Fox’s alleged retreat from anti-immigration reporting was “a dry run for how Murdoch’s network might ease the way for a legislative amnesty down the road.”

Apparently that kind of talk is verboten. When Carlson saw the article he abruptly deleted it. [It remains in cached form here] According To Kaus, Carlson said that “We can’t trash Fox on the site. I work there.” Whereupon Kaus offered his resignation.

Kaus is delusional if he believes that Fox News bailed on its anti-immigration agenda and particularly on its anti-Obama stance with regard to executive overreach. Fox News has maintained their “amnesty” hysteria as a staple of their Obama-hating editorial obsession. They routinely feature commentaries by anchors and guests who hammer the administration with some literally calling for Obama’s impeachment. Apparently that’s not enough for Kaus.

Nevertheless, right or wrong it was a mortal sin for Kaus to take Fox to task and Carlson couldn’t permit it to stand. The article was removed, Kaus was admonished, and subsequent to his resignation, Kaus gave this statement to Politico:

“It’s a larger problem on the right: Everybody is scared of Fox,” he said. “Fox is their route to a high-profile public image and in some cases stardom. Just to be on a Fox show is a big deal. And I think that’s a problem on the right, Fox’s monopoly on star-making power.”

On this Kaus could not be more correct. Fox News has become the single most important prerequisite for entry into the rightist Heaven. Every conservative must make the pilgrimage to Fox if they hope to be saved. And no one knows this better than Tucker Carlson.

Prior to his embrace by Fox News, Carlson’s career was a pitiful collection of failures. He had been canceled by PBS, CNN, and MSNBC. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, he was the first contestant voted off of Dancing with the Stars. He seemed to be a recidivist loser with no reasonable hope for redemption. He had even burned bridges with regard to Fox News when, after a childish prank (by both of them), he called Fox “a mean, sick group of people.”

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Fortunately, For Carlson, Fox News has a policy of dredging the sewers of pseudo-journalism and rescuing the most offensive and desperate rejects, giving them a second chance at salvation. Of course that forgiveness comes at the cost of their soul. It rests on their willingness to supplicate themselves to their new savior.

So when Fox called, Carlson went crawling back with his tail between his legs and fully prepared to obey. That’s why Kaus was not permitted to find even the tiniest bit of fault with Fox News and their sanctified editorial scripture.

Carlson knows his place and did what was expected of an indentured servant to the Wingnut Overlord. By censoring Kaus, Carlson has insured that he can remain in the icy embrace of Fox News for another day. And, after all, that’s all that any of the ego-driven shills for the GOP (Greedy One Percent) really want. They are well aware that if they eagerly prostrate themselves to their Murdochian master, that Fox will provide. What a comforting notion for these otherwise worthless heathens.

2014: An Epic Year For Conservative Crackpot Conspiracy Theories

Posted by Mark NC on December 29, 2014 at 12:29 pm. 2 Comments :

Recalling the bygone year, there were enough examples of political foolishness, public embarrassment, and unabashed propaganda, to fill a trainload of FEMA caskets. But nothing comes close to boggling the mind like conspiracy theories rooted in nothing but psychotic paranoia and partisan dementia.

News Corpse has covered much of what the right-wing media has attempted to pass off as legitimate news, but was actually evidence of severe cognitive failure. So, as a reminder of 2014’s most ludicrous departures from reality, here is a compilation of some of the best (worst?) excretions from the imagination of the conservative hive mind.

CONSPIRACY: President Obama Is Trying To Impeach Himself

The evil genius in the White House orchestrated the whole Obama-hate campaign from its earliest days in 2008 just so that he would be able to use impeachment, which is every president’s dream, as an election strategy six years into his presidency. He had the foresight to anticipate that his anti-America agenda, developed in concert with the Muslims and Marxists in his inner circle, would make the 2014 midterms so difficult that he would need something positive, like having himself prosecuted before Congress for high crimes and misdemeanors, in order to stem the tide of opposition that would rise up.

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Ben Carson Fears That Obama Will Declare Himself President for Life.

The United States and its democratic system has endured for over 200 years, through economic catastrophes, civil and world wars, Nixonian corruption, and assassinations. Yet Carson thinks that it may all soon be over because of our present economy (with it’s soaring stock market, record profits, and low unemployment), and a band of desert rats 8,000 miles away?

Glenn Beck Asserts That Obama Purposely Planted Ebola In Dallas

Obviously President Obama’s agenda centers around the fact that he hates Dallas so much that he arranged to have an Ebola-infected Liberian fly there and die. […] First and foremost, it is not true that Dallas “doesn’t particularly care for the President.” In 2012 Obama was reelected with 57% of the vote from Dallas County. That’s a larger margin than he won nationally. Obama also beat McCain in Dallas by the same amount in 2008.

Steve Doocy Discovers A Mysterious Photo Of Two Men With One Pair Of Legs.

Doocy: Fox News Alert: New questions about those two Iranian men who boarded flight 370 with stolen passports. Did somebody Photoshop this picture of them, because they both appear to have the same legs. That’s leading many to believe there is a cover-up happening. […] The Malaysians are saying ‘No, we didn’t Photoshop or anything like that. They had a Xerox copy and part of the guy on the left was put on top of the duplicate of the guy on the right. Do you buy that?

According To “Doctor” Keith Ablow, Obama Orchestrated The World Cup To Distract From [???]

Somehow Obama orchestrated FIFA’s scheduling of the quadrennial games to coincide with whatever scandal is presently infecting Ablow’s brain so that the American people, who usually ignore soccer, won’t notice that FEMA has already begun incarcerating Tea Party leaders and the EPA is deploying new Pentagon technology to increase global temperatures. What a devious plot our Kenyan in the White House has devised.

Conservative Media Freak Out Over Obama’s Plan To Grant Amnesty To 34 Million Illegal Aliens

The usual conservative media mouthpieces are reporting that there is a plot afoot by the Obama administration to grant amnesty to some 34 million “illegal” aliens soon after the midterm election. To put that number into perspective, that’s more than three times as many undocumented immigrants as are currently estimated to be in the United States. It’s a third of the entire population of Mexico. If they all occupied a new state it would be the second most populous state in the country after California with 38 million.

Louie Gohmert Accuses Comcast Of Attempting To Silence Glenn Beck

Gohmert found an angle to question the [Comcast/Time Warner] merger that only he could have dreamed up. He believes that Comcast is engaged in a conspiracy to silence Glenn Beck. And Al Gore is in on it along with Al Jazeera who “wanted to get their Sharia law push into the United States.”

Pat Caddell Says That It Is Republicans That Want The IRS To Go After The Tea Party

Did the Republicans infiltrate the IRS and orchestrate a strategy to deny Tea Partiers tax-exempt status? Did they conduct sham hearings in the House, led by the crusading committee chair (and recidivist criminal) Darrel Issa, all the while maneuvering secretly to oppress Tea Party organizations and cast the blame on Democrats?

GOP Rep Tells Fox News That Obama Plans To Flood U.S. With Foreign Ebola Patients

The plot was discovered by the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, who claims to have confidential information that came to him via an “inside source” within the administration. Naturally he takes this skimpy, unverifiable gossip to Megyn Kelly of Fox News. The alarmist anxiety of Rep. Goodlatte is typical of the fear mongering that Republican politicians and pundits engage in so frequently.

Fox News Imagines Another Covert Plot Against Rick Perry (And America) By George Soros

Brent Bozell’s op-ed for Fox News is titled “Mainstream media censors Soros’ connection to Rick Perry indictment.” He begins his bill of peculiars by alleging that the media has suppressed the truth about Texans for Public Justice (TPJ), the group that originally filed the complaint against Perry. Bozell claims that “the group responsible for that indictment had received a half million dollars” from Soros. However, there is a very good reason that the press failed to disclose this information: It isn’t true.

Fright-Wing News: Fox News Reports, As Fact, The Missing Libyan Planes Hoax

Fox News anchor Jon Scott introduced a segment saying “A potentially terrifying scenario is playing out as we approach September 11. Nearly a dozen airplanes are missing – flat out missing – from an airport in Tripoli, raising new fears of the possibility of another terror attack from the air.”

OMG! That is truly terrifying. I can almost hear the roar of a dozen jet engines filling the sky with thunderous evil as they aim for defenseless skyscrapers packed with unsuspecting victims. Why doesn’t Obama raise the threat level to “Unrestrained Panic” and evacuate America’s cities? Perhaps because the story is not true.

Fun With Rush: Limbaugh Explains How The Dreaded Polar Vortex Was Created By Liberals

El Rushbo has dusted off his fake degree in meteorology to explain to his dittohead audience how something that has been studied for decades was just invented by some Democrats this week.

Limbaugh: So, ladies and gentlemen, we are having a record-breaking cold snap in many parts of the country. And right on schedule the media have to come up with a way to make it sound like it’s completely unprecedented. Because they’ve got to find a way to attach this to the global warming agenda, and they have. It’s called the ‘polar vortex.’ The dreaded polar vortex. […] Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Well, they just created it for this week.

And there you have it. Just a taste of the insanity that has infected one of America’s two major political parties. And all of it occurring in just one hilarity-packed year. The only thing that makes these frighteningly absurd episodes of psychosis even more disturbing, is that in 2015 these are the folks who will be in charge of both the United States House of Representatives and Senate. So happy new Year America, and good luck. You’re gonna need it.

So How Nuts Are The Anti-Immigration Tea Party Republicans?

Posted by Mark NC on December 5, 2014 at 1:29 pm. 3 Comments :

One month ago a distinct minority of the nation’s voters trudged to the polls to elect just enough Tea Party Republicans to gain control of the Senate and join their GOP colleagues in the House in a ritual of Obama bashing and avoiding doing any actual work. Since then the party of “NO” has already demonstrated their determination to hogtie this president and throw a monkey wrench into the administration of government.

To illustrate just how absurd the right-wing has become, take a look at these actual proposals, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, for responding to Obama’s executive action to reform immigration policy:

Shut down the government.

Block ambassador nominations.

Block executive branch nominees — just about all of them.

Ground the president.

Start the immigration fight earlier.

File a lawsuit.

Cancel the State of the Union.

Hate of the Union

These inane, retaliatory responses to a serious problem facing the nation reveal the deliberately injurious motives of the GOP. They obviously couldn’t care less about advancing the interests of the American people. The only thing on their agenda is beating on the current resident of the White House whom they never believed was legitimate.

And it makes it all the more ludicrous considering they have a quick and simple way to do away with the executive order they profess to oppose. As reported here before, all they have to do is pass a law. They don’t even have to write one. It already exists and was passed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate. If John Boehner would allow it to be voted on in the House it would pass tomorrow, be signed by the President and – poof – no executive action.

Instead these cretins maneuver to lock Obama out of the Capital and take away his keys to Air Force One. Next thing you know they will be passing legislation to make him sit in the corner for the remainder of his term. And they want people to take them seriously?

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OMG! Fox News Says “Illegals” Will Devour Social Security And Medicare

Posted by Mark NC on November 30, 2014 at 2:10 pm. 4 Comments :

It has been well established that the primary mission of Fox News is to stir up irrational fear in the hearts of their unbalanced and paranoid viewers. In pursuit of that goal Fox is now manufacturing another horror story about the dangers of the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” that our Statue of Liberty warned us about.

For more examples of Fox’s brazen dishonesty…
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On this weekend’s episode of America’s Newsroom, anchor Bill Hemmer anxiously reported that a new development stemming from President Obama’s executive action on immigration was taking shape that spelled doom for America. He opened the segment saying that…

“Now we’re learning some five million may not only get amnesty, but also receive some of the valuable benefits of citizenship, including Social Security and Medicare.”

The first half of that sentence refers to the long-standing lie that immigration reform will grant amnesty to undocumented residents. That is utterly false. The bill that passed the Senate (which the GOP-run House has refused to take up) contains numerous fines, penalties, and conditions for eligibility that disprove the amnesty allegation by the very definition of the word. And the executive action is a temporary measure that merely serves as a guideline for the Justice Department in exercising prosecutorial discretion.

But it’s the second half of the sentence that wildly diverges from sanity by asserting that the “benefits of citizenship” will be conferred upon immigrants. There is no truth to the claim that undocumented residents will be collecting Social Security or Medicare anytime in the near future, if at all.

The truth was reported more accurately by the Associated Press who said that those covered by the recent executive action will be allowed to get temporary work permits that will require them to also have a Social Security number. Therefore, they will begin to pay into the system via payroll taxes. However, they will not be eligible to collect any benefits until certain other conditions have been met. Those conditions include working for a minimum of ten years and reaching retirement age. Consequently, the temporary fix implemented by the President would have to be extended by passage of legislation in Congress that codifies a permanent solution.

What’s more, as Hemmer himself noted, none of these immigrants would be eligible for welfare, education funding, food stamps, ObamaCare subsidies, etc. So the entire premise of the segment was false. But that didn’t stop Fox from composing an on-screen title that definitively stated that “Undocumented immigrants will be eligible for Social Security and Medicare.” The AP’s article went on to disclose that…

“A report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers this week concluded that Obama’s executive actions would expand the U.S. tax base because about two-thirds of immigrants illegally working in the United States don’t pay taxes. […and that…] The Social Security Administration estimates that out of about 11 immigrants who either entered the U.S. illegally or have overstayed their visas slightly more than 3 million paid payroll taxes of about $6.5 billion in 2010, with their employers contributing another $6.5 billion. Those payments would not qualify toward the 10 year requirement needed to be eligible for benefits.”

So, many of the immigrants currently in the U.S. are already contributing billions of dollars to the system without any return. And that number could triple as the remainder of the immigrants are brought out of the shadows and into temporary legal status. You would think that the Tea Party and deficit hawks on the right would approve of this positive impact on the budget. Unfortunately, their racism supersedes their commitment to fiscal responsibility.

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On Immigration: Republicans Have No Clue What The American People Want

Posted by Mark NC on November 25, 2014 at 4:25 pm. NO Comments :

Last week President Obama defied the wild-eyed yammering of Republicans who claimed that any executive action addressing immigration reform would be be unconstitutional and mark him as a lawless tyrant who is thwarting the will of the American people. The President ignored their rancorous grumbling and announced a reasonable plan of prosecutorial discretion that has been invoked by every president for the past fifty years, and which 135 experts agree is legal. Not to mention, it is in keeping with our nation’s longstanding values of inclusion and opportunity.

Notwithstanding these facts, the GOP is so fixated on opposing anything that this president does, they took their positions to the media and brazenly lied. With characteristic lock-step unity, they insisted that they knew what Americans want and that Obama was flouting their clearly expressed wishes. Here is a sampling of their interpretation of the public mood:

Sen. Ted Cruz: This last election was a referendum on amnesty. And the American people overwhelmingly rose up and said, no, we don’t want lawless amnesty.
John Boehner: By ignoring the will of the American people, President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left.
Mitch McConnell: If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act.
Sarah Palin: [Obama is] betraying our trust [by going] against the wishes of the American people.
Sen. Jeff Sessions: The American people rebelled against the President’s executive amnesty.
Rick Santorum: This unilateral action sends a message that the President believes his opinion should supersede the will of the American people and democratic process.

These statements could not be more definitive in their estimation of what the American people think about Obama’s executive action on immigration. They could also not be more wrong. Where these wingnuts got these ideas is a complete mystery. It certainly doesn’t reflect either the exit polling following the election earlier this month. Nor does it reflect the more recent polling that spelled out the precise conditions of the policy. Hart Research found that…

“…voters overwhelmingly backed President Obama’s move: 67 percent viewed it favorably, while just 28 percent viewed it unfavorably. The support was fairly bipartisan, with 91 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, and 41 percent of Republicans viewing the executive action favorably. Among Tea Party Republicans, however, 64 percent opposed the policy while just 30 percent viewed it favorably.”

Setting aside the Tea Party (always a good idea), it is clear that Obama’s views are more aligned to those of the American people than with the bombastic and presumptive Republicans. And not only do people support the President’s action, they agree that he is acting within law by 51% to 41%.

What is most curious about this whole debate is that the GOP has such hatred for the executive action Obama took, but they refuse to do the simplest, quickest thing to nullify it. All they have to do is pass a law. They don’t even have to write one. It already exists and was passed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate. If John Boehner would allow it to be voted on in the House it would pass tomorrow, be signed by the President and – poof – no executive action.

Instead the GOP talk of blocking every bill and presidential nominee that comes before them. They threaten to file lawsuits that would take years to wind their way through the courts and would be moot by the time they were heard. And they even raise the specter of impeachment, another ultra-drastic response that would take months and accomplish nothing but making Joe Biden the next president.

In conclusion, Obama is not acting like a tyrant and Americans don’t buy the criticism of him as one. However, Americans do favor his approach to immigration reform by wide margins despite the protestations from the GOP. The only thing that Republicans have to gain from their current strategy is a generous pension after they are retired from public service in 2016. We wish them luck.

Obama Quoting Scripture Is Repugnant To Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on November 22, 2014 at 3:16 am. 7 Comments :

During President Obama’s speech on immigration Thursday, he made the case for delaying the deportation of family members of U.S. citizens with a moral argument against separating families and demonizing those who came to America seeking a better life. Part of the justification he used were references from the Bible. The President said that “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger –- we were strangers once, too.” Indeed, the Bible makes numerous references to the treatment of others, including foreigners. Leviticus 19:33-34 says

“33. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. 34. The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”

The morning following the President’s speech, the Kurvy Kouch Potatoes of Fox & Friends discussed his remarks and were, not surprisingly, appalled (video below). However, their outrage was not limited to the standard kneejerk Fox objections to anything Obama does and says. Extending the wingnut talking points beyond the crackpot allegations of tyranny and lawlessness, they ventured into decidedly more hostile and racist territory.

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What rankled the tender sensitivities of the co-hosts Steve Doocy, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and Tucker Carlson was that Obama had the temerity to express himself through his faith. The exchange that took place was a nauseating display of intolerance and undisguised hatred. It began with Carlson condemning Obama for “lecturing” on faith.

Carlson: For this guy specifically, the President, who spent his career defending late-term abortions, among other things, lecturing us on Christian faith? That’s too much. This is the Christian Left at work, and it’s repugnant. […]
Carlson: To quote scripture? That is just totally out of bounds.
Hasselbeck: Do you think it’s out of bounds that I just quoted scripture?
Carlson: No.
Doocy: It’s just different for him.

It’s just different for him? In what way? They never bother to get into it any deeper than that. but just the suggestion that a different standard exists for “specifically” this president reeks of bigotry. Whether it is rooted in race or politics it is disgusting and completely outside of the expertise of these hate mongers to pass judgment.

The statements by the Fox & Unfriendly crew would be bad enough without any other factors to consider. They are not remotely qualified to interpret either the Bible or any person’s intentions in citing it. However, as Media Matters noted, their commentary exhibited a rather astonishing measure of hypocrisy.

“It was only 48 hours prior to their November 21 broadcast that Fox & Friends criticized Obama for not espousing Christian values often enough. […they asked viewers to…] remember the time when American presidents weren’t afraid to talk about traditional values, as Ronald Reagan did back in 1981.”

So Obama is immoral when he doesn’t mention God, and repugnant when he does? And it’s OK for Reagan to wrap himself in biblical justifications for his agenda that included demonizing the poor as “welfare queens,” throwing the mentally ill out of institutions and unto the street, labeling Nelson Mandela a terrorist, selling arms to hostage takers in Iran, and using the proceeds to bankroll murderous rebels in Nicaragua. But for Obama to advocate for the unity of families is “totally out of bounds.”

The flagrantly biased, hateful, and hypocritical hosts of Fox & Friends might want to look to a recognized authority on Christian faith for guidance on how to deal with immigrants.

Pope Francis: Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more.

For more examples of mutilated journalism…
Read Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available now at Amazon.

[Update:] Fox News host and prospective candidate for the GOP nomination for president (and sanctimonious jerkwad), Mike Huckabee, has joined the chorus bashing Obama for quoting scripture.

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