Jon Stewart

The Daily Show’s “ObamaCare Apocalypse” Rips Naysayers To Shreds

Posted by on September 12, 2014 at 10:19 am. 1 Comments :

Once again, the Daily Show demonstrates why they are a better source for news than much of the mainstream press. While conservatives love to bash its viewers for regarding it as a news program, the truth is that Jon Stewart & Company frequently put the so-called “real” news to shame. (For the record, nobody thinks the Daily Show is a news program. They just recognize that it savagely skewers the many deficiencies of the media).

Daily Show Betsy McCaughey

In the “ObamaCare Apocalypse” segment, “correspondent” Jordan Klepper, goes into stark detail about the media handling of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). He begins with a montage showing an assembly of talking heads, mostly on Fox News, spewing wild accusations about the health reform’s allegedly disastrous effects.

Klepper: “For years, television pundits have been doing important work sounding the alarm about ObamaCare.”
Lou Dobbs program: “We’re going to be, six to ten months from now, in a massive fiscal crisis.”
Klepper: “Come on, you can do better than that.”
Eric Bolling: “ObamaCare literally may kill you.”
Klepper: “Good, keep going.”
Ben Carson: “The worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”
Klepper: “That’s what I’m talking about.”

This parade of hyperbole is followed by a series of facts that Klepper finds facetiously disturbing. Such as the fact that the program’s popularity is steadily growing, medical costs are declining, more people are insured, and premiums are lower. He then sets out to interview subjects who will cooperate with his ACA bashing, but is frustrated to find only people who actually live in the real world. The highlight is his attempt to interview Betsy McCaughey, the originator of the death panel lie, who abruptly removes her mic and stomps off after the first question. You have to wonder why she agreed to do the interview in the first place only to immediately scamper away.

The segment concludes with a simple, yet profound, observation that sums up the coverage by Fox News and other conservative outlets:

“Luckily, to be an ObamaCare critic, being right is not a job requirement.”

Actually, that could be applied to nearly everything that Fox News broadcasts or is uttered by Republicans in Congress. Here is the whole segment for your enjoyment:

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OOPS: Bill O’Reilly Advises People Not To Believe His Partisan Distortions

Posted by on September 4, 2014 at 10:55 am. 7 Comments :

Jon Stewart has been doing exceptional work ridiculing the systemic racism that was demonstrated so tragically by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Last week, for instance, Stewart laid into Bill O’Reilly (video below) for returning to his program early from a vacation because he was “furious” – not about the the needless loss of life – but about how it was being reported. O’Reilly took offense at this and scolded Stewart for “distorting” his words. He then attempted to defend himself by playing a clip from his program showing him expressing some sympathy for Brown:

O’Reilly: “What happened to Michael Brown shouldn’t happen to any American. […] Eighteen year olds make mistakes … If Michael Brown did something wrong, it doesn’t mean that you end up dead in the street.”

OK, fine. But while O’Reilly managed to utter some rather tepid sympathy for Brown, that was not the reason he cut his vacation short and rushed back to the studio. He didn’t hurry back because he was furious that an unarmed black teenager, who witnesses say had his hands up and posed no threat, was killed by an over-zealous, white police officer. His fury didn’t compel him to get back on the air because of the militarized Police department response to mostly peaceful protesters, and even members of the press. Nope, he was “furious about how the shooting of Michael Brown, 18, is being reported and how some are reacting to it.”

So Stewart’s criticism of O’Reilly for being outraged about the reporting, but not the shooting, was entirely on target. The whole point of that portion of Stewart’s program was that O’Reilly’s fury only surfaced after he saw the how the media was covering the story. The story itself wasn’t sufficient to abort his holiday. O’Reilly’s defense never even addressed the reason that Stewart had mocked him in the first place, which makes O’Reilly’s smug satisfaction that, in his mind, he had demolished Stewart’s mockery seem pretty pathetic.

Well, O’Reilly’s fury at Stewart had the ancillary effect of clouding his mind to the point where he actually said something that was true, albeit inadvertently. His Tip of the Day was…

O’Reilly: When you hear something on a partisan program, do NOT believe it … Distortions are how some people make a living.”

Bill O'Reilly

Thanks, Billo. That’s excellent advice. Now we all know how we should regard the grade A crapola you dish out every day, not to mention the steaming heap that the rest of the Fox News crew shovels 24/7.

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Curmudgeon Watch: Bill O’Reilly Wags His Finger At Jon Stewart’s Daily Show

Posted by on June 26, 2014 at 2:27 pm. 7 Comments :

Pandering to his geriatric demographic, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News devoted his lead segments to concern-trolling the welfare of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. The theme of his Talking Points Memo was whether or not the Comedy Central duo would have to “change their tone” now that “things are not going very well for the Obama administration.”

Bill O'Reilly

O’Reilly opened by asserting that Stewart and Colbert are unrepentant liberals who are committed exclusively to attacking conservatives and promoting President Obama:

O’Reilly: Here’s the problem with these guys. They prop up the Democratic Party and the liberal line, President Obama, by denigrating the opposition, the Republican Party, conservative people. That’s what they do. That’s how they function on a daily basis over there. Does it get more difficult to do that when the President and the party, the Democratic Party, are descending in the court of public opinion?

First of all, O’Reilly’s logic that Republicans cannot be satirized if Obama’s approval ratings decline is ludicrous on its face. If popularity, or the lack of it, is the driving factor as to whether a potential target of satire will be selected by a comedian, then it’s the Republican Party that can breathe a sigh of relief, because no matter how badly the President is doing, he’s miles ahead of the GOP.

But more to the point, O’Reilly is absolutely wrong in his assessment that Stewart props up Democrats and lives to denigrate the right. Apparently he doesn’t watch The Daily Show or even read Fox Nation (which is edited by his own producer, Jesse Watters). Over at the Fox Nation Lie-Fest they have published dozens of articles heaping praise on Stewart for either “destroying, tearing apart, eviscerating, or grilling” Obama and other liberals (see this list here). And if that weren’t enough, they also highlighted the many times Stewart “mocked, roasted, savaged, scorched, ridiculed, and obliterated” the President and his lefty allies (see this list here).

So where does O’Reilly get the idea that Stewart is propping up liberals? Like almost everything else that O’Reilly (and Fox News) spews, it is made up from whole cloth to advance the conservative agenda. But O’Reilly has his sycophantic guests that appear mainly to agree with him. On this program it was Fox News media correspondent, Howard Kurtz, who declared that Stewart and Colbert are now “out of the zeitgeist” due to their alleged failure to criticize the President. And who knows more about the zeitgeist than Kurtz?

However, Kurtz doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to Fox’s reporting either. That’s pretty damning for the person on the Fox roster whose job is specifically the media. Kurtz criticized Stewart’s coverage of the IRS affair because it contained “nothing about a cover up. He glossed over President Obama’s role.” Kurtz must have missed the fact that there is zero evidence of a cover up or any role by the President. That may have something to do with why Stewart left it out.

When Kurtz’s co-host on Fox’s MediaBuzz, Lauren Ashburn, chirped in to disagree with O’Reilly, she was immediately interrupted so that O’Reilly could ridicule her viewpoint and segue to insulting Stewart’s audience as San Francisco liberals smoking pot. That’s actually a reprise of an insult he flung a couple of years ago when Stewart was a guest on his show. At that time O’Reilly slammed the Daily Show audience (which is documented as being younger, smarter, and more successful than O’Reilly’s) by saying…

“You know what’s really frightening? You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it’s true. You’ve got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote.”

If that’s scary, then how much more frightening is it that the imbeciles who watch O’Reilly, and believe the fairy tales he spins, can vote (or buy guns, or operate cars and other heavy machinery)? O’Reilly concluded by thoughtfully worrying about Stewart and Colbert losing their audience since “they are going to have a harder time pleasing them with the collapse of the liberal establishment.” O’Reilly may have buried the lede in this program. Up until now, most people were probably unaware that the liberal establishment had collapsed. That should have been his headline. Of course, it’s just as phony as everything else he says, but why should that matter to the biggest phony on the phoniest network?

Jon Stewart Nails Cliven Bundy: A Welfare Rancher Trying To Pull Off The World’s Largest Cattle Dine-And-Dash

Posted by on April 22, 2014 at 10:09 am. 1 Comments :

The Daily Show returned from a week-long hiatus Monday to deliver an epic smackdown on the deadbeat cattleman in Nevada. Cliven Bundy has been widely rebuked for failing to pay customary grazing fees and declaring that he doesn’t “recognize the United States government as even existing.” The roots of his extremism was exposed here on News Corpse Sunday. The only people who support Bundy’s greedy, self-serving, churlishness are fellow terrorist militiamen and Fox News hosts. But Jon Stewart, as usual, provides one of the best perspectives on the situation that captures the absurdity of the affair in an honest and hilarious manner (video below). He sums it all up by observing that…

“The law isn’t on Bundy’s side. The court isn’t on Bundy’s side. Even the Nevada state constitution, which Bundy claims to abide, isn’t on Bundy’s side. Who the hell is on this guy’s side? […Cue Sean Hannity video montage…] How out there is Hannity on this issue? Sean Hannity has now made Glenn Beck the voice of reason.”

Apocalypse Cow

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Stewart’s take thoroughly demolishes any defense of Bundy that could be mustered within the bounds or reason. And his graphic depiction of “Apocalypse Cow” perfectly conveys the radical theo-con leanings of Bundy & Company. However, in searching for the Daily Show video there were some unexpected discoveries that Stewart may not have been aware of:

  • Apocalypse Cow: The Simpsons: Season 19, Episode 17
    Bart tries to save the cow he raised for his 4-H club from the slaughterhouse, and in the process winds up getting accidentally engaged to one of Cletus’s daughters.
  • Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan
    If you think you’ve seen it all — WORLD WAR Z, THE WALKING DEAD– you haven’t seen anything like this. From the twisted brain of Michael Logan comes Apocalypse Cow, a story about three unlikely heroes who must save Britain . . . from a rampaging horde of ZOMBIE COWS!
  • Apocalypse Cow – Three Floyds Brewing Co. & Brewpub
    This complex, double India Pale Ale has an intense citrus and floral hop aroma balanced by a velvety malt body which has been augmented with lactose milk sugar. With this different take on an IPA we have brewed an ale that is both pleasing to drink and, once again, “not normal.” Cheers!

Cletus, zombies and beer. How appropriate. And who knew this was such a popular theme? Anyway, here is Stewart’s version for your viewing pleasure.

And in honor of the Heifer joke above, please give to Heifer International: Together we have the power over hunger and poverty.

Stephen Colbert To Replace David Letterman: Stay Tuned For Right-Wing Freakout

Posted by on April 10, 2014 at 12:50 pm. 4 Comments :

CBS announced this morning that Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, will succeed David Letterman as the host of The Late Show.

Fox Nation vs. Reality - Colbert

Note: Not actually endorsed by Stephen Colbert, but still…
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Although Letterman only announced his pending retirement a few days ago, Colbert was almost instantly regarded as a top contender to fill the vacancy. His unique brand of characterture and satire has won him numerous Emmys and even a couple of Peabody Awards. When he assumes the position at the Late Show desk he will immediately challenge his peers to up their game in both raw comedy and creativity. It is fair to expect Colbert to reshape the concept of late-night television.

For extra added entertainment pleasure, watch the conservative martinets of Puritan culture grasp their throats and gasp for air as their lungs veritably burst with outrage. Colbert, and his Comedy Central mentor Jon Stewart, have long been targets of right-wing animosity. To the extent that they manage to get the jokes, they despise them and whine about more liberal domination of the news (as if Stewart and Colbert were actually journalists). They tried in vain to mimic the Daily Show and to launch (or relaunch) careers for conservative comics like Dennis Miller, Steven Crowder, and Victoria Jackson.

Just yesterday, Bill O’Reilly devoted his nightly Talking Points Memo segment to Colbert, whom he called “a deceiver” for mocking O’Reilly’s ludicrous defense of income inequality. O’Reilly went on to say that…

“Colbert can be dismissed as clueless, but the guy does do damage because he gives cover to the powerful people who are selling Americans a big lie, that this country is bad, that it intentionally oppresses many of its own citizens. That is a lie. That point of view is shameful.”

Well, O’Reilly is the authority when it comes to doing damage by giving cover to powerful people selling lies. But even as Fox News blasts Colbert and Stewart as hopelessly biased, they have recognized the falsehood in that characterization. News Corpse documented 29 occasions where the Fox Nation website praised Stewart for taking the conservative side on his program. That, however, has never stopped them from asserting that Stewart is a socialist who only satirizes conservatives.

In response to the Colbert promotion, Breitbart News editor, John Nolte tweeted “Low-Rated Hyper-Partisan Lefty to Replace David Letterman.” He previously critiqued Colbert saying that…

“There’s a HUGE left-wing agenda behind what Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is doing, and it’s a serious agenda that has nothing to do with satire.”

That’s typical of the viewpoint that Nolte has held for years. In a series of ignorant columns attacking Colbert, Nolte pointed out what he considered to be the poor ratings performance of The Colbert Report. But due to his embarrassing ignorance of the television business, Nolte failed to realize that Colbert’s ratings were better than those of Fox News. What’s more, no knowledgeable person would compare the ratings of a niche cable channel with those of a broadcast TV network. When Colbert moves up to CBS he will inherit the audience that goes along with it.

Rush Limbaugh weighed in saying that…

“CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American, conservative values. Now it’s just right out in the open.”

NewsBusters’ Dan Gainor tweeted…

“Colbert: From liberal asshat pretending to be conservative to liberal asshat who gets to be honest about his asshattery.”

Karl Rove was personally offended by Colbert’s “Ham Rove” bit, which he took as a threat of violence:

“One liberal replacing another one. Only this one apparently knows how to wield a knife.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post published a screed titled “Picking Colbert to replace Letterman? CBS really screwed up,” in which author Kyle Smith (who?) says that Colbert is…

“…only funny if you accept the premise (conservatives are morons) while you snort Mountain Dew out your nose.”

There will surely be more to come from these media geniuses who live in fear of Colbert’s brand of truthiness. If they were smart they would withhold their juvenile insults and accept the fact that CBS made a decision that is in the best interests of their bottom line. They could simply declare that their silly #CancelColbert boycott campaign was a huge success and return to something they have a much longer history of – insulting women and minorities.

The prospect for Colbert’s future as a late-night host are promising. He has an appealing personality and an engaging rapport with the guests he interviews. He is likely to have less political content on CBS, where their Standards and Practices department will keep a tighter rein on him. That will be a loss for those of us who cherish his outlook on society and culture, but you can’t blame him for aspiring to advance his career. And while he may tone it down, he likely will not abandon it altogether.

What many of the people commenting on this news are neglecting to mention is that there will now be a vacancy at Comedy Central. Here’s hoping that Jon Stewart, whose production company put Colbert on as his lead-out, will have some say in the matter of what follows him next. Due to his irreplaceable persona, it will not be possible to slip someone else into the same format. But another snarky news send-up is still the obvious choice to fill out the late-night hour. Perhaps Comedy Central could parody Fox News’ The Five, with a panel show featuring Daily Show regulars like Lewis Black, John Hodgeman, Kristen Schaal, Al Madrigal, Jessica Williams, Wyatt Cynac, etc.

They have no shortage of talent available. And, thanks to Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media circus, they have no shortage of material either.

[Update] On his show last night, Bill O’Reilly ignored the news about Colbert’s new job, but Time Magazine caught up with him and elicited this response: “I hope Colbert will consider me for the Ed McMahon spot.” Proving once again that O’Reilly is hopelessly stuck in the past, his attempt at humor reached back to reference a decades old sidekick, rather than a more relevant choice like Paul Shaffer or Alan Coulter. But O’Reilly would be a good choice for an Ed McMahon role, whose comedic persona was that of an old Irish loudmouth and a notorious drunk.

Bill O'Reilly/Stephen Colbert

Bill O’Reilly’s Know-Nothing Talking Points On ObamaCare (And Jon Stewart Too)

Posted by on October 8, 2013 at 12:37 pm. 9 Comments :

For the past week, the Fox News spokesman for the Divine Spirit, Bill O’Reilly, has been proselytizing his own prescription for resolving the government shutdown crisis. The centerpiece of his solution is his call to delay the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate” for one year. He says that big business is getting to waive their mandate for a year, so why not all of the American people.

Bill O'Reilly

The only thing wrong O’Reilly’s position is everything. First of all, Americans already have a de facto one year exemption from ObamaCare. The open enrollment period for ObamaCare extends for six months, until the end of March 2014. Anyone who does not get the required insurance by then will have to pay penalty, but it will not be due until 2015. So everyone has plenty of time between now and then to evaluate their options and make a decision that is in their best interest. Therefore, O’Reilly’s suggestion for a one year delay is moot. His notion that everybody must have insurance by January first or they will be billed immediately is simply untrue.

Secondly, O’Reilly uses as a justification for his superfluous delay proposal the previous granting of a one year waiver for the employer mandate. He reasons that if big business is granted this alleged reprieve, why not give the same break to individuals? But what O’Reilly either doesn’t know, or doesn’t say, is that the waiver to which he is referring is only going to a tiny minority of specific businesses that are not providing health insurance to their employees. Since about 96% of the impacted companies already provide such insurance, that leaves only the portion of the remaining 4% who are not prepared to comply that will be subject to the waiver. And that represents about 0.4% of the American people. Citing that miniscule piece of the program as justification for exempting everyone subject to the individual mandate is ludicrous.

When Bill O’Reilly mouths off ignorantly about subjects like these, it really isn’t particularly surprising. He does that pretty much every day. Unfortunately, his pal from the Daily Show, Jon Stewart, also got swept up in the false argument about business waivers during an interview last night with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. And as if it weren’t bad enough that he misread the facts, he berated Sebelius in a prolonged rant over that misunderstanding. Hopefully someone on his staff will provide him with more accurate data on this for future reference.

It is plainly absurd to delay a program that is already saving millions of dollars for millions of people on the basis of such flawed reasoning. And it certainly makes no sense to push everything back because a few companies got a waiver. The Tea Party Republicans advocating this course are engaging in deliberate obstruction and obfuscation, and they must not be allowed to get away with it. Their irresponsible behavior is already having an adverse effect on them with some polls showing they are at risk of losing their majority in the House of Representatives. So I guess the old saying about silver linings is true.

Fox News’ Love/Hate Relationship With Jon Stewart

Posted by on May 16, 2013 at 12:03 pm. 5 Comments :

If there is one thing that is undeniable about the the editors at Fox News, it’s that they are devoted to maintaining narratives that unleash persistent and blistering attacks on liberals and Democrats. It is their whole reason for living and their greatest source of joy. However, every now and then there is an event or a person that gums up the works and causes them to stutter furiously as they try to figure out what their opinion is.

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is such a person. Under ordinary circumstance, Fox resides happily in their characterization of Stewart as an unrepentant, socialist, disciple of Joseph Goebbels. Bill O’Reilly has called him “a key component of left-wing television.” Last Week Eric Bolling introduced a segment saying “Jon Stewart and his team of liberal writers deliver this piece of shi…satire the other night.” Over at Fox Nation’s Lie-Fest they posted a ludicrous report about an Obama donor funding a movie he is set to direct (In fact, the producer also donated to Romney).

Fox Nation

Now Fox is giddily heralding the recent episodes of The Daily Show where Stewart has been criticizing President Obama for the the variety of pseudo-scandals that the right is currently peddling. Fox couldn’t be more tickled by what they now consider to be insightful satire, but which they usually regard as unfunny carping. The thing about this is, Fox is oblivious to the reality that Stewart frequently mocks Obama and other Democrats. And what makes Fox’s ignorance of this fact all the more peculiar is that they themselves report every slap that Stewart takes at the left. For instance, these are just from this year alone, starting with today’s posting:

  • Jon Stewart Continues Piling on Scandal-Plagued Obama: He’s Either Nixon or Mr. Magoo
  • Stewart Tears Apart Obama: You Can’t Keep Saying You Found Out About News At the Same Time As Us!
  • Jon Stewart Destroys Obama Over IRS Scandal
  • Jon Stewart Goes Hog Wild on CNN
  • Stewart Eviscerates Obama for Withholding Drone Memos
  • Jon Stewart Tears Up Congress for Quietly Scaling Back Insider Trading Law
  • Stewart Destroys Former Obama Spox Robert Gibbs
  • Jon Stewart Tears Apart CNN
  • Jon Stewart Grills Hypocrite Al Gore
  • Jon Stewart’s F-Bomb Tirade Against Obama
  • Stewart Rips Obama SOTU: ‘Who’s Running This Sh*thole?!’
  • Jon Stewart Tears Into Obama’s ‘Attractive’ AG Comment
  • Jon Stewart Grills Susan Rice
  • Jon Stewart Tears Into Obama Hypocrisy
  • Jon Stewart Destroys Media Over Inauguration Coverage
  • Jon Stewart Mocks ‘All-White’ Obama Cabinet Controversy

Remember this whenever you hear some jerkwad on Fox railing about what a commie subversive Stewart is. And by jerkwad we can include Roger Ailes the CEO of Fox News who said about Stewart…

“He hates conservative views. He hates conservative thoughts. He hates conservative verbiage. He hates conservatives. He’s crazy. […] He makes a living by attacking conservatives and stirring up a liberal base against it.”

Yeah, that’s why Stewart did all those critical bits aimed at liberals. Does Ailes watch his own network?

Obama’s IRS Probes Tax-Exempt Status Of Abortion Doctor’s Benghazi Tea Party

Posted by on May 14, 2013 at 2:42 pm. 7 Comments :

The media has been in a virtual orgasmic frenzy for the past 24 hours as reports come out about troubling behavior by government agencies. Make no mistake, what appears to have been done by individuals in the IRS and the Justice Department is of enormous concern to Americans who are justifiably suspicious of the potential for abuse of government power. There is good reason to be outraged by recent events and it is clear that there is such outrage from across the political spectrum.

An equal amount of outrage must also be directed at the idiotic people at the IRS who thought that what they were doing was helpful to progressive affairs. Not only does that sort of behavior contradict the most basic principles of liberalism, the high risk of discovery and subsequent scandal ought to have brought anyone whose common sense had lapsed straight back to reality. The damage done by this stupidity could not have been more successfully achieved if it were a deliberate plot by GOP plants in the agencies.

Jon Stewart

That is why the exasperation expressed by Jon Stewart last night (video below) was so appropriate. By committing some obviously nefarious acts of abuse, these miscreants have also made it harder to advance the rational and necessary legislative initiatives aimed at restoring jobs and economic growth, fixing the immigration system, implementing healthcare, battling terrorism, etc. It was bad enough when all we had to deal with was obsessively obstructionist Tea-publicans in congress, but now, as Stewart put it so well…

“This has, in one seismic moment, shifted the burden of proof from the tin-foil behatted to the government.”

Indeed. Now, along with wingnuts like Michelle Bachmann, Louis Gohmert, and Ted Cruz, we have every psychotic from Alex Jones to Glenn Beck to Ted Nugent insisting that they were right all along when they said that Obama was a reptilian space alien sent here to breed. Never mind that their delusions are just as schizoid today as they were yesterday, they are basking in the limelight created by a few low-level dumb-asses who have nothing to do with the bigger agenda our nation needs to pursue.

Not to be left out, Fox News is all over these wannabe scandals. They are interviewing Darrell Issa about the AP phone records without disclosing that Issa voted against the bill that would have made such seizures unlawful. They hosted Dick Cheney on Sean Hannity’s program to say that Benghazi is “one of the worst incidents, frankly, that I can recall in my career.” And remember, his career encompasses Nazi concentration camps and nuclear bombings in Japan, as well as those for which he bears some personal responsibility, like 9/11.

Some news outlets have made the effort to demonstrate that these sort of IRS transgressions were not invented last week. During the Bush administration there were abuses like these on multiple occasions. Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon has enumerated a few: The IRS threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena following an anti-war sermon; The IRS audited the NAACP after its chairman criticized President Bush; The IRS audited and threatened to revoke Greenpeace’s tax-exempt status.

As for Fox News, they also did a report on the over-reaching of past presidents. And look at who they identified as violators:

Fox News - IRS Presidents

Fox managed to find two Democratic presidents (Kennedy and Clinton), who were never found to have done anything unlawful or even unethical via the IRS, and matched them up with one of histories most flagrant criminals (Nixon) whose abuse of IRS power is well documented and even recorded on tape. And somehow, George W. Bush, despite the cases noted above, was left out of Fox’s report entirely. Fair and What the Fuck?

Later in the day, Fox moved on to the story about Bloomberg News snooping on the users of their financial terminals. What could be more unsettling than the prospect of a powerful media institution secretly monitoring your private Internet and telecommunications activities?

Fox News - Bloomberg

Perhaps it might be a private media institution secretly hacking into the phones of thousands of individuals, including politicians, celebrities, and even a murdered schoolgirl. That, of course, is what Rupert Murdoch’s enterprise has admitted doing, but was never covered with the enthusiasm as Fox is now covering the story about their competitor, Bloomberg.

Murdochalypse

So for the foreseeable future, American news viewers are going to be bombarded with a flurry of sensationalistic stories bursting with speculation and hyperbole. We are already seeing reports that crunch together some of these affairs into conspiracies that assume a role by President Obama that no one has yet proven exists. Fox’s Neil Cavuto devoted a segment of his program to imply that the malfeasance in the IRS’s tax-exempt division will somehow spill over to the group that audits elements of ObamaCare, although they are not even remotely affiliated. The upshot of this conspiracy dementia is that if anyone in any agency does something untoward, then everyone in every agency is guilty.

What’s truly unfortunate is that the investigations into the failings that led to these abuses at the IRS and elsewhere, investigations that are warranted and could be beneficial, will undoubtedly distract both the media and the political class from working to resolve the many serious issues our nation is facing. So instead of creating jobs, protecting and educating children, addressing immigration, or pursuing terrorists, we will be inundated with ever more stories about Benghazi, the IRS, and Jodie Arias-style crime dramas.

If and when we get back to more substantive matters that affect the lives of real people, the scent of scandal will linger and further hamper progress. Consequently, without efficient and effective management of recent events, the nation may have to accept a period of stagnation, which is not what we need right now. And those jerkwads at the IRS are largely responsible for screwing over every citizen who had hoped that the country could move forward just a little bit. I hope they (figuratively) fry.

So F**king What? Movie Producer Funds Jon Stewart’s Movie

Posted by on March 7, 2013 at 10:18 am. NO Comments :

Due to the apparent lack of anything else that’s newsworthy, Fox Nation is reporting this bit of breaking news:

Fox Nation

The glorified delinquents that run Fox Nation veritably drool at any opportunity to disparage President Obama and his Hollywood pals. They are also giddy about slamming allegedly liberal comedians whenever possible (note that Jon Stewart is a frequent critic of the President and Democrats, and Fox knows it). But this item sourced to the ultra-conservative Washington Free Beacon is a perfect illustration of just how deranged these hacks are by their Obama hatred. The article begins…

“Gigi Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt fortune, will finance and produce Stewart’s directorial debut, Rosewater. The film is based on the true story of a former Iranian political prisoner arrested after appearing on ‘The Daily Show.”'”

So F**king What?

Sure, Pritzker is financing and producing Stewart’s film. Perhaps it’s because she runs a production company, Odd Lot Entertainment, and was fortunate enough to snag this project that many producers in the business would covet. And as obsessed right-wingers like to remind everyone, there is an abundance of Obama supporters in Hollywood. It might be difficult to find a film producer that had not donated to Obama.

Do the cretins at Fox think that Stewart would have associated himself with Republican producer for his first directorial effort?

Oops. Wait a minute…..It seems that Stewart has, in fact, associated himself with a Republican producer. In 2012 Pritzker, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, contributed the maximum allowed donation – to Mitt Romney! So Fox could just as well have posted the headline “Romney Donor Funds Jon Stewart Movie.” I wonder why they didn’t.

Jon Stewart Dismantles The GOP/Fox News Messaging Machine

Posted by on February 6, 2013 at 10:05 am. 6 Comments :

It’s been three months since the Republican Party took a beating at the polls losing the White House as well as two Senate seats and seven in the House. Yet they are still immersed in a vicious debate over whether their policies are driving away majorities of the electorate or if it’s just a messaging problem.

Heavyweight GOP operatives like Karl Rove, Eric Canter, Jim DeMint, Rush Limbaugh and various Tea Party goons are polishing their finest bluster and throwing blame around like cream pies at a clown convention. What they seem to be missing is that their messaging has been the one part of their tactical campaign that has been working. Americans, for the most part, know exactly what Republicans stand for, they just don’t like it and voted against it in droves. So the the response from the GOP is to take another stab at obscuring their true intent by developing another phony facade behind which to campaign. That effort was mercilessly skewered last night by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show:

Stewart’s focus on the self-described “Word Doctor” Frank Luntz could not have been more appropriate. Luntz has positioned himself as the poster boy for political window dressing.

Frank LuntzIn the pre-2012 election warm-up he conducted a seminar for the Republican Governors Association to teach them how to practice more effective deception. He told his pupils that he was “so scared” of Occupy Wall Street and laid out a directive for them to refrain from using damaging phrases like “tax the rich,” “sacrifice,” and “capitalism,” and replace them with his equivalent of verbal comfort food.

While desperately dishonest, Luntz is actually closer to solving the GOP’s problems than most of his comrades in the communications arena who are Apocalypse vendors trying to outdo one another with tales of doom. They want to keep the right-wing sheep in state of constant and debilitating fear by insisting that America’s demise is imminent, freedom is hanging by a thread, and the foreign-born usurper in the White House is amassing his troops for a run at dictatorship. Compared to that, Luntz is as warm and fuzzy as you can get, albeit just as averse to the truth.

The Apocalyptists, however, are winning the internal GOP war. Their gloomy forecast has prevailed as happy-talkers like Luntz fade into the woodwork. Luntz even acknowledged the defeat in a post-election commentary about why “Fox News viewers ought to be outraged.” The doomsayers have a much higher wattage broadcast platform. And although they whine incessantly about what they imagine to be a liberal media, their own role in propagandizing the nation is far more aggressive. As Jon Stewart sarcastically put it…

“If only people knew what the Republicans were about. What the Republicans need is some kind of a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week perpetual messaging refinement and distribution resource. Preferably one cloaked in the trappings of journalistic authority but without any of its ethical constraints.”

Yeah, if only they had that. Then their message wouldn’t be getting suppressed by media titans like Current TV. Wait a minute – that doesn’t exist anymore. Well the leftists certainly have dominated the airwaves on talk radio for the last few decades. Oh wait, that isn’t true either.

I guess the fact remains that the only billionaire sponsored mouthpiece for extremist right-wing thought control is still Fox News. And despite their monopoly on media manipulation they still can’t stop whining about what victims they are.