It’s Wednesday morning, the day after Election Day. A number of significant issues were decided yesterday including the repeal of an anti-union law in Ohio, the defeat of an anti-choice “personhood” initiative in Mississippi, and the recall of State Senator Russell Pearce (the author of the anti-immigrant bill) in Arizona. But what made it to the top of the Fox Nation web site?
That’s right. The Fox Nationalists virtually ignored the electoral results. In fact, the only item they ran was one about the Ohio contest, but you had to count down 18 stories before you found it. FoxNews.com also featured the Xmas tax story just below their headline about disgraced coach Joe Paterno.
The story that trumped the election (and all other breaking news, including Herman Cain’s press conference) concerned a fifteen cent tax on Christmas trees that Fox’s headline labeled “Obama’s” tax. As usual, Fox’s reporting was somewhat less than credible.
The tax was actually a fee requested by the National Christmas Tree Association during the Bush administration. It was passed by a Republican controlled Senate and House, and was co-sponsored by John Boehner. It’s purpose was to fund research into, and promotion of, the Christmas tree industry which had been struggling to compete with artificial trees imported from China.
It was this pro-business, American job supporting, Republican legislation, that Fox chose to turn into a political cudgel with which to bash the President. It is this fee, that was proposed and supported by growers to enhance the image and sales of live Christmas trees, that Fox is implying is anti-Christian. And at the same time Fox has deployed this phony story to divert attention away from the news that conservatives had been slaughtered at the polls.
Fox has completely given up even pretending that they are engaging in honest journalism. How can any thinking person continue to regard Fox as a legitimate news enterprise?
[Update] Fox Nation updated their web site with late breaking news that pushed the Christmas Tree Tax story out of their headline position. Did they replace it with election results or Italy’s debt/political crisis? Nope. The new headline story is “Jon Stewart Makes Mincemeat Out of Jon Corzine.”
It was a blustery November morning. I was in my mother’s basement Tweeting waffle recipes to chums in my Marxist study group. My fingers were still sticky with maple syrup. Then she walked in. Or rather, she showed up in my Google news alerts. Her name was Winter, and it fit her like an Old Navy Fleece hoodie. Jana Winter. She said she was a reporter for Fox News. I should have known right then that she couldn’t be trusted. Everyone knows there aren’t any reporters at Fox News.
Winter had been writing articles about how ACORN, the group of community organizers that ceased to exist more than a year ago, was secretly still operating and was behind the Occupy Wall Street protests. Her stories were obvious fabrications that posed absurd theories wherein the bankrupt ACORN could somehow afford to pay homeless people tens of thousands of dollars to attend rallies that were already populated by thousands of genuine protesters who attended for free.
Winter wrote three progressively more delusional articles on this subject in as many weeks. She was able to be so prolific because she never bothered to gather any actual evidence or testimony from anyone other than anonymous sources. The first article laid out the imaginary ACORN plot to subvert capitalism from beyond the grave. The second alleged that the resurrected ACORN, spooked by Winter’s first article, scrambled to destroy every remnant of its reincarnated existence. Once again, almost every assertion was absent an attribution. Winter is a master at coaxing incriminating confessions from ghosts.
But it’s the third article that reveals the depths of Winter’s deviousness. After laying the groundwork for a scandalous tale of corruption and clandestine schemes, Winter’s latest composition divulges the efforts of Darrell Issa, Congress’ self-appointed hall monitor, to bully the Department of Justice into launching an investigation of the gossip spread in Winter’s columns:
“In a letter dated Monday, Issa, R-Calif., called for U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch of the Eastern District of New York to launch a probe into allegations first reported by FoxNews.com.”
Notice the meticulous attention to journalistic precision in Winter’s description of Loretta Lynch as the Attorney General. That would be an interesting detail if it happened to be true. But even more interesting is the way she refers to “allegations first reported by FoxNews.com” without noting that she is talking about herself. It was her own reporting from which Issa derived his accusations of scandal. Several times in the article Winter cites “reports from FoxNews.com” and even noted that “Issa’s letter quotes from the initial FoxNews.com report.” Later Winter added that “Issa also referenced a second FoxNews.com report.” That second report was also Winter’s handiwork.
So what we have here is a circular wheel of affirmation wherein a Fox News “reporter” invents a phony scandal by writing thinly sourced articles that allege fraudulent activity by a defunct organization. Then a United States congressman cites those articles as evidence that an investigation should ensue. Then the same Fox News reporter writes an article about the congressman’s request for an investigation. I suppose that the next thing we’ll see is Issa citing the Fox News report on members of Congress demanding that the Justice Department investigate. And around it goes.
To be clear, there is absolutely no evidence of any wrongdoing by the non-existent ACORN, the New York Communities for Change (NYCC), whom Winter and Issa are slandering, or the Occupy Wall Street movement. Winter’s articles contain dozens of citations from anonymous sources that are uncorroborated. Yet in the latest article she doesn’t even bother to attempt to interview anyone representing the other side of Issa’s baseless accusations (fair and balanced?).
To her credit, Winter notes the inherent problem with bias in the media on the part of influential news enterprises:
“A leading force in online journalism appears to be making a strong effort to be anything but fair and balanced.”
The only problem is that she is not referring to the bias in her own reporting. That quote was from an article she wrote last month criticizing Arianna Huffington for “injecting her endorsement of the demonstrations into her media outlets’ coverage of the events in lower Manhattan.” It’s another proud moment for Winter who has somehow managed to out Huffington as a liberal. Who knew?
Winter has a bright career ahead of her, so long as she stays at Fox News. She doesn’t know who the Attorney General is. She doesn’t know that the Huffington Post is not a neutral media outlet. She doesn’t know how to compose an article without relying solely on anonymous sources and right-wingers. She doesn’t know that it’s bad form to cite herself as a source for subsequent reporting without disclosure. Best of all, she is not the least bit embarrassed by exhibiting her ignorance in public. If she’s an attractive young blond then she is everything Fox News could hope for.
And therein lies the mystery. Why isn’t she already appearing as part of Bill O’Reilly’s harem? Why hasn’t she filled in for Gretchen Carlson on Fox & Friends? Does Megyn Kelly have some nasty dirt (or dirty pictures) on her? Who can say? As for me, I’ve got bigger fish to fry and can’t be distracted by every dame that Fox throws in my path. Winter’s a big girl and can take care of herself. She’s demonstrated her willingness and ability to peddle Fox’s snake oil with the best of them. And she is adept at feigning being shocked – SHOCKED – to find that there are ACORN shenanigans going on here.
The latest mutation of reality by the folks at Fox Nation presents another fun house ride through Fantasyland. Check out the headline posting on Sunday night:
“Of all the presidents since World War II whose job-approval scores were lower than 50 percent one year before Election Day, only one went on to win a second term.”
On the surface, that’s an accurate conclusion. However, taking a closer look at the analysis reveals that the brilliant minds at the Washington Times calculated the electoral fates of all of the low-scoring incumbents – all three of them (Nixon, Ford, and Carter). Consequently, the conclusion is meaningless from a statistical point of view. It would be just as accurate to say that:
Of all the presidents since World War II whose job-approval scores were lower than 50 percent one year before Election Day, all were reelected except for two.
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? It certainly doesn’t sound nearly as desperate as Fox’s version that predicts Obama as a loser. Fox’s version also leaves out this commentary by Larry Sabato that was included in the Washington Times article:
“Presidential approval one full year out is not helpful in determining what will occur in November 2012.” Mr. Sabato said.
The only opinion in the article that affirms the conclusion in the Fox Nation headline is from the article’s author, Dave Boyer. And he offers no support whatsoever for that opinion. In fact, Boyer’s opinion is contradicted by his own reporting. He quotes Sabato as saying that the predictive value of approval ratings is only significant in the summer and fall months just prior to the election, not so much a year away. So not only is there not enough statistical data to draw a conclusion, the data they are using is irrelevant.
Nevertheless, Fox Nation composed their own headline that exacerbated the flaws in the Washington Times’ reporting. And the Fox Nationalists proved once again that they can’t tell reality from fiction. Or more accurately, they choose to present fiction as fact.
[Update: 11/7/11] Not surprisingly, Fox News has adopted the false premises described above. Megyn Kelly led off a segment this morning on the electoral history of low approval rated incumbents saying that in fifty years only one was reelected. Of course she neglected to note that in fifty years only two failed to win reelection. She might also have said that in the entire 235 year history of America an African-American presidential incumbent has NEVER lost reelection. So there you have it. Numbers don’t lie (but Fox does).
This is an excellent example of how bogus stories bubble up from disreputable sources like the Washington Times to mass media outlets like Fox News.
“Fox News is now a target of Anonymous because of their continued propaganda against the Occupations. Those such as Sean Hannity are attacking the credentials as well as the character of the Occupiers and this can no longer be allowed. […]
“Anonymous will not only shut down Fox News, we will also engage in a propaganda campaign of our own to show them how it feels to be chastised. Fox News, your time has come.”
The target date for the cyber-attack was November 5. So far as I know Fox News continued to broadcast throughout the weekend and their web site remained accessible. However, the Fox Nation web site no longer has a place to login and there are no comments on any posting, even those that go back months.
Could Anonymous be responsible for this? Might Fox have just removed those features to prevent any mischief? Is it just a period of scheduled maintenance? Only Guy Fawkes knows for sure.
To say that the Fox Nation exhibits the mental capacity of a six year old would be an insult to six year olds. Let’s just say that Fox News is focused on appealing to a target audience with the IQ of Fox political analyst Sarah Palin’s son, Trigg.
This morning the Fox Nationalists posted an item on comments made by comedian Bill Maher. Observe the sophisticated humor that Fox employs with their headline story:
Calling the HBO humorist “Pig Maher” is nothing new for Fox. They have frequently descended to this juvenile taunt which somebody over there thinks is clever.
And Maher is not the only victim of Fox’s childish display of pseudo-journalism. Sen. Al Franken is almost exclusively referred to as Sen. Smalley (from Franken’s Stuart Smalley character on Saturday Night live a decade ago).
The Fox Nationalists appear to be upset that Maher, a well-known atheist, performed a routine that mocked the religious zealotry of the Republican presidential field of candidates. Maher astutely pointed out that if three of them (Bachmann, Perry, and Cain) claim that God called them to run for president, then God must be fucking with two of them. Maher also noted the reverence for ignorance that is so prevalent in the GOP:
“Knowing things is seen as an affront to the all-knowing. And there’s nothing they hate more than secular eggheads trying to fix problems like poverty and health care. Honestly, doesn’t a lot of the tea party philosophy boil down to ‘Who needs the government when you have Jesus?'”
By resorting to moronic pejoratives to insult Maher, Fox is just affirming his analysis that they are populated by idiots who are serving an audience of imbeciles. At least they’ve done their market research. But are they really so devoid of self-awareness that they can’t comprehend the dichotomy in their headline? They are castigating Maher for mocking religious conservatives in the same sentence wherein they are calling him a pig.
We can expect Fox to be a feverish purveyor of lies and disinformation. That is, after all, their business model. But what on earth compels them to reveal so nakedly their puerile absence of civility – or intellect? Is it just that they know their audience well and are afraid to go over their dimwitted heads?
Fox News spent much of the past two years openly promoting the Tea Party. They beseeched viewers to attend rallies, donated millions of dollars of valuable air time, propped up candidates, and even branded events as Fox News productions. Fox News anchors were dispatched to rallies where they served as Tea Party MCs. Tea Party Express founder, Sal Russo, said that “There would not have been a tea party without Fox.”
From its inception the Tea Party was a phony circus of right-wing propaganda that never warranted the attention it received from the press. It couldn’t muster support from the public at large that exceeded the mid-twenties. Yet Fox News provided wall-to-wall coverage on a daily basis.
Now Fox has published an article by their digital politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, arguing that the Occupy Wall Street movement ought not to be getting coverage from the media. Stirewalt warns against “the temptation to overhype Occupy events,” and offers his advice that…
“…the press should consider taking a deep breath when it comes to coverage of the current movement.”
How convenient. After two years of relentless promotion of an AstroTurf affair that the majority of Americans oppose, Fox thinks that a truly grassroots movement, whose goals are supported by an overwhelming majority, should be swept aside and denied coverage.
Stirewalt’s article was notable also for its brazen bias against the Occupy movement. He begins the piece by saying…
“The California-as-Greece meme picked up steam this week when Oakland turned into the poor man’s Athens.”
However, he provides no support whatsoever for his fabricated meme, nor any evidence of it picking up steam. He further characterizes Occupiers as a “nuisance” and resorts to juvenile pejoratives like “malodorous emanations” to describe the protesters.
Stirewalt belittled the participation of 100 veterans who came to support the Occupation saying that their presence “isn’t significant,” but that…
“It might be effective messaging for the protesters to put forward a military appearance to undercut the popular notion that they are a bunch of hippies.”
First of all, the “popular notion” Stirewalt refers to is one that he and his cohorts at Fox invented. But more importantly, his dismissal of the veterans is an unconscionable display of disrespect. What ever happened to thanking them for their service?
This is typical of the hypocrisy in play at Fox News. They only appreciate veterans when they can be exploited for political gain (or utilized as fodder in phony wars). And they only assent to covering news when it conforms to their predetermined bias. This graphically illustrates the dishonesty of a so-called “news” organization that renounces coverage of popular protests despite having been such zealots for another group of protesters whom they just happen to favor.
The top headline today on Fox Nation is a conspicuously slanderous lie (as opposed to their conventional slanderous lies): Oakland on Fire: Obama Gets Class War He Asked For.
First of all, not only has Obama never asked for a class war, he has never even expressed support for the Occupy movement that the Fox Nationalists are inferring is a class war. This has been a disappointment to progressives who want the President to go beyond acknowledging the frustration of the protesters and the 99% of the nation whom they represent.
More importantly, the class war theme has been beaten to death by right-wingers intent on blaming the American people for the obscene economic disparity that is the work of wealthy corporations and their benefactors in Congress. If the elitist One-Percenters are afraid (and they should be) of the rampaging hordes approaching their villas with torches and pitchforks, then they should stop behaving like robber barons and start acting like patriots. They should care more about their country and fellow citizens than they do about hoarding wealth, ripping people off, and destroying the economy.
As Billy Joel said (sort of), “We didn’t start the [class war] fire,” but we’ll be more than happy to finish it, and we will prevail. Revolution is in our DNA. It’s how we gained liberty from lords and monarchs a couple of hundred years ago, and we will do it again. And this time many of the lords are actually on our side. The enemy isn’t really the Upper Crusties, it’s the conservative media and politicians acting on behalf of a minority of ultra-rightist neo-fascists (and that is not a reference to Hitler, but to the actual definition of fascism, which Mussolini called “corporatism.”). With respect to the foregoing, the best thing I can do in response is to just reprise an article I wrote a few days ago on this very subject:
“Conservatives say if you don’t give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they’ve lost all incentive because we’ve given them too much money.” ~ George Carlin
The national debate triggered by the Occupy Wall Street protests has given the wealth gap a renewed focus in the public arena. And with good reason. That gap is wider today than it was just prior to the Great Depression; wider, in fact, than it has ever been. The brutality of that economic disparity has thrust our nation into a bitter and persistent recession. But it has also inspired millions of Americans to step forward and demand reforms that not only restore fairness, but readjust the balance of political power.
Conservatives regard this new activism as a declaration of class war. But it’s important to note that they only call it war when we fight back. The war was already in progress and, as Warren Buffett said, “We (the rich) are winning.” Now a new survey reveals that Buffett is not the only one-percenter that is fighting on our side. The Wall Street Journal (ironically) is reporting that…
“A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income. Fully 61% of those with net worths of $5 million or more support the tax on million-plus earners.”
We can also count Bill Gates amongst the one-percenters who advocate more progressive taxes.
[Note: The same segment from ABC’s This Week was posted on Fox Nation with a headline that perverts reality beyond all recognition: “Bill Gates Knocks Down Obama’s Millionaire’s Tax.” Gates did no such thing. He continues his remarks saying that taxing millionaires by itself will not solve the debt problem, but no one is suggesting that it will. And his support for taxing the rich more is clear and unambiguous.]
When two-thirds of the people that will be affected by a tax increase support the increase, it begs the question, who are the opponents? For the answer you need look no farther than the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives:
John Boehner: “[T]here’s nothing that’s disappointed me more over the last 8 weeks than to watch the President of the United States basically give up on the economy, give up on the American people.” […] “People are frustrated, and that’s why the House has been focused all year on trying to create a better environment for job creation in our country.”
Boehner is wrong about Obama. The President has not given up on the economy or the American people. He has given up on Boehner. And Boehner’s assertion that the House has been focused on creating jobs is laughable. He and his Republican troops have done nothing but obstruct progress on every legislative attempt to stimulate job growth. In fact, they have been working hard to recast the issue as one that is centered on those they call the “job creators.”
House Republicans have a web site at jobs.gop.gov. The funny thing about the site is that it has no content whatsoever that addresses the plight of workers or the unemployed. The site isn’t really about jobs at all, as the heading makes abundantly clear: The House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators. That’s an admission that the Republican agenda for jobs is really just an agenda for business owners and corporations. Click through to their plan and you will see a short list of proposals that hew narrowly to tax cuts for business, deregulation, and deficit reduction. It’s the same tired parade of failed policies that Republicans put forth as their solution to everything. None of those policies will produce jobs and, more importantly, they aren’t even what small businesses, the biggest driver of jobs, say that they want.
A new Gallup poll asked small business owners“What would be a primary motivation or reason for hiring any new employees?” The top three responses, representing 63% of respondents, were all related to demand.
“Small-business owners point to increased revenues (27%), an improving economy (20%), and growth or expansion of their business (17%) as their top motivations for hiring new employees in 2012.”
This survey affirms the analysis of most economists who agree that companies do not expand hiring when their taxes are cut or regulations are relaxed. They hire when they need to satisfy increased demand or exploit an economic opportunity. The Wall Street Journal surveyed a group of economists and concluded that…
“The main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand, rather than uncertainty over government policies, according to a majority of economists in a new Wall Street Journal survey.”
Once again, that’s the conservative Wall Street Journal reporting. It’s fair to presume that the economists the Journal surveyed were not from some sleeper cell of de-thawed Bolsheviks. In addition to this widespread agreement by experts that the GOP fixation on tax relief for the Upscalers is fiscal folly, the popular sentiment on Main Streets across the nation overwhelmingly favors making those who have benefited the most contribute more to restoring our country’s economic health. After all, the rich are the only ones who have not been called upon to share the sacrifice.
When the big picture is unfurled there are conclusions to draw that are too obvious to ignore. The American people support raising revenue via taxes. Economists agree that demand, not tax relief, drives job creation. And a majority of millionaires believe that their own tax rates are too low. Yet Republicans in Congress continue to stonewall. The intransigence of the GOP serves no constituency and has no discernible benefit politically. The only plausible return for their bullheadedness is in the form of financial support from a deep-pocketed minority of one-percenters who simply cannot abide one more cent in taxes.
That’s the naked truth that Boehner & Co. are having such a hard time defending. That’s why the Occupy movement has captured such a broad swath of public support. And that’s why it is all the more peculiar that the media still fails to present these issues honestly, and that many in the Democratic Party, including the President, have not unambiguously acknowledged the voice of the people and joined the fight for economic justice. If the wealthy have conceded that the people’s position is the one that ought to prevail, then where are the people’s representatives?
It is no wonder that Fox News is the oldest skewing network in cable news. They have captured the curmudgeon demographic and completely abandoned any attempt to appeal to a young audience.
Today’s headline on Fox Nation is a good example of the animosity that drives away young viewers and readers: Obama Reduced to Writing Op-Eds in Student Newspapers.
Reduced? Since when is communicating with college students considered to be some sort of lowered standard of engagement? The student newspaper to which Fox referred is the Harvard Crimson from Obama’s alma mater. The President’s column addressed the steps his administration is taking to ease the burden of the crushing debt students suffer due to the high cost of education.
In one headline Fox has insulted students as being unworthy of attention, and diminished education as a frivolous endeavor. And the headline was entirely the work of Fox’s editors. There was nothing in the source article that sunk to such disparaging terms. In fact, the article offered an uplifting message of hope for restoration of the opportunity that was once so much a part of the American Dream.
Obviously the Fox Nationalists think that communicating such hope directly to the next generation of America’s leaders is a contemptible act that reflects poorly on the President. It is that condescending perspective that makes Fox a pariah amongst everyone but the codgers who drool over photos of Sarah Palin in red leather.
It is the same perspective that elevates ignorance as an aspiration. Fox is the nation’s preeminent purveyor of distrust for intellectual achievement. They are the partners of the Republican Party in an effort to dumb-down the citizenry by mocking education and promoting idiots to positions of authority. And make no mistake, it is intentional. They know that it is far easier to manipulate people when they are uneducated and uninformed. They know that it is the only way that they can advance their agenda that benefits the wealthy and corporations at the expense of those they are deceiving. And they are good at it. Studies show that Fox viewers are significantly more misinformed than viewers of other networks. What’s more, the studies show that the more one watches Fox News, the more misinformed they become.
So the next time you see Fox slamming the President for daring to lower himself to communicating with college students, remember that this is in line with their business model of targeting the stupidest and oldest segment of the audience. And so far as I’m concerned, they can have ’em.
Running for president was once the province of seasoned public servants with extensive knowledge of law and history, and practical experience managing complex enterprises. Today running for president is a public relations strategy for boosting book advances and landing contracts with television news networks.
Remember when Sarah Palin was the darling of the right and she was on the news every day pontificating in her uniquely incoherent way? Remember when reporters followed her brightly colored bus around the country desperately trying to get her to look in their direction?
Remember when Donald Trump was on the news every day with increasingly wild assertions about his own magnificence or the President’s citizenship? Remember how unquestioning the press was about his phony resume and declarations of achievement and wealth?
Remember when Chris Christie was on the news everyday parading his arrogance around as if it represented moral character? Remember how he led the polls for the GOP nomination despite not even being a candidate?
Remember when Michele Bachmann was on the news every day after she won a straw poll in Iowa that had a notoriously spotty record for predicting the GOP nominee? Remember when she was the front-runner for the Republican nomination and the heir to Sarah Palin’s Tea Party princess crown?
Remember when Rick Perry was on the news every day and was heralded as the serious contender for the GOP nomination with executive experience and bona fide credentials? Remember when his name could mentioned without invoking uncontrollable laughter?
Before long we will be asking: Remember when Herman Cain was on the news every day and leading in the polls against more establishment candidates with conventional backgrounds? Remember when people actually took seriously the former head of a pizza chain as a possible president of the United States?
But the real question we should be asking is what has happened to our national pride? What has happened to the aspiration for excellence and the admiration for brilliance? Why have so many Americans embraced an anti-intellectual pursuit of averagism? When did their standards decline to the point that they have contempt for Harvard graduates and reverence for governors who quit mid-term?
The parade of Republican front-runners would be an embarrassment to any party other than one preoccupied with tea. And the thinness of their character is evidenced by how quickly they disappear, leaving merely remnants with vague resemblances to persons we think we used to know. Which leaves us asking, Sarah who?
This never fails to brighten my day. Some right-wingers are so stupid they don’t even know they are refuting their own positions with some of the attempted slander they present.
Today Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment (notoriously stupid to begin with) posted an interview of an Occupy Wall Street protester. She was prodded about reports of malfeasance on the part of the Occupy movement or some of its participants. The purpose being to smear the protest movement with phony allegations and rumors. The result was an article with the headline: ACORN Front Group Pays Homeless People ‘$10 a Hour, $100 a Day’ to Protest at Occupy Wall Street.
The only problem is that the woman in the video did not say that the allegedly hired homeless persons were paid to be protesters. What she said was…
“I know some people, homeless people, are getting paid to come here and mess things up.”
So her actual charge is that they were provocateurs hired to disrupt the protest, not to support it. She seemed earnest and well-meaning, but somewhat ill-informed in that her comments appeared to conflate reports of paid instigators with unrelated reports of ACORN hiring protesters. The ACORN story itself was obvious propaganda which I debunked last week. The absurd assertions of Fox News and others painted a picture of a bankrupt and disbanded non-profit group shelling out a quarter of a million dollars for extras to populate the scene at Zucotti Park.
As further evidence of the confusion of the woman in the video, her story didn’t even make sense. Why would ACORN pay people to disrupt a protest that they presumably supported? Anyone who has watched the news the past few weeks would have readily recognized the flaws in her comments and reputable journalists would not have used them, at least not without attempting get a clarification. But that doesn’t stop the rocket scientists at BigGovernment who saw fit to post this interview anyway. Never mind that it fingered the Occupy movement’s opponents as saboteurs and dirty tricksters. What’s more, it revealed that Breitbart’s prior efforts to miscast the Occupiers as shills was a lie. If this woman is to be believed, it was Breitbart’s side that were the shills. And she very likely got her misinformation (the ACORN nonsense) from “news” reported by Breitbart.
Despite the frequency with which right-wingers make themselves look like fools, it still astonishes me when they do so. And they even manage to escalate the flamboyancy of their blockheadedness with each new incident. With all the turmoil and tribulation in the world these days, I suppose I should grateful for the little bit of cheer they bring to my life. There really is nothing I enjoy more than when my ideological opponents show up for a debate with big, red, rubber noses and clown shoes.
Winter had been writing articles about how ACORN, the group of community organizers that ceased to exist more than a year ago, was secretly still operating and was behind the Occupy Wall Street protests. Her stories were 
It is the same perspective that elevates ignorance as an aspiration. Fox is the nation’s preeminent purveyor of distrust for intellectual achievement. They are the partners of the Republican Party in an effort to dumb-down the citizenry by mocking education and promoting idiots to positions of authority. And make no mistake, it is intentional. They know that it is far easier to manipulate people when they are uneducated and uninformed. They know that it is the only way that they can advance their agenda that benefits the wealthy and corporations at the expense of those they are deceiving. And they are good at it. Studies show that Fox viewers are