GOP Candidates Frightened Away From Scary Debates They Can’t Control

The Republican field of presidential primary candidates are cowering together to formulate a new debate process that isn’t so darn frightening to them. Following the debacle on CNBC, they are taking steps to insure that such ghastly encounters are avoided in the future in favor of more friendly frolics through the political pastures of pussy willows and wingnut trees.

Republican Debate

The Republicans spent two hours Wednesday night whining about how the debate questions were framed. They had some justification, but they carried it so far as to dodge even the substantive questions, using their frothy indignation as an excuse. Immediately afterward they went into high hysterics over what they asserted was a fiendish plot by commie instigators to tarnish them and their party. But accusing the Wall Street defenders at CNBC of being ultra-liberal conspirators against these poor, dumbfounded conservatives smacks of severe mental breakdown.

Now the GOP contenders are planning to huddle together to come up with a new debate format that better suits their needs. They intend to address how they might take more control over the process, diminish the role of the Republican National Committee, and decide how the debates are conducted, including the selection of moderators. It’s an unprecedented initiative to transform what is supposed to be an open dialog that provides voters with an informative look at the candidates, into a PR vehicle that functions more like propaganda.

The RNC, which is taking some heat from the candidates, had already barred MSNBC from hosting any debates when they originally published their schedule back in January. That admission of fear has now escalated as the RNC chairman, Reince Priebus, advised NBC today that the one debate they had scheduled (Fox News has four), in partnership with Telemundo, has been “suspended,” whatever that means. So the RNC intends to punish NBC for the perceived wrongs committed by a separate unit of the Comcast/NBC family, And in the process they are also risking their only access to a minority audience, via Telemundo, that the GOP desperately needs to make inroads with. Will Republicans make demands as to who will moderate or what can be asked in order to lift the suspension? Well, Priebus is now saying that “Every debate on the calendar is going to be reevaluated, reset — look at the format, the moderators, everything,”

What really makes this whole phony controversy ridiculous is that it doesn’t benefit any political party to impose such strict demands. First of all, if they get their wish and appear before “friendly” moderators like Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh (as Ted Cruz actually suggested last night on Hannity’s show), they might find the questioning even more damaging. The rightist Taliban, as represented by Limbaugh et al, will be more likely to force candidates to stake out extreme positions which they will be unable to “Etch-a-Sketch” away after the primaries. The wingnut media are notoriously committed to the sort of ideological purity that voters find repugnant. What’s more, even if they got the sympathetic treatment they desire, it would only result in the candidates being woefully unprepared for the full-contact combat they will eventually encounter in the general election.

If Republicans go through with this dictatorial mission to force news networks to obey their commands, the networks must refuse to participate and decline to broadcast any such manipulated program. In fact, networks that aren’t directly affected should also boycott the Republican debates in solidarity with the independence of the press. It would be a journalistic atrocity to submit to such interference in the role of the media. If Republicans want a fully scripted television farce, let them buy the time like any other telemarketer.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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In the end, what Republicans are proposing now is not only hostile to freedom of the press, it is also horribly bad judgment with regard to their own interests. It will leave their candidates unprepared for debates with Democrats, and mired in ultra-rightist ideologies that will alienate voters. And if that weren’t enough, it also reveals them to be afraid of being exposed to the sort of tough questions that will occur throughout any political campaign. And if they can’t handle a few questions from reporters, how will they ever handle Vladimir Putin and ISIS?

Fox News Presents The Trump-tacular Republican Party Propaganda Telethon And Bitchfest

While we are still six months away from the first Republican Party caucus in Iowa, and fifteen months from the 2016 election, Fox News is feverishly promoting its exclusive presentation of the very first primary debate among the candidates for the GOP nomination for president. Can you feel the excitement?

The debate which will take place on Thursday will feature ten candidates selected by the powers that be at Fox News. The remaining seven losers will get their own kiddie matinee affair in an earlier afternoon timeslot. Fox manufactured the selection process and provided the means for the candidates to attempt to influence it. Fox’s method of using the average of the five most recent national polls has been repudiated by nearly every independent expert. The value of national polls at this stage of an election is literally zilch since very few candidates have mounted national campaigns, preferring to build support in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. What’s more, the variance in the numbers between the candidates is within the margin of error for the majority of the field. Therefore, it is absurd to use such polls to determine who is ahead.

Nevertheless, Fox News has committed to this method of selection. Well, except for the fact that, for some inexplicable reason, they decided to skip the fifth most recent poll (by Monmouth) and instead average in the sixth (by Quinnipiac). This breach of their own rule results in advancing Ohio governor John Kasich into the primetime debate in place of Texas governor Rick Perry. That’s significant because it would look bad if the governor of the state where the debate is being held (Cleveland, OH) were excluded from participating. Also of significance is that Kasich is a close personal friend of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and a former employee who hosted his own Fox show for six years. But I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.

Adding to the absurdity is that candidates hoping to be in the primetime debate had to goose their standings in the polls to assure themselves a spot. And, of course, the best way to reach prospective Republican poll respondents is to advertise on Fox News. So this sham methodology does serve the purpose of inflating Fox’s bank account.

Now that the ten lucky Primetimers have been identified, Fox has also revealed their placement on the debate stage. For some unexplained reason they decided that the candidates with the highest average poll numbers would be placed in the center. Why? As previously noted, the earliness of the election season and the surveys’ margins of error make the poll numbers irrelevant. However, the stage placement does have a visual impact that casts the center spots as stars and the fringes as supporting players (or literally fringe candidates). It would have been more fair and balanced had Fox assigned spots randomly or alphabetically or by how many Reagan bobbleheads they can stuff up their bum.

This sports bracket-style staging puts reality TV star Donald Trump right where he wants to be. He is effectively in the CEO’s spot in the boardroom from where he can point at his rivals and fire them. He will be in nearly every shot where his reactions will become a key part of the program whether or not he is speaking. Fox News should have just dropped the facade and let Trump have a gold-plated podium with his name in big capital letters. They could also give him above-the-title billing. You have to wonder whether these things were part of the contract rider demands submitted by the Trump team.

GOP/Trump Debate Stage

The content of the debate can be predicted with a fairly high degree of probability. Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress has already done so in article outlining 11 Things You’ll Probably Hear During The First GOP Debate That Are Totally False.” Indeed, the debates will be an extended opportunity for Republicans to bitch about how awful America is and how much worse it will get if Hillary Clinton is elected next year. By having to split the debates into two programs it actually creates even more time for the bitchfest. If you watch both debates you will have spent a marathon three and a half hours exposed to right-wing hate and fear mongering. This might be a good time to invest in pharmaceuticals or distilleries because the use of anti-depressants and alcohol are sure to spike during and after these programs.

Finally, if anyone is expecting Fox’s moderators to be fair and balanced, you will be sorely disappointed. Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace have proven themselves to be shamelessly biased. This does not always mean favoritism toward the Republican Party, but also favoritism within certain factions of the party or for favorites of the network’s bosses. Even the candidates are suspicious of the impartiality of the moderators. The New Yorker’s Gabriel Sherman disclosed that Trump’s organization is already complaining:

“Given Fox’s power to shape the 2016 GOP primary, campaigns are taking an aggressive approach to lobbying Ailes before Thursday’s debates. According to a source close to the Trump campaign, Trump’s friend Rudy Giuliani called the Fox chief the other day and asked Ailes to make sure Megyn Kelly doesn’t go after Trump in her questioning. The feeling inside the Trump campaign — following an on-air grilling in May — is that Kelly doesn’t like Trump.”

So the candidates feel that it’s appropriate to try to bully the moderators into going soft. That is not a left-field assumption since GOP chairman Reince Priebus explicitly cited that as a reason for taking more control over the debate process (control that he subsequently ceded to Fox News). Two years ago as he was drafting plans for 2016 Priebus said that…

“…the thing that is ridiculous is allowing moderators, who are not serving the best interests of the candidate and the party, to actually be the people to be deposing our people. And I think that’s totally wrong.”

So Priebus has declared that the debate moderators are there to serve the interests of the party and the candidates – not the voters or democracy or the country. By that standard we can expect that the demands by Trump’s surrogates, and those of the other candidates, will be adhered to. From the party’s perspective the debates are nothing more than free television advertising time and the moderators are prohibited from trying to elicit anything of substance from them.

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That said, I think the moderators will stray from the straight and narrow path that Priebus has proscribed. They will do so out of a desire to maintain a sliver of self-respect. So expect a challenging question or two that will enable them to say afterwards that they were professional and probing. Of course, asking a probing question does not guarantee a substantive response. My prediction is that there will be nothing substantive revealed during the entire three and a half hour affair. The best we can hope for with regard to entertainment value is if someone successfully provokes Trump into a meltdown, which shouldn’t be that hard to do.

The ReTrumplican Party: The GOP Cannot Pretend That Donald Trump Isn’t One Of Them

The past few weeks have revealed a deep division between the values of Donald Trump and those of most Americans. His words maligning immigrants as criminals and rapists have been repudiated by prominent figures in politics and business. He has been shunned by groups as diverse as the PGA and Macy’s, as well as some of his fellow Republicans. However, try as they might, the GOP cannot disassociate itself from The Donald.

ReTrumplican Party

Trump’s demeanor may be crass and antagonistic, but the views he expresses politically are firmly rooted in those of the Republican Party. He is, of course, virulently anti-immigrant. He supports an impenetrable wall at the border that he thinks Mexico will pay for. He opposes any measures to afford legal status to the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. That opposition includes the so-called “Dreamers” who were brought here as children and don’t know any other country as home.

Those are precisely the positions of the rest of the Republican Party on the immigration issue. And Trump is in agreement with his GOP peers on every other issue as well. He advocates cutting taxes for the rich and regulations for big business. He wants boots on the ground in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan (and maybe China and North Korea). He is against reproductive rights and marriage equality. He doesn’t believe that Climate Change poses any imminent risks or is caused by human activity. He regards the Second Amendment as sacrosanct and opposes reforms like universal background checks. He has promised to repeal ObamaCare. And let’s not forget his leadership as America’s foremost Birther.

So how exactly does that differ from any other establishment Republican? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. Nevertheless, some of the GOP honchos are trying to put distance between themselves and Trump. Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, let it be known that he asked Trump to “tone down” his rhetoric. Karl Rove has been using his appearances on Fox News to dismiss Trump as not credible. And this just in: Fox News just adopted Rove’s criteria for inclusion in Fox’s GOP primary debate. Rove proposed that each candidate must have filed their financial disclosure forms before being permitted into the debate. This is seen as a possible means of excluding Trump.

Despite the angst that is eating up some of the GOP elite, Trump fits squarely in the Republican mold. Evidence of that is the polling results that show Republican voters boosting Trump into the top tier of candidates. Now those numbers may change, as they have in the past. In fact, the Republican electorate is notoriously kooky at these early stages of a campaign. But that doesn’t negate the obvious compatibility between Trump’s agenda and that of the GOP.

That may be why the Democratic Party is taking this opportunity to point out the close embrace in which the Republican Party and Donald Trump are entwined. They share a deep affinity for the same regressive principles and an affection for society’s privileged upper-crusters. And so this union can be reasonably called the ReTrumplican Party.

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Boycott Trump: The Donald Declares A War On Latinos That He Can’t Possibly Win

Well, there can be no more doubt about. Donald Trump is the most pathetic ignoramus in the Republican Presidential Clown Car Primary. If it wasn’t bad enough that his laughably embarrassing announcement speech was riddled with falsehoods, or he claims to have a foolproof plan that will “bring ISIS to the table or, beyond that, defeat ISIS very quickly,” but he refuses to say what it is, he is now launching a trade war against Latinos, the fastest growing demographic in the American electorate.

Boycott Donald Trump

The war was instigated after Trump insulted Mexican immigrants by saying that “they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” And although he probably thinks that he was being complimentary with his appended assumption, it certainly wasn’t taken that way by those he was insulting. Subsequent to his remarks, the Spanish-language TV network, Univision, announced that they would no longer partner with Trump on his Miss USA Pageant, and would cease all business relationships with Trump.

Univision was not alone in condemning Trump. Many other Latino celebrities, executives, and politicians cited Trump’s vile comments and pledged to avoid associations with him. In one instance that crossed the line of civility, a Univision exec retweeted a photo juxtaposing Trump with Charleston killer, Dylann Roof. The Tweet was quickly deleted despite the obvious similarities in appearance and expression. But not before the poor attempt at humor pierced The Donald’s thin skin.

The war, now raging, saw Trump escalate to threats of lawsuits against Univision. But even more frightening, Trump declared that Univision execs would not be permitted on Trump’s golf courses. That’s a pleasant bit of imagery. Trump is now running restricted country clubs that prohibit Latinos. Somehow, I don’t think that any of them are losing any sleep over not being able to play on Trump’s lawn.

Perhaps the most absurd volley in this battle is Trump’s attempt to get the Republican National Committee to cancel the GOP presidential primary debate on Univision. It’s absurdity rests on the fact that Univision is not scheduled to be hosting a debate, and was explicitly snubbed when the RNC put together their debate plans. RNC Chair Reince Priebus called Univision “a long-term enemy of the Republican Party.” Instead, the RNC went with the number two Spanish-language network, Telemundo, which has half the viewers of Univision and is owned by the GOP-friendly (?) NBC network. So Trump’s temper tantrum to terminate Univision is just another figment of his dementia.

Not surprisingly, Trump has gotten some support from the Wingnut Echo Chamber. One of those digging deep to defend him, Breitbart News, leaped face first into the dump Univision shallow end. An article by their editor, John Nolte, began by agreeing with Trump’s insult to Mexicans saying that “What Donald Trump said about illegal aliens and rape and crime was not untrue.” So Nolte is also a racist who believes that there are eleven million Mexican criminals and rapists in America. As for the Univision debate, Nolte agrees that the broadcast should be removed from the schedule that it already isn’t on. But his brilliant alternative is to have the fictional debate moved to Fox’s Spanish-language network, MundoFox. Nolte apparently thinks that the MundoFox audience of about 170,000 is a better platform for the GOP Comedy Hour than Univision’s 2.1 million (more than ten times greater).

With Trump banishing Univision from his country clubs and trying to get his party to nix a debate that doesn’t exist, he is begging for retaliation. This is something that he would surely regret if Latinos en masse responded by ditching the Trump brand. They could all boycott his golf courses, and his hotels as well. They could refuse to buy his ties, cologne, or other cheesy consumer goods. That includes the Trump line at Macy’s (who should also feel the heat of partnering with a racist). They could shun his real estate properties. And this economic backlash could extend to anyone who is repulsed by Trump’s overt racism. Asians, Saudis, Europeans, and American consumers can and should withhold patronage from him on the basis of his prejudice. And if he thinks he can prevail by blackballing all of them from his golf course, then his reality blind-spot is even bigger than his ego (and that may not be possible according to the laws of physics).

[Update 6/29/15: NBC has announced that they have cut all business ties with Trump. This includes the Apprentice programs and the pageant broadcasts. And while Univision is not a debate host, NBC’s Telumundo is. Will Trump now lobby the RNC to cancel that debate? Stay tuned]

Donald has always been a fraud who is more adept at promoting himself than any business venture. For a sampling of his tendency to fail, take a look at these 12 Donald Trump businesses that no longer exist. There is a reason he embarrasses himself by hosting a TV game show. Can you think of any other billionaire who has the time to do that? Obviously he needs the money. He is no more a businessman than Kim Kardashian.

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What’s more, Trump is a way too obnoxious to get anywhere in politics. It is simply idiotic to say that Mexico “is not out friend,” when they are one of America’s biggest trading partners (second biggest market for exports and third biggest for imports).

The fact that he suffers from Doofus Tourettes Syndrome doesn’t help either. How else do you explain his birtherism, or his recent declarations that America is a hell hole,” and that the American dream is dead?” These are not the bumper-stickers of a winner. But they do define the cretinous, narcissistic, anti-personality of Donald Trump. And Democrats couldn’t be more thrilled that he is among those who want to be the banner carriers for the Republican Party in 2016.

Jeb Bush Announces That He’s Running For The Nomination Of A Dying GOP

“Fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.” Or so Jeb Bush would like you to think as he officially throws his hat into the clown car for the 2016 GOP presidential primary. This would make the third time getting fooled if anyone falls for it.

Jeb (as he will be known from now on, having dropped “Bush” from his logo), gave a typically Republican speech chock full of animus for liberals and promising to right the alleged wrongs thrust on the nation by the current occupant of the White House. For some reason, Jeb neglected to mention that President Obama restored a nation that was in a deep recession caused by brother George and his two wars and tax cuts for the rich. In fact, Jeb was so determined to leave his brother to the ash heap of history that he never even mentioned him by name in the speech.

Also unsaid by Jeb was any reference to ISIS (or Al Qaeda or terrorism). Ordinarily that wouldn’t mean a damn thing, except that that sort of omission is always used as evidence of weakness when a Democrat does it. Just this week Fox News skewered Hillary Clinton when her speech mentioned ISIS only once. Which was once more than Jeb. What are the odds Fox News will notice that?

Jeb has already revealed that his first post-announcement interview will be with Sean Hannity of Fox News. So he will be following in the footsteps of Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rick Perry, who all lost their interview-ginity to Hannity as well. This is a Republican christening of sorts, and one sanctioned by the party, whose chief spokesman, Sean Spicer, said “I think if you didn’t go to Hannity you would be sued for political malpractice.” So according to the Republican Party it is malpractice not to kiss Hannity’s ring. That’s a pretty good confirmation that the Republican Party doesn’t really exist anymore with Fox News taking over their messaging and the Koch brothers taking over their electoral operations.

And if that isn’t proof enough, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus (whose name without the vowels is RNC PR BS) was recently interviewed by conservative radio talker and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham and told her that “Republicans don’t exist as a national political party if we do not win in 2016.”

Reince Priebus

Still not convinced? Back in 2012, Rush Limbaugh told his audience of proud dittoheads that “If Obama wins let me tell you what it’s the end of … the Republican Party.” So the party’s demise is already three years overdue by Limbaugh’s calculation. Of course, Limbaugh’s track record for accuracy is dismal. There’s a much better gauge coming up tomorrow. That’s when Donald Trump is scheduled to make a “major announcement” concerning his presidential ambitions. I still stand by my prediction that there is no way he will run. But if he does, then all of the predictions about the end of Republican Party will be immediately fulfilled.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
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Stephanopoulos Isn’t The Only Media Donor To The Clinton Foundation (Is He, Fox News?)

The conservative media circus is furiously banging their drums to chastise George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s Good Morning America and This Week, for his failure to disclose a donation to the Clinton Foundation. This oversight is being portrayed as an unforgivable offense of partisan bias. As with any matter that can be hyper-dramatized by zealous punditry, Fox News took the lead in running Stephanopoulos through the metaphorical grinder.

Fox News Stephanopoulos

A couple of notes need to be raised in order to fairly assess this situation. First of all, Stephanopoulos donated to a charitable organization, not a political campaign. Thus, it cannot really be regarded as partisan in that the Clinton Foundation does not engage in any political activities. Its mission is purely philanthropic and no fair observer has ever alleged any ideological leanings. Furthermore, unlike a corporate donor or a foreign entity, there isn’t any conceivable benefit that Stephanopoulos might have been seeking in exchange for a donation. Even his critics do not allege that his motives were anything but altruistic.

That said, there are problems with his failure to disclose that impact his reporting when the subject is the Foundation itself. For instance, Stephanopoulos recently interviewed the author of “Clinton Cash,” a book that alleges improprieties on the part of Hillary Clinton in connection to donations to the Foundation. The fact that the book was filled with factual errors and failed to prove its premise does not excuse Stephanopoulos from an ethical duty to reveal that he was also a donor.

Taken in its entirety, this scandalette hardly seems to approach the degree of significance that is being assigned to it by Fox News and other conservative media. There was no effort to extract any personal gain and the ethical lapse did not result in any reportorial distortion. But that hasn’t stopped right-wing muckrakers from attempting to whip it up into a full-blown catastrophe for Stephanopoulos. He has been maligned as hopelessly biased and there have been calls for him to resign or be fired. Fox’s Howard Kurtz described the affair as…

“…such a bombshell that George Stephanopoulos has now had to withdraw as ABC’s moderator in the Republican presidential debate next year.”

What makes the debate moderation move somewhat comical is that last November the chairman of the Republican Party, Reince Priebus, ruled out anyone that he regarded as being unfriendly to the Party’s interests.

Priebus: [the] thing that is ridiculous is allowing moderators, who are not serving the best interests of the candidate and the party, to actually be the people to be deposing our people. And I think that’s totally wrong.

Priebus reinforced that edict yesterday saying that “I’ve been very public about this. George Stephanopoulos was never going to moderate a Republican debate anyway.” Somewhere Priebus got the impression that debate moderators are supposed to serve the interests of the candidates. Certainly the interest of the voters never entered into it. And the last thing that the GOP wants is a debate that is truly spirited and informative. They are looking for something more on the order of an infomercial.

Amidst this tumultuous uproar over the fate of Stephanopoulos and his relatively modest $75,000 gift, what has gone unmentioned is that he is not alone in making donations to the Clinton Foundation. In fact, Fox News has been even more generous than Stephanopoulos. Rupert Murdoch’s son James, the COO of 21st Century Fox (parent company of Fox News), made a donation in the range of $1,000,000-$5,000,000. The News Corporation Foundation contributed between $500,000-$1,000,000. Fox regular Donald Trump forked over between $100,000-$250,000.

There might be more of these types of ethical problems involving media personalities on the right donating to Republican charities like the Bush Foundation. However, we can’t uncover them because the Bush Foundation doesn’t disclose their donors like the Clintons do. Curious, isn’t it?

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So the question is: How can Fox News criticize George Stephanopoulos for his undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation, when they have made far bigger donations without disclosing them? What’s more, the donations from the Fox media empire can be regarded as possible bribes since, unlike Stephanopoulos, they have pending business before the government and its regulatory agencies. If Fox News wants to pretend to be “fair and balanced” they need to immediately come clean. And if Stephanopoulos is denied the opportunity to moderate any GOP debates, then Fox News should be prohibited from airing them.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Fox to act ethically in this matter. They will neither remove themselves from the debate schedule, nor cease their attacks on Stephanopoulos. That’s just the way Fox does business and it will continue despite the obvious hypocrisy and lack of journalistic principle.

Despite Their Own Conceit, Fox News Is About As Scary As Honey Boo Boo

As America’s number one network for extreme, right-wing political bias and propaganda, Fox News relishes every opportunity to disparage their ideological foes and to sanctimoniously exalt themselves as protectors of their twisted versions of the truth. One of the favorite tactics of Fox News is to taunt public figures who make the completely rational decision to avoid the abuse that they would endure were they to submit to being interviewed by the network’s bullies and ignorant partisans. This week there was another example of that attempted intimidation by Fox’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz.

Fox News

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Kurtz appeared on The Kelly File with fill-in host and terrorist profiler Shannon Bream, a former beauty pageant contestant and graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University with no journalism training. The topic of the segment was departing Attorney General Eric Holder’s scheduled interviews with some news networks that did not, as of yet, include Fox. Bream queued Kurtz up by asking “Does he help himself at all by walking out the door and slamming it in our faces.” That totally unbiased question got this response from Kurtz:

“I think that it’s a sign of confidence when any politician, political figure, cabinet officer, congressman, is willing to sit down and take tougher questions from those you might perceive to be your harshest critics. […] Is the nation’s top law enforcement officer really afraid of [Fox News anchor] Bret Baier?”

Any suggestion that Holder, or anyone else who chooses to keep their distance from Fox News, is afraid of them is utter nonsense. That’s like saying you’re afraid of being interviewed by Honey Boo Boo, when the truth is you’re just smart enough to not waste your time. Notorious liar Bill O’Reilly has used the accusation of fear repeatedly, but frankly I’d be more afraid of Honey Boo boo.

Furthermore, if Kurtz even bothers to take his own analysis seriously, then why doesn’t he apply it to Republicans? He seems so disturbed that a single administration official is waving off Fox News, but he doesn’t seem bothered at all that the entire Republican Party is boycotting MSNBC. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee has stated publicly that there will be no GOP presidential primary debates on that network. There will be four on Fox. Therefore, according to his own logic, Kurtz is implying that that every single one of the GOP candidates for president are afraid of Rachel Maddow?

What’s even more interesting about this is that the GOP candidates are even afraid of the friendly venues they have chosen for themselves. The RNC has drastically reduced the number of debates and assumed control of who will moderate them and ask questions. That was done to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing displays put on by Republicans during the 2012 election cycle. On one hand that may be a wise decision on their part considering the proclivity for Republicans to say stupid things. On the other hand it shelters them from the real world of political brawling that might toughen them up for the general election. And it exposes them as fearful of letting their candidates express themselves by taking positions for which they would later be held accountable.

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After being left off of a preliminary list of networks that would be interviewing Holder, Fox News VP Michael Clemente whined that Holder’s reluctance to subject himself to the petty carping of Fox’s confirmed haters does a disservice to “the interests of a free press.” Apparently he doesn’t understand the phrase “free press.” You have to wonder where he gets the notion that a free press requires every public figure to submit to every media outlet, no matter how disreputable and hostile. It would be more correct to applaud Holder for showing respect for a free press by declining to validate Fox’s deceitful brand of pseudo-journalism.

Whether or not Holder grants Fox News an opportunity to malign him in person, it is clear that neither he, nor anyone else, is afraid of Fox. They just show it the measure of respect it deserves. But Republicans are demonstrating that they terrified of MSNBC and every other media outlet, including Fox, by implementing a policy that prohibits them from engaging in any public debates that aren’t sanctioned by the party apparatchiks. That’s a story that Kurtz will never report.

The Republican Politburo Threatens To Censor Their Own Presidential Candidates

Anyone who followed the 2012 presidential primaries for the Republican Party were treated to a circus extravaganza that featured a parade of clown-like characters humiliating themselves and their party. It included Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich. And always on the sidelines were were Sarah Palin and Donald Trump pretending that they were just about to jump in.

Right-Wing Media Circus

It’s no wonder that the Republican National Committee is so determined to prevent a repeat of that embarrassment. There were nearly two dozens debates leading up to the Republican convention in August of 2012. That was an enormous about of time for the candidates to make asses of themselves, and they used that time to good advantage.

So the RNC chairman Reince Priebus has just announced their schedule of sanctioned debates for the 2016 campaign season. There are only nine firm dates with another three penciled in as pending. That’s smart on their part because, as they learned last go around, the more people saw of their candidates, the less they liked them. And by forcing them to actually articulate their positions on issues, it made it harder for their ultimate nominee, Mitt Romney, to waver vaguely in the winds of “Etch-a-Sketchy” opportunism. But has the RNC gone too far by dictating this mandate:

“To give their push to control the debate process teeth, any candidate who participates in a non-sanctioned debate will not be allowed to participate in any more sanctioned debates.”

That is an awfully strict decree that borders on totalitarian control of what is supposed to be a democratic process. In the past, debates were sponsored by media organizations and political groups with an interest in educating the public. For instance, The League of Women Voters was a frequent sponsor of non-partisan candidate forums. And the participation of the media insured that the candidates would have access to voters.

The notion that there will be only officially sanctioned debates means that they are more likely to be propaganda affairs than contests of ideas and abilities. That outcome is even more likely since the RNC is retaining control over who the debate moderators will be, and they have signaled that they will all be GOP-friendly. So no tough questions, no adversarial jousting. And that is by design of the RNC debate architects. They have previously said that they don’t want their candidates tearing each other down during the primaries.

Consequently, whoever emerges from the Republican field (probably Bush) will not have been battle-tested for the general election. He will face his Democratic opponent unprepared for the sort of contentious discourse that is part and parcel of a national election. He will not have had an opportunity to sharpen responses to hostile questions or address his weaknesses. That’s good news for the Democrat (probably Clinton).

Another problem with limiting the debates to officially sanctioned affairs is that it’s difficult to force everyone to comply. There will be parties who will feel left out. Take for example, the Tea Party. It is hard to imagine that those notoriously antsy malcontents will be easily persuaded to sit back and let the party apparatchiks dictate who can speak and when and where.

Likewise, the media is under no obligation to refrain from offering their own candidate forums. Should they do so, the candidates would be hard-pressed not to participate and gain valuable airtime. Particularly the second tier candidates who have more trouble raising money. And if the second tier agrees to a network debate, the first tier are not going to want to let them have the stage to themselves to beat on them.

This would put the RNC in the position of having to enforce their stated punishment. Would the party actually ban viable candidates from participating in their sanctioned debates? That would anger both the candidates and their supporters. Plus, it would make them look small and unpresidential, like naughty children. That’s not a particularly flattering way to go into the convention or the general election.

In addition to the threats imposed by the RNC, they also announced that they will be partnering with Fox News for three of their sanctioned debates (two on Fox News, one on Fox Business), and another one in the pending status. CNN will get two debates, and each of the broadcast networks will get one. MSNBC was completely shut out by the good folks at the RNC. Let’s just hope that the DNC has the good sense to shut out Fox News.

The debate granted for Fox Business is unusual in that the network has no measurable audience. They do not permit Nielsen to publish their ratings, a decision generally taken when the ratings are embarrassingly low. Either the RNC feels guilty about including CNBC on their debate schedule, or they are just giving Fox a gift. Needless to say, Fox will be the favorite media outlet for the GOP for the duration of the campaign.

Whining On Fox News: Correspondent Sulks When Democratic Candidate Snubs Him

Poor thing. Fox News correspondent John Roberts went into a deep depression after he was rejected as a debate moderator by Democratic Senate candidate Michele Nunn of Georgia. Roberts took his mopey lament to Neil Cavuto’s program on Fox News and complained about being shunned by meany Michele saying that…

“For some reason, the Nunn campaign just does not want to talk to Fox News […] They didn’t like the idea that someone from Fox would be moderating that debate, so out I went.”

Fox News Whining

Out he goes, into the cruel, cold world of right-wing hacks who make a career out of bashing Democrats and liberals. Now, “for some reason,” he is reduced to having only Cavuto and the rest of the conservative Fox machine into which his lonely teardrops can fall.

As usual, Fox is demonstrating their rank hypocrisy by criticizing Nunn for requesting another moderator (who turned out to be a local Fox affiliate anchor). But they haven’t been the least bit critical of Joni Ernst, the GOP senate candidate in Iowa, who has refused to grant ANY interviews with Iowa journalists. However, she did go on Fox News.

It’s laughable that Fox would try to extract sympathy for being shunned by a Democrat. They know damn well the reason. They are a brazenly hostile enterprise whose mission from day one was to smear progressive values and those who profess them. Roberts fits squarely into that mold, making him an inappropriate moderator for a fair and balanced debate. And in the same segment with Cavuto he provided evidence of why no one at Fox should preside over any debate when he admitted that Fox is just a communications vehicle for the Republican Party, saying that…

“In states where you’ve got to get independent, Republican votes, doing something with the Fox News Channel is something that they need to do.”

This complaint is even more laughable considering the fact that Republicans are the ones who wrote nixing debate moderators into their campaign handbook. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, announced last year that the party intended to handpick their debate moderators and would not countenance any whom they regarded as unfriendly. Discussing debate strategy with Fox News (who else?) he said that

“I think 23 debates is ridiculous, but the second thing that is ridiculous is allowing moderators, who are not serving the best interests of the candidate and the party, to actually be the people to be deposing our people. And I think that’s totally wrong.”

Somewhere Priebus got the notion that moderators from the press were supposed to serve the interests of the candidates. Certainly the interest of the voters never entered into it. And to that end he led the party to ban CNN and MSNBC from hosting any GOP primary debates. That leaves Fox News as the only cable news network that Priebus considers friendly enough to host his party’s debates.

While Republicans have openly declared that they have implemented a wholesale ban on moderators they don’t like from across the mediascape for the entire primary season, they are sorely miffed at a Democrat who asked to substitute a single moderator at a single a debate. So when Fox asks “Are candidates limiting media access?” you have to wonder why that is so disturbing to them when they don’t care at all if a whole political party does it. It really makes you feel sorry for them, but not in the way they hoped.

Obama Bitching: The GOP’s Empty Mandate Of 2014

Tomorrow the midterm election will finally be over (except for Georgia and Louisiana) and most of the so-called liberal media is predicting that it will be a Republican day with their party taking over control of the Senate.

That outcome is by no means certain. Democrats are said to command a superior ground game to get out the vote and all they need to do is hold the line in a couple of key battleground states to deny Republicans their victory. If Democrats manage to do that it will shock the blathering media drones and put a damper on the GOP’s funeral party.

But what if the Republicans pull it off? What if they get their Senate majority and Mitch McConnell becomes majority leader and every committee chair is handed off to a Republican who hates government? Based on the campaigning of the last few months, what mandate could the Republican Party claim for the two years until the next election (where they will probably be thrown out again)?

Well, if you take the words of the Republicans themselves, the only issue that they put forward for 2014 is that President Obama sucks. They abandoned every salient issue from immigration to taxes to abortion to deficits to terrorism, etc. The only matter that Republican candidates raised with any regularity was that their Democratic opponent was in the same party as the President and supported his policies. They rarely mentioned what those policies were, just implied that they were bad. The typical arguments for Republicans were merely arguments against Obama. For instance…

Sen. Rand Paul: This election will be a referendum on the president.

Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly: This isn’t a pro-GOP election, it’s an anti-Obama election.

Sen. John Cornyn: It’s not as though people have all of a sudden fallen in love with Republicans. It’s just a loss of confidence in the administration.

Indeed, people have not fallen in love with Republicans. In fact, Obama’s approval rating in the low forties is four times what congress can muster. And he remains more popular than the GOP, the Tea Party, and the media that is belittling him. But since Republicans have no issues they can affirmatively advance, they have adopted a national platform of bitching about Obama.

Obama/Congress Approval

Republicans once promised to make ObamaCare the keystone of their campaign, but that fell off their list after millions of Americans signed up and the nation didn’t collapse into a communist dictatorship. RNC chair Reince Priebus was so hopped up on an anti-ObamaCare high that he said…

“I think it’s going to be Obamacare all the time between now and November 5. If you ask me what day it is, I’m going to tell you it’s Obamacare. If you want to know what I want in my coffee, I’m going to tell you Obamacare. I’m going to talk about Obamacare all the time because I think it’s the No. 1 issue.”

He has barely mentioned it since. In the final weeks of the campaign the media has been helping the GOP to distract the public from substantive issues by stirring up panic over phony crises like ISIL and Ebola. However, neither of those qualify as planks in a political platform. And even if they did, the GOP hasn’t taken a consistent position on them other than demanding that America oppose the Ebola-infected terrorist children who are streaming across the border with cocaine and condoms.

Consequently, should the GOP win a majority in the Senate they won’t have a mandate for any legislative agenda at all. They failed to convince voters that any of their policies were superior because they hardly mentioned any of their policies. The only thing they ran on was Obama-hate, and the only reason for a victory, if there is one, is that Democrats tend to sit out midterm elections.

When your own candidates are admitting that the election is a referendum on a President who is leaving office in two years, you have no authority to set an agenda. And since that has been the operating philosophy of the GOP for the past six years, don’t expect anything to change should a Republican Senate come out of the election tomorrow.

Republicans despise government and insist that it doesn’t work. Then, when they come to power, they do everything they can to prove it. That’s why the last GOP administration left the country crippled and despairing. If you don’t want to see that again, be sure to get off your asses and vote tomorrow. Whatever problems you may have with Obama or Democrats, they are minor when compared to the damage the GOP could do with their nutcases chairing committees like Jim Inhofe who believes that Climate Change is a hoax and is in line to head the Committee on the Environment.