Fox News Promotes Nazi Insults Aimed At First Responders By Anti-Obama Protesters

Posted by on October 14, 2013 at 2:16 pm. 4 Comments :

Fox News presents itself as the red, white, and bluest cable news network the world has ever seen. They savor their Patriopathic zeal and wear their jingoistic bias as a badge of honor. Of course, it’s all a disingenuous affectation manufactured to lure in gullible tea-billies that Fox whips into a frenzied mob to oppose our socialist, Muslim president from Kenya. That makes it all the more blatantly hypocritical when those Blockhead Brigades march on the Capital to protest a government shutdown that was planned and executed by the Tea Party right.

Fox Nation

The Fox News community web site and Fib Factory, Fox Nation, posted an item celebrating the “Million Vet March,” that only managed to attract a few hundred marchers. The event was a sorry spectacle despite having star attractions like Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz topping the bill. Protesters expressed their outrage that several war memorials were closed due to the shutdown. So they “stormed” through barricades that could be easily pushed aside, and milled around the memorials without paying much attention to them. Later they carried the portable barricades to the street in front of the White House and discarded them there as an act of ….. petulance?

The Fox Nationalists included a video (below) of this rally that was labeled “Veterans face off with Obama Storm Troopers At White House!” The reference to “Storm Troopers” (Hitler’s paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party) is rhetoric that is all too common with these right-wing extremists. In the video the protesters loudly boo the arrival of the police. You can hear them shouting chants and slurs such as “Looks like something out of Kenya,” and “It’s the Brown Shirts,” another Nazi reference.

The police, of course, are there to protect people and property from harm, behavior that the demonstrators already proved they are willing to engage in. Officers never made any aggressive moves toward the demonstrators that would have justified the bile spewed at them. And if something terrible had happened, these same abusive protesters would be clamoring for assistance from these brave public servants. It is thoroughly repulsive how these Teabaggers can go from praising first responders during natural disasters or terrorism, to vilifying them for doing their jobs during an unruly demonstration.

It is also notable that the Tea-Publican Party malcontents who caused the government shutdown are now so fixated on just one of many of the repercussions for which they previously cheered. They characteristically have chosen to focus on a symbolic outrage having to do with some senior citizen veterans being able to visit some statues in a park. Wouldn’t it be nice if they cared just as much about the children who have been locked out of programs that provide necessary food and health care?

GOP Shutdown

And if you thought that this weekend’s rally had something to do with veterans, or a health care plan, or government spending, you just need to listen to the words of Freedom Watch founder Larry Klayman, who was a featured speaker at the rally and said…

“We are now ruled by a president that bows down to Allah. […] I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up.”

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OBAMA SCARE: Fox News Warns That If You Sign Up For ObamaCare Hackers Will Steal Your Life Savings

Posted by on October 13, 2013 at 1:31 pm. 8 Comments :

On Friday’s episode of “The Real Story” on Fox News, host Gretchen Carlson introduced an ominous new strain of fear mongering to intimidate Americans from learning more about how the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) can benefit them. Fox News is so terrified that people will discover how much there is to gain by enrolling, that they continue to invent ever more frightening tales of horror.

Fox News Obama Scare
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Carlson’s guest for the segment was John McAfee, the notorious developer of the anti-virus software company, who is presently a fugitive from a murder investigation. Carlson introduced McAfee with a declarative statement that enrolling in ObamaCare is dangerous because “Hackers could easily steal your identity. You could even lose you life savings if you do sign up.”

Oh my! That sounds awful. Pack up the kids Mabel, we’re moving to our bunker in Idaho where we stashed the gold bullion and freeze-fried moose stew. Fox News has confirmed that legions of hackers will be stalking innocent health insurance consumers to bleed them dry and deliver their souls to Satan.

This wild assertion that visitors to HealthCare.gov are going to be victimized by hackers is designed to frighten people away from the web site. Fox News has embarked on a full scale assault against ObamaCare with false allegations of higher costs, reduced service, death panels, national deficits, and even allusions to slavery. Their goal is to steer enough gullible viewers away from participating in order to engineer the program’s failure. And now they are deploying their latest tactic, fear of a malicious army of identity thieves.

During the interview, Carlson raises the specter of outlaw hackers laying in wait on the ObamaCare web site. However, neither she nor McAfee actually provide any evidence of such a threat. In fact, when directly asked about it. McAfee diverts from the question and lays out a completely different threat that has nothing whatsoever to do with the ObamaCare web site:

“There are no safeguards to prevent anyone – you, me, anyone who can develop a web site that only costs a couple of hundred dollars – and pretend to be an examiner, an agent, and you can log on, I’ll ask you for your Social Security number, your date of birth, everything I need to an hour later empty your bank account. And this is going to happen, and it’s going to happen very soon. Nothing in the ObamaCare system safeguards against this.”

To be clear, McAfee is not talking about any flaw or security risk to users of HealthCare.gov. He is saying that other nefarious individuals could set up their own unaffiliated web sites in the hopes of luring naive people of whom they will seek to take advantage. Of course, that is a threat that exists every day for every web site, and has since the Internet began. It has absolutely nothing to do with the ObamaCare site and does represent any risk to its users.

In short, if you give your Social Security number to a fake web site, or the widow of a Nigerian prince, it isn’t Obama’s fault. And the fact that Fox News will lie about this so brazenly is evidence of how scared they are that most Americans are going to appreciate having access to affordable health care for the first time. They are going to appreciate declining costs and lower national deficits. And they are going to remember who it was that threw every obstacle they could find in the path of these reforms when they go to the polls in November 2014.


Is Fox News The Most Flaccid Propaganda Tool Ever?

Posted by on October 12, 2013 at 3:09 pm. 3 Comments :

Twelve days ago the Tea Party dominated Republican House caucus shut down the United States government in an attempt coerce the majority of the Congress into defunding, delaying, or otherwise crippling the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare).

They were aided and abetted by their partners in political crime, Fox News. In fact, Fox News took a leadership role in disseminating disinformation aimed at either preventing ObamaCare from being implemented or poisoning public opinion to oppose it based on the lies that Fox manufactured.

Fox News
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The ferocity of the Fox campaign was dialed up to maximum volume with absurdly dishonest claims that tested the boundaries of hyperbole. They coordinated their attack plan to traverse the Fox empire including their business network, the Wall Street Journal, and the notorious Fib Factory, Fox Nation. They spoke of non-existent death panels, encroaching socialism, largest tax increases in history, comparisons to slavery, and endless references to tyranny, Hitler, and the total destruction of America.

So what did Fox gain from that virulent assault on a law that was passed by Congress, signed by the President, deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court, and affirmed by the reelection of Obama? They emboldened the most strident extremists on the right who pursued a suicidal mission to impose their unpopular will on the nation. And their ultimate reward is that ObamaCare is now regarded more favorably than it was before the government shutdown (or “slimdown” as Fox calls it):

“[W]hat is perhaps even more worrisome for the GOP is the ‘boomerang’ effect: As the party has used the shutdown and fiscal fight to campaign against the nation’s health-care law and for limited government, the poll shows those efforts have backfired.

“For one thing, the health-care law has become more popular since the shutdown began. Thirty-eight percent see the Affordable Care Act (or ‘Obamacare’) as a good idea, versus 43 percent who see it as a bad idea – up from 31 percent good idea, 44 percent bad idea last month.”

Ted CruzNot only that, but while America has been warming up to ObamaCare (which most are only now getting there first personal exposure to), their dislike for Republicans is growing exponentially. For that they can thank the Tea Party nutjobs like Ted Cruz and the tiny faction of Teabaggers in the House who have such a firm grip on John Boehner’s cojones:

“By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96.

“Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll.”

While this epic cratering of support was unfolding, President Obama’s favorability actually went up two points in the last month.

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from this is that, despite Fox’s inflated ego and boastful self-importance, it is really a pathetically lame distributor of rightist propaganda. They threw everything they had at Obama and his eponymous health care program and came out farther underwater than when they started. This result is similar to last year’s election when Fox targeted Obama as something just shy of the Anti-Christ, but he still won by a sizable margin. And, not to be overlooked, it was a campaign that focused heavily on ObamaCare. More recently, Fox’s efforts to stir up their fringy malcontents to get them to take to the streets ended in an embarrassing flop.

There are plenty of reasons to worry about the destructive influence of Fox News. It is a bad example for other news outlets who think that conservative extremism might be a viable business model. It provides a platform and encouragement for crackpots like Cruz, Michele Bachamnn, Louie Gohmert, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, etc., to cling to positions that are wildly out of touch with the American people. It muddies the debate over critical public affairs with misrepresentations and lies. But one thing we do not have to worry about is whether Fox is effective at persuading Americans to join their Blockhead Brigade. On that measure Fox has proved to be pitifully feeble despite their exhaustive and desperate intentions.


Weak Tea: Fox News Sponsored Tea Party Protests Fizzle Out

Posted by on October 11, 2013 at 1:00 pm. 5 Comments :

Remember back in 2009 when Fox News was pulling out all the stops to promote the newborn Tea Party? They broadcast every town howl and invited an endless stream of tri-cornered hat wearing crackpots to rant about tyranny and Kenyan usurpers. Fox even branded the Tea Party movement as its own entity while beseeching viewers to attend rallies.

Fox Tea Party

Well, this year they have not had much success pushing their fringe agenda. They spent months hammering away on Benghazi, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, and a bevy of second-tier scandalettes, but have been met with yawns. After Fox launched a campaign to hype the false allegation that the IRS was targeting Tea Party groups for harassment, the national protest to “Rein In the IRS” drew tens of angry Teabaggers to IRS offices across the country.

IRS Protest

The latest effort by Fox to pump up the right-wing wrath was a planned protest by America’s truckers to create the “biggest traffic jam in history” in Washington, D.C. Their promises ranged from thousands of truckers jamming the capital’s highways and arresting members of Congress, to hundreds of millions of citizens nationwide participating in a show of solidarity. This morning the protest began with nothing more than a trickle of trucks that failed to have any noticeable impact on traffic. Even Fox News posted a story reporting that “Dozens, not thousands, show up for DC trucker protest.”

The “Truckers Ride for the Constitution” was supposed to send a message to Washington that they were “sick and tired of the corruption that is destroying America!” Apparently, the hordes of sickly, fatigued protesters never materialized. This will surely cut into their comically delusional list of demands that include that President Obama immediately resign from office.

Next up for the Fox News Protest Committee is an event targeting the closure of American memorials and monuments due to the Tea Party driven government shutdown (or slimdown, as Fox is calling it). On Fox’s community web site, the lie-riddled Fox Nation, they have posted an item that can hardly be characterized as news. It concerns something called the “Million Vet March” that is scheduled for this Sunday. That seems like bad planning on Fox’s part, because if the truckers rally had successfully stopped traffic in D.C., how would the vets get to their event?

The Fox Nationalists promotion of the Million Vet March was not actually a story about the proposed rally. It was a link to the web site of the political action committee that is sponsoring it, the Special Operations Speaks PAC. The PAC’s web site indicates that it was formed to lobby for a Watergate-style congressional committee to investigate Benghazi. Now they are taking a detour to protest the “vicious tyrant” in the White House who “shut down our nation’s war memorials and declared a war on our veterans!”

Never mind that it was the House Republicans who shut down the government and the memorials. The The bigger problem is that Fox is posting links to partisan activist organizations in the guise of reporting the news. If Fox had written a story about this march, or linked to a story written by another news outlet, that would be bad enough and they would still be guilty of proselytizing on behalf of a political cause. But Fox didn’t even bother to put that much distance between themselves and the fringe group organizing the march. They just linked directly to the organizer’s web site where you are greeted with a solicitation to donate.

It is pretty unlikely that anywhere near a million veterans are going to show up in D.C. on Sunday. So this event will be just as big a flop as the trucker rally. But both events demonstrate that Fox is not a news network, and they aren’t even pretending to be one anymore. They are a political advocacy enterprise and, measuring by their recent efforts, they aren’t even any good at that.


Fox News “Psycho” Analyst: Obama Has A Victim Mentality

Posted by on October 10, 2013 at 2:00 pm. 5 Comments :

Sooner or later I will stop writing about the utterly insane ramblings of Keith Ablow, a member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. But for now the entertainment factor is still too high.

Keith Ablow
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In his most recent article on the Fox News web site, Ablow has diagnosed President Obama as suffering from a “victim mentality.” Remember, Ablow has previously asserted that Obama is “waging psychological warfare on Americans,” that he is the “enemy of heroism,” and that he “has contempt for the Supreme Court.” These pseudo-analyses are in violation of the American Psychiatric Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics (Section 7.3), which state:

“…it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.“

That notwithstanding, Ablow has again belched out his hilariously asinine perspective of the President for whom he has a palpable hatred. The apparent trigger for Ablow’s ire is Obama’s use of words like “hostage taking” and “extortion” to describe the behavior of Tea Party Republicans who have shutdown the government and are threatening to throw the nation into default unless they get exactly what they want – in other words, hostage taking and extortion. Ablow says…

“President Obama’s rhetoric is finally coming closer to what appears to be his psychological truth: Because America victimized him and countless millions of others, any person or party or movement that opposes his views and does not yield to him is not just his adversary, but abusive, predatory and even threatening.”

Obviously Ablow has not been listening to any Republicans lately. If anyone regards their ideological adversaries as threatening, it is the right-wing nutjobs who demonize Obama as a socialist, Muslim, dictator from Kenya. They have resorted to the most brazenly hyperbolic rhetoric to attack Obama and his initiatives, including warnings that immigration reform, climate change mitigation, tax increases on the rich, and, of course, the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), will literally destroy America, if not the world. Nothing Obama has said comes even close to that level of dementia. Ablow continues his rant by demonstrating that he doesn’t even understand the hostage analogy:

“It is exceedingly difficult to come to terms with a person who sees you as his oppressor, his kidnapper, and someone terrorizing him who might well destroy him. You aren’t likely to consider whether your assailant and jailer and would-be killer has a few good ideas, after all.”

Ablow badly misinterprets the terms of the current debate. He seems to think that Obama is the hostage in this narrative. But anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that it is the country or the economy that is being held hostage. Republicans have their weapons trained squarely on the financial well being of the nation and are threatening to harm it if Obama does not succumb to their demands. So Obama is not the kidnap victim at all. He would be the parent in this scenario, trying to save the child from those who will harm it for their own selfish interests (i.e. the Koch brothers funded, Fox News promoted, Tea Party driven, Republicans).

It is not enough, however, for someone as delusional as Ablow to stop at merely getting everything wrong about the analysis he is peddling. No, he must go further and tie unrelated issues to it in order to heap as much scorn on the object of his animus as possible. So Ablow throws in a dig at poor people whom he regards as collateral damage in his war on Obama:

“The president’s victim mentality could contribute to dissolving the will of countless Americans who might otherwise see themselves as capable of summoning internal resolve and creativity to surge out of poverty.”

See that? Because the President allegedly has a victim mentality, poor people lose all of their incentive to improve their lot in life. If it wasn’t for Obama’s victim psychosis, there would be no poverty in America, and there would be no lazy moochers clamoring for frivolous things like food and medicine.

Just for good measure, Ablow also threw in conservative dog-whistle canards that castigate Obama for a so-called “apology tour” that never took place; for his remarks defending a Cambridge professor who was assaulted by police; and for his empathetic response to the tragedy of the murder of Trayvon Martin (who Ablow refers to as “an alleged drug user and burglar”).

Keith Ablow is a quack of the highest order. He repeatedly violates the ethical standards of the profession he purports to practice. And he wastes no opportunity to blame Obama for any and all ills of society. And all of this makes him the perfect spokesman for Fox News as their in-house psychiatric correspondent.


The Anti-Latino Coverage Of D.C. Immigration Reform Rally By Fox News

Posted by on October 9, 2013 at 3:36 pm. 1 Comments :

Yesterday there was a large scale demonstration in Washington, D.C. in favor of immigration reform. Protesters included national immigration advocacy groups, labor unions, and members of Congress. The rally was reported online by Fox News Latino, a Fox web site that panders to Hispanic audiences. The article noted that rally participants, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, were seeking to advance a bill currently in Congress that “would tighten border security, get stricter on immigration enforcement and provide a path to legalization.” They led their report saying that….

“Thousands converged on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Tuesday to demand that Congress pass a measure that would overhaul the U.S. immigration system, and in particular, provide a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.

“Capitol police also arrested scores of protesters, including eight members of Congress, who allegedly engaged in acts of civil disobedience as part of the rally.”

Despite the significance of the well-attended demonstration and the prominent participants, Fox News covered it in its own unique and characteristically bigoted way. Their only report on the rally did not address the issues at hand, but a peripheral matter that was more in keeping with their fixation on demonizing the Obama administration over the shutdown (or, as they ridiculously call it, the “slimdown”). Fox’s entire reporting on the rally was to note that it was held on the National Mall which they erroneously said was closed.

Fox News
For more Fox distortions of truth, see Fox Nation vs. Reality.

That’s it. Nothing about the eleven million undocumented residents currently living in the U.S., performing services, paying taxes, and contributing to the community. Nothing about those who were brought here as children and have broken no laws, yet live in a resident status limbo. Nothing about passing a reform measure that was the work of a bipartisan congressional legislative effort. And nothing about the substance of the rally itself. The only newsworthiness of the event, so far as Fox was concerned, was where it was held.

This is typical of the way Fox News insults their audience. They frequently misreport Latino news stories or fail to report them at all. Then they condescend to posting brief items on the Fox News Latino web site. It’s their way of pandering to the fastest growing demographic group in the nation (and the largest television market), while simultaneously maintaining their hostility to Latinos that the Fox News Channel diehards demand.

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Glenn Beck Issues Another End-Of-World Proclamation With Secret Proof Coming Soon

Posted by on October 9, 2013 at 12:15 pm. 5 Comments :

If I had a dime for every time that Glenn Beck has frantically declared that the world is coming to end, I’d be able to buy a first-class ticket to Valhalla.

Glenn Beck

And once again, on his program yesterday (video below), Beck revealed that he has confirmed evidence that it is all over for America:

“It is shocking, what they’re doing. SHOCKING! It is the end of the total transformation. I’m telling you, it’s like the end The Eye of Moloch. It is total transformation. […] The information I got – it is already done. It’s not like they’re putting it together. It’s already done, and it is horrifying. […] You won’t believe it when I tell you. You won’t believe it. Because it is exactly that. It is ‘yep, your country is done. Meet the new one.’ It’s amazing.”

There you have it. Make your amends with God and kiss your family goodbye. This isn’t a warning of some prospective horror, it is already a done deal. It is so terrifying that it reminds Beck of the end of his own apocalyptic book “The Eye Of Moloch.” (Isn’t that convenient?) And whatever it is, Beck has proof that he will deliver when the time is right.

The only part of Beck’s alarm that makes sense is when he says that “You won’t believe it when I tell you.” Indeed. At least if you are not certifiably psychotic. Because this isn’t the first time Beck has warned of imminent doom with a promise of evidence to follow. There was the time that he promised info that would “Bring Down The Whole Power Structure.” He ranted that…

“This country is, I believe, going to be rocked in the next 24 hours with some things that are going on in Washington and beyond that we found out about yesterday. And we will be telling you in great detail in the next 24 hours.”

Twenty four hours later it was like Beck never said a word about it. He produced no details and didn’t even bring up the subject again. The same thing happened when he said that would he break the “Most Important Story In History.” This travesty prompted Beck to predict dire consequences:

“Our president, this administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and everything else – how they have covered this up, how they have aided and abetted this guy – is obscene, it’s criminal, it is out of control. And when America knows the full story on this, if she doesn’t stand up and, quite honestly, demand impeachment and the mass firing – if not shutting down – of agencies, we don’t stand a chance.”

Once again, Beck failed to follow up this disturbing revelation with proof as he promised. And this is the guy who inexplicably whines when people call him a conspiracy theorist. That is, when he isn’t falsely asserting that “I’ve Never Been Called A Conspiracy Theorist In My Life.” I previously cataloged a collection of Beck’s end times predictions that he referred to as “The Perfect Storm,” something he claimed had arrived to cause devastating destruction numerous times. Somehow, we’re still here.

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If I were you I wouldn’t wait around for Beck to confirm his latest prophecy. But if you you’re looking some first-class absurdist comedy, you can’t beat Beck for laying on the crackpottery extra thick.

Glenn Beck:


Rachel Maddow Whomps Megyn Kelly’s Premiere On Fox News

Posted by on October 8, 2013 at 8:31 pm. 37 Comments :

Last night Fox News debuted a new primetime lineup. It was the first time they had altered their schedule in more than a decade. They heavily promoted the changes and the new hosts for weeks. And on the the big night, when most new programs enjoy a ratings bump due to viewers sampling the new fare, Fox News did not get what they must have been expecting.

The top billing for the night went to Megyn Kelly, whose “Kelly File” has been eagerly anticipated by Foxophiles and received massive PR in advance of the debut. Unfortunately for her, she came in second to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in the key 25-54 year old demographic.

Rachel Maddow
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It would be bad enough for a Fox host to lose to an MSNBC show under ordinary circumstances, but to trail on the one night that ought to have been a runaway victory is a major embarrassment for Kelly and Fox. There were no extenuating circumstances that might have contributed to an unexpected win for Maddow. For instance, she did not have an exclusive interview with President Obama wherein he announced that he really was born in Kenya after all. And Kelly’s show had booked the GOP flavor of the week, Sen. Ted Cruz (TX-Tea Party), as her first guest, so she ought to have been well positioned to draw in the Fox fanatics in bulk. But it was not to be.

What’s more, Greta Van Susteren, who had moved from 10:00pm to 7:00pm, lost to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. And Sean Hannity, who lost his 9:00pm slot to Kelly and took over the 10:00pm time that Van Susteren vacated, could only manage a tie with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. The only win for Fox the whole night was by their perennial top dog, Bill O’Reilly, who bested Chris Hayes, the newest MSNBC host who has yet to find an audience.

These dismal performances by Fox programs are all the worse because the network had poured so much money and promotional muscle into the evening. It was their intent to inject new blood into the schedule in order to attract the younger, advertiser-favored demos that have avoided Fox like the plague. That goal was clearly not met – at least on the debut. And just to rub it in, MSNBC achieved their ratings victories with the same old shows they’ve had on for years and no extra promotion.

Rest assured that Fox programming executives are already huddling to figure out what went wrong and how to correct it. Kelly and the others may yet return to their perches atop the ratings tree. But they will still have little influence over the broader television audience who recognize Fox for what it is: the PR division of the Republican Party and the Tea Party cheerleading squad. Remember, Fox’s top rated programs only reach 1% of the American people, and the garbage that they ingest (see Fox Nation vs. Reality) just makes them ignorant, ineffectual, and filled with ghastly surprise when they lose elections.

[Follow Up: 10/27/2013] It is now three weeks since this article was published and I still get commenters giddily noting that Kelly’s ratings improved on subsequent nights. SO F**KING WHAT? This article is about the premiere episode and it even notes that her ratings may improve later. These FoxPods just can’t seem to focus on single topic.


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

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

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

Bill O'Reilly

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

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

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

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


Does Fox News Think That Ronald Reagan Tried To Panic The Markets?

Posted by on October 7, 2013 at 10:12 am. 6 Comments :

This weekend’s edition of Fox News Sunday had a segment wherein the host, Chris Wallace, interviewed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. In the course of the interview Wallace addressed the government shutdown and the approaching debt ceiling crisis with this phony premise:

“This week both you and the president seemed to be trying to panic the markets about both raising the debt ceiling and the government shutdown, saying that they should be more concerned.”

Fox News

In fact, President Obama merely observed what every credible economist has said about the prospect of the United States defaulting on its financial obligations. It would throw the world economy into turmoil and inflate the U.S. debt by billions due to higher interest rates. Just the threat of taking such an irresponsible step would panic the market without Obama having to say a word. And Obama is not the only one who thinks so. Here is what the GOP’s sainted Ronald Reagan had to say about it back on September 26, 1987:

Reagan: Congress consistently brings the Government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility – two things that set us apart from much of the world.

The hypocrisy of the Tea Party Republicans pretending to care about impacting the financial markets is monumental. Their own words (not to mention their actions) have been far more threatening than anything Obama has said. They have been saying for five years that Obama and his Marxist policies would bring the nation to ruin. They said he would destroy the economy and the country; that ObamaCare would bankrupt the nation and lead to civil war; that asking the rich to pay a little more in taxes, rather than putting the burden on the poor and middle class, would crush the recovery; that anything the President ever proposed would be a job killer and a disincentive to investment.

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Those predictions were about as accurate as last year’s Mayan end-of-the-world prophecy. The stock market is higher now than it was before the recession. The unemployment rate has dropped from 10.1 to 7.3 percent. And ObamaCare has proved to so popular that the demand crashed the government servers. Given the right’s record on forecasting the future, how can anyone take them seriously? Even the words of their idol, Reagan, don’t seem to diffuse their rabid Obama Derangement Syndrome.