Cyber-vigilantes Anonymous have announced a new campaign to punish Fox News for belittling the Occupy Wall Street protesters as “filthy,” “disgusting,” and “dirty,”. Operation Fox Hunt aims to shut down Fox News’ web site on November 5th. The video announcement (below) says in part that…
“Fox News is now a target of Anonymous because of their continued propaganda against the Occupations. Those such as Sean Hannity are attacking the credentials as well as the character of the Occupiers and this can no longer be allowed. […]
“Anonymous will not only shut down Fox News, we will also engage in a propaganda campaign of our own to show them how it feels to be chastised. Fox News, your time has come.”
While I can’t condone actions that disrupt web site operations, Fox News certainly deserves to be chastised for their blatant misrepresentation and bias with regard to the Occupy movement (and pretty much everything else they put on the air). Their standard approach to reporting is to slander those with whom they disagree and serve as press agents for their ideological allies. They specialize in puerile insults and character assassination. It is impossible to watch Fox without hearing them call the protesters (or the President) Marxists. And that’s probably what they’ll call Anonymous if they even bother to report this threat.
Stay tuned. November 5th is just two weeks away. And as comment a-j notes beloew, it is also Guy Fawkes Day.
Nothing will make me happier than when the utterly delusional notion that the media in this country is liberal has been refuted, defeated, exterminated, and cremated.
While most observers are already aware of the fact-hating editorial policy of Fox News, at least they did fire Glenn Beck earlier this year (although only because his increasingly hysterical ravings were making them look bad). What people may not have noticed is that CNN is taking up Fox’s slack.
This morning on CNN viewers could have awakened to see two of Beck’s surrogates bloviating on the events of the day. Amy Holmes, an anchor on Beck’s GBTV was a guest commentator on Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz. A couple of hours later, Will Cain, a repoter for Beck’s The Blaze appeared on CNN’s Your Money.
For CNN to feature two representatives of Glenn Beck’s insignificant and failing Internet venture is unbelievable. Is that the best they could come up with? Was CNN unable to find any reputable commentators from distinguished networks, newspapers, or universities? Or maybe their attempts to book members of the John Birch Society fell through.
Elsewhere, NPR made news by firing the host of an opera program because she had taken part in an OccupyDC protest. According to NPR, Lisa Simeone was sacked because her activity “has the potential to compromise our reputation as an organization that strives to be impartial and unbiased.”
Never mind that Simeone hosts a music program and does not cover politics or any other subject that could pose any kind of a conflict. Unlike NPR’s Mara Liasson who is a political reporter as well as a commentator on Fox News. Somehow NPR justifies Liasson’s fraternizing with Fox on matters that are explicitly political, but Simeone can’t introduce classical music after having exercised her Constitutional right to free speech on her own personal time.
Conservatives assail CNN as the Communist News Network due to their perception of it as unabashedly liberal. NPR is a perennial target of right-wingers in Congress who seek to defund what they considered to be a hopelessly biased mouthpiece for the left. At what point are these fallacies laid to rest? Do we really need any more proof than when CNN hosts two Glenn Beck flunkies on the same day, or NPR fires an opera program host because she is a liberal outside of work?
The Occupy Wall Street movement has done a great job of defining the 99% of Americans who are being rolled over by the !% of wealthy, corporate interests who are dominating our political culture. Something the Occupiers need to remember and focus on is that the media in this country is also wealthy and corporate, and they are Platinum members of the 1%. Wall Street firms and bankers spend billions on advertising and the media rewards them with positive coverage and the sort of ludicrous editorial decisions noted above. This needs to be addressed and corrected if we are to see any substantive improvement in the massive social and economic disparities that are threatening our nation’s welfare.
The Fox Nationalists are appalled at what they are calling flag desecration by the protesters on Wall Street:
There is no information or context in the photo above that reveals anything about the incident and, therefore, it is impossible to ascribe motive or responsibility. It could be a reporter, or an opponent of the protesters, or a kid looking for a place to sit down. It could be that in the crowded park there is simply no place to walk and that someone might not have even seen the flag as they were trying to get from one place to another. However, here is another photo where it is unmistakable what is taking place and by whom:
Fox was never the least bit disturbed by this overt disrespect for the flag by a sitting president. What’s more, at the link above Bush can also be seen signing a flag, which is also regarded as desecration. Sarah Palin has done that as well at her rallies.
The real desecration here is that done to journalism by an overtly dishonest “news” enterprise whose only purpose is to deceive and divide the American people. The folks at Fox must be so proud of their success in that endeavor.
In a theater on the lot of Fox Studios in Los Angeles, about a hundred investors in News Corp assembled to hear Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants defend being criminals and thieves. There was a certain beauty in this charade taking place in the guts of a fantasy factory, in the shadow of Hollywood.
Murdoch delivered his well rehearsed monologue about how strong the business is and how bright its future, on the same day that their PR department announced that they were paying $4.8 million dollars to compensate the family of a murdered schoolgirl for having hacked into her phone and misled her parents and the police as to her fate. Today we know that there were perhaps hundreds of others whose privacy was violated, including politicians, celebrities, and royals. And yet Murdoch is comfortable declaring that “I’m very proud of the culture we have at this company.”
Murdoch had the gall to assert that most of the information authorities have now about the phone hacking and other scandals came from News Corp itself. That statement defies belief considering that the company has done nothing to punish any of the wrongdoers associated with the criminal acts. The scandal goes back a decade, all the while being covered up by editors and executives. It was reporting by the Guardian’s Nick Davies that broke the scandal wide open. Since then fifteen News Corp employees have been arrested, top executives have resigned, and one former journalist, Sean Hoare, was found dead in his home. Hoare was the first person to allege that former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson (who later became a press aide to Prime Minister David Cameron), knew about the hacking.
The shareholder’s meeting provided an opportunity for critics to voice their frustration with the company’s management. There were proposals to slash the pay of the Murdochs, to mandate a separation between the chairman and the CEO, both positions currently held by Murdoch. And an unprecedented number of investor groups and advisers publicly advocating that the entire board of directors not be reelected.
British Member of Parliament, Tom Watson, flew in to confront Murdoch and inform shareholders that the worst is yet to come. He revealed that investigations are proceeding on allegations of unlawful surveillance beyond those of phone hacking. But there were Murdoch defenders in the audience as well. One of whom identified himself as a Fox employee and said that in his years of service he has never been asked to do anything unethical. Of course not. As a Fox employee you don’t have to be asked, it’s expected.
By the end of the shareholder’s meeting it was learned that the Murdochs had retained their board seats. And despite Murdoch saying that the vote results would be released in a couple of hours, News Corp. declined to announce the vote tally, saying it would release the figures early next week. Analysts say that if even 20% of votes are cast against the Murdochs, it would be a victory, because that would be nearly half of the 53% of votes unaffiliated with the family. So what are they hiding? Apparently they have reason to want to keep the results out of the news cycle.
Outside the studio, about 200 people gathered to protest the greed, domination, and manipulation of News Corp. Participants included OccupyLA, FreePress, Common Cause, MoveOn, Avaaz, Change to Win, Brave New Films, and more. The media was there in force as well. Representatives from every local TV station showed up, along with the Associated Press, CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera.
This is irrefutable evidence of the Occupy movement’s success. It has grown from a curious rabble ignored by the press, to a powerful voice for the people. It has earned the enmity of dullards who can only resort to childish insults that the protesters are unfocused, unclean, and unpatriotic. But most importantly, it has changed the public debate from one of a phony debt crisis, to one that addresses the real concerns of Americans: jobs, economic disparity, and the destructive influence of corporations on politics and policy. And it’s only been one month.
For the past month Manhattan has been the epicenter of a new movement that seeks to reinstate the people as the stewards of American politics and to foreclose on the corporations who have been managing Washington as if it were a wholly owned subsidiary. But now the revolution heads west to Los Angeles where News Corp, the parent of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, will be holding their annual shareholders meeting on Friday, October 21.
The meeting promises to be a stimulating affair as Rupert Murdoch and his spawn face expulsion from the board of their own company. A surprising number of institutional shareholders and analysts have already publicly advised their clients to withhold their votes to reelect the Murdoch clan and a handful of their allies. The Guardian is reporting that opposition to “The Family” is presently as high as 25% before the meeting is even gaveled in to order.
Dumping the Murdochs will still be an uphill battle given that they control 39% of the voting shares. Astonishingly, they still have supporters despite the fact that they have presided over unlawful and unethical practices that have materially damaged the company’s revenue and reputation. But even if they survive it will be in a weakened and humiliated state. There is certain to be vocal opposition in the room from big shareholders disgusted by nepotistic cronyism and the lack of independence, as well as rebel voices who may engage in a bit of theatrical protesting.
The real protesting, however, will be going on outside the meeting as the Occupy Los Angeles crowd migrates over from their base in Downtown L.A. to give Fox a taste of what it’s like to be occupied. They will be joined by FreePress, Change to Win, Common Cause LA, Brave New Films, and others. If you’re in L.A., be sure sure to head down to Fox Studios at 10201 W. Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles (Street parking is available on Motor Ave. A map is here). The protest is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 21, 9–11 a.m.
Rupert Murdoch and News Corp are the epitome of what the 99% are protesting: an unaccountable corporation that manipulates the political process while seeking to enrich itself at the expense of the public that it is failing to serve. And as a media enterprise they also contribute to the disinformation and divisiveness that is tearing this country apart.
But remember, there is another 99% in America. That is the 99% of the nation that does not watch Fox News. The highest rated program on Fox (The O’Reilly Factor) pulls in about 1% of the population. That’s about half the audience of the lowest rated broadcast network news program (CBS Evening news). NBC’s Nightly News draws four times the viewers of Fox. Yet Fox deftly uses their platform to exult themselves and shout down everyone else.
After taking the Tea Party under their wing and promoting it incessantly, Fox now regards protesters as ignorant, smelly, and unpatriotic. Their overt hostility to the majority of citizens who want economic and social justice is fraught with lies and riddled with childish insults that cater to the diminished IQ of their viewers. Polls show that, even after Fox’s relentless propaganda, support for the Occupy movement is twice as much as the Tea Party, which is still viewed negatively by most people.
So let Fox have the 1% of America’s most delusional television viewers. The rest of us will make our voices heard the old fashioned way: by organizing, communicating, and exercising our rights. Stand up. Speak out. Occupy. We are the 99% who do not watch Fox News.
Dana Loesch, CNN’s senior Tea Party correspondent and editor of Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism, is engaged in a dust-up with Eric Boehlert of Media Matters over her delusional campaign to disparage the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement as anti-Semitic. Her claim is wholly unfounded, although typical of her deceitful brand of yellow journalism.
The squabble began when Loesch appeared on CNN attempting to smear OWS due to a report that the American Nazi Party had endorsed the movement. That is the sort of dishonest associative logic that propagandists like Loesch love to employ to bash their opponents. Commentators who are not pathological liars know that fringe groups frequently try to align themselves with popular movements to draw attention to themselves. Perhaps she should be made to explain why the Tea Party is not racist in light of the fact that they were endorsed by white supremacist and KKK leader David Duke.
Boehlert responded to Loesch’s ravings with a series of Tweets that made the point that these endorsements exist on both sides and that they aren’t necessarily indicative of anything. Loesch fired back that Boehlert had not proven his argument – even though he had. Then she set forth a list of demands that she expected Boehlert to comply with. I don’t know if Boehlert has any intention of wasting his valuable time answering Loesch. After all, he is running a busy media monitoring and analysis organization. On the other hand, I’m an unemployed, Cheetos-munching, blogger in my mother’s basement with nothing but free time due to all the government handouts I scam. So I thought I’d take a stab at Loesch’s list where she asks: “I need Eric Boehlert to do the following:”
Back up his analogy that Fox (and other network coverage) of the tea party is the same as NBC’s Ratigan writing messaging while pretending to report on OWS by showing examples of Fox writing tea party messaging.
First of all, Ratigan never wrote messaging for OWS. He merely made comments on an email list that expressed his opinions. He was not serving as an adviser and the list was not even an official OWS group. The emails were stolen by a hacker and published by Breitbart.
What Fox did, however, was much worse than what Ratigan was accused of. They openly promoted Tea Party events, even branding them as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” They sent their producers out to ride Tea Party buses, attend rallies, and try to whip up the crowd when they did not seem sufficiently excited. Sal Russo, founder of the Tea Party Express, gushed that“There would not have been a tea party without Fox.” That’s a good deal more damning than an assertion of message writing.
Explain why Obama was present at a rally with hate leader Malik Shabazz.
Obama was not present at a rally with Shabazz. He was present at the 42nd anniversary of a famous 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. As the event was open to the public and thousands of people attended, there is no way that then-Senator Obama could have known who else had shown up.
Explain why Obama’s DOJ refused to prosecute the NBPP for voter intimidation.
It was the Bush administration’s Justice Department that made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation. And it was Obama’s DOJ that successfully obtained a default judgment against Samir Shabazz for carrying a nightstick outside the Philadelphia polling center on Election Day 2008.
A subsequent investigation concluded that the department acted appropriately and that there was “no evidence of improper political interference or influence from within or outside the Department in connection with the decision in the case.”
Explain why the ADL had to issue a condemnation to Occupy Wall Street for antisemitism.
The ADL did not issue a condemnation to Occupy Wall Street for antisemitism. That is an outright lie. They issued a statement that condemned remarks by individuals attending OWS events, but also stated that “antisemitism has not gained traction more broadly with the protestors, nor is it representative of the larger movement at this time.”
Perhaps Loesch can explain why the ADL had to issue a condemnation to Fox News and Glenn Beck over comments about Jews that “demonstrate his bigoted ignorance.” And again with regard to Beck’s vilification of George Soros saying that Beck was “completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.” Not to mention the apology they graciously accepted from Roger Ailes after he called NPR executives Nazis.
Explain the antisemitism at occupy protests and give video equivalence of equal or greater antisemitism at tea parties since no one has seen such.
There is no justification for antisemitism anywhere, but as noted in the answer above, the anti-Semitic remarks of a few repugnant individuals is not representative of OWS. But maybe Loesch would like to answer for these remarks:
David Duke: The Tea Party movement is a great sign that the people are finally waking up. Tea Party, Republican Activists Circulate Anti-Semitic E-Mails Against Presumptive Texas Speaker. Weisel blasts the tea party ‘antisemitism’: ‘Indecent and disgusting.’ White Supremacists and Anti-Semites Plan to Recruit at July 4 Tea Parties. California GOP Decries Anti-Semitic Tea Party Activism. GOP must condemn “Tea Party” signs.
For Loesch to assert that no one has seen any antisemitism, racism, or other bigotry at Tea Party events illustrates the selective recall of a bigot.
Explain why there have been over 1,o00 (sic) OWS arrests and zero tea party arrests if the tea party are “violent racists.”
There are two reasons there have been so many OWS arrests. One is that the participants believe passionately in their cause and the honorable practice of civil disobedience as demonstrated by leaders like King and Gandhi. The other is that the police are often utilized by the corporate classes to protect what they regard as their assets rather than protecting the rights of the people.
It also needs to be noted that Loesch makes an absurd correlation between the arrests of peaceful OWS protesters and the violent tendencies of some in the Tea Party. OWS protesters never carried signs saying “We came unarmed – this time.” And then there’s this:
Explain why communists are endorsing OWS.
Already answered above. However, I’ll humor you: To exploit a popular movement to draw attention to themselves.
Explain why felons need to carry guns at OWS.
Just because someone may have found a single person doing that does not mean that there are wild gangs of felons running around Zucotti Park with guns. It’s a rather idiotic insinuation that you should be embarrassed for having brought up. And again, it has nothing to do with any official representation of OWS. However, It is good to hear that you are in agreement with the majority of progressives who support stricter gun control laws that would prevent such behavior.
Explain what a man who has exposed himself repeatedly to children was doing at the occupy protests.
Same answer as above. Do you really think that in any group of thousands that there aren’t some despicable low lifes with questionable character? Hell, you can’t even say that about a few hundred people in Congress. Have you not heard about the GOP senators who solicit sex in airport restrooms (Larry Craig) or patronize prostitutes (David Vitter). Perhaps you could explain Charles Leaf, the Fox News reporter who was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault on a four year old girl.
Loesch’s tirade failed utterly to prove any point. The only thing she succeeded in doing was to open the door to the dark side of Tea Party and force her to answer for it. That’s what she is asking Boehlert to do. So either she steps up to take responsibility for all the nutjobs in the Tea Party, or she admits that she is an unscrupulous hypocrite. Technically, the latter is a given so don’t hold your breath waiting for her to respond.
The last time Andrew Breitbart got any significant notice in the media was when he publicized the Twitter sexting of former congressman Anthony Weiner. It was a particularly repulsive bit of gossipy sensationalism that furthered no public interest, but ruined a man’s career (and possibly his family), just to satisfy Breitbart’s craving for attention and his obsession with destroying what he calls “the institutional left.”
That was four months ago and Breitbart must be getting antsy about having been ignored by the press ever since. Now, on his BigGoverment web site, he has published an article asking his readers to comb through thousands of emails that he says are from OccupyWallStreet organizers. He claims to have acquired them from Thomas Ryan, a “private cyber security researcher.” Breitbart provides links to download these emails so that his minions can scour them for evidence of “links to socialist, anarchist, and possibly even jihadist organizations.”
It’s not bad enough that right-wing media have attempted to portray the Occupy Movement as dirty hippies, lazy freeloaders, ignorant dupes, leftist traitors, godless heathens, diabolical Marxists, violent revolutionaries, and White House plants, Breitbart is adding Al-Qaeda terrorists to this list. If it wasn’t so dangerously provocative it would be moderately humorous. But Breitbart’s accusations are irresponsible and his activities may be illegal. The first paragraph of the story says…
Breitbart: “In keeping with the new media notion of crowdsourcing–enthusiastically embraced by the mainstream media when trawling through Sarah Palin’s emails–Big Government will be providing readers later today with links to a document drop consisting of thousands of emails.”
The correlation Breitbart draws between these emails and those of Sarah Palin is entirely inapplicable. Palin’s emails as governor of Alaska were released through a lawful process that requires communications by government officials to be available to the public. Both the state of Alaska and Palin’s attorneys had an opportunity to examine the emails for any privacy concerns and neither expressed any objection to their release.
Breitbart, however, is publishing emails that were expressly created by individuals for their personal use. They were private communications amongst people who did not grant their publication and were not advised of it. The emails were literally stolen by a hacker who admits that he gained access to them through deception and misrepresentation (social engineering). And Breitbart is now complicit in the crime by publishing the ill-gotten goods with full knowledge of their origins.
[Update:Gawker has more on Thomas Ryan and his “Black Cell” campaign to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Ryan’s activities include forwarding emails to the FBI, the NYPD, and companies targeted for protests.]
Anyone familiar with Breitbart’s Legacy of Sleaze will not be surprised by this latest atrocity. He previously was best known for unfairly smearing ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, and others, with videos that were deliberately edited to produce a false and negative impression.
It should be noted that, thus far, none of the emails that Breitbart or his lackeys have reviewed contain anything remotely embarrassing. That, however, hasn’t stopped him from lifting words like “destabalization” and “unrest” out of context to suggest something more devious than the public protesting that is protected by the Constitution. Breitbart will surely employ such tactics to demonize the movement, just as he did with his attacks on ACORN, etc. It’s hard-coded in his deviant nature.
Even if there are some unsavory comments sprinkled amongst the thousands of emails, they could not plausibly be attributed to the Occupy Movement as a whole because the movement has no leader or authoritative spokesperson. It would just be one person’s opinion. The possibility that someone in a group of passionate dissidents wrote something offensive is not inconceivable. But it is also not official doctrine and cannot honestly be represented as such. The key word there being “honestly.” If Breitbart finds something controversial he will no doubt try to tarnish the movement with the indiscreet remarks of a single, marginally associated individual.
In the telling of this story it must not be forgotten that the emails being reviewed by Breitbart & Co. were obtained in manner that is at least immoral. And this isn’t the only example of such despicable, and possibly unlawful, behavior on the part of right-wing activists.
Patrick Howley, an assistant editor for the uber-conservative American Spectator magazine, admitted to infiltrating OccupyDC for the purpose of undermining it. He then attempted to lead a group of protesters into storming the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The protesters, being much smarter than Howley, did not play along. Howley stormed the museum alone and was pepper-sprayed by security.
Mark Williams, former spokesman for Tea Party Express, told his radio listeners that he was planning to sabotage union rallies with the intention of making them look “greedy and goonish.” And he beseeched his listeners to do the same. Williams was the one-time spokesperson for the Tea Party Express, but was dismissed for publishing a virulently racist article on his blog.
Mike Vanderboegh, a militiaman from Alabama, encouraged his followers to break the windows of Democratic offices with rocks and baseball bats. More recently Vanderboegh published a Photoshopped picture of Attorney General Eric Holder in a Nazi uniform.
Rush Limbaugh delivered a radio sermon in which he called for riots at the Democratic National Convention. The rant was titled “Screw the World! Riot in Denver!” He was specific in describing his objective as “burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that.”
This illustrates just how afraid the right is of the 99% of Americans who are waking up to the injustice and corruption of the 1%. They are increasingly fearful that their free ride is over. When people like Rush Limbaugh call the Wall Street protesters “human debris;” when Glenn Beck asserts that they “will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you;” it is all too clear that they have lost control of their senses. They are so deranged by fear that there is no limit to the absurdity of their claims and actions.
It also illustrates the sort of desperation that leaves the likes of Breitbart clinging to the hope that he can find damning rhetoric that he can misrepresent in emails that were illicitly acquired. And it isn’t going to end any time soon. This is something that progressives and occupiers are going to have to be aware of as the struggle proceeds. Vigilance of the conservative whack jobs and their media accomplices must be an ongoing focus of the campaign for economic justice.
The New York Times published a profile of Jon Huntsman, Sr. this weekend. Huntsman is the billionaire chemical magnate best known for manufacturing fast-food containers. He is also the father of GOP presidential hopeful, Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Glenn Beck featured Huntsman on his Fox News program several times and awarded him the Badge of Merit for charity at the “Restoring Honor” rally. Beck spoke effusively of his admiration for Huntsman.
“He is the only man I have ever met that I believe has the character of George Washington. Jon Huntsman, Sr. is a good friend and mentor of mine.”
[And…]
“…a man I look up to and try to model myself after.”
I have to wonder how Beck is going to take it when someone reads him the Times’ profile and Beck learns this about his mentor:
“He sympathizes with the Wall Street protesters. The political system, he agreed, is broken. Ethics have foundered.”
[And…]
“Mr. Huntsman said his charitable work, and perhaps the influence of his son — regarded as a moderate in Utah in advocating civil unions for gays and reform of the state’s strict liquor laws as governor — had shifted his own conservative views toward the center over the years. Among his best friends, he said, are Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator, and Michael Moore, the left-wing polemicist filmmaker.”
[Note that the author of the article for the Times, a bastion of the so-called “liberal” media, found it necessary to describe Michael Moore as a “left-wing polemicist” while declining to characterize Beck as anything other than conservative, despite Beck’s far more persistent and hostile display of polemics.]
But the kicker is this quote exposing Huntsman to be an advocate of economic and social justice for those less fortunate than himself:
“All men and women need a roof over their heads, and need to be fed and have proper health care. I don’t know that I believed that, or even understood that, in the early days.”
That’s about as succinct and eloquent a personal statement of compassion as any heard at Zucotti Park by the protesters occupying Wall Street.
So presumably Beck will shortly denounce his mentor as a progressive, socialist, Marxist, bent on destroying America, murdering millions, and plunging the world into tyranny and darkness. Then he will be free to find a new mentor who hopefully won’t betray him by evolving into a caring human being.
If you thought that Glenn Beck was nuts when he had a daily program on Fox News, get a load of him now that he’s been unleashed on his own web site that he thinks is a TV network.
Last night Bill O’Reilly hosted Beck to hear his ruminations on the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Beck began his tale spinning by asserting that this is the start of a global revolution orchestrated by those two internationally powerful provocateurs, Code Pink and a union of service employees (SEIU). These monolithic enterprises, according to Beck, are funding the omnipresent Working Family Party to perform some unexplained treachery aimed at “collapsing the system.”
For his part, O’Reilly is upset that MSNBC is “promoting” the movement, perhaps with the consent of Comcast, the new corporate parent of NBC. Surprisingly, O’Reilly was never the least bit upset at Fox News for promoting the Tea Party, even to the extent of branding their rallies as Fox events and sending their anchors across the country to serve as MCs.
In response to O’Reilly’s inquiry as to “the George Soros factor,” Beck advanced the discredited assertion that Soros money was funneled to the movement through one of Beck’s favorite instigators of evil:
“George Soros is connected to this through the Tides Foundation. The Tides Foundation, his Open Society, and Code Pink are involved in what is called the Wall Street Journal…Occupied Wall Street Journal. And it is a full color newspaper. You know what it costs to print a newspaper. Huge money.”
Actually, newspapers are one of the least expensive publications to print. And Beck’s assertion that the Occupied Wall Street Journal is a project of Soros and Code Pink is hysterical and, of course, false. It is well known that the satirical newspaper was produced by pranksters, The Yes Men, and funded by donations. But it is probably asking too much to expect Beck to present arguments based on facts.
In summation Beck illuminates his theory that the Occupy movement is growing like a tree with two branches: a Marxist, revolutionary, angry branch, and a more peaceful, Tea Party like branch that will be run by Van Jones. Then this mutant tree will somehow produce chaos and violence in the streets. And don’t forget that “the President knows everything that is going on, he knows everyone that is involved.” So the conspiracy is almost complete. Now all Beck needs to do is unify this theory with his global caliphate of Muslims and western progressives and we’ll have the makings of his long promised Perfect Storm.
Yes, Fox News lies on a daily basis. Yes, Fox News is utterly unethical. Yes, Fox News flagrantly promotes Republican dogma. But today they demonstrated how utterly shameless they are and how little regard they have for journalism. Take a look at this headline they posted:
“Reuters Under Fire For Confusing Report Alleging Soros Connection to ‘Occupy Wall Street’
On the surface this seems like a respectable effort to hold Reuters accountable for sloppy reporting. In fact, Reuters did publish a story that implied a connection between the Occupy Movement and George Soros. The substance of the article did not support that implication and Reuters received some criticism for the article. Later the same day Reuters removed the story and replaced it with one that made it clear that there was no such connection. The lede of the new article stated that…
“George Soros isn’t a financial backer of the Wall Street protests, despite speculation by critics including radio host Rush Limbaugh that the billionaire investor has helped fuel the anti-capitalist movement.”
Reuters is still deserving of some criticism for replacing the flawed story rather than correcting it and acknowledging the error. That’s generally how reputable news organizations handle mistakes. But what Fox did is simply mind boggling.
When the original Reuters story ran yesterday, the headline was “Who’s behind the Wall Street protests?” But Fox Nation ran the item with a differnt headline that they composed themselves: “Is Soros Behind ‘Occupy Wall Street?'”
I reported this mangling of the truth yesterday pointing out how Fox went out of their way to distort a weakly sourced article by Reuters. But it isn’t enough for Fox to merely twist a set of non-facts in order to “cast doubt on the authenticity of the movement.” Now that Reuters has been shamed into revising their article, Fox is stepping forward to chastise Reuters while letting themselves off the hook.
What we have here is Fox calling out Reuters for publishing an inaccurate article that they themselves republished after making the error even worse. So if Reuters is under fire for a “confusing report,” Fox should be a blazing inferno for their deliberate deceit. Yet the Fox Nationalists fail to acknowledge their own malfeasance as they wag their finger at Reuters. What a pathetic bunch of disreputable losers.
Never mind that Simeone hosts a music program and does not cover politics or any other subject that could pose any kind of a conflict. Unlike NPR’s Mara Liasson who is a political reporter as well as a commentator on Fox News. Somehow NPR justifies Liasson’s fraternizing with Fox on matters that are explicitly political, but Simeone can’t introduce classical music after having exercised her Constitutional right to free speech on her own personal time.
In a theater on the lot of Fox Studios in Los Angeles, about a hundred investors in News Corp assembled to hear Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants defend being criminals and thieves. There was a certain beauty in this charade taking place in the guts of a fantasy factory, in the shadow of Hollywood.
The last time Andrew Breitbart got any significant notice in the media was when he publicized the Twitter sexting of former congressman Anthony Weiner. It was a particularly repulsive bit of gossipy sensationalism that furthered no public interest, but ruined a man’s career (and possibly his family), just to satisfy Breitbart’s craving for attention and 
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