Fox News Host Floats Delusional Miss America Conspiracy Theory

Posted by Mark NC on September 14, 2015 at 6:02 pm. 2 Comments :

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Todd Starnes, he is Fox’s Christianist Ayahtollah and host of the webcast “The Dispatch.” He is primarily known for spinning fables about the alleged persecution of America’s oppressed majority Christians. In most cases he invents the stories himself and provides no independent corroboration. And there is generally a stench of overt racism wafting from everything to which his name is attached.

Take for example the time that Starnes reported on a five year old girl whose father claimed she was prohibited from praying in her school’s cafeteria. It turned out that the girl’s father was the VP of Sales for his publisher and he had a book that was just about to be released. There was no evidence that the incident ever occurred and Starnes failed to disclose his close personal relationship with the allegedly abused family. Starnes has a resume of dishonesty that has hounded him throughout his career. Which, I suppose, is what makes him such a perfect employee for Fox News.

Starnes latest outrage involves the selection of the new Miss America. He took to his webcast (video below) to rhetorically ask “Did Miss America Judges Shoot Down Pro-Gun Contestant?” Starnes asserted that one of the contest’s runners-up, South Carolina’s Daja Dial, had been robbed of her victory because her answer to a question on assault weapons didn’t call for banning them, as the pageant’s overlords wanted, according to Starnes. He said…

Left-wing judges? Where Starnes gets that idea from is never revealed. Nor does he explain how any of the other candidates “kowtowed” to some imagined agenda of the liberal beauty queen cabal. In fact, the panel of judges included a country singer, a Disney star, an investor, and the widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle. None of the judges could plausibly be characterized as liberals. But what makes Starnes’ bitchfest so strikingly stupid is that the contestants who gave answers that liberals might agree with also failed to get the crown. For instance:

Miss Mississippi, Hannah Roberts, was asked whether the religious freedom of Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis was violated by the court order to issue marriage licenses to all legal applicants. She said that “It absolutely does not violate her religious freedom,” and that “she did violate the law there.”
Miss Alabama, Meg McGuffin, was asked why she thinks that Donald Trump is leading the GOP primary race by such an overwhelming margin. She answered that he “is an entertainer,” but that “the Republican Party should be absolutely terrified of all the attention that he is taking.”
Miss Tennessee, Hannah Robison, was asked if Planned Parenthood should be defunded by Congress. Her reply: “I don’t think Planned Parenthood funding should be cut off.” She continued to correctly point out that none of those funds go toward abortions, but are spent on screening for cancer and mammograms, and without it “women will be out of health care.”

It is worth noting that all three of these contestants were from conservative, southern states and gave impressive, well-reasoned, liberal answers. And they all lost despite Starnes’ insistence that the pageant was rigged in favor of liberals. If Starnes’ theory was correct, one of these contestants would be Miss America today. Instead the winner was Miss Georgia, Betty Cantrell, who was handed a non-political question about Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his involvement in Deflategate (she thought he cheated).

Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time that Starnes whined about his preferred lady being passed over in the Miss America pageant – and for the same reason. Two years ago Starnes was infatuated with Theresa Vail of Kansas, but she lost to a beautiful, talented Indian-American from Syracuse, New York, Nina Davuluri.. Starnes responded with a noxious blast of racism in tweet saying that…

Of course she did. She is a white, Christian, soldier. How could she lose to a dark-skinned, Hindu, with a funny name, who could not possibly represent American values? In another tweet Starnes attributed Vail’s loss to her being a gun-toter. He really is obsessed with women and guns.

When Starnes isn’t slobbering over well-armed beauty queens, he is fretting about gays threatening the sanctity of marriage, and pagans defiling America’s Christian foundations. He is as deranged as any religious extremist and holds that his faith is superior to that of anyone who would dare to disagree with him. His views are not only ignorant and riddled with falsehoods, they are dangerous. And Fox News gives him a platform to spread his bile to an eager and dimwitted audience.

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Ben Carson Tells The Jesus Praisathon Network (aka Fox News) That ‘Atheism Is A Religion’

Posted by Mark NC on September 13, 2015 at 10:23 pm. 22 Comments :

Republican presidential guilt suppressant and all-purpose sedative, Ben Carson, appeared today on Fox News MediaBuzz with Howard Kurtz (video below). The conversation covered a gamut of critical issues facing the nation, such as his dust up with Donald Trump, the irrelevancy of race in party politics, and why he is trying to stop saying stupid things on the campaign trail (i.e. ObamaCare is just like slavery and being gay is choice that people make when they go to prison). It’s good to see the media forcing candidates to address the real problems our society has to deal with.

In addition to those examples of national crises, Kurtz asked Carson about his views on faith in public life. For a few minutes Fox turned into the Jesus Praisathon Network, even posting graphics that asked whether voters would “heed the call” of Carson’s “faith-based run.”. Like every other Republican candidate, Carson believes in a form of Christian Sharia Law wherein everybody has to be subject to the biblical dogma of the majority. To emphasize his point, Carson told Kurtz about how fond he is of the First Amendment and then went on to say that anyone who doesn’t practice a religious faith is an idiot:

Carson is demonstrating his reverence for the Constitution by demeaning everyone who holds different beliefs than he does. Obviously they can’t possibly understand religion if they don’t follow his. What’s more, the notion that someone who doesn’t accept the existence of a supernatural nanny, is still following a religion, defies reason. Atheism is the absence of a belief in religion. It’s like saying that someone who doesn’t believe in the fairy tale of Santa Claus still believes in the fairy tale of a world without Santa Claus. Come on people, where’s the evidence that Santa doesn’t exist?

This is consistent with Carson’s previous assaults on religious freedom. In the recent case involving Kim Davis, the Kentucky County Clerk who was found in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to legal applicants who happened to gay, Carson took the absurd position that requiring her to do her job without discriminating was an infringement of her civil rights.

Carson told Megyn Kelly of Fox News that Davis should be entitled to deny marriage licenses to people who do not adhere to the laws of her faith. When Kelly asked if that might be slippery slope wherein Catholics could refuse licenses to people who had divorced (which Davis had done three times), or Muslims could deny licenses to Christian couples, Carson’s response was that it was OK for Christians to discriminate because America is a Judeo-Christian majority nation.

So take that, Freedom of Religion. I guess it’s also OK for whites to discriminate against blacks because we are a white majority nation. Clearly Carson’s interpretation of the Constitution is a perverse mutilation of reality and the principles for which our country stands. He would take America further along the path of theocracy were he to have any role in governing. And what’s worse is that his is not a fringe opinion in the GOP. Every Republican candidate holds the very same views. It’s the old story about the party that pretends to want government off your back, but still wants it in your bedroom and in your deepest, most personal thoughts.

Little Monsters: Fear Mongers At Fox News Demonize Innocent Child Refugees

Posted by Mark NC on September 12, 2015 at 4:45 pm. 5 Comments :

It must be exhausting for the punditry and viewers of Fox News to be on a perpetually heightened state of alert in a world where they are convinced that horrors stalk them constantly. It seems that every day they awake to a new catastrophe that sends them diving under their heavily fortified beds where they store their survival gear, gold coins, and assault weapons. This inbred fear has been triggered by everything from health care to immigration to the threat of a foreign-born, Muslim socialist with a scary name invading the White House.

Now the folks at Fox’s Fox Nation website are trembling over what they are characterizing as fledgling terrorists in the form of children taken in as refugees by Germany. The Fox Nationalists proclaimed that this is actually a plot by “Islamists In Germany Trying To Recruit Young Refugees.”

Just look at them. They’re ghastly. The bone-chilling story that Fox cites as proof of this fiendish scheme is an article on Yahoo News from the Agence France-Presse wire service. The article contains reports that “Muslim radicals in Germany are trying to recruit some of the growing numbers of asylum seekers” from Syria. The wrinkle that Fox adds is a photograph of smiling children with cuddly stuffed toys arriving at the train station in Munich. Fox is plainly implying that kids like these will soon be at your local mall with pressure-cooker bombs. The photo is from the Associated Press, was not in the source article and had nothing to do with it. The article spoke only of young refugees, a common target for radical recruiting, but never mentioned children. The only conceivable purpose for inserting this photo into the Fox Nation story was to demonize innocent children as potential future terrorists.

This is all part of a larger Fox News campaign to frighten their easily spooked viewers into rejecting any proposal to bring some of the suffering Syrian refugees to the U.S. For the last week Fox has been airing segments that allege that the refugees have been infiltrated by terrorists and that allowing them into the country would result in certain death. Apparently Fox is OK, however, with refugee children dying and being washed ashore, which they will subsequently blame on Obama.

The Fox Fear Festival also featured rewritten histories of the 9/11 attacks. In an attempt to send shivers up the spines of their already quivering audience, Fox’s Neil Cavuto hosted Michael Pregent of Veterans Against the Deal (VAD), a shadowy organization that unsuccessfully tried to stop the nuclear agreement with Iran. VAD has a multi-million dollar budget whose funding sources are unknown but, not surprisingly, a member of their board, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, runs another astroturf vets group (Concerned Veterans for America ) that is bankrolled by the Koch brothers.

Cavuto began the segment by falsely pandering to professional 9/11 alarmists by saying that “We are helping the very folks that may have had a hand in 9/11.” Of course, there is no evidence that Iran had anything to do with 9/11. However, that is exactly the same manufactured argument that the Bush regime used to justify war with Iraq. It is all about increasing the scare quotient and aiming it at a vulnerable enemy. And to make sure the fear sticks, Cavuto made it overtly political. He asserted that the deal was a product of partisan Democrats who had orchestrated a process that Cavuto called “kinda weird.”

First of all, there is nothing remotely Byzantine, or even unusual, about the parliamentary process used in this vote. Republicans needed to get a filibuster-proof majority to prevail. That’s something with which they should be familiar considering that when they were in the minority they conducted more filibusters than any session of Congress in history. Secondly, Cavuto should know that the threshold to invoke cloture to end a filibuster is only three-fifths, not two-thirds. Finally, his reference to “all this other stuff” is just nonsense. What other stuff?

Having gotten so much wrong it would be easy to believe him when he says this is way over his head, except for the fact that he is obviously lying in order to make it all sound more confusing and sinister. And his accusation of partisanship is really better suited for Republicans, After all, Democrats voted both for and against the Iran deal. It is Republicans who voted lock-step against it in a show of pure partisanship.

In the end, the message here is to fear Democrats, fear Iran, and fear little kids escaping from Syrian turmoil, oppression and death. In short, be afraid. Afraid of everything. All the time. And thank goodness there is Fox News around to make sure that you are.

Glenn Beck Is Embarrassed That He Supported Sarah Palin

Posted by Mark NC on September 10, 2015 at 6:00 pm. 7 Comments :

Who knew? One of this country’s most divisive, dishonest, and unrepentant purveyors of hostility seems to still have some capacity for shame (if you can believe him). Glenn Beck appeared at rally in Washington, D.C. (where he never wants to go back to again) to oppose the Obama administration’s deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Also on the podium were arch right-wingers like Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin. Sometime between that event and the next morning, Beck had some sort of revelation with regard to his relationship with Palin.

On his radio program this morning (video below) Beck took aim at Palin for reasons he didn’t make clear. He mentions that he “doesn’t know who she is anymore,” and “doesn’t know what she stands for.” Apparently he’s upset (jealous?) that he saw her talking to Donald Trump, who Beck is not fond of, and asks “What the hell was that?” He also admits that they had a “falling out” because “”she was listening to people who were lying to her about me.” However, he doesn’t go into who those people were or what they were saying. But the most striking comment he had about his former BFF was that…

Well, now he knows how most of the rest of the country feels about having Palin presume to speak for us. But it’s still ironic that the man who describes himself as a “rodeo clown” is suddenly seeing Palin in similarly derogatory terms. It’s kind of like the overgrown troll Donald Trump calling Carly Fiorina ugly. But what changed that altered Beck’s opinion of Palin? Certainly Palin hasn’t changed. She is tossing the same word-salad incoherence that has defined her since John McCain unleashed her, making all of us suffer for his foolishness and desperation.

You have to wonder whether this epiphany by Beck will lead to similar insights. Already Bobby Jindal seems to have seen the light about Trump. At a speech at the National Press Club Jindal said that Trump is “a carnival act.” He also called him a shallow narcissistic egomaniac.

Of course, this isn’t news to anyone with a functioning brain. The problem is that there seem to be so many intellectual zombies on the right to whom cartoon characters like Palin and Trump make sense. So when someone like Beck confesses that his prior support for Palin embarrasses him, it is a promising development, even though it is probably inspired by some selfish motive. It offers hope that supporters of Trump will soon feel some shame themselves. We know that many people who voted for George W. Bush are denying it today, and the current crop of Republicans are ashamed to even say his name.

It is too much to expect that any of those who come to realize that it was a grievous mistake to support nut jobs like Palin and Trump (and Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain, and pundits like Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc.), will ever come to accept a progressive agenda supported by history and facts. But for now perhaps we should be grateful that they can at least experience the cleansing quality of shame and let go of their delusions. It’s a small step forward, but it is a step. At least until they take two giant leaps backwards, which for them is always a possibility.

Remedial Republicans: Or How Ralph Wiggum Foretold The Coming Of Donald Trump

Posted by Mark NC on September 9, 2015 at 4:53 pm. 4 Comments :

Stupidity is not a new development in politics. In fact, according to Napoleon, it isn’t even a handicap. So the campaign of Donald Trump isn’t breaking new ground just by demonstrating how idiotic a certain segment of the electorate is. He is following in the tradition of dimwitted pols like Michelle Bachmann, and fact-challenged pundits like Glenn Beck, who appeal to Tea Party malcontents and paranoid bigots. And his entry into the political circus was eerily prophesied by none other than Ralph Wiggum of The Simpsons who, when told by Lisa Simpson that he was being used by self-serving party operatives, said that…

From the mouths of babes, whether it be The Ralph or The Donald. Little Ralphie’s brief foray into politics for “E Pluribus Wiggum“ (Season 19, episode 10, 1/6/2008) appears to be the inspiration for Trump’s campaign theme. Not only does he want to make America great again, but he offers nothing of substance, just empty words from an equally empty mind that regards being mad as a path to solving problems. Boom boom bing bing bing. But at least Ralph doesn’t descend into the hostility that characterizes Trump’s brand of hate-spewing. That’s another old wrinkle that Trump is pursuing on his own. Other than that his campaign is notable only for his third-grade language skills and the way he has fooled the media into covering his every hiccup as if it were newsworthy.

But we’ve seen this sort of tabloid megalomania before and never ends well. It is rooted in division and relies on the abundance of intellectually lazy supporters who embrace faulty information and even disinformation (i.e. Fox News). They are a sorry lot who were fittingly described by Sean Illing of Salon as “the infantilized conservative base.” Illing noted that…

As evidence of that theory, Trump made another one of his patented screwball challenges. Upset that CNN might benefit from the free-market capitalism that right-wingers like Trump pretend to be so fond of, he wrote a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker to complain about how much money the network might make on the upcoming Republican debate. Sources have reported that CNN will be charging up to $200,000 for a 30-second ad that normally would sell for $5,000. From the letter…

If I didn’t know better I would think that this letter was written by Stephen Colbert’s staff. Note how he leads with his refusal to brag, followed immediately by his bragging about providing 100% of the viewer interest. He may be right to the extent that the guy standing on the building ledge is also due credit for whatever ratings the news gets that night. And I wonder why Trump put his own name in quotes. Trump then challenged CNN to donate the program’s revenue to some unnamed veterans charity.

For the record, CNN can sell about fifteen minutes of ad time during the debate, which comes to a total revenue of about $6 million. The network pulls in about $1.27 billion dollars a year, so this isn’t exactly a windfall. And if multi-billionaire Trump is so concerned about the welfare of veterans, why doesn’t he just make a donation himself? Perhaps because he is famously known for being “The Least Charitable Billionaire“ in the world.

This is reminiscent of Trump’s birther challenge to President Obama to release his college transcripts and passport data in exchange for Trump donating $5 million to charity. Once again, why does Trump tie his philanthropy to whatever he can get from other people for himself? Clearly he isn’t driven by an interest in helping others. He made a similar challenge to Obama to release his birth certificate in exchange for Trump releasing his tax returns. Well, Obama did release his birth certificate, but Trump reneged on his part of the bargain.

What all of these behaviors on Trump’s part share in common is an obvious and pathetic childishness. Particularly the traits where a child believes that the world revolves around him or her self, and clings stubbornly to positions despite the absence of any logic or reason. He seems to be either stunted in emotional development or entering a stage of senility. This may explain to some degree his popularity among the infantilized set of GOP dimwits who display the same character flaws. And it clearly makes the comparison to little Ralph Wiggum all the more apt. And while we’re at it, the Simpsons provided another example of behavior that neatly fits Donald Trump. This video could have been taken of Trump as a child or even last Thursday:

Hillary Clinton And The Amazing Wingnutty Media Apology Trap

Posted by Mark NC on September 8, 2015 at 4:14 pm. 14 Comments :

The most overused adjective of the 2016 presidential election cycle so far has got to be the term “Outsider.” The media is thoroughly infatuated with the notion of alleged outsiders dominating the campaign season and crushing their “establishment” rivals. It’s a stark turnaround from their prior position that political neophytes (i.e. President Obama) are unqualified to assume leadership roles in government.

These outsiders have been granted broad leeway to do and say things that ordinarily would sink any other campaign. And in today’s environment the most admirable response when caught making a formerly fatal faux pas is to double down and, by no means, apologize. Notable among the remorseless on the right is Donald Trump who has insulted Latinos by calling them criminals and rapists; dishonored veterans by saying that POWs are not heroes; pretends to be pious while insisting that he doesn’t have to ask for forgiveness because he never does anything wrong; and displays blatant misogyny aimed at any woman who challenges him. In all of these, and many other, incidents he has refused to apologize or even acknowledge that his words or actions may have been inappropriate or hurtful.

But Trump is not alone. Many of the Republican candidates are guilty of this. Mike Huckabee refused to apologize after a despicable and insensitive Holocaust reference that Obama’s deal with Iran “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” Ben Carson never apologized for likening ObamaCare to slavery. Jeb Bush repeatedly used the pejorative term “anchor baby” without lament (which he got from Trump). In the last presidential race Mitt Romney actually published a book titled “No Apologies.”

So it is rather disingenuous now for Republicans, and most of the media, to be obsessed with whether or not Hillary Clinton will apologize for having used a private email address. In just the past week she has been asked this question by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and again by the Associated Press. She responded that she was sorry that the subject was so confusing and expressed regret that she hadn’t decided to use separate emails, but since she did nothing wrong or illegal there was no other reason to apologize. She told the AP that “What I did was allowed. It was allowed by the State Department. The State Department has confirmed that.” These responses were then relayed to the rest of the media that continued to play up the same angle.

It’s interesting that every time a Republican refuses to apologize for their actions they are hailed as people of strong character who stand by their principles. The GOP voters drool all over themselves with ever-expanding esteem for their unyielding commitment. They are venerated for refusing to buckle under to pressure by those who would have them show remorse or even sympathy for those they malign. But when Clinton has the audacity to dismiss the need to apologize, and offers a rational explanation for her stance, she is assailed as arrogant, imperious, or out-of-touch.

This is emblematic of the right’s hypocritical approach to pretty much everything political. Inexperienced candidates are considered a threat to the nation, unless they are inexperienced Republicans like Trump or Carson. Wealthy candidates, like Clinton, are elitists who can’t relate to the common citizen, unless they are wealthy Republicans like Trump or Bush. Religious candidates like Jimmy Carter are belittled and demeaned, unless they are religious Republicans like Huckabee or Cruz. And this goes on and on with other matters including education, military service, and business experience. In every case Democrats are criticized for the same things for which Republicans are praised.

Personally, I’m a fan of apologies. It shows humility and maturity and the temperament to be able to admit one’s mistakes. People should get credit for apologizing, not criticism. But in the current political environment apologies are taken as signs of weakness. And that’s why Republicans and the press are so adamant about extracting one from Clinton. They want to portray her as weak. That’s the trap. The problem is that if she resists she is portrayed as obstinate and arrogant, but if she complies she is tagged as a spineless wimp. It’s a lose-lose proposition for her alone. Because the GOP can still refuse to apologize for anything and still get applause from the media and right-wingers who go through life with blinders on.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Dumbest Kim Davis Comparison Yet

Posted by Mark NC on September 7, 2015 at 3:09 pm. 37 Comments :

The Kentucky County Clerk and anti-gay wannabe martyr, Kim Davis, is deservedly rotting in jail for violating a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Her incarceration came after a Supreme Court ruling that the right to marry is constitutionally protected for gays and a federal district court finding her in contempt of court for continuing to defy the law.

Conservative advocates of Christian sharia law rallied around Davis, arguing that her religious freedom was being violated. However, there is no protection under the law for religious extremists in government offices to impose their beliefs on the people they have sworn to serve. To the contrary, as the court said, they are required to obey the law regardless of their personal preferences. These simple concepts, however, were profoundly misunderstood by Fox News who posted an article on their Fox Nation website about a separate case of religious faith in the workplace.

The circumstances of Charee Stanley’s dispute with her employer Express Jet are similar to those of Kim Davis only up to a point. Stanley took a job at Express Jet and a year or so later converted to Islam. She then told her employer that her faith forbids her from serving alcohol. It was that refusal to perform the duties required of her that led to her suspension. And this is where the two women’s cases diverge.

Davis is a public servant. She was elected to her position as County Clerk and swore to uphold the law, which includes all federal laws and the provisions of the Constitution. Upon failing to do that she was ordered by the court to comply, which she likewise refused. That refusal was unarguably in defiance of a valid court order, so she was found to be in contempt of court and taken into custody by the state marshal.

Stanley is a private citizen working for a private sector business. By asserting her religious beliefs as an excuse to decline her duties she was only violating the terms of her employment, not any law. Therefore, she could reasonably be punished by her employer, but the state has no jurisdiction to arrest or incarcerate her.

For the Fox Nationalists to suggest that there is some hypocrisy in jailing Davis but not Stanley is only evidence of the idiocy and utter absence of logic by those at Fox. There is no legal justification for jailing Stanley, but Davis is an unabashed outlaw. And in Fox’s world the innocent should be imprisoned and the guilty should go free.

[Update 9/8/2015:] The judge who jailed Davis has now ordered her released because the plaintiffs in the case have received their marriage licenses from deputies in the County Clerk’s office. The release is contingent on her not interfering with her deputies who will continue to issue licenses to all legal applicants.

Now what will the grandstanding pols (Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, etc.) who were planning on attending a protest and visiting the now-former prisoner do when they get to the Kentucky jail and Davis isn’t there? Not to worry. They are so full of bs-infused hot air that they won’t have any trouble finding something to bitch mindlessly about.

Sunday Funnies: Gun Nut Thinks He Invented Assault Rifle With Muslim Kryptonite

Posted by Mark NC on September 6, 2015 at 1:39 pm. 4 Comments :

A gun manufacturer in Florida was so afraid that his weapons might be acquired by terrorists that he set out to create an assault rifle that would cause Muslims to spontaneously combust if they so much as touched it. His ambition to produce this Muslim Kryptonite was driven by a combination of his overt bigotry and raving stupidity (which always go hand in hand).

Ben “Mookie” Thomas of Spike’s Tactical in Apopka, FL, produced a video to introduce his $1,400.00 Crusader AR-15 with industrial strength Islamicide™ – guaranteed to repel any Muslim who attempted to pick up or fire the gun. The miracle breakthrough that Mookie discovered was to etch a Bible verse onto the side of the weapon. He chose Psalm 144:1 which says “Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.” According to the Mook “This insures that no Muslim terrorist will ever pick up this weapon to use it to bring harm against another person.”

What a super-genius this Mookie is. He came up with a totally real and effective method of Muslim-proofing an ultra-patriotic American assault rifle. It would be even better if he actually knew anything about Islam or Christianity. Because, as it turns out, the Psalms are found in the Old Testament which Islam regards as revealed truth. This particular Psalm is quoting King David who Muslims consider to be a prophet sent by God. Consequently, what Mookie created is a gun that any Muslim can carry and use with the blessings of Allah. Thanks, Mookie.

In at least one respect Mook’s foolishness is a positive thing. Because if he were right about this it would mean that no Muslim fighting against ISIS and other Islamic extremists would be able to use this weapon. It would mean that no Muslims in the U.S. military would be able to use it to defeat our enemies. Apparently he doesn’t know that most of the people engaging in battle against Middle East terrorists are actually other Muslims. They are also the ones most victimized and terrorized and in need of defensive arms.

This is just the latest episode of the continuing sitcom “The Floridiots.” In the last episode a firearms dealer in Inverness, Fl, pledged to create a “Muslim-free zone” by refusing to sell them any weapons or permit them to use their training and shooting ranges. Aside from the fact that he was violating the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution, and several federal anti-discrimination laws, he never revealed how he would identify the subjects of his racism other than by skin color. It’s a non-stop comedy extravaganza.

A common thread that runs between these jokers is that they like to insist that they aren’t racists. In the case of the Inverness gun dealer, he delivered his totally not racist spiel while standing in front of America’s pro-slavery banner, the Confederate flag. And in Mookie’s case, he took the extra step of naming his Muslim-repelling rifle the “Crusader” and etching onto it a version of the cross used by the Knights Templar during the Crusades. What better symbol of equality than one that represents one of history’s most brutal genocidal campaigns orchestrated by radical Christian terrorists?

This festival of festering prejudice is brought to you, of course, by Fox News, where Mookie’s story was featured prominently on at least two occasions. That’s the same Fox News that is currently trying to paint the #BlackLivesMatter movement as a hate group for trying to reform the criminal justice system and restore community relations between African-Americans and law enforcement. So be sure to stayed tuned to Fox for more hilarity to come.

Foxified: CNN Taps Sarah Palin And Hugh Hewitt For 2016 Campaign Coverage

Posted by Mark NC on September 5, 2015 at 4:14 pm. 21 Comments :

The decline of CNN has been in progress for several years now. It is a network that is struggling with an acute personality disorder. It wants very badly to emulate the ratings success of Fox News, but it has no idea why Fox is popular. They seem to think it has something to do with presenting a conservative slant on the news. But that is not how Fox became king of the cable news hill.

Fox succeeds by seducing the most extreme right-wing viewers with media trickery that mirrors entertainment programming, such as flashy graphics and audio, manufactured conflict, and soft porn in both their stories and anchors. But CNN’s misunderstanding of these tactics has led them to make glaring mistakes that fail to produce any positive results for their ratings or their journalistic integrity. The latest examples of this doomed strategy include the recent announcement of two conservative mouthpieces who will be featured prominently in their election programming.

First we have Sarah Palin. That’s right, having been ditched by Fox News, CNN is throwing her a life preserver and bringing her aboard to provide campaign analysis on this Sunday’s “State of the Union.” It’s hard to imagine what insight they think she will bring to the discussion on presidential politics. Her own experience was fraught with embarrassing episodes that only demonstrated how woefully ill-prepared she was for public service at that level. And since then she has only succeeded in distinguishing herself as an ignorant hack with negligible comprehension of the issues that face the nation. Nevertheless, CNN has tapped her to toss her word salad ravings on their network’s signature political program.

Secondly we have Hugh Hewitt, a starkly partisan wingnut who will be featured on CNN’s Republican debate this month. CNN could have selected actual journalists to pose questions to the candidates, but instead they picked only a stalwart Republican radio talk show host (and no one from the left) who will join CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Of course, conservatives are capable of asking tough questions when they want to. However, when they do they will be insulted and dismissed by the candidates and the GOP constituents. Just ask Megyn Kelly. Hewitt himself is taking heat for an interview he did with Donald Trump that demonstrated how ignorant Trump is on foreign affairs. Typical of Trump, he is now hammering Hewitt for what he calls “gotcha” questions. [Note: To Republicans, gotcha questions are any question they are too dumb to answer] In this case, the real problem for Trump was not whether he had been ambushed, but that his answer was at first a lie, followed by obvious ignorance. Check out the first 30 seconds of this video:

Notice how Trump hesitates and stretches the word “Yeessss” when answering whether he was familiar with Quds leader, Gen. Soleimani. Then he adds “Go ahead. Give me a little…go ahead tell me.” Clearly he was lying when he said he knew who Soleimani is and he employed a childish dodge in order to get Hewitt to inform him. That was confirmed when Hewitt told him that Soleimani “runs the Quds forces,” and Trump responded by saying that “the Kurds had been horribly mistreated by us.” Hewitt immediately corrected him, but Trump continued to dissemble. Why would he bring up the Iraqi Kurds in response to a question about the Iranian Revolutionary Army (Quds)? Well, his explanation later in the day was that he misheard Hewitt and thought that Hewitt said “Kurds.” But if that were true then he was asserting that Soleimani was the Kurdish leader (who is actually Masoud Barzani), proving that he doesn’t know anything about the Quds or the Kurds. In the end, Trump’s answers are proof that his ignorance is insufficient to cover up his lies.

To make matters worse, Trump was asked a question about Soleimani by Bret Baier during the first GOP debate on Fox. His answer then also showed that he had no idea who Soleimani is. And after having been queried on that exact subject during a critical debate he never made an attempt to educate himself.

The fairness and degree of difficulty of Hewitt’s questioning notwithstanding, there is still a problem with CNN placing an overtly partisan person on the panel with no balance. Can you imagine Fox News having a GOP debate and getting Rachel Maddow to moderate? And this isn’t a first for CNN. In the 2012 election cycle they co-hosted their debate with Tea Party Express, an organization that was even snubbed for their corruption within the Tea Party community.

What CNN is doing with both Palin and Hewitt can only degrade their teetering reputation further. If there is one thing that American media doesn’t need, it’s another Fox News. The first one is already doing a stellar job of misinforming the public and advancing the agenda of the Republican Party. What’s more, emulating Fox has done nothing for CNN’s ratings. Why should it? Viewers who are in the market for dumbed-down histrionics, Democrat bashing, and a steady diet of right-wing falsehoods, already have a proven provider.

Fox News Headline: That Drowned Syrian Boy On The Beach Is Obama’s Fault

Posted by Mark NC on September 4, 2015 at 4:34 pm. 10 Comments :

The list of things that are Obama’s fault just keeps getting longer. You have to wonder how he has managed to get so much done in so short a time. After all, conservatives have blamed Obama for everything from riots in Ferguson, MO, to California’s drought, to Ebola, to Hurricane Katrina (No, really). And that happened three years before he was inaugurated. He is to blame for high gas prices that hurt consumers, as well as for low gas prices that hurt oil companies. They blame him for increased immigration (which has actually gone down), and for the rising number of abortions (which are declining).

It really doesn’t matter what the subject is. Conservatives will spin it as evidence of America’s doom and blame Obama for it. And if you need another example, look no further than Fox News, where today they ran a story with the headline “That Drowned Syrian Boy On The Beach Is Obama’s Fault.” Because, of course it is.

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson is the one assigning the blame on this occasion. He has to stretch mightily to justify his ludicrous opinion that the responsibility for the death of a child refugee from Syria rests on the President’s shoulders. He does this by twisting the facts beyond all recognition and inventing motives that aren’t supported by reality. The sad story began when the boy’s family, along with thousands of others, fled the oppression and atrocities perpetrated by ISIS in Syria. Erickson viewed that situation as the “direct result” of Obama’s alleged pride and cowardice.

Apparently Erickson either doesn’t know, or is deliberately lying, about the circumstances that led to the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The truth is that a “Status of Forces Agreement” was negotiated by the administration of George W. Bush that called for complete withdrawal by the end of 2011. The Obama administration attempted to extend the agreement, but the Iraqis were opposed to any extension so Bush’s deadline was carried out.

Since the withdrawal date was not chosen by Obama, it can hardly be attributed to him as placating the left or resulting from his pride and arrogance. He didn’t “flee” the Middle East. He complied with the binding agreement of his White House predecessor. If Erickson is looking for someone to accuse of abdicating leadership, then he should be looking at Bush.

Furthermore, Erickson’s insinuation that Obama was responsible for the rise of ISIS is just as faulty as his understanding of international treaties. Many of the soldiers who formed ISIS were former officials and military operatives of Saddam Hussein’s Bath Party. They were only available to start their radical Islamic army because Bush’s operatives in Iraq prohibited them from having any role in the new Iraqi government. That move turned them into rebels who eventually aligned with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Erickson argued that the destabilization of Iraq that led to much of the region’s turmoil was Obama’s fault, even though one of the reasons that Obama had opposed the Iraq war from the start was the risk of destabilization. So Erickson was wrong about Iraq. He was wrong about the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. He was wrong about the beginnings of ISIS. He also failed to note that the dead child was not from Iraq, but was a refugee from Syria, where they were having problems of their own.

Nevertheless, Erickson flatly stated that “That little boy would not have died had Barack Obama stood strong in Iraq. […] That dead child is Barack Obama’s fault.” But that opinion is so much more than merely wrong. It is contrary to the facts. It is slander against Obama. It is absolution to ISIS, the real perpetrators of so much death and misery. And it is perversely exploitative of a tragic loss of innocent life. However, it is exactly the sort of despicable smear campaign that Erickson, and his comrades on the right, and Fox News, have been engaging in for at least the last seven years.

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