James O’Keefe’s New Video Takes Pathetic To New Lows

Posted by on June 1, 2013 at 10:41 am. 7 Comments :

James O'KeefeIt’s hard to imagine how such a desperately loathsome loser like James O’Keefe could ever sink any lower into the pits of the wretched, but with his latest video “expose” he has managed to exceed all expectations. And perhaps the best measure of his impotence is the fact that no one even knows he has a new video.

The subject matter O’Keefe and his cohorts tackle is the purported hypocrisy of a couple of California lawmakers. But while insensitively mocking the seriousness of the travails of the poor and homeless, he fails entirely to make a case for political hypocrisy (how hard could that be?). He doesn’t even manage to tie his targets to any of the behavior he alleges.

O’Keefe sets out to protest a law meant to provide a humanitarian approach to people suffering severe misfortune in difficult times. The law allows for people to use public streets to solicit donations and take rest. But O’Keefe exploits the very real tragedy of homelessness with his crew of phony vagrants whose only purpose is to harass public servants that he doesn’t like. And by challenging the legislators who voted for this law, he presumably would prefer that homeless people be incarcerated or shoved into the shadows and backalleys of the city.

O’Keefe’s premise is that the legislators who advocated on behalf of homeless rights would object to those rights being exercised in front of their own homes. However, panhandling in a residential area where there is no foot-traffic is suspicious on its face. There is, after all, nobody to solicit, so what would be the point? Furthermore, it is more intrusive to the privacy of the residents than in a commercial area, and is likely to get the attention of law enforcement.

The video itself is a hot mess of conjecture and lies, which is how we know that it’s a bona fide James O’Keefe production. He begins the romp by stating in his monotone voiceover that…

“The journalists posing as homeless people had been at [Assemblyman] Dickinson’s house for forty-five minutes. There were several passersby, and after none of these encounters with Dickenson’s neighbors did the police show up.”

First of all, isn’t it cute that he calls his costumed playmates “journalists?” The extent of their reporting was to stand around in casual attire with cardboard signs. There were no interviews, no information gathering, no activities generally associated with reporting. And there were also no “encounters” with Dickenson’s neighbors, unless you count a car driving by as an encounter. That was also the only sort of encounter with Dickenson himself, who is the subject of their “reporting.”

“At 7:05 am a car leaves the assemblyman’s driveway. According to our reporters it had Assemblyman Dickenson in the driver’s seat. But only minutes after Assemblyman Dickenson left his driveway, the police showed up.”

Here we have our intrepid investigator jumping to the conclusion that Dickenson summoned the police. Never mind that O’Keefe’s clowns were stationed there for forty-five minutes and by his own telling there were only a few minutes after Dickenson drove by for law enforcement to respond to a non-emergency situation. But O’Keefe thinks that the cops dropped everything and rushed right over. Not only is that unlikely, it simply did not occur. In fact, the police never showed up at all.

O’Keefe’s representation of the responding officer is a blatant and obvious lie. The car that pulled up to the scene is clearly marked in the video as Paladin Private Security, a Sacramento area patrol service. Nevertheless, O’Keefe repeatedly refers to the Paladin representative as “the police” and labels him a “cop.” Surely O’Keefe knows that that is a lie. And contrary to O’Keefe’s unsupported insinuation that Dickenson called for help, it is far more likely that the Paladin agent was on his routine rounds when he spotted the faux-bos.

Then O’Keefe takes us to downtown Sacramento where he posts his clown crew in front of a state building. Apparently nothing happened there that he could mangle into a spurious accusation against anyone, so his team pulled out. It’s kind of hilarious that O’Keefe left that failure in the video. But then the boys met up with a Homeland Security agent in the parking lot.

At this point it is important to note that security protocol calls for questioning people who loiter around public spaces with video cameras. It is a precaution taken to intercept potential terrorists who may be casing the joint. However, O’Keefe’s crusaders take this as some sort of affront to their freedom to playact as reporters. O’Keefe says…

“Notice how the federal officer implies that if the videographer does not waive his Fourth Amendment rights and consent to a search of his camera and property, he will get in trouble?”

Actually, no…I didn’t notice that. Probably because there is nothing in the video that remotely resembles that description. In fact, the agent informs the pair, in a rather friendly manner, that he didn’t have a warrant but that “If you’re willing to show me the video, we’re good to go.” It was a completely open and honest request. But somehow O’Keefe interprets it as an ominous threat.

O’Keefe, master manipulator that he is, saves the best for last. He closes the video with absurd claims that the government is spying on him (a lame attempt to attach himself to the scandal du jour regarding the Department of Justice investigation of State Department leaks). Then he drops this whopper:

“The last time we waived our rights, the federal government destroyed our property, charged us with a crime we didn’t commit, and gave us probation for years.”

What O’Keefe is obliquely referring to there is his arrest and conviction for trespassing in the offices of a United States senator in Louisiana. The truth is that he was arrested and charged with a crime he did commit. He was so concerned about the potential for a felony conviction that he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in order to avoid harsher punishment.

The ease with which O’Keefe lies in both his videos and his public statements is astonishing, It is a demonstration of the inbred sleaziness of his character. Remember, this is the guy that made the wholly dishonest ACORN videos for which he recently was forced to pay $100,000 in damages to one of his victims. He is the guy who plotted to seduce a CNN reporter on his “love boat.” He is so disreputable that he was even debunked by Glenn Beck (now that’s low).

Yet O’Keefe persists in struggling to embarrass himself evermore with new eruptions of lies and nonsense. His capacity for shame is seemingly boundless. He doesn’t even have the support of his former mentors at Fox News or the Breitbart asylum. If you really want to see O’Keefe’s latest fumble, it is here. But below is a completely different video that I thought you might enjoy:

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Tea Party Leader Accuses Grover Norquist Of Growing A Muslim Beard

Posted by on May 31, 2013 at 1:50 pm. 5 Comments :

Can we finally agree that these Teabagging cretins are friggin nuts?

Raw Story is reporting on a Tea Party leader who is making the claim that conservative stalwart and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist is secretly an Islamic extremist plotting to infiltrate the U.S. government with his Muslim Brotherhood comrades.

“In a video posted by the Far North Dallas Tea Party on Thursday, Texas Eagle Forum President and former Chairman of the Texas Republican Party Cathie Adams presented evidence that Norquist was part of a ‘stealth jihad’ in the United States.

“Adams said that Norquist, who is married to a Muslim woman, was ‘trouble with a capital T’ because ‘he’s showing signs of converting to Islam himself.’ As you see, he has a beard,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s married a Muslim woman.'”

Grover Norquist

Just to reiterate, this is not some fringe Alex Jones disciple – this is a former GOP chair. And she is not alone. Last year Michele Bachmann and four House colleagues (Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Thomas Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland) sent a letter (pdf) to the Department of Homeland Security calling for an investigation into Muslim subversives infiltrating the government. The letter specifically cited a film called “The Enemy Within,” that identified Norquist as an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Remember, Norquist is the guy who said that his goal is to drown the government in a bathtub. So he has had it in for America for decades. The question is: If Norquist is a Muslim jihadist, and almost every Republican in congress has signed Norquist’s “pledge,” then isn’t pretty much the whole of the GOP aligned with Al Qaeda? Considering how much they have in common, this is not really all that surprising. They both want government to be subservient to religion. They are both fiercely opposed to abortion and gay marriage. They both consider torture a valid tactic in warfare. They both dismiss science and modern academia. It all seems so clear now.

When we get to the point that facial hair can be a determinate of terrorist leanings, we have a serious departure from reality. And earlier this year, the lie factory at Fox Nation made a similarly idiotic claim about the evilness of beards. They posted an article sourced to the Washington Times that said that the Aurora theater shooter had converted to Islam in prison, and cited the same evidence (that he grew a beard) of his conversion. As I noted at the time, there are many more converts to Christianity amongst prisoners.

Fox Nation

You really have to wonder where this ends. But more importantly, how can anyone take seriously the unsupported accusations that Tea-publicans make against Obama, Clinton, Holder, etc., if they are so obviously mentally deranged?


Scandal Fever Is Making Fox News Even More Demented Than Usual

Posted by on May 30, 2013 at 3:35 pm. 16 Comments :

It must be a terrible burden to have to manage as many trumped up scandals as Fox News is currently struggling with. The sheer volume of fabricated nonsense to manufacture and inventory would be a strain on any propaganda outfit. But the pressure is showing now as Fox appears unable to function under the weight of the task. Take a look at these recent schizoid episodes they have belched out:

On the Fox Business Network, their anchor Lou Dobbs hosted a panel to discuss the state of women in the workplace and the results of a new poll that shows more American women are the primary earners in their families. In order to have a balanced debate on this subject, Fox invited only men to participate. But after you hear what one of those men said, you’ll understand why women weren’t necessary:

Fox News Breadwinners

Erick Erickson: I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend [the increase in women earners] and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology — when you look at the natural world — the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.

Consequently, Fox is committed to having only males weigh in on the subjects of working women, reproductive rights, domestic violence, etc. And remember, Erickson is the miscreant who once called Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester.”

Next up is a story Fox did about the number of times Douglas Shulman, the IRS commissioner, visited the White House. Of Course, there should be nothing suspicious about a critical economic adviser spending time with other administration officials as they seek to restore the nation’s economy. But like everything else they do, Fox is only focused on turning this into a nefarious scheme of some sort. So they tally up the number of visits and imply that the frequency represents something other than devotion to duty:

Fox News White House Visitors

Unfortunately for Fox, their own source, the notoriously disreputable Daily Caller (which is run by Fox contributor Tucker Carlson) contradicts the very premise they sought to prove. After making a federal case out of the visits attributed to Shulman, the Daily Caller correctly notes that…

“The visitor logs do not give a complete picture of White House access. Some high-level officials get cleared for access and do not have to sign in during visits […] it is probable that the vast majority of visits by major Cabinet members do not end up in the public record.”

In other words…never mind. We don’t know what the heck we’re talking about. Which is surprising because this isn’t the first time that right-wing media tried to build these logs into a conflagration and failed to ignite any sparks. Back in 2009 there was an effort to tie the President to ACORN by reporting that ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis had visited the White House a few weeks before that phony scandal erupted. As it turned out, it was a different Bertha Lewis, but nobody at Fox or their source (Breitbart News) bothered to verify the information. In fact, we still don’t know if the Douglas Shulman on the logs is the IRS commissioner.

Finally, the most disturbing evidence that Fox is suffering severe symptoms of dementia was demonstrated in this segment of Fox & Friends when the hosts interviewed John Bolton about why National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was AWOL on the night of the attacks in Benghazi. They stated flatly that Donilon was absent for the crisis, even while they showed a photo alongside Bolton of a White House meeting that clearly included Donilon.

Fox News Donilon

This is pretty much what we can expect from Fox News for the duration of this scandal season. They are obviously over their heads and unable to steer a steady course. They either need some extended rest or a significant increase in the dosage of their meds. This should at least provide a lesson to them for the future: Don’t make up more scandals than you are capable of handling.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: Math-Challenged Poll Analysis On ObamaCare

Posted by on May 30, 2013 at 7:49 am. 3 Comments :

In yet another attempt to turn their audience into blithering idiots, the Fox Nationalists have posted the results of a CNN poll on ObamaCare with a thoroughly misleading headline and commentary: “Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose ObamaCare.”

Fox Nation
For more Fox Nation mangling of the truth, get the acclaimed book,
Fox Nation vs. Reality

Rather than linking to the actual poll results on CNN’s web site, Fox Nation links to a little known blog, Red Alert Politics, an affiliate of Clarity Media. Ultra-rightist billionaire Philip Anschutz owns Clarity as well as the conservative Weekly Standard. The excerpt that Fox extracts from Red Alert says merely that “54 percent of Americans still do not support President Obama’s signature domestic policy, compared to the 43 percent of Americans who support it.”

Not surprisingly, that is not the whole story – or even an honest representation of the limited story. A cursory glance at CNN’s web site fills in the details that Fox has deliberately suppressed. Although CNN also distorts the lede, at least they include the data that puts the poll’s results into context:

“A majority of Americans still oppose the nation’s new health care measure, three years after it became law, according to a new survey.

“But a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday also indicates that more than a quarter of those who oppose the law, known by many as Obamacare, say they don’t support the measure because it doesn’t go far enough.”

In other words, many of those who are being counted as opponents are actually supporters of a more liberal national health care plan. In a rational world, these people would not be lumped in with the Tea-publicans who want to repeal ObamaCare. They would be regarded as supporters who advocate an even more comprehensive policy.

Since 43% of respondents said that they support ObamaCare, and another 16% said that they support a more liberal version of it, a more accurate presentation of the poll’s results would say that 59% of Americans were in favor of the legislation – including some who want it to go further – and only 35% were opposed. That’s a solid majority of supporters.

But it may be too much to expect that Fox could grasp the complexities of math after they spent the last couple of years rejecting it along with pretty much every other principle of science and academia.


Fox News Ratings: Fanning The Flames Of Scandal Pays Off – Sort Of

Posted by on May 29, 2013 at 4:57 pm. 8 Comments :

If you’ve ever wondered what Fox News gets out of its frenzied pursuit of controversy, look no further than the Nielsen ratings for the month of May 2013.

For Fox News 2013 began by delivering the network its worst numbers in twelve years. They saw their top programs losing viewers with double digit percentages. Bill O’Reilly dropped 25%, and Sean Hannity declined 19%. This occurred while their competition, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow, increased their audiences by 23% and 32% respectively. It was dismal performance for Fox and omen of bad times to come.

A few months later, Fox has seen a noticeable bounce that will surely brighten their mood. The recovery can be entirely attributed to the bucket of scandals they have been serving up to their bloodthirsty, Obama-hating disciples. Nothing inspires wingnut viewer loyalty like the catastrophic misfortune of one’s enemies.

The numbers for May find Fox up 24% overall compared to the same period in 2012. While that may appear to be good news, there are hazards lurking in the ratings weeds. Take a look at this chart that contrasts Fox’s primetime total audience with their weak reach among the more highly valued 25-54 year old age group.

Fox News Ratings
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The month of May was heavily weighted down by melodramatic news events that would appeal to Fox’s native audience. There would not likely be any migration to or from other networks during this time. CNN also benefited from the hard news orientation that is their area of expertise. Not surprisingly, MSNBC, who has soared in recent months, slowed down during this period due to their narrow focus on politics at a time when viewers were seeking out hard news. Even HLN had a solid month due to the various courtroom dramas that were playing out (Arias, Gosnell, etc.).

What is particularly striking though, is that Fox would produce such large gains overall and still decline substantially in the younger demos that advertisers favor. This is further evidence that Fox’s audience is graying at a rapid rate. This means that they will earn far less for their ad time than their competitors who attract a larger share of the demo audience. It also means that they will suffer over time as audiences age.

However, it is inescapable that Fox’s obsession with hyperbolic attacks on President Obama and his administration is not resonating with younger viewers. Fox is repeating the mistakes they committed last year by harping on wild conspiracies, extreme rightist rhetoric, and fantastical allegations for which they have no support. That’s the sort of behavior that turned them into a laughing stock and produced an audience that was stunned when Republicans cratered at the ballot box. The same sort of shock is going to strike Fox viewers when these myriad scandals all peter out. Their gullible audience will once again wonder how Fox could have assured them that the Obama administration was near collapse, but nothing close to that takes place. If there is one constant that Fox is careful to maintain, it is their determination to mislead their flock by feeding them the fringe-flavored chum they crave.

The near future will likely be more of the same barring any unforeseen circumstances. There are no predictable events on the horizon (i.e. elections) that are likely to stir the pot. Although the currently simmering pseudo-scandals may still have a little heat in them, and the Supreme Court will be dropping some decisions this summer. Other than that, stay tuned to be underwhelmed, unless you’re Fox viewer. In which case — be afraid, be very afraid.


Glenn Beck’s Latest Conspiracy Theory: The Media Is Conspiring To Label Him A Conspiracy Theorist

Posted by on May 29, 2013 at 11:55 am. 8 Comments :

Before anyone asks — No, that headline is not from The Onion. And the best way to demonstrate the lunacy in Glenn Beck’s most recent harangue is to let Beck do it himself:

Glenn Beck
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“The media has a story line and an agenda, and they will get to it. And they certainly don’t want anybody to ever think that anything is ever planned. The media has their own agenda, and if the media has a storyline, it just writes it in. And currently the storyline is ‘conspiracy theorist.’

“Now why…why would that be the agenda item now? Why is it a concentrated effort, more than any other time in my career, why is it a concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist? Well, I’ll tell you why. It goes back to Cass Sunstein. It is exactly what he wrote. He said government should call anyone who stands against them a conspiracy theorist.

“This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is what he wrote about. Even if it turns out to be true, you have to label people as a conspiracy theorist because it isolates them. So that’s exactly what’s happening now and I don’t really care. I mean I knew from like four years ago, I’m not getting out of this with my name or reputation. That’s fine.”

Apparently the incident that touched off this rant was Beck’s accusation that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was set up by an atheist activist on his staff prior to interviewing an Oklahoma tornado survivor who declined Blitzer’s invitation to thank God because she was non-believer. For some reason Beck doesn’t consider his theory that Blitzer’s staff conspired against him to be a conspiracy theory.

However, what’s truly and remarkably hysterical about Beck’s persistent paranoia and deviant Messiah complex is his belief that there is some new found agenda on the part of the media to label him a conspiracy theorist. First of all, the media has played no part in Beck’s conspiratorial psychosis. He has done that all by himself. And secondly, it certainly isn’t new. How many conspiracies does Beck have to theorize before his reputation is established? Here are just a few:

  • Beck spewed some delusional ravings about a Saudi man Beck believed was the

    • mastermind of the Boston marathon bombing.

  • Beck claimed that the man who showed up at the Houston airport firing an AR-15, and later committing suicide, was some sort of setup directed at the NRA’s convention being held in Houston.
  • Beck published a book titled “Agenda 21” that is based on a nightmare fable of the United Nations subjugating the world to slavery on the pretense of building sustainable communities.
  • Beck is certain that the art and architecture of Manhattan conceals communist propaganda.
  • Beck has discovered that the whole birther mess was actually devised and implemented by a scheming White House in an attempt to divert attention away from a dastardly blueprint to bankrupt America and deliver its carcass to her enemies.

Beck’s reference to Cass Sunstein is a reprise of his classic mania that consisted of wild and unsupported blathering about Sunstein, George Soros, Cloward and Piven, Saul Alinsky, the United Nations, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others who were all engaged in a clandestine plot, with the help of the media, to abolish freedom.

And that is just the low-hanging fruitcake. Beck has also produced programs that insist that there is a coordinated plot between the Godless communists and the extremist Muslims to build a global Muslim Caliphate. He aired a three day special accusing George Soros of being the “Puppet Master” behind virtually every dastardly deed you can think of. He has hounded Van Jones, Shirley Sherrod, ACORN, and others relentlessly as co-conspirators in the march to Armageddon. And he has claimed so many times that the “Perfect Storm” that will herald humanity’s demise is upon us that it’s hard to keep count.

That isn’t conspiratorial at all, is it?

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Michele Bachmann Abandoning Ship As Perfect Storm Approaches

Posted by on May 29, 2013 at 10:34 am. 1 Comments :

It’s hard to say who will be hurt most by Michele Bachmann’s announcement that she will not seek reelection – The congressional Tea Party Caucus or America’s comedy writers.

Michele Bachmann

There is no doubt that Bachmann has been the source of endless material for mockery. Her surreal extremism, coupled with a passion for self-promotion, combined to pack a walloping punch of political psychopathy. But according to Bachmann, her exit from the congressional stage must not be viewed as any sort of weakness on her part as a candidate (despite nearly losing last November), nor any commentary on the fact that investigations into her finances have blossomed from the congressional ethics committee to the FBI.

ThinkProgress has complied an entertaining review of Bachmann’s career in congress. And here are a couple of choice morsels they left out:

Bachmann proclaimed her intention to be subservient to her husband were she to be elected president: “…the Lord said, ‘Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.’”

Bachmann signed a pledge circulated by a radical evangelical asserting that life for African-Americans was better during the era of slavery.

Bachmann gushed her admiration for a serial killer: “Just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.” Actually, it was murderer and clown painter John Wayne Gacy who was from Waterloo.

Bachmann/Gacy

Bachmann will now be free to pursue an even greater ambition than gumming up the work of congress. Look for her to make more frequent appearances on Fox News and perhaps even score her own program (watch out Greta Van Susteren). She has plenty of evidence of the profitability of being a right-wing, Teabagging, fruitcake, in the works of her comrade, Sarah Palin. It’s a safe bet that she will journey down the same path and participate in the fleecing of the flock and the lining of her pockets. Because that’s what grifters do.


Enough Already! Eric Holder Did Not Lie Under Oath About Leak Investigations

Posted by on May 28, 2013 at 4:13 pm. 5 Comments :

The media is once again demonstrating their bottomless capacity for ignorance and their utter inability to grasp simple concepts.

Fox News

Fox News and other lazy pseudo-reporters are all aflutter over an answer given by Attorney General Eric Holder at a House committee hearing. Holder was asked a question about press freedom raised by a Justice Department investigation into the leaking of classified data. Holder responded saying…

“With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I’ve ever been involved in, heard of or would think would be a wise policy. In fact, my view is quite the opposite.”

That’s a pretty straight forward answer with little ambiguity. Nevertheless, the media can’t seem to grasp the meaning. They are journeying far afield to surmise that Holder may have committed perjury because it was later found the he had approved the search warrant for phone records and emails pertaining to alleged State Department leaker, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. Megyn Kelly on Fox devoted two segments of her program to this overtly slanderous charge, complete with her hallmark smugness and affected outrage. And of course, the prize-winning prevaricators at Fox Nation featured multiple renditions of this non-story.

The search warrant in question included records for Fox reporter James Rosen who, evidence suggests, was Kim’s accomplice. And now the witch hunters in the GOP-mismanaged House of Representatives are setting fires under Holder in an attempt to further smear the administration.

Let’s make this simple. Holder said that he was uninvolved and unaware of any effort to prosecute any member of the press for “disclosure” of classified materials. That is unarguably true according to all of the available facts. No one was being prosecuted, or even investigated, for disclosing information in the press (i.e. publishing or broadcasting). Rosen was not being investigated for any type of disclosure. He was being investigated for soliciting Kim to transmit secret documents to him.

Holder’s involvement was limited to Kim’s conspiring to give Rosen access to classified data that he did not have security clearance to receive. The search warrant specifically addressed that activity and nothing relating to the publication of such material or any other press function.

If Holder had sought to prosecute Rosen for distributing the material to others, or for the story he later published on Fox News containing the classified data, that might be a different matter. But that never occurred and there is no evidence that it was even considered. The crime here is that Kim and Rosen conspired to exchange government secrets, not that any of those secrets were part of Rosen’s reporting.

Consequently, there is nothing in Holder’s actions and testimony that are inconsistent. It would nice if the media were smart enough to figure this out. Perhaps that is expecting too much.


Study Confirms That Republicans Lie More Than Democrats

Posted by on May 28, 2013 at 12:04 pm. 12 Comments :

Pray for Fox News
“Let their lying lips be silenced.”

According to a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, Republicans were found to be significantly more dishonest in their public statements than Democrats. The CMPA examined 100 statements by members of both parties that were fact-checked by PolitiFact.com between January 20, to May 22, of 2013. Here is a summary of their findings:

  • PolitiFact rated 32% of Republican claims as “false” or “pants on fire,” compared to 11% of Democratic claims – a 3 to 1 margin.
  • Conversely, Politifact rated 22% of Democratic claims as “entirely true” compared to 11% of Republican claims – a 2 to 1 margin.
  • A majority of Democratic statements (54%) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18% of Republican statements.
  • Conversely, a majority of Republican statements (52%) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24% of Democratic statements.
  • Despite controversies over Obama administration statements regarding Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press, Republicans have continued to fare worse than Democrats, with 60% of their claims rated as false so far this month (May 1 – May 22), compared to 29% of Democratic statements – a 2 to 1 margin.

The results of this research may appear to be common sense that any informed person would have known prior to the study, but having a bona fide analysis conducted by a neutral, academic source affirm what is observably true is useful in the ongoing debate over the veracity of our leaders.

This study corroborates my own reporting during the presidential election last year that showed Mitt Romney spewing falsehoods at a far greater rate than the Obama campaign. He won PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” award and set a record for assaults on the truth by earning 84 citations of falsehoods (41% in all), 19 of which were “Pants-on-Fire.” But then what should we expect from a party that proudly proclaimed that “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”


The Mind-Blowing Detachment From Reality Of Fox News Over Media Bias

Posted by on May 27, 2013 at 4:57 pm. 1 Comments :

During a segment of Happening Now on Fox News, anchor Jon Scott hosted conservative Jim Pinkerton and liberal Alan Colmes to debate the latest pet scandal at Fox. Having abandoned Benghazi after it failed to tarnish President Obama’s standing with the American people, Fox is now harping on the events at the Internal Revenue Service.

One thing that can be said for this pseudo-scandal is that it has united the ire of both sides of the controversy. Democrats and Republicans alike have repudiated those at the IRS who employed politically partisan criteria to determine which organizations applying for tax-exempt status would be subject to stricter scrutiny. But like all of the past scandals, no one has been able to tie this affair to the White House either. And that fact is driving the right batty (or battier than usual).

Right out of the gate, Scott primed the discussion by quoting ultra-right Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto saying…

“Never has the prevailing bias of the media been so closely aligned with the ideological aims and the political interests of the party in power.”

Fox News

Is that so? Apparently Taranto was in a vegetative state during the Bush administration when the media, and particularly Fox News, was sucking Bush’s Dick Cheney-led propaganda straight from the bottle. Fox was an unabashed cheerleader for the war in Iraq. And they were not alone. Even MSNBC fired Phil Donahue when he was their top rated host due to his skepticism about the rush to war mongering. And does anyone remember the press criticizing Bush for cutting the taxes of millionaires and transitioning the Clinton budget surplus into a deficit?

The truth is that Fox is the first and only major media enterprise that was built from scratch to proselytize on behalf of a political Party. Fox’s devotion to the people and policies of the right extend far beyond merely parroting their agenda (which they do non-stop), but Fox actually employs Republican operatives and candidates in an effort to advance their prospects. And of course, Fox’s CEO, Roger Ailes, was himself a Republican operative before he took the reins of international corporatist Rupert Murdoch’s cable news network.

Adding to the epic irony of this cognition failure is that the anchor, Jon Scott, is hardly one to raise the issue of media alignment with party politics. Scott was caught red-handed reading GOP talking points on the air as if they were his own news reporting. He even included a graphic that contained the same typos that were in the original Republican memo. And now he has the gall to cast aspersions of bias on what he describes as the liberal media, but without offering a single example.

The remainder of the debate was a mashup of inane accusations that liberals were not condemning the IRS misbehavior. Colmes had to repeatedly prove that they were, eventually offering to write it in blood after Scott and Pinkerton seemed oblivious to the facts Colmes presented numerous times. And when all else failed they raised the specter of George Soros who had nothing to do with any of this. Wingnuts just go through withdrawal if they don’t say his name every two minutes.

Here’s the video for your amusement:

And for a little added fun, check out these screen grabs from the segment where Fox featured Tea Party protesters with signs saying “America is a Christian nation,” and “911 was an inside job.” Way to push the doctrine, Fox.

Fox News Tea Party