Bill O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly Is Cool If You Go Bankrupt Or Die Waiting Another Year For Health Care

Posted by on November 6, 2013 at 10:50 am. 4 Comments :

The Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) was passed three years ago, and in that time has already helped millions of people by setting standards for insurance coverage that prohibit discrimination for preexisting conditions, permit children to remain on their parents policies until they are 26 years old, mandating free preventative care, forbidding arbitrary cancellations, eliminating annual and lifetime limits, etc. And that’s before the introduction of the health care exchanges that provide better and less expensive plans to millions.

Bill O'Reilly
Be Sure To “LIKE” News Corpse On Facebook

The new law has already saved lives and the financial well being of many families and individuals. But that is of no concern to Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. On his Tuesday night program he debated Dr. Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who contributed to the development of both RomneyCare and ObamaCare (video below). O’Reilly began the discourse by asking how long insurance companies have been not insuring those with preexisting conditions. He then answered his own leading and manipulative question by saying that “It’s been, roughly, since the Revolutionary War,” and adding that one more year won’t matter. Dr. Gruber responded with the an observation that is all too frequently ignored by pundits and politicians who attack the ACA. But pay extra attention to O’Reilly’s retort.

Gruber: It’s easy for you to say, but you’re not someone who’s living every day with the risk of going bankrupt or dying because you don’t have insurance coverage.

O’Reilly: I’m talking about the greater good. I understand this suffering and if there’s any way that I personally can alleviate it, I will. I give beaucoup money to charity to try to relieve…The greater good is served by having a law that is being mandated, all right, imposed on the population, clear, number one, and functional, number two. And neither of those things are happening, doctor.

See? O’Reilly’s just standing up for the “greater good.” It’s perfectly acceptable for some families to lose their mothers or fathers or children if, in exchange, we can insure that there is a functional website to enroll others next year. That’s the greater good, isn’t it? So some families will will become homeless or have to spend their retirement savings on medical expenses. That isn’t nearly as important as avoiding Internet glitches or forcing people to enroll by telephone.

In almost every occurrence of some television blowhard criticizing ObamaCare’s flawed rollout, the critic is a wealthy member of a privileged class who never has to worry about access to health care. And like O’Reilly, they often reveal their callous insensitivity toward people who are less fortunate. O’Reilly trailed off in his self-congratulatory nod to his charitability without specifying how he personally relieves anyone’s suffering. Instead, he makes a judgment as to whether saving lives is even a worthy goal. And to compound his haughty arrogance, he demonstrates an embarrassing ignorance of the ACA’s scope.

Gruber: But Bill, you have to remember. This bill is not affecting the vast majority of the American population. That’s what’s getting lost is the fact that the vast majority of Americans getting their insurance from their employers or the government are not affected by this law.

O’Reilly: We don’t know that yet. The law is only about six weeks old. We don’t know that yet. But the evidence rolling in is that the suffering being caused by the law is much more intense than the help it is going to give.

Gruber: That’s absolutely wrong.

O’Reilly: All right. We have a gentleman’s disagreement on that.

What O’Reilly calls a gentleman’s disagreement is generally regarded as fundamental misunderstanding (or blatant misrepresentation) by rational observers. First of all, it is unarguably true that most Americans (over 80%) get their health insurance from their employers or governmental agencies like Medicare and the Veterans Administration. Secondly, the law is three years old, not six weeks. Like many ObamaCare critics, O’Reilly is mistaking the insurance marketplaces that just rolled out online as the whole of the program. Finally, O’Reilly didn’t bother to provide any details on the more intense suffering he alleged, most likely because there isn’t any truth to it.

However, if you’re looking for a public voice to advance support for functional websites at the expense of the health and economic security of millions of Americans, you have found your advocate in Bill O’Reilly – the Guardian of the Greater Good. [Note to O’Reilly: Isn’t the “Greater Good” a socialist concept?]

The Tea Party Is Over According To – Bill O’Reilly!

Posted by on October 28, 2013 at 9:13 am. 8 Comments :

The astroturf fraud known as the Tea Party was literally invented by a cabal of uber-rightist millionaires and corporations with interests in tobacco and oil. The prime movers were the Koch brothers, who transited from their father’s John Birch Society to their own front groups, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.

The financial firepower of these entities, however, was still not enough to elevate the Tea Party “movement.” It required an aggressive media sponsor to flood the news zone with faux-populist themes and give birth to the puppetized pundits and politicians who would carry the message. For that mission Fox News was all too ready to volunteer and even went to great lengths to brand the Tea Party as a Fox News subsidiary with promos touting their “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” There can be no doubt that without Fox News there would be no Tea Party.

Bill O'Reilly
Be Sure To “LIKE” News Corpse On Facebook

That makes the new column by Fox’s star attraction, Bill O’Reilly, all the more startling. His own headline reads “Is the Tea Party Over?” And by the end he answers the question with a resounding “Yes.”

“The only way the Tea Party can resurrect itself is for it to coalesce around a strong leader. There has to be a central message delivered by someone with charisma, a person who is reasonable and persuasive. The movement has been damaged both inside and out. Only a very intense public relations campaign will turn the tide.

“I don’t think that will happen. It would take millions of dollars in TV ads and organizational infrastructure for the Tea Party to negate the national media’s contempt. And that kind of big money operation goes directly against what the Tea Party people want to be – a citizen movement that operates independent of party structure.”

O’Reilly’s opinion, in short, is that “The only way the Tea Party can resurrect itself is for it to coalesce around a strong leader,” and “I don’t think that will happen.” O’Reilly is throwing recent Tea Darlings like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul under the bus, along with baggers like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann who are already there.

I’m not going to argue with O’Reilly’s conclusion because the Tea Party has always been a constructed reality. It never existed outside of the power structure of the Republican elite. There were no Tea Party candidates, conventions, voter registrations, or platforms. They were all Republican politicians, voters, and policies. However, there is much to disagree with in the path to O’Reilly’s eulogy.

First of all, O’Reilly’s contention that the Tea Party’s problem is a lack of leaders can only be taken seriously by a deaf and blind pundit who lives in a Himalayan cave. There are many who do, and who aspire to, lead the phony parade. Their problem is that they advocate a broadly unpopular set of policies that the American people emphatically reject. People like Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin have favorable ratings that scrape the sea floor at record low levels, as does the Tea Party itself. The Tea Party doesn’t have a public relations problem, it has an agenda problem.

Secondly, O’Reilly seems to think that there hasn’t been enough money thrown at advancing the Tea Party mission. When he said that it “would take millions of dollars” which conflicts with the Tea Party’s alleged aversion to “big money operations,” he ignores the fact that the Tea Party has always been a big money operation financed with hundreds of millions of dollars by everyone from the Koch brothers to Karl Rove to the Republican National Committee, and dozens of mysterious Super PACs that keep their donor’s identities secret.

The central theme of O’Reilly’s column is that the Tea Party’s woes are all the result of the contempt of the media (as opposed to the contempt of the people). He says that “the Tea Party finds itself with an image problem and there are two primary reasons why.” The first of O’Reilly’s gripes is with the media, who he says “is at odds with Tea Party beliefs,” and that “demonizes the Tea Party all day long calling it racist, stupid and even worse – unsophisticated!” It’s telling that O’Reilly thinks it’s worse to be called unsophisticated than racist or stupid. But he may be onto something because, based on their behavior, most Tea Partiers don’t seem to be concerned about public displays of racism or stupidity.

The second of O’Reilly’s grips is with the media (just like the first gripe), but in this case it’s “the right wing media, which generally loves the party.” Here O’Reilly lays into the birther nutjobs who call the President a communist and a Muslim. In other words, most of the Tea Party and much of Fox News. O’Reilly attempts to take a stand for comity by declaring that “Hate is hate no matter what ideology you embrace.” This from the guy who opened the column by implying that the supporters of Occupy Wall Street “embrace violent tactics [and] infringe on the rights of the folks.”

So according to O’Reilly, the billionaire-backed Tea Party is not a big money operation, it has no national leaders unless you count the Cruzes and Palins and Pauls, and Limbaughs and Hannitys, etc., but it is plagued by a contemptuous media that hates them and an adoring media that loves them. [Warning: Don’t try to make any sense of this. It can only lead to confusion, severe mental anguish, logical disorientation, and acute migraines]. However, if O’Reilly’s tortured contention is that what it all adds up to is that the Tea Party is over, let’s just cross our fingers hope that he stumbled onto the truth for a change. But in all likelihood, he is just carrying water for the establishment GOP who are trying desperately to distance themselves from Tea Party crackpottery out of fear that it is going to be a big loser for them in the 2014 elections. He, and they, are too late. Now they have to live (or perish, as the case may be) with the monster they created.

OBAMA SCARE: The Right’s Fright Offensive To Scare People Away From Affordable Health Care

Posted by on October 24, 2013 at 10:59 am. 7 Comments :

Halloween is approaching and the hobgoblins of conservative minds are already spinning nightmarish tales of the horror of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). Actually, they have been doing it for quite some time dating back to at least March of 2010 when Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller published an article headlined “IRS looking to hire thousands of armed tax agents to enforce health care laws.” Fox News re-posted the article on their community web site and Fib Factory, Fox Nation despite the fact that it was a complete fabrication and was debunked by the Annenberg Center’s FactCheck.org

Fox News
Be Sure To “LIKE” News Corpse On Facebook

This year the campaign to recast a program that makes health insurance accessible to millions of Americans as a plague of locusts has risen to fever pitch. The Republican Party and conservative media has pulled out all the stops in a strategy aimed at scaring people from signing up with the hope that low enrollment will collapse the system. President Obama had the same concerns last month when he said…

“What you’ve had is an unprecedented effort that you’ve seen ramp up in the past month or so that those who have opposed the idea of universal health care in the first place — and have fought this thing tooth and nail through Congress and through the courts — trying to scare and discourage people from getting a good deal.”

These are not the hackneyed GOP talking points about death panels, job killers and government bureaucrats coming between patients and doctors. These are far more fanciful efforts that stretch the limits of credulity and appear to have more in common with satire than actual news reporting. Yesterday Rush Limbaugh “ruminated” (sourced to Breitbart) that ObamaCare may just be a ruse to set up gun registries in the United States. This is what it has come to as ObamaCare has finally reached the consumer stage and conservatives are desperate to keep people from discovering its benefits. For instance…

1) Fox News Warns That If You Sign Up For ObamaCare Hackers Will Steal Your Life Savings
On an episode of “The Real Story” on Fox News, host Gretchen Carlson introduced an ominous new strain of fear mongering to demonize ObamaCare. She interviewed John McAfee, the anti-virus software developer who is presently a fugitive from a murder investigation in Belize. He asserted a wild accusation that visitors to Healthcare.gov are going to be victimized by hackers who will steal their identities and/or drain their bank accounts.

However, neither Carlson nor McAfee actually provide any evidence of such a threat. In fact, when directly asked about it. McAfee diverts from the question and lays out a completely different threat that has nothing whatsoever to do with the ObamaCare web site. He alleges that nefarious individuals could set up their own unaffiliated web sites in the hopes of luring naive people of whom they will seek to take advantage. Of course, that is a threat that exists every day for every web site, and has since the Internet began. But visiting Healthcare.gov does not expose anyone to these phony sites as implied by the fear mongers at Fox.

2) WorldNetDaily Reports “Obama ‘Crashing Health-Care Site On Purpose'”
This article asserts that the President is so afraid that insurance shoppers will learn that ObamaCare is really more expensive than the old system that he deliberately caused the website to crash to keep people from seeing the rates. No one is defending the botched launch of the insurance exchanges, however, the notion that the technical glitches were intentionally caused by Obama is delusional.

WND’s argument (supported by links to Rush Limbaugh) that rates will increase leaves out the subsidies and tax credits that are available for many applicants. With these adjustments, premiums for most people will be substantially lower. The administration would, therefore, be anxious for consumers to have access to that information and would not be putting obstacles in their path.

3) Rand Paul: Take ObamaCare Or Go To Jail
The Tea Party darling Rand Paul has made innumerable false statements about virtually every policy that has emanated from the White House. But none surpass the diversion from reality than when he said “They say take [ObamaCare] or we will put people in jail. People say we aren’t going to put anybody in jail. The heck they won’t. You will get fined first. If you don’t pay your fines, you will go to jail.”

That’s interesting coming from someone who has frequently complained that no one in Congress has read the Affordable Care Act. If he had read it himself he would have known that the law explicitly prohibits criminal consequences for non-payment of fines. It states “In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.” It rarely gets more clear than that, but the mission to frighten the public exceeds the motivation for truth on the part of GOP scare-meisters.

Notably, Bill O’Reilly insisted that no one on Fox News ever claimed that failure to enroll in ObamaCare would lead to a prison sentence, but he was hilariously embarrassed by the videos that proved otherwise, including on his own program.

4) Right-Wing Think Tank Mortified That ObamaCare Web Site Links To Voter Registration Form
This is a particularly curious horror story as it seeks to raise an alarm over something that ought to be regarded as a civic duty. Nevertheless, the conservative MacIver Institute (a Koch brothers funded operation) published an article that implied there was some sort of heinous objective on the part of the Obama administration for having included a link to a voter registration form on the ObamaCare website. This startling revelation is met with foreboding by MacIver and a flurry of right-wing media outlets that disseminated MacIver’s story including National Review, Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze, Breitbart News, the Daily Caller, and of course, Fox News. All of their reports agreed that this was a clandestine attempt to register only Democratic voters despite the absence of any partisan framing. MacIver even asks specifically “[W]hat does registering to vote have to do with signing up for Obamacare?”

The core of the right’s trepidation is rooted in a more fundamental aversion to the act of voting itself. It is why they are continually erecting new barriers to voting, such as unreasonably stringent identification requirements, shortening or eliminating early voting periods, wholesale purges of voter rolls, and of course, brazenly discriminatory gerrymandering. Democrats, on the other hand, have sought to expand voter turnout with bills like the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (aka Motor Voter) that mandates that certain government agencies provide people with access to voter registration. In fact, it is that twenty year old law that requires the ObamaCare administrators to make voter registration available. MacIver, and their similarly mortified conservative comrades, are either unaware of this, or are deliberately feigning ignorance in order to rile up their conspiracy-prone base.

5) Weekly Standard Finds Imaginary Threat On ObamaCare Website
The ultra-conservative Weekly Standard dispatched their crack reporters to ferret out what they portrayed as an ominous security threat on the Healthcare.gov website. What they found were comments in the site’s source code that said that “You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.” The Standard notes that these comments were not visible to users and were not part of the site’s terms and conditions. But that didn’t stop them from implying that users would be still be bound by it because “the language is nevertheless a part of the underlying code.” Not really. It’s only a part of some inoperative text that carries no more obligation than some discarded notes.

This is another situation where you have to wonder whether these people are embarrassingly stupid or brazenly dishonest. There is a reason that this language was not visible. It was deliberately removed with the use of HTML comment tags by the site’s programmers. It was undoubtedly edited out because it was not an accurate expression of the site’s privacy policy. It does not mean that users are agreeing to a secret clause permitting the government to spy on them as the Standard implied. If any of these “reporters” had a fourteen year old at home they could have learned what this is about. But that would have interfered with their goal which is to leave Americans with the false impression that some hidden danger lurks beneath the surface of ObamaCare.

6) Fox News Fears ACORN Is Back To Push ObamaCare
The Curvy Couch Potatoes over at Fox & Friends had a jolly old time resurrecting their fear of a community organizing enterprise that no longer exists. ACORN was wrongly hounded out of business by right-wing opponents after pseudo-journalist and convicted criminal, James O’Keefe, distributed some deceitfully edited and libelous videos. But that hasn’t stopped conservative media from exhuming the corpse whenever they are in need of a sensationalistic story, as demonstrated by Fox co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck who announced that “We’re getting information that ACORN operatives are trying to sign people up for the Affordable Care Act.”

While ACORN was never found to have engaged in any unlawful activity, there was a bill passed that prohibited them from receiving federal funds. However, there is nothing in the law that prevents organizations with former ACORN staff from getting federal grants. In fact, there isn’t even any current law that prevents ACORN from getting grants as the previous ban was not included in the latest Continuing Resolution. Fox is brazenly misrepresenting the facts in an attempt to reignite fears of the old ACORN bogeyman. And they upped the terror ante by further alleging that ACORN would use your personal medical and financial information against you politically. They never revealed how that would occur, or to what end, but that isn’t the point. Their only interest is in spreading fear, no matter how irrational and unsupported.

Conclusion:
The zealousness with which these right-wing propagandists pursue their disinformation campaign is evidence of their own fear that Americans will come to appreciate having access to affordable health care. Therefore, they see their mission as derailing the program before that eventuality unfolds. Their tactics get more extreme and absurd the closer the program gets to gaining acceptance. A particular target of their attack is young people whose participation is important for the program to succeed. Consequently, opponents have launched a well-funded campaign (thanks to the Koch brothers) to scare off young consumers. Generation Opportunity has already released the now notorious “Creepy Uncle Sam” videos that make false implications of government intrusion into medical care. Next they are embarking on a twenty city college tour to mislead students.

Be Sure To “LIKE” News Corpse On Facebook

PolitiFact has reviewed sixteen claims made by ObamaCare detractors and found all of them false. Twelve of those were designated “Pants On Fire” lies. If there is one question that begs to be asked, it is this: If ObamaCare is so terrible, then why do opponents have to lie so much about it?

ObamaCare Myths

Bill O’Reilly’s Know-Nothing Talking Points On ObamaCare (And Jon Stewart Too)

Posted by on October 8, 2013 at 12:37 pm. 9 Comments :

For the past week, the Fox News spokesman for the Divine Spirit, Bill O’Reilly, has been proselytizing his own prescription for resolving the government shutdown crisis. The centerpiece of his solution is his call to delay the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate” for one year. He says that big business is getting to waive their mandate for a year, so why not all of the American people.

Bill O'Reilly

The only thing wrong O’Reilly’s position is everything. First of all, Americans already have a de facto one year exemption from ObamaCare. The open enrollment period for ObamaCare extends for six months, until the end of March 2014. Anyone who does not get the required insurance by then will have to pay penalty, but it will not be due until 2015. So everyone has plenty of time between now and then to evaluate their options and make a decision that is in their best interest. Therefore, O’Reilly’s suggestion for a one year delay is moot. His notion that everybody must have insurance by January first or they will be billed immediately is simply untrue.

Secondly, O’Reilly uses as a justification for his superfluous delay proposal the previous granting of a one year waiver for the employer mandate. He reasons that if big business is granted this alleged reprieve, why not give the same break to individuals? But what O’Reilly either doesn’t know, or doesn’t say, is that the waiver to which he is referring is only going to a tiny minority of specific businesses that are not providing health insurance to their employees. Since about 96% of the impacted companies already provide such insurance, that leaves only the portion of the remaining 4% who are not prepared to comply that will be subject to the waiver. And that represents about 0.4% of the American people. Citing that miniscule piece of the program as justification for exempting everyone subject to the individual mandate is ludicrous.

When Bill O’Reilly mouths off ignorantly about subjects like these, it really isn’t particularly surprising. He does that pretty much every day. Unfortunately, his pal from the Daily Show, Jon Stewart, also got swept up in the false argument about business waivers during an interview last night with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. And as if it weren’t bad enough that he misread the facts, he berated Sebelius in a prolonged rant over that misunderstanding. Hopefully someone on his staff will provide him with more accurate data on this for future reference.

It is plainly absurd to delay a program that is already saving millions of dollars for millions of people on the basis of such flawed reasoning. And it certainly makes no sense to push everything back because a few companies got a waiver. The Tea Party Republicans advocating this course are engaging in deliberate obstruction and obfuscation, and they must not be allowed to get away with it. Their irresponsible behavior is already having an adverse effect on them with some polls showing they are at risk of losing their majority in the House of Representatives. So I guess the old saying about silver linings is true.

Bill O’Reilly, Wrong Again: On Conservative Invitations To The MLK Event

Posted by on August 28, 2013 at 7:14 pm. 14 Comments :

Modern conservatives are obsessed with demonstrating their admiration for Martin Luther, Jr. now that he has been dead for 45 years and is universally regarded as a civil rights icon. While he was alive they despised him as a rabble-rousing commie and opposed his efforts to integrate schools, workplaces, and other social institutions.

Today they scramble to get invitations to an event commemorating King’s best remembered speech as if they were teenage girls trying to get into a Justin Beiber concert. Never mind that they continue to work furiously against the principles for which King fought, and they endeavor to roll back the clock on everything from voting rights to job opportunities.

Bill O'Reilly

On his program today, Bill O’Reilly joined the rush to pretend that King is a revered figure amongst those on the right. In a dialogue with James Carville, O’Reilly made what he must have thought was a profound observation: “Wasn’t it a little strange that they didn’t have one black conservative or one black Republican? Did their invitations get lost in the mail, or what?”

Carville began his response by noting the appearances by former presidents Carter and Clinton, but was interrupted by O’Reilly snidely remarking that “Isn’t George W. Bush a former president.” Carville replied that he didn’t know whether Bush was invited or not, to which O’Reilly matter-of-factly stated “He wasn’t. No Republicans and no conservatives were invited.”

Not surprisingly, given O’Reilly’s track record for accuracy and honesty, none of that was true. Bush was invited but declined because he is still recuperating from heart surgery. And even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal reported that the claim that all conservatives were deliberately excluded was false. In fact, GOP House Speaker John Boehner was invited. The GOP majority leader of the House, Eric Cantor, was invited. Both declined. Former NAACP president Julian Bond appeared on MSNBC lamenting that organizers invited “a long roster of Republicans who all said no. They did, however, attend their own Republican-sponsored affair.

If this is evidence of the GOP’s re-dedication to expanding their base and reaching out to minority constituents, they are going to be sorely disappointed come election time. Conservatives didn’t like King fifty years ago, they don’t like his message today, and they snubbed efforts to participate in the tribute. No wonder they need O’Reilly to misrepresent the facts and invent a non-existent controversy, falsely blaming unnamed liberals for excluding them. I wonder what excuses these losers made up for not having been invited to their proms.

O’Reilly is famous for failing to take responsibility for his mistakes and untruths. He never admitted he was wrong when he said there weren’t any homeless veterans. He never “apologized for being an idiot,” as he promised, if ObamaCare was upheld by the Supreme Court. And you can safely expect that he will not take responsibility for these egregiously dishonest remarks either. [Credit where credit’s due: On his program tonight O’Reilly did acknowledge that he was wrong about conservatives not being invited to the MLK event. I guess there’s a first time for everything.]

[Update:] Right-wingers throughout the media have been blasting the MLK event for not inviting conservatives. However, numerous conservatives were invited, but turned it down. Amongst those was Tim Scott, the only current African-American senator (albeit an appointed one), who many pundits held up as an example of the bias shown by the event’s organizers. As it turns out, Scott was also invited and he, too, declined.

Fox News Hires CNN’s Washed Out Media Analyst Howard Kurtz

Posted by on June 20, 2013 at 3:15 pm. 12 Comments :

Howard Kurtz

Chalk up another acquisition by Fox News of an outcast from some other news network. As has been noted here at News Corpse, Fox “seems to regard the discards of other networks as their richest vein of new talent.” Today it was announced that Fox has scooped up CNN’s media analyst Howard Kurtz, who was recently censured by CNN, and jettisoned by The Daily Beast, for “sloppy” reporting that disparaged Jason Collins, the newly out NBA player. So of course Fox News would leap at the chance to add Kurtz to their roster. Other recent rejects by CNN that have joined Fox include Erick Erickson, Lou Dobbs, and Tucker Carlson.

Kurtz has a spotty reputation at CNN where he has, on occasion, had some profound commentaries that expose media hypocrisy and bias. But he has just as often proven to be a tool of the Washington villagers who dismisses serious failings and neglects the shortcomings of his colleagues. He is the ultimate insider who is married to a right-wing PR consultant, a fact that he does not disclose when reporting on related matters. In statements marking the new relationship, Fox and Kurtz were typically effusive of one another:

Fox VP Michael Clemente: Howie is the most accomplished media reporter in the country.
Kurtz: I’m excited to be bringing my independent brand of media criticism to Fox News. […] I hope to add a new dimension to Fox’s coverage and have some fun while diving into the passionate debates about the press and politics.

Not everyone at Fox has the same opinion of Kurtz as Clemente does. Sean Hannity sneered that Kurtz was a “nitwit,” and railed that “I don’t like him. He’s full of crap. He thinks he’s a sanctimonious, self-righteous, phony establishment journalist.” Bill O’Reilly, upset that Kurtz had criticized his epically erroneous analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare, said “Kurtz does the bidding of Media Matters, and, I don’t know, maybe I should just ignore that and, as you say, move along down the highway, but it certainly disturbs me a little bit.” It should be noted that associating Kurtz with Media Matters is about the worst thing that O’Reilly could ever say about anyone. He regards Media Matters as “vicious, far-left, dishonest, smear merchants.” The question now is, will Kurtz provide fair and balanced coverage of those programs as a Fox News anchor?

On Fox, Kurtz will assume the anchor role on Fox News Watch, a weekend program that is distinguished by its panel of five devout conservatives against one alleged liberal. The five conservatives (Judith Miller, James Pinkerton, Cal Thomas, Richard Grenall, and host Jon Scott) are weekly regulars while the “liberal” seems to be whatever phony they can manage to scrape up that week. If they stick to this format it should be an easy transition for Kurtz who is used to covering for Fox’s biased reporting.

Full disclosure: I was once mentioned in a Kurtz column when he was with the Washington Post. Kurtz was aggregating reactions from a Laura Bush speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner:

The colorfully named News Corpse says the media should take a deep breath:

“The humor-challenged media is tripping all over itself to to praise the First Lady’s appearance before the White House Correspondents’ Association. Apparently their funny bone twitches uncontrollably at the sight of Laura being able to read from a sheet of prepared jokes. The talk in the television press has ranged from, ‘ Get this woman her own show .’ to, ‘ Maybe she should run against Hillary .’. . . .

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that the people who brought us Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levy, Michael Jackson, Terri Schiavo, the Old Pope, the New Pope, and Jennifer ‘Runaway Bride’ Wilbanks, would suddenly chose to avoid blowing things up beyond all sense of proportion.”

Colorfully named? Maybe Kurtz will get the joke now that he is working in the News Corp empire. And just so nobody forgets, this is what Fox News thinks about their new colleague:

So F**king What? Fox News Suffering From Judge Dread

Posted by on May 21, 2013 at 1:46 pm. 12 Comments :

Fox News is putting all judges on notice that if they are ever criticized by Fox News, they can no longer be regarded as impartial.

This is a rather monumental upheaval for the judiciary, because Fox has criticized hundreds of judges. In fact, they have made it a cornerstone of their editorial philosophy that the judiciary (along with the media, academia, and most other social institutions) is hopelessly liberal. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly frequently sends his ambush unit (producer Jesse Watters) out to harass judges when a legal outcome does not meet with his approval, whether or not the judge had anything to do with it. And now Fox is providing cover for their own reporter by alleging some vague conspiracy between a judge and the Department of Justice.

Fox Nation

So F**king What?

The first thing that makes this item so supremely asinine is the fact that the judge upon whom Fox is casting aspersions was appointed to the Federal District Court by Ronald Reagan and confirmed by a senate run by a Republican majority.

The source for Fox’s piece also has a less than credible reputation. The story was posted on the web site of the notorious political clown, Herman Cain. It addressed a ruling by Judge Alan Kay that permitted detainees at Guantanamo Bay to meet with their lawyers, something the Bush administration was improperly prohibiting. Author Dan Calabrese wrote that…

“Fox News quoted extensively on the air from Kay’s ruling in the case of Salim Muhood Adem v. George W. Bush. I have not seen the segment, but knowing Fox News – particularly on issues like Gitmo in the post-9/11 years – I think it’s a pretty safe guess that they weren’t quoting Kay’s ruling as a means of praising his decision.”

Seriously? Calabrese is admitting that he has no idea whether or not Fox actually criticized Kay because he hasn’t seen any criticism himself. He is simply assuming that Fox was critical because it would be consistent with their well-known political leanings. Acknowledging Fox’s biases may be the only honest part of Calabrese’s article. However, it does not satisfy any standard of proof that Fox slighted Kay, sparking a grudge that he has allegedly held for seven years so far.

To suggest that an independent jurist who was put on the bench by Reagan has joined a conspiracy with President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to criminally prosecute a Fox News hack is further evidence that Fox’s paranoia gauge has flipped completely off the scale. Their best efforts to topple Obama have collapsed into a pile of rotting rubble, while Obama’s approval ratings have risen in the midst of supposed scandals. That paradox is driving the right wild and causing them to concoct ever more fantastical fables.

So soon after an election that was an epic embarrassment to Republicans, they seem to have learned nothing and are continuing to live in a world of rightist delusion. No one but reality-challenged disciples of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones will believe the outrageously nonsensical tripe that Fox is spewing. And even while some of the more moderate wingers are cautioning their comrades to lay off the crazy juice, Fox continues to pour it on by the gallon. If this is their strategy for political success in 2014 or 2016, all I can say is “Bring it on.”

Fox News Hosts Join The ‘Blame America’ Firsters

Posted by on April 20, 2013 at 11:41 am. 6 Comments :

Shortly after the attacks on 9/11, a stunned nation struggled to explain how such noxious hatred could have formed and congealed into the heinous plot that took the lives of so many innocent people. In a statement that still ranks amongst the most feeble-minded insults to America’s intelligence, George W. Bush proclaimed that “they hate us for our freedom.”

Bush O'Reilly

As observers who were less dim-witted than the inarticulate, persistently mediocre, dynastic runt who occupied the White House began to weigh in on the post-9/11 analysis, there were reasoned commentaries that outlined how the foreign policy of the United States could have contributed to the response taken by the Al Qaeda extremists. Many nationalistic Arabs and Islamic zealots resented our meddling in their affairs. However, when the thoughtful experts who offered these insights came forward, they were quickly castigated for what daft conservatives called “blaming America.” Any suggestion that our own actions might have set off the radical fringe groups in the Middle East was tantamount to treason.

Cut to April 2013. The aftermath of the Boston marathon bombing predictably inflamed the same small-minded wingnuts who fell for Bush’s tripe and they are now resorting to a “blame America” pose of their own. With a president whom they regard as illegitimate, unqualified, and unfamiliar with their brand of white, Christian pseudo-patriotism, it is suddenly acceptable to assign responsibility for a terrorist act to the government they simultaneously love and hate.

Yesterday on his radio program, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade explicitly laid the blame for the the Boston tragedy on the steps of the White House:

“[Y]ou talk to these radicals in the Middle East and they say, ‘America, don’t get involved, leave us alone.’ So like it or not, this president has left them alone. And guess what happens? Now the IEDs are blowing up in our streets. So what are we supposed to learn from that?”

Setting aside the fact that Kilmeade offered no evidence of Obama having “left alone” any Middle East nation, or otherwise abandoning our interests in the region, his remarks plainly assert that the events of the past week in Boston were the fault of America’s behavior, rather than that of the perpetrators. In late 2001, that would have been considered blasphemy. In addition, Kilmeade is presuming that there is a jihadist component to the marathon bombing for which there is currently no proof.

Not to be left out, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly penned an op-ed that espoused the familiar and disturbing notion that “Freedom puts all of us at risk.” This might have been a perfectly reasonable articulation of the view that a free people are necessarily exposed to risks due to limitations on the part of government to interfere with their private lives. But that is not what O’Reilly meant. At the end of the same paragraph he disparagingly referred to the “security be damned” “zealots” who protest privacy invasions like warrantless wiretapping, “stop and frisk,” and deadly drone missions that too often result in the loss of innocent lives. So O’Reilly clearly does regard freedom as a dispensable impediment to security.

The rest of O’Reilly’s article is a laughable defense of his absurd statement that the Boston marathon bombing was not a tragedy by some imaginary definition he concocted. He doubles down on that theme by asserting that the desire of fanatics who want to kill us “is not tragic; it is real.” And he concludes by demanding that Obama “bring a sense of urgency to terrorism.” How Obama should behave differently, and where the lack of urgency is, O’Reilly never bothers to explain.

Both of these Fox News mouthpieces are advancing the notion that the harm done to America is of its own making. And unlike the rational perspectives put forth by informed analysts after 9/11, O’Reilly and Kilmeade are unable to support their positions which are nothing more than diatribes aimed at an administration they detest. What is certain is that their conservative brethren will fail to condemn them for blaming America, as they did when others were accused of the same offense. Apparently blaming America is just fine if it’s done by right-wingers who can’t form a coherent argument, and it’s aimed at a Democratic president they blame for everything else anyway.

Cable News Viewers Are Getting Smarter – Dumping Fox News

Posted by on April 3, 2013 at 9:54 am. 7 Comments :

In the first quarter of 2013 the trends for cable news viewership are affirming past performance. And once again, Fox News is losing viewers at a faster rate than its competitors.

Cable News Ratings

While remaining on top overall, Fox lost nearly 20% of its total audience as compared to the same period last year. Even worse, in the critical advertising demographic of 18-54 year olds, Fox scared off a full third of their viewers. Only MSNBC managed to stay relatively flat, holding onto most of their audience.

On specific programs, Fox’s top rated show, The O’Reilly Factor, dropped by 26%. His primetime colleagues, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren, similarly flopped by 28% and 35% respectively. That contrasts sharply with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show that increased 5%, the only program in its time period to rise.

These numbers attest to the downward spiral that Fox has been experiencing since last year’s election. They recognized the serious disconnect between them and the public as they scrambled to make personnel changes and ditch some of their most alienating personalities. That overhaul saw the departure of Sarah Palin and Dick Morris, and it resulted in far fewer appearances by Karl Rove and Donald Trump.

Those adjustments do not seem to have turned the ebbing tide that saw Fox sink to its lowest point in twelve years in January. Which is not surprising since their window-dressing alterations simply exchanged their past losers with characters like Scott Brown, Erick Erickson, and Mark Levin, who seem unlikely to have a positive impact.

Furthermore, MSNBC’s steady performance is poised for future gains as demonstrated by the debut of All In with Chris Hayes. The new Hayes program improved on the numbers of the Ed Schultz Show that it replaced (+45% in the demo), and fell just 10,000 short of O’Reilly’s numbers. Also notable is that the younger demo for Hayes represents about a third of his total audience, while O’Reilly’s demo viewers are a mere 14% of his total. That certifies the strength MSNBC has with the next generation of news consumers, and the weariness of the long-in-the-tooth O’Reilly/Fox fans.

Hopefully this is evidence that America’s television viewers are evolving to become a more discriminating audience that values truth, integrity, and intelligent discourse. The Fox model of leading viewers around by the nose, misrepresenting the facts, and aiming for the shallowest, most inflammatory slapfights on the air, may be losing its appeal (except on the Fox Nation web site). That would be a positive step forward and proof that humans are advancing in the passage of time. Thanks, Darwin.

The Anti-Constitutional, Christo-cratic Case Against Marriage Equality

Posted by on March 30, 2013 at 9:55 am. 4 Comments :

With the Supreme Court’s deliberations on a pair of marriage equality cases last week, more and more right-wing “Christo-crats” are affirming their faith-based opposition to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. And increasingly, those affirmations are taking the form of inadvertent admissions that marriage is not within the purview of the state to decide. It is constitutionally impermissible for courts to rule for or against specific religious dogma.

God's Law

Nevertheless, That is exactly what the martinets of virtue on the right are advocating. For example, former CNN contributor Dana Loesch wrote an editorial that appeared on both RedState and the lie-riddled Fox Nation that sought to refute the notion that marriage equality is a conservative position. She insists that it is not, and that…

“Marriage is a covenant between a man, woman, and God before God on His terms. It is a religious civil liberty, not a right granted by government. […] In suing over “marriage” itself one is demanding that God change His definition of the union between a man and a woman.”

Loesch does not bother to reveal where in God’s Dictionary the definition of marriage occurs, nor does she reveal where one can pick up a copy of God’s Dictionary. If she is referencing passages in the Bible, then she is conveniently excluding from God’s definition those pious Biblical figures who maintained multiple (sometimes hundreds of) wives. Likewise she leaves out God’s mandate that rapists be forced to marry their victims. But more to the point, she is admitting that marriage is a construct of religion and, therefore, it is unconstitutional for the state to have a hand in it – except, in her view, so far as Christian-approved nuptials are concerned.

That same doctrine was addressed by Breitbart’s John Nolte in a column accusing the media of trying to destroy religion. That’s the same media that just completed endless hours of blanket coverage of the selection of a new Pope; the same media whose Christmas specials preempt everything else on the air. Nolte argues that recognition of the right for same-sex couples to marry would improperly impose on the right to religious freedom for Christians who regard such behavior as sinful. But if the religious freedom of Christians is violated every time something they regard as a sin is allowed under the law, that would make premarital sex unconstitutional [not to mention lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. By that measure, the Constitution would require the dissolution of Congress] Nolte says that he is in favor of civil unions, but…

“I oppose same-sex marriage because marriage is a sacrament, and there is a big difference between asking one to be tolerant, and demanding one condone.”

Once again we have an evangelical conservative admitting that his opposition is based on spiritual grounds. And once again, that would make it an invalid argument so far as the Constitution is concerned. They simply cannot assert that something is subject to legal prohibition because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Were that the case, Jews could seek a Supreme Court judgment mandating that all food in America be produced in accordance with the laws of Kosher. What’s more, no one is demanding that any particular behavior be condoned, merely that it not be discriminated against. That’s a distinction that conservatives have trouble comprehending, or perhaps they just enjoy being bigots.

RedState’s Erick Erickson chimed in with an article asserting that “‘Gay Marriage’ and Religious Freedom Are Not Compatible.” He hinges his argument on the Bible passage, Matthew 19:4-6, wherein Christ says…

“…He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Erickson acknowledges that in this passage Christ is answering a question about whether it is permissible to divorce one’s wife. It was not a question about who is allowed to marry. But he dismisses that fact and focuses only on what he interprets as a definition of marriage, rather than as a direct response to a specific question. Likewise, he dismisses the part about divorce being against God’s law. This is an example of the convenient piety of so many sanctimonious religious zealots that permits them to pick and chose which principles they will honor. If Erickson wants to make a federal case of the definition of marriage as expressed by Matthew 19:4-6, then he should be consistent and call for a constitutional prohibition of divorce. Instead he impugns the sincerity of his ideological foes by calling them “a bunch of progressive Christians who have no use for the Bible,” even though he’s the one twisting it to fit his political prejudices.

Like Loesch and Nolte, Erickson is admitting that he sees gay marriage as “a legal encroachment of God’s intent.” Therefore, without realizing it, he is admitting that it is not a valid argument in a nation whose Constitution says that it “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Even Bill O’Reilly has noticed that the anti-marriage equality crowd is obsessed with religious justifications, rather than sound legal arguments. He praises gay advocates for saying that…

“‘We’re Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a compelling argument, and to deny that, you have got to have a very strong argument on the other side. The argument on the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

Indeed, Bible thumping is not generally viewed in legal circles as a basis for constitutional findings. Yet, as the issue winds through the maze of judicial debate, the Tea-vangelical’s arguments continue to devolve into nothing but sanctimonious sermonizing. It is evermore apparent that their bigotry has no justification under America’s law, so they fall back on God’s law and attempt to ram their beliefs down the nation’s throat. They clearly have no respect for the Constitution or the freedom it guarantees for religious liberty nor, of course, for the equal protection of the law that forbids the state from discriminating against same-sex couples who seek to marry.