Fox Nation vs. Reality: Paranoid Gun Nuts Go Wild

Posted by on December 6, 2012 at 10:48 pm. 9 Comments :

The Second Amendment Solutions crowd has been spoiling for a fight with the Obama administration for years. The President nearly outsmarted them in his first term with a wily strategy of doing nothing about guns except for loosening restrictions in federal parks.

However, that tactic did not fool these Bravehearts. They knew that the real plot was to lay low until the second term and then confiscate anything with a trigger. At least that’s the theory of sweaty-palmed freaks like NRA boss Wayne LaPierre and gun rights evangelist John Snyder. This week on Fox News Snyder weaved a tale of firearms confiscation that would drive Ted Nugent into the fetal position under his bed. And of course, Fox Nation published it as their top headline:

Fox Nation Guns

The inquiry in the headline as to whether Obama is bypassing congress on guns is based on – well, nothing at all. There have been no statements from the White House, no bills drafted in Congress, no leaked memos, not even any Capital whispers or pillow talk. This entire wannabe controversy was hatched by Snyder and his assertion that he has confidential sources who have revealed the plot to him. He told Shannon Bream on Fox News that…

“There is a move by the gun grabbers in congress to try to ban semi-automatic firearms or certain semi-automatic firearms, but they probably will not get very far with this proposal because there simply is not public support for it. So the gun grabbers probably would then rely on their boy in the White House to use executive order in this way to try to ban them to keep law-abiding citizens to be able to obtain these firearms for legitimate purposes.”

Snyder could not offer a single shred of evidence that any of that was true. Although I’m sure he was sincere about his racist characterization of the President as the “boy in the White House.” It’s one thing for some goon on the InterTubes to make wildly unsupported claims about conspiracies to violate the Constitution, but for Fox News to invite him on the air for a “serious” discussion is irresponsible and a breach of journalistic ethics. Therefore, it was the perfect story for Fox. And Bream was all too happy to shed any facade of reportorial dignity when she closed the interview by saying…

“Well the White House each time this gun issue has come up has said that the President and the White House have no intention at all of depriving Americans of their second amendment rights, but we know that there’s also a U.N. treaty that the U.S. has now evolved in negotiating and hammering out that would also deal with gun rights so we’ll keep a close eye on what you’ve tagged and on that treaty as well.”

Apparently it wasn’t enough to give a platform to a nutjob spewing inane conspiracy theories, Bream had to sweeten the pot by connecting it to another paranoid plot that is also patently untrue. When all is said and done, it is curious why anyone would care much about this. Because even without their guns, right-wingers have plenty of firepower they are able to aim at the President. Later the same day, Fox Nation posted this article featuring Sure-Shot Cheney:

Fox Nation Cheney

For some reason, the emotionally stunted editors at Fox can’t seem to reference Obama without there being some horrific and bloody threat to his life injected into it.

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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell Still Stomping Fox News

Posted by on December 6, 2012 at 9:38 am. 23 Comments :

This is beginning to be something of a trend. Last week MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell crushed their Fox News competition – again. The week-long average for Maddow in the 25-54 demographic was 378,000, vs. Sean Hannity’s 352,000. O’Donnell bested Greta Van Susteren 359,000 to 245,000.

MSNBC Stomping Fox News

The Ed Show continues to lag behind his network companions, but perhaps he should be cut some slack because he is also airing opposite the highest rated program on cable news, The O’Reilly Factor. Even so, MSNBC’s primetime lineup managed to beat Fox News outright on two nights (Wednesday and Thursday).

The frequency with which MSNBC is topping Fox dispels any notion that this is an anomaly. In fact, from election day through November 30, Maddow and O’Donnell beat Hannity and Van Susteren by 13% and 20% respectively. The full primetime averages for this period for Fox and MSNBC are separated by only 2% with O’Reilly lifting Fox barely into the lead.

Fox News can no longer boast that they are the runaway leader in cable news. Before long they may not be the leader at all. Their audience may be tiring of being lied to and they might not appreciate the filters that Fox has put between them and the real world. There can be only so many times that someone can discover that what they thought they knew for sure was not even close to correct. And people who get their news from Fox have been in that situation too many times already.

Even Fox News executives recognize that by building a bubble of misinformation they alienate their viewers and destroy their credibility (what little they have). Consequently, Fox CEO Roger Ailes has thrown a rug over two of his top contributors, Karl Rove and Dick Morris. Producers must now get prior permission before booking them. Not that that alone would change much, because Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and the rest of the Fox menagerie will still be honking feverishly at perceived enemies and invented scandals.

In the coming months there may be some dramatic shifts in the cable news arena. Fox’s wobbly leadership will continue to be challenged by MSNBC’s post-election burst of energy. And CNN will likely being putting pressure on both when their new president takes the helm in late January. At this point, I wouldn’t place any bets because literally anything can happen. Who would have predicted a year ago that a lesbian Rhodes scholar (Maddow) would be knocking out the boob tube’s biggest boob (Hannity)?

[Update:] Jealously rears its ugly head. In retaliation for having the audacity to get better ratings than Hannity, Fox is now bashing Maddow for getting a Grammy nomination for the spoken word reading of her book, Drift: The Unmooring Of American Military Power. And the tone of Fox’s attack is typically juvenile as they resort to calling her “Rachel Madd-Cow.”

Fox Nation Maddow

Seriously, how old are these people? Or is this just the only level of discourse they think their audience can comprehend?


FoxBlocked: What Becomes Of The Fox News Rejects?

Posted by on December 5, 2012 at 12:07 pm. 3 Comments :

Yesterday the news broke that Karl Rove and Dick Morris were being designated pundit-non-grata, at least temporarily, by Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Apparently even a rabidly biased cable network known as the PR division of the GOP can tire of analysts who rarely get anything right.

Fox Blocked: Rove and Morris

I feel for the poor Fox viewers who are now going to miss out on the monumentally idiotic assessments and predictions by this pair of hacks. With important policy debates on the “fiscal cliff,” new cabinet appointments, immigration, Syria, etc., on the agenda, Fox viewers will be deprived of the insights that have made them so stupefyingly ignorant so long.

But I also wonder what will become of Rove and Morris. Their colleague, Rick Santorum, has already been reduced to joining WorldNetDaily, (aka Birther Central) as a columnist. Neither Rove nor Morris has commented publicly on the curb-stomping they just suffered. But I can’t help but feel that the worst part of this humiliation is that while Ailes dismissed them, he kept Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. How do they console themselves knowing that their commentaries were deemed unsuitable going forward, but Palin’s word salad jumbles, and Trump’s ego-soaked dementia, will continue to get broadcast? OUCH!

No doubt Rove will find a way to self-finance his media presence with funds misappropriated from his Super PAC. And Morris is still posting his vodcasts on his own web site for the willfully dumb and the aficionados of toe-sucking. But somehow, it just won’t be the same without their access to the vast audience of glassy-eyed Fox disciples (which is actually only about 1% of the population). At least we’ll still have Palin and Trump, and Limbaugh and Nugent and Hannity and, maybe, if we’re really, really good, Fox will hire Allen West and give us all something to brighten our holiday.


Fox News Kicks Karl Rove And Dick Morris To The Curb, But What About…?

Posted by on December 4, 2012 at 9:58 pm. 15 Comments :

New York Magazine is reporting that changes are afoot at Fox News following their pitifully inept coverage of the presidential campaign. Fox spent most of the year polishing the bubble within which their viewers, and even many of their favored candidates, resided. They were so averse to reality that they refused to report the results of polls that didn’t support their fantasy worldview, even when those polls were conducted by Fox News.

Fox Blocked - Rove Morris

The anchors and other spokespersons for the channel worked overtime on behalf of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. They were unambiguously biased, which led to some rather embarrassing analyses and predictions. Most notable among these gaffes were the relentlessly anti-Obama/pro-Romney observations of Karl Rove and Dick Morris. And surprisingly, there are consequences for being so reliably wrong. According to Gabriel Sherman at NYMag:

“[Fox News CEO Roger] Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff: He wants the faces associated with the election off the air — for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris — a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox’s anti-Obama campaign — Ailes’s orders mean new rules. Ailes’s deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking Rove or Morris.”

Well, that’s the least they can do – literally. While benching Rove and Morris makes perfect sense considering how dreadful their service to the network was, it doesn’t begin to address the problems at Fox. Bill Shine confirmed that the memo was authentic and that its purpose was to convey the message that “the election’s over.” If so, why is Fox continuing to feature a roster lousy with players who were every bit as disastrous as Rove and Morris.

Sarah Palin is a fixture on the network despite her nonsensical fear mongering about the creeping socialism of Obama and the Democratic Party. Mike Huckebee retains his Fox program even though he was an unrepentant supporter of Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin. Both were prolific fundraisers for a raft GOP candidates who mostly lost.

Then there is John Bolton, Laura Ingram, Tucker Carlson, Monica Crowley, Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino, Greg Gutfeld, the entire cast of Fox & Friends, and Fox’s own GOP Carnival Barker, Sean Hannity. How can Fox maintain seriously that they want to move on past the election when their schedule is littered with the same political hacks who played starring roles in the biggest flop of the season?

The answer is that they have no intention of moving on. The wrist-slapping of Rove and Morris will be short-lived and the familiar partisanship at Fox will continue unabated. If anything, the month that has transpired since election day already proves that Fox is still in campaign mode with their attacks on Susan Rice, their sensationalizing of the so-called “Fiscal Cliff,” and any number of other trumped up scandals.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. There has been no mention of their sidelining the Billionaire Birther, Donald Trump. So don’t expect to see much change at Fox, other than a bit of window dressing that will all come down when the weather clears.


Romancing Petraeus: Why Fox News CEO Roger Ailes Debases Both Journalism And Democracy

Posted by on December 4, 2012 at 2:59 pm. 6 Comments :

Roger AilesThe Washington Post’s Bob Woodward just published a story revealing that Fox News CEO Roger Ailes dispatched a Fox News defense analyst to deliver a personal request to Gen. David Petraeus. Ailes sent K.T. McFarland to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the message that Ailes wanted Petraeus to run against Barack Obama for president.

The notion of a news network soliciting candidates for political office is a repulsive perversion of the role journalists play in society. Ailes heads a network that pretends to be “fair and balanced” while brazenly campaigning on behalf of the Republican Party and conservative policies. But taking that a step further into the jurisdiction of GOP candidate recruitment is a violation of the core tenets of journalistic ethics.

In the audio that Woodward posted, McFarland can be heard discussing particulars of a Petraeus candidacy including the possibility of it being run by Ailes himself, and bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch has already contributed untold millions of dollars to GOP campaigns via free airtime and unconstrained support from Fox anchors, contributors, and guests. Their advocacy was so overwhelming this year that it resulted in a stunned electorate on the Republican side who believed, due to Fox coverage, that their victory was in the bag.

The conversation between Petraeus and McFarland was rife with ethical breaches on the part of McFarland. For instance, she began her message from Ailes saying “What I’m supposed to say directly from him to you, through me, is first of all, is there anything Fox is doing, right or wrong, that you want to tell us to do differently?” No self-respecting reporter would ever take orders from an interview subject on how to shape the coverage of their news. And it’s an even worse offense when it comes from the head of the operation.

What’s more, McFarland’s behavior should disqualify her from appearing on Fox as an analyst. How can she be trusted to be objective after gushing that she and “everyone at Fox love” the General? That bit of sycophancy notwithstanding, McFarland did return from Kabul and appeared on Fox with praise for Petraeus as “one of the greatest generals in American history.”

Petraeus responded to McFarland by expressing his distaste for certain criticisms of the Afghan war effort, which he said may have just been attributable to the headlines. So McFarland accommodated him by saying that it was “easy to fix” because she sits next to the woman who writes them. For McFarland to promise to insure more flattering headlines in articles about the general would be cause for termination from a reputable news organization.

Then McFarland hit Petraeus with Ailes’ advice that he reject any appointment offered by the President other than Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff. She said that Ailes specifically singled out the CIA as a post Petraeus should not accept. Her characterization of the machinations of the White House involved some sort of plot to dump Petraeus at the CIA where he wouldn’t be heard from and would not pose a threat to Obama’s reelection. Again, where do McFarland and Ailes get off politicking like this?

Despite the advice of Ailes, Petraeus told McFarland that he regarded the CIA and intelligence as a growth industry where he felt he could make a significant contribution. Obama later did offer him the job, but he was not as silent in that role as he might have hoped. The disclosure of his marital infidelity ended his career at the CIA and much of the speculation about his future.

When Woodward contacted Ailes to get his response to the McFarland/Petraeus tapes, Ailes admitted that he sent McFarland on this mission, but attempted to play down the candidate recruitment aspect of it:

“It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have. I thought the Republican [primary] field needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate.”

Anyone who believes that dodge is sorely in need of a transfusion of healthy skepticism. It is highly unlikely that Ailes sent McFarland to Kabul to tell Petraeus a joke. He clearly wanted the General to run for president, just like he also wanted Chris Christie to do so after Petraeus declined. It was Ailes’ objective, and that of Boss Murdoch, to bring about the defeat of Obama.

But it is also notable that Ailes felt it was his right and/or duty to shake up the GOP primaries. News people are supposed to report the news, not make it. Where does this sort of chicanery end? If Ailes thought the debate over the budget should be shaken up, might he send a hooker to the hotel room of the House Budget Committee chair? If he thought the Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare needed a jolt of excitement would he plant some cocaine on a wavering justice? If he needed additional ammo with which to attack Obama, would he manufacture a phony controversy about the President being responsible for the murders of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi? Oh, wait a minute, Ailes actually did that last one already.

The revelations contained in Woodward’s story affirm that Ailes is a Machiavellian scoundrel and that Fox News is a rogue operation. Their intrusion into the political process debases journalism by breaching all standards of ethical conduct. And they debase democracy as well by exploiting their power and wealth to manipulate political outcomes. Roger Ailes has now provided verification for every criticism of his villainy that has been directed at him. And Fox News continues to lack any moral standing to be considered a legitimate news enterprise.

[Addendum 12/20/12] The media has largely ignored this story, an omission that has now been noticed and pointedly analyzed by Woodward’s former partner, Carl Bernstein, in an article for The Guardian.


Wall Street Journal Exposes Fox News Lies About Benghazi and Susan Rice

Posted by on December 4, 2012 at 10:22 am. 4 Comments :

For several weeks Fox News has been spearheading a smear campaign against U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for comments she made on Sunday news programs about Benghazi. The actual substance of her comments was specifically limited by her qualification that the information was evolving as investigations continued. Nevertheless, Fox falsely portrayed her as having misled the nation. And further, they accused the President of conspiring to alter intelligence reports in order to downplay the involvement of Al Qaeda in the attacks.

Fox Nation Benghazi

Today there is a report in the Wall Street Journal that obliterates the dishonest reporting that has been plastered on the airwaves on Fox for weeks.

“The officials said the first draft of the talking points had a reference to al Qaeda but it was removed by the Central Intelligence Agency, to protect sources and protect investigations, before the talking points were shared with the White House. No evidence has so far emerged that the White House interfered to tone down the public intelligence assessment, despite the attention the charge has received.”

The WSJ story corroborates earlier reports about what Gen. Petraeus told members of congress in closed-door meetings: That the CIA was responsible for the revisions and approved them before they were distributed to the White House. It also exonerates Amb. Rice from the allegations that she did anything inappropriate in her public appearances.

The significance that this report was published in the Wall Street Journal cannot be understated. The Journal is the kingpin of Rupert Murdoch’s news empire. The fact that it is openly contradicting his other news outlet, Fox News, is a powerful condemnation of the cable network.

Now it remains to be seen if Fox News will broadcast a retraction of the lies they have been promulgating about Rice and recant the disparaging coverage of speculation about an appointment to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. It will also be interesting to see whether John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and other Rice bashers will offer their apologies.

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Zombie News Network: How New Boss Jeff Zucker Can Bring CNN Back From The Dead

Posted by on December 3, 2012 at 2:48 pm. 4 Comments :

Once upon a time there was a groundbreaking 24-hour cable news network that came to dominate broadcast journalism. After nearly two decades as the undisputed leader in its market, CNN began to stumble and was eventually overtaken by both Fox News and MSNBC.

There are many factors that contributed to CNN’s decline, including a certain arrogance derived from having the field to itself for so long. When Fox came along and challenged CNN, they were unprepared for a competitor that didn’t really care about news, instead favoring a more entertainment oriented approach that focused on a sexier brand of melodrama and sensationalism. Also, the hardcore, right-wing partisanship of Fox News herded all of the conservative news sheeple into one corral, artificially inflating the ratings picture. From the start, Fox reflected the views of its financier, Rupert Murdoch, and its CEO, former GOP media guru Roger Ailes, who described his own philosophy of journalism this way:

“If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, ‘I have a solution to the Middle East problem,’ and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?”

And ever since Fox has been throwing Democrats into orchestra pits that were built by Fox engineers and reporting that in place of actual news.

CNN GOP Tea PartyIn responding to the competition, CNN did not help itself by embarking on the path to Foxification. Their management made the foolish mistake of concluding that Fox’s success was related to their blatant conservative bias and abandonment of journalistic principles, and rushed to reproduce that model themselves. They installed Ken Jautz, a rabidly right-wing promoter, as it’s chief. Jautz was the man who gave Glenn Beck his first job in television. Then CNN went on a hiring binge that consisted of the most unsavory figures from Wingnutlandia including: Amy Holmes and Will Cain (of Glenn Beck’s The Blaze), Erick Erickson (of the uber-conservative blog RedState), Dana Loesch (of Breitbart News and the Tea Party), and E.D. Hill, a former Fox anchor and Bill O’Reilly guest host, who is most famous for saying that a friendly fist bump between the President and the First Lady was really a “terrorist fist jab.”

CNN was the only cable news network to broadcast live Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party response to Obama’s State of the Union address. Then they co-sponsored a GOP primary debate with the corrupt Tea Party Express. They also co-sponsored a debate with the ultra-right-wing Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. However, they conspicuously failed to program similar events with lefties like MoveOn.org or the Center for American Progress.

Dressing up like Fox was damaging to both CNN’s credibility and their ratings. Even Fox’s business network recognized that copying Fox News was a losing strategy. FBN VP Kevin Magee sent a memo to his staff saying that…

“…the more we make FBN look like FNC the more of a disservice we do to ourselves. I understand the temptation to imitate our sibling network in hopes of imitating its success, but we cannot. If we give the audience a choice between FNC and the almost-FNC, they will choose FNC every time.”

Unfortunately, no one at CNN could grasp that simple truth. Now CNN has a fresh opportunity to restore its former glory. Following the resignation of Jim Walton, CNN has tapped former NBC/Universal chief Jeff Zucker to replace him as the president of CNN Worldwide. Zucker has a mixed record at NBC. During his tenure the entertainment division went from first to fourth. He presided over the catastrophic move of Jay Leno to primetime, then back again to late night, which resulted in the loss of Conan O’Brien. However, NBC News boasts the top rated morning and evening news broadcasts. And MSNBC has rocketed into an unexpectedly competitive position with Fox. In fact, since election day, MSNBC has actually outperformed Fox.

Zucker has an abundance of existing assets with which to remake CNN into the global media powerhouse it used to be. They have more reporters in more parts of the world than their competitors. In fact, CNN has more domestic and foreign bureaus than Fox and MSNBC combined. Fox invests very little in news bureaus or other news gathering operations. The bulk of their expenditures is on their “celebrity” presenters and pseudo-pundits. Fox is an enterprise that is engaged more in news analysis and manipulation than anything resembling journalism. While MSNBC benefits from the substantial resources of NBC News, the cable network has concentrated more on opinion and advocacy in recent years.

All of this creates an opening for CNN to become what its marketing department already pitches the network as: a news channel. CNN’s audience still expects the network to perform at its best when some catastrophic event occurs. They continue to get high tune-in for natural disasters and acts of war. However, there isn’t always a convenient calamity to fill their airtime. So they cram their schedule with pablum and phony attempts at balance, but succeed mostly at boring their viewers with a desperate effort to avoid offending anybody.

The question now is, where will they go from here? The best way to put CNN back in the game is to adopt a hard news profile that dispenses with petty partisan bickering. In one of his first quotes after the announcement of his hiring, Zucker said that “news is more than just politics and war.” That’s true. Viewers have many immediate concerns that would compel them to watch a network that provided them with information about issues that impact their lives. That includes economics, civil liberties, health, crime, education, jobs, the environment, etc. And the job of a news network is more than just reporting what occurred. It is also putting it context, explaining matters that are often complex, and making the whole package entertaining enough to keep the viewer’s attention.

By concentrating on real news, CNN can stake out territory that its competitors are neglecting. They can focus on the fundamentals of journalism that consist of shoe-leather investigations, relevant interviews, and compelling production values. They need to jettison the political hacks who populate their studios and replace them with policy experts and academics. This will turn the predictable, partisan slapfights into informed discussions. And the audience can get something out of the program that is more substantive than a red face and ammunition for their next bout with a contrary uncle at a family dinner.

When the subject turns to politics, who would you rather see debating, for instance, raising the age for Social Security eligibility? A Democrat and a Republican who will spew the same old party line talking points? Or an expert on retirement economics and an apolitical career administrator from Health and Human Services? Obviously the later would be more informative, but it could also be more dry and difficult to sit through. That’s why the art of storytelling needs to be brought back to news reporting.

With actual intellectual content to convey, it would be up to anchors and producers to package it attractively. For that you need professionals who know how to tell a story and engage an audience. The newspaper business used to be full of people with those skills until all the papers started folding up. CNN could snap up some of that talent and put them to work juicing up stories that people are really interested in. In fact, there would nothing wrong with employing dramatists and humorists to write news copy that makes people feel something, so long as they stick to the news. And the presenters should be people with demonstrated abilities to connect with audiences on a personal level. Add some dynamic graphics and music and those experts on retirement economics can become downright scintillating.

Finally, there is a concept that has crept into the production of contemporary news that is not, and should not be, a part of quality journalism. CNN should ban the notion of balance from all of their reporting. Balance is a false objective. The goal of honest journalism should be truth. For example, it does no one any good to interview a doctor about the documented health risks of smoking, and then bringing in a tobacco advocate for “balance.” An opposite opinion is worse than a waste of time, it is counterproductive, if it is not based on reality. A news network should not tolerate science deniers, birthers, and zealots who peddle fables as if they were facts.

If CNN wants to be a player in cable news, they need to avoid accepting the terms of their competition. They need to set the terms themselves. And if they commit to identifying the issues that matter to people, and presenting them honestly and with a bit of showbiz flash, they can draw the kind of engaged and loyal audience that appeals to advertisers which, of course, is critical to success in this business. Plus, they can actually serve a positive purpose by educating viewers and advancing dialogs of substance. Even better, if this approach is successful it will spur other news enterprises to follow a similar path. Then, maybe, one day, we can be proud of the American media and not regard it with the disdain that it currently inspires.


More Americans View Socialism As Positive Than View Fox News

Posted by on December 2, 2012 at 11:57 am. 46 Comments :

Throughout much of the last four years, Fox News, and the broader conservative media noise machine, invested incalculable hours yammering about the alleged socialist leanings of President Obama and Democrats in general. It became an obsession that infected even previously sedate Republican politicians as they rushed to placate radical elements of their party who are convinced that Obama is a Manchurian president sent by foreign enemies to hand America over to communist tyrants. And now that the election is over, Fox persists in tagging the President with a label they believe has derogatory implications.

Fox Nation

The first problem with this characterization is that it is patently untrue. Obama has presided over an administration that has been nothing but positive from the perspective of hardcore capitalists. The stock market doubled in his first term. He has appointed numerous Wall Street refugees to his cabinet and staff. Trade has increased. Corporate taxes are near an all time low. If Obama is a socialist, he is very bad at it.

But more importantly, Americans who were bombarded with the campaign cacophony of Obama’s leftist conspiracy were undeterred and voted for him anyway. That could imply that the American people endorsed the socialism that they were told Obama represents. And that wouldn’t be far from the truth. The United States has abundant policies and institutions that are rooted in socialist philosophy. They are some of the most beloved and trusted institutions our government provides, including Social Security, Medicare, the Veteran’s Administration, and virtually every public works and infrastructure project managed by both federal and local agencies.

The poll referenced above on Fox Nation was conducted by Gallup. As usual, the Fox Nationalists did not link to the actual poll, but to a partisan analysis of it. They certainly wouldn’t want to expose their audience to any real data. The survey found that Americans are quite fond of small business, free enterprise, and entrepreneurs, in almost equal numbers among Democrats and Republicans and across the ideological spectrum. The divergence came with respect to capitalism, big business, and the federal government. These results should not surprise anyone, knowing that the GOP is proud of their favoritism toward the wealthy and giant, multinational corporatism. And why wouldn’t Democrats feel favorably toward a federal government presided over by a Democrat?

What may come as a surprise to some is that approximately four-in-ten Americans view socialism positively. That number includes about a quarter of both Republicans and conservatives. That’s an indication that the American people have a fairly enlightened view of the political and economic realities in this country. Although a small majority still have a kneejerk ignorance that shapes their views. The President would do well to adjust his agenda to more accurately reflect the will of the people.

The funny thing about Fox’s presentation of the data in the Gallup poll is that, according to the Pew Reserach Center, only “about one-in-five Americans (21%) say they regularly watch Fox News.” That means that the number of Americans who view socialism positively (39%) is nearly double the number who view Fox (21%). That’s an important fact to keep in mind the next time Fox tries to present itself as the voice of the people. It is decidedly not representative of the views of most Americans. And it’s evidence that the American people are smarter than Fox gives them credit for.

Sarah Palin[Update:] Sarah Palin weighed in on the creeping threat of socialism tonight as a guest on Hannity for a segment titled: Socialism Rising. Her trademark “Word Salad” rambling included this endlessly incoherent run-on sentence that never gets around to explaining why she thinks Obama is a socialist:

“He believes in these failed socialist policies and I say that not to personally condemn our president, but I say it because I face reality, and I see what’s going on and I see the path that we are on, and the fact that Barack Obama has not had a budget for the four years he’s been in office and not been worried about it and continues to spend recklessly other people’s money and that is a sign of that idea of loving socialism.”

Of course, Palin would never personally condemn the President she once accused of “palling around with terrorists.” After all, by facing reality she can see Russia from her house. So she knows all too well the evils of loving socialism. She just doesn’t understand democracy or respect the 39% of Americans who are better educated than she is about the meaning of socialism and how it has contributed to the nation’s general welfare as spelled out in the US Constitution.


Bill O’Reilly Says That “Christianity Is Not A Religion”

Posted by on November 29, 2012 at 3:35 pm. 12 Comments :

The War on Christmas is in full swing, folks. And the latest battle occurred last night on The O’Reilly Factor.

O’Reilly brought on David Silverman, President of American Atheists, to set up a manufactured debate over the place of Christmas in society, particularly when sponsored by agencies of the government. In the heated exchange, O’Reilly frequently bellowed at his guest whom he called a “fascist” at one point. But the segment’s most surreal moment came when O’Reilly sought to make the argument that public displays of faith on government property are permissible because…

Bill O'Reilly

Yikes! That’s a rather astonishing declaration. I wonder if Christians know that what they are practicing is philosophical, not religious. Among the repercussions of this revelation is that Christianity would not be protected by the First Amendment which prohibits Congress from “respecting the establishment of religion.” The Constitution says nothing about philosophies.

Just to be clear, Here is the definition of each from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

re·li·gion noun \ri-?li-j?n\
(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance.

phi·los·o·phy noun \f?-?lä-s(?-)f?\
(1) : all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts (2) : the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology.

It seems to me that Christianity fits squarely in the definition of religion with its worship of God and devotion to faith. Philosophy, on the other hand, explicitly excludes Christianity as a theology.

O’Reilly has said some idiotic things on this subject. Like when he wrote in his auto-bloviography “Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know [me]. Then ask him or her if they still don’t believe there’s a God.” But this makes no sense at all. It is an insult to his audience who are not likely to be pleased that their religion has been downgraded. They will surely chafe at their savior being lumped in with the likes of Aristotle, Confucius, Nietzsche, and Sartre, none of whom walked on water or rose from the dead (that we know of). And if supporting the Constitution’s principles of equality and free expression make you fascist, then there are tens of millions of American fascists. Don’t anybody tell O’Reilly or he’ll start a war on the Constitution.

[Update] Bill O’Reilly has doubled down on his insistence that Christianity is not a religion. In fact, he said that the people who think it is are “so stupid it’s painful.” But if you’re looking for stupidity, it’s in O’Reilly’s argument that Christianity cannot be a religion because “there are many different churches that promote the Christian philosophy in many different ways.” Right Bill, and all of them are “churches.” O’Reilly also quoted from a letter by Calvin Coolidge that he said proved that Christianity was merely a “state of mind,” despite the letter saying that “there will be born in us a Savior…” Now that’s not religious at all, is it?


Fox Nation vs. Reality: 10 Flagrant Falsehoods From The Fox News Community Site

Posted by on November 29, 2012 at 10:08 am. 5 Comments :

Fox Nation vs. Reality[This article was previously published on Alternet and contains a few excerpts from my new eBook, Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth. The book contains more than fifty additional examples of Fox’s dishonesty.]

When Fox News debuted sixteen years ago, it was crafted from scratch to be a partisan outlet for right-wing propaganda and a platform for advancing a conservative agenda. Its founder, Rupert Murdoch, was already an internationally known purveyor of right-slanted newspapers and broadcasters. Complimenting Fox’s television presence is its Internet community web site, Fox Nation. The statement of purpose posted on the Fox Nation web site says that it is “committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse, and fair and balanced coverage of the news.” However, a cursory glance at the site reveals that they have fallen wide of their stated purpose by several light years.

Fox Nation is layered thickly with far-right extremist diatribes and links to disreputable articles plucked from the Internet’s fringes. And the notion that civil discourse can take place on Fox Nation is quickly dispelled by reading their user forums with their frequent use of the “N” word and juvenile references to the President as “Odumbo” and the First Lady as “Moo-chelle.” These sorts of comments are not anomalies. Fox Nation is deliberately catering to this caliber of audience who revel in overt racist and hostile dialogue. This is not the conventional, freewheeling online chatter that is found on comment boards and is particularly unusual for a site sponsored by a major national news network.

Not much is known about the operations of Fox Nation. Unlike other news enterprises that identify their principle staff, Fox Nation treats their publishers, editors, etc., as if they were covert agents of espionage. There is no masthead or bylines or any other indication of who is responsible for the repugnant content posted daily on the web page. Requests for this information from Fox corporate communications officers went unanswered. And given the dishonesty, unprofessionalism, ignorance, and immaturity of the tone and substance on the site, perhaps it is their intention to remain anonymous in order to avoid the shame that would come with an association to such puerile trash.

Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch was a harsh critic of Google News, calling them “parasites,” because he said they steal his content by posting headlines and short blurbs and linking to the source articles. But that’s pretty hypocritical because it’s exactly what Fox Nation does. There is almost no original content, and what they harvest from other sources is often planted on affiliated sites like those of Fox News contributors Tucker Carlson, Michele Malkin, and Dick Morris.

What follows are ten excerpts from my ebook, Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth. The book chronicles more than fifty flagrantly dishonest reports by the Fox Nationalist team of faux journalists. These are not mere differences of opinion or discussions that might have varying degrees of perspective. They are obvious, provable, outright lies, and they are manifestations of a disconnect with the real world.

1) Human Carbon Emissions Could Put OFF a Lethal New Ice Age
According to the Fox Nationalists, the perpetrators of Global Warming are actually rescuing the planet from a frigid doom. They quote Cambridge University research published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The only problem with their conclusion is that the scientist they reference in the article, Luke Skinner, has a completely different conclusion. He says that he anticipated this response amongst climate crisis deniers and said that they are…

“…missing the point, because where we’re going is not maintaining our currently warm climate but heating it much further, and adding CO2 to a warm climate is very different from adding it to a cold climate.

“The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can’t cope with that.”

Skinner told the BBC that the results of the study point to the sensitivity of the climate system to “quite small changes in CO2, let alone the huge changes that we’ve been responsible for over the last 200 years.” Of course, none of that is included in the Fox Nation article. They deliberately neglect the obvious point that by the time the presumed ice age begins, in 1,500 years, global warming, if unchecked, would have already put half the planet’s current land mass under water. But these facts do not sway Fox from cherry-picking out-of-context soundbites to mislead their audience.

2) College Mate: Obama Was An Ardent Marxist-Leninist
In this episode Fox Nation posted as their featured headline story an article with the title: College Mate: Obama Was an ‘Ardent’ ‘Marxist-Leninist.’ In order to fabricate this wholly dishonest smear, Fox sunk to re-posting a column written by conservative bomb-thrower Selwyn Duke. Duke’s article was originally published by The New American, the periodical of the extremist and notoriously fascistic John Birch Society.

In the article, Duke relied entirely on the testimony of John Drew, a man who has been pushing his dubious and uncorroborated account of a college relationship with Obama for years. He claims that Obama was a close friend and confidant. The truth is he only met Obama casually a handful of times at gatherings with many others present. He never attended college with Obama because the future President didn’t enter Occidental College until after Drew had graduated.

It’s painfully clear to anyone paying attention that Drew is attempting to exploit his brief encounters with Obama to exalt himself, disseminate his rightist propaganda, and earn a few bucks in the process. Now, after years of plodding through radical right-wing rags and Internet backwater rabble, Drew and Duke have succeeded in getting Fox Nation to sling their stale mud.

3) Obama Selling Amnesty For $465
The issue of immigration is one that the Fox Nationalists relish in demagoguing. They publish numerous stories that are openly racist, as has been thoroughly documented. This is just such a story that was designed to inflame prejudice with its utterly dishonest skewing of the facts. The headline composed by Fox Nation is wholly untrue. Not only is amnesty not a part of the administration’s program, nothing in it is for sale.

In truth, President Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security to exercise prosecutorial discretion so that innocent children who were brought to this country by undocumented parents are not unduly punished while a more comprehensive solution is negotiated with Congress. The program does not provide amnesty. The fee to apply for this program is intended to offset costs, but can be waived on a case by case basis for applicants unable to pay.

None of those facts stopped Fox from deliberately misrepresenting the matter in a way that leads their audience to presume that the administration is peddling citizenship to foreigners who come here to steal our jobs. It appears that Fox picked up the story from the juveniles at Breitbart News where John Nolte published an article that implied that Obama’s goal is to mint new voters. Never mind that the immigrants partaking of this program will not have voting rights because they will not be citizens.

4) Americans Not Buying Buffett Rule
The Buffett Rule that Americans are not buying refers to his remarks that wealthy folks like him should not be paying lower tax rates than average folks like his secretary. So all that the Fox Nationalists had to do to validate their headline was produce the results of a poll that shows that a majority of respondents do not believe that raising taxes on millionaires will do any good. And since, in this case, they are relying on the results of a poll conducted by Fox News, they should be able to support whatever preconceived myth they want to invent.

However, the very first paragraph of their own story states that “more voters think raising taxes on wealthy Americans will help (40 percent) rather than hurt the economy (24 percent).” And the margin of difference (16%) isn’t even close. Yet somehow the headline atop the article overtly refutes the facts in their own survey. Are these people even trying anymore? They must really think their readers are idiots. And since they must know their audience better than anyone else, I will defer to their assessment.

5) NBC News Hires Anchor Who Pledged to Not Criticize Obama About Anything
In this episode of Fox Nation’s departure from reality, the Fox Nationalists jumped on remarks by Al Sharpton suggesting that he intends to refrain from ever criticizing President Obama. But that isn’t what he said.

Sharpton: “What I don’t want to see is because he is black we act like he’s not the real president – he ought to be leading the black cause or the labor cause. He’s the President. To minimize who he is, I think, is an insult to the achievement of having him there.”

So this was not about Sharpton never criticizing Obama, just not constraining Obama to being merely the president of black Americans as opposed to all Americans. Fox, on the other hand, should acknowledge that their whole business model rests on not criticizing Republicans and conservatives. In a specific example you have Dick Morris, who has been on the Fox payroll for years, and pledged never to criticize Mitt Romney:

“I decided a couple of – a month or two ago to stop dumping on Mitt Romney, for example … Not because I approve of Romneycare, not because I approve of his flip-flops, flip on abortion, but because I may have to be one of those who carries this guy for a couple of months when he’s running against Obama and I don’t want to make my own task harder.”

Morris fulfilled that promise by becoming one of Romney’s most ardent cheerleaders. Just days before Obama won with a commanding Electoral College victory, Morris told Fox News that a Romney landslide was a virtual certainty.

6) Elizabeth Warren Praises Communist China
In response to an ad by Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, the Fox Nationalists have not only lied, but exposed their latent unpatriotic tendencies as well. To state bluntly that “Elizabeth Warren Praises Communist China” is a thoroughly manufactured falsehood. She never did anything remotely of the kind. What she did was advocate for the importance of America remaining competitive on an international basis and not permit China to take the lead. Here is what she said:

“We’ve got bridges and roads in need of repair, and thousands of people in need of work. Why aren’t we rebuilding America? Our competitors are putting people to work, building the future. China invests 9 percent of its GDP in infrastructure. America, we’re at just 2.4 percent. We can do better. We can build a foundation for a strong new economy and get people in Massachusetts to work right now.”

The Fox Nationalists have a decidedly shallow grasp of world affairs. They think that lamenting America falling behind on matters critical to international competitiveness is the same as praising a political system of government. Were these same conservatives outraged when Reagan, and other cold warriors, argued that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union militarily and, therefore, they were praising Russia’s communism?

For Fox News, and its conservative benefactors, to criticize Warren for these comments is akin to advocating for America to succumb to foreign competitors. In effect, it’s conservatives who are acceding to China’s superiority – not the other way around.

7) Stocks Tumble Worldwide After Obama Speech
The implication of this headline is that Obama’s speech had something to do with a stock market decline. However, the very first paragraph of the Bloomberg News article Fox cites specifically states that the decline is due to…

“…escalating concern about Greece’s debt crisis and speculation congress won’t pass President Obama’s plan to boost the economy.“

In other words, the markets favor Obama’s plan and want it to be implemented. So a more honest headline would have read “Stocks Tumble Worldwide Due To Republican Obstructionism.” But then again, if you’re looking for a more honest headline then you probably wouldn’t be reading Fox Nation in the first place.

8) Guess Who Tried To Break Into Southwest Cockpit?
Notice that in this headline the Fox Nationalists explicitly describes Ali Reza Shahsavari as trying to break into the cockpit of a Southwest Airlines plane. But anyone who read a little further down would have seen that the article unambiguously contradicts the headline saying “Initially, authorities said the man had tried to break into the cockpit but Amarillo Aviation Director Patrick Rhodes later said that he was ‘not trying to break into the cockpit, but was unruly and had confronted the cabin crew.'”

The headline was wholly the creation of Fox News. The story itself was sourced to the Associated Press, whose article got the headline right: “Southwest flight makes emergency landing in Texas.” So what we have here is Fox deliberately falsifying the headline in order to make a derogatory insinuation about a man of Iranian descent who just happens to be an American citizen born in Mississippi. The article states that there is no indication of terrorism and additional reporting describe the incident as an episode of mental illness triggered by an argument with another passenger. The only conclusion is that Fox saw a brown man with Middle-Eastern features and decided to invent an international terrorism incident where none existed by appending a provocative question to the story that contradicted the article’s content.

9) Man Linked to ‘Occupy’ Protest Charged With Attempted Assassination of Obama
The Fox News Channel ran a story with this same deceptive theme. They hosted Michelle Malkin to engage in a discussion that was deliberately designed to smear the Occupiers. During the segment they displayed a picture of the suspect, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, with a caption that said: “‘Occupy’ Shooter.” There was no question mark or other qualifying notation to indicate that this was merely speculation on the part of Fox News.

For the record, the only link between this guy and the Occupy movement is the one invented by Fox. The Washington police have stated unequivocally that they have no evidence that he was affiliated in any way with the protesters. Reports that he may have tried to hide in the crowds at the Occupy DC site should not surprise anyone. Any densely populated location would attract somebody trying to elude law enforcement. A football game or an Alzheimer’s Walkathon would serve the same purpose.

What little is known about Ortega-Hernandez would likely lead objective analysts to suspect him of being a Teabagger. He is said to be anti-government, hates President Obama, and has a history of mental illness. That’s a profile that would fit perfectly for say … Glenn Beck.

10) Poll: Majority Blame Obama For Bad Economy
There have been numerous polls asking respondents to say who they hold responsible for the state of the American economy. In every one of them George W. Bush ranks at or near the top, with Congress and Wall Street following close behind. Usually President Obama is not the target of most of the blame.

Leave it to Fox News to come up with a poll that contradicts the others. And it should come as no surprise that the poll they’ve latched onto is the work of Rasmussen’s Pulse Opinion Research. However, even with a fixed pollster, and a rabidly partisan news outlet, Fox still finds it necessary to outright lie about the poll’s results.

In Rasmussen’s poll 34% said that Obama is the most to blame for the slow economic recovery. Most elementary school graduates know that that is not a majority. What’s more, if you add the responses of those who said that it was either Congress, Wall Street, or George W. Bush, it comes to a clear majority of 61% saying that Obama is not to blame. The Fox Nationalists must take great comfort in the knowledge that their audience is too incurious to actually look into anything themselves.

Bonus #11) Obama More Unpopular Than Tea Party
Here we have Fox Nation with a headline that is diametrically opposed to the actual results of a poll. From the New York Times:

“The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll.

“The president’s overall job approval rating remained relatively stable, with 48 percent approving of the way he handles his job as president and 47 percent disapproving.”

To repeat, 48% approve of Obama while only 20% approve of the Tea Party. That means Obama’s approval is more than twice that of the Tea Party. What’s more, Obama is viewed favorably by slightly more people than view him unfavorably. The Tea Party is viewed unfavorably by twice as many people as view it favorably.

The only way to spin this poll positively for the Tea Party is to deliberately misconstrue the data by taking into account only the unfavorable numbers as if they existed in a vacuum. Leave it to Fox to lie to their audience and produce a community characterized by ignorance and wishful thinking.

These are just a few examples of the veracity-challenged deceptions that appear everyday on Fox Nation. In the ebook, Fox Nation vs. Reality, there are dozens more examples of the documented, deliberate dishonesty that is the hallmark of Fox News. It’s a handy reference for rebutting those crazy uncles who keep sending you conspiracy theory chain letters and berating you for having missed Hannity last night.

Fox Nation is an integral part of the Fox News family and a critical component of their mission to deceive the general public and reinforce the partisan tunnel-blindness of their glassy-eyed disciples. This makes it all the more necessary to shine a light on their cynical mauling of truthfulness in media. Mark Twain said that “Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” And the fabulists at Fox have imagination in abundance as evidenced by all the tales they make up on their web site. So the more they seek to deceive, the more the rest of us need to be prepared to rebut and confront them. As difficult as that task may seem, we can take heart in Stephen Colbert’s observation that “Reality has a well known liberal bias.” Which explains why it is so at odds with what Fox represents.