Hack Producer Of Anti-Obama Crockumentary To Motion Picture Academy Board: Dump Michael Moore

In the annals of Hollywood crybaby sagas, none climb to heights as high as those by the right-wing hissy-fitters responsible for 2016: Obama’s America. This alleged documentary starred, and was based on the book by, conservative shill Dinesh D’Zouza. It had some success at the box office due to the gullibility of Teabagging moviegoers, but was universally panned by objective critics, and its standards for accuracy and honesty were of the toilet bowl variety.

Nevertheless, the producers were so convinced of their own brilliance that they fumed when they did not get recognition from the documentary branch members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – who obviously know better. And now producer Gerald Molen has formalized his objections in a letter to the Academy that asks them to remove Governing Board member, and respected documentarian, Michael Moore from his post.

Fox Nation - Newsbusters

Unfortunately, this vacant bleating is nothing more than a lame cry for attention that fails to take into consideration that Moore has only one vote out of 172 members of the Academy’s documentary branch. He has no other role in choosing the winners or even selecting the nominees.

Molen’s letter made some rather egregious errors in enumerating the reasons for his pique. In addition to his ridiculous charge that Moore was among “the gatekeepers in charge of which films get nominated,” he repeatedly notes that the box office returns for his film count in some way toward whether it should be nominated for an Oscar. However, there is no correlation between financial success and creative merit. In fact, last year the next two highest grossing documentaries were “Chimpanzee” and “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” but neither of them received Oscar nominations either. Even Moore’s last film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” was not in Oscar contention despite being one of the biggest moneymakers of all time. Yet you didn’t hear any of these filmmakers whining about bias.

Molen complained in his letter that he was the victim of political bias saying, “Like many who enjoyed and commented on the film, I find myself wondering if it was excluded for ‘other’ reasons.” Indeed, it was. However the ‘other’ reasons had to do with how badly it sucked, as well as how poorly it adhered to the standards of truth-telling that determines the quality of a documentary feature. These reasons were articulated more diplomatically by the Academy in their response to Molen:

“We’ve discussed your letter and the concerns you raise. First of all, I want to assure you that 2016: Obama’s America was treated the same as all the other 125 films that were submitted in the Feature Documentary category for the most recent Academy Awards. Your film definitely received consideration and it was not ignored. It merely didn’t get the votes it needed to move onto the short list.”

Molen’s bitchfest was predictably taken up by Fox News on their lie-riddled Fox Nation web site. In an article sourced to the ultra-rightist NewsBusters, they regurgitated Molen’s complaints and expressed their disapproval that the documentary that won last year’s Oscar, “Searching for Sugar Man” was an undeserving winner because “‘2016’ sold ten times as many tickets.” Once again, they are mistaking money for merit, a common logical flaw suffered by conservatives.

This sort of unseemly sniveling by right-wing losers is nothing new. Specifically with regard to ‘2016,’ the principle character, Dinesh D’Souza threw a similarly distasteful tantrum just prior to the Oscar program last February. Instead of demonstrating some class and an appreciation for his fellow filmmakers, D’Souza rudely insulted them saying…

“I join most Americans in leaving them in deserved obscurity. I haven’t heard of any of them, and like most people, I haven’t seen them.”

How he determined that the nominees deserved obscurity without having even seen them is a mystery and says more about him than it does about the films. But the juvenile consistency shown by Molen and D’Souza is evidence of just how low these cretins will sink to unfairly disparage other artists in pursuit of their own ego-soaked self-interest.

Find us on Google+
Advertisement:

GOP Calls For Impeachment Of President Hillary Clinton

Vowing to get an early start on efforts to remove Hillary Clinton from the White House, Republican leaders in congress have announced their intention to hold hearings on what they claim are the high crimes and misdemeanors that Hillary Clinton will commit once she assumes the presidency in January of 2017.

Hillary Clinton

Although she has not yet been sworn in to office (or elected, or announced her candidacy) Republicans are determined not waste any time in initiating her impeachment. House Speaker John Boehner told reporters that…

“We do not want to repeat the mistakes we made in the previous [i.e. current] administration where we waited too long to get the ball rolling. After all, President Obama was in office for nearly a month before we took meaningful action to remove him.”

Some members of the GOP attribute the failure to impeach Obama on the late start they got on manufacturing allegations of malfeasance and ginning up outrage over imaginary scandals. Consequently, they chased after flimsy accusations of foreign birth and socialist aspirations that never caught on with the public. That left them facing a reelection campaign dominated by impotent sound bites of whether or not small businesses “built that” and desperate rejections of real data including poll results and unemployment numbers. Republican strategist Karl Rove Rove addressed these shortcomings saying…

“We are proud of the fallacies we created and promoted. No one worked harder to invent phony issues than we did. Could we have done better? Should we have connected Obama to Hitler more often, or the spread of the Bubonic Plague? Sure, but it’s always easier to criticize with hindsight.”

This is not to say that there weren’t zealous attempts to plunder the Obama presidency. Republican politicians, with the help of Fox News and the Koch brothers, worked feverishly to construct controversies designed to hobble the administration. They labored over “Fast and Furious,” Solyndra, Bill Ayres, and ObamaCare, which they unsuccessfully took all the way to the Supreme Court. Each of these affairs, and several more, were alleged to be “Obama’s Watergate,” but none of them gained any traction with a populace that proved to be smarter than the Tea Party – admittedly, not a very high bar.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The latest episode for which conservative muckrakers are crying wolf (or Watergate, as the case may be) is the tragedy that took the lives of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. However, even with the help of near blanket broadcasting of Benghazi hysteria by Fox News, the utter lack of any compelling evidence of wrongdoing has turned the whole affair into a mushy smear campaign notable only for the tacky theatrics of the accusers. Even the specter of a cover-up fell flat when the proponents of that theory could not explain what exactly was being covered-up. “We forgot that little detail,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Tea Party-UT).

Rather than risk a similar fate in the event that Clinton runs for and wins the presidency in 2016, Republicans are casting their lots now. Since it doesn’t matter whether the object of their scorn has actually done anything unlawful, why wait until the former senator and Secretary of State is in office to try her for the crimes they are planning to pin on her no matter what reality ultimately serves up. It’s a strategy that they believe conserves a great deal of political energy that would otherwise be wasted on honest politicking and the responsible stewardship of government.

Senator Mitch McConnell, who declared shortly after Obama’s first election victory that his primary legislative goal was to “make him a one-term president,” is devoting the same measure of commitment to the effort to pre-impeach Clinton. In remarks to the GOP caucus last week he reminded his fellow Republicans that their priorities ought not to change just because the complexion and gender of the person in the White House does.

“We have spent five years obstructing everything this president has attempted to do, from passing bills, to appointing judges and cabinet officials. This is not the time to let our guard down and be distracted by the burdens of actually governing or helping the nation recover from adversity.”

Asked for a comment when Clinton was told of the Republican campaign to impeach her, she said incredulously “What the fuck?” And walked away laughing uncontrollably. Her office later followed up with this statement:

“We have always known that these clowns were certifiable, and now we are seeing some of the best evidence of that. The Secretary has not yet made a decision as to whether or not she will run for president, but if she does she expects to campaign vigorously and appeal to the hearts and minds of the American people.

She also expects to face dipshits in the Republican Party who, with their pals at Fox News, will manufacture insane theories and conspiracies, and she plans to wipe up the pavement with their lame asses.”


Fox Nation vs. Reality: There Are Hungry Folks In Puerto Rico – And Mississippi Too

One of the obvious and unsettling consequences of the economic collapse engineered by George W. Bush and his Wall Street cronies is the escalation of the number of poor and hungry Americans who rely on Food Stamps to feed their families. But leave it to the Fox Nationalists to ferret out an angle on this that disparages an ethnic minority and exacerbates the racial divisiveness that is already all too prevalent on Fox Nation.

Fox Nation vs. Reality:

Fox Nation

While Fox scrounged up this item from CNSNews, a division of the ultra-rightist Media Research Center, they never bothered to put the information into context. Had they done so, their audience would know that may other places in the United States (which, of course, includes Puerto Rico) have far higher percentages of Food Stamp participation than the island territory. For instance, the state of Mississippi has 12 counties that surpass Puerto Rico. In Humphreys County the percentage of Food Stamp recipients is nearly half (48%). And that is not an anomaly. Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and other mostly southern states also have counties that rank higher in Food Stamp usage.

Given these facts, why would Fox single out Puerto Rico? Could it be because the population is largely Latino? Many conservatives regard the territory as “foreign” and don’t consider it a part of the American family. That view is endorsed by the comments posted on Fox Nation’s web site, where the prevailing opinion is that Puerto Rico should be cut loose. If so, then I suppose the same people expressing that view would be amenable to throwing Mississippi out of the union as well. And on that, we may have found some common ground.


Fallen Hero Worship: The Double Barrel Hypocrisy Of Fox News

As the dedicated and accomplished propagandists that they are, Fox News can be relied upon to twist facts and manufacture falsehoods to advance their extreme right-wing agenda. But sometimes they jump so far over the line of decency that it’s hard to imagine how anyone can take them seriously.

Today on America Live, anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed the parents of a Navy SEAL who was killed in a helicopter crash two years ago in Afghanistan. Other than another request to launch an inquiry into the circumstances of the crash, there was no new information related to that event that might have made this interview newsworthy. It seems that the only reason that Kelly brought these grieving parents back on (they were interviewed on Fox eight months ago) was to give them, and Fox, an additional opportunity to bash President Obama. And that’s precisely what they did. The father, Billy Vaughn, began his discussion with Kelly by saying…

“Our military’s slogan – it’s called ‘relentless pursuit of the enemy.’ And I’ll tell ya, I don’t know where it came from, but it makes just about as much sense in what it’s referring to as ‘the Affordable Health Care Act.’[Insert rimshot here]

It seems inappropriate, to say the least, to inject an unrelated ObamaCare zinger during a discussion about one’s son who was killed in the line of duty in a war zone, and about whom you are supposedly grief-stricken. That sort of blatantly political jab diminishes the sobriety of the moment and reeks of disrespect. But Vaughn didn’t stop there. During the interview he repeatedly and deliberately displayed the tattoo on his left forearm reading MOAON AABE (translation: Come and Take Them), which amongst other things is the motto of the United States Special Operations Command Central, but is also a phrase that has been adopted by the radical right in America and the gun lovers of the 2nd Amendment movement.

Fox News

Lest there be any confusion as to Vaughn’s leanings, he also told Kelly that, in regard to his view of the inquiry into his son’s death, “Government is doing nothing. They sympathize with the enemy.” That’s a fanatical sentiment that was also expressed by his fellow grieving father at a press conference yesterday who said that “The U.S. government and many high-ranking military people own more credit for the shoot down than the Taliban.” This is Trutherism on a smaller scale.

The first barrel of hypocrisy from Fox is loaded with raw bullshot. While the grief of these parents is beyond question, the motives of Fox are not. For several months Fox anchors, and Republican guests, have been belittling the testimony by the families of the slain children of Sandy Hook. They have accused them of exploiting the massacre for political purposes. They have disparaged them as props of the White House. They have even sought to outright dismiss anything they might say with the outrageous claim that they are psychologically impaired by their grief and, therefore, unfit to render an opinion. Yet somehow those same mental deficiencies have not prevented a steady stream of victims from parading through the Fox News studios to deliver tirades against the President.

The second barrel of Fox-pocrisy was the blast of faux outrage over the assertion that the Obama administration’s recognition of SEAL Team 6 for their heroic mission to dispense with Osama Bin Laden was a betrayal of the unit’s anonymity. That came as Kelly prompted Mrs. Vaughn to describe how she believed the administration put a target on her son’s back. However, the White House never revealed the names of the team members, only the unit, which was not a particularly well-guarded secret to begin with. On the other hand, it was Fox News who outted an actual SEAL Team 6 member who participated in the Bin Laden raid. Afterward, his life, the lives of his family, and the lives of his SEAL comrades were threatened by Islamic jihadists.

Hypocrisy is a common byproduct of the Fox news grinder. But this feat of squeezing two hyper-hypocrisies into a single story is an accomplishment that only extraordinarily adept prevaricators should ever attempt. And that pretty much leaves the field to Fox News.


The Talk Radio Congress: Mainstreaming The Madness Of Conspiracy Theories

Once upon a time, the most outlandish fantasies of fringe political fabulists were confined to a narrow spectrum on the AM radio dial. They concocted delusional narratives that ranged from murderous first ladies to galactic alliances with Martians. It was an entertaining world of fiction and a guilty pleasure for some, even as the true believers were convinced of the frightening fate that was unfolding.

Today, however, the boundaries between rational political discourse and raving madness have been erased. The extremist peddlers of nightmare scenarios who were once thought to be charmingly eccentric at 1:00am are now advising elected representatives of the people to initiate investigations and draft bills addressing these non-existent threats. Congress today hosts members who are no more reliable (or sane) than the wooly denizens of Alex Jones-land or the lie factory of Fox Nation. Here are just a few of the urban legends that are now circulating in the halls of state and federal legislative bodies courtesy of the whack job broadcasting set.

The UN Arms Treaty That Threatens US Sovereignty
ButtheadsThe United Nations recently passed an initiative to address the proliferation of “illegal” arms trading amongst terrorists and rogue nations. As expected, the right-wing Chicken Little Brigade immediately began protesting that this was another attempt to dilute national sovereignty and bring about a one-world government. Of course, there is nothing in the proposal that would infringe on the rights of any nation to set their own standards for gun ownership. The actual resolution explicitly states that countries will “exclusively” maintain the right within their borders to, “regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership, including through national constitutional protections on private ownerships.“

This perfectly reasonable attempt to disarm criminals and tyrants was opposed initially by Alex Jones and similar fringe broadcasters. But eventually their outrage bubbled up to singe Republicans in congress who managed to prevent the treaty’s ratification. The GOP opposition was notable for the fact that it concurred with the only three UN nations that also opposed it: Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

Communists Have infiltrated The US Government
This may seem like a throwback to the 1950’s and the Red Scare promulgated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and others. But make no mistake, this is all too current. Commie hunters in the fringe media are still accusing all liberals of having pinko sympathies. And they have an ally in former representative Allen West, who is now hosting his own web cast. West told a group of supporters that “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.” West lost his seat last November, but it is important to note that the leadership in the House never rebuked him or dissociated themselves or the GOP from his remarks.

Muslims Have Infiltrated The US Government
This is a corollary to the commie conspiracy updated to smear a more contemporary foe. Originally this allegation was espoused by the infamous Islamophobe Pamela Geller. She latched unto the fact that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a close aide with a Muslim-sounding name. Huma Abedin has worked for Clinton for more than a decade and is respected by all who know her. She was even defended by House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. John McCain. That didn’t stop a cabal of House members, led by Tea Party queen Michele Bachmann, to fire off a letter to the State Department demanding an investigation and alleging that Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

There was never any evidence provided to support these allegations. Nor is there any evidence accompanying the new accusations by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who told WorldNetDaily that Obama deliberately “bungled” the investigation of the Boston marathon bombing because “this administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence.”

Benghazi Is Obama’s Watergate
Fox Nation - BenghaziThe king of right-wing talk radio, Rush Limbaugh got the ball rolling with this one. He alleged on his program that Obama was deliberately blocking the investigation into the attack on the US facility in Libya. Limbaugh could not come up with an explanation for why Obama would want to stymie the inquiry, so the implication left hanging was that he had some connection to the attack that he wanted to cover up.

Numerous other media outlets jumped on this mini-bandwagon with Fox News assuming a prominent role. Every Fox program began banging the Benghazi drum, and integral to their publicity push was escalating the scandal to include congressional players to add Washington credibility (such as it is). Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain were happy to comply.

The Most Important Story In History
Not one to be ignored, Glenn Beck joined the fray with what he considered to be the “most important story in history.” The plot involved a Saudi man who was briefly questioned following the Boston marathon bombing. It was quickly discovered that he was a victim, not a suspect, and he was released to recover from his injuries. Beck, however, would not let go of the story. He threatened the White House that if they were not forthcoming with the truth about this, he would reveal the evidence he had that would blow the roof off the White House.

Beck’s deadline came and went with no revelations of scandal. He merely repeated what he had previously alleged, which had already been debunked. Which makes it all the more curious that four members of congress are officially demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security based on what they call “media reports,” but are really just Beck’s psychotic discharges.

The Government Is Stockpiling Ammunition To Kill Us All
Last year there was a flurry of panicky hand-wringing by notorious conspiracy mongers over reports that agencies of the federal government had purchased large caches of ammunition. In the minds of the nutcases on the right, that was evidence that the DHS is plotting a response to some impending disaster scenario wherein they will be forced to kill every person in America five times. That is precisely what Mark Levin, Sean Hannity’s replacement for Sarah Palin, is terrorizing his radio listeners with.

This phony horror story was summarily dismissed by the DHS with documentation and proof that nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. It was merely a purchase contract to lock in lower prices for ammunition used commonly by several law enforcement agencies for regular use and training. Nevertheless, congressional overreaction to the “news” has resulted in a General Accounting Office inquiry into the purchase request. That inquiry was spurred by GOP senator (and Levin listener) James Inhofe who has also drafted a bill to prohibit ammunition purchases in amounts larger than those of previous administrations. Presumably that’s to make sure that the black guy doesn’t get any ideas.

And Then There’s Agenda 21
Amongst the conspiracy theory elite there is only one supreme and all encompassing doctrine of apocalyptic disaster: Agenda 21. The furor over this initiative dates back to the John Birch Society. In reality it just a UN guide to sustainable environments that recommends some completely voluntary measures aimed at advancing smart growth and safer, more livable communities. It was adopted by 178 countries and signed for the U.S. by President George H.W. Bush. It was, however, never ratified by the senate.

Glenn Beck - Agenda 21Somehow this benign project was transformed in the minds of conservative mythmakers into a monstrously evil plot to steal the liberty of all mankind. Glenn Beck even wrote a book about it wherein he describes it as “centralized control over all of human life on planet earth.” But the panic doesn’t stop there. Multiple state resolutions banning its implementation with a foreboding tenor have been enacted. For example, Tennessee’s resolution condemned its “destructive and insidious nature” and began by saying…

“WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development…”

That’s fairly typical of the numerous legislative measures aimed at defending America from a tyrannical, global, one-world government, orchestrated by despotic environmentalists and the liberal media. And we might as well throw in George Soros because that’s who freshman senator Ted Cruz of Texas believes is responsible for the whole affair. Cruz has promised that he will “…continue leading the fight, to stop Agenda 21 and any other globalist plan that tries to subvert the U.S. Constitution and the liberties we all cherish as Americans.”

These delusional and thoroughly discredited inventions from the paranoia factories of Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, etc., were once the province of the radio backwoods and militia ham operators. And as frightening as these grim fairy tales are, what’s truly scary is that this conspiratorial fiction is now being embraced by elected officials in Washington and state houses across the country.


WTF? Fox Nation Ties Cleveland Kidnapper To Anti-Islam Video Maker, Benghazi, And Obama

These freakin’ slimeballs at Fox Nation continue to demonstrate that they have no morals whatsoever. Not to mention no integrity, honesty, or decency. They will take any grotesque episode, no matter how far removed from President Obama, and attach it to him by some depraved, alien logic. Take this for instance:

Fox Nation

The original article referenced by Fox Nation was from their own Fox News via the Associated Press. It reported on the arrest of Areil Castro, the charges against him, his bail, and went into some detail about the alleged crimes.

For some reason, Fox Nation focused on the one sentence in the 700+ word article that mentioned Castro’s bail. But even more baffling was their insertion of this paragraph:

“The creator of the controversial anti-Islam You Tube video, that the Obama administration used in its talking points as the motivation behind the September 11th attacks in Benghazi, was held without bail. It was later revealed that the attack in Benghazi was not a reaction to the video.”

That text was not anywhere in the original article. It was composed entirely by the Fox Nationalists and inserted into the story without any disclosure that they had fabricated it themselves. It obviously has nothing to do with the story and sticks out for its surreal irrelevance.

For the record, the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested for allegedly violating terms of his probation. The judge, citing probation violations including lying to probation officials, ordered him held without bail, a common occurrence under these circumstances. He pleaded guilty to four of the charges against him and was sentenced to one year in prison and four years of supervised release.

[Update: Fox News is now actively defending this filmmaker who they portray as a “patsy” of the Obama administration]

Fox News
…..

So what was the point that Fox Nation was making by embedding this extraneous content into the article? Clearly they were drawing some sort of deranged parallel between Obama, Nakoula, and Castro. Perhaps their purpose was to imply that Obama personally interceded to insure that Nakoula was held incommunicado to keep him from exposing Obama’s covert plot to promote the video and inspire a global Islamic uprising. Or maybe Fox was attempting to suggest that Obama had some sympathy for Castro and secretly engineered his bail (at only $8 million). Or maybe Fox just hadn’t written the word “Benghazi” in the past five seconds and thought this would be a good time to slip it in again.

What on earth are these imbeciles thinking? They just lost a historic election that they were convinced would be a cake-walk for the GOP. They underwent what they themselves called a “postmortem” analysis of their epic failures. They were named the “stupid party” by one of their most prominent governors. And yet they are still resorting to the sort of idiocy and extremism that has earned them the lowest favorable ratings in history.

And this wasn’t even the only incident of Castro-izing Democrats today. On Fox’s America Live with Megyn Kelly, their conservative contributor Chris Plante inexplicably said that “Ariel Castro might get the ‘hospitality of the year award’ from the Democrats in Congress.” What unholy orifice did he pull that from?

This is evidence that Fox News and their GOP pals have learned nothing from the 2012 elections. It also proves that they are a gaggle of repulsive and childish mental deficients with no discernible honor or even the common civility that would permit them to go out in public among decent people. Where the fuck does it stop with these cretins?

And not to be left out. the “Moonie” Washington Times joined in with this asinine crap:

Washington Times

Find us on Google+
Advertisement:

Fox News Airs Live Flop Of Their Benghazi Wannabe Scandal – Stephen Colbert Gets Mad

The events of September 12, 2013, in Benghazi, Libya, were unambiguously tragic. However, while most Americans would hold the band of terrorists at the scene responsible for the attacks on our diplomatic facility and CIA post, Fox News and Republicans in congress have been fiercely battling to find any excuse to blame President Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.

With the circus sideshow offered today by GOP Representative Darrell Issa’s House committee, the effort to politicize the affair hit a new low. Although much was promised prior to the hearing, there was nothing illuminating that came from it. This was even after Fox pundits repeatedly vowed that the information they knew was going to be unveiled would be shocking and devastating to the administration. Their previews were so emphatic that Stephen Colbert made a point of launching a “Benghazi – Something That Will Make You Mad Clock.”

Stephen Colbert

It’s fair to say that Colbert is furious today. And so are some of the right-wing media fluffers who are appalled that these unproductive hearings were ignored by much of the television press. NewsBusters went to the trouble of compiling the aggregate minutes that each of the cable news networks allotted to the hearings. To no one’s surprise, Fox dominated their competition. But that’s because the Benghazi Show was a Fox News Presentation from get-go. The other networks might have devoted more airtime to the story if there were anything actually newsworthy emanating from it.

What NewsBusters didn’t bother to report to their deluded audience was that all the extra time that Fox spent airing the live hearings was focused largely on Republican members of the committee. Media Matters did their own compilation and discovered that 71% of the 65 minutes they monitored featured GOP members making statements and questioning the witnesses. And that was even after anchor Megyn Kelly announced that their coverage had been unfairly weighted toward Democrats. That, of course, was not true, yet Kelly kept her promise to feature even more Republicans.

Now that the hearings have concluded with no smoking gun – not even a gently glowing ember – we can expect Fox and the GOP to set aside these spurious allegations and pursue some other fabricated scandal. And if you believe that, you haven’t been watching Fox the past 17 years.


Glenn Beck Revokes His Own Honor Badge

In the past week Glenn Beck has made news of sorts by declaring his conviction that America is such an affront to God that He must destroy it, by presenting an image of the Jewish mayor of New York in a Nazi salute, and by portraying Jesus as a pistol-packin’ Messiah. But these are just common examples of the dementia that Beck endures on a daily basis.

Right Wing Watch has captured another example of Beck’s deranged incoherence that was revealed this week (video below). On May 3, 2013, Beck proudly discussed his role as a journalist while speculating wildly about the man who committed suicide in the Houston airport.

“As a journalist and somebody who runs a journalistic organization, here’s what I want you to look for.”

A mere three days later Beck was spinning yarns about Benghazi when he said this:

“I have always said that I am not a journalist. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a thinker. But I wear it as a badge of honor that I am not a journalist.”

Let’s not even venture into the lunacy that Beck thinks he is a thinker, except to say that Jim Jones also had “thoughts.” However, Beck has obviously not always said that he isn’t a journalist, because he said he was one a few days earlier. And if not being a journalist earned him a “badge of honor,” then I suppose he will be returning that badge to whatever imaginary institution issued it.

Glenn Beck


Benghazi-Gate: The Feverish Fixation Of Fox News On Finishing Off Obama

The compulsive, gnawing yearning is palpable. Fox News is so obsessed with terminating the presidency of Barack Obama that they are veritably bursting at the seams of their shrunken skulls. They are dripping with flop-sweat over the self-manufactured prospect of evicting from the White House the man they failed twice to defeat democratically.

Fox News

It is truly an embarrassing demonstration of puerile covetousness as Fox’s leading mouthpieces gush inane and irrelevant comparisons that only serve to advance their deepest desires for political payback. Having realized that the American people refused to go along with their electoral smear campaigns, Fox is now throwing a tantrum as a desperate tactic to get what they crave so furiously.

The daft predictions served up by Fox are not only ludicrous and unfounded, they are as far removed from the comparable historical associations they are trying to jam into the public mind as is imaginable. The tragedies that took place in Benghazi are not impeachable, and they are not remotely similar to the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Nevertheless, Fox has been pushing this theme, without success, since nearly the day after Benghazi erupted.

Fox Nation

As I wrote last September, after Fox had embarked on a massive campaign of propaganda and lies (something that Fox Nation lives for), there is nothing analogous about Benghazi and Watergate.

Ever since the mid-1970’s scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office, partisans have been attempting to slap a “gate” at the end of any controversy. But it should be remembered that Watergate was not simply some government gaffe. It was an intentionally criminal act that included breaking into Democratic headquarters, paying off accomplices for their silence, and lying to investigators from law enforcement and congress. All of that unlawfulness was in pursuit of personal political benefits to the Nixon White House and reelection effort.

What occurred in Libya was tragic, but it was certainly not the result of someone in the White House pursuing personal gain. Nor was there any hint of corruption or clandestine plots to sabotage a political foe. Nor were there any attempts to covertly mask unlawful activity. In other words, there is nothing in this story that remotely resembles Watergate.

Nothing has changed since then. There has been no new evidence. There have been no new revelations. Even the hearings being held today offer nothing censurable. The affair was exhaustively reviewed by an independent board led by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, career public servants who worked in the administrations of both Republicans and Democrats. And the myths proffered by right-wing pundits and politicians have been repeatedly debunked. Consequently, all of the hubbub produced by Fox and their congressional comrades is a conspicuous waste of time when the country has critical issues to resolve.

So all of this yammering about driving Obama from office is just the wishful thinking of whiny Republicans who couldn’t get what they wanted at the ballot box. The American people rejected them forthrightly, so now they are whimpering about it and demanding that their cries be heeded. They want an impeachment and, damn it, they will hold their breath until they turn red to get it.

Like so many other things in the GOP run House, their motives are purely political. They will hold the nation hostage to defend tax breaks for billionaires. They will harm the economy, even resulting in a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, in order to make points with Teabaggers. They will filibuster executive appointments and judges and even bills they previously sponsored, if it will hurt the President. And now they are making irresponsible calls for impeachment that are not based on any credible facts.

This is the sort detachment from reality, and the American public, that has cost them two elections and lost them seats in both houses of congress. And it comes at a time when there are more urgent and pressing matters of importance to the American people. The Republican Party and their PR division at Fox News are betraying the people. It is interesting to note that no one would celebrate the downfall of Obama more than Al Qaeda. Obama is the man who terminated their leader. If it were possible to impeach Obama, which is highly unlikely, the GOP and Al Qaeda could save considerable expense by pooling their resources and throwing a joint party to commemorate the realization of their fondest shared dreams.


How Screwball Conspiracy Theories Can Rescue America’s Economy

For some time now there has been a delusional right-wing fear that President Obama and his socialist henchmen were plotting to confiscate every firearm in the nation and force the patriopathic gun-lovers of America into servitude. These NRA-theists are the weapons version of Birthers and Truthers, and since they believe that the government intends to seize their armories, I am calling them “Seizers.”

Setting aside the fact that there has been no effort to prevent any law-abiding citizen from exercising their right to keep and bear arms, the psychotic fervor that is present in these fanatics has been so emphatic that it has overflowed the banks of wingnuttery and flooded the media and even congress. One of the latest and looniest theories is that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been buying up bullets as part of a scheme to deplete the market so as to deprive citizens from having access to ammunition. That’s actually a softening of their prior theory wherein they thought that the DHS was preparing for warfare against a rebellious population.

The DHS has explained repeatedly that they are not buying any more bullets than prior administrations and, in fact, their purchases have declined (from 148.3 million in fiscal 2010 to 103.2 million rounds in 2012). But that hasn’t stopped the Seizers from frantically squealing about the imaginary conspiracy. What really makes this notion epically inane is that in a free market the only thing panic buying would do is motivate the manufacturers to increase production to meet demand. And now Fox News has gotten around to reporting this simple economic reality. But not without editorializing it in a false and negative way:

Fox News

The article interviews an employee of – get this – Stockpile Defense by the name of – not kidding here – Steve Warholic (I wish I could make up stuff this good). This article goes to great lengths to advance the conspiracy theories of the Seizers before eventually getting around to reporting a bit of truth. They lead off with with some familiar Fox fear mongering:

“Massive government purchases, including a plan by the Department of Homeland Security to buy more than 1 billion rounds of ammunition, have further stoked fears – and suspicions.”

However, later in the article they get to what is truly at issue:

“Ammunition manufacturers are reporting record profits and sales, with increases that number in the double and sometimes triple digits. Olin, which owns Winchester, reported last week the company’s first quarter earnings climbed 190 percent over the same period last year.”

There you have it. This whole escapade by the administration was actually an effort to enrich the weapons industry. They were probably in cahoots with the NRA the whole time. Consider this: Since we know that the NRA is not a grassroots organization of citizens, but rather a lobbying group for arms manufacturers, then they have an interest in pumping up sales for guns and ammo. And the Obama administration has been struggling with weak job growth even as the economy has been heating up. So they would welcome anything that puts more people back to work. Therefore, news like like this would benefit both Obama and the NRA:

“Ammunition manufacturers are struggling to make enough and have hundreds of millions of dollars in backorders. They’ve added hundreds of employees and equipment and increased overtime, and, in some cases, are running factories around the clock.”

It’s a win-win. And accomplished courtesy of crackpots who are easily persuaded that their world is falling apart and they must stockpile munitions to protect them from their ravenous neighbors and the jackbooted thugs they used to revere as first-responders.

This sort of economic stimulus could be replicated with any number of other conspiracy theories. Reaching back to some golden oldies, why not reprise the Birther craze, but this time add a profit component that would convince people that they need to get their own documents in order. That would create a demand for paper to print new birth certificates and spur hiring at Kinkos and other quick copy emporiums. Or how about priming the climate change “hoax” in conjunction with oil companies to jump start the sales of gas guzzlers and petroleum products.

With the abundance of lunatic conspiracy theorists out there we could bring unemployment down to 4% in no time if we manage these nut cases efficiently.

[Update] Apparently unsatisfied with the response they got to this article, Fox republished the exact same piece five days later. They are really pushing to make something of this clunker.