Markdown: Glenn Beck’s Groupon Ripoff Shills For His Sponsors

Posted by on May 28, 2011 at 2:44 pm. 4 Comments :

When Glenn Beck announced that he was launching a new discount service similar to the popular Groupon, it was widely dismissed as just another obvious vehicle for Beck to squeeze more money from his glassy-eyed congregation. He is rapidly developing a new brand of consumerism that merges the Home Shopping Channel with the Christian Broadcasting Network were it all presented by the John Birch Society.

The first offering at Beck’s Markdown.com was innocent enough – a chocolate retailer that aggregated unique sweets that almost anyone could enjoy. The second offering, however, is a different story.


That’s right – LifeLock. One of Beck’s biggest and most reliable advertisers on both radio and television. I’m sure the decision to feature LifeLock on his new web site had nothing to do with the fact that they have been paying him handsomely to sponsor his broadcasts for years. It was a totally objective choice with no ulterior motives or backroom profiteering. Uh huh.

Beck didn’t wait long to reveal the true intent of this knockoff site. He could have promoted a half dozen innocuous businesses before shilling for one of his sponsors. The fact that he didn’t wait tells us just how confident he is that his followers won’t object to being scammed so openly. They are so securely under his spell that no effort to disguise his self-serving intent is required. And they undoubtedly believe the mission statement Beck posted for his service:

“Markdown.com is a different kind of e-commerce site. Sure, we care about revenue and profit, but we care about honesty and integrity just as much. We believe in value, but we also believe in values—the idea that we should be guided by a set of principles that transcends money.”

Apparently disclosing that the product you are supposedly promoting impartially is actually your long-time sponsor is not amongst the set of principles that guide Beck. What’s more, Beck presents LifeLock as a company that adheres to high standards of integrity and says that…

“…the idea that you should always do what’s right, no matter the situation – can be found in everything the company does.”

That, however, is not the view of investigators at the Federal Trade Commission who charged Lifelock with “operating a scam and con operation.” The FTC, along with 35 state attorneys general, levied a fine of $12 million against the company for “deceptive business practices and for failing to secure sensitive customer data.” In short, investigators found that LifeLock failed to provide any of the services they promised.

LifeLock is just one of Beck’s advertisers with dubious histories. Goldline, TaxMasters, and FreeScore, have all been under legal scrutiny and drawn rebukes from consumer advocates. But that hasn’t stopped Beck from shilling for these firms and now hoisting LifeLock to a position of honor at his phony coupon shop. It just makes you wonder what’s next: Glenn Beck’s Patriot Tears?


[h/t Stephen Colbert]

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Fox News MUST Make Sarah Palin Declare [Updated: Fox Responds]

Posted by on May 27, 2011 at 1:30 am. 8 Comments :

Sarah PalinIs Sarah Palin running for president? Who knows.

What we do know is that she recently hired a chief of staff. She stars in a new bio-pic that will premiere next month in the early primary state of Iowa. She told Fox News that she has the “fire in the belly.” And now she has announced that she is embarking on a nationwide bus tour to “educate and energize Americans.”

Earlier this year Fox News suspended Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum pending their decisions on whether they were running for president. There was far less activity on their part indicating a candidacy, yet they were suspended and given a deadline for making their intentions known. When the deadline expired their contracts were terminated even though they still had not declared a candidacy.

Why isn’t Palin being held to the same standard? There is more than enough evidence that she is contemplating being a candidate seriously enough to warrant her suspension from Fox News. She can be reinstated later if she decides not to run.

How can Fox cover the campaign with her on their payroll? Her commentary with regard to the other candidates is tainted by the fact that she may be competing against them soon. One has to wonder if Fox already knows her decision and is keeping it under wraps to permit her, and Fox, to earn more money and promote her campaign.

Will Fox cover the premiere of her movie? Will they cover her bus tour? If she then announces that she’s running, didn’t she then get suspect contributions to her campaign from Fox? More broadly, no one in the press should cover her movie or her bus tour. She refuses to engage the press or the people in any open forum. Her only methods of communication are through Fox News, Facebook, and Twitter. Last week Palin told Sean Hannity that

“Candidates need to get their message out through the new social media. Don’t even participate in that goofy game that’s been played for too many years with the leftist lame-stream media.”

Fine. Let her have it her way. Until Palin is willing to stand before the people, or the people’s representatives in the press, she should be ignored. The press has no obligation to participate in the marketing of her brand.

Fox entered this year with five potential GOP presidential candidates in their employ. They still have two remaining. It is time for Fox to insist that Palin either declare for office or step aside. If she doesn’t, Fox should pull her off the air immediately. That’s what a responsible media enterprise would do. Which is why Fox will probably not do it.

[UPDATE] Fox News has lived down to expectations:

“”We are not changing Sarah Palin’s status,” Bill Shine, Fox News executive vice president of programming, told The Cutline.”

If anything, I think this indicates that Palin is NOT running. It seems unlikely that Fox would go to the trouble of affirming her status if they thought they would have to reverse themselves in a few weeks. I think they already know she isn’t running and are keeping it secret because once she is out of the contest her relevance (and value) crumbles. It’s a shame because I was hoping she would run. I even made a campaign bumper sticker for her and a possible Tea Party running mate that would save a lot of money and recycle some old campaign materials that were never used:


ACORN Pimp And Prostitute Going To Trial

Posted by on May 26, 2011 at 7:29 pm. 18 Comments :

O'Keefe and GilesJames O’Keefe And Hannah Giles are being tried for violations of California’s privacy laws. The plaintiff, ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, contends that O’Keefe and Giles unlawfully recorded conversations with him that were later edited to misrepresent his remarks.

O’Keefe and Giles filed separate motions to dismiss the case and the court ruled against (pdf) both of them.

O’Keefe claimed that, the California law not withstanding, he had a First Amendment right to surreptitiously record and publish private conversations with anyone he felt like. The court disagreed saying that the law prohibiting recordings to which both parties have not agreed, and for which there was a reasonable expectation of privacy, did not have an exception for the media. The court cited precedent that said:

“…the state may not intrude into the proper sphere of the news media to dictate what they should publish and broadcast, but neither may the media play tyrant to the people by unlawfully spying on them in the name of newsgathering.”

Giles motion contended that she was not liable because O’Keefe was the one doing the recording. This laughable defense misunderstood the law to argue that only the person holding the recording device was liable. But it also demonstrated the shallowness of her loyalty as she quickly heaped all the blame on her partner to save her own skin.

Having ruled against both motions, the pair will go to trial for their offenses. If justice is served this won’t be the only time, and they won’t be the only ones. Ya hear that Andrew Breitbart?


George Soros Triggers Rightist OCD

Posted by on May 26, 2011 at 2:53 pm. 9 Comments :

The uber-conservative Media Research Center has been fixated lately on a pathetic “study” of the media reach of George Soros. The author, Dan Gainor, may be one of the most ineffectual researchers to ever publish on the InterTubes. The product of his research seems more like a symptom of the debilitating syndrome that hobbles many of his ilk, OCD: Obsessive Conservative Disorder. The latest chapter is the third of a four-part series. Let’s re-cap:

In Part One, Gainor introduced his premise that George Soros “has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets.” He never documented any ties other than some donations to charitable organizations, none of which were major news outlets. There were some non-profit institutions that focus on journalism, but even in those examples Gainor didn’t explain how Soros’ donations would have given him any control over them. Neither did he cite any evidence that the organizations were influenced by Soros’ donations.

In Part Two, Gainor claimed to expose millions of dollars of influence peddling by Soros to media enterprises. For the most part it was a rehashing of Part One. The new information turned out to reveal that the organizations Gainor disparaged for their connection to Soros were also connected to right-wing billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and T. Boone Pickens. Gainor himself is the Boone Pickens Fellow at the Media Research Center.

Now, in Part Three, Gainor asserts that Soros-funded media “reach more than 330 million people around the globe.” Again, he never reveals how he arrived at that calculation. He merely cites a few examples that figure into the total without actually adding it up. And his examples are hysterically misconstrued. For instance, Gainor cites a $1.8 million contribution to NPR. That would represent a fraction of 1% of NPR’s funding, not exactly enough to wield much influence. And then Gainor frantically reports that…

“Soros funds nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States. Forty-five of those are financed through his support of the Media Consortium. That organization ‘is a network of the country’s leading, progressive, independent media outlets.'”

Did you get that? Nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States! Really? The forty-five that Gainor mentions as receiving funding via their membership in the Media Consortium actually receive nothing for their membership. In fact, they pay the Consortium to belong.

However, I think I discovered the real reason Gainor has been hammering on this. The Media Research Center is now featuring an ad that asks “Help us expose George Soros.”

“Left-wing billionaire George Soros has undertaken a war on conservative media to make it easier to spread his anti-American views, and the liberal media are his willing accomplices.”

The MRC says that if you make a donation today your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Will those matching funds come from a right-wing billionaire who has undertaken a war on liberal media? I don’t know. They don’t say where the money will come from. But we do know that the MRC is funded by Pickens and another media billionaire, Richard Mellon Scaife. We also know that they have partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News whose former managing editor, Brit Hume, considered them indispensable.

So perhaps this is just a symptom of another sort of OCD: Obtain Conservative Donations.


Fox News vs Fox News vs Girl Scout Cookies

Posted by on May 25, 2011 at 5:54 pm. 1 Comments :

This morning on Fox News there was a segment featuring two Girl Scouts who had initiated an ambitious campaign to save endangered orangutans. Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen were researching the project when they discovered that the palm oil used to make the famous Girl Scout Cookies was a major factor in the depletion of the rainforest that is the orangutan’s habitat. Thus began their effort to get the Girl Scouts to find an alternative to the palm oil in the cookies.

Anchor Jon Scott complimented the girls saying that “You’ve got quite a story to tell and quite a determined nature to take into college. […] Congratulations. I’m sure the orangutans are very happy.” Co-host Jenna Lee effusively praised them and suggested that they be “signed up” right away.

This would seem seem like a rather typical, albeit inspiring, human interest story for most news organizations, but for Fox News there is always something nasty squirming beneath the surface. And the nasty squirmer is frequently Glenn Beck. On May 6, these industrious Girls Scouts were cited by Beck in an entirely different, and decidedly negative, context.

In a program about “Indoctrination in the Classroom,” Beck runs through a list of incidents involving young activists that he portrayed as reckless and insubordinate. I covered the program at the time noting Beck’s animosity toward youth in general. His targets included students in Tucson who protested the elimination of Mexican-American studies classes. He also criticized a group of young environmentalists who are taking action to protect the environment that they will inherit. And he had this to say about the little troublemakers who were messing with his cookies:

Beck: “We also have two Girl Scouts in Michigan leading a campaign against their organization’s cookies saying the heavy use of palm oil contributes to destroying the rain forest and killing endangered species like orangutans.

“Keep killing the orangutans. The cookies are yummy.”

What a jerk! Here are the two girls, to whom Beck was being so arrogantly disrespectful. They hardly deserve that sort of treatment. In fact, they have been remarkably successful in getting the Girl Scouts to address their concerns. Yet Beck still laments the devolution of schools where he now believes that “our children are not only being short-changed, they are being turned in to slaves eventually.” He goes on to complain that “They are removing God and the Bible out of schools and replacing him or it with intellectual neutrality.”

Intellectual neutrality in an academic institution? Oh, the horror! The only place I see slavery being imposed is by the likes of Beck who think that kids should keep their mouths shut and refrain from committing themselves to improving their world. Even Beck’s colleagues, Scott and Lee, applaud these young activists. Here’s hoping that Madison and Rhiannon continue to speak out and provide a positive role model to other young people.


UNDEFEATED? Sarah Palin Goes Hollywood

Posted by on May 25, 2011 at 2:45 pm. 6 Comments :

Sarah PalinSarah Palin is about to hit the big screen with a two hour fantasy adaptation of her career in politics. Conservative filmmaker Stephen Bannon produced the crockumentary at the behest of TeamPalin. And if the comedy potential for this project weren’t inherent, the title of this tale of the half-term governor and defeated candidate for vice-president is reportedly “Undefeated.” I suppose that she and President McCain are getting ready for their walk down the red carpet when this thing premieres at the White House.

[Update] Reviews are beginning to trickle in.

Scott Conroy at RealClearPolitics was invited to review a rough cut of the film and wrote an extended analysis that described a work of blatant propaganda. The film lionizes the Mama Grizzly as a fighter against government corruption while omitting her own ethical lapses (i.e. TrooperGate) and pretending that embarrassing episodes, like her inability to tell Katie Couric what she reads, didn’t exist. Anyone who thinks that this fluff piece will provide useful information about Palin might better spend their time watching Alice in Wonderland. Conroy offers this synopsis of Palin’s morality play:

“Divided into three acts, the film makes the case that despite the now cliched label, Palin was indeed a maverick who confronted the powerful forces lined up against her to achieve wide-ranging success in a short period of time. The second part of the film’s message is just as clear, if more subjective: that Sarah Palin is the only conservative leader who can both build on the legacy of the Reagan Revolution and bring the ideals of the tea party movement to the Oval Office.

Rife with religious metaphor and unmistakable allusions to Palin as a Joan of Arc-like figure, “The Undefeated” echoes Palin’s “Going Rogue” in its tidy division of the world between the heroes who are on her side and the villains who seek to thwart her at every turn.”

The question I have is: at what point do Palin’s activities constitute a presumption of a candidacy for office? Conroy notes that she has hired a chief of staff and that “her team of advisers is operating under the notion that they are laying the groundwork for a future campaign, until they are told otherwise.” Yet she still retains a position with Fox News. Fox previously suspended (and later rescinded) contracts with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich due to their campaign activities. Mike Huckabee came under similar scrutiny but then announced that he would not run. It is time for Fox to demand that Palin declare her intentions or to remove her from her duties as a political analyst and contributor.

One explanation for the inaction by Fox is that they already know her intentions and are keeping them under wraps. That, of course, would be an egregious violation of journalistic ethics. A credible news enterprise would not withhold such obviously newsworthy information. The only reason to do so would be for the political and/or financial benefit of the subject and/or netowrk, and that is not the role of the media. Just the appearance of this conflict is enough to justify that Fox insist upon Palin making an announcement, one way or the other, or cutting her loose.

In closing, Conroy says that…

“The film’s impending release — and the frenzied media attention that it is sure to generate — will serve as a vivid wake-up call that despite the many obstacles in front of her, Palin’s entry into the race would turn the campaign on its head in an instant, just as it did in 2008.”

That may very well be true, but it should not be. This film is just an extension of Palin’s public relations strategy. She has not had a news conference, or an interview with an impartial, non-Fox reporter, since she quit being governor. Her sole methods of communication have been through Fox News, Facebook, and Twitter.

Consequently, the media should not be assisting her PR campaign by hyping her Tweets or this movie. Until she stands up before real representatives of the press, she should be ignored by the press. She is not a public figure, she is a product. And the media has no business participating in her marketing.

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How Roger Ailes And Fox News Have Sabotaged the GOP

Posted by on May 25, 2011 at 8:28 am. 1 Comments :

Originally published on Alternet

An article just published by New York Magazine is getting attention for its revelations about what Fox CEO Roger Ailes really thinks about his on-air personalities. The article titled “The Elephant in the Green Room,” began with this colorful introduction:

“The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election.”

This is not a new concept. In fact, I wrote about it in depth two years ago in “Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party.” Amongst the insider disclosures in the NYMag article are that Ailes thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot who hasn’t helped the conservative movement. Ailes also reportedly worried that Glenn Beck had become bigger than Fox News and was uncontrollable. Both of those assessments are obviously true, but what is unsaid is even more interesting.

Roger Ailes is directly responsible for elevating Palin and Beck to their current celebrity status. He cannot absolve himself of having inflicted those pests on America without admitting how dreadfully wrong he was in the first place by promoting them. Furthermore, he cannot pretend that they are aberrations. The Fox schedule is rife with the very same pestilence (see Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck). It is their trademark and extends far beyond any individual personalities.

The case was made long ago that Fox News is a blight on the media map. It is bad for journalism. It is bad for Democracy. It is bad for America. A so-called “news” network that repeatedly misinforms, even deliberately disinforms, its audience is failing any test of public service embodied by an ethical press.

However, there is a case to be made that Fox News is demonstrably harmful to the Republican Party. In fact, it may be the worst thing to happen to Republicans in decades. That may seem counter-intuitive when discussing Fox News, the acknowledged public relations division of the GOP. Fox has populated its air with right-wing mouthpieces and brazenly partisan advocates for a conservative Republican agenda. They read GOP press releases on the air verbatim as if they were the product of original research. They provide a forum where Republican politicians and pundits can peddle their views unchallenged. So how is this harmful to Republicans?

If all we were witnessing was the emergence of a mainstream conservative network that aspired to advance Republican themes and policies, there would not be much of note here. Most of the conventional media was already center-right before there was a Fox News. But Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). So while most Americans have never heard of actual Republican party bosses like House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, posers like Joe the Plumber and Andrew Breitbart have become household names.

Fox News has descended into depths heretofore reserved for fringe characters. They are openly promoting the wackos who believe that President Obama is ineligible to hold office because he isn’t a U.S. citizen. They feature commentaries by secessionists and even those calling for an overthrow of the government and the Constitution. This development was inadvertently addressed by one of Fox’s own:

“If crazy ideologues have infiltrated the news business, we need to know about it.” ~ Bill O’Reilly, 7/16/09

Well said. The Fox News audience is being dumbed down by a parade of paranoid know-nothings. This strategy appears to be successful for Fox in that it has attracted a loyal viewership that is eager to have their twisted preconceptions affirmed. The conflict-infused fare in which Fox specializes has been a ratings juggernaut – just like any good fiction. However, this perceived popularity is having an inordinate impact on the GOP platform. By doubling down on crazy, Fox is driving the center of the Republican Party further down the rabid hole. They are reshaping the party into a more radicalized community of conspiracy nuts. So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders.

That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party. Most Americans do not believe that we are on a march toward socialism, led by a Muslim alien, and bankrolled by a Jewish Nazi sympathizer. The truth is that most Americans think that the loopy yarns spun by Fox News are fables told by madmen – and believed by even madder men and women who wallow in their doomsday utopia.

Consequently, the Party of Fox News has materially damaged their political allies in the GOP. Many of the recent candidates endorsed by Fox were embarrassing losers. There was Christine O’Donnell (DE), Joe Miller (AK), Ken Buck (CO), Linda McMahon (CT), Carly Fiorina (CA), Sharron Angle (NV), and Carl Paladino (NY). In every one of those cases the Tea Party candidate ousted the more establishment Republican, and then went on to defeat. And that was during a Republican wave election cycle.

This is a textbook example of how the extreme rises to the top. It is also fundamentally contrary to the interests of the Republican Party. The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds. It seems like such a waste after all of the effort and expense that Fox put into building a pseudo-journalistic enterprise with the goal of confounding viewers with false news-like theatrics.

The recent GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina illustrated this divide between the interests of Fox News and those of the Republican Party. The only candidates they could muster were second and third tier players with little chance of getting the nomination: Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain. These candidates generally pull in single digits in most polling. And of these, Cain, the pizza maven, was widely regarded as the winner by pundits and Fox focus groups.

The rest of the field has been dominated by sideshows like Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump, or abstainers like Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, Haley Barbour, and Mitch Daniels. This deficiency of serious contenders was lamented by Ailes in the NYMag article:

“Ailes’s ­candidates-in-­waiting were coming up small. And, for all his programming genius, he was more interested in a real narrative than a television narrative – he wanted to elect a president. All he had to do was watch Fox’s May 5 debate in South Carolina to see what a mess the field was – a mess partly created by the loudmouths he’d given airtime to and a tea party he’d nurtured.”

Ailes has no one to blame but himself. His mission for Fox News has always been to be the voice of the opposition. Yet, despite the torrid embrace between Republicans and Fox News, it is apparent that Fox is the source of a sort of friendly fire that is decimating the GOP by exalting its most outlandish and unpopular players. The Psycho-Chicken Littles are coming home to roost.

Even if we give Ailes the benefit of a doubt, and accept that he may have had an awakening and repentance, the disparaging characterizations of Beck and Palin are going to have to be addressed. Will Palin post an angry Tweet refudiating Ailes and defending her smartness? Will Beck place Ailes’ picture on his blackboard in between Karl Marx and Frances Fox Piven? Will Ailes issue a press release disclaiming the NYMag article? If so, he will, in effect, be re-embracing the unsavory characters from whom he seems so anxious to distance himself. So far, the only response has come in the form of a statement to the New York Times from Fox News executive vice president of programming, Bill Shine:

“I know for a fact that Roger Ailes admires and respects Sarah Palin and thinks she is smart. He also believes many members of the left-wing media are extremely terrified and threatened by her. Despite a massive effort to destroy Sarah Palin, she is still on her feet and making a difference in the political world. As for the ‘Republican close to Ailes’ for which the incorrect Palin quote is attributed, when Roger figures out who that is, I guarantee you he or she will no longer be ‘close to Ailes.'”

Is there any significance to the fact that Ailes did not respond himself? He is not exactly a shrinking violet. He has made it clear in the past that he would not tolerate anyone “shooting in the tent.” Yet now he is conspicuously silent and the statement from Fox defended only Sarah Palin. Fox didn’t refute the article’s characterization of Ailes’ view of the presidential field. There was also no denial that Ailes actively recruited Christie (and perhaps others) to run for president, not exactly the role of the head of a “fair and balanced” news network. Plus, it left out Beck entirely. There is more than a hint of plausibility that Ailes has deliberately withdrawn from criticizing the article. [Note: Neither Palin nor Beck has made a single public comment about this article either, despite their propensity for striking back at critics.]

So where does this leave Fox viewers? If Palin is an idiot and Beck is a lunatic, what shall we call the folks who have idolized them for so long? By finally telling the truth about his star pundits, Ailes has insulted his gullible audience. They obediently followed Caribou Barbie and the Weeping Profit for two years only to find out that they are frauds who don’t even have the respect of their co-workers or their boss. Who will lead them now? Charlie Sheen? Victoria Jackson? I believe Harold Camping may be available. Perhaps they could just let the people decide with new episodes of Tea Party Idol or So You Think You Can Rant.


Why Do Tea Baggers Idolize Ayn Rand?

Posted by on May 24, 2011 at 2:46 pm. 40 Comments :

I have never really understood how the Evanga-publicans, Tea Baggers, and Foxpods could have taken Ayn Rand to their hearts. She is a despicable proponent the most extreme brand of selfishness and Narcissism. (Hmm…maybe it’s not so hard to understand after all). And she is an avowed, nearly militant, atheist. How does that jibe with the Christo-centric rightist movement in America?

The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. Rand’s philosophy would be abhorrent to conscious religious conservatives. The problem is that so many of them are closer to catatonic than consciousness. Thankfully, most Americans are more aware and have dismissed Rand and her breed of mean-spirited egoism. The recent film version of her “Atlas Shrugged” was a monumental failure, creatively and financially.

But that doesn’t mean that her fans are non-existent or immaterial. So it was nice to see this video from the American Values Network and the accompanying documentation of Rand’s dementia:

From the American Values Network web site:

Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged has been among Amazon’s top 20 best sellers for much of the past year. This year she’s outsold Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and The Shack combined! Rep. Paul Ryan–the Republican choice to address the nation following the State of the Union and author of the Republican budget–credits Ayn Rand as the reason he got in to politics, and he requires all his staff and interns to read her books.

So who is Ayn Rand, and why this spike in interest in her teachings? Ayn Rand has resurfaced in recent years as the philosopher championed by the Tea Party and many prominent Republican leaders. But, as conservative evangelical icon Chuck Colson recently pointed out, Ayn Rand’s strong atheism, absolute rejection of Christ’s teachings, and goal of replacing religion with her belief system stands in total opposition to all that which America’s faith community holds most dear.

And a few quotes from Rand:

“I don’t approve of religion.”

“[Faith] is a sign of a psychological weakness. . . I regard it as evil to place your emotions, your desire, above the evidence of what your mind knows. That’s what you’re doing with the idea of God.”

“What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.”

“It must be either reason or faith. I am against God for the reason that I don’t want to destroy reason.”

Feel free to pass this on to anyone you know who has been suckered in by this freak.


Understatement Of The Year: Sarah Palin Is An Idiot

Posted by on May 23, 2011 at 7:50 pm. 2 Comments :


In an article published in New York Magazine, Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News is reported to have told colleagues that he thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot and unhelpful to the conservative movement.

Really? Gosh, we never knew. But to be fair, there was a lot more of interest in that article than the sensational headline that is getting all the attention. I’ll have an article at Alternet soon (and here at News Corpse in a day or two) about how Fox News has sabotaged the Republican Party, but in the meantime, here is a brief summary of some of the more salient facts in the NYMag article:

  • Ailes thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot (a given).
  • Ailes threatened to fire Glenn Beck as talks over his departure broke down.
    “…as with everything concerning Glenn Beck, the situation was a mess, simultaneously a negotiation and a therapy session.”
  • Ailes was upset that he could not elect a president.
    “the Fox candidates’ poll numbers remain dismally low.”
  • Ailes tried to recruit Chris Christie to run for president.
    “…he fell hard for Christie, who nevertheless politely turned down Ailes’s calls to run.”
  • Ailes is the GOP kingmaker.
    “You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger.”
  • Ailes threatened to quit in 2008.
    “Ailes confronted Murdoch after he learned Murdoch was thinking of endorsing Obama in the New York Post.”
  • Ailes is a true believer in the lunatic theories his network broadcasts.
    “Ailes told Axelrod that he was concerned that Obama wanted to create a national police force.”

Perhaps the most profoundly disturbing item in this list is that Ailes is recruiting candidates for the GOP. How can the head of an alleged news network have that sort of political role? What if he succeeds in persuading Christie, or someone else, to enter the race? How could his network cover the campaign with any impartiality? Not that they would anyway, considering that half of the Republican field is on the Fox payroll, but this would blow any pretense of being “fair and balanced” out of the water. No wonder Rupert Murdoch’s own son-in-law said of Ailes…

“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.”

Ouch!

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Fox News To Hire Judgment Day Preacher Harold Camping

Posted by on May 22, 2011 at 10:22 am. 15 Comments :

Pray for Fox NewsWith his latest prediction of Armageddon behind him, Judgment Day Preacher Harold Camping is looking forward to his new position at Fox News as a politics and religion commentator. The announcement of this addition to Fox’s roster of pundits came this morning from Fox Vice President and Washington managing editor Bill Sammon:

Sammon: We are pleased to begin what we believe will be a long and fruitful relationship with this distinguished observer of American culture, religion and society. Harold has a keen insight into current affairs and a connection to America’s faith-based community. He also has a predictive track record that fits squarely with the team at Fox News.

Sammon is quite correct in that assessment of Camping’s history of forecasting. He is at least as accurate as the stars on the network. For instance:

  • Bill Kristol predicted in 2003 that “American and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators.” In 2008 he predicted that “Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary.”
  • Glenn Beck predicted an economic collapse in November of 2009 and warned his viewers to “find the exit closet to you and prepare for a crash landing. Be prepared, it’s coming. Most likely after Christmas, you’ll start seeing the effects of what they are doing to the economy.” The Dow is up 25%, and unemployment down 10% since then.
  • Newt Gingrich’s prediction about a post-Iraq war was that “once you don’t have Saddam Hussein in Iraq […] the Syrians will start backing down and the Iranians will start backing down.”
  • Dick Morris predicted the candidates for the 2008 race for president would be Hillary Clinton vs. Condoleezza Rice.
  • Sarah Palin predicted that the result of passage of the health care bill would mean that “my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel.'”
  • Cal Thomas Predicted that “euthanasia is coming. You can call them death panels. That’s exactly what they’re going to be.”

A couple of weeks ago a study was released that showed that most pundits are only right in their prognostications about 50% of the time. The numbers were even worse for conservative pundits who, according to the researchers, were wrong more often than liberals.

Camping, a popular Christian radio broadcaster, could flow smoothly into Fox’s lineup. He shares most of the editorial slant favored by the network’s veterans. When reached for comment he said…

“What? Fox News? Oh yeah. Me and Roger [Ailes, CEO of Fox News] had lunch and discussed the return of Jesus. The world is ending, you know? What date is it? Could someone shut the window?”

That’s why Camping should fit right in with the rest of Fox’s commentators. There is certainly nothing in his past that would indicate that he would lower Fox’s average for accurate forecasting. He might even be a good replacement for the departing Glenn Beck. His areas of interest (politics, morality, the end of all human existence) match closely Beck’s favorite subject matter. In fact, with a little make up, Beck’s audience may not even be able to tell the difference.