GOP Candidates Frightened Away From Scary Debates They Can’t Control

Posted by Mark NC on October 30, 2015 at 3:44 pm. 10 Comments :

The Republican field of presidential primary candidates are cowering together to formulate a new debate process that isn’t so darn frightening to them. Following the debacle on CNBC, they are taking steps to insure that such ghastly encounters are avoided in the future in favor of more friendly frolics through the political pastures of pussy willows and wingnut trees.

The Republicans spent two hours Wednesday night whining about how the debate questions were framed. They had some justification, but they carried it so far as to dodge even the substantive questions, using their frothy indignation as an excuse. Immediately afterward they went into high hysterics over what they asserted was a fiendish plot by commie instigators to tarnish them and their party. But accusing the Wall Street defenders at CNBC of being ultra-liberal conspirators against these poor, dumbfounded conservatives smacks of severe mental breakdown.

See how badly the GOP’s meeting to reform debates went here.

Now the GOP contenders are planning to huddle together to come up with a new debate format that better suits their needs. They intend to address how they might take more control over the process, diminish the role of the Republican National Committee, and decide how the debates are conducted, including the selection of moderators. It’s an unprecedented initiative to transform what is supposed to be an open dialog that provides voters with an informative look at the candidates, into a PR vehicle that functions more like propaganda.

The RNC, which is taking some heat from the candidates, had already barred MSNBC from hosting any debates when they originally published their schedule back in January. That admission of fear has now escalated as the RNC chairman, Reince Priebus, advised NBC today that the one debate they had scheduled (Fox News has four), in partnership with Telemundo, has been “suspended,” whatever that means. So the RNC intends to punish NBC for the perceived wrongs committed by a separate unit of the Comcast/NBC family, And in the process they are also risking their only access to a minority audience, via Telemundo, that the GOP desperately needs to make inroads with. Will Republicans make demands as to who will moderate or what can be asked in order to lift the suspension? Well, Priebus is now saying that “Every debate on the calendar is going to be reevaluated, reset — look at the format, the moderators, everything,”

What really makes this whole phony controversy ridiculous is that it doesn’t benefit any political party to impose such strict demands. First of all, if they get their wish and appear before “friendly” moderators like Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh (as Ted Cruz actually suggested last night on Hannity’s show), they might find the questioning even more damaging. The rightist Taliban, as represented by Limbaugh et al, will be more likely to force candidates to stake out extreme positions which they will be unable to “Etch-a-Sketch” away after the primaries. The wingnut media are notoriously committed to the sort of ideological purity that voters find repugnant. What’s more, even if they got the sympathetic treatment they desire, it would only result in the candidates being woefully unprepared for the full-contact combat they will eventually encounter in the general election.

If Republicans go through with this dictatorial mission to force news networks to obey their commands, the networks must refuse to participate and decline to broadcast any such manipulated program. In fact, networks that aren’t directly affected should also boycott the Republican debates in solidarity with the independence of the press. It would be a journalistic atrocity to submit to such interference in the role of the media. If Republicans want a fully scripted television farce, let them buy the time like any other telemarketer.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

In the end, what Republicans are proposing now is not only hostile to freedom of the press, it is also horribly bad judgment with regard to their own interests. It will leave their candidates unprepared for debates with Democrats, and mired in ultra-rightist ideologies that will alienate voters. And if that weren’t enough, it also reveals them to be afraid of being exposed to the sort of tough questions that will occur throughout any political campaign. And if they can’t handle a few questions from reporters, how will they ever handle Vladimir Putin and ISIS?

What We Learned From The GOP’s Trainwreck Debate On CNBC: Republicans Hate The ‘Liberal’ Media

Posted by Mark NC on October 29, 2015 at 4:24 pm. 6 Comments :

In the best of circumstances, a political debate should be illuminating in a manner that allows voters to assess the fitness of candidates for public office. However, the best that can be said about the Republican primary debate on CNBC (transcript) is that it illuminated the rabid opportunism of the candidates and the penchant for provocation on the part of the moderators.

See the update to this article here.

While there was an attempt by the moderators to inject some substance into their questions, they inexplicably capped their queries with an inappropriate zinger that only left them wide open for criticism. For example, John Harwood constructed a perfectly legitimate question for Donald Trump that called on him to explain how his wall building, tax slashing, immigrant deporting policies could be achieved without wreaking havoc on the economy. But then Harwood finished off with “Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?” Regardless of the aptness of the imagery, the only conceivable purpose for that framing would be to give Trump something to complain about. This pretentious strategy was repeated throughout the debate.

And the complaints veritably gushed from debaters who were eager to hear some reasonable questions and avoid answering them (which they did all night). The backlash directed at the media and the moderators easily became the dominant feature of the debate, and it was almost the only thing that was discussed in the post-debate analyses. The most replayed moments included Marco Rubio tagging the mainstream media as a SuperPAC for the Democrats, and Ted Cruz lamenting that “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media.” Consequently, the only takeaway from this debate was that Republicans hate the media, something everybody already knows.

Cruz went on to argue that the media treated Democrats differently, “fawning” over “Which of you is more handsome and wise?” That characterization of the Democratic debate is wholly inconsistent with reality. From the transcript of their CNN outing, moderator Anderson Cooper asked Democrats the following questions:

[To Clinton] Plenty of politicians evolve on issues, but even some Democrats believe you change your positions based on political expediency. […] Will you say anything to get elected?
[To Sanders] A Gallup poll says half the country would not put a socialist in the White House. You call yourself a democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?
[To O’Malley] Why should Americans trust you with the country when they see what’s going on in the city that you ran for more than seven years?
[To Clinton] Russia, they’re challenging the U.S. in Syria. According to U.S. intelligence, they’ve lied about who they’re bombing. You spearheaded the reset with Russia. Did you underestimate the Russians?

Those were not fawning, softball questions by any stretch of the imagination. But Republicans only retain information that comports with their preconceptions. Therefore, the liberal media is invariably portrayed as fiercely pro-Democrat and virulently anti-Republican. What’s more, the conservatives never apply the same standards to their benefactors at Fox News, to whom they still suck up despite the tough questioning they got when Fox hosted their debate.

One of the more shameful exchanges of the CNBC debate was when Becky Quick posed this query to Trump: “You had talked a little bit about Marco Rubio. I think you called him Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator because he was in favor of the H1B.” Trump interrupted to insist that “I never said that. I never said that.” So Quick quickly apologized. The problem is that Trump actually says exactly that on his own website. When the debate came back from a commercial, Quick noted that fact but never challenged Trump’s denial. And to make matters worse, this segment of the debate was discussed on Fox News the next day and host Jon Scott falsely asserted that it was Quick who was wrong, saying that “it seems that the research was not necessarily done.” This was after he already knew that she was correct and had cited her source during the debate.

In addition to that, the debate featured a couple of statements that were highly significant, but are not likely to garner much attention. First, Carly Fiorina said that “There is no Constitutional role for the Federal Government to be setting minimum wages.” Apparently ignorant of the Commerce Clause, Fiorina boldly came out in favor of ditching the minimum wage. Secondly, Carl Quintanilla directed a question to Trump with the preface that the site of the shootings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon “was a gun-free zone,” Trump readily agreed. But not only is that untrue, there were actually people there with guns who did not engaged the shooter.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So aside from all of the misinformation, the inter-party hostilities, and the failings of the moderators, the one thing that will persist as the defining characteristic of this debate is the intense loathing that Republicans have for the media. It is that rancorous acrimony that will supplant any useful knowledge that might have been gained about the candidates. And since everyone already knew that Republicans hate the press, the whole affair was a complete waste of time.

Republicans Launch Proxy Impeachment Proceedings Against Obama

Posted by Mark NC on October 29, 2015 at 8:03 am. 30 Comments :

There is a nasty streak of vengeance that runs through the Republican Party. They have been lusting for an opportunity to impeach President Obama since the day that he was inaugurated. It didn’t matter what excuse they drummed up, it could have been over anything from Fast and Furious, to the IRS, to ObamaCare, to immigration, to executive orders, to his birthplace. They even alleged that – and this is all too real – Obama was actually trying to impeach himself.

Having been denied their heart’s deepest desire, an actual reason to impeach Obama, the GOP went after administration stand-ins for the President. One of those was Lois Lerner, who was running the IRS Exempt Organizations Unit during a period when it was alleged that they were improperly targeting conservative applicants. There was never any evidence to prove the allegations, and last week the Justice Department announced that they had closed the investigation and would not be bringing any charges. They said that “We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution.”

In response to the DOJ’s determination, Republicans sought to lash out any convenient victim who might be available. Someone had to suffer their wrath if it wasn’t Lerner. So Jason Chaffetz (R-Wacko), chairman of the House Oversight (Overreach?) Committee, and his Republican Retributionists, have introduced a resolution to begin impeachment proceedings of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. The resolution accuses Koskinen of making false statements under oath and failing to comply with a subpoena.

This a curious persecution considering that Koskinen had nothing to do with the alleged targeting. He didn’t became IRS Commissioner until December of 2013, three years after the Tea Party’s whining about being scrutinized for improper political activity, of which they were clearly guilty. And back in the 2010 time frame, the IRS Commissioner was Douglas Shulman, an appointee of George W. Bush. Nevertheless, Koskinen is the target of opportunity, so the GOP is spewing their venom at him. They have determined that they need a scalp and they aren’t going home without trying at least once more.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

This is just the latest in a string of partisan, expensive, and futile legislature abuse. The Republicans have already proven that they have no aptitude for governing, so they have adopted an agenda of hostility that relies on ludicrous hearings on Benghazi, Planned Parenthood, and now the impeachment of an IRS Commissioner. But make no mistake, all of these actions are thinly disguised swipes at President Obama. It is he that they wish they were impeaching, but they have even less justification for it than the phony scams they have already run. Even uber-conservative Fox News Yoda, Charles Krauthammer, is less than enthused with the GOP’s latest proxy attack on the President:

“This is not going to end well. Republicans in the Congress have shown that they have no ability to conduct successful investigations of this administration. Everything they have touched has failed or backfired, even Benghazi.”

If the Republicans go through with impeachment proceedings against Koskinen they will only embarrass themselves further. There is no case to be made against him, and their transparent animosity will reveal them for the partisan hate mongers that they are. Their visceral disgust for Obama has driven them to extremes that only make them more repugnant to the average American voter. And as much as it would be in their best interests to try to at least pretend to be sane, expect more craziness to come. They obviously can’t help themselves.

Ben Carson Takes Lead In Polls – Still A Complete Lunatic

Posted by Mark NC on October 26, 2015 at 5:03 pm. 16 Comments :

The big news from the Republican primary this week is that Ben Carson has been rising in the polls and has overtaken Donald Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire. While it is good news that Trump’s descent is beginning to build up steam, we must not forget that Carson has produced a steady stream of nonsense that is both idiotic and dangerous.

ThinkProgress compiled a list of “13 Ridiculous Things Ben Carson Actually Believes.” It’s a pretty definitive collection of the inanities that Carson has unleashed over the past few months. Here are the headings, but be sure to visit ThinkProgress for the details:

Women who get abortions are like slaveholders.
Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery.
‘Hitler’ could happen in the U.S. today.
Jews could have prevented the Holocaust if they had guns.
College campuses should be monitored for liberal political speech.
Muslims should be disqualified from the presidency.
There’s a war on ‘what’s inside of women.’
Being gay is a choice because prison turns people gay.
There’s no such thing as a war crime.
Obama is depressing the economy to keep people on welfare.
Obama signed immigration reform to bring in government-dependent voters.
Congress should be able to remove judges for voting for marriage equality.
Anarchy could cancel the 2016 election.

Surely ThinkProgress did not intend this list to be comprehensive, but there are a few omissions that really need to be added. So here is my addendum:

Says evolution and the Big Bang theory are the work of the devil.
Asked why victims of mass shootings don’t just attack the gunman.
Thinks that atheism is a religion.
Says it’s unconstitutional for courts to rule on the constitutionality of laws.
Referred to President Obama as a psychopath because he looks great “like most psychopaths.”
Late addition: Thinks the pyramids were for grain storage.

These are things that we need to remember should he continue to be a leader in the GOP primary. And we need to make sure that the nation is aware of what a full-fledged fruitcake Ben Carson is. He is not a just a soft-spoken former neurosurgeon. He is a radical Christianist who supports his own brand of Sharia law and has no knowledge of government, law, or public service. It would be as stupid to choose Carson for the presidency as it would be to choose George W. Bush as a brain surgeon.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Not The Onion: GOP Congressman Already Floating Impeachment For Hillary Clinton

Posted by Mark NC on October 19, 2015 at 9:57 pm. 7 Comments :

The Huffington Post is reporting that Alabama’s Mo Brooks isn’t taking any chances when it comes to hounding Hillary Clinton out of an office that she hasn’t even won yet:

“Hillary Clinton isn’t president yet. She hasn’t even won the Democratic nomination. But a Republican congressman is already getting ready for the opportunity to impeach her — on the first day of her hypothetical presidency.”

[Brooks said that] “In my judgement, with respect to Hillary Clinton, she will be a unique president if she is elected by the public next November, because the day she’s sworn in is the day that she’s subject to impeachment because she has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Where do Republicans find these weasels? What’s especially funny to me about this is that two years ago I wrote a satirical article that proposed this very same idea – except I was joking. This seems like a good time to re-post it here in full:

May 12, 2013
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.

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.

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.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

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.”

Like it was yesterday. And once again, reality trumps satire. But don’t get me started on Trump.

Obama Mocks Fox News For ‘Making Me Scary’

Posted by Mark NC on October 12, 2015 at 8:17 pm. 3 Comments :

Just in time for Halloween, President Obama has revealed the costume that Fox News made to heighten the fears of their perpetually skittish viewers. It’s something they have been dressing up the President in for the past seven years, but it doesn’t get much attention from the President himself.

In an interview with author Marilynne Robinson, the discussion turned to the values that are found in the diversity of American life. This led the President to recall his experiences in small-town America when he first began campaigning for the White House.

“It’s interesting, because we’re talking in Iowa; people always, I think, were surprised about me connecting with folks in small-town Iowa. And the reason I did was, first of all, I had the benefit that at the time nobody expected me to win. And so I wasn’t viewed through this prism of Fox News and conservative media, and making me scary.“

Indeed, Fox News has since toiled feverishly to turn Obama into a fearsome entity bent on the destruction of mankind. They have literally accused him of conspiring with our mortal enemies; of plotting to murder millions of Americans; of surrendering our liberty and land to foreign tyrants; and even taunting God so as to bring about the End Times. It’s a nightmarish vision that was constructed from nothing but their seething hatred for a dark-skinned stranger who they believed had no right to rise to leadership and reside in the White House.

For his part, Obama has been aware of the animosity that consumed his ideological foes. There was, however, little he could do about it. The more he would try, the more they interpreted it as an insidious ploy to enslave them with charm. Witness this hideously secret assault as described by Obama to Robinson:

“And the thing I’ve been struggling with throughout my political career is how do you close the gap. There’s all this goodness and decency and common sense on the ground, and somehow it gets translated into rigid, dogmatic, often mean-spirited politics. And some of it has to do with all the filters that stand between ordinary people who are busy and running around trying to look after their kids and do a good job and do all the things that maintain a community, so they don’t have the chance to follow the details of complicated policy debates.”

What a monster! How dare he try to find common ground in a democratic society while partisans in the press and politics are stirring up irrational dissent. And why does he want to close The Gap? Is he biased in favor of Urban Outfitters? Or is he just fundamentally opposed to the free market?

Later in the interview, Obama pinpoints one of the potential causes of the adversarial nature of our country. He describes it as the natural tendency of Americans to mistrust governments, which he says is “in our DNA.”

“We’re suspicious of government as a tool of oppression. And that skepticism is healthy, but it can also be paralyzing when we’re trying to do big things together.”

That’s true. And it certainly doesn’t help when you have giant media networks deliberately fomenting fear and ignorance and using the naivete of their audience to build opposition based on lies. In fact, all it does is pave the way for cartoonish demagogues like Donald Trump, and leave Grand Old Parties struggling to find anyone who actually wants to lead their parade of clowns.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Republicans Have No Idea What Political Correctness Means

Posted by Mark NC on October 7, 2015 at 4:41 pm. 17 Comments :

Some things in public discourse ought to be pretty simple and devoid of controversy. For instance, words have definitions that are verifiable and universally agreed upon. Without that it would be impossible to have a conversation. And yet, there are Republican candidates for president who appear to prefer to invent their own definitions in order to advance an otherwise absurd argument.

For example, the phrase “politically correct” has a specific meaning that everyone who speaks English understands. It isn’t some vague concept unto which you can project whatever meaning suits you at the time. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as…

“The avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”

See? That wasn’t hard. It would, therefore, be politically incorrect to refer to a woman as a “ho” or to an adult African-America man as “boy.” It would also be politically incorrect for a pizza joint to call their barbecued chicken special “The Sambo” or for a bar to make Tuesday’s Dwarf Tossing Night. It usually includes language that has been considered acceptable in some deviant circles. But if the language or activity is insulting or hurtful to people who are already struggling for respect in a social environment that rewards or at least tolerates prejudice, it is politically incorrect. And the part that refers to people who are victims of discrimination is absolutely essential to the definition. It’s the part that makes it political. Otherwise it would be merely incorrect.

However, conservatives are desperately trying to redefine the phrase so that they can use it to escape responsibility for outright repulsiveness. They want an all-purpose excuse for absolution, usually after they have already embarrassed themselves with some crass comments or behavior. Their definition of political correctness would be more like “Any comments or actions that people find offensive.” But that isn’t political correctness, it’s just being an asshole.

Ben Carson has made whining about political correctness a core feature of his campaign. He asserts that he is the victim of it when he takes criticism for saying that Muslims can’t be president, or that ObamaCare is the worst thing since slavery, or implying that the victims of the Oregon shooting cooperated with their killer. But those are not instances of political correctness. They are instances of boorishness and ignorance. And his inability to understand the Constitution or healthcare or crime does not grant him license to say stupid things without taking criticism for it.

Donald Trump is another candidate who needs to twist the meaning of political correctness. It is not politically incorrect to call Mexicans rapists, or to denigrate women as fat pigs, or refer to your rivals or the media as stupid losers. That would be better defined as rude, immature, and hostile. Which pretty well defines Trump.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The concept of political correctness has taken a beating in recent years as Republicans who want to retain it as a shield against criticism that they deserve try to distort it’s meaning. But it is a useful measure of progress in a society that has been far too tolerant of bigotry. There ought to be a price to pay for using language as a cudgel to continue suppressing people. So it is important that we do not allow the bigots and the bastards to redefine it as anything for which they take some heat.

Three Degrees Of GOP Crazy: From Benghazi To Planned Parenthood To ACORN

Posted by Mark NC on September 30, 2015 at 4:21 pm. 13 Comments :

The Republican Party is showing signs of desperation after virtually every attempt to manufacture scandals that they can blame on Democrats has failed. Rather than developing some policy initiatives that might find favor with the American people, or conducting outreach to voter groups, the GOP is diving deeper into unfounded allegations and conspiracy theories. Just yesterday three of their top players engaged in some Olympian nuttiness that produced nothing but embarrassment for their floundering team.

Let’s begin this three degrees of separation journey with an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program (video below) by the man projected to be the next GOP Speaker of the House of Representatives. Kevin McCarthy may have thought that he would have a genteel Tea Party with the GOP-friendly host, but he wasn’t prepared for the level of animosity that wingnuts like Hannity have for establishment conservatives. Hannity took McCarthy to task for not having done more to monkey wrench the Obama administration’s agenda. He assailed McCarthy and the House GOP for presiding over budget deficits, funding ObamaCare, amnesty for immigrants, and not shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood. Having been caught off guard, McCarthy carelessly revealed the real, not-so-secret purpose of the House Select Committee to Politicize Benghazi as he tried to defend his record.

“Everybody thought that Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that happened had we not fought to make that happen.”

So McCarthy admitted on TV that the true aim of the Benghazi hearings was to damage Clinton’s reputation and electability. To which Hannity graciously replied “I agree, that’s something good. I give you credit for that.” McCarthy later let slip that he intends to form another pointless select committee on Planned Parenthood. Under Republican control, this congress has held an unprecedented number of flagrantly partisan hearings that have produced nothing of value to their party, much less the nation. The Benghazi investigation has now officially lasted longer than any previous congressional investigation, including the JFK assassination, the Nixon Watergate affair, and 9/11, yet has not found a single bit of evidence of any wrongdoing.

The Benghazi Committee is chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (SC-Tea Party), which brings us to the second degree of separation. Gowdy is also a member of the committee investigating Planned Parenthood for misconduct alleged by an anti-abortion group’s videos that have been proven to be edited in a deliberately deceptive fashion. When it was Gowdy’s turn to question Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards he asked whether she had an understanding of those who oppose abortion. Richards said that she appreciates that “people have a lot of different views on the issue of abortion,” then dismissed the condescending premise saying that Planned Parenthood “trusts women” to make decisions about their own bodies.

That provoked Gowdy to accuse Richards of wanting to “frame the issue” to say that she is “the reasonable one, and those of us who have a contrary position are not reasonable.” Which, of course, she did not say. Gowdy actually conceded that she didn’t say that, but then, using his supernatural power to read minds, told her that “It’s not always what you say, sometimes it’s just what you mean.” But he still could not explain how anything she said could be interpreted to mean what he asserted. It’s plain that he was intent on mischaracterizing her remarks no matter what she actually said.

The chairman of the Planned Parenthood committee was Rep. Jason Chaffetz, which conveniently moves us to the third and final degree of separation. During the same hearing, Chaffetz made some glaring blunders. For instance, he displayed a highly distorted and prejudicial chart that Richards had to tell him was provided by Americans United for Life, a virulently anti-abortion group. But his worst gaffe may have been uttered after the hearing when he went on Fox News to spin the event for the media. In an effort to drive home his slanderous perception of events, he said that “Planned Parenthood is the new ACORN. That’s who they are. Remember when we talked about ACORN? That is Planned Parenthood as far as I can see it.”

You know, he’s actually right. ACORN was an organization that helped people, but was smeared by liars who produced false videos that eventually led to Congress defunding them. Sound familiar? There was never any evidence that ACORN did anything wrong. To the contrary, James O’Keefe, the producer of the videos, lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay a former ACORN staffer $100,000. But, unfortunately, that was after ACORN lost their funding and had to close up shop. Now the same sort of liars are trying to do the same thing to Planned Parenthood despite several state investigations that have already cleared them of any wrongdoing.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

What all of this adds up to is the brazen dishonesty of a desperate Republican Party trying to invent scandals and exploit their congressional power to bring down their political foes. With McCarthy we have an admission that their efforts are partisan. With Gowdy we see how blinded they are by their own biases. And with Chaffetz a clear connection is made to a previous effort to sabotage an honorable public service organization.

Ironically, the GOP is whining about taxpayers having to pay for Planned Parenthood and women’s health care services, but most Americans support Planned Parenthood. So the real question is why are Americans forced to pay millions of dollars for congressional hearings that are nothing more than partisan witch hunts based on proven lies?

Here is the video of McCarthy on Hannity:

Liberal Media My Ass: Hillary Clinton’s Alleged Polling Woes

Posted by Mark NC on September 29, 2015 at 2:33 pm. 7 Comments :

The latest round of polling has hit the press with curiously coordinated reactions. Nearly every mainstream news outlet chose to spin the results as negative for Hillary Clinton.

To be sure, Clinton’s favorability has suffered in the past few weeks due to relentless bashing by more than a dozen Republican presidential hopefuls and an unending stream of baseless but damaging stories about her email. However, the uniformity of the media presentation is hardly representative of the reality. Here is how the press is covering the news:

Washington Times: Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable rating approaches record territory
ABC News: Clinton Goes Under Water
Breitbart News: Gallup: Hillary Clinton’s Favorability at All-Time Low
Wall Street Journal: Hillary Clinton Hits Lows on Favorability, Trustworthiness
Reuters: Clinton’s favorability ratings lowest since 2001
The Hill: Poll: Clinton’s favorability tumbles
NBC News: Hillary Clinton’s Popularity Drops Sharply in NBC/WSJ Poll
Fox News: Fox News Poll: Clinton popularity drops

While there is nothing wrong with reporting the facts in polling, it is misleading if the reporters don’t put the numbers into context. And an examination of the poll results paints a very different picture of the campaign. Just using the most recent Fox News poll as an example, Clinton’s “low” favorability rating is still higher than every Republican in the poll except for one (Ben Carson). It is not a trivial side issue to note that Clinton scores better than the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, and trounces him in a head-to-head match-up. But that is not considered newsworthy by the so-called “liberal” media.

What’s more, the press didn’t think it was important to report that every Republican’s unfavorables are at their all-time highs. Why is it news that Clinton’s favorabilty is suffering, but it isn’t news that all of her potential rivals are suffering as badly or worse? This is something the media has been doing for years with President Obama. They leap at every opportunity to report any drop in his popularity (which currently stands at about 47%) and how it will hamper the success of his agenda with Congress. What they leave out is that Congress has a favorability in the mid-teens, which should give the President a significant advantage.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Every single one of the headlines above could just as easily have read “Clinton And All Republicans Favorability At Or Near All-Time Lows,” but that would have meant engaging in honest journalism rather than deliberately misleading horse-race tabloidism. So the next time you see a spate of negative headlines hammering Clinton, remember that there is almost certainly more to the story than the media is telling you. And what they are usually leaving out is that, no matter how much people dislike Clinton, that hate Republicans even more.

If You Have A Boehner Lasting Longer Than 23 Years, Seek Immediate Medical Attention

Posted by Mark NC on September 25, 2015 at 11:32 am. 8 Comments :

In the midst of an uncommonly busy news day that included the Pope speaking at the United Nations and President Obama welcoming Chinese President Xi to the White House, GOP House Speaker John Boehner chose to announce that he is resigning as Speaker and leaving Congress effective October 31, 2015 (Halloween?).

Boehner held a press conference to address his reasons for this surprise resignation, but avoided saying outright why the decision came so suddenly. He alluded to the truth when he mentioned that he didn’t want to put Congress through some unspecified turmoil. What he was covertly referencing was the opposition to his leadership by his GOP peers and the prospect of a motion to vacate the post, in effect a vote of no confidence that could have led to a new Speaker’s election. Rather than face that humiliation, Boehner chose to bug out.

That wimpiness is emblematic of Boehner’s legacy as Speaker. Ever since his ascendancy to the post he has wobbled in fear of the Tea Party caucus that demanded a radical and uncompromising agenda. Boehner has presided over an embarrassing reign of failure and capitulation. The tiny Tea Party cell of extremists in the House has utterly dominated him and reduced him to a dysfunctional figurehead who cannot complete even the simplest tasks of governing. He even set failure as a standard when he said that Congress “should not be judged on how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal.” [Note: Number of laws Congress repealed while Boehner was Speaker: Zero] As a result, Boehner’s tenure is notable for being the most ineffectual Congress in history. It has managed to produce fewer bills, and work fewer days, than any Congress in modern times.

While achieving that dubious honor, they also held more than fifty votes attempting (unsuccessfully) to repeal or otherwise cripple the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare); filed a futile lawsuit against Obama over immigration; orchestrated a costly and unnecessary shutdown of the government; and formed the Special Committee on Politicizing Benghazi. All the while missing real opportunities by declining to hold votes for bills that would have passed merely because they didn’t have a majority of Republicans. What Boehner seemed to fail to grasp is that he was the Speaker of the whole House, not just the Republican caucus – and certainly not the Tea Party.

His departure will create a vacuum at the top that will not be filled without a bloody battle for control. Boehner’s chief lieutenant, and staunch ally, Kevin McCarthy, will not be welcomed by the GOP’s Wingnut Caucus. There will almost certainly be one or more conservatives entering the contest to be his successor. Maybe even Louie Gohmert (if we’re lucky) who got three whole votes when he ran against Boehner earlier this year (despite having endorsements from Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin). Consequently, Boehner’s alleged hopes of preventing the House from undergoing turmoil is going to have the opposite effect. It is just Boehner who will avoid the turmoil.

It is clear that Boehner’s rush to the exits is due to more than just a desire to spend more time with his family. You don’t ditch a job that puts you second in line for the presidency of the United States without serious concerns. Especially during an election year that is so consequential to his party. However, this opening may present an opportunity for Boehner’s last Republican primary opponent in his Ohio district to run again for the seat. J.D. Winteregg may not have had a realistic chance of unseating Boehner back then, but he did have one of the best campaign videos ever.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

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