Fox News Takes Adulterous White House Correspondent Off The Air (What About Trump?)

Posted by Mark NC on May 5, 2016 at 10:20 am. 6 Comments :

The lascivious news scavengers are burning up the wires this morning reporting that Ed Henry, the Fox News Chief White House Correspondent, has been taken off the air due to the discovery that he has been engaging in a months-long extra-marital affair with a Las Vegas hostess.

This raises some questions that have not yet been addressed by most of the press. First and foremost, if marital infidelity is justification for taking a someone off the air then why is Bill O’Reilly still anchoring his primetime program? He has been alleged to have sexually harassed his former producer, Andrea Mackris. Plus, he has been accused by his own children of physically assaulting his wife, an act for which he lost custody of his kids. In addition, other Fox contributors have also violated their marriage vows but remain on the air. Newt Gingrich has cheated on multiple wives. Mark Sanford infamously took a secret trip to Argentina to visit his mistress. Herman Cain’s presidential bid was short-circuited due his numerous infidelities. And those are just the ones we know about so far.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. The Donald has frequently boasted about his lurid affairs during his multiple marriages. Of course, he isn’t currently a Fox News employee, but he is on the network more than any of their actual reporters and pundits. And when does anyone on Fox ever even bring up the facts about his salacious escapades? Even when Trump is peddling his phony evangelical, family values spiel he isn’t challenged by the Fox toadies lobbing softballs at him.

Fox News was right to bench Ed Henry. Not because of any sanctimonious moral statement on his personal behavior, which is none of their business. But because Henry is covering Hillary Clinton’s campaign and has already conducted interviews that include references to her husband’s unfaithfulness a quarter of a century ago. Henry even asked Trump to comment on the ancient allegations on a segment of Fox & Friends. The hypocrisy of Henry questioning Trump about Bill and Hillary’s past (and by all appearances resolved) marital problems at the same time that he was fully involved in his own extra-marital affair is an unacceptable breach of journalistic ethics.

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

However, if Fox is going to pull Henry off the air, they should be consistent and do the same for the others on their roster who have done the same or similar things. And they certainly shouldn’t allow Trump to get away with smearing Clinton without being held accountable for his own adulteries. Or for wanting to bang his own daughter.

The Wingnut Reverse Beetlejuice Doctrine: Say ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’ Three Times

Posted by Mark NC on November 15, 2015 at 2:18 pm. 14 Comments :

The warped philosophy of conservatives in America has long held that the primary reason for the persistence of terrorism is that President Obama and other Democrats are reluctant to utter the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” They somehow have concluded that those magical words are key to defeating groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS. And they wonder why we think they’re stupid.

Following the Democratic Debate in Iowa on Saturday, the call to cast the magic spell was once again made the centerpiece of rightist criticisms. GOP candidates, and right-wing pundits on Fox News and elsewhere, have uniformly adopted the fabled “Reverse Beetlejuice Doctrine” wherein you shout “radical Islamic terrorism” three times and ISIS disappears. Actually, it isn’t even required to shout it. You can just tweet it. For example:

Donald Trump: Why won’t President Obama use the term Islamic Terrorism? Isn’t it now, after all of this time and so much death, about time!
Jeb Bush: Yes, we are at war with radical Islamic terrorism. #DemDebate
Ted Cruz: We need a President who is unafraid to name our enemy — radical Islamic terrorism — and will set out to defeat it.
Rick Santorum: Yes, @HillaryClinton we are at war with radical Islam! You are not qualified to serve if you cannot even define our enemy! #DemDebate
Mike Huckabee: You’re all grown up now. You can do it. Three words. Ten syllables. Say it with me: “Radical Islamic terrorism.” #DemDebate
Carly Fiorina: We need a President who will see and speak and act on the truth…Hillary Clinton will not call this Islamic terrorism. I will.
RNC (Republican National Committee: Hillary refuses to say we are at war with “radical Islam.” #DemDebate
Todd Starnes (Fox News): If your #DemDebate drinking game words are “Radical Islam” — you’ll be going home cold sober tonight, folks.
Eric Bolling (Fox News): Just so all you vapid @HillaryClinton supporters know. She just said “we are not at war with radical Islam”. #parisisburning
Donald Trump (again): When will President Obama issue the words RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM? He can’t say it, and unless he will, the problem will not be solved!

In addition to these individuals, conservative media is singing from the same hymnal. National Review, Breitbart News, Washington Times, Free Beacon, and the Daily Caller are among those in the choir. It’s clearly an obsession with these folks. They are convinced that babbling a few specific words is a better indicator of the determination to fight terrorists than actually fighting terrorists. So even though Obama ordered the successful assassination of Osama Bin Laden, and as Commander-in-Chief presided over the killing of thousands of terrorist operatives, including many of their leaders, he can’t possibly be serious about the mission until he recites the approved scriptural incantation.

For the record, just this week under the leadership of President Obama, missions were carried out that are believed to have resulted in the deaths of the ISIS chief in Libya and the infamous ISIS executioner known as Jihadi John. And all without invoking the magic spell.

At Fox News they are engaging in their standard game plan of distorting reality in a way that twists it to their far-right biases. Ed Henry, their senior White House correspondent, in a post-debate report told Sean Hannity that “At one point [Hillary Clinton] said ‘I do not believe we’re at war with radical Islam.’ The reaction to that online and overnight will be very interesting.”

Of course the most interesting part of that is that it is not what she said. What she said was “I don’t think we’re at war with Islam. I don’t think we’re at war with all Muslims. I think we’re at war with jihadists.” Nevertheless, Henry’s bastardization of her remarks is what will stick in the already gooey minds of Fox viewers. The cult simply will not permit free thought based on verifiable facts.

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

There are numerous reasons for declining to fall into the “radical Islamic terrorist” trap. News Corpse spelled them out early this year in some detail. The gist is that we have legitimate concerns regarding our ability to form coalitions with the Muslim nations in the Middle-East whose cooperation is required to prevail against ISIS. That is not helped by demeaning their faith. But it’s more than that. By accepting the terms and definitions of the terrorists, Republicans, Fox News, et al, are acting as the PR department for the terrorists who desperately aspire to be regarded as the legitimate voice of Islam. Why are they insisting on granting the terrorists that victory?

And here’s some perspective from Muslims on the anti-Islam extremists who pretend to be Muslim.

Fox News Was So Sure That Joe Biden Was Running For President Yesterday

Posted by Mark NC on October 21, 2015 at 4:29 pm. 9 Comments :

In remarks delivered today in the White House Rose Garden, Vice-President Joe Biden announced that he will not be a candidate for president in 2016. After a painfully long decision-making process, Biden stood with President Obama and his wife Jill to dash the hopes of right-wingers everywhere who were yearning for a more contentious Democratic primary.

However, Fox News may not be satisfied with this announcement. After all, just yesterday their senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, appeared on the air (video below) to reveal that…

“He’s likely in. […] I’ve got three sources close to the Vice-President who are saying that, in meetings and in phone calls, he has said that he’s likely to get in.”

Three sources! That settles it. Biden is only a single source, so it’s three against one and, therefore, he must be lying. The folks at Fox News can mark this down as another example of the dishonesty of the Obama administration. Trey Gowdy is expected to call for hearings on whether or not Biden lied about his presidential ambitions and what email account he used to convey them to Obama.

Henry was not alone in his assessment of Biden’s intentions. His Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly said weeks ago that Biden was “ramping up to challenge Hillary Clinton” and that he “believes he will be in the race.” Another colleague, Monica Crowley, insisted repeatedly that “As I have been saying… He’s running.”

Other media figures have also chimed in. For instance, Diane Francis of the National Post said that “#Biden definitely running, good source, amid concern about Clinton skeletons;” Roger Simon of PJMedia tweeted “BREAKING> Big financial backer says #Biden definitely running;” Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine wrote “Joe Biden is running for president — a fact that has been obvious, and true, for weeks;” and The Most Wrong Man in America, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, couldn’t be more certain saying…

“I’m told by Democrat I trust that Biden ‘almost certain’ to run, will announce this week in time to speak at the Iowa J-J dinner Sat night.”

…and…

Biden confirms to Obama at lunch today he’s running, announces at U Delaware tomorrow. You can feel the Joementum!

There is never a shortage of idiotic punditry surrounding any event in American politics. But with so many instances of certainty, backed by allegedly unassailable sources, you have to wonder how these people keep their jobs. Will Ed Henry go back and grill his three sources to find out why they were so horribly wrong? Will he apologize to his viewers? And coming on the heels of the Fox News intelligence analyst who was just arrested for falsifying his credentials, you have to wonder if anything that anyone says on the network is worthy of consideration.

Even as I’m writing this, Charles Krauthammer is on Fox saying that Biden’s speech today was a actually a secret announcement that he IS running, and that he will step in as soon as Clinton is indicted. So we can all feel a little more at ease knowing that, no matter what is happening anywhere in the world, the conspiracy kooks are working hard to invent crazy theories based on nothing but their unique brand of 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 Is So Terrified Of Hillary Clinton That They Invent Fake Email Scandal

Posted by Mark NC on August 17, 2015 at 9:46 pm. 20 Comments :

For months there has been a concerted effort by Fox News to torpedo the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. They have done it by relentlessly airing stories about alleged scandals that they have trumpeted with glee would end her White House aspirations. Those stories include everything from Benghazi to the Clinton Foundation, to her aide Huma Abedin’s alleged ties to Muslim extremists, to her private computer server. Never mind that there has never been a smidgen of actual evidence showing that she had engaged in anything unlawful or unethical. Just the wild accusations repeated ad nauseum on Fox News is enough to plant the notion in the mind of the public and drive down her poll numbers for trustworthiness.

The mission of Fox News is obviously to sabotage the campaign of the strongest Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential election. They know that Clinton, even after the smear crusade, still manages to out poll every Republican challenger. Consequently, they need to persist in the propaganda blitz until they succeed in bringing her down.

While previous attempts focused heavily on Benghazi, the inability to make their false charges stick has driven Fox to elevate a different scandalette to the forefront. So now Benghazi has been at least temporarily sidelined in favor of the dreaded lost emails. What Fox is trying to turn into a political frenzy is the allegation that Clinton had sent or received classified email communications using a private computer server rather than one hosted by the feds at the Department of State. This, they imply, may have exposed sensitive information to unfriendly nations.

The first point that needs to be made is that recent reports have revealed that hackers have already trespassed into the official government servers that store data for millions of federal employees. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that Clinton’s server security was ever breached by anyone. So Clinton may have actually protected the information she was handling by segregating it on her server while the feds were being hacked. The second pertinent fact is that there is no evidence that any classified emails were sent or received through Clinton’s server.

However, what really makes this media farce so dishonest is that the so-called journalists at Fox News are fabricating a controversy that doesn’t exist in reality. They spend endless hour of valuable airtime yammering about missing emails and mysterious servers. Even though Clinton, in an unprecedented display of transparency, turned over 55,000 pages of emails. This was never done by other Secretaries of State who also used private servers. Nor was it done by her GOP opponents who as governors did the same thing.

To make matters worse, Fox News completely ignores previous incidents when emails went missing. For instance, when the Bush administration was under investigation for various improprieties, they suddenly announced that, not thousands, but millions of emails had mysteriously vanished. This scandal even included allegations that then-White House operative Karl Rove had been communicating with a private server located at the Republican National Committee.

At the time, Bush’s Press Secretary Dana Perino (now a host on Fox News), insisted it was an unfortunate but innocent computer glitch. This is the same Perino who now calls Clinton’s email situation a criminal offense. And at a congressional investigation of the Bush matter, the GOP’s Clinton inquisitionist, Darrell Issa, also tried to dismiss the Bush debacle as a glitch. Furthermore, then-CNN reporter Ed Henry (now also on Fox News) speculated that the Bush affair might be a violation of the Federal Presidential Records Act.

As if that weren’t enough, the Fox News family has another email scandal in its past. When Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers were caught hacking into the phone and email accounts of private citizens, celebrities, politicians, and royals, they tried to cover it up by making millions of emails disappear. This destruction of evidence was not merely alluded to, but was proven with internal, News Corp. memos describing their policy of destroying emails “that could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation”.

So you have to wonder what moral authority anyone at Fox News has to complain about Clinton’s emails, which have never been proven to contain anything untoward. Clearly Fox isn’t interested in compliance with the law or good government. They are deploying a well-coordinated attack on a political rival whom they desperately fear. And they wonder why no one regards them as a reputable news network.

Just As I Predicted, Fox News Hated Obama’s Speech (Surprise)

Posted by Mark NC on September 10, 2014 at 8:29 pm. 1 Comments :

Just as I predicted this morning, Fox News, and their Republican comrades, marched in lock-step opposition to President’s Obama speech on dealing with the threat of ISIL.

Immediately following the speech, Fox News spent the next couple of hours picking it apart with sometimes ludicrous logic. They began with commentary from their White House correspondent Ed Henry who asserted his opinion that Obama, by calling for decisive action to destroy ISIL, had reversed himself on his prior foreign policy which, of course, was to destroy ISIL.

Megyn Kelly, who anchored the post-speech discussion, led with a series of poll results that cast the President in a negative light. She then approached her guests with blatantly leading questions, such as her wondering whether Obama’s heart was in his stated intention to take out ISIL. She also asked whether Obama’s policy to leave Iraq in 2011 caused the situation now where we have to go back “in a way that is even more dangerous.” That question ignores certain facts, such as the date for the departure of U.S. troops which was set by George W. Bush. Also, it can hardly be characterized as “more dangerous” when Obama’s plan will result in about 1,500 American soldiers in Iraq, as opposed to the 140,000 that were there previously. As for what caused the situation that allowed ISIL to emerge, that was solely due to Bush’s plundering of the government of Saddam Hussein (based on lies) and banishing his generals and other military personal, who went on to form ISIL.

Dana Perino, Bush’s former press secretary, said that she liked Obama’s line “If you threaten the United States you will have no safe haven.” But she said that the reason she liked it was because she had heard the same thing before from her old boss when he said “You are either with us or you are against us.” How is that even remotely the same?

However, the most idiotic commentary came from Brit Hume who said…

“If the threat is sufficiently great to American interests and to America itself, then it seems that one would do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat. [Obama] didn’t quite go that far. He said he was determined to destroy ISIS, but you heard at the end when he was talking about what we do in these situations. He said “We do what it takes.” He didn’t say we do whatever it takes.“

Are you FRIGGIN’ kidding me? I would love to know what Hume thinks is different about those two statements. Obviously, these cretins are so consumed with finding fault that their cranial synapses are misfiring.

Every guest during the remainder of Kelly’s program was an Obama opponent, including Hume, Perino, General Jack Keane, Chris Stirewalt, and Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz launched his tirade by saying that Obama’s speech was “fundamentally unserious,” and was representative of the “failed Obama/Clinton foreign policy.” That was his way of injecting politics into the discussion by invoking the name of the women he hopes to challenge in 2016. Kelly’s show was followed by Sean Hannity who added John McCain and Rand Paul to the bitchfest.

Not a single Democrat or pundit supportive of the President or his policy was allowed on the air during the post-speech analysis. So much for the “fair and balanced” network. This is why the prediction I made earlier was so easy. The same prediction can be made for pretty much any event that involves Obama or any progressive politician or policy. Fox News single-mindedly follows the philosophy of Marx (Groucho, that is):

Whatever it is, I’m against it.

Fox News Adopts Newt Gingrich’s Alinsky Rhetoric

Posted by Mark NC on January 23, 2012 at 3:40 pm. 3 Comments :

At today’s White House press briefing a question was asked that illustrates the press corps’ dedication to the news that America cares about most:

The question that pushed this item to the top of Fox Nation was asked by none other than Fox News White House correspondent, Ed Henry. So what we have here is a Fox News reporter being featured on a Fox News web site for asking an ignorant question that nobody cares about. Here is the actual transcript:

Henry: I wonder if you could clear something up. Newt Gingrich keeps saying on the campaign trail that the President’s vision comes from Saul Alinsky, the community organizer. I haven’t heard you asked about that but I was wondering … Is there some kind of portrait of him in the White House that people look up to or is this BS?

Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary: Have I said how much fun I had as a reporter covering Congress from 1996 to 1998? There was a certain bombast to it at the time. A lot of colorful things to cover.

The President’s background as a community organizer is well documented in the President’s own books. His experience in that field obviously contributed to who he is today. But his experience is a broad-based one that includes a lot of other areas in his life. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Perhaps the reason that Henry has not heard Carney asked about an Alinsky portrait in the White House is that no one else would ask such a stupid question. This is an obvious attempt to legitimize the wing-nut rhetoric of Newt Gingrich (which he picked up from Glenn Beck). Gingrich has taken to disparaging President Obama as a European socialist and Alinsky radical in order to suck up to the Tea Party dimwits who are still suffering withdrawal symptoms since Beck was booted off of Fox News.

In fact, it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between Gingrich and Beck. A couple of years ago Gingrich was pontificating on Obama as a “Kenyan anti-colonialist” who only became president as the result of “a wonderful con.” And he featured the same subject matter in his South Carolina victory speech. Not that Romney is any better. In a 2008 campaign ad he actually preceded Beck’s insane fear-mongering of an Islamic caliphate bent on taking over the world.

The GOP candidates are desperately trying to leapfrog each other to see who can spew the most ludicrous right-wingisms, and Fox News is valiantly stepping forward to prop up their lunatic pandering. Too bad Fox can’t even accomplish that act without misspelling the name of their designated demon (Alinksky?). And their transcript of the exchange between Henry and Carney erroneously quoted Carney as saying “[Obama]’s experiences abroad also included alot of other areas in his life.” What Carney actually said was that “[Obama]’s experience is a broad-based one that includes a lot of other areas in his life.” I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Fox’s mistaken version fits nicely into the Birther fantasy that Obama is a foreigner.

The more Fox News and their inbred candidates focus on irrelevancies like Alinsky, the more cheering can heard from the White House. Not because they have succeeded in concealing from the nation their secret plot to invoke Sharia law, but because they know that the American people are more concerned about jobs, income inequality, and the sort of real national security that brought about the demise of Osama Bin Laden and an end to the war in Iraq. Most Americans have no idea who Saul Alinsky is, nor could they define socialism (much less Kenyan anti-colonialism). So if these are the themes of the Republican campaign in 2012, the Democrats can rest easy as they cruise to a landslide victory in November.

GOP Talking Points Pass For Reporting On Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on October 13, 2011 at 8:34 pm. 4 Comments :

The next time you hear some FoxPod complain about Fox News being called the PR division of the Republican Party, show them this example of Fox using GOP talking points and passing them off as news developed by their “brain room.”

Today on Megyn Kelly’s program she moderated a discussion that was based on a series of “Fox Facts” that appear to have been cribbed directly from a Republican National Committee press release. The similarities are unmistakable. [h/t Media Matters]

RNC says: “$4.2 Trillion: Added To The National Debt Since Obama Took Office.”
Fox says: “DEBT: Total Public Debt Outstanding has increased by $4.2 trillion.”

RNC says: “40.5: Number Of Weeks That It Takes To Find A Job.”
Fox says: “AVERAGE WEEKS UNEMPLOYED: Unemployed out of work for an average of 40.5 weeks – that’s more than double since Jan 2009.”

RNC says: “2.2 Million: Jobs Lost Since Obama Took Office.”
Fox says: “JOBS: 2.22 million jobs lost.”

RNC says: “15.1%: Americans Living In Poverty.”
Fox says: “POVERTY: Nearly 3 million more Americans in poverty–poverty rate has gone from 13.2% to 15.1%.”

RNC says: “$1.17 Trillion: American Debt Held By China.”
Fox says: “CHINA: Owns $1.17 trillion of our debt (as of July) – a 58% increase from January 2009.”

RNC says: “45,696: Pages Of New Rules Added To The Federal Register During Obama’s First Two Years In Office.”
Fox says: “REGULATIONS – FEDERAL REGISTER: 45,696 pages of new regulatory rules were added to the Federal Register.”

RNC says: “818,000: Manufacturing Jobs Lost Since Obama Took Office.”
Fox says: “MANUFACTURING: 818,000 manufacturing jobs lost — a -6.5% drop since.”

This is not the first time that Fox News tried to pass off Republican dogma as their own original reporting. Fox anchor Jon Scott was caught reading an RNC memo that he reproduced as a graphic complete with the same typos as on the original RNC document.

In another example of Fox News carrying water for the Republican Party, their White House correspondent, Ed Henry, asked President Obama a question today at a press conference. The question was ostensibly about the President’s response to the arrests of Iran-affiliated suspects in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador. But Henry embellished his question in a peculiar way. Obama handled it nicely:

Henry: What specific steps will you take to hold Iran accountable, especially when Mitt Romney charged last week, “If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President — you have that President today?”

OBAMA: Well, I didn’t know that you were the spokesperson for Mitt Romney.

Henry’s shout to Romney was entirely out of place. Romney was not commenting on the Iranian plot that was the subject of Henry’s question. In fact, Romney made the comment before the arrests. Henry just included it as a gratuitous slap at the President that was unrelated to the topic at hand. That’s what made the President’s retort so appropriate.

However, when Henry appeared on Megyn Kelly’s program and the press conference was brought up, the interview was limited to the crack about Romney and completely ignored Obama’s substantive answer to Henry’s question about Iran. That’s pretty clear evidence that Henry wasn’t the least bit interested in his own question. The whole thing was a setup to inject Romney’s criticism of Obama into the news cycle.

Like I said above, Fox News is the PR division of the Republican Party, and they don’t even seem to be hiding it anymore.

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