Glenn Beck’s New Year Off To A Rousing Flop

Posted by on January 4, 2011 at 1:50 pm. 3 Comments :

Glenn Beck's Happy New Fears DayFirst the good news: Glenn Beck dropped by New York’s WOR radio station over poor ratings. The largest commercial market in the country is ditching Glenn Beck. That’s gotta hurt. Especially since Beck’s Philadelphia affiliate previously announced that they were dumping him as well. Is this the beginning of a trend?

Now the bad news: Glenn Beck has returned from his holiday … er … Christmas vacation and is launching his 2011 campaign for a “fundamental transformation of this country.” In the opening words of his radio program he declares that…

“It is a new year. It is a new attitude. Get out of the way. You are either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. America is at a crossroads.”

Something about that message sounds oddly familiar. What could it be? I wonder if Google might stir my memory. {Googling} OH MY GOD! Look at what I found:

“What we’re saying today is that you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.” ~ Eldridge Cleaver

Glenn Beck is now quoting Eldridge Cleaver, the Minister of Information for the radical 1960’s Black Panther Party. And since Beck believes that any time someone quotes a historical figure they are implicitly endorsing everything that person stood for (see Beck’s assault on Anita Dunn for having quoted Mao), Beck must be embracing the revolutionary socialist agenda that Cleaver was pursuing when he uttered the words above.

This isn’t the only sign that Beck’s philosophy may have turned a frightening corner. His New Year’s message went on to say…

“After spending years, personally and collectively, thousands of man-hours in research, reflection, and prayer, my team and I have come to realize that a fundamental transformation of this country is required. […] we are being told on every level from our classrooms to our newsrooms that America is not good and she was never great. That is a lie. It is a lie that has diseased this body so thoroughly that we cannot as a nation survive much longer.”

Throughout most of 2010, Beck drilled into the heads of his disciples that fundamental transformation was an evil undertaking of President Obama and his cadre of czars. He insisted that a fundamental transformation of America was not necessary because the country was fundamentally perfect, it just needed some tweaking by divinely inspired pundits/prophets like himself. But now he admits that the nation is so far gone that it cannot survive.

[Aside to Glenn: Where are all these classrooms and newsrooms that are telling us that America is not good and was never great? There must be thousands of them if they are capable of threatening the survival of the nation.]

Having embraced Cleaver and accepted the doctrine of fundamental transformation, Beck challenges his listeners to examine for themselves what course to take for the bleak journey that faces them ahead. He asks, “Do we return to the ideas of the past,” and then asserts his own response, “I will no longer look to others for leadership or answers.”

Is Beck abandoning his heroes of faith (Sam Adams), hope (George Washington), and charity (Ben Franklin)? They are clearly icons of the past that Beck now seems to want to cast aside. And they are leaders whom he apparently has no further interest in following. It is now officially all about Beck. He is his only source of inspiration, and he surely hopes that you will be as committed to his divinity as he is himself.

It’s difficult to predict what a person like Beck will do. He began 2010 by saying that “A week from today this program is going to change, (1/4/10).” And he ended the year the same way asserting that “This show is going to change next year, (11/12/10).” Despite the frequent proclamations, his program has remained stiflingly stagnant. His core objective of smearing the President and seeding wild conspiracy theories about liberals and other “progressive vermin” is as tenacious a constant as ever. He also promised at his August “Restoring Honor” rally that it is time to “concentrate on the good.” That didn’t last long (see Beck’s three-day smear of George Soros).

So where will Beck go in 2011? Who knows. It is no more possible to predict Beck’s future than it is to predict the course of a popped balloon. Perhaps his zealous desire for change is the result of his radio network chipping away. Perhaps it’s due to his dwindling ratings or his crumbling advertiser support. Or perhaps it’s just that God has spoken to him again and set his footing on yet another new path (God is so indecisive). Whatever the reason, we can only hope that we won’t have listen to Beck’s tortured explanation for why his program will change again in 2012. But we will be there to watch him become ever more unhinged.


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Fox Nation Turns Up The Crazy For 2011

Posted by on January 3, 2011 at 5:18 pm. 2 Comments :

As the new year gets underway, the folks at Fox Nation returned to work to provide more of the brainless idiot bait for which they have become so well known.


Numerous articles popped up today that illustrate what the Fox Nationalists define as news. For instance, they posted an article with this headline:

One of the Most Corrupt Presidents in Modern Times.
The headline refers to a comment made by uber-rightist congressman, Darrell Issa who will shortly be chairing a festival of investigations aimed at the White House. But the headline doesn’t contain any attribution. So it appears to be Fox’s assessment of President Obama, or just a generalized insult for the benefit of the FoxPods. But in any case, there is nothing to back up the outrageous claim. They probably just thought it would look good on their home page.

Then there is this crucial bit of breaking news:

‘Nostradamus’ of Middle East Predicts Unprecedented Crisis for Obama in 2011.
First of all, predicting that a president is going to encounter a crisis is about as bold as predicting that Sarah Palin will say something mind-numbingly dumb in 2011 (which I am now going on record as predicting). But what makes this even more of a head-scratcher is the notion that anybody cares what this alleged seer has to say. Is the Fox Factory of lies so overextended that they need to import nonsense like this?

Don’t answer that last question – at least until you see the next headline:

If the Truth Got Out About Obama There Would Be a Civil War.
Once again there is no attribution for this assertion. But when you click on the link you are presented with a YouTube audio clip of wingnut Steve Malzberg’s radio show with his guest Jeff Kuhner of the “Moonie” Washington Times. After giggling like schoolgirls over their agreement that Obama hates Jesus, the pair launched into an extended rant about the President holding office illegally because of his foreign birth. That’s right, the “truth” that Fox Nation thinks will immerse America into a civil war, should it get out, is that Obama is a secret Kenyan.

And finally, after jumping feet first into Birtherism, the Fox Nationalists demonstrate their cognitive retardation by posting this headline:

Why Do Democrats Keep Talking About the Birth Certificate?
Do they mean “Democrats” like Malzberg and Kuhner? For the record, the only time Democrats talk about Obama’s birth certificate is to respond to, or make fun of, right-wingers who still believe that Obama is a Manchurian president sent here to turn America into a Muslim theocracy. And Fox continues to prove that they are at the center of that lunatic theory.

Fox Nation is entering the new year with a firm commitment to the brand of disinformation that they have labored so hard to perfect. They adhere to a narrow bias against all things Democratic or liberal, and in favor of all things corporate and power sustaining. And apparently, as demonstrated by this rash of asinine articles hitting the web in the opening days of the year, they aren’t even going to try to hide their prejudice and deceit.

Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy year.


The So-Called Liberal New York Times Profiles Alan Grayson

Posted by on January 2, 2011 at 11:36 pm. 7 Comments :

Alan GraysonThe fact that there still lingers a perception that the media leans to the left is a testament to the hard working propagandists of the right. The Sunday New York Times has provided us with yet another demonstration that this perception is fatally flawed.

In a profile of outgoing Representative Alan Grayson of Florida, Times correspondent Michael Barbaro described his commitment to traditional Democratic themes. Then, noting that Grayson was critical of his fellow Democrats for not “acting Democratic enough,” Barbaro belittled that view saying…

“It is not exactly a widespread sentiment among the electorate.”

Where did Barbaro get that idea? Who knows. He doesn’t say. And unfortunately for him, it isn’t true. Recent polls show that the Democrats’ position on issues like allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire, are favored by a majority of Americans. The same poll shows that most Americans favor keeping the Democratic health care bill or expanding it. The Republicans were recently shamed into voting for the Democratic proposal for aid to the 9/11 First Responders. Majorities agreed that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy should have been repealed, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Grayson’s point that many Democrats may have lost in the election last November because they did not sufficiently support the agenda that voters expected of them was exactly right. The result of that failure was that many Democratic voters stayed home on election day. As Grayson said…

“If you want people to support you, then you have to support them. You have to think long about what you did for people who voted for you, made phone calls for you, who went door to door for you.”

Therein lies the mistake that Barbaro, and most of the rest of the press, have made in their analysis of the mid-terms. There was no message from the people to move to the center. Barbaro does not, and can not, support his contention that this is “a moment when centrism seems to be the party’s antidote to a redrawn political landscape.” The problem for Democrats was not that the people didn’t support their agenda. It was that they themselves didn’t support it, so the people bailed out.

There is still a great deal of talk about the “success” of Tea Party candidates, even though most of their most prominent members lost. Recall senate candidates Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Linda McMahon, Carli Fiorina, Ken Buck, and Christine O’Donnell. All losers. Only two Democratic incumbent senators were defeated. The rest of the Republican gains were for open seats, some of which were held by retiring Republicans.

Poll after poll shows that the Tea Party is a trumped up charade whose views are wildly out of touch with the mainstream of America. Yet the media continues to pretend that they matter. Even worse, they prop them up to deliberately and falsely inflate their significance. How else can you explain CNN partnering with the discredited Tea Party Express for a GOP primary debate?

As for Grayson, he will be missed in the Congress. But hopefully he will find his own place in the media. He would make a great radio/TV host. And in that role he could provide some balance to the heavily over-weighted conservative presence of extreme right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc.

It is long past time to abandon the falsehood that the media is liberal. When CNN and the New York Times, two of the right’s favorite “liberal” targets, engage in overtly right-wing politics; when Fox News boasts of their dominance in the cable news marketplace; when the vast majority of news outlets are controlled by a handful of giant multinational corporations; the pretense of liberalism in the media should finally be put to rest.


The Top One Repulsively Conservative Hollywood Moment Of 2011 (So Far)

Posted by on January 2, 2011 at 3:00 pm. 20 Comments :

Andrew Breitbart’s BigHollwood web site is a notoriously puerile destination for Tea Party true believers. It generally doesn’t warrant my attention, but as this is the bottom half of a lazy New Year’s weekend, and a slow news day, I thought I’d waste some time responding to a particularly dimwitted exercise in top ten listing: The Top 10 Repulsively Liberal Hollywood Moments of 2010.

The author is William J. Kelly, a D-list conservative radio host and a failed Republican candidate for comptroller in Illinois (losing the GOP primary by 37 points). His article illustrates why his lack of celebrity is so richly deserved.

Kelly is obviously an intellectual midget with aspirations to kneel before the altar of Limbaugh. It always amuses me to read conservatives like Kelly bashing liberals in Hollywood and the creative community while ignoring their own elbow-rubbing with celebrities. The ultra-rightist magazine Human Events even produced a list of the most irritating liberal celebrities. To which I responded with a list of the most irritating conservative celebrities. On the irritating scale the conservatives win by a landslide. Now they are vying for the “repulsive” title as well.

10. Smallville’s last season. Kelly complains that the program’s new villain is a “conservative radio talk show host taken over by the supernatural forces of hate and fear.” However, that description could fit any number of real conservative radio talk show hosts starting with Glenn Beck and ending with Kelly himself.

9. Kathy Griffin attacks Bristol Palin This entry raises an objection to criticism of the children of politicians. However, Bristol is an adult, and a public figure in her own right, who willingly became a contestant on Dancing With the Stars. It was Bristol’s role on DWTS that Griffin referenced in her comedy routine. Kelly seems to think that the offspring of politicians are off-limits in perpetuity. By his shallow logic we should have refrained from criticizing George W. Bush because his father was a politician.

8. Bristol’s “Dancing with the Stars” success equals Tea Party conspiracy? Anyone who still believes that Bristol’s “success” on DWTS was not the result of Tea Party vote-stuffing is terminally naive. Does Kelly really think that her dance skills were superior to the other contestants? She received amongst the lowest scores week after week. And what is with Kelly’s obsession with Bristol that she rates two items in this list?

7. Hollywood blames Christmas. Kelly says: “Hollywood took a hike on Christmas films in 2010 and the media tried to pin the blame on lack of audience interest.” Kelly just made this up. There is simply no basis for asserting that the media placed universal blame for the absence of holiday-themed films on the audience or anywhere else. To suggest that Hollywood is somehow averse to Christmas movies reveals an ignorance of Hollywood on a massive scale.

6. Maher pushes “Politically Incorrect” witchcraft clip of Christine O’Donnell. Kelly really worked hard on this one. First he lies in saying that O’Donnell’s admission to “dabbling in witchcraft” was “comically stated.” It may have been on a comedy show, but she wasn’t joking and even reiterated the point. Then Kelly goes on to lie about her opponent, Chris Coons, saying that he was let “off the hook” for his book, “The Bearded Marxist.” Except that there was no such book, and the phrase was actually attributed to conservative friends of Coons who made it clear that they were joking. Kelly apparently has a difficult time distinguishing jokes, lies, and reality.

5. Meathead says Tea Party on par with the Nazi Movement. I might have been tempted to give Kelly this one. I do not condone any indiscriminate use of Nazi references that trivialize an all-too-real horror. However, by taking Rob Reiner to task while ignoring the king of Nazi references, Glenn Beck, Kelly discredits his criticism and exposes his outrage as phony and manipulative.

4. PBS censors Tina Fey’s anti-Palin comments at the Kennedy Center Awards. Here’s another for which I nearly sympathized with Kelly. It was indeed unconscionable for PBS to edit Fey’s remarks. But as it turns out, Kelly wasn’t upset with the censorship at all. In fact he justified it and took a swing at Fey for “lowering the bar for future Mark Twain Award recipients.” Do you think that Kelly knows that Mark Twain was a sharp-tongued political satirist who probably would have vigorously applauded Fey’s comments?

3. Obama endorses Comedy Central’s Rally to Restore Sanity. Kelly’s criticism of Obama centers on his praise for civility and common sense. What an outrage! Obama and Stewart should be hanged together. Kelly accuses Obama of “Failing to distinguish comedy from real life.” Kelly may be the last man in America to fail to recognize that satire is a valid form of speech that often informs and enlightens. And Jon Stewart is one of the funniest and most effective satirists on the scene today.

2. Filmmaker Moore posts $20,000 for WikiLeaks’ Assange’s bail. This appears to be a blind, substanceless attack on Michael Moore. Kelly doesn’t explain what’s wrong with Moore posting bail for Assange. He is apparently against it because Moore did it. Perhaps Kelly is against Assange as well, but he doesn’t say so. And if he is, then he is also against free speech and freedom of the press.

1. Whoopi & Joy’s Bill O’Reilly walk-off on “The View.” In a typical right-wing embrace of intolerance and bigotry, Kelly defends Bill O’Reilly for insinuating that all Muslims are terrorists and/or all terrorists are Muslim. And he slams Whoopi and Joy for being sensitive to that overtly prejudicial opinion. In Kelly’s world it is perfectly acceptable to smear people with minority beliefs or opinions as criminals, and to escalate hostilities based on those smears.

Conservatives will be working harder than ever this year to demonstrate their repulsive nature. Kelly is off to a strong start in the race to the bottom, but I wouldn’t put down any bets just yet. After all, Glenn Beck hasn’t taken to the air yet this year and Sarah Palin hasn’t Tweeted or Facebooked since Christmas eve.


Happy New Fears Day

Posted by on January 1, 2011 at 1:36 am. 16 Comments :

From Glenn Beck and Fox News:

Happy New Fears Day


And best wishes for a year of full of trepidation, paranoia, and lunatic conspiracy theories featuring our Kenyan Marxist president and dictator, Barack Hussein Obama.

Yours Truly,
Glenn Beck

Bonus Beck Quote of the Year: “America, I’ve got to shoot straight with you: I think I’ve wasted your time.” March 10, 2010.


The GOP’s Kiddie Curriculum For Congress

Posted by on December 31, 2010 at 2:49 pm. 10 Comments :

When the 112th Congress convenes on January 6, 2011, new procedural rules authored by the GOP majority will be proposed and implemented. Amongst these will be a provision that calls for the Constitution to be read aloud on the floor of the House.

Democrats are often criticized for advocating policies that will result in what Republicans derisively call a “nanny” state. But it is the Republicans who most often treat their work as child’s play. They previously implemented the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to open each day’s business. Now they want to schedule a story hour wherein they will recite the Constitution. And it is not unworthy of notice that the incoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a notorious crybaby.

This sort of behavior is generally reserved for kindergarten classes. The spectacle of grown men and women reciting in unison their obedience to a flag is downright embarrassing. And if they don’t already know what the Constitution says they probably should not have been elected in the first place. Certainly the reading will not elucidate it for them. In order to understand the Constitution it must be considered in its entirety, including amendments and a couple of hundred years of court rulings and interpretations. Would the GOP advocate reading the entire legal history of the Constitution into the record?

The Constitutional reading is paired with another new rule saying that…

“A bill or joint resolution may not be introduced unless the sponsor submits for printing in the Congressional Record a statement citing as specifically as practicable the power or powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the bill or joint resolution.”

This is nothing but a symbolic bit of grandstanding that has no legal effect on any legislation. Only the Supreme Court can assess the constitutionality of any law. This rule requires only that a bill’s sponsor make a statement citing a constitutional provision. It does not, and can not, require that the provision actually be relevant or binding. So a member could cite the “Preamble” or the “Oath or Affirmation Clause” or the third comma in the second paragraph of Article VI. It literally doesn’t matter. Once the statement is furnished the bill can proceed and no other member can challenge it. Even if a challenge was permissible under the rule, who or what would have jurisdiction to decide whether the statement was “specific” enough without stepping on the toes of the Supreme Court? Perhaps the GOP should be required to make a statement citing the Constitutional power to enact this rule.

What’s next for the GOP? Would they like to codify “Nap Time” or “Shoe Lacing” instruction? Would they like to prohibit name-calling or running with scissors? Perhaps they could enact a rule that would result in a member being grounded for sassing the chair. If the new rules being proposed by the GOP are any indication, Congress is in for a era of strict parental supervision. And that may be the way conservatives like it, but most Americans would probably prefer that their representatives behave more like adults.

Too many Americans are embroiled in a reality show that could be called “Survivor: United States.” And the Republicans want to vote the adults off the island. Especially in these times, when so many people are undergoing severe hardships, there is a need for government to concentrate on solving problems rather than stacking blocks and coloring inside the lines. Grow up, Republicans.


[Addendum] A new report just revealed the hypocrisy of the “fiscally conscious” GOP: Republicans to Spend $1.1 Million Reciting Constitution on House Floor.

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Fox Nation Makes Dangerous Internet Posting

Posted by on December 30, 2010 at 3:51 pm. 3 Comments :

This morning on the Fox Nation there was an article posted with the title, “Obama Makes Dangerous Recess Appointment.”


The funny thing about this posting is that when you click on it you are delivered to a page that doesn’t explain anything about what makes the President’s appointments dangerous. And if you venture further to read the article Fox Nation links to as its source, you’ll find yourself at The Hill’s Briefing Room blog where it also says nothing about anything dangerous.

The article at The Hill describes Obama’s decision to appoint a Justice Department official and a few ambassadors who have been held up by an obstructionist Republican Party in the Senate. There are still some 200 pending appointees that the GOP has refused to permit to move forward simply out of a desire to cripple this presidency. It is an unprecedented campaign of blocking the fulfillment of important positions in the judiciary and elsewhere in the administration. And it has a manifestly harmful effect on the country.

Many in the conservative echo chamber are already blasting the President for “bypassing the Constitution” in order to seat these appointees without a senate confirmation. Except that the authority to make recess appointments is explicitly granted to the President in the Constitution. However, blocking senate confirmation votes for executive appointees is not. That is a senate rule that will hopefully be dispensed with in the next congress.

The phony outrage being ginned up on the right over this fails to acknowledge the fact that George W. Bush made 171 recess appointments. Ronald Reagan made 243. The hypocrites on the right would like those facts to be ignored. Like most facts for conservatives, they just get in the way. And the fact that the Fox Nationalists can run an item declaring something is dangerous without supporting the claim is just another example of their commitment to keeping their audience angry and dumb. And it is what is truly dangerous.


Top Ten Ways Fox News Made An Ass Of Itself And/Or Its Viewers In 2010

Posted by on December 29, 2010 at 10:53 am. 2 Comments :

In a year of transformational events that included a divisive debate over health care, environmental devastation in the Gulf of Mexico, a tragic Haitian earthquake, and a power shift in Congress, Fox News still managed to manufacture more trauma and fables than any other “news” source, with the possible exception of the Cuckoo’s Nest Weekly Gazette.

After reviewing the cornucopia of crazy from 2010 that best exemplifies the brand of journalistic malpractice perfected by Fox News, I have compiled the year’s top ten ten ways Fox News made an ass of itself and/or its viewers. It is a list that also reveals Fox News to be the go to source for disinformation and the champion of phony hysteria. So without further ado, the winners are…..


 		 Ashamed And Sickened By Roger Ailes
Even Rupert Murdoch’s own family can’t stand Roger Ailes. This is what Murdoch’s son in law has to say about him: “I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to.”

 		 Has It Really Come To This: Boob Bombs?
The Fox paranoia machine was running overtime when they reported as fact that “Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives. […] Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery.”

 		 Fox Nation Scare Tactics: Armed IRS Agents To Enforce Obamacare
In a fit of psychotic bluster, the folks at Fox Nation posted an article with a headline that was manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in their reporting, or the column to which they linked, that remotely implied the message in the headline which, of course, was not true. The source for the Fox Nationalists was a column in the ultra-rightist Daily Caller, published by Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson.

 		 Crime Inc: Glenn Beck’s Corrupt Advertisers
Beck spent several shows diagramming on his blackboard a cabal of evildoers he dubbed “Crime Inc,” an alleged conspiracy contrived by the climate change gang, which includes everyone from Al Gore to General Electric to the United Nations. However, it appears that the real Crime Inc is the assembly of advertisers who sponsor Beck’s show (minus those who fled in disgust). As it turns out, many of them are running less than reputable operations that have run afoul of the law.

 		 Fox Alert! The Taliban Is Recruiting Monkey Mercenaries
This story, sourced to the People’s Daily in China, was published by at least two Murdoch properties, Fox Nation and the New York Post. And if you weren’t frightened by the prospect of terrorists sneaking into the country with explosive breast implants, then maybe the thought of radical Islamic macaques and baboons armed “with AK-47 rifles, machine guns and trench mortars” will set you to squirming.

 		 The Lord Smites Glenn Beck With Blindness
Glenn Beck broke down again as he revealed to his congregation that he may or may not go blind in the next year. As a devout Mormon and Christian, he might want to look up Deuteronomy 28:27-29, which describes the plagues God will inflict upon sinners, most of which Beck is already suffering from – including hemorrhoids and madness.

 		 Why Fox News Is Racist
Well, we have the answer now. According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times, the African-American segment of viewers of Fox News in primetime this season is only 1.38%. That compares to 19.3% for MSNBC, and 20.7% for CNN, numbers that are much closer to the 14% of African-Americans in the population at large.

 		 Shocking Glenn Beck Expose: The Puppet Master
In three horror-filled episodes of Beck’s program on Fox, Beck made good on his promise to reveal the “Puppet Master” behind every diabolical scheme orchestrated by America’s enemies. Except that Beck’s profile fits his boss Rupert Murdoch, much better than his intended target, George Soros.

 		 Election Flawed: Rupert Murdoch Plays Politics For Profit
After it was disclosed that Rupert Murdoch had contributed a million dollars each to the Republican Governor’s Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an analysis reveals that Murdoch actually earned a tidy profit on his donations when his beneficiaries turned around and spent that money on advertising on his network. This is a thinly disguised kickback scheme that would have landed any other businessman in jail.

 		 Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid
Yet another study has been released that proves that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. Researchers at the University of Maryland conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation. The more you watch, the less you know.

In retrospect, it strains credulity to imagine that so many people still take Fox News seriously. This is the network that subjects its viewers to the apocalyptic sermonizing of a weeping conspiracy theorist; the network that dispenses invented crises from the New Black Panthers stealing elections to Islamic extremists constructing victory mosques in Manhattan; the network that twists medical advance directives into death panels and cold weather forecasts into proof that global warming is a hoax; the network whose owner makes million dollar contributions to Republicans and still says it is fair and balanced.

Nevertheless, we can all look forward to 2011 with the certainty that Fox will attempt to fill it with the same sort lies and propaganda that they have made their hallmark. And, consequently, conscientious news consumers, and all patriotic citizens, will have their hands full correcting the record and repairing the damage done to the gullible victims of Foxification.

Have a Happy and Delirium-Free New Year.



Irony Alert: Greta Van Susteren Questions Juan Williams’ Credibility

Posted by on December 28, 2010 at 11:11 am. 1 Comments :

In a recent appearance on Fox News, Juan Williams made an observation that most thinking people would regard as objectively true when he said that Sarah Palin “can’t stand on the intellectual stage with Obama.” Even most Republicans don’t think Palin has the qualifications to be president, and many are simply embarrassed by her frequent incoherent Facebookings and Tweets.

But Palin’s Fox News colleague, Greta Van Susteren, is not amongst them. In response to Williams’ comment Van Susteren took to her blog to question Williams’ journalistic credibility and to ask whether he had ever interviewed the Tea Hag, implying that if he had not his opinion is irrelevant. Says Van Susteren:

“Knowing the source of a journalist’s information helps you judge whether it is good information or just yak. […] Knowing if he interviewed (first hand knowledge) either and to what depth can help guide you as to whether you should credit his opinion or not.”

Really? Then it should be noted that Van Susteren is a personal friend of Palin and that her husband has been an advisor on Palin’s staff for years. This is something that Van Susteren fails to disclose when she defends Palin, as she often does.

What’s more, if Van Susteren is going to make the absurd contention that no one can have an opinion of a public figure without having first interviewed them, would she apply that standard to herself? Would she apply it to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, and everyone else on Fox News, or in all of the media? (This would put a lot of pundits out of work which, come to think of it, may not be such a bad idea). Or does it only apply to people with whom she disagrees when they are critical of her friends and her husband’s clients? For Van Susteren to pass judgment on Williams in this manner says more about her own lack of journalistic standards than it does of his.

However, both Williams and Van Susteren may have bigger problems. They are both in violation of their boss’s edict to refrain from criticizing fellow Fox Newsers. Williams attacked Palin whereupon Van Susteren attacked Williams. On a prior occasion when Fox insiders were complaining publicly about Glenn Beck, Roger Ailes said…

“Yeah, shut up. You’re getting a paycheck. Go on the team or get off the team. Don’t run around here badmouthing a colleague.”

You think Ailes will be having a talk with these two malcontents?


DeathStorm 2010: Fox Nation Doubles Down On Stupid

Posted by on December 26, 2010 at 9:39 pm. 7 Comments :

You’ve got to hand it to the folks at Fox. Even after a University of Maryland study certified that people who watch Fox News are more misinformed than viewers of other networks, Fox still has the chutzpah to stick with their campaign to make idiots of their audience. These stories broke today on the Fox Nation:


With headlines like “Obama Brings Back ‘Death Panels'” and “Hey Gore, Eagles-Vikings Game Postponed Due To Snow,” Fox is proving their commitment to enhancing the ignorance of their audience.

Who would have thought that Fox would have the gall to revisit the thoroughly discredited assertions of “death panels” that were originally raised during the health care debate? Everyone knows that the advance-care planning that most medical professionals advocate are patient-directed conversations with doctors – not death panels. Well, everyone but Fox News viewers who still think they are government mandated arbiters of who lives and dies.

And the climate change deniers are getting another leg up from Fox with their utterly imbecilic assertion that global warming is a hoax because it’s cold in Minnesota in December. This ignores the recent heat waves and droughts in many parts of the world as well as the global average temperatures that set a record high for 2010 and for the past decade. It also ignores hundreds of scientific studies that affirm the warming trends.

The Fox Nationalists are not deterred by having been exposed as serial liars. In fact, they are taking the opportunity to spread the stupid on even thicker. It’s almost as if they are saying, “You think we were misinforming people before? You aint seen nothin yet.” And with that they take on death panels and snowstorms in the same news cycle. Perhaps their next move will be to combine the two into DeathStorm and release it for the Xbox. I’m sure the Fox audience will eat it up (recommended for ages 4-6).