Tempest In A Tea Bag: Marco Rubio’s Traffic Ticket Troubles And Right-Wing Hypocrisy

Posted by Mark NC on June 7, 2015 at 3:43 pm. 3 Comments :

The “liberal” New York Times is taking heat for having published an Internet blurb detailing the rap sheet for the Rubio family on file with the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. It seems that the senator, and aspiring presidential candidate, and his wife racked up some seventeen tickets for speeding, careless driving, etc. The Times’ item was posted on Friday at a time generally reserved for “news dumps.”

It is unlikely that anyone at the Times regraded the story as an earth shattering bombshell and, absent any assistance from self-serving demagogues, it would probably have rolled off the media radar in half an hour or so. And that’s where the self-serving demagogues come in.

The conservative media regulars snapped to attention and immediately began castigating the Times for having reported a true, albeit trivial story. The effect of their accumulated outrage was to turn an online throwaway into a three day (and counting) event. Participating in the bash-fest were…

Fox News: Bias Alert: NY Times under fire for ‘scoop’ on Rubio traffic citations
Daily Caller: Marco Rubio And His Wife Have Gotten A Bunch Of Traffic Tickets
NewsBusters: NY Times ‘Scoop’ Exposes 17 Traffic Tickets for Marco Rubio
Breitbart: Media: Never Mind Hillary’s Scandals, Let’s Talk About Marco Rubio’s Wife’s Driving Habits
Townhall: Impeach: Rubio and Wife Have Received 17 Traffic Tickets Since 1997
RedState: Breaking: Marco Rubio Does Not Abuse his Influence
National Review: Marco Rubio — Traffic Violations Like Everyone Else
Washington Times: NY Times Goes After Rubio, Wife — For Traffic Tickets

There were, of course, many more, and Fox News has repeated the story numerous times. But perhaps the most offensive contribution to the Times thump-a-thon came from BreitBrat Ben Shapiro, who Tweeted a photo of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s car submerged at Chappaquiddick forty-six years ago. Talk about straying off-topic. Kennedy is not currently a candidate for president and he is, sadly, not here to defend himself. Maybe Shapiro would like to comment on the guy that Laura Bush killed in a tragic car accident. That would be just as relevant. Even more so, since her brother-in-law is running for president and she is around to comment on the matter. [This just in: Greg Gutfeld of Fox News also joked about Kennedy as he dismissed Rubios’s poor driving by saying that “At least he didn’t drive anybody off a bridge.” This even caused his co-hosts on The Five to groan disapprovingly]

Most noticeable in this orchestrated defense of the Rubios, however, is the typical wailing of wingnuts who have been caught doing something wrong. Their first response is always to cry “media bias” and to lament their victimization at the hands of the cold-hearted press. It’s the very same reaction that is currently being deployed by the despicable Duggar family’s defense of their pedophile son Josh. These people think that the media reporting on alleged crimes is worse than the the crime itself.

Unfortunately for them, the facts don’t fit with their fantasy narrative. If the media is demonstrating some sort of bias by reporting Rubio’s traffic tickets, then what were they demonstrating when they reported Barack Obama’s parking tickets back in 2008? As published in a story by the “liberal” Washington Post…

Did any of the usual right-wing suspects noted above come to Obama’s defense and condemn the Post for smearing him? Was there any expressed outrage over how the media resorts to trivialities when there are much bigger problems facing the world? Was there any forgiveness from the right because Obama at the time was a poor student and these were just parking tickets, not moving violations like Rubio’s.

Nope, none of that Christian mercy that conservatives are so fond of flashing was on display. That’s because, they don’t really care about the substance of these issues.

Instead, they are singularly interested in furthering the spread of their favorite fairy tale that the media is hopelessly liberal and that this unwarranted attack on Rubio is just another example of it. That’s how they can justify stretching this trifling news bite into a multi-day tribulation. It feeds their manufactured stereotype of the media and they will continue to chomp on it until the flavor is gone.

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Are Voters Willing To Pay To Combat Global Warming? Don’t Ask Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on June 6, 2015 at 3:34 pm. 2 Comments :

For anyone looking for additional evidence that Fox News makes people stupid, another splendid example popped up on the Fox Nation website today.

The article’s headline posed the question “Are Voters Willing To Pay To Combat Global Warming?” Both the question and the original source for the article came directly from the ultra-conservative pollsters at Rasmussen Reports. The folks at Rasmussen answered the question by stating flatly that “Most voters still aren’t ready to pay much, if anything, to fight global warming.” Fox News repeated the same thing without any critical assessment of its accuracy.

It would not be surprising, then, for Fox’s audience to come away believing that the poll showed that Americans are unwilling to pay up in order to prevent the scientifically verified dangers of Climate Change. And if they won’t pay to mitigate the harm, then they must not think it’s very important.

The problem with that conclusion, however, is that it flies in the face of both reality and the actual results of the Rasmussen poll. Reading further on the Rasmussen article (which Fox did not report) reveals a very different representation of the public opinion:

To sum up, with 24% willing to pay at least $100.00 per year, plus 26% willing to pay over $300.00 per year, plus another 6% willing to pay more than $1000.00 per year, you get 56% (a clear majority) of Americans who believe that Climate Change is a problem that is serious enough to shell out significant funds to address. Yet somehow Rasmussen, and subsequently Fox News, spun the poll results as saying that “most voters still aren’t ready to pay much, if anything.”

So how did they arrive at that obviously contrary conclusion? One guess is that they simply decided that either $100.00 or $300.00 is not “much” money. But that’s a subjective analysis and many Americans would dispute it. Even Fox News would dispute it under different circumstances. For instance, if they thought that someone’s health insurance premium was going to increase $100.00 per year they would regard it as an outrage and renew their calls to repeal ObamaCare.

Another possible explanation for how the poll results were so absurdly twisted is Rasmussen’s methodology wherein they split the responses into four groups (pay nothing, $100.00, $300.00, or $1000.00). The effect is to divide all the responses where there is willingness to pay into three answers, while leaving a single answer for those unwilling to pay anything. Consequently, you get a plurality of 41% who won’t pay, compared to smaller numbers who will pay different amounts. So long as no one adds up those other amounts and realizes that they total 56%, a deceptive pollster could claim that those who won’t pay are the largest single group.

Rest assured that the Fox News audience won’t do the math. In fact, they probably won’t even click through to read the article. And for the foreseeable future they will believe, falsely, that the majority of the American people are against any attempt to address Climate Change if it is going to cost them anything. Nice work Fox. Your dishonesty will keep your audience mired in ignorance, just the way you like them.

Remember: Newly Minted GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Perry Is Under Felony Indictment

Posted by Mark NC on June 4, 2015 at 4:06 pm. 5 Comments :

Last year Rick Perry was indicted by a Grand Jury in Texas on criminal charges of abuse of power. The charges stemmed from his attempt to unlawfully coerce an elected District Attorney into resigning. Today this alleged felon announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. Isn’t that cute? What follows is the News Corpse article detailing the case against Perry and the efforts by right-wing media to dismiss it.

[August 17, 2014] Ever since a Texas Grand Jury handed down an indictment against Gov. Rick Perry, most of the Republican establishment and right-wing press have deliberately mischaracterized the nature of the criminal allegations. They all are marching lock-step in an effort to defend official abuse of power by pretending that the violation was due to the execution of a veto, something that is entirely permissable by a governor in Texas.

The problem with their defense of Perry, which he has adopted himself, is that the indictment is not for his having issued a veto. It is for his having threatened an elected public servant in an attempt to coerce her to resign.

Rosemary Lehmberg, the District Attorney for Travis County, has problems of her own. She was arrested and pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and behaved poorly during the arrest and initial incarceration. However, a Grand Jury investigated her situation at the time and found no cause to indict her for official misconduct.. Indeed, her misconduct, while egregious, was all personal and unrelated to her duties as a D.A. All of her misbehavior occurred while she was drunk, and when she sobered up she took responsibility, paid her price to society, and promised not to run for reelection.

That wasn’t good enough for Perry. He demanded that she resign immediately and threatened political vengeance if she refused to obey his command. Lehmberg stood fast and Perry carried out his retribution by slashing funds to her department. And that is where he went wrong.

Perry defended himself against the indictment by saying that he has the authority under the Texas constitution to issue vetoes. And in this case he was taking action because he had lost confidence in Lehmberg and that the public deserved better. Perhaps. But that is not within his jurisdiction to decide. Lehmberg was elected to her office by the voters of Travis County and does not answer to the Governor. Perry has no authority to demand the removal of elected officials or to exact retribution on them if they defy his orders. Perry’s own remarks following the indictment reveal the flaw in this line of defense. He said that indictments are…

Exactly (and he may want to relay that message to John Boehner). And since Lehmberg had already pledged not to run, the issue was settled. Perry cannot unilaterally overturn the choice of the voters. And he cannot threaten elected officials as a means of carrying out his unlawful bullying. By vetoing the funds to the D.A.’s Public Integrity Unit, Perry was attempting to force his will on Lehmberg. Even worse, he was actually doing harm to the people of Texas who rely on that agency to keep politicians (like Perry) from engaging in corruption.

It is typical of right-wing media to absolve Republicans of any criminal wrongdoing on a strictly partisan basis. It’s the reason why every investigation of a conservative is portrayed as political. That’s how they reacted to the charges against Dinesh D’Souza (who later pleaded guilty to election fraud), and Sen. David Vitter (who later pleaded guilty to his association with prostitutes), and James O’Keefe (who later pleaded guilty to unlawful activity in the office of a U.S. senator), and more recently New Jersey governor Chris Christy who is being investigated for abuse of power himself. I could go on and on and…

Perry’s fate will rest on a jury’s decision of whether or not he exceeded his authority in threatening Lehmberg to resign, not on the veto he used as his muscle. In the meantime, the media is also on trial, and when Fox News and others misrepresent the facts in order to whitewash the crime, they must be judged guilty as well.

Perry is going to have some trouble gaining any traction after his latest humiliating campaign. But truth be told, he’s a pretty good standard bearer for the Republican Party. He’s an evangelical wingnut with criminal tendencies who gets his snake oil straight from the well.

Slow News Day: Fox News Correspondent With Paper Fetish Reveals Meaningless Documents

Posted by Mark NC on June 4, 2015 at 12:13 pm. 2 Comments :

OK, Rick Perry just announced that he is running for president, but anyone who thinks that is news is probably still wondering whether Saddam had WMDs. So, in the absence of anything more substantial to report, News Corpse would like to present Catherine Herridge, a Fox News correspondent with a particularly unique on-air presence.

For some reason, Herridge insists on augmenting her reporting with visual aids. Whenever she discusses some government revelation that was discovered in a memo or email or agency report, she feels the need to hold up a handful of papers to validate her reporting. Of course, the papers she displays cannot be read on the TV screen and really just take up space. For all the viewer knows, they are instructions to assemble an IKEA bookcase, or the results of her recent colonoscopy. [Note: If Fox’s graphics are to be believed, all of the examples above have something to do with Benghazi, an issue that Fox has tried in vain to scandalize for years]

The only thing interesting about this behavior is that Fox News regards this stagecraft as enhancing the storytelling on the part of their reporter. There is an inference that Fox viewers are persuaded by this “evidence” that whatever Herridge is saying must be true because there are some papers in her hand with printing on them. It is emblematic of the shallow standards of journalism as practiced by Fox News and the low bar for authenticity required by its audience.

In short, this useless theatrical gimmick captures the core of Fox’s broadcast methodology: Wave a shiny object on the screen while making unsupported assertions about its meaning. It’s basically the same tactic they use to promote Megyn Kelly and ISIS videos.

Missing From Fox News: The Incredible Disappearing Sarah Palin

Posted by Mark NC on June 3, 2015 at 10:12 pm. 13 Comments :

An article from yesterday’s McClatchy Washington Bureau noted that the whereabouts of Sarah Palin are in some doubt. The headline asked “Where’s Sarah,” and the opening line answered vaguely that “Sarah Palin has disappeared from the 2016 presidential campaign.”

Indeed, Palin seems to have dropped from sight. A sidebar posted with the article listed ten prominent Republican campaign events held over the past four months that attracted numerous GOP luminaries, including presidential candidates, that were not graced by the presence of Palin.

This disappearance is all the more peculiar when coupled with her assertion last January that she is “absolutely…seriously interested” in running for president herself. Of course, nobody with any functioning brain cells is taking her campaign conjecture seriously. She has no organization or staff and her SarahPAC is drawing paltry contributions. [On a side note, Palin has given just 6.6% of her PAC funds to other candidates over the past two years. Instead, she is spending the money mostly on herself. Yet she still has the gall to criticize Hillary Clinton for helping to run a charitable foundation that has helped millions of deserving people]

More ominous from the perspective of Palin, and those who need a regular fix of her unique brand of incoherence, she has been absent from her duties as a Fox News contributor. The last appearance on the network seems to have been in January on Sean Hannity’s program. That booking four months ago was clearly arranged as an attempt to recover from a speech she gave at Wingnut Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit, where she so embarrassed herself that even fellow conservatives were turning their heads in shame. Hannity recognized the ditch that Palin had dug and tried to give her a platform to redeem herself, but it didn’t go well:

Thereupon she went on to defend the speech against the criticism that she said she didn’t read. Her defense consisted mainly of insisting that the Iowa audience that came to see her were satisfied, and besides the media, and um America, and um we the people, and um you betcha.

During the entire segment she seemed to be pissed off. Was it her sensitivity to the humiliating address in Iowa? Was she mad at Hannity? Hard to say. But even when he asked about her presidential ambitions she snapped at him:

Meeeow! Imagine the nerve of that “pesty” reporter asking a perfectly ordinary question that anyone in Palin’s shoes should expect. In fact, Hannity just asked her the very same question. Next those jackals will wanna know what magazines she reads. It’s especially cute that she refers to her own cable reality show as Amazing America “with Sarah Palin,” as if she has a contractual obligation to formally include her name whenever mentioning the title.

Palin’s demeanor was so unpleasant that it would be understandable if Hannity and other Fox News hosts are now reluctant to invite her back. Or maybe she’s busy with her web video channel. Nah, that can’t be it. She only posted nine videos the whole month of May for a total of 20 minutes of programming. A more likely scenario is that a Fox honcho (i.e. CEO Roger Ailes) has decided that Palin is now a liability as the 2016 campaign season heats up and they don’t want her around screwing up their plans to send a Republican to the White House.

I suppose that we shouldn’t complain about Palin being off the air, whatever the reason. But while her mindless inanities will not be missed, the country’s comedians are going to suffer a severe drought of primo material. Just to tide you over in case Palin remains sequestered in the tundra, here is how Jon Stewart covered her disaster in Iowa last January (the whole clip is worth watching, but if you can’t wait, Palin enters at about five minutes in).

Sarah Palin Redux: Hillary Clinton Pallin’ Around With Terrorists? Here We Go Again

Posted by Mark NC on June 2, 2015 at 3:00 pm. 5 Comments :

Fading reality TV loser and notorious political quitter, Sarah Palin, hasn’t been heard from much lately. Her sightings on Fox News have become rare, with the last appearance sometime back in January. Unfortunately, her unique brand of dementia seems to be enduring as one of her classically idiotic themes made a comeback on the Fox Nation website:

A featured article on Fox Nation was topped with a headline that declared that “Hillary’s Terror-Tied Aide Had Full Access to Benghazi E-Mails.” This immediately brings to mind the memory of Palin’s famously loony “pallin’ around with terrorists” allegation that falsely tried to tie then-candidate Barack Obama to former Weather Underground radical (now mild-mannered college professor) Bill Ayers.

The reprise of this stupidity is based on the thoroughly discredited accusations that Clinton aide Huma Abedin is a deep-cover agent of the Muslim Brotherhood who is plotting to destroy America from within. Never mind that Abedin, who was born in Michigan, has been a trusted and respected public servant for many years. The charges against her were originally leveled by congressional “intelligence” experts, Michelle Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, and other Tea Party fruitcakes.

When the terrorist slurs first began circulating they were shot down by everyone that knew Abedin, including prominent Republicans. House Speaker John Boehner defended her saying that she had a “sterling character.” Lindsey Graham called the attacks on her “ridiculous.” John McCain praised her saying that she “represents what is best about America” and that the charges were “an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman.” Ed Rollins, who managed Bachmann’s presidential campaign, repudiated the attacks as “downright vicious.”

The Fox Nation article links to the ultra-rightist propagandists at Truth Revolt, a website that was founded by Breitbart Editor-at-Large, Ben Shapiro. Truth Revolt, in turn referenced the conspiracy crackpots at WorldNetDaily, who are still grasping feverishly to the birther nonsense. The WND article was written by Aaron Klein, who believes that Obama might be a Muslim who sides with Al Qaeda. So Truth Revolt re-posts WND and Fox Nation re-posts Truth Revolt, with an opening paragraph that launches into a surreal fantasy:

There you have it. With absolutely no factual basis, Fox News has bought into scurrilous charges against a respectable woman, associating her with America’s most virulent enemies. And as an additional bonus, Fox worked in a mention of their favorite recurring non-scandal, Benghazi.

If there is anyone left who still thinks that Fox News is a reputable journalism enterprise, or that they might have moderated their extremist views since the last presidential election, this should put an end to those fallacies. As the next presidential cycle gets into gear, it is clear that Fox intends to ramp up the crazy to levels at least as deranged as those in 2008 and 2012. So here come the terrorist charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee. Because if you’re a Tea Party wingnut it isn’t enough to merely have policy disputes with political rivals, you must demonize them as threats to the continued existence of mankind.

As evidence of this trend, note the latest outrage being hyped on Fox News. It’s a brief video clip that shows Clinton politely asking a supporter to take her place in line in order to get a photo with the candidate.

On Fox News this is proof that Clinton is an Ice Queen who cannot relate to regular humans. Of course, the fact that the video is chopped into a fragment that fails to put Clinton’s encounter in context is irrelevant to the spinners at Fox. To them it is more important to create an artificial persona for Clinton that makes her look mean and elitist. And surprisingly, an anchor at Fox actually admitted that it is their intention to promote this video misrepresentation.

So MacCallum admits that Fox will put this video on an endless loop even if the impression it leaves is false. And her guest confesses that in the uncut video Clinton’s behavior was entirely appropriate, but that doesn’t matter when you are trying to slander her.

That’s the sort of dishonesty and bias that has been the hallmark of Fox News. Consequently, it’s not particularly surprising that they are continuing to debase journalism just as they have from their inception. What’s a little surprising is that they are openly admitting it even as they are doing it. That shows how certain they are that they can get away with their deceit without any repercussions. They know very well that their audience couldn’t care less about truth or lies, even if they could tell the difference.

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Pew: Millennials Distrust Fox News More Than Any Other News Source

Posted by Mark NC on June 1, 2015 at 4:16 pm. 10 Comments :

A new study by the Pew Research Center reveals some striking generational disparities between America’s news consumers. The study’s results cast the light of perspective on the marketing hype of Fox News, who brag incessantly about being the highest rated cable news network.

The ratings boast has always been a specious act of puffery by Fox News considering that their numbers are achieved by herding all of the wingnut demographic into a single corral, while the remaining TV viewing universe is dispersed to the rest of the available channels. What’s more, Fox’s ratings represent a tiny portion (about 1%) of the nation’s population on their best showing.

What we learn from the Pew study is that Fox’s appeal among young viewers sets a low water mark for the network. Millennial respondents in the study say that they trust Fox News less than any other news source. A plurality of 43% distrust Fox News. That’s significantly more than the next lowest source, Rush Limbaugh, who is also distrusted by far more millennials (32%) than trust him (4%). The 43% of Millennials who distrust Fox is nearly three times the number who distrust MSNBC (15%).

Looking at the numbers from the other direction, the percentage who trust Fox (35%) is less than CNN (60%), MSNBC (37%), and 4 to 12 points less than the three broadcast news networks. Even sources like the Daily Show and Al Jazeera, whose sample sizes are smaller, are still rated with more viewers that trust them than distrust them, compared to Fox’s net distrust results.

The numbers aren’t much better in other demographic groupings. Gen-Xers trust Fox News less than every other source except for Limbaugh. And the same thing is true for the Baby Boomers who are Fox’s best demo. With a median age of 68.8 years, Fox’s audience is over six years older than either CNN or MSNBC. It’s even worse for their top rated program (Bill O’Reilly) who’s average viewer is over 72 years old.

In addition to the poor showing by Fox News, the rest of the study’s bottom dwellers are primarily right-wing radio talkers, Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck.

From a business perspective, Fox News has to be deeply concerned about the next generation of viewers. If their opinions remain constant they are not going to be tuning in to Fox. However, putting this in a political context is more complex. While Millennials clearly have an aversion to Fox’s conservative programming, they are also less likely to participate in the electoral process. On the other hand, about half of the older Baby Boomers are fond of Fox, and they are more reliable voters. So Republicans may have some short-term advantage from that, but looking forward to the next generation of seniors is going to be a problem for Fox and the Republican Party.

Of Course , all of that may change if Millennials become more active politically due to factors like the first African-American president, or the first woman, or Latino, or candidates who support marriage equality and marijuana legalization. And Fox has been busy alienating all of the fastest growing voter blocs while simultaneously insulting their base of seniors with derogatory swipes at Hillary Clinton’s age. Even before this Pew study, polls have shown Fox News as both the most and least trusted news network.

The technological platforms for news are also drawing more young people. So participation by those connected to Facebook and Twitter will likely increase. In short, the future is a mystery. What isn’t mysterious is that Fox News is rapidly becoming a universally hated network. Its biases and brazenly dishonest reporting are being rejected in ever greater numbers. It is a fading entity whose prospects are dwindling with time. And that’s good news for democracy and America and the world.

Obama Declares Texas A Disaster: Prelude To Martial Law?

Posted by Mark NC on May 30, 2015 at 12:12 pm. 2 Comments :

Late Friday, in response to a request from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, President Obama signed an order declaring Texas a disaster area. The action makes federal funds available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government sources for recovery efforts in the area affected by severe storms and flooding.

Who does the President think he is calling the great state of Texas a disaster? The fact that he feels free to fling this insult is further evidence of the animus that Obama has for Texas and its citizens. It was only a few short weeks ago that Obama’s Storm Troopers (aka United States Armed Forces) designated Texas as “hostile” territory during preparations for the Jade Helm 15 invasion and subjugation of the state. Now he is granting himself additional powers to deploy his real “storm” trooping henchmen to impose “order.”

This appalling new development flies in the face of the defenders of liberty who cherish the freedom for which Texas stands. This includes former patriots like Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Louie Gohmert who bitterly objected to using taxpayer dollars to bailout the moochers who complained following other natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, but who are now complicit to the White House conspiracy. Remember, it was not long ago that former governor Rick Perry was holding rallies to “Pray for Rain.” Apparently God has answered those prayers.

However, the tyrants in Washington, D.C. are not fooling the real Americans in Texas with their phony declarations that are merely cover for more widespread abuses to our civil liberties. The language in the disaster declaration includes ambiguous code words for carrying out “hazard mitigation measures.” What is stopping the Feds from invoking that language to confiscate guns from law-abiding patriots, detain “dissidents,” and/or impose martial law? This plot is still so clandestine that even Glenn Beck and Alex Jones have not caught on.

As the illegitimate government proceeds with its agenda of oppression they will employ the media to brainwash the gullible masses with propaganda that attributes simple rain storms to allegedly catastrophic myths about Climate Change. An example of this deception was recently exposed by the media watchdogs at NewsBusters whose headline blared “NBC Continues Media Push Blaming Flooding in Texas, Drought in California on Climate Change.” The article sought to highlight the hypocrisy of attributing both storms and droughts to the specious scientific theory. Even though the “experts” agree that such changes in the Earth’s atmospherics can occur as climate patterns are transformed by the accumulation of greenhouse gasses, heroic science deniers refuse to fall for the scam.

Even more impressive was the observation by NewsBusters that NBC deliberately skewed its reporting to ignore the positive side of torrential rains that have so far claimed the lives of 25 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. NewsBusters noted that the current rainfall followed years of drought and “As opposed to expanding upon on the benefits of this news, [NBC reporter Miguel] Almaguer decided to invoke climate change.” Can’t these people see the bright side of anything?

Given the threats that are so apparent, Americans must be on their guard against efforts by aspiring dictators to enslave the population. And declarations of so-called disaster areas may be the first step toward complete slavery. This administration has proven that it is determined to breach the Constitution via its assault on the long-cherished American principles of gun fetishism and Christian supremacy. Notice how Obama has nearly depleted the nation of firearms already, and devout Christians are victims of rampant discrimination. The message to patriots is: Now is not the time to surrender (you crazy motherf*ckers).

Fox News Editorial On Climate Change Still Using Bogus Argument By Disgraced Author

Posted by Mark NC on May 29, 2015 at 4:24 pm. 6 Comments :

The debate over climate change is over. Not only is it occurring, it is man-made and dangerous. That is not one person’s opinion. It is the consensus opinion of thousands of climate scientists who have studied and written on the subject. The evidence was published in a study led by John Cook of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia, that examined nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed papers that were categorized by both independent researchers and the paper’s own authors. The result: “97% of those expressing a position…endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of the expert’s opinions, conservatives and right-wing media continue to try to dismiss reality in favor of a viewpoint that benefits the giant fossil fuel industry and defenders of the status quo. Leading the pack is Fox News where climate change denialism is clutched unto as a matter of faith. The twisted coverage of environmental issues by Fox News, and the rest of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has actually resulted in the countries where his media dominates (particularly the U.S.) to be the most ignorant of the risks associated with climate change.

In keeping with their pro-pollution doctrine, Fox News published an editorial disputing a tweet by President Obama citing the 97% consensus.

The article was written by Richard Tol, a Dutch professor who has turned his denialism into a fetish. So much so that even after he was embarrassed by a prior effort to criticize the consensus he is still using the same failed arguments in this new article. Tol makes several wholly unsupported allegations against the consensus study, but focused on his assertion that the papers reviewed in the study were categorized improperly. He complains that…

Tol is overstating the process that actually consisted of only two reviews – an initial review followed by a re-review if the two researchers disagreed on a category designation. If they still disagreed after the second review, a third researcher would break the tie. There is no evidence, or incentive, for anyone conspiring to falsify the categorization. Even so, the gist of Tol’s complaint is that the study was just too darn thorough. That’s a negative in Tol’s view. Although real scientists tend to prefer thoroughness, shills and propagandists favor Tol’s disdain for it.

Additionally, Tol attempts to misrepresent the study’s findings by saying that of the 12,000 papers reviewed only 64 explicitly endorsed the climate change consensus. He exuberantly declares that that is only “half a per cent or less of the total, rather than 97 percent.” However, the study’s category for endorsement consists of three sub-categories including a range from explicit to implicit endorsement. Tol separated out just the papers with the highest level of explicit endorsement which was indeed 64. But he left out the other 3,832 papers that were also unambiguously endorsements. That’s the kind of math distortion that deniers embrace to make their illogical arguments seem reasonable.

A year ago, Tol tried to to make many of these same arguments to discredit the consensus study. He was roundly trounced in an article for the Guardian (a must read) by one of the study’s contributing authors, Dana Nuccitelli, an environmental scientist and risk assessor. In fact, Tol’s effort inadvertently confirmed the consensus study. Among the false claims that Tol made previously (and in his new article for Fox) was that Cook did not disclose the data used in the study. He must have overlooked the data that was fully published on a website where any interested party could make their own categorical assessments and compare them to those in the study.

Nuccitelli pointed out that using Tol’s methodology, which Tol himself miscalculated, resulted in an even stronger consensus, raising the figure from 97.1% to 97.2. Nuccitelli also revealed that Tol had tried to get his rebuttal theory published by the same journal that published Cook’s study, but he was rejected – twice.

In some sense you have to admire the tenacity of someone who can persevere despite being embarrassed repeatedly. But since this subject has such important ramifications for the planet and all of humankind, it is hard to have much respect for Tol, who perseveres in an effort to deceive people and advance the interests of those who would profit from the misery they create. No wonder this tripe was published by Fox News, whose own reputation is in tatters and for which there is also widespread consensus – of deception.

Media Fails To Report That Hillary Clinton Is Crushing Every GOP Candidate In New Poll

Posted by Mark NC on May 28, 2015 at 4:41 pm. 13 Comments :

The 2016 election season continues to heat up with most of the action on the Republican side of the field. The GOP Clown Car is filling up with with two new entries, Rick Santorum and George Pataki, bringing the official count to eight. It will be closer to fifteen before they are done.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is the only candidate that the press takes seriously. Never mind that Bernie Sanders is stirring up the passion of the party base and that Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb all have more experience that most of the GOP aspirants.

It is, therefore, interesting to see how the media is handling their coverage of Clinton. For the past several weeks they have said very little other than to hype false allegations about the Clinton Foundation raised in a book that is notable primarily for its abundance of errors. They also filled time with wild speculation about her emails, despite having no evidence of any wrongdoing. And when they weren’t mining those dry holes they were complaining about her preference for talking to voters over reporters. Can anyone blame her?

Today the media again displayed an uncontrollable compulsion to avoid any discourse of substance. A new poll was released by Quinnipiac that showed Clinton beating every Republican she was matched against. The margin of victory spread from four points (vs. Rand Paul) to eighteen points (vs. Donald Trump). All of these Clinton leads exceeded the poll’s margin of error.

Clinton’s domination of the entire GOP field, however, was not particularly newsworthy to most of the media. Instead, they reported on the horse race between the Republicans that had five of them bunched up at the top with no clear leader. Somehow, that bit of vaguery was deemed a more important news item than Clinton’s clear cut clean sweep.

The Washington Post’s answer to this poll came in an editorial by conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin. Her article on Clinton’s polling success carried the headline “Hillary’s strategy isn’t working.” Of course, because besting every one of your challengers is a sure sign of a failing strategy to wingnuts like Rubin.

Instead of the candidate match-ups, Rubin focused on two other questions in the poll. First was Clinton’s favorability which registered only 45%. What Rubin left out is that Hillary’s 45% was higher than any of the Republicans. Secondly, Rubin brought up the question of trustworthiness, wherein the poll’s respondents gave Hillary a low 39%. Once again, Rubin neglected to mention that all but two Republicans (Huckabee and Paul) registered even lower. And for the record, Clinton also rated higher than any of the Republican on leadership and caring about people.

With the election over eighteen months away, there will be plenty of time for the press to hurl questions at Clinton. The problem is whether they will come up with any inquiries that have relevance to the country or will they keep embarrassing themselves with trivialities and spin? For example, yesterday Clinton made public statements in South Carolina that addressed serious issues like pay equality and helping the middle class. But all the media saw fit to report was their impression that she spoke with a southern accent [Note: She lived in Arkansas for more than fifteen years. Y’all think that doesn’t make a dent in yer speakin’ voice?]

In the meantime, we can expect the press to continue to fish up sparkly nonsense in an attempt to turn the election into a tabloid melodrama that dispenses with any of those serious matters that only make people depressed and force them to think. And Clinton’s campaign strategy will fail her straight up into the White House while the media is still trying to parse an old sentence fragment into something scandalous.

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