Neil Cavuto

Full Panic Mode: Mitt Romney Is Showing Desperation Re: Bain, Taxes

Posted by on July 13, 2012 at 3:55 pm. 1 Comments :

This past week has seen a flurry of reporting about Mitt Romney’s lack of candor with regard to his tenure at Bain Capitol. First he says that he retired in 1999. Then, when SEC documents prove that he claimed to be in charge through 2001, he says he was merely on a leave of absence. Then more evidence reveals that he gave sworn testimony that, while he was running the Olympics, he was still making trips and decisions at Bain. Finally, his campaign released a statement that insists that he had “absolutely no involvement” with Bain after 1999, and dismisses the documents that contradict that saying…

“Due to the sudden nature of Mr. Romney’s departure, he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999.”

For a time? There is no justification for such a transfer to result in failing to properly report the firm’s management for three years. It would only take a simple amendment to a previous filing to alert the SEC of a management change. The only plausible explanations for not doing so for three years are either neglect or deceit (neither of which are particularly attractive traits in a presidential candidate). During that prolonged period of time, companies considering doing business with Bain would have been materially misled had they relied on the representations in the SEC filings. In many cases businesses consummate transactions based on the perceived reputation of the managers. An associate who concluded any business with Bain during this time might be dismayed to learn now that the assurances given him as to who was in charge were false. That could make Bain and Romney liable for damages in any deals that went south.

No wonder Romney refuses to disclose his taxes the way almost every other presidential candidate has since his father set the standard some 40 years ago. So what has Romney decided to in response to this hail of bad publicity?

First he floats the name of Condoleeza Rice as a potential pick for his running mate. I’m going on record here as saying that the chances of that happening are less than zero. Rice has been adamant about her aversion to politics and has declared unambiguously that she would not take a spot on the ticket. What’s more, her selection would infuriate Romney’s pro-life base. But this discussion fueled by a ridiculous post on the Drudge Report is Romney’s way of diverting attention from his many financial woes, and also his embarrassing performance at the NAACP conference. Fox News came to the rescue on this by promoting the Rice speculation, including a particularly absurd segment on Your World with Neil Cavuto:

Cavuto: Word is that former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is not only on Gov. Mitt Romney’s veepstakes list, she’s on top of it for now. And considering that she’s not the only Bush cabinet official on it, maybe the Bush stigma is over. To Gov. Mike Huckabee on a list that he’s actually rumored to be on himself. What do you think of this?
Huckabee: Personally, I really don’t think there’s that much of a Bush stigma going into this election because people want to defeat Barack Obama. I think that George W. Bush, were he on the ticket, would win the election this year. And he certainly would have the enthusiastic support of Republicans. […]
Cavuto: But Condoleeza Rice is attached to one of the more controversial, to put it mildly, the whole Iraq war.

Wow! They really have some chutzpah to assert that there is no Bush stigma. But to go even further and declare that Bush could actually win an election is bordering on derangement. Especially when Cavuto himself notes that Rice is stigmatized by her connection to the Iraq debacle, but he doesn’t seem to place any responsibility for that on Bush. I repeat…Wow!

Following the Rice diversion, Romney has scheduled a series of news interviews with five news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, AND Fox) for tonight. With the exception of Fox, this is an almost newsworthy announcement on its own. Romney has permitted only a handful of interviews outside of his Fox News comfort zone. So to suddenly make appointments to run the mainstream media table reveals just how serious Romney regards his current predicament. He is in a full panic and hopes that by spinning furiously on a Friday night (when the fewest people are paying attention to news) he might be able to pacify the peasants with torches and pitchforks, and make it to the safety of next week.

Judging by the snowballing reports that continue to discover new cracks in Romney’s stories, it seems unlikely that his diversionary tactics will succeed. If he wants this to subside, he needs to come clean about Bain and release the tax returns he is so obsessed with concealing. Otherwise he will just be prolonging the pain and creating more opportunities for enterprising journalists to uncover more of the dirt that is undoubtedly there.

Lashing out wildly at Obama, calling him a liar without providing any substance to back it up, and attempting to manhandle the press, might gain him some points amongst those already on his side, but it isn’t going to stop the bleeding and, in the end, it will only make him seem weak and pathetic, lost and desperate, which is what he is.

Obamacare Upheld: Will Bill O’Reilly Keep His Promise To Apologize For Being An Idiot?

Posted by on June 28, 2012 at 9:10 am. 4 Comments :

The Supreme Court today upheld the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) today and there will be abundant coverage of this historic decision for the remainder of the day, of the week, and of this election year. Partisans from across the political spectrum will be parsing the decision for ways to portray it as either a victory or an incentive to motivate their followers.

But there is something that occurred in the months preceding this decision that deserves renewed attention. On March 26, 2012, Bill O’Reilly debated the healthcare act with Caroline Fredrickson, President of the American Constitution Society. After a tumultuous exchange that mainly exhibited O’Reilly’s arrogantly thuggish personality (transcript below), O’Reilly concluded by saying this:

“Ms. Frederickson, you’re going to lose, and your argument is specious. We appreciate you coming on. But this is absolutely a mandate. It’s absolutely a force. It’s absolutely police powers from the federal government, and it’s going to be 5 to 4. And if I’m wrong I will come on, and I will play — I will play your clip. And I will apologize for being an idiot. But I think you’re desperately wrong.”

Bill O'Reilly on ObamacareWill O’Reilly keep that promise? Although there are incidents far too numerous to mention wherein O’Reilly proves that he’s an idiot, there are few times that he’s committed to admitting it himself. In addition to his debate with Fredrickson, O’Reilly also did a Talking Points Memo segment asserting with absolute certainty that the mandate would be ruled unconstitutional. He should not be allowed to forget his mistakes and his promises. Email him here to ask him to keep his word.

On a side note: After the long awaited decision was announced, Fox News cut away from their coverage to air an interview of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch by his sycophantic lackey, Neil Cavuto. There was nothing particularly newsworthy disclosed in the segment. It appeared to be simply a distraction from the Supreme Court’s far more consequential news. That will likely be the tactical approach that Fox takes for the remainder of the day. They will attempt to downplay an event that they previously trumpeted as the most important Supreme Court decision in decades. They will dodge and weave and misconstrue as they plaster the air with dissenting views from Republican politicians and pundits. The headline, for the time being, will be “Obama’s health care tax increase survives.” And as soon as the House vote on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of congress occurs, that will become the headline.

Here is the transcript of the O’Reilly Factor interview with Caroline Frederickson. Note how precisely she predicted the Court’s decision that the act would be upheld under the taxing authority of the Congress. Note also O’Reilly’s brutish incivility as he threatens to cut off the interview if she didn’t comply with his demands to answer questions the way he wanted her to.

O’REILLY: Name one thing, one thing that the federal government forces you to buy. One.

FREDRICKSON: Well, let me first correct that —

O’REILLY: Ms. Frederickson.

FREDRICKSON: No, no. I want to correct you.

O’REILLY: Look, my — my opinion is my opinion. Your opinion is yours. I don’t want to be corrected. Ms. Frederickson please answer the simple question. We don’t have all night.

FREDRICKSON: The legislation — you have to let me answer.

O’REILLY: Are you going to answer this question or not? If you’re not going to answer, I’ll abort the segment right now.

FREDRICKSON: The legislation does not require people to buy health insurance.

O’REILLY: Of course it does.

FREDRICKSON: It imposes a penalty for those who don’t.

O’REILLY: You want to play the semantic game?

FREDRICKSON: Forces people to buy in the form of a tax.

O’REILLY: That’s a police power, OK? To impose any penalty is a police power.

FREDRICKSON: Tax power. And it’s designed completely within the rational scope of the legislation —

O’REILLY: No. Ms. Frederickson. This is not —

FREDRICKSON: — to encourage people to buy health insurance.

O’REILLY: This is becoming absurd. It’s police power if you punish someone for not doing anything. Sounds absurd.

FREDRICKSON: Now, you’ve got to let me talk if you’re going to invite me on your show.

O’REILLY: No, I don’t have to let you talk if you’re not answering the question. Because you’re dodging the question. I’ll go back.

FREDRICKSON: No. It’s actually —

O’REILLY: Name one thing the federal government compels you to buy. One thing.

FREDRICKSON: Well, let me say that under the Militia Act of 1792, people were compelled to buy muskets and powder.

O’REILLY: What act was that?

FREDRICKSON: This doesn’t require — The Militia Act. This doesn’t actually require people to buy health insurance. And I think it would be good if you read the legislation.

O’REILLY: I did read the legislation.

FREDRICKSON: It imposes a penalty. And a penalty is different from – –

O’REILLY: That’s compelling something to do something if you’re going to punish them for not doing it.

FREDRICKSON: No. It’s a tax. Essentially, people have to pay a very modest amount — it’s about $95 a year — if they choose not to buy health insurance.

But it’s part of a scheme in which Congress rationally chose to build a national market for health insurance and cover the uninsured.

O’REILLY: Ms. Frederickson, you’re going to lose, and your argument is specious. We appreciate you coming on. But this is absolutely a mandate. It’s absolutely a force. It’s absolutely police powers from the federal government, and it’s going to be 5 to 4.

And if I’m wrong I will come on, and I will play — I will play your clip. And I will apologize for being an idiot. But I think you’re desperately wrong.

FREDRICKSON: All right. Well, I look forward to it.

She was right, Billo. What say you?

{Update] This evening on the O’Reilly Factor, Laura Ingraham was in at the anchor desk because Bill O’Reilly was on vacation. Well, that would have been the perfect dodge for O’Reilly to avoid keeping his word and hoping that by Monday everybody would have forgotten.

However, Ingraham immediately announced that O’Reilly was on the phone from North Carolina to comment on this momentous news event. He spent ten minutes of his precious vacation time bashing the decision, the President and, on another subject, Attorney General Eric Holder. But he never mentioned that he is an idiot. Somehow, the fact that he is an idiot slipped his idiotic mind. I’m shocked!

Obama-Phobia: Wall Street Journal, Fox News Revive Nixon’s Enemies List

Posted by on April 28, 2012 at 10:50 am. 4 Comments :

The classic symptoms of obsessive paranoia are exhibiting themselves again in the psyches of delusional right-wingers. The villainous shadows they conjure up in every corner of their warped minds betrays how desperately sick they have become.

The latest blood vessel to burst in these over-anxious conservative foreheads is displayed in an article published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, the once respected financial paper that Rupert Murdoch has transformed into another of his tabloid rags. The item’s headline blared ominously that, “The President Has a List” (cue spooky music).

OMG! Is he checking it twice? The article’s author, Kimberley Strassel, seems to be alleging that President Obama has usurped the powers of Santa Claus and is preparing to rain a frosty judgment down on Republicans who were naughty this election year. They know who they are, and now, with his new North Pole Initiative, so does Obama. He even knows when they’re asleep and/or awake.

The article’s sub-head went into a little more panicky detail saying, “Barack Obama attempts to intimidate contributors to Mitt Romney’s campaign.” That’s a pretty scary thought. What will become of our democracy if powerful political players go around harassing the financial backers of their opponents? It could end up instigating slanderous attacks on private citizens who merely want to participate in the democratic process. The GOP would never contemplate doing such a thing to backers of Democrats. Notice the respect with which they always regard George Soros and Barbara Streisand. Nevertheless, Strassel rolls out the big guns with allusions to the famously paranoid Richard Nixon:

“Richard Nixon’s ‘enemies list’ appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats.”

Exactly! So if mega-wealthy conservative activists drop boatloads of cash into dishonest campaigns designed to demonize the President as an anti-American, Marxist, alien, aligned with Al-Qaeda, the President and his supporters should just shut their mouths and permit those poor billionaires to do as they please. If God didn’t want filthy rich robber barons and corporations to pervert democracy he wouldn’t have given them the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision.

The source of this bubbling cauldron of conservative angst is a web site that the Obama campaign operates to counter the abundant feces-flinging from the right. It is produced by Obama’s “Truth Team” and consists entirely of disseminating documented information with the ghastly purpose of helping people to make informed decisions. In particular, there is an article titled “Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney’s donors” that reveals who is bankrolling Romney’s campaign and what their motivations might be. It begins by saying…

“As the presumptive GOP nominee, Mitt Romney is relying on a cadre of high-dollar and special-interest donors to fund his campaign. Giving information about his real policy intentions and high-level access for cash, Romney and Republicans are working hard to pull in as much money as they can from wealthy lobbyists, corporations, and PACs.”

No wonder the right is worried. We certainly can’t have people going around telling the truth about wealthy special interests who are trying to help Romney buy this election. And even though none of the atrocities Strassel mentions in her column (“to jail, to fine, to bankrupt”) are occurring, it’s bad enough that truthful biographies and affiliations are being brought into the light of day.

Adding to the cacophony of crazy is Rupert Murdoch’s cable crew at Fox News. Neil Cavuto took up the very same topic as Strassel’s WSJ story (by coincidence, I’m sure) and engaged in a profound exchange with Fox legal analyst Lis Wiehl:

Cavuto: Called out for shelling out. Private donors to Mitt Romney outed on an Obama campaign web site. The site ripping their record, even saying that they’re betting against America by giving cash to Romney’s campaign. Is this legal?
Lis Wiehl: It may be. I went on the web site today. It is frightening. I mean, I don’t like to get on any list, unless it’s a birthday party list or something like that, but a Nixon enemy list, McCarthyism…

First of all, Cavuto and Wiehl are just plain delusional in speculating that there is anything illegal about posting truthful information about political donors. And while Cavuto is just an idiot, Wiehl is a lawyer and should know better. Secondly, the web site does not say that Romney donors are “betting against America by giving cash to Romney’s campaign.” It says they are betting against America by outsourcing American jobs, closing American factories, and unlawfully foreclosing on American homeowners. Then they take their tainted winnings and parlay them into Romney’s Wheel of Nefarious Fortune. But the best example of the looming dementia on the part of these dimwits is Wiehl’s allusion to her sterling investigative skills. She seemed so proud of herself for navigating the byzantine maze that Obama’s functionaries constructed to hide their true identities. She bragged to Cavuto that…

Wiehl: You’ve got to through a few links. It’s not that easy. I’m not a computer person, but I did manage to do it myself.

Here is the maze of deception through which Wiehl had to rummage:

Obama Truth Team

How on earth did she ever discover the real source of this web site? Only a crack investigator with Wiehl’s superior legal experience could have figured out how to scroll to the bottom of the page. Those Obama web developers are mighty crafty, but no match for Wiehl.

This isn’t the first time that the Murdoch empire has attempted to associate Obama with Nixon and McCarthy. A couple of months ago the Wall Street Journal published an article by Ted Olsen that accused the President of similar list crimes. On that occasion it was the infamous Koch brothers who were being set up for presidential attacks. It’s too bad that the billionaire Koch brothers are so defenseless that they have to resort to having their lawyer (Olsen) be given space in the Wall Street Journal to whine about being criticized by the president they have vowed to destroy.

It’s also a little ironic that the right is so vociferously disturbed by tactics made popular by people they now regard as heroes. Both Nixon and McCarthy have been the beneficiaries of recent rehabilitations by their fellow Republicans. We even have GOP stars like Allen West declaring that commies are running rampant through the corridors of congress. McCarthy would be so proud. And Glenn Beck sanitized Nixon’s enemies list by saying that it was “just about who’s not coming to state dinners.” Yet conservatives will still site these historical scumbags in a negative sense if they think they can tarnish the President with it. Oh what a tangled web…..

Fox News’ Neil Cavuto Exposes GOP Camapign Ad Lie

Posted by on March 2, 2012 at 12:33 pm. 9 Comments :

A new campaign ad for Rhode Island congressional hopeful Barry Hinckley employs Hinckley’s adorable five year old son, Hudson, delivering a lecture on America’s debt crisis.

As it turns out, Hudson is just another GOP hack fronting for the ultra-wealthy power brokers of the right. There is obviously something unsavory in Hudson’s past because his Google history prior to 2006 has been completely scrubbed from the Internet.

Thank goodness for Fox News and Neil Cavuto. In a contentious interview, Cavuto got the devious toddler to admit that the positions he took in the ad were nothing but political hokum designed expressly for the purpose of advancing the electoral prospects of a member of his family (his father).

It remains to be seen what the impact will be to Hinckley’s campaign now that his primary spokesman has confessed publicly that he does not believe the debt crisis assertions in his fathers ad. Equally damaging to the campaign may be Hinckley’s answer to Cavuto asking whether or not Hudson knew what he was doing. Hinckley responded that “He sure did. We talked about it for a long time.” This suggests that Hinckley’s budget policy is so simplistic that a five year old can understand it. No one wonder Hinckley is running as a Republican.

Further evidence of Hinkley’s strong GOP credentials is that, when asked what he wants to do when he grows up, Hudson said that he “wants to be in a war and save the country.” What better answer for a future representative of the hawkish GOP that is presently trying to make little Hudson’s dream come true by inciting a new with Iran? Here’s hoping, for Hudson’s sake, that they fail.

Fox News Revives Lie To Advocate Raising Taxes On The Poor

Posted by on February 23, 2012 at 10:54 pm. 11 Comments :

Every year around early April, Fox News unpacks a phony statistic about taxpayers in order to imply that many Americans don’t pay taxes at all. They are starting a little early this year.

Fox News - Neil Cavuto

Neil Cavuto, the VP of business news at Fox, must know better when he alleges that 49.5% of Americans do not pay taxes. The truth is that they pay about the same tax rate as other Americans, just no “federal” taxes. And there is a good reason for that. Most of the citizens in this category are either seniors living on Social Security, students with little or no income, and the working poor who earn less than the statutory minimums to be liable for federal levies. They do, however, pay state and local taxes, sales taxes, mortgage taxes, and payroll taxes. But that doesn’t stop Fox from repeatedly asserting the lie that they pay no taxes at all.

By complaining that these disadvantaged people are tantamount to freeloaders, Cavuto is in effect advocating an increase in taxes for the poor. While he and his right-wing cohorts fight tooth and nail to protect wealthy individuals and corporations from contributing even modest amounts to the nation’s recovery, they are enthusiastically in favor of soaking the poor in order to heal the malaise on Wall Street and the misery of long-suffering bankers. It’s nice to see that these conservative, anti-tax zealots have finally found a class of people whose taxes they want to raise.

The phrase that Cavuto used repeatedly is that “everyone has [to have] skin in the game.” The arrogance dripping from that commentary is that it assumes that those not paying federal income taxes do not already have skin in the game. Cavuto thinks that people who have spent a lifetime paying into the system, and are now struggling to survive in retirement, haven’t sacrificed enough. He thinks that the unemployed would prefer to remain that way rather than find jobs and resume payments to the IRS. That’s an astoundingly stupid point of view that demonstrates just how ignorant he is of economics and the plight of people less fortunate than he is. But surprisingly, it isn’t the stupidest thing he said. In his program’s sarcastic epilogue he issued this order to the folks who are already undergoing significant hardships:

“Stop demanding benefits from a system you give nothing.”

Really? Let me get this straight. If you are so broke that you can’t pay for taxes – or housing or food – then you should not be getting any benefits from the social safety nets set up to provide housing and food for the poor? Apparently Cavuto thinks that such benefits should only go to people who already have money.

To say that the poor should stop demanding benefits because they are poor is like chastising a child for wanting to be adopted just because she’s an orphan. What a selfish freeloader. And she’s just the sort of ne’er-do-well from whom Cavuto would like to steal candy.

Republicans Reveal Their Top Priority For America In Iowa Debate

Posted by on December 17, 2011 at 12:38 pm. 5 Comments :

At a time when the nation faces some formidable challenges on critical matters of economics, employment, national defense, health care, etc., the Republican candidates for president met in Iowa to debate the issues that they regard as most important to voters and the country.

Leading off the Fox News sponsored debate, Fox anchor Bret Baier summarized just what issues the GOP held as their highest priority, and it wasn’t any of those enumerated in the paragraph above.

Bret Baier: We have received thousands of tweets, Facebook messages and emails with suggested questions. And the overall majority of them had one theme: Electability. People want to know which one of you on this stage is able to be in the best position to beat President Obama in the general election. And that’s the number one goal for Republican voters, obviously.

So there you have it. The number one goal is not restoring the nation’s economic health. It is not creating jobs or strengthening the middle-class. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Al Qaeda, or any other source of international hostility. It isn’t even Republican pet causes of guns, gays, God, or repealing ObamaCare. The number on issue is electability. Republicans are focused squarely on the singular issue of evicting the Kenyan socialist from the White House, to the exclusion of all other principles or positions. Just like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said shortly after Obama was inaugurated.

Taking this theme to heart, the debate continued with a series of question that addressed nothing substantive other than the candidate’s prospects for beating President Obama next November. Here are the first seven questions asked at Thursday’s debate:

Bret Baier: Speaker Gingrich, since our last debate your position in this race has changed dramatically. You are now physically in the center of the stage, which means that you are at the top of the polls, yet many Republicans seem conflicted about you, They say that you’re smart, that you’re a big thinker. At the same time many of those same Republicans worry deeply about your electability in a general election saying perhaps Gov. Romney is a safer bet. Can you put to rest, once and for all, the persistent doubts that you are indeed the right candidate on this stage to go up and beat President Obama?

Megyn Kelly: Cong. Paul, you have some bold ideas, some very fervent supporters, and probably the most organized ground campaign here in Iowa, but there are many Republicans, inside and outside of this state, who openly doubt whether you can be elected president. How can you convince them otherwise, and if you don’t wind up winning this nomination, will you pledge here tonight that you will support the ultimate nominee?

Megyn Kelly: Sen. Santorum, no one has spent more time in Iowa than you. You have visited every county in the state. And yet, while we have seen no fewer than four Republican candidates surge in the polls, sometimes in extraordinary ways, so far you and your campaign have failed to catch fire with the voters. Why?

Chris Wallace: Gov. Romney, I want to follow up on Bret’s line of questioning to the Speaker because many of our viewers tell us that they are supporting Newt Gingrich because they think that he will be tougher than you in taking the fight to Barack Obama in next fall’s debates. Why would you be able to make the Republican’s case against the President more effectively than the Speaker?

Chris Wallace: Cong. Bachmann, no one questions your conservative credentials, but what about your appeal to Independents who are so crucial in a general election? If you are fortunate enough to become the Republican nominee, how would you counter the efforts by the Barack Obama campaign to paint you as too conservative to moderate voters?

Neil Cavuto: Gov. Perry, by your own admission you are not a great debater. You have said as much and downplayed debating skills in general. But if you were to become your party’s nominee you would be going up against an accomplished debater in Barack Obama. There are many in this audience tonight, sir, who fear that possibility and don’t think you’re up for the fight. Allay them of their concerns.

Neil Cavuto: Gov. Huntsman, your campaign has been praised by moderates, but many question your ability to galvanize the Republicans, energize the conservative base of the party. They’re especially leery of your refusal to sign on to a “no tax hike” pledge. How can you reassure them tonight.

Nothing is more revealing of a party’s intentions than what they themselves place at the forefront of their campaigns. And nothing could be more clear than the fact that Republicans simply do not care about issues or the welfare of the American people as much as they do about their own selfish quest for power.

What’s more, the debate sponsor, Fox News, and other right-wing spokesmodels concur with the GOP’s directive on beating Obama above all else. That’s why the questions were littered with words like “worry,” “doubt,” “fear,” and “leery,” to describe the electorate’s mood toward the GOP frontrunners. And the debate amongst Republican elites is raging at an unprecedented pace. Rush Limbaugh thinks Romney is a milquetoast candidate. Glenn Beck called Gingrich a progressive (a pejorative for Beck) and the one candidate he would not vote for. Even Fox’s Chris Wallace slammed Ron Paul saying that a win by Paul in Iowa would discredit the state’s caucuses.

So what we have here is both the candidates and the media fixated on electability. All they talk about is the horse race and not the underlying issues. And of course, the reason for that is that they don’t care about the issues, only the power that comes from political control. And now they have confessed this obsession unabashedly.

Unfortunately for these polito-Narcissists, they aren’t quite smart enough to craft accurate predictions of who is or isn’t electable. They will undoubtedly make the wrong choice and their anointed candidate will suffer an embarrassing defeat. But to be honest, that’s an easy call for me to make because any of the current GOP candidates would be the wrong choice. They are all presently losing to Obama in national polls, and that’s quite a feat considering Obama’s low favorability ratings. The best thing that’s happened for Obama’s reelection prospects is that he’s running against this batch of pathetic Republicans.

Hypocrisy Watch: Casey Anthony Trial Preempts Debt Crisis On Fox News

Posted by on July 1, 2011 at 2:01 pm. 6 Comments :

Neil CavutoNeil Cavuto opened his program today by chastising the President and Congress for taking the holiday weekend off in the midst of a looming and unsolved debt crisis. He was appalled that these people could be so cavalier under such desperate circumstances. Then he interviewed some toady he found under a Tea Party toadstool who agreed with everything he had just said.

For the record, the Washington set was scheduled to be out of town for all of next week until President Obama shamed them into changing their plans. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, declared that the Senate would be open for business Tuesday, and for the remainder of the week. It was on the President’s initiative that Congress was called back into service immediately after the Independence Day hiatus.

So Congress will not be taking their customary holiday to celebrate the Fourth of July. They will simply be off for the weekend and the fourth to be with their families and constituents, then right back to work on Tuesday. And this has gotten Cavuto’s knickers in a knot.

What came next made this already asinine whining ever more stupefying. Cavuto introduced the panel of business commentators that he would normally be hosting tomorrow morning on Saturday’s “The Cost of Freedom” program on Fox News. The reason he hosted this panel today is because the program is being preempted tomorrow to make way for special coverage of the Casey Anthony murder trial.

So Cavuto rails against the President for allegedly neglecting our nation’s economic emergency (even though Obama was responsible for pressuring everyone to come back to work early), while Cavuto and Fox News cast the crisis aside in favor of tabloid coverage of a trial that will have no effect whatsoever on the economy or anything else of national importance.

What a revealing demonstration of twisted priorities and hypocrisy. What a callous and insufferable clown.

Neil Cavuto Preaches Economic Apocalypse

Posted by on June 4, 2011 at 11:01 am. NO Comments :

Yesterday marked the end of a bad week on Wall Street. The market declined all of 2.3% for the week. So if you haven’t already escaped to your bunker in Idaho you may want to pack up the kids, the rations, and the gold coins, and hit the road.

As usual, the prophet of the financial End Times is Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. He is to business what Glenn Beck is to…well, everything else. Cavuto spent the opening minutes of his program on Fox News insisting that America was in a state of deep decline and that no recovery has occurred, or will occur. He later shuttled over to his program on Fox Business Network to announce that the economy had “flatlined.”

Does he mean this economy?


A truly fair and balanced analysis of the situation would recognize that there has been a substantial move to the upside since President Obama was inaugurated. Over the past two years there has been a 43% increase. Compare that to the two years prior, during the Bush administration, that saw a 36% falloff.

The primary argument Cavuto is making for the catastrophe he perceives is that the market has been negative for 5 straight weeks. Of course, knowledgeable analysts never draw conclusions from such short periods of time. The chart above demonstrates why that is not considered wise practice. What Cavuto is spinning as a catastrophe is really a mere 5% drop over a long trend of gains.

This is nothing new for Cavuto or Fox News. They consistently hammer on any negative market activity while ignoring the positive. If the market goes down it is because of the looming Obama depression. If it goes up Fox labels it a bear market rally. Fox is so determined to deny Obama credit for anything positive that they once went so far as to claim that the Tea Party was responsible for market a rally – and that was a rally that began weeks before the Tea Party existed.

Later in the program Cavuto engaged in what he regards as a debate, but is really just him interrupting his guest after every four words. Democratic congressman Chaka Fattah put up a valiant fight to present the facts about the employment statistics that show significant increases over the past couple of years despite recent weakness. But Cavuto would have none of it, cutting off Fattah repeatedly to spin the data as negatively as possible while treating his guest with overt rudeness. Seriously…no Democrat should ever go on that show or that network.

The Fox News financial reporting has been nothing but atrocious, They have been predicting disaster since January of 2009. Anyone who took their analysis seriously missed one of the strongest periods of growth in this nation’s history. I sure hope nobody is taking them seriously now.

10 Reasons Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck

Posted by on April 13, 2011 at 10:38 am. 10 Comments :

“If I were lying I’d be off the air.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Jan 4, 2010.
“I’m going to be leaving this program later this year.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Apr 6, 2011.

There has already been a barrage of media analysis and discussion of Glenn Beck’s not-so-surprising separation from Fox News. For the most part that discussion has been focused on speculation as to the cause of the break up and on what will become of Beck. But any suggestion that Beck’s departure polishes Fox’s reputation is pure folly. The worst of Beck’s haunted imagination is securely woven into the Fox News dis-comforter. The trademark Fox invective, sophistry, and bias predate Beck and will outlive him.


Many in the press, however, are more interested in prattling on about the alleged animosity for Beck amongst “serious” conservatives and his colleagues at Fox who think that his doomsday rhetoric and conspiracy theories give the “news” network a bad name. The purveyors of conventional wisdom are very concerned about Fox’s teetering credibility and are scrambling to defend it:

Howard Kurtz, CNN, The Daily Beast: …many senior Fox executives are relieved to be rid of Beck. [and] …some journalists and executives at the network privately expressed concern that Beck was becoming the face of the network.

George Will, ABC News Washington Post: I think that Glenn Beck and his drift into more bizarre and extreme positions was threatening the Fox brand. So I wish Glenn Beck health and happiness but I think the health and happiness of Fox is served by his departure.

Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine: You can’t be a rodeo clown and maintain credibility,

Matt Lewis, The Daily Caller: My take is that while Beck’s show was individually a ratings hit, he also risked tarnishing the overall Fox News “brand”.

Jeffrey McCall, professor of media studies, DePauw University: Beck was no longer just a personality with a show on FNC. He became an easy target for Fox News critics to characterize him as representative of the entire channel.

These august observers have frightfully short memories. The truth is that Fox earned its nefarious reputation long before Beck arrived and there is every indication that they will preserve it after he’s gone. In fact, it’s that reputation that made Beck such a good fit to begin with and lured him to the network despite his admitted reluctance when first approached. The pundits who are advancing the premise that by losing Beck, Fox can be redeemed are, to put it kindly, mistaken. Here is why Fox News without Glenn Beck will be just as bad as Fox News with Glenn Beck:

1) Bill O’Reilly: Before Beck called President Obama a racist, Bill O’Reilly ventured to Sylvia’s in Harlem and expressed his surprise that the mostly African-American patrons weren’t acting like primitives. And when the First Lady was criticized for expressing her pride that America had evolved to the point where they would elect an African-American president O’Reilly considerately declared that “I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence.” Nice choice of words.

2) Sean Hannity: While Beck may suffer from an acute case of Nazi-Tourettes Syndrome (Louis Black™), Sean Hannity is a personal friend of the notorious neo-Nazi schlock-jock, Hal Turner, and graciously hosted him on his program. Turner won’t be be revisiting Hannity for a while because he is presently in prison serving 33 months for threatening judges.

3) Megyn Kelly: No one can spin a conspiracy theory quite like Beck, but Megyn Kelly comes pretty close. For months she’s been peddling a pseudo-scandal that alleges that the Department of Justice deliberately dismisses all charges of civil rights violations when the plaintiff is white. This has been debunked by the House Judiciary Committee’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Kelly also fronted phony investigations into the alleged terrorist ties of funders of the Park51 mosque in Manhattan. Somehow she left out the fact that one of those funders was Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the second largest shareholder of News Corp outside of the Murdoch family. Kelly has a permanently affixed expression of indignation and a vocal delivery that makes every story appear to be shocking. She is the human manifestation of Fox’s ever-present “FOX ALERT!”

4) Judge Andrew Napolitano: There are conspiratorial paths where even Beck fears to tread. Judge Andrew Napolitano has no such fears. He is a frequent guest of proto-conspiratorialist and Beck inspiration, Alex Jones. He is an avowed 9/11 Truther who says that the World Trade Center attack was an inside job. He believes that the health care bill contains provisions for a civilian military force to suppress domestic insurrection. And he also happens to be Beck’s most frequent fill-in host and a leading candidate to replace him.

5) Bill Sammon: Fox News’ Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, has espoused a hard-core conservatism that predates Beck and emanates from the executive suites far above him. He came to Fox from the “Moonie” Washington Times and authored several books lionizing George W. Bush and lambasting Democrats. He was also caught authoring memos that directed his reporters to dispense a brazenly partisan point of view. For instance, he told them to refrain from using the term “public option” during the health care debate because focus group testing proved that the term “government-run” produced a more negative response. Even more disturbing, he was recorded admitting to a friendly audience on a conservative cruise that he “mischievously” cast Obama as a socialist even though he didn’t believe it himself. In other words, he lied to defame the President and rile up his gullible viewers. Beck must be so proud to have worked for him.

6) Neil Cavuto: The glorification of ignorance is a staple of Beck’s brand, but Neil Cavuto has been contributing to the collapse of America’s collective IQ far longer than Beck. He proudly hosts such respected policy analysts as Ted Nugent, Joe the Plumber, and any random Tea Bagger to help him unravel our nation’s dilemmas. One of his favorite idiocies is his insistence that Climate Change is a hoax because it gets cold in the winter. But Cavuto really shines when he brings in guests whose only connection to the segment is a juvenile pun. For instance, in a discussion about whether Tea Party support was grassroots or AstroTurf, Cavuto interviewed the CEO of AstroTurf Technologies, whose expertise with synthetic fiber products contributed nothing to the debate on campaign organization. Cavuto is the prop comic of pundits who delights in interrupting and shouting down Democrats who are naive enough to accept his invitations to appear.

7) Fox & Friends: While there will always be only one rodeo clown in the vast right-wing conspira-circus, there is no shortage of stooges, and three of them are featured on Fox & Friends. First we have Steve Doocy, who wondered “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that [Obama] spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father.” Perhaps because Obama actually never knew his father who left the family when he was two years old. Then there’s Brian Kilmeade who fans the racist flames by saying things like “all terrorists are Muslims.” And don’t forget Gretchen Carlson, who called the late Sen. Ted Kennedy a “hostile enemy” of the United States. All of these vile inanities were delivered without any help from Beck. However, it should be noted that when Beck made his infamous remarks about Obama being a racist he did it on Fox & Friends.

8) Fox Nation: Any good 21st century propaganda outfit has to have an Internet component, and for Fox News it is the Fox Nation. This web site’s sole purpose is to disseminate the most despicably dishonest disinformation it can invent. There are way too many examples to itemize, but here are a couple that represent the ridiculous and the repulsive. Last July Fox Nation featured a story that claimed that the Taliban was recruiting monkey mercenaries. This absurdity was sourced to the People’s Daily in China. Fox Nation also ran an item that speculated about Obama’s death. This article brought out the hate in the site’s readers who posted numerous comments indicating how welcome that would be. Many of the stories on Fox Nation percolate up to Fox News for broadcast and they they are no less deranged than the nonsense Beck comes up with.

9) Roger Ailes: The president and CEO of Fox News sets the tone for the network as a whole. Roger Ailes was a long-time media advisor to Republican candidates prior to launching Fox News. He is the network’s spiritual leader. If you ever wondered how Beck could get away with aligning President Obama (and anyone else with whom he disagrees) with Hitler, your curiosity was satisfied when Ailes lashed out at NPR saying that “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism.” Ailes’ remarks prove that the hate speech at Fox goes from the top down. It’s not now, and never has been, unique to Beck.

10) Rupert Murdoch: Speaking of the top – Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corp, is as high as you can get. He is the company’s captain and conscience. Every material decision requires his concurrence, including his employment of Glenn Beck. While Beck may be leaving, Murdoch is not (yet). It is, therefore, important to note that when Beck called the President a racist, Murdoch responded by saying that “it was something that, perhaps, shouldn’t have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right.”

Murdoch has consistently stood behind Beck for more than two years, defending him at every turn for every scandalous affair and affront. Even as advertisers fled in disgust, Murdoch never conceded an inch. In the television marketplace it is advertisers, not viewers, who are the broadcaster’s clients. Murdoch snubbed his clients in order to allow Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue and Disinfotainment Revival Hour to continue poisoning minds and influencing elections.

More importantly, Murdoch and Ailes together have fashioned a network whose persona is infested with the same conservative extremist ideology popularized by Beck. The examples above illustrate how ingrained that ideology is into the Fox News schedule in all dayparts. And those programs are augmented by an army of propagandists that include Sarah Palin, Stuart Varney, Eric Bolling, Monica Crowley, Dick Morris, Frank Luntz, and many more.

With this dedicated team of activist anchors and contributors in place, Beck’s departure, though gossip-worthy, will change nothing at Fox News. Beck was not cast off because his message was objectionable, but because he was an ineffective messenger who was alienating the audience. His replacement will surely continue the sordid tradition of which Beck was just a small, irritating part. The Fox mission remains intact and any talk of redemption due merely to having thrown off this defective cog is naive and oblivious to the dark reality that is Fox News.

Union Economist Calls Neil Cavuto An Asshole

Posted by on June 25, 2010 at 4:33 pm. 11 Comments :

Neil Cavuto had Ron Blackwell, AFL-CIO Chief Economist, on to discuss unemployment and job creation. By the end of the interview Cavuto had demonstrated exactly why Democrats and progressives and, apparently, union officials, should never go on Fox News. At the same time Blackwell demonstrated that he is a shrewd judge of character.

The discussion turned into a rather ludicrous debate because Cavuto couldn’t understand a simple accounting principle. Cavuto kept haranguing Blackwell about the number of jobs created by the stimulus program. Blackwell clearly stated that there was a net loss of jobs, but that it would have been far worse without the stimulus. Cavuto couldn’t get it. So Blackwell very plainly told Cavuto that the stimulus had created jobs, but that more jobs were lost due to the recession than were created by the stimulus. But Cavuto kept trying to argue that because there was not a net increase in jobs that no jobs were created at all.

After repeated interruptions by Cavuto, and requests by Blackwell that he be permitted to finish a thought, Cavuto lashed out with a gratuitous insult at Blackwell. And this prompted a crude but deserved retort:

Cavuto: You’re the chief economist there. Where did you get your degree? I mean…at a baking school? Where are you cooking up these numbers?
Blackwell: That’s an insult. Forget about it. You’re a joker. You’re an asshole.
Cavuto: So your answer to just answering a simple question is to curse at me?

Watch the video:

That was no simple question, Neil. That was a petulant insult. What does Cavuto expect? Especially when it was his own inability to grasp the issue that resulted in his juvenile conduct. For him to get so sensitive about being called a name just seconds after he disparaged his guest is another demonstration of childishness. And this isn’t a recent behavioral flaw. I wrote about Cavuto’s proclivity for interruptions a year ago:

Cavuto’s method of getting answers is to provide them himself. His guests become superfluous as he obviously prefers his own answers to the ones a guest might offer. His contention that he is merely attempting to short circuit a stump speech is plainly false. He doesn’t even give his guest enough time to discern whether or not the answer is substantive. By the time the guest has uttered, “Well Neil, the reason for that is…” Cavuto has already cut him off. His interruptions never compel a guest to be more responsive or clear. In fact, he interrupts almost exclusively to argue with the guest. That’s not seeking clarity, it’s browbeating.

Rest assured that Cavuto and his Fox News colleagues will harp on this for days and cast Blackwell as the villain. They will play this clip repeatedly, except they will leave out Cavuto’s insult and just show Blackwell calling him an asshole. And that’s why Blackwell would have been better off to stay home. He was never going to change Cavuto’s mind on anything, nor the minds of any Fox viewers.

There is simply no upside to engaging with Fox. After all these years, with so many examples, why are there still people who don’t get that? Pay attention. This is not the exception. This is the norm. And this is why people need to…

…STAY THE HELL OFF OF FOX NEWS!