Shaking In Their Boots: The Texas GOP Is Scared Witless Of Wendy Davis

Posted by Mark NC on January 25, 2014 at 4:10 pm. 9 Comments :

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis must be terrifying to Texas Republicans. Why else would they be resorting to some of the most asinine tactics and ludicrous lies in order to defeat her?

In recent days Davis has been attacked by Republican opponents and the conservative press for a variety of manufactured pseudo-scandals. Among them is a claim dug out of a profile of Davis that appeared in the Dallas Morning News. Apparently her official bio said that she was a teenage single mother who struggled to make a better life for her family through hard work and education, eventually graduating from Harvard Law School. The newspaper noted, however, that Davis was not divorced until she was twenty-one years old and thus not a teenager when she became a single mother. Wingnut media immediately jumped on that discrepancy and howled with outrage that Davis was a liar who fabricated her life history.

Setting aside the fact that the difference between nineteen and twenty-one has no relevant bearing on anything, Davis’ critics also ignore the possibility that she and her husband were separated and living apart for a couple of years prior to their divorce being finalized. This is the sort of trivialities that Texas Republicans find it necessary to distort and exploit in order to smear their foes.

Another example of the GOP’s desperation was displayed in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post where a headline declared that “Wendy Davis has no future in politics.” The article’s author came to this conclusion after learning that Davis’ second husband was granted custody of their children when that marriage ended.

The Post falsely wrote that Davis had “lost custody of her children to her ex-husband.” The truth is that Davis agreed to the custody arrangement for the benefit of the kids to minimize any disruption to their lives. What’s more, the media’s characterization of this made Davis out to be an uncaring mother who abandoned her suffering little babies. For the record, her daughters were 23 and 17 at the time. And they apparently were not scarred for life because they are currently working on her campaign for governor and have appeared in commercials supporting her (video below).

[Update: Davis’ daughters are speaking out against the lies, negativity, and hatred that has been directed at their family.]

One of the most ridiculous assaults on Davis came when she was responding to these phony attacks on her character. She released a statement saying…

“I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes”

Unbelievably, the right-wing outrage machine fired up a charge that Davis was mocking her prospective opponent for governor, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, for the disability that put him in a wheel chair. It seems that old cliches about experiencing things from the perspective of others are too harsh for the tender sensitivities of the American Wingnut. No one with a functioning brain could interpret Davis’ comment as a slap at Abbot’s disability. Thus it says something about Abbott that he ran (well, he didn’t actually run) to Fox News where he whined about how wrong it is to belittle someone for their handicaps. Of course, not only did she not do that, she didn’t even refer to Abbott in her remarks.

Is this really all they have? Has the Republican Party of Texas exhausted every other means of communicating with their constituents? In Texas, of all places, you would think they would have a stronger case to make for their conservative brand of politics. If they will sink this low in Texas in order to defeat a liberal Democratic candidate, they are clearly frightened in a major way. They must be aware on some level that they are a dying breed. They have alienated so much of their base that they are finding it difficult to succeed in territories they used to take for granted. And with the demographic shifts taking place in Texas, and the rest of the South, there isn’t much that they can take for granted anymore. And that’s why we’re seeing this sort of desperation play out in a state where not many expected there to be much of a contest.

Good luck, Wendy. You clearly have them on run.

GIRLY MEN: Conservatives Insult America’s Women In The Military

Posted by Mark NC on October 25, 2013 at 11:02 am. 4 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post published an exclusive report on alleged changes to the uniforms of the United States Marines. The story claimed to unveil plans to rollout new caps that the Post said would “take the hard-nosed Leathernecks from the Halls of Montezuma to the shops of Christopher Street.”

NYPost: Thanks to a plan by President Obama to create a “unisex” look for the Corps, officials are on the verge of swapping out the Marines’ iconic caps – known as “covers” — with a new version that some have derided as so “girly” that they would make the French blush.

To begin the parade of errors in this article, President Obama had nothing to do with the “plan.” The proposed uniform changes were the result of decisions made entirely within the military. Secondly, the decision has nothing to do with creating a unisex look. Only female uniforms are being considered for any changes. Male uniforms will remain the same. Finally, this is not a plot to feminize the military. The decision was driven by the fact that the company that made the women’s covers went out of business and the Corps had to find a new manufacturer. They took this opportunity to update the cover based on one worn by a two-time Medal of Honor winner from World War I.

So the New York Post got almost everything wrong in their story. They apparently did no research whatsoever to confirm the highly suspect information they claim to have received in the form of an internal memo that did not identify the source. The story then worked its way to Fox News where Fox & Friends co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck regurgitated the error-filled article despite the fact that the Corps had already debunked it. A real reporter contacted a spokesperson for the Corps and got this statement:

“The President in no way, shape, or form directed the Marine Corps to change our uniform cover. We’re looking for a new cover for our female Marines for the primary reason that the former manufacturer went out of business. The Marine Corps has zero intention of changing the male cover.”

However, there is a bigger problem with the substance of this report than just the fact that it is completely false. The tone of the complaint is overtly disparaging toward women in the service. Why is the New York Post and Fox News using language to insult our troops by associating them with female characteristics? What is it about being “girly” that they find so derogatory? Do they regard women as inferior or substandard soldiers? Are they afraid that they will throw grenades like a girl? The whole tenor of the article is that it is bad to be female and any affiliation with that gender is presumed to be negative.

Be Sure To “LIKE” News Corpse On Facebook

Somehow I suspect that the menfolk at the Post and Fox News would be at a significant disadvantage in a confrontation with any female Marine. Perhaps it would be a constructive lesson for the sexist cowards who spew this garbage to be placed in that situation.

Hypocritical conservatives like to boast about their support for the troops, but this is the sort of deliberate smear that exposes just how disingenuous and self-serving their hollow praise is. They are simply exploiting America’s warriors for their own political purposes. And nothing is more disrespectful than that.

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post Prints Racist, Pro-Assassination Cartoon – Again

Posted by Mark NC on November 3, 2012 at 11:37 am. 9 Comments :

OK, so the New York Post is a puerile, dishonest, sensationalist rag. But how on earth could anyone have approved this cartoon for publication?

You might think that a cartoon depicting President Obama as the bug-eyed prey fleeing fearfully from a stallion-mounted Romney, who is armed to the teeth, would have given a major metropolitan newspaper editor pause. You would be wrong, particularly if the newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an ultra-conservative propagandist who will do anything to manipulate an election.

The racist overtones of that cartoon should have been noticeable to anyone who even glanced at it. It practically shouts recollections of slave owners chasing runaway slaves. And even setting aside that repulsive message, the cartoon presents a wholly unsavory theme of violence directed the President.

What could have possessed the editors of the New York Post to publish this offensive garbage? And why hasn’t it stirred more of reaction from the public? If this were an isolated incident it would be bad enough, but three years ago a similarly themed cartoon made it into the pages of the Post:

And by the way, it was the same cartoonist, Sean Delonas, who did both of these racist, pro-assassination, pictorial diatribes. It is just inconceivable that this sort of thing is considered appropriate and that a paper like the Post can get away with it. There ought to be consequences and, hopefully, the people of New York will impose them.

Press Pussies? Fox Nation Resorts To Profanity To Attack Obama And The Press

Posted by Mark NC on August 22, 2012 at 11:13 am. 5 Comments :

A story today on Fox Nation featured a headline that other news organizations might have considered obscene: Press Pussies Soft on Obama.

For the Fox Nationalists, obscenity is no barrier to another opportunity to smear the President. Anyone who doesn’t believe that Fox deliberately chose to use profane language that is a pejorative allusion to vaginas in order to emasculate their targets doesn’t know Fox very well.

The story linked to an article on Fox’s sister newspaper the New York Post by right-wing hack Michael Goodwin. The underlying article was a lame effort to disparage Obama’s press conference yesterday. Goodwin filled the column with nonsense attacks and ad hominem insults. He began by comparing Obama’s presidency with the scandal-plagued administrations of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Of course, Obama has not had any scandals attributed to him, much less those with serious consequences like criminal break-ins and sexual misconduct.

What Goodwin thinks are equivalent controversies consist of the President having held fundraisers. Saints preserve us – a politician has engaged in soliciting donations! Then Goodwin is shocked – SHOCKED – that the President made a few references to his political opponents. That must be a first. Then, just before accusing Obama of lying “virtually every time he appears in public,” Goodwin outright lies by asserting that Obama leaked classified information for political gain. He made no effort to document that falsehood.

Goodwin went on to refer to the President as grubby, but then said that it was Obama who was taking the low road. He faulted Obama for “capitaliz[ing] on the nutso ‘legitimate rape’ comments of a GOP Senate candidate,” even though Obama was answering a question from a reporter. But in Goodwin’s delusional mind the reporter was a White House plant.

It should come as no surprise that when an ultra-right-wing enterprise like Fox News decides to employ profanity to attack their perceived enemies, they would choose one that is a derogatory reference to women. Yet somehow they still complain when they are criticized for engaging in a war on women.

For Goodwin to publish this column so soon after the lunatic ravings of Todd Akin demonstrates just how tone deaf the Republican machine is, and how insensitive they are to sexism and prejudice and the suffering of its victims.

New York Post Columnist Tells Fox News That Obama Might Kill Biden

Posted by Mark NC on May 7, 2012 at 1:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Michael Goodwin is a notoriously uber-conservative writer for Rupert Murdoch’s wingnut tabloid, the New York Post. This morning he ventured over to Murdoch’s Fox News studios to be interviewed about the presidential election.

When the subject turned to vice-presidents, Goodwin couldn’t resist making a Mafia association with President Obama caste as the Godfather. His prediction is that Joe Biden will be disposed of to make room for Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket.

“Joe Biden is the Fredo of the Obama family and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him sent out on a little fishing boat one early morning. […] If it comes close in the summer, if the polls show Obama trailing, he will make the switch. Hillary Clinton will be on the ticket and Joe Biden will be sleeping with the fishes.”

Twice in Goodwin’s remarks he refers to Biden being assassinated in order to reassign Clinton. The “little fishing boat” and “sleeping with the fishes” are both Mafia-speak for mob hits from the iconic Godfather movies.

The outlandishness of Goodwin’s assertions are nearly matched by his incoherent analysis. If Obama were going to ditch Biden he would have done so before having produced warehouses full of Obama/Biden campaign paraphernalia. And making such a switch later in the season would only reek of desperation. What’s more, Clinton has absolutely no incentive to leave her post as Secretary of State, where she is a dominant player on the world stage, for a demotion to vice-president, where she’d be relegated to attending funerals and other ceremonial duties. And the cherry on the top of Goodwin’s nuttiness is that he actually aligns himself with the political analysis of the deceased leader of Al Qaeda:

“Even Osama Bin Laden, in those letters, said that Biden is woefully unprepared to be president.”

When right-wingers praise Bin Laden as an ideological ally something has gone terribly wrong. But the right’s obsession with hostile rhetoric is well documented. They frequently engage in assassination fantasies featuring Obama, and they openly yearn for violent ends to their political adversaries. So it is not surprising to see them project their psychotic behavior onto the President and suggest that he would off his own VP. That’s how the right thinks about these matters, and they assume that everyone else is as emotionally perverse as they are themselves.

Sarah Palin: An Excruciating Combination Of Bombast And Whining

Posted by Mark NC on June 11, 2011 at 9:21 am. 10 Comments :

The upcoming Sarah Palin crockumentary, hilariously titled The Undefeated, has been screening before selected audiences. The reaction hasn’t been particularly encouraging. For the most part conservatives are swooning over its unabashedly reverential treatment of the former half-term governor and defeated VP candidate, while liberals note the historical revisionism that excises all of her missteps and muddle-headedness.

The most surprising critique comes from an unlikely source. Kyle Smith is the film critic for the New York Post. The Post is not only a notoriously right-wing, tabloid rag, it is also owned by Rupert Murdoch, the same person who employs Sarah Palin at his Fox News Channel. So here is what is being said about the movie from its friendliest faction:

“Its tone is an excruciating combination of bombast and whining, it’s so outlandishly partisan that it makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln and its febrile rush of images – not excluding earthquakes, car wrecks, volcanic eruption and attacking Rottweilers – reminded me of the brainwash movie Alex is forced to sit through in ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Except no one came along to refresh my pupils with eyedrops.”

In other words, the movie is a painstakingly accurate representation of its subject. It will be premiering in Iowa next month, followed by New Hampshire and other early primary states. And Fox News still keeps Palin on the air as if she were not campaigning. The producers hope to launch a limited release in mostly red states later in the year. Expect it to achieve success similar to that of the Tea Party-promoted Atlas Shrugged. Which is to say that it will fail miserably. And like Atlas Shrugged, the free market-loving, Randian, Tea Partiers will blame everything but the film’s shoddy production and tedious, predictability for its failure.

The prospects for this project are conspicuously weak. Despite the Pavlovian frenzy on the part of the media, Palin is actually a marginal figure with approval ratings in the twenties. That is not the sort of product that fills seats in theaters. Her books have sold successively worse, and her TLC cable show lost viewers just about every week it was on the air. So where is the audience for this outside of the waning Palin Appreciation Society?

The one potentially positive outcome of this film is that, after it bombs, perhaps the media will grasp that Palin is nothing more than a political pet rock – a gag gift that does not deserve the attention that is showered on her. And since she hates the press so much, and refuses to interact with it, maybe they will stop following her around like lost puppies.

Fox Alert! The Taliban Is Recruiting Monkey Mercenaries

Posted by Mark NC on July 13, 2010 at 2:29 pm. 1 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has been giving the World Weekly News some pretty stiff competition. With Fox News making up stories about ClimateGate and the New Black Panther Party, and Fox Nation trying to spark fears of Boob Bombs and armed IRS ObamaCare enforcers, the Murdoch empire is not much more than a right-wing fantasy factory.

Today they have upped the lunacy by passing along a ridiculous story about the Taliban training monkeys to do battle with American soldiers. The story, sourced to the People’s Daily in China, was published by at least two Murdoch properties, Fox Nation and the New York Post. And if you weren’t frightened by the prospect of terrorists sneaking into the country with explosive breast implants, then maybe the thought of radical Islamic macaques and baboons armed “with AK-47 rifles, machine guns and trench mortars in the Waziristan tribal region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan” will set you to squirming. And both the Post and the Fox Nationalists featured an obviously doctored “photo” of a menacing Monkey Mercenary, along with this foreboding video:

Ordinarily I would dismiss this sort of rightist horror story without much consideration. After all, even the video supplied doesn’t show a single rhesus recruit, just some suspicious still photos. But upon reflection, I couldn’t entirely cast off the theory after observing the quality of Murdoch’s “news” operations. I mean, if the monkeys working for Murdoch can be reporters and publishers, then why couldn’t they be soldiers?

Fox Nation Gives Birth To Christmas Bomber Truthers

Posted by Mark NC on December 30, 2009 at 3:51 pm. 2 Comments :

Establishment conservatives have long assailed fringe groups who believe that there has been a cover-up of government involvement in the attacks on 9/11. The “Truthers” have been ridiculed as conspiracy theorists who are something less than patriotic. The very act of implying a government role was viewed as misguided and disrespectful at best, treasonous at worst. So why is Fox Nation featuring this as their top story?

U.S. Knew of Airline Plot Before Christmas

The story linked to by the Fox Nationalists doesn’t actually allege that anyone in government knew of a plot to bomb an airplane on Christmas. It merely restates what was previously disclosed in the press, and by the President, that there had been a “systemic failure” to correlate information from multiple sources that might have raised warning flags. That’s a far cry from knowing the identity of a specific Nigerian individual who had conspired with Yemeni members of Al Qaeda to blow up a plane on Christmas day.

Fox: US Knew The glaringly misleading headline, that was also featured on Fox News and Foxnews.com, is identical in form to the Truthers’ claims regarding 9/11. So where is the outrage at this blatant promulgation of anti-American propaganda? How does Fox get away with espousing such repugnant disloyalty? Is it because the difference this time is that it is the Obama administration about which there is an insinuation of shared guilt?

New York Post: Bush Knew Before we presume that there is a partisan nature to this story, we need to take note of another Rupert Murdoch “news” vehicle that in May of 2002 was supportive of the 9/11 Truther movement. Just eight months after the attack on the World Trade Center, the New York Post published a story that charged then-President Bush with having prior knowledge of those attacks.

So maybe it is just that Murdoch is an equal opportunity accuser of the U.S. government with complicity in terrorism. Remember, Murdoch is a native Australian who moved to the U.K. before eventually applying for U.S. citizenship so that he could take control of the Fox network. So it’s difficult to ascertain to whom he has allegiance. Strike that. It is clear that Murdoch’s allegiance is only to himself, his rightist agenda, and his bank account. Any assessment of Murdoch’s motives as they are revealed by his media enterprises must be seen in the context of his obvious disdain for the United States, its people, and their welfare.

The Goal Of The New York Post: Destroy Barack Obama

Posted by Mark NC on November 11, 2009 at 9:21 am. NO Comments :

On the heels of reports that Rupert Murdoch’s sensationalistic tabloid, the New York Post, is severely wobbling financially and bleeding circulation, comes this report from the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein about a fired NY Post employee’s lawsuit against the paper.

Sandra Guzman was terminated by the Post after she had leveled criticism of an overtly racist cartoon that portrayed President Obama as a chimpanzee. Guzman’s allegations cover a broad sweep of misconduct by the paper and its editor, Col Allan. Stein writes…

“As part of the 38-page complaint, Guzman paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjected to misogynistic behavior. She says that hiring practices at the paper — as well as her firing — were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit.

And she recounts the paper’s D.C. bureau chief stating that the publication’s goal was to ‘destroy [President] Barack Obama.’”

The lawsuit alleges that the environment at the Post was a hotbed of salacious innuendo, undisguised racism, and open political partisanship. Read Stein’s article for the juicy details. He has also posted a copy of the full complaint.

This is just another embarrassing episode for the Murdoch family of pseudo-news operations, and should further lock in Murdoch’s legacy as a disreputable purveyor of filth and lies.

New York Post: Next Stop FAIL

Posted by Mark NC on November 9, 2009 at 1:25 pm. NO Comments :

The New York Times is reporting some bad news for Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post:

“Three years ago Col Allan, the editor of The New York Post, pumped his fist and waded into a cheering crowd at a Midtown restaurant, celebrating The Post’s overtaking its rival, The Daily News, in weekday circulation. The Post trumpeted the news on a Times Square billboard and in its pages.” […] “Mr. Allan, who called it ‘a joyous occasion’ when The Post took the lead, now takes a more subdued view of the competition, saying in an e-mail exchange that ‘whether we are a little in front or a little behind has no impact on our forward business plan.'”

This turnaround in attitude is the result of a 30% drop in circulation for the Post in the past two and a half years. That is a bigger and faster decline than most of his competitors in a time of difficulty for the entire industry. This loss of readers comes on top of the paper losing approximately $50 million a year for the past ten years. Sources for the Times put the figure this year at $70 million. One must wonder how long Murdoch will tolerate such losses. He has shown in the past great patience for money-losing operations. He deficit financed Fox News for five years. He has been losing money on both MySpace and the Fox Business Network for two years. He doesn’t seemed to be the least bit phased by Glenn Beck’s loss of some 80 advertisers.

What this demonstrates is that Murdoch is not just the greedy media baron some think. He obviously is committed to his ideologies and the “news” enterprises that disseminate them. And if it costs him a few tens of millions of dollars, so be it.

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