CONFIRMED: Right-Wingers Mostly Wrong

Posted by on May 3, 2011 at 12:12 pm. 14 Comments :

The pundit class in American media has long been deservedly regarded with disdain. They are, as a group, an arrogant collection know-nothings who, via intense self-delusion, think they know it all. I addressed this sorry situation four years ago when I labeled them The PEP Squad: Perpetually Erroneous Pundits. The gist of that essay was to point out that once you become a member of the fraternity it doesn’t matter how much you get wrong, you will still be invited back to deliver more of your bad advice.

Now there is evidence from an academic study of contemporary punditry that shows that the accuracy of most pundits is no better than 50/50. So if you can flip a coin you’re as smart as the average pundit.

The most interesting conclusion of the report is the confirmation that liberals are accurate more often than conservatives. That may be the result of the inherent slant of factual information that was first identified by fake pundit Stephen Colbert who noted that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

The top performer in the study is Paul Krugman of the New York Times. The worst performer is uber-pundit George Will.

The study has some fairly serious methodological flaws in my opinion, including the omission of Fox News from the study. However, the most prominent flaw is that it included currently serving politicians in the roster of pundits. When politicians pontificate on current affairs they are not making predictions – they are campaigning. Therefore, they are not providing their honest opinions about what they believe will happen. They are attempting to influence public opinion to produce the result they hope will happen. To be sure, some bona fide pundits do the same thing, but at least they don’t have the direct conflict of interest that sitting senators have.

It is fairly safe to assume that the results of the study would not change materially if the politicians were removed. Anyone paying attention to media prognosticators over the years already knows that their success ratio is pathetic. If someone in almost any other job made mistakes as frequently as these losers, they would not have a job for very long. But such are the perks of PEP Squad membership.

What we need is a Pundit Certification Council. The purpose of this would be to rate pundits on their accuracy and impose mandatory labels. If they fall in the top third percentile they can be regarded as “experts.” Those in the middle would retain the “pundit” label. And those in the bottom third would have to be designated as “propagandists” wherever they appeared in the media.

This would provide some measure of truth in punditry. It would incentivize opinion givers to strive for accuracy, and give networks, newspapers, etc., a tool to assess the performance of their editorial staff. Then, if they choose to keep propagandists on their payroll, it would be apparent to their viewers and readers. Just imagine tuning in to This Week next Sunday morning and seeing, “George Will, ABC News Propagandist,” in large type below his deceitful talking head.

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Judge Dreadful: Andrew Napolitano Mourns Osama Bin Laden

Posted by on May 2, 2011 at 11:18 pm. 14 Comments :

It looks like Fox News may be able to call off their search for Glenn Beck’s replacement. If drooling delirium and glassy-eyed insanity is the criteria, then Judge Andrew Napolitano has the role sewn up. Today he opened his program on Fox Business Network, Freedom Watch, saying…

“Osama Bin Laden assassinated, killed on the illegal whim of the President.”

That’s right. Osama Bin Laden, a brutal commander of terrorists responsible for thousands of deaths, is finally found and dispatched, and Napolitano says that President Obama is the criminal. The only thing Napolitano needs to seal the deal is a blackboard tying George Soros and Van Jones into the operation as well. Napolitano continued…

“Tonight on the docket Osama Bin Laden is dead and the President thinks he has a right to kill whomever he wants so long as the person is a monster and the people support it. Of course the attacks on 9/11 were a horrific tragedy, but killing Osama Bin Laden is a symbol of all we’ve lost in this pointless war on terror and we can’t forget that.”

Whomever he wants? Napolitano thinks that the President’s decision to target the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who has been the subject of an international manhunt for ten years, is the same as a decision to kill anyone else with whom the President may have a beef. In Napolitano’s eyes there is nothing special about Bin Laden. Napolitano also believes that killing Bin Laden is “a symbol of all we’ve lost.” What would allowing Bin Laden to live and continue to murder innocent people be a symbol of, Judge? And why are you taking Bin Laden’s side in this against your President?

During the program Napolitano correctly criticized the Patriot Act, but conflated that unfortunate infringement of civil liberties with the mission to capture or kill Bin Laden. Despite the fact that the Bush administration exploited 9/11 to pass the bill, it never had anything to do with protecting Americans from terrorism. It was a cynical power grab on the part of Bush and a majority Republican congress (although way too many Democrats voted for it as well). For Napolitano to bring it up in the debate over whether Bin Laden should have been killed makes about as much sense as Beck’s theory that Muslims and teachers unions are conspiring to bring Sharia law to Wisconsin.

This must be Napolitano’s audition reel for Beck’s hour on Fox. And with delusional, fear-mongering material like this he could easily slip into the time slot without any of Beck’s addled fans noticing any difference.


Osama Bin Laden’s Death Certificate

Posted by on May 2, 2011 at 9:50 am. 12 Comments :

For the non-believers who watch way too much Fox News:


This may seem unnecessary, but I have already seen comments at Fox Nation by “morans” who doubt that Osama Bin Laden is dead. They argue that since Obama has already released phony copies of his birth certificate, why wouldn’t he lie about this too? They demand evidence: certificates; photos; a body; DNA. They think the sea burial is part of the plot to cover up the hoax.

But what would they do with the evidence? Would they accept a certificate of death? Will they conduct their own DNA analysis in a lab in their basement? The real question is: Will they ever get the psychiatric help they need so badly?

On another matter, Sarah Palin posted a message on her Facebook page that thanked everybody but President Obama. She even used weaselly code language to thank those who “laid the groundwork over the years to make this victory possible.” That’s code for the Bush administration and anyone but Obama. Stay classy Sarah.

History will forever record that President Barack Hussein Obama was responsible for bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice. Not George Bush. Not Zombie Reagan. Not Donald Trump. Not Sarah Palin. This is driving the wackoid wingnuts crazy(er).


Mitt Romney: Hang The Obama Misery Index Around His Neck

Posted by on May 1, 2011 at 2:47 pm. 5 Comments :

Last Friday Mitt Romney spoke before a gathering of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-funded lobbying group that bankrolls the Tea Party. In response to a question, Romney stumbled over language that comes perilously close to a lynching reference:

“Do you remember that during the Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter debates, that Ronald Reagan came up with this great thing about the Misery Index? And he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck and that had a lot to do with Jimmy Carter losing. Well we’re going to have to hang the Obama Misery Index around his neck. And I’ll tell you, the fact that you’ve got people in this country really squeezed with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard time making ends meet. So we’re going to have to do talk about that, and housing foreclosures and bankruptcies and and higher taxation. We’re going to hang him with that — uh, so to speak, metaphorically, with, uh, you have to be careful these days, I learned that — with an Obama Misery Index.”

With so many examples of overt racism threading through the fabric of modern Republicanism, it is tempting to interpret every alleged gaffe in the most negative light. While Romney should know better than to juxtapose the words “hang” and “Obama” so closely (and his attempted recovery shows that he does know), I don’t think this qualifies as a racist remark. He is clearly using the metaphor of “hanging an albatross” around one’s neck, not a noose dangling from a tree. However, he’s still not off the hook (if I may mix my metaphors).

His remarks begin by attributing the Misery Index to Ronald Reagan. That isn’t true.

“The misery index is an economic indicator, created by economist Arthur Okun, and found by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate.”

What’s worse though, from a strategic perspective, is that the Misery Index under Reagan averaged 12.19. Under Obama, so far, it is only 11.48. And that doesn’t take into consideration that Reagan had eight years to spread the misery out. Obama was saddled with the worst economic calamity since the the Great Depression and has only had two years to try to correct it. Nevertheless, he is still outperforming Reagan.


[Click to enlarge]

In addition, an analysis of the Misery Index from the Truman administration to the present shows that the misery produced by Republicans (10.64) was significantly worse than that by Democrats (9.17). So if Romney wants to raise the issue and hang it around anyone’s neck, he might not want to stick his out so far without looking at the facts.


Donald Trump’s Skin Is Thinner Than His Hair [Update: Trump Responds]

Posted by on May 1, 2011 at 11:25 am. 12 Comments :

At the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, Seth Meyers mocked both President Obama and Donald Trump. Obama laughed heartily. Trump seethed openly. Clearly he can’t take joke.

Trump’s petulant absence of humor is funnier than Meyers’ jokes. This guy is so full of himself he doesn’t have the good sense to pretend to laugh even though he knows he is on camera. Obviously he is not accustomed to being the butt of jokes. Can you imagine if someone with his emotionally stunted temperament were president? If Sarkozy made a friendly wisecrack Trump would nuke Paris.

[Update] After proving at the dinner that he is an insufferable ass, Trump runs to Fox News this morning to whine to the Fox & Friends Day Care kids that it was a “liberal room” and then blasts Meyers:

“I thought Seth Meyers – his delivery frankly was not good. He’s a stutterer.”

Really? Now he’s resorting to playground taunts? What a pathetic display of immaturity. Trump was obviously unprepared for the attention and seems to believe that he’s unassailable. Before the dinner he was asked by ABC News if he thought that Obama would have any Trump jokes and he said “I wouldn’t think [Obama] would address me.” Good call, Kreskin. Then afterwords he lies saying “Well, I really understood what I was getting into.” Apparently not. And the lameness of his response escalated after that with a ludicrous stab at empathy with the economic travails of ordinary citizens:

“I was certainly in a certain way having a good time listening. I don’t think the American people are having a good time with $5 gas. I was thinking to myself as they were doing this, you know, the American people are really suffering and we’re all [having fun at a gala].”

That didn’t stop him from attending the gala. And if he was thinking about suffering Americans while cavorting with the politicians and celebrities at this event, what does he think about while lounging around in his penthouse or sailing his yacht? Does he really expect that he will be the candidate of the struggling masses when what he is best known for is firing people during a time of high unemployment? That should appeal to distressed voters.

How appropriate that his candidacy is being brought down by a comedian. He really is a joke.


Andrew Breitbart’s Latest Lie Attacks Labor And Academia

Posted by on April 29, 2011 at 5:15 pm. 8 Comments :

Andrew BreitbartJon Lovitz used to have a character on Saturday Night live known a the “pathological liar.” He would simply make up things to impress his associates and, as he settled on the perfect deceit, would exclaim, “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

Andrew Breitbart has taken this notion to new levels. His capacity for dishonesty is boundless and entirely devoid of shame. The latest episode in his recurring series of video lie-fests takes place at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. The video posted at his BigGovernment blog shows a professor and a guest lecturer engaged in a discussion that includes statements that imply they are advocating violence on behalf of labor interests. “Yeah, that’s the ticket.” The only problem with this expose is that, like just about everything else Breitbart does, it isn’t true.

Judy Ancel, Director of Labor Studies at UMKC, is the professor in the video. She responded to Breitbart’s smear in an email with several examples of how Breitbart fiddled with the content to deliberately convey a meaning that did not exist in reality. For instance, she writes…

Breitbart is a master of taking quotes out of context, deletion of what doesn’t serve his purpose, and remixing to achieve totally different meaning. For example he has me saying:

o Breitbart’s version: “Violence is a tactic and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic.”

o The real version: After students had watched a film on the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike and the assassination of Martin Luther King, they were discussing nonviolence. I said, “One guy in the film. . . said ‘violence is a tactic, and it’s to be used when it’s the appropriate tactic.’. . . ” The class proceeded to discuss and debate this.

It is apparent that Ancel was quoting somebody in the film, not expressing her own views. This is typical of Breitbart and his ilk. It is the point I was making when I posted this video of Glenn Beck admitting that he idolizes Adolf Hitler:

Media Matters has some of the obviously manipulated video as well as the uncut versions that reveal Breitbart’s purposeful deception.

This project has all the earmarks of Breitbart’s modus operandi. It is precisely what he did to Shirley Sherrod. It is the very same tactics he used against ACORN, along with his protege, James O’Keefe. However, there are no credits for the video other than the name “Insurgent Visuals.” It’s odd that no one would want to take credit for what they must regard as a brilliant piece of investigative journalism.

However, after some investigation of my own, I discovered that Insurgent Visuals has a web site. Surely there would be some indication of who was responsible for this story. Nope. Just a short statement on their “About” page saying “We are a small collective of motivated political actionists intent on changing the world.” They are also intent on hiding their identity.

So I continued my investigation and discovered that Insurgent Visuals also had at one time a blog at BlogSpot. The blog was no longer available, but I was able to access it via Google’s cache. Once there I noticed that the blog’s contributors were Bruce Bronson, and some guy named — James O’Keefe! Who’da thunk it? So O’Keefe, a well-known lying video manipulator may have had an invisible hand in Breitbart’s new anonymous smear campaign. He’s certainly the guy I would call if I wanted to produce a phony videotaped assault on someone.

Prof. Ancel’s response to the video is worth reading in full. It outlines the dishonesty that Breitbart perpetuated as well as her outrage at having the privacy of her students violated and the forum for free expression in the classroom replaced with a chilling mood of fear and distrust. The email in full follows:
 
Contine reading →

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Glenn Beck vs Glee/My Chemical Romance

Posted by on April 29, 2011 at 2:49 pm. 4 Comments :

We already know that Glenn Beck is a delusional paranoid whose analysis of world affairs is on a par with a lobotomized baboon (no offense intended to baboons). And we have already witnessed his hallucinatory ramblings about commie-infested art planted throughout Manhattan. But now Beck has assumed the role of music critic and the results are just about what you would expect.

On his program yesterday he set off on a tirade against an episode of Glee that featured the cast performing “Sing” by My Chemical Romance. Of course, he divined a meaning to the segment that could only exist in his decayed brain. His dementia was so complete that he kept going back forth from praising the show as brilliant to condemning it as a nightmare:

“I’ve watched it in stunned horror combined with a sense of admiring awe. It is a brilliant, brilliant show. Very, very, very well done. But it is a horror show.”

With his standard demeanor reeking of shock and fear, Beck attempted to convey the danger that he saw in this evil teenage music. He displayed a few of the lyrics on screen to illustrate the horror that these demonic rockers were imparting to our innocent children:

Cleaned up corporation progress, dying in the process
Children that can talk about it, living on the railways
People moving sideways, sell it till your last days
Buy yourself the motivation, generation nothing
Nothing but a dead scene, product of a white dream.

Reading those words, I couldn’t quite figure out what Beck was so worked up about. Was it the insinuation that corporations were involved in something nefarious? Was it the ambiguous reference to a “white dream?” Beck never really explained it himself. He simply said that…

“This is propaganda and it’s an anthem. It’s an anthem saying, join us. How can you and I possibly win against that?”

Win against what? An anthem calling for what? Joining what? Beck never says. So I went to the source. I looked up the song on a video that contained all of the lyrics. I’ll report, you decide:

So far as I can tell, this is song that inspires self-esteem and the determination to stand up for yourself in the face of critics and bullies and the martinets of conformity. It’s a call for pride in individualism and a rejection of corporate mandates of style and character. It’s a tribute to the honor of outcasts and those whom society regards as defective.

No wonder Beck is afraid. The more kids listen to this message, the harder it will be for them to be manipulated by commercial evangelists like him; the harder it will be to sow doubt and insecurity; the harder it will be sell useless crap that promises to make you popular and desirable. This song is an assault on the crass consumerism that fattens Beck’s wallet and those of his sponsors.

This song’s refrain is seemingly dedicated to Glenn Beck: “Sing it out for the ones that’ll hate your guts.”

[Update] My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way responded to Beck on his blog. My favorite part:

“I’m actually shocked that no actual fact-checking was done on the lyrics. I mean Fox is a major news channel, covering factual topics in an unbiased and intelligent – oh wait-“

Well said.


Priorities USA: More Of This, Please

Posted by on April 29, 2011 at 11:06 am. 6 Comments :

Prioroties USA just released this video exposing the dangers of the extreme (aka mainstream) Republican/Tea Party:

Transcript: The extreme right is aptly named. They are extremely powerful, extremely well-funded, extremely frightening, extremely paranoid, extremely hateful, extremely irresponsible, extremely ill-informed. And just plain extreme. Which makes them all extremely dangerous. It’s time to stand up and fight back. Join us at PrioritiesUSAAction.org. Taking on the politics of fear and smear.

This video addresses the cream of the rightist assault on America. It covers everything from the Koch brothers, to Glenn Beck to Karl Rove and more. The folks behind Priorities USA are familiar Democratic operatives like Bill Burton, former deputy White House spokesman. The group appears to be a lefty version of Rove’s CrossroadsUSA.

It’s about time. While these sort of groups are exploiting the onerous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court that permits unlimited, anonymous donations by corporations, as long as that decision is the law of the land, the GOP should not be alone in benefiting from it. In fact, Democrats should exploit the hell out of it in the hopes that Republicans will eventually see the harm and join Democrats in drafting a legislative repeal.

So, as the video says, “It’s time to stand up and fight back.”


Fox News Hosting GOP Debate With No Debaters

Posted by on April 28, 2011 at 3:54 pm. 8 Comments :

Does this say more about Fox News or the Republican slate of candidates for 2012?

“It’s slated to be the kickoff event of the 2012 Republican primary season. But as a scheduled May 5 debate hosted by Fox News and the South Carolina Republican Party rapidly nears, it’s unclear whether any major presidential candidates will actually be there.”

Actually, it’s unclear whether any candidates at all will actually be there. So far, not a single candidate has confirmed their intention to participate. The debate is scheduled for next Thursday, May 5, with a deadline for confirmation on May 3. That leaves just three business days to comply with a long list of requirements for participation. Fox is stoically insisting that the show will go on.

To be fair, this isn’t the first GOP primary debate that was scuttled this season for lack of candidates. An NBC/Politico debate at the Reagan Library was set for May 2, but that one was postponed until September.

The GOP field is conspicuously hesitant to make a commitment to running. Most haven’t even formed exploratory committees. And of course, some, like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, are delaying any statement in order to continue collecting paychecks from Fox News. So, in effect, Fox is keeping candidates out of the race by keeping them on the payroll. That’s an unprecedented intrusion into the political process by a media entity.

If Fox News is lucky they might get Buddy Roemer and Rick Santorum to show up. That should provide a stimulating and valuable forum for curious Republican voters. Otherwise it may be up to whoever they get to moderate the debate to fill an hour with right-wing propaganda – in other words, just like any other hour on Fox News.


Let’s Keep Kicking Fox News While It’s Down

Posted by on April 27, 2011 at 8:15 pm. 12 Comments :

Fox News’ ratings are beginning to reflect the general disenchantment that America is experiencing with the lunatic fringe as represented by Republicans and Tea Partyers (but I repeat myself). In the latest Nielsen reporting for April 2011, the most prominent Fox programs have precipitously declined:


What is especially notable about this is that almost all of the competing cable news programs saw robust increases in viewers in the same time period – many up by double digits (including Rachel Maddow who beat Sean Hannity last Friday). The one exception is MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, but that is only because it is being compared to Keith Olbermann’s numbers for Countdown which was in O’Donnell’s time slot last year.

This is part of a continuing downtrend for Fox and the Right-Wing Carnival that includes Birthers, Climate Hoaxers, Unplanned Parenthoodies and, of course, Tea Baggers. The recent tax day rallies sponsored by the Tea-publicans struggled to attract a few dozen whiny protesters, while Democrats and union members showed up by the tens of thousands to protest rollbacks of long-held rights for workers. Town hall meetings are being crowded with progressive citizens intent on rescuing Medicare from regressive GOP legislation. The ultimate cinematic fantasy of rightist ego-centrism, Atlas Shrugged, is such an abysmal failure at the boxoffice that the producer has already come out publicly to state that he is reconsidering his plans to expand the release and make any sequels.

It appears that the audience for idiocy is drying up. And the primary platform for aggregating that audience, Fox News, is feeling it where it hurts – in the ratings. They have already ejected the king of the idiots, Glenn Beck, whose program has been losing viewers and advertisers for months. Now it’s time to return focus to the remaining disinformers on Fox like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, and Neil Cavuto. These people were every bit as bad as Beck before Beck joined the network, and they should not get off the hook now.

By maintaining pressure on Fox News we can have a real impact on the media environment. Viewers must be made to feel embarrassed by any association with the network of lies. And other media organizations must cease to regard Fox as a legitimate journalistic enterprise.

This is the time to ramp up efforts to prod cable companies to make all news networks available on the basic tier so that there aren’t some that have unfair advantages over others. And while we’re at it, we should advise our cable providers that we will cancel our service rather than pay more to support Fox News. Fox is presently renegotiating some of their cable contracts and demanding much higher fees. We need to make the argument that they don’t deserve them, particularly if it impacts the bills of consumers who don’t want Fox to begin with.

There has never been a better time to advance this cause. Fox is weakening by the day, and we have the wind at our backs. Keep up the pressure. Keep educating your family and friends. Keep Tweeting and sharing on Facebook. Fox is wobbling and it will fall down if we push hard enough.

[Update:] A new Gallup poll confirms the evolving distaste for right-wingedness. The Tea Party unfavorable ratings are at their highest point ever.