Fox Nation vs. Reality: ‘Strong Sense’ Fox Authorized Birther Lies About IRS

With the right-wing media merry-go-round spinning furiously out of control over the IRS affair, it is not surprising to find Fox Nation cranking up the speed and ferocity of the misinformation. This morning’s posting of an article on lie-infested Fox Nation was adorned with this “bombshell” headline: ABC News: ‘Strong Sense’ Someone in WH Authorized IRS Targeting Conservatives.

If journalists at ABC News had actually conducted credible research (unlike their Benghazi embarrassment) and concluded that the White House had authorized the IRS to target conservative groups, that would indeed be startling and intolerable. Of course, this being Fox Nation, you might already have guessed that none of that is true.

First of all, the statement to which Fox is referring was made by Trey Hardin, a long-time Republican operative who does not work for ABC News. Secondly, Hardin made the statement on the uber-rightist radio program of Doug McIntyre, not on any broadcast affiliated with ABC’s news division. Thirdly, it was a statement that represented only Hardin’s personal opinion which he backed up with zero evidence.

Hardin: I will tell you this on the IRS front: I have worked in this town for over 20 years. I have worked in the White House; I’ve worked on Capitol Hill. I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS was doing, but authorized it.”

Well then, since Hardin has a “very strong sense of certainty,” that’s good enough for me. After all, who needs facts or evidence or documentation when you have senses. Perhaps he smelled the unmistakable odor of authorization.

Clearly this is an attempt by the Fox Nationalists to slap a veneer of credibility on this Tea-publican’s extremist and unsupported fantasy by dishonestly portraying it as the product of an ABC News report. And to make matters worse, Fox posted the item with a YouTube clip from McIntyre’s radio broadcast that was created by a group called “Birther Report,” whose web site is “ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com.”

Fox Nation

Fox is really reaching for the highest standards of credibility – at least for Fox. Their usual sources for fabricated smear campaigns are even less credible: Breitbart, Daily Caller, Washington Times, Limbaugh, etc. Apparently Fox has a very strong sense that Birthers are reliable news sources, but a very low sense of shame.

Hack Producer Of Anti-Obama Crockumentary To Motion Picture Academy Board: Dump Michael Moore

In the annals of Hollywood crybaby sagas, none climb to heights as high as those by the right-wing hissy-fitters responsible for 2016: Obama’s America. This alleged documentary starred, and was based on the book by, conservative shill Dinesh D’Zouza. It had some success at the box office due to the gullibility of Teabagging moviegoers, but was universally panned by objective critics, and its standards for accuracy and honesty were of the toilet bowl variety.

Nevertheless, the producers were so convinced of their own brilliance that they fumed when they did not get recognition from the documentary branch members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – who obviously know better. And now producer Gerald Molen has formalized his objections in a letter to the Academy that asks them to remove Governing Board member, and respected documentarian, Michael Moore from his post.

Fox Nation - Newsbusters

Unfortunately, this vacant bleating is nothing more than a lame cry for attention that fails to take into consideration that Moore has only one vote out of 172 members of the Academy’s documentary branch. He has no other role in choosing the winners or even selecting the nominees.

Molen’s letter made some rather egregious errors in enumerating the reasons for his pique. In addition to his ridiculous charge that Moore was among “the gatekeepers in charge of which films get nominated,” he repeatedly notes that the box office returns for his film count in some way toward whether it should be nominated for an Oscar. However, there is no correlation between financial success and creative merit. In fact, last year the next two highest grossing documentaries were “Chimpanzee” and “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” but neither of them received Oscar nominations either. Even Moore’s last film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” was not in Oscar contention despite being one of the biggest moneymakers of all time. Yet you didn’t hear any of these filmmakers whining about bias.

Molen complained in his letter that he was the victim of political bias saying, “Like many who enjoyed and commented on the film, I find myself wondering if it was excluded for ‘other’ reasons.” Indeed, it was. However the ‘other’ reasons had to do with how badly it sucked, as well as how poorly it adhered to the standards of truth-telling that determines the quality of a documentary feature. These reasons were articulated more diplomatically by the Academy in their response to Molen:

“We’ve discussed your letter and the concerns you raise. First of all, I want to assure you that 2016: Obama’s America was treated the same as all the other 125 films that were submitted in the Feature Documentary category for the most recent Academy Awards. Your film definitely received consideration and it was not ignored. It merely didn’t get the votes it needed to move onto the short list.”

Molen’s bitchfest was predictably taken up by Fox News on their lie-riddled Fox Nation web site. In an article sourced to the ultra-rightist NewsBusters, they regurgitated Molen’s complaints and expressed their disapproval that the documentary that won last year’s Oscar, “Searching for Sugar Man” was an undeserving winner because “‘2016’ sold ten times as many tickets.” Once again, they are mistaking money for merit, a common logical flaw suffered by conservatives.

This sort of unseemly sniveling by right-wing losers is nothing new. Specifically with regard to ‘2016,’ the principle character, Dinesh D’Souza threw a similarly distasteful tantrum just prior to the Oscar program last February. Instead of demonstrating some class and an appreciation for his fellow filmmakers, D’Souza rudely insulted them saying…

“I join most Americans in leaving them in deserved obscurity. I haven’t heard of any of them, and like most people, I haven’t seen them.”

How he determined that the nominees deserved obscurity without having even seen them is a mystery and says more about him than it does about the films. But the juvenile consistency shown by Molen and D’Souza is evidence of just how low these cretins will sink to unfairly disparage other artists in pursuit of their own ego-soaked self-interest.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: There Are Hungry Folks In Puerto Rico – And Mississippi Too

One of the obvious and unsettling consequences of the economic collapse engineered by George W. Bush and his Wall Street cronies is the escalation of the number of poor and hungry Americans who rely on Food Stamps to feed their families. But leave it to the Fox Nationalists to ferret out an angle on this that disparages an ethnic minority and exacerbates the racial divisiveness that is already all too prevalent on Fox Nation.

Fox Nation vs. Reality:

Fox Nation

While Fox scrounged up this item from CNSNews, a division of the ultra-rightist Media Research Center, they never bothered to put the information into context. Had they done so, their audience would know that may other places in the United States (which, of course, includes Puerto Rico) have far higher percentages of Food Stamp participation than the island territory. For instance, the state of Mississippi has 12 counties that surpass Puerto Rico. In Humphreys County the percentage of Food Stamp recipients is nearly half (48%). And that is not an anomaly. Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and other mostly southern states also have counties that rank higher in Food Stamp usage.

Given these facts, why would Fox single out Puerto Rico? Could it be because the population is largely Latino? Many conservatives regard the territory as “foreign” and don’t consider it a part of the American family. That view is endorsed by the comments posted on Fox Nation’s web site, where the prevailing opinion is that Puerto Rico should be cut loose. If so, then I suppose the same people expressing that view would be amenable to throwing Mississippi out of the union as well. And on that, we may have found some common ground.

WTF? Fox Nation Ties Cleveland Kidnapper To Anti-Islam Video Maker, Benghazi, And Obama

These freakin’ slimeballs at Fox Nation continue to demonstrate that they have no morals whatsoever. Not to mention no integrity, honesty, or decency. They will take any grotesque episode, no matter how far removed from President Obama, and attach it to him by some depraved, alien logic. Take this for instance:

Fox Nation

The original article referenced by Fox Nation was from their own Fox News via the Associated Press. It reported on the arrest of Areil Castro, the charges against him, his bail, and went into some detail about the alleged crimes.

For some reason, Fox Nation focused on the one sentence in the 700+ word article that mentioned Castro’s bail. But even more baffling was their insertion of this paragraph:

“The creator of the controversial anti-Islam You Tube video, that the Obama administration used in its talking points as the motivation behind the September 11th attacks in Benghazi, was held without bail. It was later revealed that the attack in Benghazi was not a reaction to the video.”

That text was not anywhere in the original article. It was composed entirely by the Fox Nationalists and inserted into the story without any disclosure that they had fabricated it themselves. It obviously has nothing to do with the story and sticks out for its surreal irrelevance.

For the record, the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested for allegedly violating terms of his probation. The judge, citing probation violations including lying to probation officials, ordered him held without bail, a common occurrence under these circumstances. He pleaded guilty to four of the charges against him and was sentenced to one year in prison and four years of supervised release.

[Update: Fox News is now actively defending this filmmaker who they portray as a “patsy” of the Obama administration]

Fox News
…..

So what was the point that Fox Nation was making by embedding this extraneous content into the article? Clearly they were drawing some sort of deranged parallel between Obama, Nakoula, and Castro. Perhaps their purpose was to imply that Obama personally interceded to insure that Nakoula was held incommunicado to keep him from exposing Obama’s covert plot to promote the video and inspire a global Islamic uprising. Or maybe Fox was attempting to suggest that Obama had some sympathy for Castro and secretly engineered his bail (at only $8 million). Or maybe Fox just hadn’t written the word “Benghazi” in the past five seconds and thought this would be a good time to slip it in again.

What on earth are these imbeciles thinking? They just lost a historic election that they were convinced would be a cake-walk for the GOP. They underwent what they themselves called a “postmortem” analysis of their epic failures. They were named the “stupid party” by one of their most prominent governors. And yet they are still resorting to the sort of idiocy and extremism that has earned them the lowest favorable ratings in history.

And this wasn’t even the only incident of Castro-izing Democrats today. On Fox’s America Live with Megyn Kelly, their conservative contributor Chris Plante inexplicably said that “Ariel Castro might get the ‘hospitality of the year award’ from the Democrats in Congress.” What unholy orifice did he pull that from?

This is evidence that Fox News and their GOP pals have learned nothing from the 2012 elections. It also proves that they are a gaggle of repulsive and childish mental deficients with no discernible honor or even the common civility that would permit them to go out in public among decent people. Where the fuck does it stop with these cretins?

And not to be left out. the “Moonie” Washington Times joined in with this asinine crap:

Washington Times

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Fox Gives ‘Illegal Immigrants’ Full Voting Rights

Continuing to cling obsessively to their anti-Latino bigotry, Fox News latched unto a story in Politico that speculated about an electoral windfall for Democrats if the immigration bill winding through congress becomes law. The Politico story was not particularly well-reasoned (and an article in The Guardian masterfully rebuts it), but, true to form, the lie-factory at Fox Nation took a weak argument and made it even less palatable with their trademark brand of hyperbole and inbred prejudice.

Fox Nation

The title, “Immigration Bill Gives Illegal Immigrants Full Voting Rights,” is patently false. No one other than an actual citizen is permitted to vote in this country and the pending immigration bill doesn’t change that. In fact, it contains a provision that explicitly punishes anyone who is not a citizen, if they unlawfully cast a ballot, by precluding them from obtaining citizenship.

So Fox’s assertion that “illegal Immigrants” will get full voting rights is dead wrong. And so is their unrelenting use of the derogatory phrase “illegal Immigrants.” Many news outlets have ceased to use the term that is considered offensive by those to whom it refers. Even the Fox News Latino web site has formally abandoned it.

The gist of the Politico article is that Democrats stand to gain electorally if the estimated 11 million undocumented residents were to become citizens. However, the legislation currently being debated contains a pathway to citizenship that would take thirteen years to complete. A lot can happen in politics in thirteen years. What’s more, there is no indication that all of the 11 million would ever become full citizens (either by choice or due to the stringent requirements in the law), or that those who did would ever register and turn out to vote.

So even if the Fox Nationalists had not overplayed their rhetorical bias in the headline, the facts would still not support their panicky fear of a browner, more Democratic electorate. That prospect is already manifest and is due primarily to the fact that Democrats welcome a more diverse society, while Republicans insult and demean minorities and aspiring citizens.

If the folks at Fox, and their allies in the GOP, are worried about losing future elections due to an expanding voter pool (and they should be), they might try not deliberately alienating the fastest growing demographic group in the nation, rather than trying to obstruct legal citizens from voting with measures that disenfranchise minorities, seniors, students, and the poor. But that would put them at odds with their Tea Party contingent and the confederate dead-enders that are the core of their southern strategy. It’s kind of a rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma for the them. Except the rock is equality and the hard place is their compulsive hatred for anyone not like them.

Birther, Marxist, Treason Conspiracies Still Hound Obama At Fox News

On the Fox News community web site Fox Nation (whose grip on reality is suspect), the top featured story today is an article from the uber-conservative blog Human Events with the provocative headline “Obama’s Plan Hatched at Columbia University.”

Fox Nation

The article by diehard birther Wayne Allyn Root begins by asserting that a poor child of a single mother grew up to become the first African-American president of the United States despite being “hostile and resentful towards anyone who has achieved self-made success through American values.” And it gets even crazier from there.

Root’s premise is that while he was a student at Columbia University “Obama and his Marxist cronies hatched a secret plan to destroy our country.” Root apparently has some personal knowledge of this nefarious plot as a result of his being a classmate of Obama. Where he acquired his information is a mystery since he admits that while at Columbia he “never met him, never saw him, never even heard of him.” Having established that as the shaky foundation for his expose, Root speculates that the reason their paths never crossed was because Obama “was busy attending communist party meetings.” Along with everything else in Root’s harangue, that bit of speculative nonsense is unsupported and untrue.

Root then relates a story about how he had learned of the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan while in class, and the response of his classmates. “They cheered. They clapped,” Root says. “They yelled, they high-fived, and whooped in sheer unadulterated joy.” Once again, there is no corroboration of this account, but the next revelation from Root’s imagination is even more surreal and unfounded. He said that “if Obama actually went to Columbia, he’d almost certainly have to have been in that class leading the cheers.”

That sentence is ripe with a dementia fermented in hatred. Root prefaces his remark by questioning whether Obama was in the class at all. In fact, it is one of his primary hypotheses that Obama’s academic history is a complete fabrication. But he doesn’t let his own lunatic theories stop him from placing Obama in the classroom anyway. And after inventing Obama’s presence (and remember, Root claims to never have even seen him), Root assigns to him the mantle of leadership. So Root’s position is that Obama must have been in the classroom leading the cheers despite having never seen him and not believing he was ever a student there at all. Makes perfect sense – if someone laced your Twinkies with LSD. “But wait,” Root exclaims, “The most frightening and eye-opening is still to come.”

The horrific plot Root has uncovered is based on “a detailed plan designed by two former Columbia professors named Cloward & Piven.” Here Root is borrowing from the moth-eaten, psychotic ramblings of Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and other conspiracy theorists who have mangled the teachings of Cloward and Piven for years. They assert that a scheme is underway to overweight the welfare system until it collapses the economy. Root alleges that Obama “is using that plan to destroy America, capitalism, and the U.S. economy right in front of our eyes.”

The objective of destroying America and its economy is never revealed by Root or any of his deranged predecessors. Certainly a bankrupt nation would not be an ideal starting point for a power mad socialist since there would be no funding available for the welfare state he allegedly seeks to form.

More to the point, the only evidence of any policy that has approached an end result of collapsing the economy is the policy of the previous Republican administration and its right-wing overseers. These lackeys of Wall Street, defense contractors, and multinational corporatist interests brought our nation closer to insolvency than anything since the crash of 1928 and the Great Depression.

For Root to stir the historical facts into a soup of cranial mush that contradicts his own wingnut crackpottery is not surprising. He is merely plagiarizing the dimwitted, paranoid fears of the many Psycho-Chicken Littles that have preceded him with panicky tales of Cloward, Piven, Soros, Alinsky, et al. However, it is notable that Fox News has seen fit to headline this tripe as if it were newsworthy – or even sane. And to those pundits who suggest that Fox has moderated its fringy, tea-sotted extremism as a result of the drubbing they took last November, clearly that is not the case.

Adopt A Wingnut: Buy A Copy Of ‘Fox Nation vs. Reality’ For Your Favorite FoxPod

Hating BreitbartEarlier this week News Corpse reported that the desperate producers of the crocumentary “Hating Breitbart” had embarked on a program to convince their fans to buy multiple copies of the DVD and send them to liberal politicians, journalists, actors, etc. We regarded this idea as a hilarious and transparent ploy to salvage their failed film and we set about to mocking it. As I wrote last Tuesday…

“The producers must be stuck with a warehouse of these paperweights and believe that their fans are dumb enough to bail them out by buying more. […] Wouldn’t it just be easier to double the price and tell them the proceeds are going to Jesus?”

Well, I may have spoken too soon. After marathon conferences with our marketing executives and promotion consultants, we at News Corpse have determined that this sort of sales methodology has the potential to enhance the commercial prospects of our own already successful ebook “Fox Nation vs. Reality.” So today we are launching a version of the “Adopt A Wingnut” program that enables our enlightened audience to spread some of the truth and insight developed here to the community of deluded Fox Zombies who need it most. It’s a simple 3-step plan that everyone can join in on.

Step One

If you have not already purchased a copy of Fox Nation vs. Reality, do so immediately. It is an amusing and informative expose of the most brazenly dishonest efforts by Fox News to deceive their gullible fans.

Step Two

Buy another copy of Fox Nation vs. Reality for an unfortunate friend or family member whose thinking has been clouded by the disinformation served up by Fox News. You can also buy copies for politicians, journalists, actors, teachers, professional colleagues, climate science deniers, Tea Partiers, bible thumpers, you name it. Be creative. Amazon makes it easy for you to designate the purchase as a gift and send the gift notice to the recipient.

Step Three

Repeat Step Two as many times as necessary to complete your own list of needy neo-cons, theo-cons, and just plain cons (or until there is world peace and an end to hunger, whichever comes first).

Through this generous initiative we can have a real impact on the destructive propaganda that emanates from Fox News. The power of the human attributes of charity combined with effective social media can change the world and you can be a part of it. This is not some pipe dream cooked up by naive optimists. A check on Amazon today shows that Fox Nation vs. Reality is already ranking higher in sales than Breitbart’s autobiography, Righteous Indignation

  • Fox Nation vs. Reality: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,086
  • Righteous Indignation: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,624
  • (Note; these numbers seem to change by the minute, but these are the actual figures as of this writing. Also, while 28,086 seems like a high number, it is out of more than 1.3 million books. That puts it in the top three percentile.)

FNvR vs Breitbart

It is time to stand up and be counted. It is time to take positive steps toward a better world. It is time to lend a hand to the less fortunate. Just think about how badly these poor souls need the nourishment of honesty and truth. And try to imagine how much more compassionate and rational our world will be when we have eradicated the ignorance and hostility that is emblematic of the righteous-wing of the American political spectrum.

This is a moral crusade and it needs your participation to succeed. I know I can count on you. And as always, thanks for your dedication and benevolence. Your purchases will help News Corpse to continue to bring you the best in media analysis, conservative smackdowns, and political humor and art.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama Takes A Dive Within The Margin Of Error

Fox News seems not to understand the meaning of common figures of speech. It’s another way that they manifest their departure from the real world that the rest of us inhabit.

For instance, in a posting today on Fox Nation, they reported the results of a poll conducted by CNN with a headline declaring that “Obama Takes a Dive on Guns, Immigration, Deficit.” Ordinarily Fox would not give any credence to a poll by the socialist apparatchiks at CNN, but since they managed to spin this negatively for the President they have a new found regard for the network.

Fox Nation

The actual results of the poll are mixed from the President’s perspective. However, the key finding is that Obama’s approval rating went up 4% (to 51%) while his disapproval went down 3% – a seven percent swing in Obama’s favor. If that’s taking a dive, we should all jump in.

To be fair, the Fox headline did specify three issues as having dived, so let’s take a look at those. On immigration it would be fair to say that Obama’s handling of the matter suffered somewhat with approval/disapproval percentages declining to 44/50 from 51/43. However on guns, the numbers hardly budged from 46% approval in January to 45% today. And on the deficit the numbers ticked down slightly from 41% to 38%. On guns and the deficit, the shifts were both within the margin of error which means that there was no shift at all from a statistical perspective.

It is notable that, while Obama’s numbers were lower than they were in the previous poll (taken the week before the inauguration when traditionally polls spike up), they were higher than at any other time for the past year. That suggests an upward trending that was merely interrupted by an abnormally high reading in January.

So the President’s numbers were essentially stagnant on the deficit and guns; they were notably improved overall; and that is what the Fox Nationalists consider a dive. Not reported at all by Fox is that approval for Republicans in Congress is a pitiful 25% with 73% disapproving. The President’s approval is a full 26 points higher. He must be terribly disappointed, poor fella.

Shameless Self-Promotion: Get My Book, Damn It: Fox Nation vs. Reality

If you haven’t bought my book yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Fox Nation vs. Reality is jam-packed with more than 50 examples of Fox’s utter disregard for the truth. It’s a great resource for setting your Tea-publican friends and family straight. We all have one one of them crazy uncles, admit it.

Fox Nation vs. Reality

Plus, your purchase will help News Corpse continue to shine the light of truth on the right-wing media machine with the logic, insight, and humor regular readers have come to expect. It’s like donating three bucks to a worthy cause and getting an awesome book for free.

Wonkette called Fox Nation vs. Reality, “A valuable contribution to the effort to chip away at Bullshit Mountain.” Who can argue with that? They also touted the book’s “Solid, fact-checky blogging that systematically takes apart the exaggerations, cherry-picking of facts, and outright lies that regularly crop up in Fox Nation articles.” And they cryptically noted that “Fox Nation vs. Reality is definitely not hastily written Furry porn.” High praise indeed.

Fox Nation/Tea Party Poll
As an example from the book of one of the blatant departures from reality employed by Fox, take a look at this article where Fox Nation published an item with the headline “Obama More Unpopular Than Tea Party.” However, the New York Times poll cited in the article actually reported Obama’s favorability at 48% and the Tea Party at 20% – a complete reversal of the declaration in the headline.

So get your copy today at Amazon. You won’t regret it. And if you do…hey, it’s only three measly bucks. What are you, cheap or something? [Seriously, thanks for your support. News Corpse could not be here without the generous support of our readers]

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Constrained By The Constitution?

One of the favorite methods of misinforming the public employed by Fox Nation is to pinch a snippet of text from an Obama statement and misconstrue it to suggest a meaning it never actually had. One famous of example of this was the phony “You didn’t build that” controversy. Today Fox Nation adds to this legacy with this contrivance: “Obama Complains He’s Constrained By the Copnstitution.”

Fox Nation

As you might already suspect, that is not at all what happened. While discussing the concerns of gun worshiping radicals that new legislation was going to result in widespread confiscation of all weapons, Obama noted that their nightmares could not possibly come true because they are constitutionally prohibited. This is what he said:

“You hear some of these quotes: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government.’ ‘We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away. Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.”

Obama was plainly attempting to ease the irrational fears of a few conspiracy nuts. His remarks were not the least bit controversial and were not anything that hasn’t been expressed before. For instance, this guy:

There is nothing in Obama’s statement that could be plausibly interpreted as a “complaint.” Nevertheless, the Fox Nationalists (with help from Glenn Beck’s site which they used as their source) presented it that way while neglecting to publish the entire quote so their readers would have the full context. The only part they posted was their bastardized headline. But since that fit their mission to misconstrue everything the President says in a derogatory manner, they leaped at the opportunity.

More Fox Nation vs. Reality

If you’ve ever longed for a collection of documented examples of the dishonesty and hostility of Fox News presented with facts, insight, and humor, here it is: Fox Nation vs. Reality

Fox Nation

And your purchase will help News Corpse continue to shine the light of truth on the right-wing media machine. It’s like donating three bucks to a worthy cause and getting an awesome book for free.