FLASHBACK: Sean Hannity Speaks Out Against A “Government Gone Wild”

Posted by Mark NC on August 19, 2014 at 3:56 pm. 14 Comments :

It was just four months ago that Fox News was covering the “second American revolution” at the ranch of tax-cheat Cliven Bundy. While the network was uniformly supportive of Bundy’s refusal to pay customary grazing fees, it was Sean Hannity who took the lead, featuring Bundy on his program numerous times, heralding him as a hero, and fiercely defending the militia movement’s embrace of armed opposition to law enforcement.

At that time, in the view of Hannity and other conservatives, it was the feds who were overstepping the bounds of decency and behaved like jackbooted thugs. To them it was the manifestation of a dictatorial state trampling on freedom and crushing liberty. Hannity milked the controversy for everything he could squeeze out in regular segments that he called “Government Gone Wild.”

From the right-wing perspective, the government went wild when it responded to a flagrantly delinquent white man in the cattle business who wants to mooch off of federal lands for free. Bundy has a vested interest in this as he owes over a million dollars in fees. Then, when this businessman assembles a posse of armed militia members to confront the tax collector, Hannity and his ilk line up behind the law-breaker and whine about government overreach. Here’s Hannity to Karl Rove:

“Let’s start with the Cliven Bundy situation. All right, maybe he owes grazing fees money. Do you surround his property with snipers and shooters, sharp shooters and tasers and dogs and 200 agents? Is that the way to handle it?”

“No,” says an obedient Rove. After all, it’s just a measly million dollars in grazing fees. And for the record, the federal agents of the Bureau of Land Management did not arm themselves until after they were confronted by Bundy’s militia who swore to kill those who came to enforce the law.

Jump forward to today and it’s the people going wild. The government is now believed to be acting appropriately by shooting an unarmed teenager to death. And his only crime was an allegation (unconfirmed) that he pocketed a few cigars. Then militarized police confront justifiably angry citizens who have no personal stake in the matter other than to insure that justice is brought to bear.

The presence of urban tanks, assault weapons, riot gear, tear gas, and other aggressive means of crowd control, are not considered to be indicative of a government gone wild anymore. Is it because the victim in this case is a poor, black kid, rather than a well-to-do white rancher?

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Chickenhawk Sean Hannity Issues Lame Challenge To Stephen Colbert

Posted by Mark NC on August 7, 2014 at 4:26 pm. 19 Comments :

Among the ranks of pseudo-patriots who lip sync to the “Star Spangled Banner” while recruiting other people’s children for every war that comes along, Sean Hannity stands out for his unparalleled hypocrisy and cowardice. This is the same torture advocate who once promised to be waterboarded for charity to prove that it isn’t torture. That was five years ago and he still hasn’t kept that promise.

In an interview with TVNewser, Hannity is once again puffing up his chest and pretending to more macho than thou in a response to a bit Stephen Colbert did earlier this week. Colbert mocked Hannity for repeatedly using the word “literally,” apparently without any knowledge of what it literally means. That was all it took for Hannity to lose his head and attack Colbert. He started out by lobbing the stinging rebuke that “he’s not as funny as Jon Stewart,” (who will be surprised and dismayed to learn that Hannity is a fan) and it just got worse from there:

“Stephen Colbert will have the lowest-rated late night show. There are issues that just aren’t funny. Terrorism isn’t funny. I didn’t see the bit. I won’t see it. I don’t care.

“Maybe Stephen Colbert needs to come over here and get a dose of reality. He sits in the comfort of his studio, reading jokes written for him by 30 writers. So, I have a challenge for Stephen Colbert: I’ll pay for your flight. I’ll pay for your hotel, your meals. Then you sit on the border. You talk to the people. You sit across from the mother of an Israeli solider who was killed, and then make a joke about it.”

I hope Colbert takes him up on this challenge. It would not be surprising since he has previously visited other war zones, including a trip to Iraq where he spent a week with the troops. He also went through basic training and shaved his head. And while it’s true that terrorism isn’t funny, Colbert is a brilliant satirist and was able to relate to the soldiers in a way that made their hardship a bit more endurable.

As for his future ratings as the successor to David Letterman, Colbert will inherit a franchise that already has more viewers that Hannity has (Letterman: 2.2 million / Hannity: 1.5 million). And there is a good possibility that he will improve on that, especially with younger viewers. In fact, Hannity is only slightly ahead of The Colbert Report (1.1 million) on Comedy Central now. Plus, Colbert has four Emmys and two Peabody awards, surpassing Hannity’s total of zero for each.

Hannity has proven himself to be a disingenuous self-promoter by hurling childish insults at Colbert despite admitting that he didn’t even see the segment about which he was commenting. That tendency to speak with ignorance was demonstrated elsewhere in this interview when he was asked about media coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict. On whether he thought the reporting was balanced he answered “Absolutely, positively not.” Then went on to say…

“Here’s my take on the media coverage, and I did glance around. I didn’t see — and maybe some of them did it — but I didn’t see reporters in the elaborate tunnels. I didn’t see them at the indoor playground, I didn’t see people go to the war room of the mayor of Sderot, like we did. I think there are too many Hamas representatives put on the air. I don’t think enough emphasis has been put on the lives of the average Israeli. Where’s CBS? Where is all this so-called reporting on NBC and CNN?”

He “glanced around?” Apparently his vision is literally gone. First of all, a quick search of Google Images for “Gaza tunnels” turns up dozens of actual journalists reporting from within the tunnels. And Hannity’s estimation of the number of Hamas representatives on the air is just plain delusional. There are practically no Hamas representative at all because they do not provide any (terrorists rarely do). There are more Palestinian representatives, but still far fewer than those from Israel. The fact that Hannity can blast CBS, NBC, and CNN, after confessing that he hasn’t done any actual research, says more about him than it does about any of the media he is criticizing.

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In an absurdly egocentric exchange with TVNewser, Hannity was asked about why he is suddenly hitting the road since, as TVNewser put it “You’re not one to travel for your show.” Hannity’s response was that it was something that he “always liked to do,” and cited as an example of his past road trips that “there were years I did 60 cities, in book tour years.” And, of course, that’s exactly like missions to war zones, except for the slobbering fans and personal financial gain.

When Hannity follows through on his promise to be waterboarded, and has completed the number of USO tours that Colbert and Stewart have done, then he might be able to criticize them with some credibility. But since he is mostly concerned with himself, I wouldn’t expect any of that to happen. Like his pals Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Karl Rove, Ted Nugent, Bill Kristol, and too many other right-wing chickenhawks to name, Hannity is a coward whose chief concerns are his ratings and his bank account.

Sean Hannity Hosts Sarah Palin’s Impeach-a-Thon: Third Time’s The Chum

Posted by Mark NC on July 9, 2014 at 11:04 am. 16 Comments :

Sarah Palin achieved her main objective yesterday with an article on the Zombie Breitbart News website that declared that “It’s Time To Impeach President Obama.” Her objective, of course, was to garner media attention for herself. But aside from the litany of Obama-phobic nonsense that made up the bulk of her rancid rant, the notion that Palin was just awakened by a revelation to discover the imminent need to file Articles of Impeachment against President Obama is another lie perpetrated by Palin and the fawning media stooges that trail after her and lap up the slime left by her immaculate footsteps.

The truth is that Palin has previously called for Obama’s impeachment at least twice. It is a common theme among her Tea Party contingent that has never regarded Obama’s presidency as legitimate. Even without resorting to the extremist latitudes of impeachment, the unfiltered accusations that cast Obama as an anti-American socialist, who is deliberately working to destroy the country, are evidence of the depth of the delusion by the paranoid right. Then add in the impeachment mantra and what you have is a manic agitator throwing chum into the water to feed the cravings of the baby barracudas.

Palin’s previous entreaties for impeachment were just as devoid of any factual basis as her latest one. But they were no less ludicrous and lacking substance:

6/13/2014: I sense not enough guts in D.C. to file impeachment charges against Team Obama for their countless documented illegalities.

This was just last month (how soon the feeble-minded forget) and it also cited immigration as the justification for removing the President from office. Never mind that Obama has supported a comprehensive immigration bill that was passed in a rare bipartisan vote in the senate last year, but that GOP Speaker John Boehner has refused to allow it come to the House floor for a vote because he knows it would pass.

10/13/2013: Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense.

This is a laughably incoherent remark stemming from the disastrous government shutdown last year wherein Palin is asserting that Obama should be impeached if he defaults on the national debt (which he was trying to prevent the GOP Congress from doing), but also threatens impeachment if he takes steps to pay the debt. A damned if you do, damned if you don’t – ah just damn you to hell for whatever – proposition.

Palin took her Impeach-a-Thon to Fox News last night in a visit to the Sean Hannity show. As usual, her patented brand of word-salad ramblings offered nothing more than frothing hatred of all things Obama. And she also admitted that her motivation for impeachment is based on policy differences, not law, when she said that Obama intended…

“…to fraud the American people on these programs, these policies that he has promised will work or will not impact debts or deficit. These have been lies by our President. Yes, those are impeachable offenses.”

No, they are not. And the Obama administration has actually cut the deficit in half, just as he promised to do in his campaign. But reason never plays a part in Palin’s world. For instance, she also told Hannity that “You don’t bring a lawsuit to a gunfight.” What she is referring to here is, to say the least, obscure. Impeachment is a legal proceeding. So is she now abandoning her call for impeachment and escalating it to a call for armed rebellion? She clearly sees her solicitations as a movement and even said so explicitly:

“If people care about the future of this country and defense of our republic, they will join this cause of Articles of Impeachment against Barack Obama because enough is enough.”

If you have the stomach for it, here is the video of Palin on Hannity. It is the perfect representation of her mental disorder, with a manner of articulation that seems to have been styled by political satirist. Only she is one hundred percent serious. Which makes it both funnier and scarier.

Shameless self-promotion…
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Crybaby McDaniel Caught Lying About Black Votes

Posted by Mark NC on June 27, 2014 at 12:59 pm. 7 Comments :

Last week’s Republican primary in Mississippi has stirred a frenzied response from Tea Party wackos who are convinced that the nomination was stolen by brigades of law-breaking African-Americans (is there any other kind to the right?). Loser Chris McDaniel has still refused to concede the race to incumbent Thad Cochran.

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McDaniel appeared on Fox News last night with ardent support Sean Hannity. He told Hannity of his suspicions of massive electoral foul play, although he offered no evidence. McDaniel said that…

“We’re looking into the issue of whether or not people who participated in the June the 3rd Democratic primary crossed over into the Republican primary this Tuesday night. And we’ve already found more than a thousand examples of that in one county alone.”

This morning Pete Perry, the Republican Party Chairman of Hinds County, to which McDaniel was referring, issued a statement refuting the unfounded charges. In the statement Perry included an example of just how far removed McDaniel is from reality.

“As a committee, we are still in the process of going through the election results before they can be certified, but this morning we can discuss some of the specific examples that were raised yesterday.

“As an example in Precinct 14, the Fondren Presbyterian Church precinct, the numbers cited by the McDaniel campaign yesterday included 192 ‘illegal votes’ – people that they claimed had voted in the Democrat primary on June 3rd but then voted in the Republican run-off. That is impossible. According to the certified results of the June 3rd Democrat primary, there were only 37 total Democrat primary voters at that particular precinct.”

So McDaniel claimed that there were 192 illegal Democratic votes in a precinct that had only 37 Democratic votes total. That’s a pretty good indication that McDaniel’s complaints are pile of certified rubbish. He is just an egomaniacal sore loser who is certain that a secret cabal of Republicans and Democrats are conspiring against his holy Teabagger crusade. When all that actually happened is that voters acted lawfully to choose a candidate that is not McDaniel, and Cochran was smart enough to employ all legal measures to achieve his victory.

Oddly enough, I agree with McDaniel’s opposition to Democrats selecting Republican candidates, and vice versa. This is only possible due to the enactment of open primaries where people from any party are permitted to vote regardless of their registration. This was never a good idea because political party candidates should only be selected by members of their own parties. Why on earth should a Democrat get to choose who the GOP puts up for office? However, the open primary movement was a creation of right-wingers who saw it as a method of unseating entrenched Democratic incumbents. For instance, in California in 2010, open primaries were enacted via an initiative that was put on the ballot by a Republican state senator and supported by GOP governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Now that this hare-brained concept has come back to bite them in the ass, the Tea Party is furious at what a perversion of democracy their idea actually is. So what do they do in response? Do they retract their support for open primaries and commence a campaign to end them? Of course not. They claim that black criminals have perverted the electoral process and steps must be taken to invalidate their votes. That should help the GOP’s outreach to minority constituents as much as flying a Confederate flag at their campaign rallies will.

The upside of this affair is that the Democratic senate candidate in Mississippi, Travis Childers, just saw his chances of winning in a deep red state increase substantially. McDaniel’s delusional supporters are so upset at Cochran that many of them are already declaring that they will not vote for him in November. Some are even talking about a write-in candidacy for McDaniel, or launching a third Party campaign, which Sarah Palin has been hinting at. When this is all over, the Democrats may have to send McDaniel a thank you card.

Racist Tea Party Revolutionaries Kill Cops In Las Vegas: Why Won’t The Media Call It Terrorism?

Posted by Mark NC on June 9, 2014 at 5:50 pm. 15 Comments :

The media has set a precedent for itself in past events that involved tragic political hostilities and murder. Most famously, the conservative press has spent the last two years complaining about whether President Obama called the attacks in Benghazi terrorism. Of course, there is video showing him doing just that the next day in the White House rose garden, but that didn’t put an end to the ludicrous speculation and smears.

Additionally, there were murderous rampages in Frankfort, Germany, Ft. Hood, TX, Boston, MA, and even the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria. All of these cases got right-wingers riled up insisting that they immediately be regarded as terrorism and called such by the nation’s press, politicians, and pundits. A few examples included:

Glenn Beck: Why are we still not calling it terrorism?
Rush Limbaugh: He just will not say it. He will not say it’s terrorism. Who knows why?
Neil Cavuto: Why is it so hard to call them terrorists?
Andy Levy: I think they’re that stupid if they’re refusing to call them terrorists anymore.
Catherine Herridge: After he shouted ‘God is great’ the administration did not call it terrorism.
Sean Hannity (Karl Rove ad): Obama and his administration wouldn’t call it terrorism for 14 days.
Chris Wallace: How do you explain, then, the continued refusal to call it terrorism?

Which brings us to Jerad Miller and his wife Amanda. These two nut cases were deeply involved in anti-American activities and openly expressed radical beliefs based on conspiracy theories and Fox News lies. They recently spent time in the desert threatening federal agents with deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy. Their Facebook page is plastered with violent rants advocating the overthrow of the government and imminent bloodshed. A glance at the people and organizations that they “liked” on Facebook is highly instructive. It includes three of the biggest Tea Party groups, all bankrolled by the Koch brothers. Also, there are three organizations that are run by current Fox News guests and contributors.

Obviously Fox News can’t call the Millers terrorists because that would mean they are calling a hefty chunk of their most loyal viewers terrorists. And for many others in the Fox audience it would be offensive to apply a term that they reserve for brown-skinned people from foreign lands, to a white, married, Christian couple from Nevada via Indiana.

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But you still have to wonder why the rest of the media is suddenly so averse to using the word terrorism. If there were ever an appropriate time to employ the label, it is now. The Millers made their intentions crystal clear. They reportedly shouted that “This is the start of the revolution,” as they commenced their crime spree. They draped their victims in the Gadsden flag, a banner of the Tea Party movement. Their motives were purely to incite terror in furtherance of their seditionist agenda. Similar behavior by Nidal Hasan and the Tsarnaev brothers was referred to as terrorism from the outset. So I’ll ask again – Why won’t the media call it terrorism?

[Update:] And Fox News ceased covering these Tea Party cop killers after just one day.

It’s Official: Dick Cheney Has Lost His Freakin’ Mind

Posted by Mark NC on May 29, 2014 at 11:14 am. 11 Comments :

Last night on Fox News, Sean Hannity welcomed Dick Cheney to the program by accusing President Obama of “apologizing for America” during a speech at West Point where the President repeatedly extolled our nation’s exceptionalism. Having set a decidedly negative tone, Hannity commenced the interview with a question that was merely a set up for Cheney to agree with Hannity’s oh-so-patriotic opinion that “America is in decline.” Cheney obliged with an opening rant that included his judgment that Obama is “a very, very weak president. Maybe the weakest, certainly in my lifetime.”

This represents the unique brand of pseudo-patriotism practiced by rightist hacks like Hannity and Cheney who regard the acknowledgement of past mistakes, and the lessons learned from them, as sacrilege, but are comfortable maligning the country and its leaders as being mired in weakness and decline. And Cheney doesn’t mince words either. The man who openly lied in order to wage a phony war in Iraq that cost the lives of thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, is now calling Obama’s foreign policy “stupid” and “unwise.”

Cheney went on to criticize Obama for pulling out of Afghanistan with the peculiar charge that “he hates to use military power.” Is that supposed to be in contrast to Cheney’s infatuation with it? Clearly, he believes that the United States should remain eternally deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and any other country he feels like dominating. And he seems to have no perspective over time of the consequences of his war mongering. In fact, the lessons he believes we should have learned from pre-war Afghanistan are sharply removed from historical reality.

“Remember there was a time back in the eighties when the United States was supporting the Afghan Mujaheddin against the Soviets. We had help from others doing that. We ultimately succeeded and then everybody turned around and walked away from Afghanistan. And, of course, then they had a civil war, the Taliban came to power. Ultimately Osama Bin Laden found safe haven there.”

Is it possible that Dick Cheney is so irredeemably delusional that he’s forgotten that Osama Bin Laden was the Mujaheddin leader that the U.S. was supporting in the fight against the Soviets? Bin Laden didn’t just find safe haven in Afghanistan, as if he stumbled over it. He was instrumental in toppling the previous government and installing a friendly new regime (the Taliban), with aid from the Reagan administration. But perhaps the most stupifyingly brain-dead remark in the whole bitch session with Hannity, was Cheney’s assessment of Obama’s grasp of history:

“It’s as though he wasn’t even around when 9/11 happened.”

Seriously? This is coming from the de facto head of an administration that, both literally and figuratively, was not around when 9/11 happened. They ignored an intelligence report with the actual headline “Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S.” This arrived a month before 9/11, while President Bush was on a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Then, while allowing Bin Laden and other Taliban leaders to escape, they started another war in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Shameless self-promotion…
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Finally, it is also important to note that the president that Cheney regards as the weakest in his lifetime is the one who had to clean up the failures of the Bush/Cheney administration. That included disposing of Bin Laden (and dozens of other Al Qaeda operatives), who evaded Cheney’s reach for eight long years. And now that Obama is committed to ending the wars that Cheney and Bush started without having an exit plan, he is being criticized by Cheney as weak? That’s a little like setting your house on fire and then shouting epithets at the firefighters who show up to put it out.

Uh-Oh: Bill O’Reilly Equates Cliven Bundy With Chris Christie

Posted by Mark NC on April 26, 2014 at 3:12 pm. 5 Comments :

The pathetic conservative media stampede in support of the deadbeat welfare rancher, Cliven Bundy, has produced a tsunami of crocodile tears and back-peddling by anxious right-wingers who prematurely hitched themselves to Bundy’s racist wagon. Despite the fact that many Republicans expressed almost identical views way before Bundy came on the scene, they now are rushing to distance themselves from the would-be hero that they created.

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Not surprisingly, Bill O’Reilly is leading the retreat with another of his hackneyed “Talking Points Memo” segments. On Friday he began his program by attempting to downplay the extent to which Fox News lavished praise and valuable airtime on Bundy. He characterized the participation of Fox News as merely “a handful” of commentators who “rallied to Bundy’s side,” while declining to mention any names. However, some of the most prominent voices on the network, including Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Steve Doocy, Bret Baier, Eric Bolling, etc., played significant roles in pumping up the controversial story.

After providing absolution for the sins of Fox News, O’Reilly proceeded to condemn the rest of the media, presumably for not balancing their coverage of a tax-evading racist with more positive impressions. He focused on CNN’s Brian Stelter, whom O’Reilly called a “committed left-wing zealot.” Stelter’s offense was to correctly point out that Fox News had been caught in a unique dilemma wherein their pundits championed an unknown crackpot who wound up embarrassing them. Here is the soundbite that O’Reilly cherry-picked from Stelter’s remarks:

“I can’t think of any parallel to this case. I can’t think of MSNBC taking an equivalent story on the left and spending weeks covering it the way Fox News has.”

Well, that was all it took to fire up O’Reilly’s ire. He let loose with a biting, personal attack on Stelter:

“Unbelieveable. So Mr. Stelter, did you miss the months of coverage about New Jersey governor Chris Christie on MSNBC? Did you miss that? Are you that dense? That uninformed that you make an outrageous assertion that MSNBC would not overdo a story for ideological reasons?”

Where to begin? First of all, if O’Reilly is looking for a story that is equivalent to the Bundy saga, it’s interesting that he would choose Christie’s BridgeGate scandal. Is O’Reilly equating the New Jersey Governor to a lawless bigot who doesn’t recognize the United States as existing?

Secondly, O’Reilly seems to think that covering an old cattle rancher in Bunkerville, Nevada, who thinks he’s entitled to free grazing rights on property that he doesn’t own, is a national story on the same level as a state governor who may have unlawfully abused his office and who, at the time, was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Furthermore, none of MSNBC’s reporting on Christie has turned out to be wrong and/or embarrassing.

Finally, O’Reilly’s assertion that MSNBC’s coverage of Christie was overdone for ideological reasons is an admission of the same about Fox’s coverage of Bundy, since he is making the argument that they are equivalent. Even though he just spent three minutes denying that Fox overdid anything. Apparently, O’Reilly’s outrage is warping his capacity for logic. And since there is abundant evidence that Christie engaged in the behavior attributed to him, if any news organization is to be faulted, it is Fox for soft-peddling the story.

O’Reilly went on to criticize MSNBC for seeking to boost their ratings (which O’Reilly would never do), and to further disparage Stelter as being “far worse than some Fox News commentators sympathizing” with Bundy. To O’Reilly, not being able to recall a story similar to Bundy’s is far worse than turning a despicable desert hick into a hero. Then O’Reilly closed by saying that “You throw away any legitimacy when you jump to conclusions.” That would seem to be a direct assault on his colleague Sean Hannity and the rest of the right-wing media who did just that.

So in one commentary, O’Reilly insulted his fellow Fox News anchor(s) While equating Gov. Christie with a racist, anti-American freeloader. That’s a pretty productive accomplishment for a night’s work. I can’t wait to hear what Hannity and Christie have to say about it. However, it was thoughtful of O’Reilly to candidly admit that “there are many charlatans peddling garbage that hurts people.” Thanks for the warning, Billo, but we’ve known about you for some time.

Fox News Wants IRS To Strip Media Matters Of Its Tax-Exempt Status

Posted by Mark NC on April 24, 2014 at 4:31 pm. 2 Comments :

For much of the past year Fox News has devoted huge chunks of airtime to a phony scandal alleging that the IRS improperly targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny with regard to their applications for tax-exempt status. In fact, recent discoveries prove that progressive groups actually received an even greater amount of scrutiny. But for Fox News to then turn around and solicit scrutiny from the IRS in order to strip tax-exempt status from Media Matters, an organization that Fox viscerally hates, is more than a little hypocritical and unethical.

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Nearly three years ago, News Corpse documented the obsession Fox News has had with Media Matters and the well orchestrated campaign to destroy them. Fox spent countless hours across multiple programs lambasting Media Matters and its founder David Brock. They alleged that Brock was insane, and a drug addict, and dishonest, and corrupt, and not very nice either. During that offensive, Fox News tried desperately to get the IRS to revoke Media Matters’ tax-exempt status, even enlisting their viewers into a campaign to file false complaints with the agency. Fox anchor Steve Doocy made several announcements on his morning show Fox & Friends like this one:

“Somebody has set up a web site and we have linked it, actually, at FoxNation.com. If you go down about half way down you’ll see that logo. If you want to file a complaint with the IRS against Media Matters because you feel they have gone political, they have abandoned their initial quest, then go to that site and go ahead.”

Now Fox is reviving that campaign with a new thrust at their perceived enemies at Media Matters. Once again Steve Doocy took to the airwaves to ask if it is “Time To Revoke Media Matters’ Tax-Exempt Status?” During the course of this segment Doocy interviewed Fox contributor, and bitter subject of Media Matters ciriticisms, Juan Williams. Both of them blasted Media Matters for having the audacity to actually document what they say. And both were incredulous that Media Matters managed to maintain their tax-exempt status despite the best efforts of sabotage executed by Fox. Doocy summarized his displeasure saying…

“Media Matters, which famously declared war on Fox News, continues to keep their tax exempt status. Media Matters CEO, David Brock, makes no attempt to hide his political views, even calling himself a Democratic political activist on his official Twitter profile. So should Media Matters tax exempt status be revoked just like a conservative group?”

What makes this reprise of their assault particularly disturbing is that just last night Sean Hannity hosted Brent Bozell, the president of the extremist right-wing media smear outfit, NewsBusters. During his segment Bozell angrily demanded that anyone who appears on a television news program must disclose their political leanings or recuse themselves. Apparently caught off guard, Hannity had to interrupt and insert an exception for himself:

“Well, you do and you don’t. As long as you identify – – I would argue I am the only conservative that says he’s a conservative that has a nightly news cable show.”

Pfew. That was close. So Hannity established that it’s OK to engage in commentary and analysis if you reveal your political biases. However, when Media Matters’ Brock did so it was characterized by Doocy as justification for punishment by the IRS. Note that Brock’s admission that he is a Democratic activist applies only to his personal activity on Twitter and not to his work at Media Matters. He says so explicitly on his Twitter profile. So when Brock discloses his Democratic activism he is confessing to a crime, but when Hannity discloses his conservative activism he is exhibiting an honorable honesty.

The main topic of discussion for the Hannity/Bozell segment was the contention that there were numerous people who cycled in and out of media and the Obama administration. That’s actually true, but it is also true of every administration. Hannity and Bozell chose to highlight the person they regarded as the worst of the lot, Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, about whom Bozell said…

“When Barack Obama needed a press secretary in 2011 he also chose Jay Carney, who was the Washington bureau chief of ‘TIME’ magazine. What does that tell you about the politics of ‘TIME’ magazine?”

Indeed! What does that tell you? And does it tell you anything similar about the time when George W. Bush needed a press secretary and he chose Tony Snow, an anchor on Fox News? What does that tell you about the politics of Fox News? Does it tell you what Steve Doocy actually told viewers during his segment with Juan Williams when he said that at Fox…

“We’re simply in the business of showing the other side. We balance out mainstream media.”

That’s a pretty straight forward admission that Fox is not a news network at all, but a partisan mouthpiece for Republican politics. Not that that wasn’t already apparent to anyone paying attention. In fact, the whole argument that Media Matters should lose its tax-exempt status due to the positions it takes on Fox News is an admission that Fox is a political enterprise. That’s because the laws governing tax status state that…

“…501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”

Therefore, Fox is admitting that they are a political operation since the IRS rules only apply to political organizations. If Fox were a media company Media Matters would not be in violation of any rules. But none of these facts and associated logic will have any impact on the efforts of Fox News to get the IRS to do something to Media Matters that, for most of the last year, Fox has insisted was not proper for the IRS to do. Like everything else though, it’s outrageous for the IRS to scrutinize conservative groups for political behavior, but it’s perfectly OK to do it to liberals (IOKIYAR).

Jon Stewart Nails Cliven Bundy: A Welfare Rancher Trying To Pull Off The World’s Largest Cattle Dine-And-Dash

Posted by Mark NC on April 22, 2014 at 10:09 am. 1 Comments :

The Daily Show returned from a week-long hiatus Monday to deliver an epic smackdown on the deadbeat cattleman in Nevada. Cliven Bundy has been widely rebuked for failing to pay customary grazing fees and declaring that he doesn’t “recognize the United States government as even existing.” The roots of his extremism was exposed here on News Corpse Sunday. The only people who support Bundy’s greedy, self-serving, churlishness are fellow terrorist militiamen and Fox News hosts. But Jon Stewart, as usual, provides one of the best perspectives on the situation that captures the absurdity of the affair in an honest and hilarious manner (video below). He sums it all up by observing that…

“The law isn’t on Bundy’s side. The court isn’t on Bundy’s side. Even the Nevada state constitution, which Bundy claims to abide, isn’t on Bundy’s side. Who the hell is on this guy’s side? […Cue Sean Hannity video montage…] How out there is Hannity on this issue? Sean Hannity has now made Glenn Beck the voice of reason.”

Shameless self-promotion…
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Stewart’s take thoroughly demolishes any defense of Bundy that could be mustered within the bounds or reason. And his graphic depiction of “Apocalypse Cow” perfectly conveys the radical theo-con leanings of Bundy & Company. However, in searching for the Daily Show video there were some unexpected discoveries that Stewart may not have been aware of:

Apocalypse Cow: The Simpsons: Season 19, Episode 17
Bart tries to save the cow he raised for his 4-H club from the slaughterhouse, and in the process winds up getting accidentally engaged to one of Cletus’s daughters.
Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan
If you think you’ve seen it all — WORLD WAR Z, THE WALKING DEAD– you haven’t seen anything like this. From the twisted brain of Michael Logan comes Apocalypse Cow, a story about three unlikely heroes who must save Britain . . . from a rampaging horde of ZOMBIE COWS!
Apocalypse Cow – Three Floyds Brewing Co. & Brewpub
This complex, double India Pale Ale has an intense citrus and floral hop aroma balanced by a velvety malt body which has been augmented with lactose milk sugar. With this different take on an IPA we have brewed an ale that is both pleasing to drink and, once again, “not normal.” Cheers!

Cletus, zombies and beer. How appropriate. And who knew this was such a popular theme? Anyway, here is Stewart’s version for your viewing pleasure.

And in honor of the Heifer joke above, please give to Heifer International: Together we have the power over hunger and poverty.

Sean Hannity: “I Am Humiliated For My Country”

Posted by Mark NC on March 7, 2014 at 1:41 pm. 17 Comments :

Remember when any expression of disrespect directed at America or it’s leaders was regarded as treasonous and unpatriotic? It was a time when blind and unfaltering loyalty was mandatory and dissent was not tolerated. Dick Cheney famously declared that “You are either with us or you are with the enemy.” And Fox News broadcast a red, white, and blue explosion of patriopathic zeal, castigating anyone who dared to diverge from the approved orthodoxy.

Sean Hannity was prominent among those who draped themselves in the American flag and scorned those who expressed dissenting opinions. Which makes it all the more contemptible that he now says on his radio show that he is “humiliated for my country,” without the slightest bit of irony or acknowledgement of his overt hypocrisy.

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Sean Hannity was among the first to bash the Dixie Chicks when they said that they were “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” That remark was hardly as anti-American as Hannity’s since, unlike Hannity, it was only directed at George Bush and not the nation as a whole. Hannity also went off on Michelle Obama for saying that “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.” Obama was merely expressing pride in how far the nation has come. It was pride in a specific category of progress, not an overall impression of her feelings of being an American.

So while Hannity called the Dixie Chicks “disgraceful,” and pledged to never listen to them again, and he called Obama “offensive” and insisted that she “owes America an apology,” he has no such regrets for his own expression of disrespect for the nation. In fact, he defended his comments the next day on his Fox News program. And what was it that caused Hannity to suffer such humiliation? Here is whole commentary on the subject:

“Many Americans, including myself are, humiliated today. Take a look at the photo comparison of our commander in chief. There he is juxtaposed with Vladimir Putin […] For the first time in my adult life, I am humiliated for my country. Just the picture of Putin swimming the butterfly, which is a real hard stroke. Yeah, big chested – and by the way, it’s in frigid water that he’s swimming across a river … so you got a picture of that juxtaposed next to Obama on a bicycle in Martha’s Vineyard with the goofy helmet on riding his bike.”

From News Corpse

Available at Amazon

That’s it. Hannity is shamed by Russian propaganda showing a virile Putin swimming across a river, and his own comparison of that to a photo of Obama on a bike. Hannity is obviously smitten with Putin’s rugged good looks (and Caucasian features), his big chest and burly arms glistening in the sun, and his outdoorsy manliness. Never mind that he is a brutal autocrat who is presently engaged in an unlawful aggression against a sovereign nation. Or perhaps that just makes him all the more appealing since it is reminiscent of the Bush Doctrine that resulted in the U.S. aggression against Iraq. Hannity loved that too.

I’m not sure what makes swimming across a river more masculine than riding a bike. I suspect the participants in the Tour de France might object to that characterization. What’s more, Hannity might find Obama more alluring if he were ogling the pictures of him shirtless in the Hawaiian surf. But what turns on Sean Hannity most is smearing the President, even if it means feigning a rather disturbing man-crush for a Russian dictator.

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