UH-OH: Wait Until the GOP / Trump Cult Finds Out How Ultra Woke FOX News Is

The preeminent buzzword of 2023 is indisputably “Woke.” The Republican Party has adopted it as the braindead alternative for anything that they are opposed to. They can simply apply it to whatever the outrage of the day is without the burden of having to think or construct a logical argument. It’s that freedom from thinking that makes it so profoundly stupid. Yet somehow they’re proud of it. They don’t even have to have a coherent definition of it, which, conveniently, they don’t.

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Fox News, Titanic

Consequently, the GOP mindlessly rails against woke banks, woke schools, woke justice, woke healthcare, woke climate, woke economy, woke education, woke capitalism, and more broadly wokism, the woke mind virus, and the ominous woke-ocracy.

Prominent Republicans embrace their sinister take on being woke as if it were a tangible object, or at lease a cogent ideology. But their commentaries are pitifully hollow. For instance…

  • Nikki Haley: Woke is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic.
    [Really? So where have all these woke fatalities been buried?]
  • Ron DeSantis: [Florida is the state] where woke goes to die.
    [To be fair, Florida is the state where lots of people go to die]
  • Kevin McCarthy: We’re going to pass bills to fix…woke indoctrination in our schools.
    [That’s if he can find any]]
  • Tucker Carlson: Woke M&M’s have returned.
    [Leave it to Tucker to uncover the worst of woke]
  • Donald Trump: Everything woke turns to shit.
    [As usual, Trump articulates the problem in the most graceful and intelligent way]

What all of these anti-woke activists seem to be missing is that what they profess to be so adamantly opposed to is often ingrained in the institutions that they revere and rely on. Most notable among them is the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News. That’s quite an oversight for a party that is so committed to anti-wokism that they created the first ever House Anti-Woke Caucus.

SEE THIS: GOP Creates an ‘Anti-Woke’ Caucus to Take on the ‘Greatest Domestic Threat to America Today’

Before they continue on their anti-woke crusade, they might want to take a look at the Fox News Corporate Responsibility Report that boasts that the company is “committed to diversity from the very top. […] An inclusive and diverse workplace is not merely a strategy or business objective—it is fundamentally woven in the fabric of the Company.” It goes on to elaborate more specifically that…

“Our Preventing Harassment, Discrimination and Retaliation Policy protects individuals on the basis of a person’s actual or perceived race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, family status, caregiver status, sex (including pregnancy status, childbirth, breastfeeding, and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, sexual and reproductive health decisions, reproductive health decision-making, hair texture or hairstyles, military or veteran status, political affiliation, arrest or conviction record, union membership, unemployment status, credit history, status as a victim of domestic violence, stalking or sexual offenses, or any other legally protected characteristic.”

OH MY! Have the GOP Woke Police heard about this? How can any Republican appear on Fox News under these conditions? It’s almost as if Fox News supports the sort of equity and civil rights that they vilify on the air 24/7. Never mind that they have a rather bizarre definition of “equity.”

RELATED: HUH? Fox News Host Ridiculously Redefines ‘Equity’ as Evil and the Cause of Communism

However, there is much more in Fox’s report that should concern their GOP benefactors. Such as…

“We have taken specific action as part of our strategy to mitigate environmental risks, including those related to climate change.”

And that…

“FOX is committed to accuracy and editorial independence: Our news organizations carefully vet sources and check facts, and we maintain strict separation between revenue sources and our news and opinion content.”

That’s especially laughable considering what was recently disclosed in the billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News that revealed the extent of the brazen lies told by Fox’s executives and hosts regarding their phony allegations of election fraud on behalf of Trump and his “Big Lie” the election was “rigged and stolen” from him.

SEE ALSO: IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies

What’s more, the war against woke isn’t even an effective political strategy. A recent poll by USA Today/Ipsos found that a majority of Americans have a positive impression of the term. According to the poll…

“Fifty-six percent of those surveyed say the term means ‘to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.’ That includes not only three-fourths of Democrats but also more than a third of Republicans.

“Overall, 39% say instead that the word reflects what has become the GOP political definition, ‘to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.’ That’s the view of 56% of Republicans.”

The only reason that Republicans latched onto the term in the first place was that it originated in the Black community as a call to be conscious of oppression and discrimination, and to work to overcome the inequities of society. So naturally right-wingers sought to appropriate it and attempt to turn it into a pejorative. It is as unambiguously racist as the right’s dishonest efforts to brand Critical Race Theory (CRT) as advocating hatred of White people, when it’s simply a fact-based educational program about the systemic racism in American institutions.

None of that, however, has deterred Republicans from pushing their woke narrative. And we can expect them to continue to do so despite its ineffectiveness as a political message. Likewise, we can expect them to ignore the hypocrisy of chastising liberals for their woke-ocity, while ignoring the very same traits at Fox News and other right-leaning entities. Because all that they really have are their lies, hypocrisy, and associated – although mostly feigned – outrage. It’s what they do.

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Fox News Host On Civil Rights Movement: ‘We’ve Seen the Enemy and It’s White People’

Fox News suffered a profound loss when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump for the presidency. And despite the messianic beliefs held by Trump and his cult disciples that he actually won and that his political resurrection is imminent, he remains an embarrassingly irrelevant and pathetic apostle of pity and lies.

Fox News Racist

This leaves Fox News in the desperate position of having to manufacture controversies that might satiate the voracious appetites of their scandal-starved audience. They’ve already run through preposterous stories involving Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. they’ve tried to dampen Biden’s broad based popularity with nonsense like whether or not he wears a face mask, or blaming him for a sauce shortage at Chick-fil-A, or mocking the romance in his marriage. All to no avail.

Among the contrivances at Fox News has been a relentless assault on the academic study of Critical Race Theory, which is defined as an “attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race.” Not that anyone on Fox News could define it – or cares. They are just exploiting it to trigger the racist tendencies of their viewers. And that mission led to a segment on Wednesday’s episode of Fox and Friends where co-host Brian Kilmeade launched into a rancid rant against the Civil Rights movement (video below). He began by demanding credit for white folks having made some progress with their bigotry:

“They’re not acknowledging any improvement in our culture, and the gains made, and how we are more equal, even despite our faults, than any other country.”

Congratulations Brian, You and yours aren’t shackling Black people and forcing them to work for nothing anymore. That’s hardly something to brag about when there is still a significant amount of prejudice in America with regard to education, jobs, and housing. And there’s also that little matter of how Black men and women – and children – keep getting killed by police officers. But don’t let me interrupt. Please continue:

“The other thing is, they’re not only trying to raise up minorities and trying to make sure the playing field is even, they’re trying to take down the white culture. And this generation of Americans wondered why aren’t we all Americans? Why are we all being marginalized on a daily basis on our gender, our sexuality, and the color of our skin? And it’s not even subtle. It is actually out there. It is written in black and white.”

Just as we always thought. It’s white people who are the victims of culture take-downs and marginalization. It’s a good thing that we have Fox News and Kilmeade to remind us of this. But he still wasn’t finished:

“This is the big difference between other civil rights movements in our past. One, the first big one was a war. The second big one we saw in the streets, especially in the South. And this one we’re seeing in the classroom. And we’ve seen the enemy and it’s white people.”

WTHF? Kilmeade is now asserting that today’s Civil Rights movement has declared war on white people. That’s because he sees the struggle for equality as a fight to deprive the white population of the privilege that they believe is their divine right. Any progress toward leveling the playing field means taking away from whites the advantages that have been accustomed to for generations.

What’s especially nauseating about this is that Kilmeade isn’t the least bit shy about saying all of this out loud on his nationally broadcast television program. And his co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt nod along in complete agreement.

That’s how far down the Mariana Trench of racism that Fox News has descended. And Trump has made it acceptable to unapologetically parade prejudice around in Right-Wing World. But given the realities of demographics, they will soon be toppled from their hilltop. Deep down they know that, and that’s why they’re so afraid.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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Ted Cruz Attacks Democrats for Holding Hearing on Racist ‘Jim Crow’ Laws that He Supports

Once again it has become necessary to set the record straight as to which American political party supports civil rights and which party is devoted to racial prejudice and oppression. It shouldn’t be that difficult to make the distinction considering that every prominent hate group in America is composed of people who are steadfastly Republican.

Ted Cruz, Racist

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is now helping to make the case that the Republican Party is the home of American bigotry. Upon learning that his Democratic Senate colleagues had scheduled a hearing to explore the rash of racist “Jim Crow” laws aimed at suppressing the vote of people of color in Texas, Georgia, and other red states, Cruz rushed out this tweet:

The problem with Cruz’s tweet is that he is clinging to a historical fallacy that bigots are fond of disseminating. He is pretending there was never a “realignment” of parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that saw Democrats embrace civil rights and Republicans embrace the Ku Klux Klan:

“The political realignment of black voters that began at the close of Reconstruction gradually accelerated in the early 20th century, pushed by demographic shifts such as the Great Migration and by black discontent with the increasingly conservative racial policies of the Republican Party in the South.”

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with the vigorous support of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, was the nail in the coffin for Southern racists who then abandoned the Democrats and registered with the Republican Party, where they still reside. Three of the four notorious racists Cruz cites in his tweet became GOP heroes. The one exception was Robert Byrd, who renounced the Klan and became such a dedicated fighter for civil rights that he was honored by the NAACP:

“‘Senator Byrd reflects the transformative power of this nation,’ stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. ‘Senator Byrd went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country.'”

So Ted Cruz is not only demonstrating his pitiful ignorance of the history of his own party, he’s lashing out at Democrats who are seeking to advance equality and shine a light on those who are trying to clamp down on the Constitutional liberties of all Americans.

This is typical of a Republican bigot like Cruz, whose only concern is retaining power for himself and his kind. It’s made all the worse by how openly and shamelessly he engages in this campaign of oppression. And it’s all a byproduct of the Trump era’s efforts to mainstream racism and empower the hate mongers who comprise the Cult of Trump.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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MAGA Night at the White House: A Dystopian Fan Fiction Fantasy By Donald Trump

There is one thing that the American people can rely upon when it comes to Donald Trump. Any problem he encounters, he will make worse. He hasn’t the foggiest notion how to be a healing force during times of hardship and distress. That’s because he has no capacity for empathy. To the contrary, he is fueled by hatred, vengeance, and self-interest.

Flaming Trump

The nation is enduring historic challenges. In the midst of a global pandemic that has already taken more than 100,000 American lives, and thrust the country into an economic collapse that recalls the Great Depression, we are also coming to terms with the long-simmering consequences of systemic racism.

This is a time that cries out for strong, compassionate leadership. Unfortunately, we are stuck with a former reality TV game show host who hasn’t the experience, knowledge, common sense, or human decency, to lead us out of danger, much of which is the result of his own negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance.

Rather than trying to bring the nation together and resolve the escalating tensions, Trump spent Saturday morning inciting more anxiety and violence. He is not the least bit interested in resolution. His only goal to exacerbate the animosity that he has worked so hard to incite. His Twitter tirade was bursting with a egomaniacal glee at the prospect of hurting his perceived enemies. It reads like a bizarre, bombastic melodrama that could only have emanated from a malevolent mind. It hardly needs commentary. So here it is unabridged:

Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService. They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe. They let the “protesters” scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone….

….got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard – didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would….

….have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and….

….good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice!

The professionally managed so-called “protesters” at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble.The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???

These are “Organized Groups” that have nothing to do with George Floyd. Sad!

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis will never be mistaken for the late, great General Douglas McArthur or great fighter General George Patton. How come all of these places that defend so poorly are run by Liberal Democrats? Get tough and fight (and arrest the bad ones). STRENGTH!

It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!

Trump’s prose is reminiscent of the sort of bad fan fiction that reeks of pretentious, incoherent blather. He describes how he “watched every move” from his White House window as if it were a horror marathon on Netflix. He cheers his “heroes” as they “quickly come down on” the bad guys, who are, in fact, protesting citizens. And he is thrilled by how his protectors are “replaced with fresh agents, like magic.” He is virtually drooling at the thought of “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons” being brought to bear on protesters so that they would be “really badly hurt, at least.” It’s a measure of sadism that is frightening in any world “leader.”

It’s hard to even fathom why Trump is perversely titillated by “the young ones” being “on the front line” and loving it. But it isn’t surprising that he would make it political by attacking the Democratic Mayor of Washington, D.C. He also went after the mayor of Minneapolis for not being like a couple of wartime army generals, as if that is that is what mayors are supposed to be like. Everything to Trump is combat.

Trump repeatedly maligned the protesters as being “professionally managed,” “organized groups.” That may be true. Except that it looks like they were managed by right-wing, white supremacists who were present in abundance as agents provocateur. And Trump closed his diatribe with allusions to Antifa, a loose assembly of mostly imaginary anti-fascist activists that Trump opposes, presumably due to his affinity for fascism. That affinity is borne out by his intentions to deploy the military against American citizens. Which is an abomination generally reserved for brutal dictators, like the ones Trump so admires. It’s a nauseating notion that was righteously slapped down by Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics:

Trump is scared and desperate as his polling declines along with his prospects for reelection. He’s even losing many former Republican supporters. He knows his time up and he’s frantically scrambling to preserve whatever sliver of power he can by pandering to his most repugnant cult followers. These tweets are more examples of Trump “glorifying violence,” which led to Twitter tagging previous tweets as violations of Twitter’s standards. And more of the same – or worse – can be expected as he continues to spiral ever more downward into the abyss of his dementia.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Hideously Twists Loretta Lynch’s Inspiring Message As Calling For ‘Blood and Death’

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch broke many barriers during her tenure as head of the Justice Department. Not the least of which was being the first African American woman to hold the position. She has been a committed advocate of civil rights for decades. And she has always supported peaceful, legal efforts to advance the cause.

Loretta lynch

That makes the recent headlines in the right-wing media all the more troubling. Lynch recorded a video message (posted below) upon leaving the Justice Department when President Obama’s term as president expired. It is an inspiring appeal to all Americans to continue the struggle for equal justice under the law. The brief statement serves as a reminder that the fight for equality has “never been easy.” Here are her remarks in full:

“I know that this is a time of great fear and uncertainty for so many people. I know it’s a time of concern for people who see our rights being assailed, being trampled on, even being rolled back. I know that this is difficult. But I remind you that this has never been easy.

“We have always had to work to move this country forward to achieve the great ideals of our founding fathers. And it has been people, individuals, who have banded together. Ordinary people who simply saw what needed to be done and came together and supported those ideals who have made the difference.”

“They’ve marched, they’ve bled and yes, some of them died. This is hard. Every good thing is. We have done this before. We can do this again.”

It seems hard to believe that anyone could find fault in that positive message that exalts American values. But conservative bigots and their media outlets would not be deterred from doing just that.

The ultra-rightist, conspiracy theory website, WorldNetDaily, took the lead with an article that heinously misrepresented Lynch. They maliciously turned her words into a call for blood and death. WND clipped the part where Lynch honored those who sacrificed so much to bring about equality and gave it a new and hateful meaning. They headlined their story “Loretta Lynch: Need more marching, blood, death on streets.”

Obviously Lynch was not advocating for more blood and death. That’s an interpretation that can only be made by a blindly partisan and deliberately dishonest bigot. She was saluting heroes from the past who advanced the cause of liberty. People like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, whose mission was always one of peaceful protest. The violence came from the opponents of equal rights for all.

After WND published their hit piece it circulated throughout the right-wing echo chamber. Most prominently, it was featured on the Fox News community website (and lie factory), Fox Nation, with the same headline. And it didn’t stop there. The wingnut network embraced this slanderous theme. It was also published on a variety of right-wing sites including Alex Jones’ Infowars, the Gateway Pundit, and the Drudge Report.

This is how the alt-right, white supremacists distribute their hate-speech. And it isn’t a coincidence that all of these outlets are on Donald Trump’s favorites list. His presidency has emboldened the worst elements of our national character. When Klan groups openly celebrate the election of Trump, someone they regard as one of their own, it should set off alarms. But Trump’s tepid response to his most fervent and vile followers continues to serve as encouragement to the racist right. And the smears against Lynch are just the latest examples of how committed bigots will distort reality to further their mission of hate.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Civil Whites March: Fox News Whines That Liberal Media Cut Bush Out Of Selma Ceremony

This past weekend marked the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic events in America’s history. In 1965 hundreds of protesters organized a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand an end to the institutional racism that kept African Americans from exercising their right to vote. The marchers were met on the Edmund Pettus Bridge by state troopers who beat them with nightsticks, trampled them horses, assaulted them with water cannons, and left many of the peaceful marchers severely injured.

John Lewis, now a U.S. congressman, was among those who suffered at the hands of the segregationist southern establishment. The televised images of the brutality directed at the marchers played a significant role in elevating the civil rights crisis to a national priority.

So how did Fox News choose to cover this historic commemorative occasion? This morning on Fox & Friends the Kurvy Kouch Potatoes devoted the whole of their Selma segment to complaining about a photo that appeared in the New York Times. Later, the ladies of “Outnumbered” did the same thing. The photo in question was of President Obama walking arm-in-arm with some of the figures who participated in the original march fifty years ago, including Rep. Lewis. But the Fox crew completely ignored the cultural importance of the event in order to play out their obsession with being victims of the “liberal” media.

Fox News

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Dispensing with any discussion of the state of civil rights in the intervening years, Fox focused on their allegation that former president George W. Bush had been deliberately cropped out of the photo that appeared in the New York Times. To them this was further evidence of how the liberal media distorts the news and robs conservatives of their rightful place as champions of civil rights.

There are two small problems with that characterization. First, the Times did not crop the photo at all. They printed the entire photo that had been supplied to them. The photographer had quite reasonably framed the photo to put President Obama in the center, thus missing Bush who was far off to the side. Other photos were taken of the event that show Bush, however, in order to reveal the whole front line of the march, the picture would have either consumed the entire width of the paper or been reduced so that no one could have been recognized.

The second problem is that the notion that Bush is an indispensable component of any photo of a civil rights march is ludicrous. In his eight years as president, Bush attended only one of the annual meetings of the NAACP. His Justice Department investigated the organization with an aim to remove its tax-exempt status. He opposed affirmative action and other legislative remedies to racism. And he appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who wrote the majority opinion striking down provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that was a direct result of the original march in Selma.

Why the Fox regulars regard Bush as being entitled to a place of honor at this march is a mystery. But even worse is the fact that they would feature this phony assertion of liberal media bias to the exclusion of any substantive reporting on the issues that led to the march in 1965 and the importance of its 50th anniversary this weekend.

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This is typical of Fox’s perverse editorial stance on civil rights issues. On their Fox News Sunday program they hosted Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal (another brick in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire) who complained that Obama called for renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Just to be clear, she was against talking about voting rights in a speech commemorating an historic march for voting rights. Also notable is that Fox News failed to mention that not a single member of the current leadership in Congress attended the anniversary event in Selma.

And yet, Fox found time on multiple programs to gripe about a non-story concerning the cropping of a photo that never happened. That’s what Fox regards as newsworthy. And everybody knows that civil rights begin with exalting white Republicans who never did a damn thing to advance them.

Rand Paul States The Obvious: The Republican Party Brand Sucks

Every now and then a politician will surprise people by saying something that is manifestly true. However, they often only resort to that strategy when it is also unarguably obvious or they have an absurd explanation for why the truth is what it is.

Sen. Rand Paul (KY-Tea Party) made just such a pronouncement yesterday while on the campaign trail for his Kentucky colleague, Mitch McConnell. The glaringly evident observation that Paul issued was that “The Republican Party brand sucks.”

Rand Paul

No, really? Who knew? Well, pretty much everybody except for GOP chair Reince Priebus and most of the cult-bound viewers of Fox News. Notwithstanding all of the media pouncing on President Obama’s low approval rating in recent polls, his 41% looks awfully good compared to the GOP’s ranking down in the low teens. So it’s understandable that Paul would seek to provide a tortured interpretation of reality to explain the public’s distaste for his party. And apparently it’s all the fault of colored folk.

Paul: For 80 years African-Americans have had nothing to do with Republicans. Why? Because of a perception. The problem is the perception that no one in the Republican Party cares.

Indeed there is a perception among African-Americans (and Latinos, and women, and gays, and youth, and seniors, and workers, and the poor) that Republicans don’t care about them. But it is a perception based on political reality. The GOP’s policies have been aimed straight at the heart of Americans who are not wealthy or otherwise privileged. When Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage, and cutting social security, and advocating tax reform that puts more money in the pockets of the rich while incentivizing corporations to send American jobs overseas, there will be a perception resulting from such deliberately harmful legislative practices.

What’s more, if African-Americans have had nothing to do with Republicans for 80 years, it may have something to do with the fact that throughout all of that time the Republicans have tried to suppress them by opposing the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, and other measures aimed at insuring a more equal society. Even today the GOP has been fiercely fighting to impose obstacles to voting for minorities and other citizens they fear will vote against the GOP. Why on Earth would any of these disenfranchised Americans have a positive perception of Republicans?

Paul, it should be noted, is specifically among those who have advocated for policies harmful to African Americans. In an epic debate with Rachel Maddow he argued his position against parts of the Civil Rights Act, although he later denied he ever took such a position. This disparity is certain to come up again should Paul enter the primary for the GOP nomination for president in 2016, as many expect that he will.

So it is small wonder that the Republican Party brand sucks. It is more surprising that anyone might still hold it in high regard. But for Paul to carry this message as if he were positioned to fix the branding is ludicrous. And the notion that the GOP’s problems are merely related to perceptions, rather than substantive differences with their historical and current platform, is really just another example of why the party is so out of touch.

Obama Paranoia Strikes Deep

“Get ready for an unprecedented government assault upon the First Amendment. President Obama will be at the heart of it.”

These are the words that open an article in the ultra-rightist Human Events by notorious kook, Jack Thompson (more on him later). The article is another in a series of hysterical rants from conservative Chicken Littles who fear that Democratic leadership is intent on restoring the “Fairness Doctrine” which they believe will sweep their heroes (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, etc.) from the airwaves. This despite the fact that Barack Obama himself is on record opposing its reinstatement. But that doesn’t stop Thompson from building a delusional case for how Obama has devised an insidious plot to stifle right-wingers with an even more destructive attack on free speech.

Thompson leads his argument with this frightening passage from a speech by Charles Benton of the Benton Foundation:

“[O]ur number one national communications policy priority must be the eradication of racial and gender discrimination in media and telecommunications. Our shared goal: seeing the day when all Americans possess the tools to compete in commerce, to contribute to and enjoy the fruits of democracy, to receive unbiased and uncensored news and information, to create our culture.” [Emphasis by Thompson]

The Benton Foundation is a private institution that “works to ensure that media and telecommunications serve the public interest and enhance our democracy.” As illustrated in the quote above, their mission is one that most Americans would enthusiastically support. However, Thompson tries to turn it into something scary with creative italics. His attempt would be even more ludicrous had he included the next paragraph from the speech:

“In our democratic society, we are constantly on the outlook for undue influence by the government on our communications. But we should be equally vigilant to make sure that a handful of powerful people or companies do not dominate our discourse either.”

Is this really something that Thompson thinks conservatives should recoil from? He continues by trying to demonize the concept of “localism” which calls for the FCC “to gather information from consumers, industry, civic organizations, and others on broadcasters’ service to their local communities.” If Thompson is opposed to this, one wonders from where he thinks the FCC ought to get information. Politicians? Missionaries? Astrologers? He further disparages localism by associating it with the latest conservative buzz word for bogeyman, “community organizer.” What is most perplexing is that Thompson really expects anyone to be troubled by the agendas outlined above. But, sadly, there will be plenty of troubled readers who will buy Thompson’s snake oil.

Thompson’s most disturbing argument against localism comes with a reference to one of the right’s favorite new fright-makers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. However the connection is as fragile as Thompson’s grasp of reality. In 1967, the United Church of Christ’s Office of Communication participated, with the NAACP and residents of Jackson, MS, in a challenge to the broadcast license of WLBT. For the record, Wright was not associated with the UCC at that time – he was not even a minister. In fact, he was wrapping up his service as a Navy medical technician assigned to the team caring for President Lyndon Johnson. It was not until 1972, after returning to college and earning two masters degrees and a Doctorate of Divinity, that he became pastor of UCC’s Trinity Church.

But it is Thompson’s characterization of the WLBT challenge that is truly disgusting. He calls WLBT “a Southern station [that] was not covering the civil rights movement fairly.” The truth is somewhat more unsavory than that trivialization. The book Changing Channels – The Civil Rights Case That Transformed Television,” by Kay Mills, describes what really happened with a little more detail and accuracy. Mills wrote about the situation in an article for the National Archives:

WLBT, which had gone on the air in 1953, employed no black people, either on camera or behind the scenes, although its audience was more than 40 percent black. The station also did not cover the black community in the same depth as it covered news about the white community, and it broadcast the Sunday services of only a local white church and none from black churches. Its station manager editorialized on the air against the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi in 1962, arguing that states, not the federal government, should determine who could attend their schools and colleges.

The case against WLBT was a hard fought matter of principles that endure today. Prior to this victory, which was argued before both the FCC and federal courts, the only people who could bring these sort of challenges were those with “an economic stake in the issue or people who could claim electrical interference from broadcasters’ signals.” This case provided the first ruling that permitted citizens to take action against broadcasters who failed to serve the public interest. It was the first time that regulators were forced to listen to citizens and not just the broadcasters and corporations.

WLBT was an egregious violator of the Fairness Doctrine rules in effect at the time. Its management was overtly racist. And they repeatedly resisted efforts to be more responsive to their viewers and the community at large. The battle against WLBT produced a profound victory that was aided by historic figures like Medger Evers, Thurgood Marshall, and Warren Burger. It is this example that Thompson chose in order to whip up opposition to Obama and an expired doctrine that Obama does not support.

Thompson is so fixated on roiling the waters that he would denigrate one of the most significant events in the civil rights movement to further his ignoble ends. Therein lies the seeds of his madness. Jack Thompson is a well known nutcase. He has a long history of feuding with a variety of people and institutions. He has been a crusading critic of pornography and violence in video games, advocating what amounts to censorship. And when his nuisance suits were quashed, he whined about being discriminated against for his Christian beliefs. Eventually, he was permanently disbarred from practicing law in Florida for making false statements and attempting to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate litigants and other lawyers. None of this, however, keeps Human Events from making Thompson a regular contributor.

[Update: It has just been revealed that Kevin Werbach, a co-chair of Obama’s FCC transition team is an avid gamer. This should set up an epic battle between him and anti-gamer, Thompson.]

The Culture Warriors on the right are shameless in their brazen assaults on someone who has not even taken office. Yet somehow Obama is orchestrating an end to the First Amendment. The current state of the economy is already being referred to by the Hannitized as the Obama recession. If he chooses an aide or cabinet appointee with experience, he is said to have abandoned his promise for “change.” But if he names someone new from outside the beltway, he’ll be accused of being irresponsible.

The message is clear: The Martinets of Conservatism want you to hate Barack Obama – and they want you to start NOW!