Obama Condemns All Acts Of Barbarism Due To Perversion Of Faith – Fox News Freaks Out

Posted by Mark NC on February 6, 2015 at 8:30 am. 14 Comments :

In a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama acknowledged the “sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith,” and broadly condemned the use of religion to justify barbaric acts of terrorism. So leave it to Fox News to surgically extract a fragment of the speech in order to disparage the President.

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The portion of the address that ruffled Fox’s fur was a snippet wherein Obama referenced the Crusades to remind the audience that “people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” Fox News latched unto that phrase and, for much of the day, used it to distort the President’s meaning in order to denigrate him as anti-Christian. But the President’s remarks were much more inclusive of the evil done by all perpetrators of violence in the name of religion. Here are some more extended excerpts of what he actually had to say:

“From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism. […] We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion. […]

“And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Any reasonable person would have to agree with what was expressed in the whole of the speech. But, as usual, reasonableness was not in attendance at Fox News. As a representative example of the departure from reason and fair discourse, Fox’s Neil Cavuto brought in Catholic League extremist Bill Donohue to rant feverishly about Obama’s alleged insult to the world’s Christians (video below):

Donohue: Had he said just said that, that people have killed in the name of their God and it’s not unique to one religion, who could argue with that? But he didn’t do that, did he? He spoke with specificity. he singled out the Crusades and the Inquisition.

Actually, Obama did not single out anyone. Quite the opposite. He specifically identified numerous religions that have all had issues with violent extremism. But the only thing that Donohue heard was the bit about the Crusades. The same is true for Cavuto who later demonstrated the essence of a loaded question by asking “Do you think [Obama] is dismissive of religion in the aggregate?” Huh? Did Cavuto even bother to listen to the speech which was dripping with piety and deference to God? The ludicrous question gave Donohue the opportunity to further slander Obama’s commitment to faith by excitedly responding that Obama is “a thoroughgoing secularist. I don’t think he believe’s in anything.”

This is typical of the Fox News editorial mission to cherry-pick Obama’s remarks and present them in the most negative way possible. It furthers their criticism of the President for his reluctance to associate the terrorists of ISIL with Islam. In that regard, he got some support today from Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, who said that “If there was any doubt that this is an organization that has anything to do with any religion on the face of this planet, that doubt is gone.”

Judeh’s comments are additional proof that the world’s Muslims are united in rejecting the violence of terrorism and the false accusation that it is inherently connected to the Muslim faith. In fact, the only people who are determined to make that link are the terrorists themselves and Fox News, which has the disturbing effect of putting Fox squarely on the side of the terrorists.

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To top it off, the following morning Fox’s Gregg Jarrett made the wholly delusional statement that “It struck some people in an odd way that the President was justifying ISIS.” Really? Which people? Jarrett doesn’t say. And how could these imaginary people reach that insane conclusion? Jarrett doesn’t say. But just to keep things fair and balanced, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC also took up the criticism of Obama for telling the truth about religion’s bad actors.

Elitists At Fox News APPALLED That The Obamas Eat At A Fancy Restaurant

Posted by Mark NC on January 2, 2015 at 7:04 pm. 22 Comments :

“When will those uppity Obamas learn their place? It’s bad enough that they have occupied the “White” House, but now they are invading the exclusive, private establishments that used to be reserved for “regular” (i.e. rich, white) Americans.”

That’s the message that Fox News is sending with their segment Friday on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” (Whose world?) Cavuto was reporting that President Obama and the First Lady had dinner at a pricey restaurant in Hawaii where they are spending their Christmas and New Years holiday. He spent several minutes batting around the notion that it was somehow unseemly for them to enjoy an evening out where they might mix socially with their superiors.

There was an effort to spin the story as a derogatory example of the President appearing out-of-touch or insensitive to the plight of less fortunate Americans who cannot afford such extravagances. But since there was never a similar disdain for white Republicans who commonly patronize exclusive clubs (even those that prohibit blacks and Jews), the criticism rings hollow. What’s left is a transparent implication that the Obamas ought to stick to places that are more fitting for their class. You get the distinct impression that Cavuto and company believe that Burger King or KFC would be a more appropriate eatery for the First Family.

It wasn’t just Fox News that noticed the Obamas stepping out. WorldNetDaily, Breitbart News, and the Daily Caller were among the other right-wing rags that were offended by this choice of gourmet feasting. And of course, it was also featured it on the Fox Nation website. Even more “mainstream’ outlets like The Hill and Mediaite ran with it. But the hypocrisy only validates the widely circulated meme about Fox News as being “Rich people paying rich people to tell middle-class people to blame poor people.” Why the President and his family cannot enjoy an evening of fine food and drink is never explained.

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This offensive and racist reporting is typical of the right-wing media. A few months ago Fox Nation published an item wherein wingnut screecher Mark Levin made a big deal about the Obamas vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard, which Levin falsely called “the whitest place on Earth,” and therefore no place for our African-American president. But sadly, it only took one day into the new year for this bigotry to be loosed on the air by Fox. That’s a troubling forecast of things to come as we head into another highly charged season of presidential politics.

The “Damn, These People Are Stupid” Awards For 2014

Posted by Mark NC on December 31, 2014 at 4:38 pm. NO Comments :

In a year that was filled to the brim with monumental idiocies, the competition for King of the Dumfux is stiffer than usual. Narrowing down the list of those deserving of special recognition was particularly difficult, but the collection below is a pretty good indication that DEVO was right and that civilization is taking huge leaps backwards. So fasten your neck bolts and let your eyes glaze over as we journey back through a year of hilarious (and frightening) intellectual vacancy.

The “Is Our Children Learning” Award

Leading off the ceremony is a Hall of Famer dolt, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who laments that “the problem with American schools is just that kids are…learning too much.” That’s the sort of thinking that makes every other item on this list possible. It is also a recipe for growing new Fox News viewers who appreciate the stupidity of people like Carlson.

An let’s also give Carlson an honorary mention for his screed on “The Wussification Of Popeye.”

The “Speak For Yourself, Douchebag” Award

Former CIA “intelligence” officer, Michael Scheuer, is a regular guest on Fox News. He is famous for telling Glenn Beck that “the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.” But earlier this year in an interview with Neil Cavuto, Scheuer made a surprising distinction between America and the terrorist ISIS operation saying that the Islamists “are not dumb people. They may be brutal, but they are not dumb. We’re the dumb ones.”

Well then, that settles it. The problem we’ve been having all along is that we’re just not as smart as our adversaries. And Cavuto, notably, did not challenge that assessment. After all, how can a bunch of hillbillies who are hypnotized by reality television, designer jeans, and flame-broiled Whoppers supposed to be able to compete intellectually with such sophisticated and sociologically advanced opponents? Why did we not see this deficiency before Scheuer brought it to our attention? Oh yeah, because we’re stupid.

The “Pimp My Ride: Welfare Edition” Award

The lazy-brained right-wing media pounced on a scandalous story about President Obama’s bill to give welfare recipients free cars. And except for the fact that the story was the product of a satirical website, it would have been a great scoop. What makes it worse is that they did same thing the year before and were mercilessly shamed for their idiocy, but that didn’t prevent them from doing it again this year.

The “E Pluribus Ooh Numb” Award

After complaining about a Coca Cola ad that celebrated the diversity of the nation by singing the anthem “America the Beautiful” in several languages, the wingnuts at Breitbart News declared victory when Coke modified the ad by placing the motto “E Pluribus Unum” at the beginning. So let’s get this straight. Coke, they said, “bowed to conservative critics” who insist on English-only by inserting a short phrase in — Latin. Uhhh, OK.

The “Your Wife Is A Fat Fatty” Award

No list of stupidity would be complete without the ravings of Fox’s “psycho” analyst Keith Ablow. There are numerous entries under his name for recognition, but we’ll just settle on one that is both dumb and insulting. While visiting with the women of Fox’s Outnumbered, Ablow dispensed his routine Obama-hating rhetoric, but then added a bit of spice just for this program. As a slap at First Lady Michele Obama, who has been a devoted advocate of healthy diets, Ablow questioned her sincerity by smugly barking “How well can she be eating. She needs to drop a few.” This bit of misogyny even elicited gasps from the conservative ladies of Fox.

The “Republicans Are People Too” Award

In 2014 the Republican Party took on a public relations task that dwarfs all other efforts at opinion-making. They boldly aimed to convince the American people that Republicans are people too. And the method used to achieve this goal was to produce a video that consisted of a montage of stock photos labeled as “average” American Republicans. So the video produced in order to convince everyone that Republicans are real people is populated by fakes. Brilliant.

The “Blind Leading the Old and Stale” Award

Once known as “Bush’s Brain,” Karl Rove has deteriorated into a mentally deficient spewer of rancid rightist partisanship. In an attempt to bash Hillary Clinton, Rove’s wild pitch beaned every senior citizen in the country when he said that “In American politics, there’s a sense you want to be new, you don’t want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don’t want to be something old and stale.” Never mind that almost every Republican Rove backed for the past thirty years was older or staler than Clinton. The real numbskullery of Rove is that he is insulting the nation’s most reliable voting bloc by implying that they are not fit for public service.

The “Hate Of The Union Address” Award

There is boomlet of commentary on the right that thinks it would be a good idea to prohibit President Obama from delivering the annual State of the Union address to members of Congress. This is a proposal that reeks of personal animosity and is wholly inconsistent with the mission of Congress. What’s more, it certainly doesn’t advance the spirit of cooperation that the GOP pretended to embrace following the midterm election. Speaker Boehner has already nixed this notion, but merely considering it hangs an “i’m a stupid baby” sign around the necks of these cretins.

The “Boobs On The Air” Award

Following reports of a female fighter pilot from the United Arab Emirates who led the UAE’s forces in attacks on ISIL, Fox News host Eric Bolling made what he must have thought was a hilarious joke by referring to her as “Boobs on the ground.” Bolling not only insulted the courageous pilot, but his associates at Fox News as well. He later apologized to his wife and Fox viewers, but egregiously left out the pilot and all other women in the armed services.

The “Flakes On A Plane” Award

Allen West, a disgraced veteran and one-term Tea Party congressman, supplied Fox News with an “exclusive” report about what really happened on the ground in Benghazi. West’s source for his exclusive was an anonymous stranger that happened to be sitting next to him on a plane who said that he knew some other anonymous dude who had the real skinny on the scandal. This is what passes for an “exclusive” news report on Fox News? A third-hand tale of conspiracy theories and previously debunked allegations?

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As special salute at the conclusion of a year of monumentally asinine behavior, News Corpse is presenting its first “Dumfux Award for Achievements in Stupidy.” Candidates for this honor were many and included Ben Carson, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Rush Limbaugh, and Keith Ablow. Sarah Palin was eliminated from the competition because her inclusion would have swamped the field. But emerging from the pack was a wholly deserving moron who proved himself through a year of failure and foolishness. So without further ado, here is the 2014 Dumfux Award for Achievements in Stupidity winner:

Congressman Darrell Issa of California

Rep. Issa chaired the House Oversight Committee through a maze of fake scandals, including Benghazi, the IRS/Tea Party affair, and ObamaCare. And in none of his persecutions did he manage to prove any of his preconceived allegations. But he sealed his victory for this award on the last day of the last hearing that he will attend as chairman. Having subpoenaed Jonathan Gruber, the economic advisor who inartfully described the American People as stupid, Issa must have believed that he was in a position to embarrass Gruber and, by association, all Democrats and supporters of ObamaCare. But Issa led off his inquisition with this idiotic question:

“Mr. Gruber, I’ve been accused that I’m going to berate you or something and I hope that you won’t feel that way when I get done. But the night before last I was at the Kennedy Center Honors where they honored Tom Hanks, famously ‘Forrest Gump,’ the ultimate in successful stupid man. Are you stupid?”

Gee…I wonder where Issa might have gotten the impression that people thought he would berate Gruber? This may be the single stupidest question Issa has ever asked anyone. What did he expect Gruber to say? And how did he think this line of questioning would benefit whatever investigation he was pretending to conduct? As usual, Issa’s motives were purely hostile and aimed at creating political theater. But by the end he once again demonstrated his impotence as even conservative colleagues and pundits criticized him for scheduling the pointless hearing in the first place. So congratulations Mr. Issa, and best wishes for a new year as a flunky who no one respects.

So That “Shrimp On A Treadmill” Thing? Just Another Fox News Sham

Posted by Mark NC on November 22, 2014 at 12:23 pm. 2 Comments :

Back in May of 2011, Fox News assigned its crack investigative reporting team to expose a case of government malfeasance on a grand scale. They claimed to have uncovered wasteful spending on scientific research that served no purpose other than to line the pockets of academics engaged in questionable studies. At the top of the list was a now infamous project that involved the absurd but adorable image of a “shrimp on a treadmill.”

This story became emblematic of government’s incompetence and inability to exercise fiscal restraint. Fox News took it up in big way with hundreds of segments featuring the by now exhausted little sea creature. It was featured on nearly every Fox program with Neil Cavuto playing a prominent role in hyping it with a hefty dose of smugly delivered disgust.

Well, if you haven’t guessed yet, it turns out that this is just another fraudulent invention of the myth spinners at Fox News. David Scholnick is the professor of marine biology at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, where the notorious research was conducted. Earlier this week he published an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education that laid out for the umpteenth time what was actually being studied and the true costs involved.

On behalf of the National Science Foundation, Scholnick developed a project to ascertain “how recent changes in the oceans could potentially affect the ability of marine organisms to fight infections.” He justified the study by linking it to the very real risk of bacteria contamination to the food supply. But more to the point, he adamantly denied the accusations of any fiscal improprieties.

“Exactly how much taxpayer money did go into the now-famous shrimp treadmill? The treadmill was, in fact, made from spare parts—an old truck inner tube was used for the tread, the bearings were borrowed from a skateboard, and a used pump motor was salvaged to power the treadmill. The total price for the highly publicized icon of wasteful government research spending? Less than $50. (All of which I paid for out of my own pocket.)”

The truth is that the $3 million dollars attributed to the study was actually an aggregate sum that was used for a variety of NSF projects. It was not the amount spent on the shrimp experiment. And there is no evidence that any of the funds were misused or were not justifiable from a research perspective.

However, given the attitude of Fox News and conservative politicians toward science, it is not surprising to find them falsely accusing scientists of malfeasance. The wingnut community staunchly denies the existence of man-made climate change, evolution, and even the harmful effects of excessive sugar, salt, and tobacco. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to challenge the “theory” of gravity.

At the end of his article Scholnick takes a well deserved swipe at his right-wing critics by offering to sell his shrimp-sized NordicTrack for the bargain price of $1 million – a 67% discount on the bogusly reported cost. That’s the sort of special only found during the Black Friday sales after Thanksgiving. Some lucky buyer is going to get endless hours of satisfaction and be the envy of his friends and neighbors.

Stay tuned for the Fox News correction of their erroneous reporting, which I’m sure they will be broadcasting just as soon as they are finished spewing lies about Benghazi, IRS emails, executive amnesty, ObamaCare, the Keystone XL pipeline, voter fraud, Ebola, trickle-down economics, and – oh never mind. It may be better not to stay tuned after all.

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Racist Tea Party Revolutionaries Kill Cops In Las Vegas: Why Won’t The Media Call It Terrorism?

Posted by Mark NC on June 9, 2014 at 5:50 pm. 15 Comments :

The media has set a precedent for itself in past events that involved tragic political hostilities and murder. Most famously, the conservative press has spent the last two years complaining about whether President Obama called the attacks in Benghazi terrorism. Of course, there is video showing him doing just that the next day in the White House rose garden, but that didn’t put an end to the ludicrous speculation and smears.

Additionally, there were murderous rampages in Frankfort, Germany, Ft. Hood, TX, Boston, MA, and even the Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria. All of these cases got right-wingers riled up insisting that they immediately be regarded as terrorism and called such by the nation’s press, politicians, and pundits. A few examples included:

Glenn Beck: Why are we still not calling it terrorism?
Rush Limbaugh: He just will not say it. He will not say it’s terrorism. Who knows why?
Neil Cavuto: Why is it so hard to call them terrorists?
Andy Levy: I think they’re that stupid if they’re refusing to call them terrorists anymore.
Catherine Herridge: After he shouted ‘God is great’ the administration did not call it terrorism.
Sean Hannity (Karl Rove ad): Obama and his administration wouldn’t call it terrorism for 14 days.
Chris Wallace: How do you explain, then, the continued refusal to call it terrorism?

Which brings us to Jerad Miller and his wife Amanda. These two nut cases were deeply involved in anti-American activities and openly expressed radical beliefs based on conspiracy theories and Fox News lies. They recently spent time in the desert threatening federal agents with deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy. Their Facebook page is plastered with violent rants advocating the overthrow of the government and imminent bloodshed. A glance at the people and organizations that they “liked” on Facebook is highly instructive. It includes three of the biggest Tea Party groups, all bankrolled by the Koch brothers. Also, there are three organizations that are run by current Fox News guests and contributors.

Obviously Fox News can’t call the Millers terrorists because that would mean they are calling a hefty chunk of their most loyal viewers terrorists. And for many others in the Fox audience it would be offensive to apply a term that they reserve for brown-skinned people from foreign lands, to a white, married, Christian couple from Nevada via Indiana.

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But you still have to wonder why the rest of the media is suddenly so averse to using the word terrorism. If there were ever an appropriate time to employ the label, it is now. The Millers made their intentions crystal clear. They reportedly shouted that “This is the start of the revolution,” as they commenced their crime spree. They draped their victims in the Gadsden flag, a banner of the Tea Party movement. Their motives were purely to incite terror in furtherance of their seditionist agenda. Similar behavior by Nidal Hasan and the Tsarnaev brothers was referred to as terrorism from the outset. So I’ll ask again – Why won’t the media call it terrorism?

[Update:] And Fox News ceased covering these Tea Party cop killers after just one day.

Disgraced CBS Reporter Resigns Causing Fox News To Weep (And Lie About Benghazi)

Posted by Mark NC on March 12, 2014 at 2:16 pm. 10 Comments :

Earlier this week investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson announced that she had resigned from CBS News. According to Politico, sources say that her departure was due to her frustration with what she considered the network’s liberal bias. However, the truth is more likely that the network was disappointment with Attkisson’s sloppy and partisan reporting.

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The notion that CBS News is some kind of bastion of liberalism is impossible to take seriously. Just last November CBS ran an embarrassing 60 Minutes segment on Benghazi that was based wholly on the account of a disreputable figure whose story they never verified. They later had to apologize and retract the story, but the problem was not due to an unfortunate mistake. The right-wing bias at CBS gets its direction from the very top. The President of CBS News is David Rhodes, who came to the network from Fox News. Politico also reported that…

“Attkisson’s coverage of the Obama administration, which some CBS staffers characterized as agenda-driven, had led network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting. […and that…] Pat Shevlin, the executive producer of CBS Evening News, was especially wary of Attkisson’s motives and had even dismissed her, in private, as a partisan carrying water for Republicans.”

Generally Fox News is openly hostile to what they regard as the establishment media and they mercilessly pound their competitors as neither fair nor balanced. But in the wake of Attkisson’s resignation, Fox has become her biggest cheerleader. Yesterday Neil Cavuto brought in rightist media hack Brent Bozell of NewsBusters to lament Attkisson’s fate and complain that CBS had cut her off because of her politics. However that opinion ignores the fact that Attkisson’s reporting had recently been shown to be inaccurate and unfairly critical of the Obama administration. That is the reason that her stories have not been getting on the air.

In the course of this full-throated defense of Attkisson’s journalistic failures, Bozell went on an extended rant aimed at all of the “mainstream” media and CBS in particular. He complained about what he believed to be insufficient coverage of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Only on Fox is there still a raging controversy over what the administration did and said following the attack. Everywhere else the phony allegations promoted by conservatives have been thoroughly debunked. But Bozell went completely off the rails when he said…

“It stands to reason that she [Attkisson] is out because they stopped letting her report the news when she started reporting on Benghazi. […] If George Bush – if it had been on his watch that we had Benghazi, do you think they’d be quiet?”

To this Cavuto replied “He’d be impeached.” And once again, the rank hypocrisy of Fox News is displayed in all its partisan glory. If Fox were the least bit interested in factual representations of events they would have to have acknowledged that during the Bush administration there were at least thirteen Benghazis (i.e. terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates that resulted in dozens of casualties including the death of David Foy, an American diplomat). Not only was Bush never threatened with impeachment over those atrocities, no one at Fox ever suggested that Bush was the least bit responsible for them. Nor did they criticize Bush as weak for not retaliating afterwards.

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Attkisson says that she is going to focus on completing the book she is writing with the totally non-biased title “Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington.” It is being published by HarperCollins, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. From there it is a fairly safe bet that she will find a perch at Fox News where she can continue to peddle her dishonest stories and her rightist views with the full support of her bosses. After all, Fox has long history of scooping up the worst rejects after they have been discarded by other networks.

Raving Fox News Pundit Accidentally Makes The Case For Food Stamps

Posted by Mark NC on February 21, 2014 at 11:27 am. 4 Comments :

On a network that is focused so intensely on opposing every policy initiative of the Obama administration, it can lead to some rather fiery outbursts by its fiercely partisan pundits. However, for Fox News that sort of unfettered rage can severely impair mental acuity, particularly amongst FoxPods who are already starting out with diminished capacity.

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An example of this rage-fueled mind-numbing occurred yesterday on Your World with Neil Cavuto. During a segment with Fox Business contributor Charles Payne, the discussion took a turn for the weird (video below). Cavuto and Payne were merrily trashing social safety net programs, or as they call them, “entitlements,” when Payne slipped off the conservative mantle.

Cavuto: Whether it’s addressing a hike in the minimum wage or getting health care coverage, as long as Uncle Sam’s got my back I can lay back. […]

Payne: A lot of people are trying to convince the average person that there’s no way you can climb and reach the top. Although this morning, [yelling] there was a deal of a guy who sold a company for $19 billion. The guy came here from Russia. His family was on food stamps. He didn’t stay there. He didn’t stay there, Neil. The guy went out and started a business from the bottom. He was on food stamps. So the American dream is alive and well.

Exactly! The guy was on food stamps. The guy was able to feed himself and his family during a time of financial hardship and, as a result, he was able to lift himself out of poverty and achieve enormous success. That’s the American dream. And in this case it was made possible in part by America’s compassion for people who may temporarily have difficulty making ends meet. Whether it’s an immigrant, or a laid off worker, or a recent divorcee with children, this nation provides for them so that they can put the pieces of their lives back together and prosper.

Fox News has been a relentless opponent of things like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps), characterizing them as handouts for the lazy moochers who refuse to work. Conservatives have been working tirelessly to reduce benefits for food, housing, unemployment, and health care, while simultaneously advocating on behalf of the wealthy for more tax cuts and higher corporate subsidies.

Now along comes a Fox News pundit who inadvertently makes an argument for precisely why food stamps, and other social safety net programs, are so necessary and beneficial. The right-wing myth that food stamp recipients are perennially dependent on benefits is contradicted by the facts:

“SNAP supports households as they get back on their feet, supplying them with needed nutrition and encouraging work. The average amount of time a new participant spends on SNAP is 8 to 10 months, and the SNAP benefit formula is structured to provide a strong work incentive.”

It’s too bad that Cavuto and Payne fail to recognize the role that food stamps play in lifting families out of poverty, and even paving a path to success as illustrated in their own example. They concluded the segment with the same lamentations about government programs coddling the lazy. Their predictable obliviousness is reminiscent of the time when actor Craig T. Nelson appeared on Glenn Beck’s Fox program bragging that when his family was poor and on welfare and food stamps they never got any government handouts (except for the welfare and food stamps).

Fairly Unbalanced: Fox News Politburo Purges Democrats At Senate Hearing On Syria

Posted by Mark NC on September 3, 2013 at 3:02 pm. 24 Comments :

When President Obama announced that he would seek the opinion of Congress with regard to a military response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the hypocrisy of the right immediately rose to the surface of the debate. Many of the same people who had previously condemned the President for not seeking congressional approval, shifted to criticizing him for doing so.

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However, nothing illustrates the transparent intention to oppose Obama regardless of what he does as the coverage of the Senate hearings on Syria that commenced today.

Fox News was generous enough to broadcast the opening statements of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, as well as those of the committee chairman Robert Menendez and ranking GOP member Bob Corker. From there on, however, their coverage had a much more partisan hue.

At about 4:00 pm (ET), Fox cut away from the hearings for an interview with former congressman Ron Paul. Fox then methodically skipped questioning from Democratic senators as if they were mere interruptions. Then, when it was Tea Party darling Marco Rubio’s turn, Fox went back to the live broadcast. But their return was just for Rubio’s opening statement and initial question. They immediately cut away again when Sec. Kerry began his answer. Fox then skipped the next Democratic senator completely, but aired the accusatory inquiries of GOP Sen. Ron Johnson. Guess what happened when Johnson finished his question and the cameras turned to the witness table – live coverage stops. This pattern repeated itself again with Democratic Sen. Coons getting cut, followed by John McCain getting covered in full.

At one point during the coverage, while Fox was airing a series of right-wing analysts bashing Obama, Neil Cavuto promised that as soon as Rand Paul’s turn came around, he would return to the live hearing. It was an explicit admission that Fox had no intention of airing any other part of the hearing that might include Democrats, but would faithfully broadcast their pal Rand Paul. And since Cavuto’s program ended before Paul’s time came, the promise was repeated by Dana Perino in the next Fox program. Lo and behold, Fox refrained from airing anything else from the hearing until Paul, then left the hearing again when Democrat Tim Kaine began his question time.

This couldn’t have been a more blatant demonstration of bias. Democratic senators were virtually ignored. After Republican questions were aired, the answers by the Democratic representatives of the administration’s cabinet were likewise ignored. This was clearly an editorial decision, and it is further evidence that Fox cannot be taken seriously as a news network. They are an openly partisan propaganda outfit for the benefit of the Republican Party. Their mission is to advance a conservative agenda, and that means preventing their already ignorant audience from being exposed to opinions that differ from those of the right-wing commentariat.

Fast Food Fight: The Daily Show’s John Oliver Deep Fries Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on August 2, 2013 at 10:25 am. 2 Comments :

“They sell you something that looks appetizing, but leaves you feeling nauseous for hours afterwards.” ~John Oliver on Fox News

That’s how John Oliver described the similarities between Fox News and the fast food industry. In an epic take-down of Fox (video below), Oliver brilliantly exposed the selfishness, hypocrisy, and stupidity, of the network’s upper-crusty pundits’ callous attitude toward working people who have the gall to rally for a living wage.

The segment features multiple Fox scrooges insisting that workers should be grateful to have any job and stop whining about how toiling full-time in harsh conditions doesn’t provide sufficient compensation to feed and house their families. Oliver notes the risks associated with a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate fairly compensating their employees:

“If you raise the minimum wage. people will never stop working in the fast food industry. They’ll get so comfortable in the hot kitchens, in their acrylic uniforms, relaxing in that grease fog, smelling like processed meat no matter how many showers they take.”

But the real victim of Oliver’s harangue was Fox’s VP of financial news, Neil Cavuto, who bragged about his own youthful experience as a fast food employee. Cavuto touted the opportunities for advancement and months of success he enjoyed slinging fish and chips. Unfortunately, he also demonstrated how ill-equipped he is to be commenting on financial matters. In his fanciful flashback he noted that “it all started at two bucks an hour.” But as Mother Jones reported…

“[T]he math makes the opposite point Cavuto intended — adjusted for inflation, he made a lot more money as a teenager than the fast food employees who walked off their jobs in seven US cities this week. […] $2.22 per hour more than the current federal minimum wage.”

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So, there goes Cavuto’s argument against raising the minimum wage. And he set himself up for Oliver to make the astute observation that, “Working at Arthur Treacher’s was the last job Neil Cavuto was qualified for.” Of course, Cavuto is the Glenn Beck of business news. He engages in non-stop, brazenly partisan, propagandizing on behalf of the conservative agenda of his network bosses, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Cavuto is a Tea Party boosting, climate science denying, harbinger of economic Armageddon.

Bombshell Disclosure That Tea Party Targeting By IRS Conducted Mainly By GOP Is Suppressed By Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on June 10, 2013 at 10:56 am. 8 Comments :

The truth about the alleged targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS continues to leak out, but not with much help from Fox News. For weeks now, Republicans in congress and the conservative media, led by Fox News, have been struggling to find links between the Cincinnati IRS office, where targeting was said to have occurred, and the White House. Their failure to turn up any such links has clearly frustrated them, resulting in their making embarrassing assertions about their “gut feelings” and abandoning any pretense to engage in factual discourse.

The latest revelation to cast doubt on the GOP’s scandal mongering is the disclosure by Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings who announced yesterday that it is was a manager in the Cincinnati IRS office who instigated the Tea Party reviews. The manager also identified himself as a conservative Republican and insisted that the review policy was wholly contained in his office and did not involve the White House. He is the latest named source in the affair that has turned out to be a Republican. Previously, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Lois Lerner, the head of the agency’s Tax-Exempt Organizations division, were revealed to be Republicans hired by George W. Bush.

With such disclosures it makes it difficult for informed citizens to conclude that there was any political chicanery orchestrated by the White House to disadvantage conservative groups. But it is also difficult to be informed when media such as Fox News deliberately suppresses key facts about the matter.

After Rep. Cummings told CNN about the Cincinnati manager’s testimony, and GOP Committee Chairman Darrel Issa’s refusal to release the transcripts, Fox News reported only that Cummings thought the hearings should be wrapped up. In several segments spanning Fox & Friends and Happening Now, the Fox presentation of the story left out the key fact that the witness was another Republican and thus, not an Obama functionary. As I noted previously, there has not been a single partisan Democrat identified at the IRS who had anything to do with the application reviews.

The desperation of Fox News to prolong the season of pseudo-scandals is glaringly obvious. They can’t be bothered to report breaking news that disputes their predetermined biases. They also cannot allow guests to engage in fact-based discourse, so they rudely shout them down and then demand that their microphones be cut. That’s what happened when Democratic strategist Julian Epstein was interviewed by Fox bully and serial interrupter, Neil Cavuto:

Fox is behaving like an impudent child that hasn’t gotten his way. They want a scandal so badly and they will hold their breath until they get one. And if the facts don’t support their fabrications, they ignore them and the people with the effrontery to be honest information brokers. That’s just part of the reason that nobody outside of Fox’s studio and fan base regard them as journalists or give them any credibility.

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Congressman Darrell Issa of California

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