Liz Cheney

Ted Cruz is Humiliated in Hysterical Twitter Feud with Cheney, Kinzinger, and Swalwell

Posted by on November 14, 2021 at 6:06 pm. 5 Comments :

The Republican Circus has more than it’s share of clowns. With people like Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Louis Gohmert, the laughs keep flowing like an avalanche. But despite the tough competition, Cancun Ted Cruz has managed to maintain his status among the most mockable GOP Bozos.

Ted Cruz, Cancun

On Sunday Cruz was busy watching CNN where Jake Tapper was leading a discussion about wayward Republican Liz Cheney and her prospects politically in the future. The question asked by Tapper was “Is there a lane for Liz Cheney in New Hampshire in 2024?”

It was during that segment that inspiration struck Cruz and he was compelled to express his comedic genius in a tweet answering Tapper’s question. “Yes,” Cruz quipped, “It’s called the Democratic primary.”

Have you stopped laughing yet? Cruz’s heckling is supposed to be funny because Cheney has had the courage to criticize Donald Trump and hold him accountable for his criminal behavior. That’s the sort of fortitude that has escaped Cruz for the pat five years. Cruz has been a devoted Trump-fluffer even after Trump insulted his wife as ugly and accused his father of assassinating JFK. And apparently Cruz is unfamiliar with Cheney’s 96% conservative congressional voting record, according to the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. So, yeah, she’d be right at home in the Democratic Party.

However, that isn’t where the entertainment ends. Cruz then engaged in a Twitter war with Cheney, GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, and Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. It began with Cheney responding to Cruz’s tweet (which you can follow back from here):

Cheney: I know you’re posturing for the secessionist vote, Ted. But my party, the Republican party, saved the Union. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Act like it.
Kinzinger: Damn son, Liz brought the heat on you!
Cruz: These two need to hurry up and get their bottom-rated @msnbc show.
Kinzinger: Senator, you’ve been given a huge position to lead and tell people truth. Yet you have squandered it on lies and abused the patriotism of those who trusted you. I will have zero regrets… will you?
Swalwell: Adam, if you want @tedcruz’s support you’re going to have to attack his wife.

Indeed, Cruz did suggest the possibility of Texas seceding from the U.S. (which it cannot legally do) if Democrats continued to rack up legislative successes that actually improved the lives of the American people. As opposed to the carping by Republican sore losers who have nothing to offer but bitterness and threats of violence.

However, Swalwell takes the Gold for Shade Throwing with his sly observation on how best to get Cruz’s support. And it seems to have silenced Cruz, at least temporarily. But don’t get excited. He will surely recover and be back to form with more of his guffaw inducing witticism. Until then you can substitute the feeling you get from the humor he provides by chewing on broken glass.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Liz Cheney Rips Trump and his GOP Cult as ‘Willing Hostages to this Dangerous and Irrational Man’

Posted by on November 10, 2021 at 1:04 pm. 9 Comments :

There is, perhaps, no better representative of rock-ribbed conservatism in the United States Congress than Liz Cheney. She is a staunch advocate for the farthest right wing of the Republican Party, and just within the past week she voted against the Biden infrastructure bill and the John Lewis Voting rights Act.

Donald Trump, Fox News, QAnon

However, to her credit, she has resisted the lure of the cult of Donald Trump and his anti-American, authoritarian aspirations. Cheney had the courage to appear on Fox News and denounce Tucker Carlson as a purveyor of lies. and yesterday she gave a speech at a GOP fundraiser that was as good, or better, than any trouncing of Trump by the most fervent Democrat (although Adam Schiff sure scores points here). It was so good that it hardly needs any commentary. So enjoy (video below) …

“At this moment, when it matters most, we are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before. A former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our Constitutional Republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.

“Just last night, former president Trump was invited by House Republican leaders to be the keynote speaker at our annual large fundraising dinner. At the dinner, he reportedly said once again that the insurrection was on November 3rd, and that the events on January 6th – when a violent mob invaded the Capitol in an effort to overturn the will of the American people and stop the constitutional process of the counting of electoral votes – that those events were a protest. That they were justified.

“Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding the former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution. When our constitutional order is threatened, as it is now, rising above partisanship is not simply an aspiration. It is an obligation. An obligation of every one of us.

“I love my party. I love its history. I love its principles. But I love my country more. I know this nation needs a Republican Party that is based on truth. One that puts forward our ideals and our policies based on substance. One that is willing to reject the former president’s lies. One that is willing to tell the truth. But millions of Americans have been tragically misled by former president Trump, who continues, to this day, to use language that he knows provoked violence on January 6th.”

What she said. Cheney’s righteous condemnation of Trump and her Republican colleagues is both laudable and troubling. It’s laudable for its honesty and clear sightedness about Trump and the threat that he posed and continues to pose. It’s troubling because it exposes the depths to which the Republican Party has fallen.

The Republican Party is morally bankrupt and irredeemably corrupt. They are worse than “willing hostages.” While they may feel pressure to succumb to Trumpism, they are actually active accomplices.

Cheney acknowledges that when she says that they are “aiding the former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution.” And she is spot on when she observes that he continues to “use language that he knows provoked violence.” And if he isn’t brought to justice he will get his demented wish for even more violence, and worse, an end to the American experiment in democracy.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Liz Cheney Calls Tucker Carlson’s ‘False Flag’ Lies ‘Un-American’ and ‘Dangerous’ – On Fox News!

Posted by on November 7, 2021 at 12:36 pm. 4 Comments :

Last week the Fox News Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson, outdid himself by presenting an elaborate propaganda video about Donald Trump’s January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C. Carlson’s crocumentary, “Patriot Purge” (or as CNN’s Jim Acosta retitled it, “Proud Boy Porn”,) was riddled with flagrant falsehoods and nauseating exaltations of the seditious Capitol rioters as heroes.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, STFU

Carlson sought to absolve Trump’s violent crusaders, and even worse, to justify them, by alleging that the whole thing was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by the FBI, something he has been yammering about for months. And his Fox News produced propaganda pic was universally rejected as garbage.

On Sunday Carlson took another hit from a staunchly conservative member of Congress, Liz Cheney. She was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday where she expressed her opinion of Carlson’s wankery:

Wallace: There is talk now that January 6th was a “false flag” operation. that it was a case of liberals and the “deep state” setting up conservatives and Trump supporters. Is there any truth to that?
Cheney: None at all. You know, it’s the same kind of thing that you hear from people who say that 9/11 was an inside job, for example. It is un-American to be spreading those kinds of lies, and they are lies. And we have an obligation that goes beyond partisanship, an obligation that we share – Democrats and Republicans together – to make sure that we understand every single piece of the facts about what happened that day and to make sure the people who did it are held accountable. And to call it a false flag operation and spread those kind lies is dangerous.

Cheney has been a reliable voice of reason from within a Republican Party dominated by Trump cult followers and brazenly dishonest purveyors of partisan bullpucky. She is a member of the House Select Committee investigating January 6th, and she rejects Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him.

Cheney didn’t mince words in her appraisal of Carlson. She openly and aptly denounced him as “un-American” and “dangerous.” That said, it is still a bit jarring to hear her righteous condemnation of Carlson, and to hear it on the same network that sponsors his deceitful disinformation. Cheney couldn’t have chosen a better platform to reveal Carlson’s scumbaggery. Carlson, however, is an easily triggered crybaby who frequently lashes out at his critics. So it will be interesting to see if he attacks Fox News or Chris Wallace for hosting this interview.

On the same program, White House Senior Advisor, Cedric Richmond, was asked by Fox’s Bill Hemmer about a blatantly partisan question that Fox’s Peter Doocy asked President Biden. Doocy’s question callously suggested that migrant families might be incentivized to come to the U.S. and have their children taken away in order to get compensated financially. Richmond replied that…

“The question was from a Fox reporter asking about whether compensation for being separated and losing a child would be an incentive to come to America. And what he was saying, that was an absurd question from the beginning. No one is coming somewhere to lose their child, to be separated from their loved one. And the question is so insensitive, disrespectful that that’s what he was commenting to. And I would ask the question of you, whether you support that?”

So Fox News got called out on Fox News twice in the same day. That isn’t going to make much difference in the great scheme of things. Fox will continue to be the primary media mouthpiece for ultra-rightist politicians and policies. But it’s encouraging to see these rare crumbs of truth slip through their conservative filter from time to time.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

UH-OH: Former Trump Communications Director Blasts GOP as ‘Morally Reprehensible’

Posted by on May 17, 2021 at 12:58 pm. 1 Comments :

Among the many failures that Donald Trump presided over was the ethical wasteland that characterized so much of his administration. Trump has amassed a record for lying that will never be approached by future presidents. And in four years he has had an unprecedented number associates indicted, convicted, or otherwise fall under legal scrutiny. Most recently it’s his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Donald Trump Circling the Drain

With his humiliating loss for reelection to President Joe Biden, Trump sought to pad his own disgraceful resume with a frenzy of delusional allegations about the election being “stolen” from him. Those wholly unsupported assertions led to riots in Washington, D.C. by his insurrectionist cult followers. And to its everlasting shame, the pitifully compliant Republican Party fell in line, for the most part, backing up Trump’s reckless alternative reality.

There are, however, some rare exceptions. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have courageously called out Trump’s dishonest defamation of democracy. And now another truth-teller has come forward. Alyssa Farah was Trump’s White House Communications Director. She resigned shortly after the January 6th insurrection. And on Monday morning she was interviewed by Mehdi Hasan on the NBC streaming network, Peacock (video below):

Hasan: What has happened to your party. Your party has gotten more extreme, not less.
Farah: The GOP is careening down what I would say is both a strategically unwise path, but also a morally reprehensible one. Just to be completely candid with you.

Liz Chaney did the right thing. We shouldn’t be commending people for simply telling the facts. Facts matter. We need to tell the truth. She did the right thing. But that shouldn’t be brave or heroic. That should just be what our leaders do.

But unfortunately, here’s the problem the GOP is facing: This isn’t going away. Voters have not forgotten about January 6th. The Republican Party has a number of problems. We need addition, not subtraction, to be able to win back the principles that we actually care about. But right now there’s this decision that we care more about loyalty to the former president. Care more about trying to gloss over what happened with the election and then January 6th.

And my unsolicited advice to my fellow Republicans would be: the truth tends to come to the top. It’s better to address it now, to come to grips with what went wrong and accept it. Because we’re gonna be dealing with this going into the midterms. We’re gonna be dealing with it going into 2024.

Farah hit the nail on it’s head with phrase “morally reprehensible.” That could apply to almost everything Trump did in office. Recall his caging of children and separating them from their parents. And his overt racism and acceptance of support from racist hate groups. And his infantile insults directed at critics in politics and the press. And especially his negligent mishandling of the COVID pandemic. As for Farah’s remarks about Trump’s demands for loyalty, that could be observed in Lindsey Graham’s reverential devotion to Trump, despite the abuse he’s taken.

Farah does not fit the profile of a typical never-Trumper. She is the daughter of Joseph Farah, the founder and publisher of the rabidly right-wing conspiracy rag, World Net Daily. She wrote for WND for a couple of years, then went on to work for Laura Ingraham’s radio show and congressional Republicans Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan. She also served as press secretary to Vice-President Mike Pence before being promoted to the White House press office.

It is difficult to reconcile the penitence of people like Farah who were perfectly happy to tolerate the atrocities of the Trump presidency. But if progressives are going to make the argument that Republicans and Trumpists were wrong, then we have to be able to accept it when our arguments succeed. And just because we can appreciate when a hardcore right-winger sees the light, it doesn’t mean they are forgiven for all past sins. It just means that their contribution to bringing out the truth is welcome.

When a committed conservative Republicans like Farah and Cheney are willing to talk openly about Trump’s despicable personality flaws, it might be fair to assume that a corner has been turned. Perhaps the field is safe for other Republicans to speak honestly about Trump. Of course, that will only make Trump even more enraged and unhinged. But the more of that that the American people see, the better our chances of getting past this aberration in our political lives. Time will tell if Farah is just a harmless leak, or the harbinger of the dam being about to burst.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

FLAGRANT FOWL: QAnon GOP Rep Blames ‘Biden’s America’ for Chick-fil-A Sauce Shortage

Posted by on May 13, 2021 at 7:53 am. 7 Comments :

On a day when there was no shortage of newsworthy subjects to focus on – Liz Cheney’s ouster from her House Republican leadership post, conflict in the Middle East, congressional hearings on the Capitol insurrection – Colorado’s own QAnon congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, managed to detour into a deep ravine of ridiculousness – an area with which she is intimately familiar.

Lauren Boebert

The Hill published a story Wednesday morning with breaking news coverage of a critical matter facing the American people…

“‘Due to industry-wide supply chain disruptions, some Chick-fil-A restaurants are experiencing a shortage of select items, like sauces. We are actively working to make adjustments to solve this issue quickly and apologize to our Guests for any inconvenience,’ a Chick-fil-A spokesperson said.”

Holy Shitake Mushrooms! First a deadly pandemic, and now this? Haven’t we suffered enough? Well, according to QAnon Rep. Lauren Boebert our tribulations have been thrust upon us by the singular cause of every problem known to mankind for the past four months: President Joe Biden. Or so says Boebert…

That’s right! Somehow Biden is responsible for the Chick-fil-A sauce shortage that is devastating the nation. Boebert doesn’t say exactly how Biden screwed this up, but she’s certain that he’s the one who did it. Just as certain as she is that Biden’s climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from our diets. It’s a coordinated plot to hit the beef industry first, and then – BAM – go after poultry when people try to adjust. It’s downright diabolical.

Some folks are saying that Boebert herself is a double agent, carrying out her own role in this dastardly scheme. Last year it was reported that “her pork sliders allegedly poisoned dozens of people at a local rodeo, making them nauseous and sending some home with bloody diarrhea.” So there goes pork products.

Before long the Democrats (or is it socialists?) will force us all to become – GASP – vegetarians. Or worse, we will all simply be starved to make the planet more hospitable to the non-human species from whom it was stolen. Boebert’s comrade, Tomi Lahren, may have already caught on to that conspiracy:

Never mind that the sauce shortages were caused by interruptions in distribution due to gas shortages caused by the Russian-affiliated cyber-ransom attack on Colonial Pipeline. See how the dots are connecting? Then Fox News played its part by frightening their viewers into believing that the supply of gas would soon dwindle, so they had better stock up.

In the meantime, you may want to to start hoarding condiments from your favorite fast food restaurants before they have all disappeared. There may not be much time left. And if we aren’t careful, the only source of nutrition left will be from Del Taco. And if you don’t know what that means, ask Tucker Carlson who has uncovered the “white replacement theory,” a plot by Democrats to flood the electorate with non-white voters. There are dark days ahead folks.

UPDATE: Naturally, Fox News was all over this frightful story, shouting that “Chick-fil-A sauce shortage blamed on ‘Joe Biden’s America'” And they featured tweets by numerous worried and sauce-less patriots such as Josh Mandel, Clay Travis, and Ted Cruz:

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

GOP Leader McCarthy’s Brain Dead Statement on ‘the Legitimacy of the Presidential Election’

Posted by on May 12, 2021 at 1:16 pm. 5 Comments :

The Party of Trump (aka Republican Party) has affirmed its long-standing aversion to democracy. They officially drummed ultra-conservative Rep. Liz Cheney out of her party leadership post, and probably out of the party entirely. And that’s just the latest action taken against the apostates who dare to challenge the supremacy of Trump.

Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy

Even prior to the Cheney exile, a frenzy of censures had been imposed on the disobedient disciples who betrayed Dear Leader. They include Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Ben Sasse, Sen. Pat Toomey, Sen. Mitt Romney, Rep. Peter Meijer, Rep. Fred Upton, Rep. Tom Rice, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, Gov. Brian Kemp, and Gov, Doug Ducey, so far. All of which makes clear that the Republican Party (aka Party of Trump) has no tolerance for independent thinking or truth telling.

Adding absurdity to the demise of irony, the GOP minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, spoke to reporters following the Cheney ouster. Responding to inquiries about Trump’s relentless promulgation of the “Big Lie” (that the election was stolen) McCarthy said that…

“I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that that is all over with. We are sitting here with the president today. So from that point of view I don’t think that’s a problem.”

WHUT? Apparently McCarthy is unfamiliar with the raving former reality TV game show host who is pathologically obsessed with “questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election.” Donald Trump hasn’t stopped ranting about it for the six months that have transpired since his humiliating defeat to Joe Biden. So far this week he has posted two tirades on the subject over at his new, and hysterically lame, blog:

“If a thief robs a jewelry store of all of its diamonds (the 2020 Presidential Election), the diamonds must be returned. The Fake News media refuses to cover the greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country.”

And…

“All States should pass Voter ID laws along with many other fair and comprehensive election reforms, like eliminating mass mail-in voting and ballot harvesting, so we never again have an election rigged and stolen from us.”

So much for nobody questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. What on Earth is McCarthy talking about? Can he possibly be this cognitively comatose? And it isn’t just the Former Guy. Many GOP disciples of Trump are also still asking the same preposterous questions. Cheney’s expected replacement, Elise Stefanik is among them. Also, Ron Johnson, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Paul Gosar, to name a few.

This could turn out to be a problem for McCarthy. What will Trump think of his declaration that the election of Biden was legitimate? Trump has castigated anyone who suggested such a thing in the past. It’s the whole reason why Cheney was banished to the corn field. And on Wednesday morning Trump lashed out at her, calling her “a bitter, horrible human being.” So what does that make McCarthy?

McCarthy and other Trump apologists are pretending that the election is old news and they just want to move on. But no one has told Trump that. What’s more, it would be unwise – even dangerous – to dismiss Trump’s persistent lying. It was his hostile rhetoric that incited the Capitol riots on January 6th. And ignoring that fact would only serve to make the prospects of further violence more likely.

But then, maybe that’s what McCarthy and his GOP confederates really want. If they had any integrity or principles they would listen to what Cheney said Wednesday morning before the vote to oust her:

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Fox News Helps GOP Congresswoman Spread Debunked Lies that Obama Paid Iran $1.5 Billion

Posted by on July 26, 2018 at 5:51 pm. NO Comments :

Just in case you were looking for another example of Fox News casting off all pretense of being an honest news enterprise, they provided an excellent one Thursday morning. Donald Trump’s favorite TV show, Fox and Friends, invited Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney to discuss matters related to the Trump administration’s diplomatic agenda for Iran since Trump broke the agreement the United States made previously. And yes, that’s Dick Cheney’s daughter.

Fox News Friends

The segment began with Ainsley Earhardt reminding viewers that Donald Trump recently posted a deranged, all caps tweet that warned Iran to “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.” It cannot be overstated that this was the President threatening the nuclear annihilation of men, women, and children, of a foreign adversary over mere words.

Much of the conversation centered on Cheney’s impressions of Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, and his efforts to prevent Iran from advancing their nuclear ambitions. Of course, President Obama had already put an end to that prior to Trump blowing it up in his obsessive fetish to undo all things Obama. But Cheney was then asked specifically how the current administration’s approach to Iran differed from their predecessor. Which seems like a planted question that really had no purpose other than to bash Obama’s achievements. Cheney took full advantage of that saying:

“Oh it’s hugely different. If you look at the fact that Barack Obama paid $1.5 billion – U.S. taxpayer money – paid the Iranians to get them to enter into the nuclear agreement.”

The only problem with that response is that is utterly and provably false. PolitiFact, and every other fact-checker, has documented that the monies disbursed to Iran when the deal with the Obama administration (and by the way, six other nations) was executed, was Iran’s money to begin with. The U.S. was merely releasing funds that it had sequestered as part of the sanctions that were imposed on Iran in order to bring them to the negotiating table.

After Cheney made her wholly dishonest claim about these funds, Earhardt failed to challenge her or to let Fox’s viewers know that she was lying. So that false information was disseminated once again to Fox’s already ignorant and ill-informed viewers. And as if that weren’t enough, Fox News later posted a video clip of the segment on Twitter that featured Cheney’s remarks, but still didn’t point out that they were false. This is typical of Fox’s practice of mangling the news so that it misrepresents reality and feeds disinformation to an audience that can’t distinguish truth from fiction anyway.

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

Idiot Watch: Fox News Contends That Obama Wants Economic Slide

Posted by on November 27, 2011 at 1:51 pm. 1 Comments :

Fox News Sunday hosted Liz Cheney to discuss the economy and Barack Obama’s role in deliberately sabotaging it. The conversation descended into a surprisingly moronic set of conspiracy theories that would make Glenn Beck’s doughy chest heave with pride. And of course, it was a discourse that utterly abandoned known facts.

Wallace asked Cheney whether it was a problem for Republicans that they are portrayed as “fighting for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy but willing to let the payroll tax cuts for the middle class disappear.” Cheney evaded that question entirely in order to serve up an inane conjecture that defies coherent logic:

Cheney: The President basically seems to have made the calculation that he’s gonna let the next thirteen months of the American economy slide for the sake of his own political benefits.

The reason Cheney evaded the question is because she knows that overwhelming majorities of the American people support letting Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy expire, and they also support the extension of the payroll tax cut. So she was forced to resort to inventing a distraction to defend the GOP’s indefensible agenda.

However, with her back up against the wall, Cheney latched onto an absurd assertion that President Obama wants the economy to suffer in order to enhance his reelection prospects. She apparently subscribes to the theory that poor economies are the best way to boost political campaigns. That’s a theory that only makes sense to a party that takes candidates like Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich seriously. It exposes a level of ignorance that is mind boggling.

In addition to the delusional nature of Cheney’s political analysis, she is also factually miles from reality. The pretext for her comment was her assertion that Obama has done nothing to address problems associated with unemployment and the deficit. She alleged that Obama had not engaged the Super Committee to assist in shaping a compromise. However, there was a White House proposal before the Super Committee had even convened its first meeting. That proposal offered a four trillion dollar reduction in debt achieved through both new revenues and entitlement cuts.

As for employment, Obama has already implemented initiatives to spur hiring of new employees in the form of credits for hiring the long-term unemployed and veterans. He has proposed restoring the nation’s infrastructure which would not only improve the environment for commerce, but would employ thousands. Republicans opposed those initiatives, as well as every other plan to help American families recover from the GOP-made catastrophe.

All sane observers know that delaying economic recovery would be the worst thing that could happen for Obama’s reelection campaign. In fact, the only beneficiary of a bad economy is the Republican Party and they have been openly hostile to any method of healing the country’s economic woes. Representative of their point of view is this image of an anti-recovery conservative who would rather hurt his neighbors and his country than to see Obama get credit for improving the economy. A real patriot would be hiring now in order to get the nation back on solid footing. But that is not how Republicans think.

Almost from inauguration day, the GOP has sought to kneecap the administration by opposing its policies and personnel. They have engaged in a record number of filibusters and created a degree of partisanship that is unprecedented. They have even opposed their own proposals after they were endorsed by Obama. It is an intentional tactic aimed at producing a national crisis, both economically and politically, to alienate voters and drive a wedge between different factions of the American people. It is a cynical and destructive crusade of division that has been exacerbated by a media that feasts on controversy and discord. Ted Koppel put it well in a recent article in Broadcasting & Cable:

Ted Koppel

“One day, most Americans will point at us in the news media and say, ‘Why didn’t you tell us? Why did you encourage all that partisan bile and venom? Why did you feed us all that trivial crap, when so many terrible things were converging?’ And no one will be happy with the answer. Least of all those of us who offer it. ‘What we gave you,’ we will say, ‘is what you wanted.'”

Sad, but true. And while Koppel gets some credit for saying it now, you have to wonder where he was when Bill Clinton was being impeached over a sex scandal; when Fox News launched as “fair and balanced”; when George W. Bush invaded Iraq and portrayed his opponents as traitors; when candidate Obama was accused of “pallin’ around with terrorists”; and when the Koch brothers financed the deliberately divisive Tea Party.

The media’s exploitation of melodrama and the Republican’s embrace of willful ignorance have united to create one of the most unstable eras of American history. It’s going to take a concerted effort to undo the damage, but it is not too late if conscientious citizens demand more of both the media and Washington.

NewsBusters Lies About Howard Dean Lying

Posted by on October 18, 2010 at 1:44 am. 4 Comments :

It may be time to start a regular feature about the recurring episodes of stupidity on the part of NewsBusters’ associate editor, Noel Sheppard. The latest example comes from his analysis of a debate between Liz Cheney (Dick’s spawn) and Gov. Howard Dean.

The NewsBusters column asserts that “Liz Cheney Exposes Howard Dean In Lie About His Connection To George Soros and MoveOn.org.” Sheppard helpfully provides video of the exchange and a transcript. The only problem is that these documents show that Dean was entirely truthful and that Sheppard and Cheney were the liars. Here is the relevant portion of the debate:

HOWARD DEAN (overlapping): We don’t want anybody buying elections.
LIZ CHENEY (overlapping): I mean George Soros started all of this with MoveOn.org–
HOWARD DEAN (overlapping): I know McCain-Feingold, they weren’t able buy elections.
LIZ CHENEY (overlapping): –which was a big backer of yours, Governor Dean. So I think that, you know–
HOWARD DEAN (overlapping): Who was a big backer of mine?
LIZ CHENEY: George Soros, MoveOn.org.
HOWARD DEAN (overlapping): No he wasn’t. No he wasn’t a big–
LIZ CHENEY: Governor Dean, I think that the notion–
HOWARD DEAN (overlapping): –neither– neither was MoveOn.org, as a matter of fact, just to set the record straight.

As we see in this exchange, Cheney asserted that George Soros and MoveOn were “big backers” of Dean. The Governor denies that. And this is where Sheppard barges in to declare that. “This was a flat out lie by Dean on national television.” Sheppard backs up his claim by revealing that Soros had contributed $1,000 to Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004, and that MoveOn had hosted a web page where Dean solicited donations.

Gov. Dean raised about $50 million for his 2004 primary campaign. Soros donated only $1,000 of that (or 0.002%), which is less than half the amount allowable ($2,500). As for MoveOn, Sheppard admits that they donated nothing at all to Dean. They merely permitted him to solicit their members for donations. Those donations would have been made by the individuals choosing to donate, not MoveOn, and there was no accounting for how much the members may have donated, if anything. But MoveOn donated $0.00.

It is on the basis of this that Sheppard asserted that Dean’s contention was “100 percent false.” However, Dean was actually 100 percent truthful because the facts, even as Sheppard told them, show that Soros and MoveOn were not “big backers” of Dean by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you define “big” as infinitesimally small. So, as it turns out, it’s Sheppard who is lying.

The remainder of the Dean/Cheney debate gave Sheppard additional opportunities for him to make a fool of himself. Cheney kept trying to put words in Dean’s mouth, to the effect that he and President Obama were saying that the Chamber of Commerce was paying for domestic campaign ads with foreign money. However, neither of them said that. The issue was whether the Chamber was receiving money from foreign entities (which they admit), and that because there is no disclosure of those receipts or how they are spent, there is no way to know whether the foreign funds were included in the campaign financing. It is a question of disclosure and transparency. There is a big difference between accusing the Chamber of using foreign funds in the election, and merely criticizing them for not disclosing their financing. It was the latter that Dean was asserting.

Sheppard and Cheney are either too dense to grasp that distinction, or too politically dishonest to acknowledge it – or perhaps a little of both. Cheney, of course, is a political operative and can be expected to spin arguments in her favor. But Sheppard fancies himself a media watchdog and, thus, reveals himself to be utterly disreputable and without credibility.