Fox News Buries Bad News For Ted Cruz And Marco Rubio On Latino Website

Posted by Mark NC on April 23, 2015 at 4:13 pm. 3 Comments :

In October of 2010, Fox News launched the Fox News Latino website in order to mitigate the massive disadvantage Republicans faced with Latino voters. Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the nation and their voting power is increasing with each election. So even though the Republican Party has been alienating this constituency with blatantly detrimental policies, Fox News was determined to try to save the GOP from its own prejudices.

The Fox News Latino site has been used as the dumping grounds for stories that Fox News was uncomfortable with presenting to their 99% white audience. So it is common to see Fox sequester stories with ethnic themes on the Latino site so they can avoid offending their much larger audience on the Fox News mothership. News Corpse has documented numerous examples of this, and here are just a few.

In another twist on this journalistic fraud, Fox News published an article that exposed Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as a couple of the Senate’s biggest truants. Despite the fact that they are both in their first terms, they have missed more votes and/or committee hearings than most of their colleagues.

Just today, Cruz gave a venomous condemnation of Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch and the importance of voting against her, then skipped out without voting. [Lynch was confirmed 56 to 43] So it’s interesting that these freshmen senators are currently among the leading candidates for the GOP nomination for president.

Not only are they lacking the most basic qualifications for the job they seek (particularly from the Republican perspective that claimed President Obama was unqualified), but they haven’t even been doing the job that represents their only plausible qualification. What they’ve been doing, of course, is running for president. But maybe they should have acquired some experience first, or at least done some work in their current jobs.

The story revealing the poor attendance records of Cruz and Rubio was prominently displayed on the Fox News Latino web site. However, Fox News didn’t bother to report it either on the air or online. With this strategy Fox can say that they covered the story somewhere, but they don’t wind up giving a great deal of negative exposure that might cause electoral headaches for their Republican pals. Especially those who are favorites of the far-right, Tea Party contingent that makes up most of the Fox audience.

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There is no valid argument for restricting this story to just the Latino website. While Cruz and Rubio obviously share a heritage that is relevant to the site, their position in a national campaign makes this news relevant to the whole nation. Apparently Fox News doesn’t want the nation to know about this, so it’s downgraded to an ethnic niche site that most of their audience will never see.

Imagine if Fox News had only reported stories about Obama in 2008 on a separate African-American website. What Fox is doing is dishonest and racist. It is a disservice to their audience and a corruption of journalism. In other words, it is business as usual at Fox News.

The NRA’s Anti-Clinton Conference Opens With Apocalyptic Warnings Of Inevitable Doom

Posted by Mark NC on April 11, 2015 at 1:30 pm. 1 Comments :

If anyone was mislead by the National Rifle Association’s name to assume that their annual conference would have something to do with firearms and their use for protection or sports, that was cleared up in the first day of the event by the organization’s executive vice president and chief fear monger, Wayne LaPierre. He and pretty much every other speaker spent more time demonizing Hillary Clinton than exercising their gun fetishes. In a foreboding speech crammed with frightful rhetoric about how much danger every American is in on a virtually constant basis, LaPierre built up to a crescendo that climaxed with this harrowing thought:

“Hillary Rodham Clinton will bring a permanent darkness of deceit and despair forced upon the American people to endure.”

Note that LaPierre is not merely warning of ordinary darkness, deceit, and despair, but a “permanent” state of this nightmarish horror. That’s conceding an enormous amount of power to Clinton, who LaPierre must regard as rivaling the Almighty in terms of her ability to thrust the world into a dystopian gloom. Never mind that he said the same thing about President Obama before each of his election victories, and yet, by most accounts, the sun still shines and experiences of joy have not been ripped from the human race. He went on to swear a sacred oath to his fellow NRA-theists, saying…

“I vow on this day the NRA will stand shoulder to shoulder with you and good, honest decent Americans and we will stand and fight with everything we’ve got and in 2016, by God, we will elect the next great president of the United States of America and it will not be Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

That statement would appear to violate the rules governing the NRA’s tax status as a 501(c)(4) organization that permits some involvement in politics as long as it is not a substantial amount of its activities. His promise to “fight with everything we’ve got” sounds pretty substantial.

LaPierre was followed by other speakers who similarly downplayed any discussion of guns, instead aiming their vitriol at Clinton. They included Republican presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Ted Cruz, who asked the audience if they were “ready for Hillary,” to which they resoundingly answered “No.” I’m inclined to agree with them. They’re not the least bit ready.

But perhaps the most strikingly foolish comment was from brain-dead brain surgeon Ben Carson who said that Americans need more guns so they can personally fight off the terrorists flooding across the Southern border (of his mind). For the record, the number of terrorists apprehended in the U.S. who came into the country illegally from the South, or any other entry point, is zero. And the likelihood of some redneck facing off in a shootout with with an ISIS fighter, and prevailing, is pretty near zero as well. Carson added that guns are also necessary for people to “defend themselves against an overly aggressive government that wanted to exact tyranny in this country.” So he is now advocating shooting federal agents, soldiers, and police officers (aka first responders), in a war where the government has tanks, weaponized drones, and cruise missiles.

These are the priorities and allegiances of America’s ammosexuals. They couldn’t care less about the children murdered at Sandy Hook, or the innocents at a Colorado movie theater, or the students at a Virginia university, or the thousands of other preventable gun deaths that occur annually in this country. They are gripped by irrational fears and manipulated by the NRA which hides its true mission: To promote the sales of firearms and the other commercial interests of weapons manufacturers. Even Kids can understand these simple truths, as beautifully demonstrated in this video:

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Rand Paul Follows Ted Cruz To Sean Hannity’s Fox News/GOP Welcoming Party

Posted by Mark NC on April 8, 2015 at 12:05 pm. 11 Comments :

Yesterday marked the arrival of the second official candidate for the Republican Party’s nomination for President of the United States. Kentucky senator, and former self-certified ophthalmologist, Rand Paul placed himself in contention for the nomination at the Galt House in Louisville. For those fortunate enough to have never slogged through Ayn Rand’s tedious and preachy novel “Atlas Shrugged,” John Galt is a leading figure who is best known for epitomizing the childish “take my ball and go home” philosophy of social interaction.

In what may signal a trend in the GOP’s strategy for launching a political campaign, Paul went straight from the Galt House to Sean Hannity’s House at Fox News for his first post-announcement interview. That is exactly what Ted Cruz did after announcing his candidacy at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, where students were threatened with fines if they did not attend. Perhaps Fox News has implemented the same policy wherein Republican candidates will be fined, or otherwise punished, if they do not pay their respects to Hannity before proceeding with their campaign.

While it is no surprise that GOP presidential wannabes would kowtow to Fox News (aka the PR division of the Republican Party), it is a demonstration of their arrogance that they are not at least trying to disguise their biases for the sake of appearing to be credible. Apparently that ship has sailed, been commandeered by Fox pirates, and is now rusting on the ocean floor.

As for Paul, he delivered what he called a “a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words.” Indeed, it was loud. And that message turned out to be decades old sloganeering whose words relay nothing of substance: “We have come to take our country back.” It’s easy to mock this theme by asking simply “back to what?” From all appearances, Paul wants to take us back to the Reagan years, with its soaring deficits, crushing unions and working people, abandonment of the poor and mentally ill to the streets, and illegally bankrolling foreign terrorists with money made from selling arms to terrorist states.

However, the more interesting question is who does Paul mean when says “We?” The “we” that he is leading so that he can snatch the country back from the citizens who twice elected Barack Obama, are the bankers, oil barons, and other privileged elites who he would free from regulations that protect the public from their greed and abuse. Paul is a favorite of the Koch brothers and, of course, Fox News kingpin, Rupert Murdoch.

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It will be interesting to see how the rest of the GOP roster rolls out their campaigns. Marco Rubio is anticipated to be next in line. He would be smart to skip the Hannity ring-kissing ceremony, if just to differentiate himself from the pack. After all, he could go straight to Megyn Kelly and still satisfy his bosses at the network.

And just for fun…

Paul was famously outed as a plagiarist by Rachel Maddow who noticed that his speeches were curiously identical to the Wikipedia page for the movie Gattaca. If that seems like an odd source for staking a false claim of authorship, then what do we make of his having designed a logo for his presidential campaign that appears to be a rip-off of the logo for the hook-up site, Tinder?

I’m just asking. And while we’re at it, why do both Paul and Cruz feature flames in their logos? Is it to convey their belief that “the world is on fire,” as Cruz told a frightened little girl?

UPDATE: Marco Rubio did indeed make Hannity his first media stop. That makes Hannity and the GOP field three for three.

The World Is On Fire: Ted Cruz Ignites The GOP Presidential Primary Season

Posted by Mark NC on March 23, 2015 at 12:12 pm. 4 Comments :

Today marks the official start of the Republican Presidential primaries. First out of the Clown Car is freshman Texas senator Ted Cruz. As the first candidate to announce, Cruz is bucking the odds where electoral history records that no candidate who announced first has prevailed since 1952.

Ted Cruz

Cruz has bigger problems than a statistical curse. His popularity in a large field of contenders is decidedly weak. Coming in at eighth in the RealClear polling average, he is trailing outliers like Ben Carson and Chris Christie. And he is also near the bottom of the pack in a match-up against Hillary Clinton, losing to the prospective Democratic nominee by double digits.

The only constituency where Cruz is viewed favorably is the Glenn Beck/Tea Party crowd of dimwitted right-wing extremists. There aren’t enough of them to get Cruz to the White House. Hell, there aren’t enough of them to get Cruz to the House of Pies.

He’s a candidate without a portfolio. After all the harping by conservatives about whether President Obama was lacking experience when he ran for president, they are now being asked to support someone with even less experience. Although both were senators for only two years when they ran, Obama spent seven years in the Illinois state legislature prior to becoming a senator. What’s more, the same crackpots who insisted that Obama was not qualified to be president due to their delusional claims about his birthplace and communist upbringing, don’t seem to have any problem with Cruz, who was born in Canada to a Cuban father who fought alongside Fidel Castro.

The irascible Cruz’s tenure in the senate is fraught with controversy. Even his Republican colleagues were embarrassed by his attempt to shut down the government with a filibuster that featured a reading of “Green Eggs and Ham.” Likewise, Cruz angered his peers when his greenhorn maneuvering permitted Democratic Leader Harry Reid to get confirmations for two dozen Obama appointees that would have otherwise been bypassed.

On policy Cruz is as far to the right as one can get. He has never seen a war or military escalation he didn’t love. He is a science denier who rejects both Climate Change and evolution. He opposes immigration reform, marriage equality, raising the minimum wage, and abortion even in cases of rape or incest. He voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. He would demolish the wall of separation between church and state. He has made repealing “every word” of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) a centerpiece of his platform, despite the fact that it would explode the deficit and cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.

In his public statements, Cruz has been less than credible. Aside from having an overtly hostile personality that disrespects his opponents and their offices, his track record for honesty is dismal. PolitiFact has rated two-thirds of his statements as “Mostly False” or worse. That’s a lower percentage than all of the other main GOP candidates.

The good news (or bad news depending on your appreciation of political comedy and/or absurdist performance art) is that Cruz has almost no chance of winning the Republican nomination. He may rise to the top of the heap briefly as almost all GOP contenders do (see Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump). But he cannot prevail over the more establishment oriented Jeb Bush or Scott Walker. He is the poster boy for wingnut conservatism. And he is bought and paid for by the Koch brothers, although he is not the lone Republican with that distinction. Walker, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul all appeared with Cruz at a recent Koch-fest to plead for their anointing. But it was Cruz who went the extra distance by praising his hosts becuase they “stood up for free-market principles and endured vilification.”

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In his announcement speech, Cruz hit on all of the cliche right-wing drool enhancers: America uber-alles, God-centered government, and Ayn Randian self-interest in all matters. He spun his personal biography as a child of immigrants, whom he hopes to prevent from achieving the same American dream that his family enjoyed.

He basked in the warm reception he received from the captive audience at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University where the announcement took place. [Update: The students were required to attend or be fined] It was an appropriate venue for the sanctimonious son of a fire-and-brimstone evangelical preacher who truly believes that the world is on fire already. Which may explain his campaign logo: An upside flag that is aflame. And his announcement PR continues tonight on (where else) Fox News as he canoodles with Sean Hannity for the full hour.

On Immigration: Republicans Have No Clue What The American People Want

Posted by Mark NC on November 25, 2014 at 4:25 pm. NO Comments :

Last week President Obama defied the wild-eyed yammering of Republicans who claimed that any executive action addressing immigration reform would be be unconstitutional and mark him as a lawless tyrant who is thwarting the will of the American people. The President ignored their rancorous grumbling and announced a reasonable plan of prosecutorial discretion that has been invoked by every president for the past fifty years, and which 135 experts agree is legal. Not to mention, it is in keeping with our nation’s longstanding values of inclusion and opportunity.

Notwithstanding these facts, the GOP is so fixated on opposing anything that this president does, they took their positions to the media and brazenly lied. With characteristic lock-step unity, they insisted that they knew what Americans want and that Obama was flouting their clearly expressed wishes. Here is a sampling of their interpretation of the public mood:

Sen. Ted Cruz: This last election was a referendum on amnesty. And the American people overwhelmingly rose up and said, no, we don’t want lawless amnesty.
John Boehner: By ignoring the will of the American people, President Obama has cemented his legacy of lawlessness and squandered what little credibility he had left.
Mitch McConnell: If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act.
Sarah Palin: [Obama is] betraying our trust [by going] against the wishes of the American people.
Sen. Jeff Sessions: The American people rebelled against the President’s executive amnesty.
Rick Santorum: This unilateral action sends a message that the President believes his opinion should supersede the will of the American people and democratic process.

These statements could not be more definitive in their estimation of what the American people think about Obama’s executive action on immigration. They could also not be more wrong. Where these wingnuts got these ideas is a complete mystery. It certainly doesn’t reflect either the exit polling following the election earlier this month. Nor does it reflect the more recent polling that spelled out the precise conditions of the policy. Hart Research found that…

“…voters overwhelmingly backed President Obama’s move: 67 percent viewed it favorably, while just 28 percent viewed it unfavorably. The support was fairly bipartisan, with 91 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Independents, and 41 percent of Republicans viewing the executive action favorably. Among Tea Party Republicans, however, 64 percent opposed the policy while just 30 percent viewed it favorably.”

Setting aside the Tea Party (always a good idea), it is clear that Obama’s views are more aligned to those of the American people than with the bombastic and presumptive Republicans. And not only do people support the President’s action, they agree that he is acting within law by 51% to 41%.

What is most curious about this whole debate is that the GOP has such hatred for the executive action Obama took, but they refuse to do the simplest, quickest thing to nullify it. All they have to do is pass a law. They don’t even have to write one. It already exists and was passed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate. If John Boehner would allow it to be voted on in the House it would pass tomorrow, be signed by the President and – poof – no executive action.

Instead the GOP talk of blocking every bill and presidential nominee that comes before them. They threaten to file lawsuits that would take years to wind their way through the courts and would be moot by the time they were heard. And they even raise the specter of impeachment, another ultra-drastic response that would take months and accomplish nothing but making Joe Biden the next president.

In conclusion, Obama is not acting like a tyrant and Americans don’t buy the criticism of him as one. However, Americans do favor his approach to immigration reform by wide margins despite the protestations from the GOP. The only thing that Republicans have to gain from their current strategy is a generous pension after they are retired from public service in 2016. We wish them luck.

Democrats And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (For Republicans)

Posted by Mark NC on November 5, 2014 at 11:31 am. 20 Comments :

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: Election day 2014 sucked elephant balls. It is saddling America with a Republican senate that is notable for being unproductive and adversarial. It’s new leader is a hyper-partisan, Washington fossil whose only agenda is obstructionism. One of its new members is an Agenda 21 conspiracy nut who carries a gun to defend herself from the government she now represents. Florida and Kansas returned to office the two least popular governors in the country. And the right-wing noise machine is going to be gloating feverishly for weeks.

But the real story underlying this election is one that the media will almost certainly fail to address. Despite the election returns, America hates the Republican Party and its policies. The turnout is estimated to be about 38%. That means that the GOP victory was achieved with a majority of a little more than one-third of the electorate, or about 20%. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Republican agenda.

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The demographic makeup of the voters this year was decidedly older and whiter. It was also more concentrated in the South which accounted for 34% of all votes. The rest of the country came in a substantial nine to twelve points lower.

Just two years ago President Obama was resoundingly reelected along with increasing the number of Democrats in both houses of Congress. The turnout then was 58%, or 53% higher than 2014. Exit polls show that both parties are underwater in voter approval, but Democrats are still favored over Republicans 44% to 40%. Exit polling also gives Obama a 41% approval rating, compared to just 13% for Congress.

On the basis of this fractured and biased sliver of the electorate, Chris Wallace of Fox News declared this morning that “The Democratic Party brand is damaged.” But further examination of the exit polls says that isn’t true. On virtually every policy question, voters sided with the Democrats. That includes ObamaCare, immigration reform, increasing the minimum wage, same-sex marriage, legalizing marijuana, abortion, and climate change. And when asked about preferences for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton is leading every GOP opponent (Clinton 42%, Jeb Bush 29%, Rand Paul 26%, Chris Christie 24%, and Rick Perry 24%).

2016 holds more bad news for Republicans and their new senate majority. The GOP will be defending 24 seats, as compared to only 10 for the Democrats. Nine of the those GOP seats are in states won by Obama in 2012. So are all of the Democratic seats. With a larger and more representative electorate it is almost a certainty that the senate will flip back to the Democrats. And with a popular and history-making candidate like Clinton that outcome is even more likely.

In the meantime, we can expect some epic battles to ensue. Although Mitch McConnell made some perfunctory remarks signalling bipartisan cooperation, his resume suggests a different course entirely. He told supporters last night that “Just because we have a two-party system doesn’t mean we have to be in perpetual conflict.” That coming from the man who presided over more filibusters than any senate in history.

But the battles will not be limited to those between the two parties. McConnell is going to experience some of the misery of John Boehner as he tries to herd the Tea Party contingent of his own party into some semblance of unity. Don’t expect Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or Mike Lee or Joni Ernst to fall obediently in line. In fact, Cruz is already announcing his intention to prosecute the President for many of the phony scandals for which the GOP-run House failed to find any wrongdoing. He told Fox News last night that…

“I hope we begin serious, systematic, sober hearings, examining executive abuse, regulatory abuse, lawlessness, abuse of power. Whether it is IRS wrongly targeting citizens or the debacle of Benghazi and four Americans who lost their lives and why more was not done to save them, or whether it’s the lawlessness that pervaded Obamacare as the president and executive branch has tried to pick and choose which laws to follow. I hope we see serious oversight on those fronts.”

That’s a path that leads to increased animosity and the “perpetual conflict” that McConnell says he hopes to avoid. But with Cruz and Paul and Rubio amongst those in his caucus who are contemplating a presidential run, can McConnell prevent them from hijacking the senate for their own purposes? And will their purposes include attempts to impeach Obama as some Republicans and conservative pundits have already advocated?

The next two years are going to be a bumpy ride for both parties and, unfortunately, the American people. There is much that we cannot anticipate at this time. What we can safely assume is that the extremist, Tea Party wing of the GOP will deliver some histrionics and hilarity. And Fox News will cover all of it as if it were sober statesmanship. So buckle up, folks. And be glad that the ride is over in only two years.

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Ted Cruz Predicts ‘Lawlessness On A Breathtaking Scale’ By The Next Republican President

Posted by Mark NC on January 10, 2014 at 2:31 pm. 7 Comments :

Ted Cruz has distinguished himself as the GOP’s answer to conspiracy theory superstars like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck. His wild imagination and fantastical declarations stretch the boundaries of absurdity. Consequently, it is fitting that his latest attack on President Obama contains a hidden warning about future Republican presidents. It’s a concession to the unprincipled nature of the conservative movement and particularly the Tea Party faction.

Cruz spoke at a policy orientation conference for the Texas legislature held by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). The TPPF has a conservative pedigree that includes the State Policy Network, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and numerous Koch brothers affiliated entities. Their agenda focuses on cutting government programs and taxes (i.e.Social Security, education, etc.), opposing health care reform, climate change denial, and generally advancing the interests of big business and energy enterprises.

In his keynote address, Cruz attacked Obama as “dangerous and terrifying” due to what Cruz alleged was “lawlessness on a breathtaking scale.” The Statesman reported Cruz as saying that…

“…from giving relief from deportation to some young unauthorized immigrants to enforcement of drug laws to waiving rules for Obamacare, the president has acted by executive fiat in defiance of the rule of law.”

Of course, there has been no legal finding that the President has violated any law with respect to the issues Cruz enumerated, or any other issue. These are nothing more than the typical ravings of a Tea Party extremist who wants very badly to denigrate a president he despises.

However, in the course of his rhetorical assault, Cruz reveals something about his own party’s unethical aspirations when he says…

“My message to all the Democrats and all the liberals is, what do you think about the next president, maybe a Republican, having the power Barack Obama has as a president who is not bound by the law?”

Setting aside for the moment that, as president, Obama has not exercised any executive authority not exercised by his predecessors, the upshot of Cruz’s warning is that, whatever you think of the legality of Obama’s actions, you cannot depend on Republicans to behave any differently. Cruz is confessing that the GOP will resort to lawlessness once they obtain power. That’s not a particularly compelling campaign platform. Just imagine the bumper sticker: Vote Republican if You Like Criminal Tyranny!

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The bottom line is that Cruz doesn’t have any evidence, other than his conspiratorial hallucinations, that Obama has broken any laws, but if he has, Republicans will follow suit if given the opportunity. It’s similar to the GOP’s response to Sen. Harry Reid modifying filibuster rules in the senate. They claimed that it was an unprecedented assault on democracy – and that they do the very same thing if they assumed control of the chamber. So much for integrity.

In the end, America is better off with leaders who aspire to uphold the law and the Constitution, even if they sometimes fall short of their goals. At least they have ethical goals and they will be held to a standard of honor that can be measured. That’s far better than the admitted lawlessness that Cruz is proposing because, once you have declared your intention to ignore the law, as Cruz has done, you can dismiss those who criticize you for it. After all, you told them what to expect if they vote for you.

Glenn Beck Names His “Man of the Year”

Posted by Mark NC on December 12, 2013 at 4:39 pm. 4 Comments :

America has been on pins and needles waiting to find out who Glenn Beck regards as the person who had the most impact on the world in 2013. Suffice to say that he does not agree with Time that it was Pope Francis, the Marxist, anti-capitalist, who advocates for the poor in defiance of the principles of Jesus.

Oh no. Beck has his own honoree, and it’s someone who has distinguished himself in a particularly notable manner. So, to end the suspense, here is the news you’ve been waiting for – Beck’s choice for Man of the Year: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

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Beck immediately lashes out at Time for selecting the leader of the world’s Catholics who has shaken up the church with pronouncements opposing trickle-down economics, and refusing to continue the church’s historical obsession with social issues like homosexuality and abortion, at the expense of ministering to those who are truly needy as their savior did. Beck is convinced that Time passed over Cruz because “they didn’t want to give him any more power. They don’t want to make him into anything. I mean they’ll put Hitler on, they did make Hitler and Mussolini the man of the year.”

There you have it. Beck wants Cruz to be recognized in the same way that Hitler was. After all, if Hitler was worthy of the honor of being on the cover of Time Magazine, then surely Cruz is worthy of the same honor. And Beck wants to make sure that the world knows that Cruz and Hitler are in the same category.

Beck also wants the world to “Remember, progressives are fascists. They are for fascism.” Of course, if that were true, then according to Beck’s own logic, they would have given Cruz the Man of the Year award, just like Hitler. The problem is that Cruz has proven himself to be an embarrassingly inept Tea Bagging blowhard. He has accomplished precisely nothing in his freshman year in the senate. Other than making frequent appearances on Fox News, the only thing that Cruz has done that anyone can recall is his fake filibuster (which was not a filibuster at all, and had a designated end time), that failed to rollback ObamaCare or achieve any other goal that he had articulated.

So Beck has compared that record of failure with the Pope’s profoundly consequential doctrinal transformations and concluded that “[Cruz] is the guy who is going to affect our life, your life, much more than anybody else.” That’s true, so long as your life is confined to Tea Party rallies, Apocalypse parties, and Ayn Rand reading groups in the basement of a WalMart on Loop 289 outside of Lubbock.

Tea Party Mullah Ted Cruz Thinks He Can Banish Obama From Texas

Posted by Mark NC on November 7, 2013 at 3:14 pm. 39 Comments :

President Obama traveled to Texas this week to inform the citizens there that ObamaCare has benefits that specifically address their needs. Texas has the notorious distinction of being the state that has more uninsured residents than any other state in the country. A big chunk of that problem would be solved if Gov. Rick Perry and the state legislature would simply agree to expand their medicaid program to cover low income residents. It wouldn’t cost the state a single penny because it is paid for by the federal government.

Nevertheless, Perry has ruled out this expansion despite the fact that a million of his constituents will suffer needlessly due to his cynical politicization of health care. This will hurt real people who require medical attention who will not receive it, as well as people who manage to get care that they cannot afford, which will lead to financial hardships including home foreclosures and bankruptcies. Obama made reference to this dire situation in his address to the people of Dallas.

Obama: I think that all of you understand that there’s no state that actually needs this more than Texas. […] Across this state, you’ve got a million people — because this is a big state — a million people, citizens, who don’t have health insurance that could get health insurance right away if the state of Texas decided to take advantage of [Medicaid expansion].

The response from Texas senator Ted Cruz to this common sense proposal was typically arrogant and insensitive. It exposed a deeply held animus for the President and disrespect for the office.

Cruz: President Obama should take his broken promises tour elsewhere so Texans can continue focusing on the solutions that have allowed our state to become and remain the nation’s economic and job creation powerhouse.

Correcting Fox Nation. More corrections can be found in the
ebook, Fox Nation vs. Reality

Where Cruz gets the idea that he has some authority to direct the President’s itinerary is unknown. However, what is even worse is his obliviousness to the tribulations of his fellow Texans. By focusing on the status of the state’s economy, Cruz drives home the point that the business class of Texas has prospered at the expense of working families. If Texas is such an economic success and job haven, then why are more of it’s residents struggling to get by without health insurance than any other state?

That’s a question that Cruz and Perry and the rest of the GOP Scrooges still refuse to answer. They have a no-cost solution available to them that would relieve the stress of millions, but they won’t accept it because of their overriding desire to sabotage the Obama presidency. Eventually they will have to explain that to voters.

Is Fox News The Most Flaccid Propaganda Tool Ever?

Posted by Mark NC on October 12, 2013 at 3:09 pm. 3 Comments :

Twelve days ago the Tea Party dominated Republican House caucus shut down the United States government in an attempt coerce the majority of the Congress into defunding, delaying, or otherwise crippling the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare).

They were aided and abetted by their partners in political crime, Fox News. In fact, Fox News took a leadership role in disseminating disinformation aimed at either preventing ObamaCare from being implemented or poisoning public opinion to oppose it based on the lies that Fox manufactured.

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The ferocity of the Fox campaign was dialed up to maximum volume with absurdly dishonest claims that tested the boundaries of hyperbole. They coordinated their attack plan to traverse the Fox empire including their business network, the Wall Street Journal, and the notorious Fib Factory, Fox Nation. They spoke of non-existent death panels, encroaching socialism, largest tax increases in history, comparisons to slavery, and endless references to tyranny, Hitler, and the total destruction of America.

So what did Fox gain from that virulent assault on a law that was passed by Congress, signed by the President, deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court, and affirmed by the reelection of Obama? They emboldened the most strident extremists on the right who pursued a suicidal mission to impose their unpopular will on the nation. And their ultimate reward is that ObamaCare is now regarded more favorably than it was before the government shutdown (or “slimdown” as Fox calls it):

“[W]hat is perhaps even more worrisome for the GOP is the ‘boomerang’ effect: As the party has used the shutdown and fiscal fight to campaign against the nation’s health-care law and for limited government, the poll shows those efforts have backfired.

“For one thing, the health-care law has become more popular since the shutdown began. Thirty-eight percent see the Affordable Care Act (or ‘Obamacare’) as a good idea, versus 43 percent who see it as a bad idea – up from 31 percent good idea, 44 percent bad idea last month.”

Not only that, but while America has been warming up to ObamaCare (which most are only now getting there first personal exposure to), their dislike for Republicans is growing exponentially. For that they can thank the Tea Party nutjobs like Ted Cruz and the tiny faction of Teabaggers in the House who have such a firm grip on John Boehner’s cojones:

“By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96.

“Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll.”

While this epic cratering of support was unfolding, President Obama’s favorability actually went up two points in the last month.

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from this is that, despite Fox’s inflated ego and boastful self-importance, it is really a pathetically lame distributor of rightist propaganda. They threw everything they had at Obama and his eponymous health care program and came out farther underwater than when they started. This result is similar to last year’s election when Fox targeted Obama as something just shy of the Anti-Christ, but he still won by a sizable margin. And, not to be overlooked, it was a campaign that focused heavily on ObamaCare. More recently, Fox’s efforts to stir up their fringy malcontents to get them to take to the streets ended in an embarrassing flop.

There are plenty of reasons to worry about the destructive influence of Fox News. It is a bad example for other news outlets who think that conservative extremism might be a viable business model. It provides a platform and encouragement for crackpots like Cruz, Michele Bachamnn, Louie Gohmert, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, etc., to cling to positions that are wildly out of touch with the American people. It muddies the debate over critical public affairs with misrepresentations and lies. But one thing we do not have to worry about is whether Fox is effective at persuading Americans to join their Blockhead Brigade. On that measure Fox has proved to be pitifully feeble despite their exhaustive and desperate intentions.

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