Fox Nation In Feverish Panic To Digest News That Obamacare Is Constitutional

For the past several months, Fox News has been been struggling mightily to dismiss the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) as a blatant overreach of congressional and executive power. They have characterized it as a job-killing, deficit-raising, breach of constitutional law. They attempted to belittle President Obama, whose background as a professor of constitutional law was mocked by the hosts and guests on Fox.

Today was a nightmare come true for the right. Obama’s constitutional expertise was affirmed by the Supreme Court with a deciding vote provided by the conservative Chief Justice, John Roberts. Consequently, the weasels at Fox shifted into overdrive to fight back against this utterly devastating rebuke. By midday Fox Nation posted eighteen separate articles, all with negative appraisals of Obama and the Court’s decision.

Fox Nation on Obamacare Ruling

Some of the standouts include, “A Dark Day For Freedom,” “Obama Taunts Romney After Ruling,” “Palin: ‘Obama Lies, Freedom Dies” But without a doubt my personal favorite was the report of a tweet by the DNC’s Patrick Gaspard that said “It’s Constitutional, Bitches.” And then there was the story that Fox Nation posted with great alarm that the “Stock Market Drops After Obamacare Upheld.”

It should be noted that this story was published well before the markets had closed. At the time it was posted the market was indeed down about 160 points. The Fox Nationalists may not have considered that the drop might have something to do with economic news, including a report that the losses incurred by JPMorgan, previously said to be about $2 billion, were probably closer to $9 billion. They failed to make that observation even though the biggest losers on the DOW were banking stocks. But more importantly, by the time the markets closed they had rebounded to a trivial loss of only 24 points – a 140 point reversal.

By the logic that Fox was using, if a drop in stock prices was evidence that the business community was opposed to the Court’s decision, then the recovery minutes later is evidence that the market approves of the decision. But don’t expect to see that story on Fox. They are now fully engaged in their primary mission to destroy this presidency on behalf of the GOP and their wealthy, corporate constituency. It’s all downhill from here. Expect Fox to dial up the crazy as they encounter additional defeats, like the one today, on the road to November.

The Difference Between Fox News And Actual News

It has been well documented that Fox News is a partisan agent of the Republican Party. They brazenly promote the interests of the GOP and employ “analysts” who split their time between appearances on Fox and guiding multimillion dollar campaigns against President Obama and other Democrats (i.e. Karl Rove). But now Fox News has demonstrated perfectly why they are not in any reasonable sense a news enterprise.

In a segment of Fox’s signature “news” program, Special Report with Bret Baier, chief Washington correspondent James Rosen gave an account of a memo circulated by Mitt Romney’s campaign that alleged that the Obama campaign had contracted with companies to employ foreign-based call centers. Rosen regurgitated the information provided by Romney’s camp as if it were irrefutably true. The impression left by the report was that Obama is a hypocrite for criticizing Romney’s business record of outsourcing American jobs to other countries, while he was allegedly doing the same thing with his campaign.

There’s only one problem with this irrefutably true allegation – it has been refuted by a real news organization. ABC reporter Devin Dwyer did what reporters do. He investigated the claims made in Romney’s memo and discovered that they originated from a four month old right-wing blog, the Washington Free Beacon, whose web site describes it as being “Dedicated to uncovering the stories that the professional left hopes will never see the light of day.”

The Beacon reported that Obama’s campaign paid several thousand dollars to two foreign firms for telemarketing services. One of the firms was Pacific East, whose headquarters is in British Columbia, Canada. However, as ABC’s Dwyer learned after inquiring, the company also has offices in Oregon. The other firm is Donor Services Group, and it is based in Los Angeles, California, with no current ties to foreign operations. The Beacon apparently found data from 2009 that referenced services provided to a specific client from a facility in the Philippines. But there was no indication that there was any ongoing business there. And in neither case was there any evidence that the work performed by either of these companies for the Obama campaign was done by anyone outside of the United States.

Fox News has once again embarrassed itself as a haven for shoddy journalism. Their chief Washington correspondent took an unsubstantiated blog posting and broadcast it, without any fact-checking, to a Fox audience already dreadfully misinformed and pitifully ignorant. And Baier, the anchor of the program, never bothered to exercise any of the due diligence that a credible journalist would do. The story went straight from an avowedly conservative blog to Romney headquarters to Fox News, without any effort to certify the allegations.

It took a reporter from ABC to make a couple of calls, get the real story, and reveal that Romney, the Beacon, and Fox News were all accomplices in disseminating a lie. This is what happens when you have pseudo-news organizations that don’t actually do any news gathering. The broadcast news networks and CNN have bureaus staffed with reporters all over the world. But Fox News only has presenters who read copy off of TelePrompters and don’t do any original reporting. You can’t expect them to actually verify things they read on blogs, can you? Especially when it’s so much easier to just go with the talking points you get from the Republican National Committee. That’s the difference between Fox News and actual news.

Tough Guy Chuck Norris Is Afraid Of Obama’s Gay Boy Scouts

Conservatives have made bashing Hollywood a cornerstone of their strategy to defeat the evils of Liberalism. They jump at every opportunity to criticize celebrities who dare to exercise their right to free speech unless, of course, they speak ill of liberals. Then, suddenly, celebrities are brilliant observers of the human condition.

One of the reasons that conservatives hate Hollywood in general is that there are so many respected, productive, and successful actors who recognize the benefits of a progressive agenda. Compare that to the washed-up losers who slobber over right-wing dogma – people like Ted Nugent, Victoria Jackson, and today’s special, Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris - Gay Boy Scouts

Yep, you read that right. Obama is turning Boy Scouts gay. Who knew? He must be building an army of polite, well-prepared children to wage his war on marriage. Norris made this charge in an article for AmmoLand (where else?) and it is based on his delusional claim that Obama manipulated Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, who sits on the board of the BSA, into becoming an opponent of rules that ban gays from joining the Scouts. The devious method employed by Obama to force Turley’s hand was to invite him to parties. The scoundrel. They must have been fabulous parties.

However, Norris doesn’t bother to speculate as to how Obama manipulated Mitt Romney into having the very same position as Obama and Turley. In 1994, Romney responded to a question on the subject during a debate for the Senate saying…

“I believe that the Boy Scouts of America does a wonderful service for this country. I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.”

Since Obama was a young lawyer in Chicago in 1994, who had never run for office, it appears that Romney may be the one who is responsible for turning the Boy Scouts gay. Norris ought to do a little more research and get back to us on that. And, just for the record, Romney was also pro-choice in 1994, whereas today he is for overturning Roe v. Wade. So the fact that he once supported gays in the scouts does not mean that he does so now. Once you shake that Romney Etch-a-Sketch all bets are off.

Fox Nation Asks About Obama’s White Girlfriends – Again

Why is Fox Nation so obsessed with President Obama’s college girlfriends, and particularly their race?

Fox Nation on Obama's White Girlfriends

The article referenced above links to an item in the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. It discusses excerpts from a biography of Obama by David Marannis. And while it never answers the question in the headline, it does assert unsupported allegations of racial motivations in his love life.

“The U.S. president and his First Lady sometimes seem so well-suited to each other that it’s hard to imagine there ever having been any woman in his life other than the formidable Michelle, whom he met while working for a Chicago law firm in 1989. Obama has reinforced this notion by making only fleeting mention of ex-girlfriends in his carefully calibrated memoirs.” […]

“Time and again, Obama, who has had to fight hard to convince other African Americans of his ‘black credibility’, appears to have burnished his radical credentials, not least by playing up the roles of black people in his life and playing down the roles of the white. And nowhere is this more apparent than in his romantic life.”

Suggestive phrases like “fleeting mention” are designed to insinuate that there is something sinister and secretive in Obama’s past. But how many of George Bush’s old flames can you recall? And were any of them black? More importantly, when have you ever heard anyone even ask about the former girlfriends of any president prior to Obama? It seems that only Obama’s romantic history is of interest to these folks. Just like Obama is the only president ever asked to produce a birth certificate.

Why are these matters of significance with regard to Obama and no one else? Isn’t anyone curious about who Romney courted before hooking up with Ann? Surely he had a fling or two while he lived in Paris proselytizing for the Mormon Church and avoiding military service in Vietnam.

There is very little in the Daily Mail article that is new, and much of it was revealed by Obama himself in his own autobiography, Dreams From My Father. However, this fixation on the youthful romances of Obama is a recurring theme with right-wing racists. The fetish extends to authors on Breitbart News and NewsBusters, along with numerous other conservative bile dispensers. Last year Fox Nation posted this thinly disguised racial attack on Obama.

Fox Nation White Women

There seems to be a recurring theme that involves the old fear that white racists have of virile African men defiling their pure Caucasian virgins. And the Fox Nationalists never seem to get tired of invoking it. Similarly, I never get tired of posting this:

Not So Breitbart: The Idiot’s Guide To Obama’s Fundraising

The intellectual reputation (or lack thereof) at Breitbart News took another hit this weekend with an embarrassingly moronic article that attempts to analyze a fundraising appeal from the Obama campaign. It’s remarkable how one’s brain can turn to mush when consumed by an irrational hatred for one’s adversaries.

Breitbart Article

The article, by William Bigelow, was headlined, “Obama Campaign E-Mail: ‘We’re Falling Behind.'” It revealed the contents of an email seeking donations from Obama supporters. Breitbrat Bill surmised from this that…

“The Obama campaign is so frightened at this point that they have taken an unprecedented step. They’re telling the truth.

In the latest of the ‘personal’ e-mails that the Obama campaign is sending out, they don’t sugarcoat their appeal for money with saccharine stories about Obama shoveling snow for his wife, or working hard late into the night. They panic.”

There you have it. The Breitbrat’s proof that Obama is panicking is that his campaign refrained from soliciting donations the way all other candidates do: with stories about shoveling snow. I’m sure you’ve seen a million of them. Instead, Obama’s request focuses on the need for donors to pitch in because…

“For the first time in modern American history, the incumbent (that’s us) will get outspent in a re-election campaign — by some estimates as much as 3-to-1. Over the last 10 days of this month alone, GOP outside groups will spend $20 million attacking President Obama on TV.”

See how desperate they are? They have adopted an approach that warns supporters about the risks of being outspent in an election. They also remind people of the dangerous repercussions of the Citizen’s United ruling that allows wealthy donors and corporations to anonymously give unlimited amounts of money. And they are abandoning the traditional solicitation that Breitbrat Bill must think goes something like this:

“We are up to our armpits in cash and are trouncing our opponents in the fundraising race. Our side has already accumulated a 3-to-1 advantage over the other guy and we have plastered the media with advertising. So even though we have taken to spending our excess campaign funds on gold watches and 4-star hotels, please dig deep and send us more money with which to line our pockets.”

The stupidity of Breitbart’s complaint is nearly pathetic. All campaigns appeal to donors by impressing them with the need to raise funds in a competitive contest and the necessity of staying ahead of your opponent. But this simple truth strikes Breitbrat Bill as evidence of panic. Is this really the best they can do?

Also, here’s a bonus bit of boob-headedness. Breitbrat Ben Shapiro Tweeted this morsel of wisdom yesterday: “And yes, what is happening in Egypt IS largely Obama’s fault.”

Breitbart Egypt Tweet

Of course, Obama, the consummate community organizer, was able to motivate millions of Egyptians to take to the streets in protest against a dictator who had clung to power for 40 years. Then Obama succeeded in forcing Mubarak from office, leading the way to the first free elections in decades for the Egyptian people.

Thanks for giving Obama credit for all of that, Ben. Even though you obviously prefer the former state of tyranny to the free choice of democracy, you are big enough to grant the President the credit he is due.

Mitts And Hisses: Rupert Murdoch Has Lost All Touch With Reality

The allegedly “fair and balanced” Fox News Channel’s patriarch, Rupert Murdoch, has revealed his preference in the presidential contest, as if it was ever in doubt. Yesterday, however, he made it clear that he favors Mitt Romney, even though he’s concerned that Romney isn’t being sufficiently dickish. Murdoch Tweeted:

“Easy for Romney to spell out restoration of the American Dream and bash incompetent administration. But not a word.”

Rupert Murdoch Tweet

There is so much wrong with that brief belch of bluster that it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with the fact that the man who runs the company that hacked into the phones of thousands of people, including politicians, celebrities, and a murdered schoolgirl, has no business calling anyone else incompetent. Especially when that horrific and criminal activity, which has already resulted in dozens of arrests and resignations, was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of the company’s management.

Secondly, Murdoch doesn’t bother to define his notion of the American Dream. Presumably it involves being made a citizen by an act of Congress so that you can buy a television network, rather than having any affinity for the values of the country you are merely exploiting for profit. It certainly does not involve the patriotic principles of shared sacrifice, equality, and justice for all.

Thirdly, It is thoroughly inappropriate for the head of a so-called “news” enterprise to advocate “bashing” a political candidate. Murdoch is, in effect, offering campaign advice to the candidate he supports. But his advice is purely style over substance. He is not helping to shape policy or strategy. Rather he’s pushing the candidate toward more hardball tactics. And for anyone who thinks this is reaching too far, note that this morning on Fox & Friends the cast of cartoon characters who host the show took exactly the same position in a segment that promoted White House critics goading Romney into taking a more aggressive posture against the President. That coordination of themes was just a coincidence, right?

Finally, Murdoch complained that Romney has said “not a word” with respect to the American Dream or bashing the President. Is Murdoch in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s? That’s pretty much all that Romney has talked about. Can anyone forget his dreamy exaltation of America that nearly made the wrod lose all meaning?

Romney: I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I believe in.

Romney has perfected a sort robotic America worship that can only appeal to an emotionally stunted Tea Partier. His campaign slogan is Believe in America (well, that and We’re not Stupid) And when he isn’t salivating over America, he is berating Obama. Romney has hardly been gentle in his assaults. He routinely castigates the President as a failure, in over his head, and a hater of free enterprise.

All of this makes you wonder how Murdoch would have Romney alter his approach. Romney already avoids substantive policies like the plague – at least those he isn’t flip-flopping around. Does Murdoch want Romney to adopt the dementia of birthers, or the paranoia of those convinced that Obama is a Manchurian Muslim bent on delivering America to the communists? Romney’s entire campaign is already composed of nothing but obsequious pseudo-patriotism and pummeling Obama. Yet somehow Murdoch doesn’t see any of it – or enough of it. That should be a troubling sign to his doctors, his family, and his colleagues at Fox News.

Gimme A Break: Fox News Is Suddenly Concerned About Being Respectful

Making headlines today at Fox News is story that serves as a shining example of why the world’s champion hypocrites bow before the greatness of Fox.

It seems that Fox News has suddenly taken an interest in promoting civility and respect for national leaders. Well, as long as they are dead Republican candidates for sainthood.

Fox News Bird Brains

Apparently a couple of gay White House guests were compelled to express how they feel about President Reagan, a man who let nearly his entire two term terms in office expire (not to mention thousands of Americans) before he even uttered the word “Aids.” It’s not surprising that some people may have strong feelings about that. Fox, however, thinks that their candid, and indisputably rude, redress of grievances was intolerable and worthy of a front page rebuke.

That’s funny, because Fox doesn’t have any problem with being shamelessly rude when debasing Democrats, including the country’s first female Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Fox Nation Says Pelosi Is Stupid

Both of those items above were posted today. A few weeks ago, Fox used the same photo to call our current president stupid.

Fox Nation Says Obama Is Stupid

So it is clear that Fox is terribly concerned about people behaving with dignity and exercising decorum, particularly with regard to the offices of our highest leaders. And in keeping with that sentiment, Fox Nation demonstrated their news judgment today by posting this at the top of their web page:

Fox Nation - Obama Trips

Yep, that’s surely the most important breaking news story of the day, and a properly respectful manner in which to treat the President. Plus, it saves a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted on actually covering the speech that Obama delivered moments later.

The World Class Hypocrisy Of Fox News Puts All Other Hypocrites To Shame

Today’s big story on Fox News was not about some enormously consequential matter that will affect the nation. It was not about health care or Syria or the national debt. The big story on Fox News today was about one of their competitors. It was about Fox executing a self-serving attack on MSNBC. It was this:

Fox News Wawagate

That’s right – Wawagate. This is not a Saturday Night Live parody of Barbara Walters. It is really what Fox considers “news.” The story revolves around a video of Romney that shows him expressing amazement at a touchscreen ordering system at a Wawa convenience store. Fox alleges that MSNBC aired a video of Mitt Romney that Fox says was edited to make him appear to be out-of-touch with average Americans (as if Romney needs any help with that). It isn’t true, as I documented here, but that isn’t the best part of this.

The best part is that Fox is making such a big deal about NBC ignoring the furor over an allegedly misleading video, when Fox itself is ignoring their own video scandal that is thoroughly verified. Last night Jon Stewart exposed the whole scam as it played out on the Hannity Show. So while NBC did nothing wrong, they did at least make reference to the issue on the program where it originated. Fox, on the other hand, has never even acknowledged that a controversy exists. Yet they have the gall to feature a headline like the one above. That’s World Class Hypocrisy.

But that’s not all. Fox Nation also contributed to a string of hypocritical masterpieces. The first being this slander of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

Fox Nation - Liar

OK. So Wasserman-Schultz is a liar because PolitiFact rated one of her comments as false. The rating could well be disputed based on the underlying facts, but let’s not even go there. Rather, let’s just note that Mitt Romney has been rated as untruthful 54 times by PolitiFact, and 13 of those were “Pants-on-Fire” lies. So what does that say about him? And Fox never bothered to report that. For the record, Romney was less than truthful in 40% of the ratings that PolitiFact made for him. His opponent, President Obama was rated untruthful only 28% of the time (with only 5 “Pants-on-Fire”).

Then there was a story about conservative Democrats who planned on staying home in their districts during the Democratic National Convention:

Fox Nation Democratic Convention

Fox is apparently all worked up because a few right-wing Democrats don’t think there is much reason to travel to a convention where the outcome is predetermined, and spending a week, and hundreds of dollars, partying in silly hats. Frankly, I don’t think anyone should go to either Party’s convention. They are just choreographed infomercials that accomplish nothing. However, Fox wants to make a point about these lower tier Democrats staying home in order to imply that the Democratic Party’s unity is fracturing. So you might think that Fox would consider it significant that some members of the Republican Party are still refusing to endorse their putative nominee, including Sarah Palin and Ron Paul (who is even continuing to rack up delegates to oppose Romney). But, nope, no story on Fox.

And saving the best for last, Fox Nation is featuring a shocking story by Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin:

Fox Nation Wildfires

Yep. Now Obama is responsible for wildfires in Colorado. I think Hannity actually saw him in the brush with some gas-soaked rags and a Zippo. What’s more, the explanation proffered by Malkin was that there were too few resources for firefighting equipment and personnel. You know, the very things that Obama has been struggling to get Republicans to agree to funding more of. Romney actually came out against such wasteful big government spending. Did Fox report any of that? What do you think?

If Pulitzer gave out awards for hypocrisy, Fox News would have the category sewn up for years to come. It’s getting so that I can’t even get upset enough to post an angry rant because I’m laughing too hard to type. Sure, Fox is still an evil enterprise bent on subverting democracy, consolidating the power of corporations, and advancing the agenda of the GOP (Greedy One Percent), but sometimes it’s just too hard to take these weasels seriously.

Damn – It’s Getting Hard To Keep Up With The Crazy On Fox Nation

In attempting to monitor the outrageous bias and relentless dissemination of propaganda that appears on the Fox News web site, Fox Nation, sometimes the burden is overwhelming. The editors at Fox Nation are just too fast and too furiously committed to their mission of deceiving their glassy-eyed readers, that keeping up becomes an Olympian task.

Just yesterday the stream of craziness was so intense that I am forced to compile them all here in abridged form.

Let’s begin with the most repulsive and unsubstantiated item. The Fox Nationalists post things like this fairly often just to keep the impression of a lawless administration active in the minds of their readers.

Fox Nation Totalitarianism

Next up, an absurd an irrelevant item about a man that President Obama met only twice in his life, as a child. But if Fox can make a connection about him to the President, even if the allegation is tenuous, they will jump at the opportunity.

Fox Nation - Obama's Soviet Father

There actually is no enemies list as referenced in this headline. The article is about an FEC complaint filed by the Obama campaign to force Karl Rove’s blatantly political PAC to be treated under the law as any other PAC. Which means that they would have to disclose their donors. Arguing against this is to advocate to maintain a system that permits secretive billionaires to buy elections.

Fox Nation Enemies List

After disingenuously complaining about intimidation tactics in the item above, the Fox Nationalists persist in their intimidation campaign against Media Matters. With no new news whatsoever, Fox & Friends devotes yet another segment to slandering the group and its founder David Brock.

Fox Nation - Media Matters

This one is pretty funny. The Fox Nationalists post an item taking Bill Maher to task for making a comedic animal reference with regard to the Republican Party. And in doing so they call him a pig (as they have done many times before). Also note the comment that is typical of the Fox Nation community whenever the opportunity arises to hurl a racist insult at the President.

Fox Nation - GOP Apes

And we’ll close with my personal favorite. The Fox Nationalists posted this item asserting that Obama is not the only president to have been interrupted by reporters in the middle of an address. However, the video they offer as proof shows Reagan being interrupted only after he finished his prepared remarks and was turning the podium over to someone else.

Fox Nation Reagan Interruptus

Bear with me, folks. I’m trying to keep up. but it isn’t easy. The Fox Nation editors are masters of deception and they have abundant resources. They are also a closely guarded secret. Unlike every other news enterprise, Fox will not reveal who is responsible for the content on Fox Nation. They have no masthead and have ignored inquiries as to the identity of their staff. I suspect it’s a class of remedial 13 year olds at an evangelical reeducation camp in the basement of News Corp headquarters.

Jon Stewart Hammers Fox News For Misleading Editing Of Obama Video

Once again, the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart has proved that he’s a better journalist than the dishonest hacks at Fox News and, for that matter, most of the rest of the media. And he’s not even trying to be a journalist.

Ever since last Friday’s announcement by President Obama that his administration would suspend deportation of certain younger immigrants, the right-wing media has been trying to trip up the President’s policy by portraying it as an unconstitutional power grab or searching for some evidence of hypocrisy. On the latter front, Fox News uncovered a video of Obama from last year where he appeared to give Fox just what they were looking for. In the video, as broadcast by Fox, Obama said that…

“I just have to continue to say this notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true. We are doing everything we can administratively. But the fact of the matter is there are laws on the books that I have to enforce. And I think there’s been a great disservice done to the cause of getting the DREAM Act passed and getting comprehensive immigration passed by perpetrating the notion that somehow, by myself, I can go and do these things. It’s just not true.”

That would seem to close the file on the matter of presidential hypocrisy, were it not for the intrepid investigative reporting of Jon Stewart. On the Daily Show last night Stewart aired the uncut video of Obama (see it below), including the part immediately following the point where Fox News ended their clip:

“…It’s just not true. What we can do is to prioritize enforcement — since there are limited enforcement resources — and say, we’re not going to go chasing after this young man or anybody else who has been acting responsibly, and would otherwise qualify for legal status if the DREAM Act passed.”

In other words, Obama very clearly said, as Stewart put it, “…that he can do the exact thing he just did, but which you said he said he’s not supposed to.” This is a blatant, inexcusable example of deliberately editing video to misconstrue its meaning and deceive their audience.

Sadly, it is not particularly uncommon for Fox News. But their brazen dishonesty doesn’t prevent them from making false claims about others. Yesterday Fox ran a story wherein they charged that MSNBC had edited a video of Romney that they say created a false impression. It wasn’t true, as is documented here, but Fox still featured the allegation prominently on their web site. Perhaps they will now publish a story exposing this new and verified incident of unethical journalism:

Yesterday on Fox News.
Fox News Projection
Tomorrow on Fox news?
Fox News - Not

Yeah, sure. That’ll happen.

[Video no longer available]