HYSTERICAL! Fox News Says Another Network Is Unfair, Uses Dirty Tricks

Posted by on June 19, 2012 at 4:26 pm. 6 Comments :

Psychological Projection: A psychological defense mechanism whereby one “projects” one’s own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else.

For an alleged “news” network whose entire business model is misrepresenting facts, disparaging ideological adversaries, and deliberately twisting the truth beyond all recognition, to brazenly attack a competing network with allegations of similar behavior, is the textbook definition of “projection.” It is also unethical and uproariously funny.

Fox News dedicates its entire broadcast day to unfair distortions and dirty tricks. In recent weeks they have falsely accused President Obama of waging a war on religion for supporting women’s access to contraceptives; weakening the institution of marriage by voicing support for same-sex couples to wed; and unconstitutionally altering immigration law for exercising prosecutorial discretion to prevent young immigrants who broke no law from being deported.

Fox News has been caught airing Republican National Committee talking points as if they were news items, complete with the original RNC typos. They have distributed memos instructing anchors and reporters to use specific language that was advantageous to the GOP. Just a few weeks ago Fox aired a four minute campaign-style video that was an open attack on the President. Fox received so much criticism from the public and their peers that they tried to surreptitiously dispose of it, but not before it was captured and posted online for all to see. That’s the nature of the beast that we are dealing with here.

Yesterday MSNBC broadcast a video that accurately portrayed Mitt Romney as shocked by the technology at a convenience store sandwich counter. The video showed Romney describing his adventure ordering lunch, and using that experience to advocate for the ingenuity of the private sector. Fox News is now alleging that MSNBC inappropriately edited the video to unfairly create an impression of Romney as out of touch with average Americans. Fox said…

Fox News Projection

“To MSNBC viewers, it appeared to be a 49-second video clip introduced by veteran anchor Andrea Mitchell to illustrate her contention that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is ‘out of touch’ – what viewers didn’t know was that MSNBC had selectively edited the clip, manipulating viewer perception and keeping them from hearing Romney’s full message.”

First of all, Romney doesn’t need MSNBC’s help to create that perception. The man known best for saying that he likes to fire people, that his friends are NASCAR team owners, that his wife drives two Cadillacs, that corporations are people, and that he’s not concerned about the poor, is more than capable of demonstrating his own obvious alienation from the huddled masses who don’t happen to have a quarter of a billion dollars.

More to the point, however, the quote attributed to Romney is precisely how MSNBC portrayed it. Here is the whole thing with the part that was edited out in bold at the the end:

“I was at WaWas, I went in to order a sandwich. You press a little touchtone keypad – you touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier – here’s your sandwich. It’s amazing. People in the private sector have learned how to compete. It’s time to bring some competition to the federal government.“

It’s plain to see that the editing in no way changed the context or meaning of Romney’s remarks. With or without the extended segment, Romney was expressing his surprise that such sandwich assembly technology exists. And as if to underscore Romney’s unfamiliarity with the common touch-screen device, he referred to it as a “touchtone” keypad, reminiscent of old telephones from his youth.

Also, in his remarks Romney was making a comparison between a form required for a medical provider’s compensation, and a sandwich order at a convenience store. That is a stupendously inapt analogy. One involves an over-the-counter purchase of a cheap sandwich, while the other involves perhaps thousands of dollars and the need to insure correct administration and to prevent costly fraud. To be sure, there is plenty of room for improvement in how the government operates, but processing health care applications for doctors’ services is not the same as ordering a turkey on rye with mayo.

Fox News simply has no moral authority to judge the reporting on other networks. They have abandoned all pretenses of journalistic integrity and made it clear that they only exist as a propaganda tool for conservative corporations, politicians, and wealthy power elites. For a more accurate impression of the Fox News brand of fairness and balance, watch this video complied by Talking Points Memo.

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Glenn Beck Fluffer Conducts Softball Interview For CNN

Posted by on June 19, 2012 at 10:35 am. 6 Comments :

CNN, the network that is presently struggling in third place in the cable news field it once dominated, has published an interview of Glenn Beck that sets a new standard for obsequious pandering. The article is not much more than a promotional vehicle for Beck’s new media enterprise and fails to disclose that two Beck employees currently work for CNN (Amy Holmes and Will Cain).

The article’s lede concerns Beck’s announcement that he is folding his GBTV web video unit into his web tabloid site TheBlaze. The author, Steve Krakauer, makes little mention of Beck’s vulgar rhetoric and conspiratorial delusions, instead describing Beck euphemistically as “a man full of complexities.” The only complex that can be associated with Beck is his Messianic one. He also doesn’t bother to offer any analysis of whether the merger is the result of rapid success, as Beck claims, or due to poor performance necessitating a merger to reduce costs.

Krakauer takes Beck’s claims of his alleged success at face value. He repeats estimates for subscriber numbers without attempting to verify the claim or inquire as to whether they are actually paying for the service. GBTV offers free trials for new subscribers, but does not reveal how many subscribers are paying or how many cancel after the free trial expires.

Then Krakauer gets into some truly puzzling territory when he permits Beck to assert his brand of fairness and balance. Krakauer cites what he calls the “clear non-Beckness” of TheBlaze, and lets Beck complete the picture by saying that “If you just look at the comments section, there are people who read the Blaze all the time but hate my guts.” Why that would surprise anyone is beyond comprehension. The Internet has a wide open, frontier ethos that allows everyone access to everything. It stands to reason that Beck’s adversaries would visit his site, just as Tea Partiers show up at the DailyKos. That is not evidence that TheBlaze is independent of Beck, just that it is online. And Krakauer’s next example of Beck’s alleged impartiality is no better. He cites an incident when TheBlaze criticized a fellow conservative:

“[O]ne of the most memorable and talked about series of articles on TheBlaze.com was a meticulous debunking of the James O’Keefe NPR videos, which claimed to show an NPR executive denigrating the Tea Party, that ran on an Andrew Breitbart-associated website.”

Indeed, TheBlaze did publish a detailed breakdown of O’Keefe’s slanderous hoax. But what Krakauer leaves out is that Beck was not acting out of any sense of journalistic integrity. He and Breitbart were engaged in a bitter feud at the time, with each alleging the other was a backstabbing phony. That may have had something to do with Beck’s takedown of Breitbart’s protege. However, Krakauer uncritically lets Beck get away with portraying himself as even-handed, but misunderstood:

“I think that’s people forgetting who I was and what I was saying when I was on CNN before Barack Obama. […] Nobody ever, ever gives me credit for the times I’ve said on the air ‘the president is right on this, did this right’ or ‘the media is unfair by trying to say this about the president,’ or ‘the right is unfair.’ I bet I do that at least once a month.”

That’s just revisionist history on Beck’s part. He was broadly criticized for his dishonest and hateful rhetoric on Headline News. And, of course, it was that very rhetoric that got him his job at Fox after CNN ditched him. And the reason he doesn’t get credit for commending the President is because it occurred so rarely and only between accusations of fascism, socialism, racism, and threats of destroying America.

Astonishingly, Krakauer writes without any sense of irony that “Beck isn’t outwardly supporting either of the two major candidates in the 2012 election.” If he believes that he’s ready for the guys in white suits with the butterfly nets to take him to the friendly asylum in the country with the barbed wire fences. Does Krakauer think for a second that Beck would consider supporting the man he characterizes as a Stalinist bent on assuming tyrannical control of the nation and executing all resistors? Beck may not have endorsed Romney in so many words, but he has stated explicitly that America cannot survive another four years of Obama. So who do you think he’s supporting?

The article concludes with Krakauer gifting Beck with a closing statement that makes him appear to be some sort of visionary:

“We are on the threshold of something I think is as powerful as the Industrial Revolution was, except this one will happen in a very short period of time.”

Really? The threshold? Sorry but this revolution began at least twenty years ago. And many true visionaries were (and are) way ahead of Beck. The only thing Beck has done is to post web videos and publish an online tabloid-style news site. That has been done so much it’s almost passe. Every brick and mortar television station and newspaper has been doing it for years. Where’s the innovation? Saying his unoriginal venture is on par with the Industrial Revolution is like saying that starting a new blog today is on par with Gutenberg. Never mind that millions of bloggers have been doing for years.

CNN DebacleThis puff piece appearing on CNN is in line with their recent editorial direction. They have been heading ever more determinedly toward a Fox-Lite state that has done nothing for them but land them in the ratings cellar (a condition I wrote about just a couple of weeks ago). It’s a sad state of affairs for both CNN and the viewing public who would be better served by an honest, professional news provider than another megaphone for right-wing propaganda.


Showing Their True Colors: Fox News Embraces Incivility

Posted by on June 18, 2012 at 7:26 pm. NO Comments :

Pray for Fox NewsLast week the results of a study were released that measured the public’s perception of incivility in the media. Not surprisingly, Fox News had the honor of being viewed as the most uncivil news network.

This in itself is hardly news. What is immensely more interesting is that Fox News is actually proud of their exceptional rudeness. Today Fox News published an editorial by the uber-rightist Media Research Center’s VP of Business and Culture, Dan Gainor. The article took exception to remarks by President Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod, who came out in opposition to hecklers and other rude behavior intended to disrupt campaign speeches. Axelrod said…

“I strongly condemn heckling along Mitt’s route. Shouting folks down is their tactic, not ours. Let voters hear both candidates and decide.”

Axelrod was speaking to fellow Democrats and admonishing them to refrain from the sort of vulgarities that too often mar appearances by candidates from either side. He even went so far as to say that, even if Republicans employ these tactics, polite Democrats ought not to. So how was this plea for civility received by Gainor?

He immediately mocked the left as “the party of Occupy Wall Street fanatics [and] gay glitter bombers,” and assailed them for their “Alinsky-esque tactics.” He embarked on a rant blaming Democrats for every instance of poor behavior, while dismissing any rudeness by Republicans, including the recent episode where a Daily Caller “reporter” interrupted a presidential address.

Then, inexplicably, Gainor went off on a tangent where he seemed to cease to understand what heckling is. Amongst those he accused of being hecklers were Occupy protesters who objected to police abuse, journalists who complained when they were prohibited from covering a public event, and audience members who expressed disapproval of a speaker’s comments.

In conclusion, Gainor asserted that “Axelrod and the left are scared. They saw that Romney fought hard against opponents in the primary,” and he promised that Republicans would fight back. He growled that “if Obama can’t cage his lefty animals, the GOP will respond in kind. You’d think Axelrod would like it.”

That’s the right’s response to a top Obama adviser declaring that all of the childish heckling and rudeness, no matter what side, is inappropriate and should stop. Axelrod even used the word “condemn” to describe his feeling on the matter. Yet Gainor comes away from that statement with the impression that Axelrod “likes” public vulgarity.

It is that sort of incoherent reasoning that makes it nearly impossible to deal with narrow-minded ideologues like Gainor. And it explains why most people surveyed view Fox News as the most uncivil network in the news business. What was unexpected was that Fox would publish an editorial essentially bragging about being more repulsive than any other kid on the block. OK, Fox…you win. Congratulations.


What Does MSNBC Have In Common With Glenn Beck?

Posted by on June 18, 2012 at 12:33 pm. 3 Comments :

Last week Dylan Ratigan announced that he would be leaving his program on MSNBC. That leaves a vacancy in the afternoon for the network that could be used as an opportunity to jumpstart their stagnant ratings. Unfortunately, the programming geniuses at MSNBC seem to be more interested in committing ratings suicide.

According to Politico, MSNBC is planning to introduce a temporary program that will feature rotating hosts. Among those being considered are Steve Kornacki, Toure, Krystal Ball, Ezra Klein, and S.E. Cupp.

S.E. Cupp? Seriously? For those unfamiliar with her, Cupp is currently the host of a webcast for Glenn Beck’s GBTV. Why MSNBC thinks that adding Cupp to their schedule will benefit the network is incomprehensible. Do think that the trouble with MSNBC’s ratings is that they haven’t featured enough of Glenn Beck’s conspiratorial Tea Party dementia? Are they concerned that giving three hours every morning to Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman, is too little to satisfy MSNBC’s audience demand for right-wing dogma?

More likely MSNBC is adopting the Fox-Lite strategy wherein lazy programmers aspire to emulate Fox’s success with the idiotic assumption that it has something to do with their ideology. It doesn’t. CNN made that mistake and they are now floundering in third place. And falling for this fallacy is even worse for MSNBC because it risks alienating their core audience. Liberal viewers will quickly abandon the network if they perceive it as lurching rightward. And if MSNBC thinks that they will replace those viewers with converts from Fox, they are insane. Fox viewers are fiercely loyal and rarely leave the comfort of their conservative electronic hearth. Even Fox Business Network VP, Kevin Magee, recognized this when he warned his staff in a memo against employing Fox News methods:

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

It isn’t as if there aren’t plenty of other options. Journalist Joy-Ann Reid is currently an MSNBC contributor. As is Maria Teresa Kumar, who could fill a noticeable absence of Latino hosts in the cable news business. If they are determined to hire a Republican, how about Meghan McCain, the well-connected daughter of a senator/GOP presidential candidate? At least she isn’t kneejerk conservative, Tea Partier with ties to Glenn Beck.

Unless MSNBC is looking to trail Fox News by even greater margins, they should cease to consider S.E. Cupp as a host. Her brand of extremist conservatism is a poor fit for the network and a disservice to its audience. Just the fact that they would entertain the notion is evidence of how pathetically weak the media is and how utterly false the contention that it is unduly liberal.


Fox Nation Asks: Did Obama Violate His Oath Of Office?

Posted by on June 18, 2012 at 1:08 am. 2 Comments :

As bad as the Fox News Channel is, it does not even come close to the irresponsible, juvenile, wildly biased, stinking heap of dishonesty that is the Fox Nation web site. A casual glance on any day of the week will reveal an endless stream of puerile and partisan propaganda that seems to have been written by fourteen year old meth fiends after experimental electroshock therapy gone awry.

Today the Fox Nationalists posted as their featured headline story one of their standard cut-and-paste jobs whose only purpose was to disparage President Obama. This particular story raised the question as to whether or not Obama had violated his oath of office by instituting a policy to suspend deportations of undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children. The article quoted a source familiar to everyone who has studied corrupt cabinet officials.

Fox Nation - Alberto Gonzales

That’s right. George W. Bush’s crooked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales spoke to the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference and speculated as to whether Obama had violated his oath of office.

“To halt through executive order the deportation of some undocumented immigrants looks like a political calculation to win Hispanic votes and subjects him to criticism that he is violating his oath of office by selectively failing to enforce the law.”

This is the same man who, when being investigated for unlawful politicization of the Department of Justice, responded to inquiries from the Senate by answering “I don’t know” or “I don’t recall” at least 72 times.

Setting aside for the moment the inappropriateness of a shyster like Gonzales passing judgment on the legality of anyone else’s activities, he is displaying a profound ignorance of the facts relating to Obama’s recent decision.

First of all, it was not an Executive Order. It was merely an administrative determination by the Department of Homeland Security to employ prosecutorial discretion with regard to the specified immigrants. That’s something that is done regularly by the DOJ and every state attorney general. And even if it were an Executive Order, it would still be fully within the jurisdiction of the President to issue it.

Secondly, Obama cannot be accused of selective enforcement for a policy that applies so broadly to such a large community. And when you take into consideration that those affected are not even technically in violation of any law, then why should they be considered for prosecution in the fist place?

Gonzales was simply making a transparent attempt to pander to the audience of Teavangelicals at the conference. This is especially apparent in light of the fact that he has previously gone on record supporting the very same sort of policies that Obama enacted.

Of course, the Fox Nationalists ate this up and posted their article asking essentially if Obama was subject to impeachment. The gross partisanship and smear tactics that are evident every day on Fox Nation should disqualify Fox from being regarded as a news enterprise. Fox Nation is not some separate entity. It resides on the Fox News domain and it uses the resources of Fox News to ceaselessly bash the President and promote his opponents. If any unlawful activity is going on here, it is Fox News serving as an adjunct to the Republican Party and donating millions of dollars worth of promotion in violation of campaign finance laws.


Mitt Romney Spends Father’s Day Lying About His Past

Posted by on June 17, 2012 at 3:17 pm. 8 Comments :

His children must be so proud. This Father’s Day Mitt Romney is traipsing around the Mid-West in a bus, doing his best to avoid the press while connecting with the American people – well, at least the Bovine-Americans who came out to support his candidacy and chew their cud.

Mitt Romney - Got Mitt?

While on his “Every Cow Counts” bus tour, Romney consoled the rain-soaked voters in Ohio by saying of his hope to replace Obama that the country is about to get “a little whiter.” Actually, he may said “brighter,” but his Tea Party constituents know to translate it.

However, the real news that Romney made today was that, in addition to being a flip-flopping Etch-a-Sketcher, he is pathological liar. And I’m not even referring to his dishonest claims about President Obama, his misrepresentations about the economy, or his failure to be truthful about his proposed plans for a Romney administration. What’s really alarming is that he can’t even tell the truth about himself.

Today he told CSPAN that, “I didn’t go to law school, I didn’t practice law, but I like the idea of arguing points back and forth…” Somebody better tell Harvard Law School to demand their diploma back because Romney’s web site says that “After graduating from Brigham Young University in 1971, he earned dual degrees from Harvard Law and Harvard Business School.”

Then on Face the Nation, Romney told Bob Schieffer, “Bob, I don’t have a political career. I served as governor for four years. I spent my life in the private sector.” However, Romney began his non-existent political career in 1994, running for (and losing) the U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy. Then he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. After one term, he ran for (and lost) the GOP nomination for president in 2008. Finally, he is currently in the midst of his second campaign for president. Somebody should tell Romney that eighteen years of mostly losing doesn’t mean that you haven’t had a political career, it means you had a “bad” political career. (h/t @LOLGOP).

Didn’t go to law school? No political career? These are flat out lies. Twelve years ago, all Al Gore had to do was have one misreported comment about “creating the Internet” get traction in the press and his name became synonymous with “stretching” the truth. Now Romney is telling outright falsehoods about his own past. Will the media hold him accountable? Will he at least become the butt of a few jokes? When someone lies about things they don’t have to lie about, it suggests that it’s just a part of their character. How can anyone take him seriously when he is so brazenly dishonest about himself?

[Update] The quote of Romney about law school was originally reported by ABC News, and that report has since been edited. I located video of Romney on CSPAN and it sounds like he first said that he “didn’t go to law school” and later corrected himself.

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John McCain Throws Mitt Romney Under The Corporate People’s Bus

Posted by on June 16, 2012 at 1:09 pm. 1 Comments :

Remember when Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ, disagreed with President Obama’s attacks on Wall Street? Remember when Bill Clinton defended Mitt Romney’s record as a businessman at Bain Capital? Have you noticed that anytime an Obama surrogate says anything remotely contrary to a position taken by the President the media harps on it for days and characterizes it as a fracturing of support for the President?

Yesterday John McCain was interviewed on the PBS Newshour and made some remarks that utterly obliterated Mitt Romney’s position on campaign finance as well as the whole of his election operation. And, so far, it has been ignored by the mainstream press. Here is what McCain said (video below):

JUDY WOODRUFF: But in the wake of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United, we are seeing enormous sums of money going into this campaign, to the campaigns themselves, to outside supporters.

Is this — is it just inevitable that we’re now in a period where money is going to be playing this dominant role in American politics?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: I’m afraid, at least for the time being, that’s going to be the case, because of the most misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court I think in the 21st century.

To somehow view money as not having an effect on election, a corrupting effect on election, flies in the face of reality. I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff. So what we are. . .

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean one of the justices?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: One of the five Supreme Court justices that voted to invalidate what we know of as McCain-Feingold.

Look, I guarantee you, Judy, there will be scandals. There is too much money washing around political campaigns today. And it will take scandals, and then maybe we can have the Supreme Court go back and revisit this issue.

Remember, the Supreme Court rules on constitutionality. So just passing another law doesn’t get it. So I’m afraid we’re in for a very bleak period in American politics. You know, we all talk about — and you just did — about how much money is in the presidential campaign.

Suppose there’s a Senate campaign in a small state, and 10 people get together and decided to contribute $10 million each. You think that wouldn’t affect that Senate campaign?

JUDY WOODRUFF: This question of campaign money highlighted today by this — the announcement that there’s a huge amount of money coming in from one donor in the state of Nevada.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Mr. Adelson, who gave large amounts of money to the Gingrich campaign. And much of Mr. Adelson’s casino profits that go to him come from this casino in Macau.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Which says what?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Which says that, obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign — political campaigns.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Because of the profits at the casinos in Macau?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Yes. That is a great deal of money. And, again, we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization that Teddy Roosevelt had that we have to have a limit on the flow of money, and that corporations are not people.

That’s why we have different laws that govern corporations than govern individual citizens. And so to say that corporations are people, again, flies in the face of all the traditional Supreme Court decisions that we have made — that have been made in the past.

That’s about as strong a denunciation of Romney’s campaign as can be made without adding profanities. How can Romney balance his assertion that “Corporations are people, my friend,” with McCain’s total repudiation of that nonsense?
Jon Stewart Citizens UnitedAnd McCain goes further to blast Romney’s newest billionaire supporter, Sheldon Adelson, as injecting foreign money into American politics. McCain’s opposition to the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court shatters any argument that Romney could make to justify his reliance on billionaire donors and SuperPACs.

These are not the comments of some obscure, second-tier Romney supporter. John McCain is a top Romney surrogate, as well as the just past nominee for president from the Republican Party. And the sharpness of his criticism contrasts with the vague remarks from Clinton and Booker who, it could be argued, were merely acknowledging that Romney had been successful in business, but that those skills do not transfer to success in governing (as was the case in Massachusetts).

There are few examples of political contradiction more severe than that offered up here by John McCain. So where is the feverish reporting of a fracturing Republican coalition, or even an acknowledgement of the flagrant difference of opinion? This is not a tangential issue. It goes to the core of what is making Romney competitive as a candidate – his fundraising. Yet his top surrogate demolishes his position and, after trumpeting the alleged gaffes of Democrats, the so-called “liberal” media remains silent.


Fox News Reports: Rupert Murdoch Endorses Unconstitutional Lawlessness

Posted by on June 16, 2012 at 10:57 am. 2 Comments :

In the wake of President Obama’s announcement that his administration would suspend deportation of certain younger immigrants who came to this country as children, Fox News and a phalanx of Republican lawmakers rushed to characterize the plan as a violation of the law and a breach of the constitutional separation of powers. Never mind the fact that the immigrants affected by this initiative never broke any law, and that their immigration status would be technically unchanged, the panicked martinets of virtue on the right are aghast at what they perceive as an immoral grant of amnesty.

One notable exception to this is the CEO of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch. Along with fellow captains of commerce, Klaus Kleinfeld of Alcoa and Philippe Dauman of Viacom, Murdoch released a statement applauding the President’s action:

“We hope this prompts Congress to reach agreement on common-sense immigration policies that reflect American labor market needs and American values. Young people who had no choice over coming to this country, have grown up here and now want to become productive members of our society should not be treated like criminals.”

Yep, Rupert Murdoch said that. What’s interesting is that Murdoch’s statement stands in stark contrast to what some of his own employees at Fox News are saying on the subject. This has set off a battle over deportation, but it’s more of battle between Fox News with it’s boss, than with President Obama.

Fox News Immigration Battle

Sarah Palin: Our president still doesn’t understand the three branches of government. He thinks he can usurp the Congressional branch of our government and dictate and mandate a policy like this.

Charles Krauthammer: Beyond the pandering, beyond the politics, beyond the process is simple constitutional decency. This is out-and-out lawlessness.

Monica Crowley: It’s such a naked politically pandering move […] a breathtaking power grab by the president.

And the Republican parade of circular kneejerkers predictably piled on with hyperbolic accusations of political opportunism and illegality, beginning with the President’s GOP opponent who falsely describes the policy as an executive order.

Mitt Romney: I think the action that the president took today makes it more difficult to reach [a] long term solution because an executive order is of course just a short term matter.

Steve King (R-IA): Americans should be outraged that President Obama is planning to usurp the Constitutional authority of the United States Congress and grant amnesty by edict to 1 million illegal aliens.

Allen West (R-FL): Is this one of those backdoor opportunities to allow people in the next five months to get the opportunity to vote? Will we see Janet Napolitano and the President come out with a new edict that says since we allow these people to be here legally, we’re now going to allow them to vote? How far down the rabbit hole will it go?

Marco Rubio (R-FL): By once again ignoring the Constitution and going around Congress, this short term policy will make it harder to find a balanced and responsible long term one.

Dan Coats (R-IN): The administration’s unilateral decision today to give amnesty to certain illegal immigrants is not the answer.

Chuck Grassley (R-IA): The President’s action is an affront to the process of representative government by circumventing Congress and with a directive he may not have the authority to execute.

Lamar Smith (R-TX): President Obama and his administration once again have put partisan politics and illegal immigrants ahead of the rule of law and the American people.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC): President Obama’s attempt to go around Congress and the American people is at best unwise and possibly illegal.

By condemning the President in this manner, all of these stalwart, conservative politicians and pundits are also condemning their primary media benefactor, Rupert Murdoch, who supports Obama’s decision. It would be fun to ask Murdoch for his response to the charge that he advocates the unconstitutional usurpation of tyrannical powers on behalf of foreign criminals invading the country to steal our jobs. Especially when some of those making the charge work for him.

What’s worse is that the charges flying wildly from conservative ranks are wholly erroneous and irresponsible. There can be no constitutional infraction of law when there is no change in law whatsoever. The President is merely exercising the same sort prosecutorial discretion that is practiced everyday by the Justice Department and attorney generals in every state. And the charge that this policy is a path to amnesty or citizenship ignores the fact that there is no change at all in the legal status of those affected. Leading the way in delusional diatribes, as usual, is Allen West, who manages to squeeze a voter fraud conspiracy out of this issue.

Some of the President’s critics are decrying the policy shift as “political.” The problem with that complaint is that anything the President does between now and election day could be characterized as political. If he were to commit military resources to the Syrian rebels, whose need is dire, Republicans would denounce it as politically timed. The same criticism would emerge were he to greenlight the KeystoneXL pipeline, an action favored by the GOP. It literally wouldn’t matter what the issue is, the right would attack it as politics.

The truth is that the charge of politicization is itself political. It is the last resort of a critic who is unable to make any substantive criticism. And, in the end, what’s really wrong with political decision making? Isn’t it just the execution of policy that pleases a constituency? And isn’t it the role of public servants to produce the results that the public wants?

Let’s face it, this is just another example of President Obama being unable to do anything that will satisfy his critics. By taking affirmative steps on an important matter, Obama is accused of being political. Were he not to take such steps he would be accused of neglecting the duties of his office. In effect, the right is insisting that no president do anything of significance during an election year. Of course, if that were to occur that president would be maligned for being more interested in campaigning than governing. Lose/lose.

For the past three and a half years the Republicans have demonstrated their preference for legislative stalemate rather than risk the President achieving something positive for the nation and getting credit for doing so. They are putting their own electoral welfare and lust for power above that of the country, and that, more than anything else, is political.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Celebrity Arbiters

Posted by on June 15, 2012 at 3:20 pm. 5 Comments :

It is becoming almost too predictable that whenever you see a headline on Fox Nation you can assume that it isn’t the truth. Case in point: Today the Fox Nationalists posted an item about President Obama’s remarks at a fundraiser yesterday. The headline on Fox Nation is “Obama Tells Celebrities They’re the ‘Ultimate Arbiter’ of America’s Direction.”

Fox Nation

The quote cited by Fox, as lifted from the Associated Press, read, “You’re the tie-breaker. You’re the ultimate arbiter of which direction this country goes.” Guess what. That is not what Obama told the guests at the fundraiser (who were not necessarily celebrities). The full quote, which is available on the White House web site, reads:

“[U]ltimately you guys and the American people, you’re the tie-breaker. You’re the ultimate arbiter of which direction this country goes in.”

So contrary to the false impression made by Fox (and the AP) that implied the President was elevating a room full of celebrities to some sort of Politburo, the truth is that Obama was speaking broadly and including all of the American people. It was an outright expression of populism and democracy that Fox is trying to turn into some kind of elitism. The same phony characterization also turned up on Fox News with Megyn Kelly drilling home the elitist message.

Fox News

The funny thing is that, even if what Fox is saying were true, I would much rather have people like Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney influencing public policy than Romney’s cohorts like Donald Trump and Sheldon Adelson. At least I’d know that their motives were based on their principles and aspirations for a better world, rather than on self-interest and aspirations for more power and wealth.


Fox News: Simultaneously Pandering To And Insulting Latinos

Posted by on June 15, 2012 at 11:56 am. NO Comments :

Fox News has been at the forefront of advancing anti-Latino propaganda for years. Their coverage of issues affecting the Latino community has been as decidedly biased as … well, everything else on Fox News. And nothing is more representative of this bias than Fox’s approach to immigration. The network is relentlessly opposed to any comprehensive solution that treats immigrants like human beings.

Today Fox managed to outdo themselves in demonstrating their overt prejudice while at the same time ingratiating themselves to what they acknowledge is a large and growing audience. The following stories were posted in response to today’s announcement from the White House that certain young immigrants would be granted work permits rather than be deported.

Fox Nation Latino Immigration

On the Fox News Latino website the story was headlined, “Obama Administration Halts Deportations for Young Immigrants.” That’s a factually accurate description that treats the news in a neutral manner. The headline was accompanied by a sympathetic photo of a young Latina child draped with an American flag.

On Fox Nation the story was handled somewhat differently. The headline they went with was “Obama Administration Bypasses Congress, To Give Immunity, Stop Deporting Younger Illegals.” In that short sentence they managed to imply impropriety on the part of the administration, infer the controversial subject of amnesty, and insult Latinos by employing the dehumanizing label of “illegals” (even though the people affected by this initiative did not break any law). The photo accompanying this article was of adult Latinos sitting up against a wall in handcuffs.

The differences between these treatments of the same news story illustrates just how cynical and hypocritical Fox News is when dealing with issues that challenge their biases and their marketing agenda. For Fox to post an appealing, straight news article on their web site aimed at a Latino audience, but to post a blatantly derogatory piece on their web site aimed at Teabagging racists, reveals the dark side of Fox’s repulsive mission.

It is also notable that the Fox News Latino site posted the Associated Press article about the announcement in full. The Fox Nationalists posted only two paragraphs plus a video from Fox News of right-wing wacko Allen West expressing his outrage. This is further evidence that the Fox Nationalists want to avoid giving their dimwitted readers too much actual information, but prefer to throw up as much ultra-right-wing opinion as possible. Additionally, Fox Nation allows visitors to comment on the news item, while Fox News Latino does not. That decision helps to promote the sense of community amongst the wingnuts, but prevents the Latino visitors from establishing those community ties.

Not surprisingly, Fox News immediately cast the President’s proposal as an abuse of the legislative process and a backdoor to amnesty. For the record, the proposal does not offer amnesty or even immunity. It is a temporary measure to exercise prosecutorial discretion so that innocent persons are not unduly punished while a more comprehensive solution is negotiated with Congress. The plan only affects those who arrived in the U.S. before age 16, are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military.

The way the two Fox news divisions handled this event is typical of their dishonest presentation of the news. The framing on Fox Nation is pretty much how one would expect it to be – bursting with prejudice and hatred. However, the pandering ploy used at Fox News Latino is insulting and exacerbates the biases that Fox exhibits elsewhere in its reporting. Hopefully Latino audiences will look deeper than just the Fox site that is attempting to exploit them so that they see the enterprise for what it is.