BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
WEEEELLLLLL, WHO COULD HAVE MADE ME CHOOSE RED FOR THIS POST???? COULD IT BEEEEE....SATAN?????? Really, there isn't anything Christian about the comments on this issue by rick wiles and his kind. They are nothing more that racist right-wing social engineers who are perverting Christianity to meet their goals. From Raw Story...
TruNews host Rick Wiles on Wednesday explained that it was not a coincidence that people like radio host Glenn Beck thought that “Satan” in the History Channel’s The Bible series looked similar to the president.A Christian radio host who is dedicated to covering the Second Coming of Jesus Christ says that “God guided” the History Channel to create a Satan character that resembled President Barack Obama.
“As Mr. Obama prepares to enter Jerusalem this week, days before Passover, another massive swarm of locusts have entered southern Israel,” Wiles reported. “Mr. Obama is not only facing a biblical plague of locust in the Middle East he is also being compared to Satan in the popular The Bible series on the History Channel.”
But Wiles admitted that he believed the network and producer Mark Burnett when they said that it was “utter nonsense” that any resemblance was deliberate.
“I don’t believe they intentionally portrayed the Lucifer character to look like Mr. Obama,” the Christian radio host noted. “I think God guided the hand of the makeup artist and blinded the eyes of everybody on the movie set while it was being recorded, and the spiritual blinders were removed Sunday night when the program was broadcast nationally on the History Channel.”
“How many clues do we need from Heaven to understand that the man in the White House is a devil from Hell?”
Listen to this audio from TruNews, broadcast March 20, 2013.
THE voluntary ignorance of the tea-baggers EXPOSED!!!!!! How could have any of them ever believed the various organizations of the tea-bagger movement were nothing but a political front for the rich to benefit the rich? There isn't one piece of tea-bagger backed legislation that benefits anyone making less than $100,000 a year. No tea-bagger backed tax breaks, nor their lobbying for funding cuts in social safety net programs, nor their lobbying for cuts in funding for the Depts of Education, HHS, Labor (including unemployment benefits), as well as lobbying for cuts in funding for the EPA, FDA, and Transportation benefit the vast majority of tea-baggers. Everything the movement has supported has been for the benefit of the wealthy who fund and control the movement. This expose from Mother Jones....
FreedomWorks bills itself as a grassroots outfit, but it's bankrolled mostly by big-money donors.
This story has been updated. Click here for the latest.
FreedomWorks,
the national conservative group that helped launch the tea party
movement, sells itself as a genuine grassroots operation, and for years
it has battledaccusations of "astroturfing"—posing as a populist organization while doing the bidding of big-money donors. Yet internal documents obtained by Mother Jones show that FreedomWorks has indeed become dependent on wealthy individual donors to finance its growing operation.
Last month, the Washington Post reported that Richard Stephenson, a reclusive millionaire banker and FreedomWorks board member, and members of his family funneled $12 million in
October through two newly created Tennessee corporations to
FreedomWorks' super-PAC, which used these funds to support tea party
candidates in November's elections. The revelation that a corporate
bigwig like Stephenson, who founded
the Cancer Treatment Centers of America and chairs its board, was
responsible for more than half of the FreedomWorks super-PAC's haul in
2012 undercuts the group's grassroots image and hands ammunition to critics who say FreedomWorks does the bidding of rich conservative donors.
Big donations like Stephenson's are business as usual for FreedomWorks. According to a52-page
report prepared by FreedomWorks' top brass for a board of directors
meeting held in mid-December at the Virginia office of Sands Capital Management, an investment firm run by FreedomWorks board member Frank Sands,
the entire FreedomWorks organization—its 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) nonprofit
arms and its super-PAC—raised nearly $41 million through mid-December.
Of that total, $33 million—or 81 percent of its 2012 fundraising—came in
the form of "major gifts," the type of big donations coveted by
nonprofits and super-PACs. (FreedomWorks' nonprofit components do not have to disclose their funders.)
Well-heeled
individual contributors ponied up $31 million—or 94 percent—of those
major gifts, according to the FreedomWorks board book. Eight donors gave
a half-million dollars or more; 22 donated between $100,000 and
$499,999; 17 cut checks between $50,000 and $99,999; and 95 gave between
$10,000 and $49,999. Foundations contributed $1.6 million in major
gifts, and corporations donated $330,000. Corporations once accounted
for more of FreedomWorks' hefty donations. In a memo included in the
report, David Kirby, FreedomWork's vice president for development, and
senior adviser Terry Kibbe wrote, "This year continued our trend of
relying less and less on corporate support." At the same time
FreedomWorks expanded its small donor ranks from 41,794 in 2011 to
81,081 in 2012. More than 30,000 of those small donors gave between a
dollar and $99 this year.
According to ex-FreedomWorks chairman
Dick Armey, when he joined the organization in 2003, FreedomWorks relied
heavily on corporate donations. The group, he says, subsequently weaned
itself off such underwriting and used direct-mail lists—some provided
by Armey—to build up a base of small donors. But in the last year, there
was a "big surge in private individual contributions," most of which
Armey says he didn't know about. "The details were kept secret from me,"
he remarks.
FreedomWorks, flush with wealthy donors' money, took
full advantage of the nation's lax campaign finance rules during the
2012 election cycle. The group's nonprofit side shifted millions of dollars
in dark money to the FreedomWorks super-PAC, effectively hiding the
true source of those funds. One campaign finance reform advocate blasted
those internal money transfers as the "laundering of secret money." A
FreedomWorks spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.
The
December board report was prepared in the wake of a bitter internal
battle between Armey and FreedomWorks president and CEO Matt Kibbe. As Mother Jones first reported, Armey resigned in November after feuding with Kibbe over the direction of FreedomWorks. Armey accused
Kibbe of using FreedomWorks resources to write a book in a deal that
awarded Kibbe the sales profits. Two board members allied with Armey in
December launched a legal investigation into alleged wrongdoing at FreedomWorks. Kibbe, meanwhile, drafted a memo charging
that Armey tried to steer the group away from its tea party roots and
toward a more mainstream GOP position. Four FreedomWorks staffers,
including vice president for public policy and government affairs Max
Pappas, resigned after news broke of Armey's resignation.
In
2012, according to the board book, FreedomWorks hosted 110 current and
potential "investors" at a Jackson Hole, Wyoming, hotel for its second
annual "Restore Liberty" donor retreat. The event resulted in a source
pledging a $10 million matching grant; the board book does not name this
source. In August 2013, FreedomWorks plans to fete donors at the four-star St. Regis resort
in Aspen, Colorado. (FreedomWorks also treats its board well, holding
its August 2012 meeting at the Snake River Lodge and Spa in Teton
Village, Wyoming, according to minutes taken at the meeting.)
In
2013, FreedomWorks plans to spend between $25 million and $30 million,
according to the board book. Favored causes and projects include the
annual Blog-Con convention, the right's answer to Netroots Nation; fly-ins for activists to lobby members of Congress; briefings with lawmakers and their aides; and the recently launched FreedomWorks University.
FreedomWorks also plans to continue its financial support for Glenn
Beck's media enterprise, including sharing a TV studio with and leasing
office space to the Washington bureau of TheBlaze, Beck's website and TV network.
The
board book is chock full of strategy talk by the FreedomWorks' brass.
In a memo to the board included in the report, CEO Kibbe panned GOP
presidential nominee Mitt Romney as just another "old white guy." He
acknowledged that his group's plan to help flip control of the US Senate
to the GOP failed miserably ("We take our lumps with humility"), and he
insisted that it's time to replace the aging image of the conservative
movement with "younger, more diverse, more substantive voices for
freedom in America." Kibbe asked: "Can liberty, personal responsibility,
and doing things for yourself be the new 'cool'?"
Such a
makeover, Kibbe wrote, can begin if FreedomWorks courts so-called "Ron
Paul Millennials," the loud, loyal twentysomethings who in 2008 and 2012
followed the GOP libertarian presidential candidate from one stump
speech to the next. Kibbe noted that FreedomWorks plans to reach out to
blacks and Hispanics with a new "Black and Brown" tour, starring a
Brazilian immigrant and tea party activist named Ana Puig. And he touted
FreedomWorks' growing online presence, with 2.1 million members on its
email list and 4 million Facebook fans.
Despite his organization's
reliance on big-money donors, Kibbe stressed that the future of
conservative politics is at the grassroots level. "Freedom is trending,"
he wrote to the board, "thanks to your willingness to keep up the
fight."
UPDATE: In an interview with Media Matters for America's Joe Strupp,
Dick Armey shed more light on FreedomWorks' financial arrangements with
Glenn Beck's media network and Rush Limbaugh's radio show. Those deals
were first reported by Mother Jones.
Armey said FreedomWorks paid Beck upwards of $1 million to promote
Freedomwork last year, calling the deal with Beck "basically paid
advertising for FreedomWorks." But Armey questioned that deal, saying it
provided "too little value" to FreedomWorks. Read the entire Media
Matters story here.
Click here to return to the top of the story.
Read FreedomWorks' Winter 2012 board book: (Click the link below to go to the MJ article and read the board book)
Andy Kroll is a reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Email him with tips and insights at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. Follow him on Twitter here. RSS | Twitter
The
former GOP congressman tells Mother Jones who was the man with a gun he
brought to a contentious meeting at the tea party group now undergoing a
bitter internal feud.
IT has been painfully obvious to me and many others that the gop / tea-bagger campaign propaganda has been funded by the plutocrats, the extremely wealthy in America. Yes, these people spent tens of millions of their own money in an attempt to buy this election in a vain attempt to increase their wealth and power. But the money these people and corporations gave to candidates and extreme right wing super-pacs is nothing compared to the value of their investment in and sponsorship and / or ownership of right wing media. grover norquist united the uber rich, individuals and corporations and channeled their lust for more wealth and power into a political platform. The koch brothers, sheldon adelson and others like them provided the funding for the tea party and it's extreme right wing political candidates, all vetted for their willingness to sell out their values and accept control of their political agendas for campaign contributions and guarantees of lucrative corporate lives after their political careers. But it was their extreme right wing media machine that brought the right wing agenda to life with lies, deception, and by misleading the electorate with misrepresenting the facts on issues as well as playing on their fears as well as taking advantage of existing racism and voluntary ignorance. The romney-ryan cabal conceded control of their campaign to the plutocrat's agenda and campaign tactics, thanks be to God this time a majority of the voters were not duped. Here is a great read from Mother Jones on the damage gop / tea-bagger extremism has done to the republican party.
With
President Obama's victory over Mitt Romney, many pundits are already
engaging in clichéd talk of "soul-searching" for the GOP. What they mean
by this phrase differs depending on who says it: Pundits on the left as
well as moderate reform-oriented Republicans are claiming the party
needs to move back to a pragmatist set of policies; tea partiers and
others on the right, talk radio, and Fox News are claiming that Mitt
Romney, like John McCain before him, was simply too moderate to win, and
that only a true, principled conservative can lead the charge to
victory.
But what Republicans really need to learn from Romney's defeat is
not that their candidate was too weak or too moderate. They need to
learn that their candidate was forced to adopt far more extreme
policies than he previously held due to a primary process that enslaves
pragmatism and electability to a rigid ideology. And at the heart of
this rigid ideology is a conservative movement that's become the
creature of the right-wing media.
Fox
News is often described as little more than a mouthpiece for the
Republican Party. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything,
the reverse is the case, with the Republican Party serving as unwitting
puppets of the self-serving right-wing controversy machine. Fox News and
the talk radio shock-jocks across the country win whether or not
conservatives are in power; these purveyors of political entertainment
thrive under a Democratic president, perhaps even more so than under
their preferred candidates. There's big money in controversy, and
controversy is what the Glenn Becks of the world do best.
At some point, Republicans will need to wake up to the current state
of affairs and realize they're being held hostage to a powerful,
self-sustaining entertainment industry and that the interests of the
party and the interests of Fox News are not one and the same.
Indeed, the spin-offs of this conservative movement/media behemoth can be seen far and wide as bloggers like Dean Chambers take up the mantle of "true conservatism" and begin telling Republicans only what they want to hear—even if that means twisting the polling data beyond anything remotely recognizable as the truth.
Even the Tea Party was largely the result of a concerted effort on
the part of conservative media to foment dissatisfaction and resentment.
Sure, this may have helped sweep the House to the right in 2010, but
more importantly it drove traffic to conservative websites and eyeballs
to Fox News. And while Romney may have lost the election last night, Fox
is guaranteed a strong viewership through Obama's second term.
This is what conservative writer John Derbyshire described as far back as 2009 as "Happy Meal conservatism"
a lowbrow and ultimately harmful approach to rallying the conservative
troops. "Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda," Derbyshire wrote at
the time, "ideas by slogans." Happy Meal conservatism, he argued, is
one of the major contributors to this state of affairs.
It does so by routinely descending into the ad hominem—Feminazis
instead of feminism—and catering to reflex rather than thought. Where
once conservatism had been about individualism, talk radio now rallies
the mob. "Revolt against the masses?" asked Jeffrey Hart. "Limbaugh is
the masses."
Derbyshire trafficked in paranoid, lowbrow, and deeply racist tactics
of his own, but his point remains intact nonetheless. And while
Derbyshire may have ultimately ignored his own advice, there are others
on the right who need to begin the process of distancing themselves from
the right-wing media machine that's taken over their movement.
Republicans need to wake up to their damaged brand, and then they
need to follow the money. It doesn't take a degree in economics to see
how the shockjocks play their audiences. You don't have to listen to
many Glenn Beck tirades about going back to the gold standard and their
accompanying advertisements about trading in your gold jewelry for cash
to see how cynical this act has become. But gold schemes are small
potatoes compared to the much larger con being played on the Republican
Party.
The problem is one of revolving doors. Failure for Republican
politicians doesn't always have to end in tears. Play to the cameras
well enough, and you might just land yourself a job at Fox News—that is,
if you're not already lined up with a cozy consulting job at a lobbying
firm (something politicians across the spectrum are guilty of too often
than we'd care to admit.)
And so Happy Meal conservatism becomes as cyclical as it is cynical.
It may bite the hands that feed it, but it shares enough of the wealth
to keep up appearances.
Meanwhile, conservatives continue to grow more and more dependent on a
steady diet of this fast-food political fare, further deepening the politics of resentiment,
as libertarian writer Julian Sanchez describes it. Far from being a
coherent political philosophy, Sanchez argues that modern conservatism
is a "farce currently performing under that marquee [that's] an
inferiority complex in political philosophy drag."
But why does this play so well on the right? Even admitting that all
human beings have a penchant for the controversial and that all good
narrative is driven by conflict—contrived or otherwise—why has Fox News
and Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the rightwing bloviators become so
enormously powerful?
Sanchez argues that it's a status grievance first and foremost.
Conservatives feel under attack and have "internalized the enemy's
secular cosmopolitan value set and status hierarchy."
In other words, conservatives have begun to see the writing on the
wall as demographics shift and they begin to lose ground in the culture
wars. Fox News is banking on this, capitalizing on the unspoken fears
this may provoke, and giving those fears voice. They didn't invent fire,
they just learned how to stoke it and make sure that it generates far
more heat than light.
But as Sanchez points out, this is a doomed project:
Even if conservatives retook power, they wouldn't be able to provide a
political solution to a psychological problem, assuming they're not
willing to go the Pol Pot route. At the same time, it signals a
resignation to impotence on the cultural front where the real conflict
lies. It effectively says: We ceded to the bogeyman cultural elites the
power of stereotypical definition, so becoming the stereotype more fully
and grotesquely is our only means of empowerment.
What Republicans need to realize in the wake of their defeat is that
it's not a means to empowerment, it's only a means to one end: making
conservative media buckets full of money, come rain or shine.
Erik Kain writes about politics at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, and technology and video games at Forbes. His work has also appeared in The Atlantic and elsewhere. For smaller doses, you can follow him on Twitter. RSS | Twitter
THE lengths some people will go to just to discredit someone they oppose politically is pathetic, and this is one of the most glaring examples of the lies, deception and manipulation right-wing extremist will use to attack the Obamas. Only those that are racist, extremely stupid, and unpatriotic will believe this kind of trash. From PolitiFact.....
Says "a lip-reading instructor at the River School, a Washington, D.C.,
school for the deaf" has determined that during 9/11 ceremonies,
Michelle Obama said, "All this for a damn flag."
Chain e-mail on Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 in a message forwarded to many people
Chain email says River School lip-reading instructor
confirms first lady Michelle Obama said "All this for a damn flag" at
9/11 ceremonies
Share this story:
Authors of chain emails love to question President Barack Obama's patriotism.
They've said he refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance (False), that he "turns his back to the flag and slouches" (False), and that he complained that U.S. troops were whining about going to war. (Pants on Fire).
We've also noticed a sub-genre of emails that attack First Lady
Michelle Obama for living a life of luxury, such as the claim that she
ordered $400 worth of caviar and lobster at the Waldorf Astoria in New
York (Pants on Fire).
Now comes a new twist on a claim that sprouted a year ago in the
conservative blogosphere: the suggestion that during 9/11 memorial
ceremonies, the first lady could be seen saying to her husband, "All
this for a damn flag."
The controversy has been fueled by video that shows the first lady
saying something to her husband. Because the comments are not audible,
critics of the Obamas have speculated about her words. On YouTube, a video
that has been seen 1.4 million times slows the exchange and declares
the first lady said, "All this for a damn flag" and that the president
replied "Hm … mn …. nnnn" and gave a "nod of disapproval."
The new email, which emerged about one month ago, indicates Michelle
Obama's words have been confirmed by "a lip-reading instructor at the
River School, a Washington school for the deaf."
Here's the full email (it has two subject lines because senders added a second line when forwarding it)::
Subject: Obama's wife - Caught in the Act
You be the judge,
How much more disrespect can there be?
Subject: Obama's wife as seen by deaf people
READING HER LIPS !!
Obama and his wife were attending The 9/11 Memorial Ceremony and
watched as the Color Guard folded the flag into a triangular shape,
according to custom.
A video camera caught the two from the sidelines. Obama's wife leaned
over and said to him, "All this for a damn flag?" Obama turned to her,
smiled smugly and nodded his head in agreement.
How do we know what was said? The video was presented for translation to a lip reading instructor at The River School, a Washington D.C. school for the deaf.
The video is shown at normal speed, 3/4 speed, and 1/2 speed with no banners obstructing her lips.
The current Commander and Chief and the First Lady proud of being American? You be the judge...
Like many chain emails, this one has evolved since earlier versions.
The detail about the lip-reading instructor at the River School was
added recently, presumably to give the email more credibility.
But that credibility crumbled when we spoke with Nancy Mellon, director
of the River School. She described it as a Washington school that
serves a wide range of children from 18 months to third grade. It is
known for its strong program for hearing-impaired children, but they
account for just 15 percent of the students.
More importantly, the River School doesn't teach lip-reading, Mellon
said, and no one from the faculty has provided any interpretation of the
video.
"It's definitely not us," she said. "We would never try to do anything like this."
The school has gotten so many inquiries about the chain email that last week it posted this message on its website:
Please be advised that The River School was not involved in any
translation services for a recent video clip currently circulating on
the Internet.
So what did she really say? The consensus on All Deaf, a website for people who are hearing impaired, was that she said,
"It's amazing how they fold that flag." (However, one person speculated
that she told her husband, "This is the third time this week you left
your underwear on the floor... I ain't your mother.") Our ruling
Like many chain emails we've checked, this one is so flimsy that it
needs to fabricate its credibility. Critics of Obama are free to
speculate about the first lady's words, but the "damn flag" translation
was not done by anyone at the River School.
So we give this one a nod of disapproval -- and a Pants on Fire!
About this statement:
Published: Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 at 12:34 p.m. Subjects:Patriotism Sources:
Interview with Nancy Mellon, founder and director of the River School,
WHAT is really disturbing is that the heritage foundation cloaks it's advocacy of greed and lust for power in it's claim to being a Christian organization, when in fact the very policies it lobbies for are in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus Christ. They are the wolves in sheep's clothing scripture warns the Church about, and it is sad that so many Christians willingly turn their back on the basic tenants of Christianity, justifying their attitudes and actions on what they hear from hannity, limbaugh, beck, and the mass mailings from the heritage foundation, freedom works and the like. These people, these Christians, will not have to wait for the final judgement to be punished for their attitudes and actions, with the extreme right wing gaining power they will soon experience the fruits of their labors, loosing both the economic and political power they have been deceived in believing they will gain. They will be tossed aside "as filthy rags" (a reference from scripture for them) once the rich are done using them to achieve their objectives. Unfortunately the rest of us are going to be dragged down with them. From Salon....
The end of the Bush presidency could have prompted some serious self-examination on the right. But it didn't
Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney take the stage before the start of the first New Hampshire debate of the 2012 campaign in Manchester, N.H., June 13, 2011.
Have you ever sensed that conservative talk radio hosts are reading from a script written by somebody else? Well, you're right. According to a well-documented report in Politico, such fearless, independent thinkers as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are taking millions in payola to promote the policy ideas of the Heritage Foundation without necessarily letting listeners in on the secret.
OK, scratch "payola" -- make that "sponsorship fees." Payola's what you call it when disk jockeys take cash under the table to play certain songs. It's illegal only when that income goes unreported to the IRS.
Nobody's saying Hannity and Limbaugh are doing that.
But what they are doing is weaving praise for Heritage Foundation pronouncements seamlessly into their programs without letting on that they're being paid a small fortune to do so: $2 million a year in Limbaugh's case; $1.3 million in Hannity's.
"The point that people don't realize," said Michael Harrison of media trade publication Talkers Magazine, "is that [big-time political talk show hosts] are radio personalities -- they are in the same business that people like Casey Kasem are in -- and what they do is no different than people who broadcast from used car lots or restaurants or who endorse the local roofer or gardener."
The Heritage Foundation, in turn, is one of those Scrooge McDuck-style "think tanks" largely funded by right-wing billionaires like the late Joseph Coors and the Koch brothers. Its "resident scholars" churn out one half-baked study after another proving that economic prosperity depends upon plutocrats paying little or no taxes.
See, like Uncle Scrooge, some of these jokers are pathologically addicted to hoarding. It's not enough that the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States own 40 percent of the nation's wealth. They'd really like it all.
But I digress. Glenn Beck's unacknowledged Sugar Daddy is an outfit called FreedomWorks. Mark Levin's is Americans for Prosperity, another Koch brothers production, which, along with tax cuts, devotes itself to complaints about burdensome regulations preventing energy producers like Koch Industries from disposing of drilling waste in convenient nearby streams.
"Defending the American Dream," they call it.
Granted, it's hard to feel sorry for gullible listeners who hear Beck ranting about how Armageddon approaches, so they should hoard canned goods and buy gold. This on a program sponsored by Goldline. Somebody's going to con them out of their savings, so it may as well be Beck.
Shoot, they can always fall back on Social Security until President Michele Bachmann does away with it.
"I wish more of the grass roots knew the reality that this wasn't Rush or Sean or Beck saying these things out of the goodness of their hearts," said one conservative who decided the payola was too expensive and ethically dubious. "If the grass roots found out that these guys were getting paid seven figures a year to say this stuff, it might leave a bad taste in their mouth."
I have every confidence, however, that the grass-roots talk radio audience can rise above such niggling concerns -- and for the same reason that a failed "end of days" prophet's deluded followers patiently await his recalculations.
After the catastrophic Bush presidency, the Republican right had two choices: rethink or go crazy. A disturbing number chose to double-down on dogma. As a consequence, the estimable Fareed Zakaria argues in Time, the GOP has become as dependent upon abstract ideology as its worst enemies.
"They resemble the old Marxists, who refused to look around at actual experience," Zakaria writes. "'I know it works in practice,' the old saw goes, 'but does it work in theory?'" Indeed, watching the cast of Republican presidential candidates in their recent CNN debate reminded me of the ferocious certitude of Kremlin apparatchiks depicted in Vassily Aksyonov's brilliantly satirical novel "Generations of Winter."
No more "compassionate conservatism" for them. The GOP candidates competed to describe an imaginary paradise of sweeping tax cuts, vastly reduced spending, an end to government regulation, the bolstering of state's rights, and burgeoning prosperity for all. It's as if the presidency of George W. Bush never happened.
"Does anyone think," Zakaria asks, "we are really going to get federal spending to the level it was at under Calvin Coolidge, as Paul Ryan's plan assumes?"
Every single candidate in the New Hampshire debates pretended to. Tim Pawlenty even went Ryan one better. Why, simply by eliminating capital gains taxes altogether -- rendering unto Scrooge that which is Scrooge's -- we'll have 10 years of 5 percent growth, something never approached in U.S. history.
Never mind President Barack Obama. The real class enemy is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Back to the Roaring '20s!
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com. More: Gene Lyons
PLEASE click the header or links to sign the petition to the U.S. Senate to reject the legislation from the House defunding NPR and PBS. Even Glenn Beck has spoken out in defense of NPR (see my earlier post GLENN BECK BLAST ANTI-NPR VIDEO 16MAR11). This service is vital to the nation, providing educational TV for children at home and schools, entertainment for families and unbiased, in-depth news reporting in all sections of the nation (see my earlier post WHY THE (HOUSE) REPUBLICANS HATE NPR 18MAR11). We will become a less informed and more polarized country if NPR and PBS loose government funding. Please sign the petition and share with family, friends and co-workers....
Yesterday, (17MAR11) House Republicans passed an "emergency" bill that would ban any federal money from going to NPR.
This is it: our last chance to save public broadcasting, after more than a decade of fending off Republican attacks. More than 600,000 people have already signed the petition, and we're aiming for 750,000 to show the Senate how much support public broadcasting has.
Can you help us reach our goal by sharing the petition on Facebook right now?
P.S. You can also just forward the email below asking people to sign:
The Republicans in the House of Representatives just passed what they called "emergency" legislation to zero out funding for NPR. We're on the verge of losing this fight, after more than a decade.
We need to tell Republicans that cutting off funding was unacceptable last time they were in charge, and it's unacceptable now.
I've signed the petition to save NPR and PBS. Can you join me at the link below?
Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.
I never thought I would praise Glenn Beck for anything but he is to be praised for this. Click the header to go to his website and see the full video and the real story about the attacks on NPR. I have also included the full post from The Blaze below, but click the header to go to the actual site. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/149861-glenn-beck-blasts-anti-npr-video
I have been harshly critical of Glenn Beck, but in the spirit of fairness today I give Beck high praise for his professionalism in revealing the full story of the anti-NPR video and exposing how its partial presentation, repeated ad nauseam and unfairly throughout the media, misrepresented the facts and slandered NPR.
I never thought I would write this, but I encourage every reader to go to Beck's website, the Blaze, and study for themselves the full video, and the whole truth, without the selective editing of the anti-NPR faction or the lazy misreporting that swept across the major media.
Why did this exercise in professional journalism come from Glenn Beck and not from MSNBC, CNN, other players at Fox News who I normally consider serious journalists, NBC, CBS and ABC?
And, since I am professionally indicting all of the above, why did it not come from me? At least I did not attack NPR over this falsely distorted video, or repeat the false attacks of others, as the media named above almost uniformly did, to their shame. But I could have done the research Beck and his staff did, and I did not.
If anyone at any other network did the reporting Beck did on that matter, let me know and I will sing their praises too. All I saw was the endless repetition of a false representation the same way that the same people at the same news organizations did during the Shirley Sherrod lynching party.
It is a hopeless cause to propose that the cable and national news networks do more reporting and fact-checking when anyone, left or right, is demeaned. It a hopeless cause to suggest the world would be a better place with more serious reporting and less shallow opining by the pundit and chattering classes who move from show to show parroting the latest polls, repeating the latest chatter, spewing ad nauseam and without fact-checking the latest slander of the day, thinking it is "good TV.”
Let me be crystal-clear. I support NPR, and public broadcasting generally. I support private and public funding, without which the quality of television for children would significantly decline. I believe NPR is highly professional and fair and is one of the finest news organizations in the nation. I am one of many taxpayers who wants my taxpayer money used this way.
It may be hopeless, but I propose from now on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, NBC, ABC and CBS adopt this ironclad standard of ethics before reporting on any video, watch the video in full and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before airing slanders without fact-checking.
No more Shirley Sherrods, OK? No more partial excerpts. No more falsehoods or slanders repeated as facts by "news organizations" too lazy and sloppy to do their jobs, unless they want to be labeled as second-tier entertainment instead of trusted high-quality news.
I never expected to write this, but in the spirit of fairness, on the matter of the anti-NPR video Glenn Beck, his staff and his site the Blaze deserve the thanks of those who believe in the highest standards of integrity and accuracy of journalism.
Whether we usually agree with Beck or not, he has earned high praise on this matter. As Walter Cronkite often said: That's the way it is, today.
Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?
On Wednesday, The Blaze posted a lengthy report looking at the ethics of undercover journalism. The comments on the post show a lively debate and wide-ranging views on what is considered ethical and acceptable in pursuit of a scoop.
Plenty of readers felt the new NPR exposé justified any ethical misgivings involved in producing it. Others felt that those seeking truths should hold to higher standards.
When undercover video like the NPR story first surfaces, we often look to see if there is raw video of the material used to produce the report as a basis for evaluating the accuracy of the representations made.
And we decided to do that in this case.
The Blaze’s Pam Key, who produces most of our original videos, is experienced in reviewing hours and hours of raw audio/video to find key sections that can then be used in proper context. Her review of the NPR exposé identifies a number of areas to examine.
Do these areas reveal problematic editing choices? Are assertions made in the video misleading? Are the tactics used by the video producers unethical?
Clearly the NPR executives, particularly Ron Schiller, show poor and, at times, despicable judgment. Do any of the revelations from the raw video ameliorate that? Do their wrongdoing justify any wrongdoing by the video producers?
These are sometimes difficult matters to consider, especially for those who are pleased with the outcomes produced by the release of video reports like this; however, the ethical implications can be significant. And as we say around The Blaze watercooler…the truth has no agenda. Perspective and context are essential elements in bringing truth to the forefront. To exclude or alter them can obscure truths rather than reveal them.
We’ll allow you to watch sections of the edited video that has been widely distributed…and then to compare those sections with the raw video that has been laudably released by the video producers. 1. Muslim Brotherhood connections
Much of the consternation over this video centers on the question of why would NPR executives meet with a group connected to Muslim Brotherhood. Did they know? And if Muslim Brotherhood is mentioned, how are the ties characterized? Is the edited video misleading on these points?
In this first section, the narration describes the players and says the NPR executives were preparing to meet with the members of “Muslim Education Action Center.” The narrator then describes the MEAC as a “Muslim Brotherhood front group.” It does not explain how the NPR executives would have a basis to believe they were meeting with a Muslim Brotherhood front group.
The raw video helps us evaluate how the NPR execs might perceive the men. The men describe themselves as board members but indicate that they are at lower levels in the organization…one of them explaining that he is relatively new to the board…the other saying he works in mostly an “observation basis.” You will see that in this clip.
Further, we compare the edited video with the raw video on the important section of how the actors describe the role/connection of the Muslim Brotherhood to their efforts. The edited video includes a reference to some of the original founders of MEAC being members of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Is this the only reference and basis for the NPR execs to consider MEAC to have a Muslim Brotherhood connection? The raw video also includes a longer section of description that seems to downplay connections of the MEAC group to the Muslim Brotherhood as popularly perceived.
2. Does Ron Schiller react to “Sharia” mission statement with amusement?
The narrator notes that the MEAC website includes this phrase: “We must combat intolerance to spread acceptance of Sharia across the world.”
Sharia is defined as “the sacred law of Islam.” But the interpretation of that definition has many variations across many Islamic traditions. That alone would not be a firm clue for the NPR executives of the group’s beliefs.
Of greater concern, though, is how the video is edited at this juncture.
So after saying that the MEAC website advocates the “acceptance of Sharia,” the video cuts to the NPR exec saying, “Really? That’s what they said?” The cadence is jovial and upbeat and the narration moves on. The implication is that the NPR exec is aware and perhaps amused or approving of the MEAC mission statement. But when you look at the raw video you realize he was actually recounting an unrelated and innocuous issue about confusion over names in the restaurant reservation. 3. How does Schiller describe Republicans?
Schiller’s negative comments about Republicans and conservatives have gotten a great deal of attention.
He clearly says some offensive things, while being very direct that he is giving his own opinion and not that of NPR. Still — a wildly stupid move!
But you may be surprised to learn, that in the raw video, Schiller also speaks positively about the GOP. He expresses pride in his own Republican heritage and his belief in fiscal conservatism.
4. The “seriously racist” Tea Party
NPR exec Ron Schiller does describe Tea Party members as “xenophobic…seriously racist people.”
This is one of the reasons why he no longer has a job!
But the clip in the edited video implies Schiller is giving simply his own analysis of the Tea Party. He does do that in part, but the raw video reveals that he is largely recounting the views expressed to him by two top Republicans, one a former ambassador, who admitted to him that they voted for Obama.
At the end, he signals his agreement. The larger context does not excuse his comments, or his judgment in sharing the account, but would a full context edit have been more fair? See what you think: 5. Are liberals more educated than conservatives?
You may also have seen a section of the video where Schiller describes liberals as more educated than conservatives. But the raw video shows a section where Schiller is hesitant to criticize the education of conservatives and the other executive, Betsy Liley, is outspoken in her defense of the intellects of Fox News viewers.
Would it have been fair to include the broader range of the executives statements? The impression of the original video, that the execs were only hostile toward Republicans and conservatives, is incorrect. 6. Does NPR need federal funding?
Let’s look now at one of the other sections most featured in news reports about the original video — the comments about federal funding for NPR.
Schiller says that NPR, “in the long run,” would be better off without federal funding and that most of the stations would survive a loss of such funding. The implication is that Schiller does not believe federal funding for NPR is important. In the raw video, however, Schiller explains the risk to local stations in more detail and why NPR is doing “everything we can to advocate for federal funding.”
7. Audio issue number one
In the release of the raw video, there are two sections where the audio becomes an issue.
In this first clip the video (complete with “timecode” stamp) continues to play while the audio goes into some kind of glitchy loop.
This could be an actual glitch, though not one I’ve seen like this in 25 years of working with video editing.
It could also be a “glitch” edited into a loop to cover a section of the recording on purpose.
In any case here it is:
8. Audio issue number two
The video producers “redacted” a 1:24 section of the audio. They explain that this is for the “safety of a reporter illegally in foreign country.”
The implication from the editing is that Betsy Liley is describing the activities of the reporter in question:
The Blaze contacted NPR to see if Liley recalls the nature of her comments here, but thus far they have been unable to accommodate our inquiry.
Conclusion:
Anyone looking at the edited version of the Project Veritas video would be concerned about the conduct and views expressed by the NPR representatives. But should we also be concerned about the deceptive nature of some of the video’s representations? Some will say no — the end justifies any means, even if unethical. Others may be bothered by these tactics and view similar projects with a greater degree of skepticism.
In our posting yesterday on the ethics of undercover journalism, we found a range of views. One interesting view is held by Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard. Barnes believes it is always wrong for a journalist to lie: “It‘s dishonest for anyone in journalism to pretend to be someone they’re not.”
But Barnes also believes this applies only to journalists. “This rule doesn’t apply to folks outside the profession,” he told The Blaze. Barnes views the O’Keefe production as a “political hit job and a quite clever and successful one at that.”
Barnes may not realize that O’Keefe describes his work as “investigative journalism,” and thus by Barnes definition — unethical.
And that is only on the issue of going undercover. But even if you are of the opinion, as I am, that undercover reporting is acceptable and ethical in very defined situations, it is another thing to approve of editing tactics that seem designed to intentionally lie or mislead about the material being presented.
For a further discussion of this post, see my analysis on Thursday’s edition of The B-Cast:
I resent the management and owners of fox "news" and "media" corp for their Orwellian manipulation of their viewers. Their inability, their unwillingness to tell the truth disgusting. They are a perfect example of a propaganda machine that can lead to a country being ruled by a dictator, with the electorate being so brainwashed they willing elect those to power that publicly rail against the threats to society and national security while secretly working to do away with the very civil and human rights and liberties they are sworn to protect until we are left with a Republic that is such in name only. hitler's propaganda machine accomplished this, and if we are not careful the tea-baggers and right wing extreemist of the gop will accomplish it too. From Media Matters and MOJO.......
February 10, 2011 7:20 am ET - by Eric Boehlert http://mediamatters.org/blog/201102100007
Asked what most viewers and observers of Fox News would be surprised to learn about the controversial cable channel, a former insider from the world of Rupert Murdoch was quick with a response: “I don’t think people would believe it’s as concocted as it is; that stuff is just made up.”
Indeed, a former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking.
“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”
And that’s the word from inside Fox News.
Note the story here isn’t that Fox News leans right. Everyone knows the channel pushes a conservative-friendly version of the news. Everyone who’s been paying attention has known that since the channel’s inception more than a decade ago. The real story, and the real danger posed by the cable outlet, is that over time Fox News stopped simply leaning to the right and instead became an open and active political player, sort of one-part character assassin and one-part propagandist, depending on which party was in power. And that the operation thrives on fabrications and falsehoods.
“They say one thing and do another. They insist on maintaining this charade, this façade, that they’re balanced or that they’re not right-wing extreme propagandist,” says the source. But it’s all a well-orchestrated lie, according this former insider. It’s a lie that permeates the entire Fox News culture and one that staffers and producers have to learn quickly in order to survive professionally.
“You have to work there for a while to understand the nods and the winks,” says the source. “And God help you if you don’t because sooner or later you’re going to get burned.”
The source explains:
“Like any news channel there’s lot of room for non-news content. The content that wasn’t ‘news,’ they didn’t care what we did with as long as it was amusing or quirky or entertaining; as along as it brought in eyeballs. But anything—anything--that was a news story you had to understand what the spin should be on it. If it was a big enough story it was explained to you in the morning [editorial] meeting. If it wasn’t explained, it was up to you to know the conservative take on it. There’s a conservative take on every story no matter what it is. So you either get told what it is or you better intuitively know what it is.”
What if Fox News staffers aren’t instinctively conservative or don’t have an intuitive feeling for what the spin on a story should be? “My internal compass was to think like an intolerant meathead,” the source explains. “You could never error on the side of not being intolerant enough.”
The source recalls how Fox News changed over time:
“When I first got there back in the day, and I don’t know how they indoctrinate people now, but back in the day when they were “training” you, as it were, they would say, ‘Here’s how we’re different.’ They’d say if there is an execution of a condemned man at midnight and there are all the live truck outside the prison and all the lives shots. CNN would go, ‘Yes, tonight John Jackson, 25 of Mississippi, is going to die by lethal injection for the murder of two girls.’ MSNBC would say the same thing.
“We would come out and say, ‘Tonight, John Jackson who kidnapped an innocent two year old, raped her, sawed her head off and threw it in the school yard, is going to get the punishment that a jury of his peers thought he should get.’ And they say that’s the way we do it here. And you’re going , alright, it’s a bit of an extreme example but it’s something to think about. It’s not unreasonable.
"When you first get in they tell you we’re a bit of a counterpart to the screaming left wing lib media. So automatically you have to buy into the idea that the other media is howling left-wing. Don’t even start arguing that or you won’t even last your first day. “For the first few years it was let’s take the conservative take on things. And then after a few years it evolved into, well it’s not just the conservative take on things, we’re going to take the Republican take on things which is not necessarily in lock step with the conservative point of view.
“And then two, three, five years into that it was, we’re taking the Bush line on things, which was different than the GOP. We were a Stalin-esque mouthpiece. It was just what Bush says goes on our channel. And by that point it was just totally dangerous. Hopefully most people understand how dangerous it is for a media outfit to be a straight, unfiltered mouthpiece for an unchecked president.”
It’s worth noting that Fox News employees, either current or former, rarely speak to the press, even anonymously. And it’s even rarer for Fox News sources to bad mouth Murdoch’s channel. That’s partly because of strict non-disclosure agreements that most exiting employees sign and which forbid them from discussing their former employer. But it also stems from a pervasive us-vs.-them attitude that permeates Fox News. It’s a siege mentality that network boss Roger Ailes encourages, and one that colors the coverage his team produces.
“It was a kick ass mentality too,” says the former Fox News insider. “It was relentless and it never went away. If one controversy faded, goddamn it they would find another one. They were in search of these points of friction real or imagined. And most of them were imagined or fabricated. You always have to seem to be under siege. You always have to seem like your values are under attack. The brain trust just knew instinctively which stories to do, like the War on Christmas.”
According to the insider, Ailes is obsessed with presenting a unified Fox News front to the outside world; an obsession that may explain Ailes’ refusal to publically criticize or even critique his own team regardless of how outlandish their on-air behavior. “There may be internal squabbles. But what [Ailes] continually preaches is never piss outside the tent,” says the source. “When he gets really crazy is when stuff leaks out the door. He goes mental on that. He can’t stand that. He says in a dynamic enterprise like a network newsroom there’s going to be in fighting and ego, but he says keep it in the house.”
It’s clear that Fox News has become a misleading, partisan outlet. But here’s what the source stresses: Fox News is designed to mislead its viewers and designed to engage in a purely political enterprise.
In 2010, all sorts of evidence tumbled out to confirm that fact, like the recently leaked emails from inside Fox News, in which a top editor instructed his newsroom staffers (not just the opinion show hosts) to slant the news when reporting on key stories such as climate change and health care reform.
Meanwhile, Media Matters revealed that during the 2009-2010 election cycle, dozens of Fox News personalities endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or organizations in more than 600 instances. And in terms of free TV airtime that Fox News handed over to GOP hopefuls, Media Matters calculated the channel essentially donated $55 million worth of airtime to Republican presidential hopefuls last year who also collect Fox News paychecks.
And of course, that’s when Murdoch wasn’t writing $1 million checks in the hopes of electing more Republican politicians.
So, Fox News as a legitimate news outlet? The source laughs at the suggestion, and thinks much of the public, along with the Beltway press corps, has been duped by Murdoch’s marketing campaign over the years. “People assume you need a license to call yourself a news channel. You don’t. So because they call themselves Fox News, people probably give them a pass on a lot of things,” says the source.
The source continues: “I don’t think people understand that it’s an organization that’s built and functions by intimidation and bullying, and its goal is to prop up and support Republicans and the GOP and to knock down Democrats. People tend think that stuff that’s on TV is real, especially under the guise of news. You’d think that people would wise up, but they don’t.”
As for the press, the former Fox News employee gives reporters and pundits low grades for refusing, over the years, to call out Fox News for being the propaganda outlet that it so clearly is. The source suggests there are a variety of reasons for the newsroom timidity.
“They don’t have enough staff or enough balls or don’t have enough money or don’t have enough interest to spend the time it takes to expose Fox News. Or it’s not worth the trouble. If you take on Fox, they’ll kick you in the ass,” says the source. “I’m sure most [journalists] know that. It’s not worth being Swift Boated for your effort,” a reference to how Fox News traditionally attacks journalists who write, or are perceived to have written, anything negative things about the channel.
The former insider admits to being perplexed in late 2009 when the Obama White House called out Murdoch’s operation as not being a legitimate new source, only to have major Beltway media players rush to the aid of Fox News and admonish the White House for daring to criticize the cable channel.
“That blew me away,” says the source, who stresses the White House’s critique of Fox News “happens to be true.”
Glenn Beck is, for a liberal like me, far more entertaining to watch than, say, Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly. The latter are garden variety blowhards and their subject matter is predictable. But Beck? He's crazy! He thinks the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take over the entire Mediterranean! Fabian socialists are a fifth column working to subvert everything that makes America great! (But slowly. Sneakily.) The Tides Foundation is on a mission to "warp your children's brains"! And Obama the secret Marxist is behind it all! It all fits together!
This is actually sort of entertaining in small doses. But in bigger doses, not so much. Conor Friedersdorf:
As I've said before, lots of Glenn Beck listeners aren't in on the joke. Unlike Roger Ailes, Jonah Goldberg, and every staffer at the Heritage Foundation happy hour, they don't realize that the Fox News Channel puts this man on the air fully understanding that large parts of his program are uninformed nonsense mixed with brazen bullshit.
....Conjure in your mind a retired grandfather. He served in World War II, voted twice for Ronald Reagan, and supports the Tea Party. Awhile back, he started watching Glenn Beck....
Actually, we don't have to conjure this. Richmond Ramsey has done it for us. I've mentioned before that lots of Fox viewers have the channel on all day long, basically as background noise, and Ramsey says he's noticed this too. His piece is called "Fox Geezer Syndrome":
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been keeping track of a trend among friends around my age (late thirties to mid-forties). Eight of us (so far) share something in common besides our conservatism: a deep frustration over how our parents have become impossible to take on the subject of politics. Without fail, it turns out that our folks have all been sitting at home watching Fox News Channel all day — especially Glenn Beck’s program.
....I asked my father privately why Mom, who as far as I know never before had a political thought, was so worked up about Obama all the time. "She's been like that ever since she started watching Glenn Beck," Dad said.
....Then I flew out for a visit, and observed that their television was on all day long, even if no one was watching it. What channel was playing? Fox. Spending a few days in the company of the channel—especially Glenn Beck—it all became clear to me. If Fox was the window through which I saw the wider world, for hours every day, I'd be perpetually pissed off too.
....Back home, I mentioned to a friend over beers how much Fox my mom and dad watched, and how angry they now were about politics. “Yours too?!” he said. “I’ve noticed the same thing with mine. They weren’t always like this, but since they retired, they’ve gotten into Fox, and you can’t even talk to them anymore without hearing them read the riot act about Obama.”
And that's from a conservative. It's all entertaining enough until you come face to face with the consequences. Sure, Beck's audience is relatively small: a few million, probably no more than one or two percent of the adult population of the country. But that's misleading. These are the shock troops, the true believers, the ones who have turned our politics so toxic. And worse, they're being deliberately conned by Roger Ailes and his pals, who know perfectly well that this stuff is nonsense. And it's all in the service of selling yet another con, getting the geezers to invest their money in endless gold scams.
I know this is whistling into the wind, but it's long past time for the adults in the Republican Party to speak up about this. Glenn Beck is the Father Coughlin and the Robert Welch of his generation rolled into one, and his brand of noxious conspiracy theorizing isn't something to be tolerated just because it produces a few useful idiots. It's time for this to end.
Front page image: Al Grillo/Zumapress.com
I am glad these rabbis are speaking out, but I don't expect any apology from anyone at "news" corp or glenn beck or roger ailes.....they thrive on spreading hate and prejudice and fear, and are not going stop that and actually start reporting news.....how sad for them and the people who waste their time on watching and listening to them. From The Raw Story....
CHICAGO -- Four hundred rabbis will publish a letter on Thursday calling on Fox News to sanction host Glenn Beck for repeated use of Nazi and Holocaust imagery and for airing attacks on World War Two survivor George Soros.
In an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp which owns Fox, the rabbis also demand an apology from Fox News chief Roger Ailes for characterizing Beck's Jewish critics as nothing more than "left-wing rabbis."
The letter will appear as an advertisement in the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal on Thursday for which the rabbis spent more than $100,000, a spokesman said.
A Fox News spokeswoman did not immediately comment.
In the letter, the rabbis cited "unacceptable attacks" by Beck against Soros, a billionaire financier who grew up in Nazi-occupied Hungary and is a frequent target of conservative commentators.
"And George Soros used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off," Beck said in November.
"Here's a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps. And I am certainly not saying that George Soros enjoyed that, even had a choice. I mean, he's 14 years old. He was surviving. So I'm not making a judgment. That's between him and God."
Beck, according to the rabbis, has made "literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom he disagrees," compares American leaders he does not like to Nazis and has said putting the "common good" first leads to "death camps."
"In the charged political climate in the current civic debate, much is tolerated, and much is ignored or dismissed," the letter said.
"But you diminish the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks, and it is not only 'left-wing rabbis' who think so."
THE violent and hate filled rhetoric from fox "news / "news" corp is disturbing, but what is even more disturbing is that so many Christians listen to this every single day, and do not object, do not speak out against it. It is completely acceptable for these people to search for and follow public personalities and media outlets that express their opinions, opinions that may be in complete opposition to current and proposed government policy, but those opinions should be expressed without images of violence, without the language of hate and prejudice. If these public personalities can't present their opinions and attitudes without threats of violence, without hatred and prejudice and fear mongering, then one has to wonder just how fact based, how honest their positions on the issues are. If violence and hate aren't enough to make Christians reconsider who they read, watch and listen to maybe possible dishonesty should be.....This from AlterNet......
The Fox News culture permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against deemed enemies.
Note: This is a re-post of a November 10, 2010 piece from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) which is particularly relevant to the conversation about the shooting spree in Arizona on Saturday. Bill O'Reilly's "joke" in November about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview.
During the cable channel's 2008 election coverage, in what she later called an attempt at humor, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta linked Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama as people who both should be assassinated:
And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.
A week before Trotta's "joke," Republican primary candidate Mike Huckabee was apologizing for his own Obama assassination quip. Addressing a gathering of the National Rifle Association, Huckabee joked that a loud thud heard backstage during his address was Barack Obama diving to the floor to avoid gun shots. Months later, Huckabee was given his own Fox News show.
With its biggest new star, Glenn Beck, Fox News hired a host well-known for on-air death fantasies--for instance, chattering about killing filmmaker Michael Moore with his bare hands and hoping out loud that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) would burn to death. In a Fox News skit in September 2009, Beck portrayed himself poisoning Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
It's a culture that apparently filters down to Fox News viewers and supporters. Over the years Fox Nation, the Fox News "owned and operated" fan website, has regularly featured comments expressing the desire to see Barack Obama's assassinated. News Hounds (11/8/10) published a collection of such quotes, some of which can still be read at on the Fox site. Fox Nation purports to be self-policing, to depend on readers to report inappropriate and irresponsible remarks for removal. Apparently presidential assassination fantasies fall short of Fox Nation's standards for inappropriate or irresponsible commentary.
Recent examples of these assassination fantasies on Fox Nation include comments calling for President Obama to "get what Kennedy got," for the CIA to "take this pres down" and a warning to the president that the Koran "ain't thick enough to stop a .308 round."
There is some evidence that Fox's murder fantasy culture has already helped to spark violent action. Reporting for Media Matters, journalist John Hamilton tells the story of Byron Williams, a Beck devotee who engaged in a shootout that injured two California Highway Patrol officers in July. After his apprehension, Williams told police he'd intended to travel Oakland California to kill people at the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU.
In a jailhouse interview in which he described the right-wing media sources that informed his views, Williams returned again and again to Glenn Beck:
I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind.
Among the things Beck did, according to Hamilton, was attack the Tides Foundation in 29 separate Fox News shows in the 18 months leading up to Williams' foiled mission to Oakland.
Moreover, as the ADL reports, Pittsburgh's Richard Poplawski was so inspired by Beck's anti-government conspiracy theories, he reposted to a neo-Nazi website tape of Beck suggesting the government was building concentration camps for dissidents--before he was arrested after a shootout with police that left three officers dead.
If this all wasn't so deadly serious it would be seriously funny, because O'Reilly has spent years accusing liberal and progressive websites of fomenting hate speech. O'Reilly's crusade largely targets the comment and open forum sections of such websites, highlighting comments that generally pale in comparison to those broadcast on Fox and posted on Fox Nation. To add to the irony, when O'Reilly is called out for failing to make distinctions between the editorial content and comment sections of these websites, he argues that the groups are responsible for everything on their websites:
Open forum is bull.... You can regulate what’s on your website.
When it comes to hypocrisy and Fox News, you really can't make this stuff up.
The hostility behind O'Reilly's creepy Milbank beheading joke was on display when the host appeared to make a veiled threat toward Milbank's boss in an appearance on another Fox show. Apparently angered that Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt permitted Milbank to publish columns critical of Fox News, O'Reilly had Fox host Megyn Kelly put a picture of Hiatt up on the screen, and told her audience:
This is the editor, Milbank's editor, Fred Hiatt. And Fred won't do anything about Milbank lying in his column. I just want everybody in America to know what the Washington Post has come to. All right, you can take Fred's picture off. Fred, have a nice weekend, buddy.
(Later in the same appearance, O'Reilly suggested that the host join him in physically assaulting Milbank: "I think you and I should go and beat him up.")
O'Reilly's veiled threat toward Hiatt recalls one made in a recent interview with an Australian paper by Fox boss Rupert Murdoch (Australian Financial Review, 11/5/10):
People love Fox News.... We said to the cable operators when we put the price up, we said, do you want a monument to yourself.... Cancel us, you might get your house burnt down.
