Alice in Foxland

By Capt. Fogg

When the Mad Hatter asks why a raven is like a writing desk, we recognize that the question is intentionally absurd.  What about the question of why Fox News seems to have given more coverage to the attack on the Benghazi embassy over 2 years ago than to anything in recent memory?  As it relates to the Republican refusal to allow spending on embassy security, we might as well find some connection to ravens and writing desks because the relentless hammering on the importance of  the incident isn't about the administrations "policies" as concerns terrorism, it's about Hillaryphobia. It's a coverup for their own negligence and misdeeds and failures. Steve Benin writes that the Fox aired nearly 1,100 segments over 20 months without any substantive revelations of any culpability and has yet to reveal any reasons to be horrified about anyone but the Republicans in Congress.  

I read in Media Matters that Foxed and Cloroxed host Elisabeth Hasselbeck tweeted the demand for the same transparency about Benghazi and the fake IRS scandal as we demand from the NFL.  Why is it so hard for the rear end of America to see the absurdity of this obsession, the need to connect everything to Benghazi and the cover-up that never was.

I could go on about the efficacy of the Big Lie, the oft-told lie, but  it doesn't help.  I had reluctantly to 'de-friend' someone I've admired on Facebook the other day, when he replied furiously to my comment that there was no scandal there and he'd have to come up with a better reason for his Obamabashing.  It won't be the last time I have to do that, I'm sure, because it's an article of faith that has to be protected from the heretical truth.

Is there a treatment for our national mental disease? Is everything  about Benghazi because nothing is about Benghazi?  Is it all because the people with desperate need to hate him and his party have such a hard time finding reasons after all these years of dire and disastrous predictions yet to come true? 

Why is Fox like a news network?  Like the Mad Hatter's riddle, it isn't a riddle at all.

Damn the lies

By Capt. Fogg


If some day someone erects a cenotaph somewhere in the arid and polluted desert that used to be called the United States of America; some inscription marking two vast and trunkless legs of stone, it should give credit to Fox News.  Amongst the other factors that contributed to the fall of "The Greatest Country there Ever Was" Fox must stand out -- Fox must at least be in gilded letters or garish neon lights, because no day and few hours have passed since its inception wherein some grotesque lie, libel or hyperbolic defamation designed to undermine truth, decency and democracy has failed to appear.

“If President Obama gets his way, the special voting rights of some of
America’s finest will be eliminated,” host Shannon Bream said Friday night. “The
campaign is suing to keep members of the military from having extra time
 to cast their ballots in one key battleground state.”

No it isn't.  The suit does not seek to impair voting rights for anyone but seeks to reinstate rights taken from the general population by the Republican controlled Ohio Legislature and if there were a God anything like the fire and brimstone scourge of iniquity people dream about, the earth would open up and swallow Ms. Bream, and Roger Ayres and Rupert Murdoch would become pillars of shit. 


The Suit by the Ohio Democratic Party and the Obama Campaign argues that Ohio's new law creates an unconstitutional tiered voting system, where early voting is only allowed for military personnel. As Jonathan Terbush writes at Raw Story:

"The suit would not prevent military members from, “having extra time” to
 vote, as the Fox report insinuated. Rather, it asks that the court, by
blocking enactment of the new law, reinstate the extra time all voters
used to enjoy for casting their ballots."

You may suspect that I've lost faith in this truth forsaken land and its lunatic tribes and you'd be close to the truth.  Our once powerful and always dishonest country won't be powerful forever nor will its self-righteousness last forever.  The worms, the maggots chewing on the gangrenous  flesh of America are employees of Fox and Shannon Bream is a liar -- if not damned by God, then at least damned by decency.  God damn Fox News. God damn them all to hell

Time to kick Fox out of the White House Press Corps

I'm serious. They kicked Helen Thomas out for less. Fox spewed four minutes of pure GOP propaganda into the airwaves yesterday morning. I would love for someone to explain to me why they should still have a seat in the front row after doing this:

With Mitt Romney now officially President Obama's opponent, it truly appears to be game on at the Fox News channel -- at least, if this morning's "Fox & Friends" is any indication.

Today's version of the morning show featured an anti-Obama video that resembled propaganda films from 1930's Europe more than it did responsible TV politics of today.

And the remarkable thing was the witless crew on the couch that serves as hosts for this show had the audacity to present it as journalism and congratulate the producer who put it together.

Fox claims Roger Ailes had no idea such a shamelessly partisan hit piece was in the works. If you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I can sell you at a bargain rate. Nothing happens at Fox and Friends that Roger doesn't know about. They didn't say anything he would find objectionable.

They will get away with making some junior associate producer the scapegoat. Maybe he'll even get fired instead of merely enduring a sternly worded reprimand. But that's not enough. The video can't be unseen. It has already done its damage to responsible journalism and the integrity of the electoral process. And as Oliver points out this Fox hit job is worth 100K of in-kind political contribution. Possibly more, since they aired the video twice.

Of course, the WHPC isn't going to be making a big deal about their "sister network" effectively acting as a media contractor for Mitt Romney's campaign. No one will even think of kicking Fox out of the front row, ironically a seat they only "won" after they all decided Helen Thomas committed a mortal sin by making one intemperate remark at a private event. A remark that only became public because somebody put a video on the internet and then Helen's "brothers and sisters" in the media joined in collective outrage and broadcast it all over creation. Hardly rises to the level of deliberately airing a virtual campaign ad, filled with false innuendo, to millions of viewers on an national TV.

So far, the worst thing that's going to Fox appears to be the junior producer lost a job offer at CNN. [More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Faster than a Godfather pizza delivery

Entirely predictable but at a speed which evokes the widower getting remarried the day after his wife's funeral, Herman Cain gets a Fox gig:

In the department of forgotten but not gone from the scene, Herman Cain appeared on Fox News' Sean Hannity show tonight, where it was revealed he'll be back next week to give his breakdown of this weekend's GOP debate.

Fox "News," wingnut welfare for those who aren't bright enough to snag a RW think tank sinecure.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

BillO assaults questioner

Resident Fox hothead Bill O'Reilly, king of the ambush interview, apparently doesn't like it so much when the shoe is on the other foot:



Have to love how BillO then complains to the cop after he struck the questioner with his umbrella. No doubt he was whining about being harassed over being asked one simple question.

Send in the clowns

Wondering why Iowa Republicans have been falling in and out of love with the goofiest of the clown candidates in the fail parade we call the 2012 GOP field? Well, The Caucus has a clue for us:

Among Republican voters in Iowa, nearly 40 percent say they get most of their news from the network and its many conservative hosts, according to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll. And among those viewers, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is trouncing Mr. Romney.

It's been called The "Fox News effect", the result of which "can be seen in the numbers: The network has interviewed Cain 63 times since he entered the race, and Gingrich has made 52 appearances." Which might explain why Cain was doing so well until his transgressions were too large for even Fox to spin away. Also explains Mitt's new interest in deigning to be interviewed there.

Of course, this is also more evidence that bolsters so many previous studies showing Fox viewers are the most uninformed or perhaps we can more kindly say misinformed, people in the civilized world.

Which reminds me. Somebody emailed a few months ago saying they were going to try to sue Fox for fraudulent reporting. Wonder what happened to that guy?

HIPPIES!

By Capt. Fogg

With the Florida Coven of the Republican Party making the Visigoths look like Cub Scouts these days; arguing that a prohibition of "Dwarf Tossing " is destroying American jobs, I think I'm more than justified in a certain lack of restraint when describing the moral character of that party as having everything to do with gaining power by any and all means, and having nothing whatever to do with making the US a real Democracy. These days it's as much about making the news a series of passion plays meant to obscure and often reverse the facts as it has been about suppressing votes and Gerrymandering.

The practice of dirty tricks has come a long way since Richard Nixon. Tricky Dick used the media to convince us that the media was lying and that the vast and silent majority was a small and unpatriotic minority. That hasn't changed. What has changed is the confidence level that allows them to strongly support something one day and denounce it in hyperbolic tirades on the next according to tactical needs.

It's possible to denounce Wall Street brokers and banks; insist that we let them die and scream about it in the streets with tea bags stapled to three-cornered hats, yet support the same corrupt and unpunished entities passionately by denouncing the same sentiments; associating them with "hippies" in fine old 1968 style two generations after the last real hippie got a haircut and went to work on Wall Street.

And yes, you're damned right that Fox News is the Joseph Goebbels of the new Right. You'll remember how ACORN was smeared and destroyed by patched together video, You'll remember fake video made to look like millions were at Republican rallies, but you're less likely to remember that fake video was used by Brit Hume to denounce Iraq war protesters in 2003 as "hippies" -- Protesting the Protesters documentary and other fake documentaries like Indoctrinate U that was intended to show how righteous "conservatives" were being censored at those hotbeds of hippieism, the Universities. You may then not be surprised that the same saboteur behind those atrocities, one Evan Coyne Maloney, has been at work on the sidewalks of New York, handing out rolling papers with pictures of Che Guevara and bongs so that the recipients can be filmed with them and another invidious documentary can be patched together so that we can be Foxed again.

Never mind that the streets are filled with veterans and economists, businessmen and others who demand respect and deserve to be heard, Fox wants them out of the way and can think of no better way than to dredge up hoary straw men in tie-died T-shirts. Look! that investment banker, that war veteran, that Nobel Prize winning economist: HIPPIES! COMMIES! DRUG FIENDS! HATERS OF OUR SACRED CAPITALIST VALUES!

Has any nation been able to stand; been able to avoid catastrophe, been able to maintain the illusion of freedom under such an internal assault?

The Sesame Manifesto

By Capt. Fogg

It's impossible for me to watch a Fox "panel" chew a story without thinking of an alligator feeding frenzy or a bunch of mean dogs fighting for possession of a bit of rawhide. Actually it's impossible for me to watch Fox News at all, but for those of a tougher breed, here's a prime example of the ruthless war on reality called Fox.

Listen carefully and you'll spot the message that Sesame Street aims at lower income, Urban kids and you'll smell the racism and you'll hear the Republican anthem that the fraction of a cent per taxpayer that this show costs is "on principle" too much and especially because it tries to elevate the underclasses in direct contravention of Divine Law and Ayn Rand, whichever is the more powerful.

Does anyone really believe that Big Bird is a Communist or that Sesame Street is ruining America and the morals of its children? (perhaps Doctor Spock fans can sigh with relief now that they've moved on to a new chew toy.)

Perhaps you do, perhaps you watch Fox anyway. Perhaps you're a malicious idiot with delusions of persecution, but here it is again:

Fox polarizes public for profit

I'm a bit late with this one, but it flew under the radar and deserves wider exposure. Quote of the day goes to Major Garrett, formerly of Fox News, for exposing the slimy underbelly of the Fox business model:

“For a certain amount of marketing points of view, Fox actually wants to keep that polarization and say, look, we’re different. ...That is an embedded part of the marketing that surrounded what happens at the news division at Fox that’s been incredibly successful. ...Keeping America divided through media polarization is FNC’s brand strategy."

Jason Easley aptly puts Garrett's full remarks in context:

"When Barack Obama talks about unifying America, he is threatening the very business model that Fox News is based on. Polarization and division are the heartbeat and lifeblood of Fox News. If America ever became more politically unified, FNC would go out of business. A suspicious and divided nation is good for FNC’s bottom line. Fox News does push the Republican agenda, and they do try to divide the nation, because that is how they make money. It’s not just about ideology and politics at Fox News. It’s also about profits, and when polarization stops being profitable, Fox News will cease to exist."

Of course, we all knew this to be true, but it's good to see Major confirm it, and on Morning Joe of all places.

Update: Post expanded. Inaccurate quote attribution corrected.

[Much thanks to Doug J at Balloon Juice for the link. Wish I had thought of that post title.]

Fox Judge Says Indict Bush and Cheney

You do have to wonder how long Fox News' Judge Andrew Napolitano is going to get to keep his job after giving this interview where he just trashes Bush and Cheney. Here's the best part.

Nader: What's the sanction for President Bush and Vice President Cheney?

Napolitano: There's been no sanction except what history will say about them.

Nader: What should be the sanctions?

Napolitano: They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. I'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. At least not an indictable crime. It's a moral crime.

Of course they will never be indicted in a court of law. But it's good to see them called to account in the court of public opinion, albeit far too late to do any good.

No joke: The backstory behind LL Cool J and Fox

You've probably heard about the fight between LL Cool J and Fox yesterday over the unauthorized use of ancient interview footage being used to promo Palin's new show. The cynic in me says Fox deliberately flubbed the promos to get more exposure. Which, as a quick check at Memeorandum confirms, they got in spades.

What you probably didn't hear is how Cool J found out about it. Thanks to commenter John W at Balloon Juice who flagged Shoq's post, it turns out that the tweeter known as @QuitPalin and his followers bombarded Cool J's feed asking him why he would appear on the show. Cool J tweeted back the next morning and voila - the story got real legs. For the record, I agree with Shoq that Angelo should have been given some credit for this story. And Fox should send him a thank you gift. Without his help, Cool J might not have tweeted and their trick wouldn't have worked.

Not that I think that's a bad thing. Personally I hope Palin's show is wildly successful. I'd love it if she became such a big Oprah style rock star that she no longer has time for paltry $100K political speaking engagements. Either way her success would be irritating on some level, but if she's just a TV personality it's only annoying. As a potential office holder and political promoter on the circuit, repeatedly inciting violent anger against liberals, she's damned dangerous.

Meanwhile, for you Twitter haters, at DetNews I explain how this proves Twitter is the best tool for activists.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Frum was right about Fox

Steve Benen catches a letter to the RNC mailing list that totally validates David Frum.

Just to be clear, this wasn't a personal endorsement from Steele. The email was sent to Republican donors, through the RNC, as part of an official RNC message. The email notes that it was "paid for by the Republican National Committee."

Isn't this a little odd? The RNC is using its list to urge Republicans to buy a book from an independent media personality?

I'd quibble a bit about calling Hannity "independent." It's clear he's been a GOP hack for many years. Of course he's supposed to be independent of political influence as a member of the media but we are talking about Fox. They might as well call that station GOP Spews.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Glenn Beck is a menace to civil society

You know I try to ignore Fox's favorite idiot pundit but his speech at CPAC keeps coming back to me. He's gone beyond relatively harmless kooky conspiracy theories into actively, if subliminally, promoting violence again. I hadn't realized how far he's taken this theme until David Neiwert assembled a video clip of six months worth of his subtle fomenting of hatred. I couldn't bring myself to watch it, but as Neiwert says about the CPAC speech:

To wild applause, [Beck] labeled this alleged tumor of "community;" the supposedly evil "progressivism" -- and he told disciples to "eradicate it" from the nation. [...]

What motivates this kind of talk and behavior is called eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

Beck is calling progressives a cancer on society. It doesn't take much imagination to envision one of his cultists acting literally on that eradication imagery in order to impress his "leader."

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Krugman smacks down Roger Ailes

Whoa. I love it when Krugman gets shrill. Killer slap at Faux News' Roger Ailes, sitting right next to him.



And I know it's shallow to mention it, but doesn't Ailes just look like a thug? He exudes this scum sucking parasitic fatcat vibe. Doesn't he look remarkably like Big Daddy Warbucks in the Orphan Annie comics? Or maybe Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The media is the money

So let me get this straight. Sarah Palin signs with Fox to be an on air personality and when she gives her $100,000 speech next month to the Tea Party convention, only Fox and their sister news org WSJ get media access? How rogue.

She's not running for president anymore. Everybody who predicted she quit progressing Alaska to get a juicy Fox contract -- wins.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

End Fox Noise

I've been neglecting my blogroll lately but thanks to Avedon, I didn't miss Ruth's excellent piece on how to end Fox Noise's infiltration into our public spaces. She's got some great advice on how to avoid being assaulted by their spew when you're traveling.

I'd note that Kevin is way ahead on this mission. He's on the road a lot and he won't spend money anywhere that has Fox running on a teevee in the place. More importantly, he tells the proprietor before he walks out that this is why he won't patronize their premises. It's the little things like this that add up. Thanks to both of them for showing us the way.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Fox News Amuses

News about Fox is amusing this week. Via Adam Howard, after being caught too many times, Fox News Threatens Pink Slips For On-Screen Errors. I take that to mean they had better get a little more subtle with those "inadvertent" mistakes.

But I guess whoever put together this segment didn't get the memo. I'm legendary for my lack of arithmetic skills, but even I could see the Fuzzy Math in this pie chart. Too funny.

And Goddess forgive me for taking delight in his misfortunes, but yet another sponsor drops out from the Beck hatefest which brings the grand total of lost advertisers to 89. Latest to pull their ads is Nestle. I'm assuming that was a high priced account. How much longer will Murdoch continue to subsidize his insane rodeo clown?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Fox Running Scared

Ha! I guess Fox is sick of being caught in doctoring their videos. They're trying to shut down the opposition.

But today, it appears that Fox News determined it was time to close this one-stop Liberal blog fodder shop: They sent more than 150 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube regarding Fox News clips on the News1News channel, said the channel's proprietor, John. (John, a doctor living in Washington, DC, didn't want his last name used.) This put the channel well over YouTube's controversial "three-strike" copyright violation limit. News1News was shut down, and John was inundated with emails from caffeine-addled bloggers asking, frantically, "what happened!?"

So now there are a bunch of blog posts on the internets that feature black screen YouTubes saying the content has been removed. But the effort is likely to be futile. Apparently John already launched an alternate channel and there are other GOP friendly channels still in operation that host the vids. Besides, everybody knows the snarkers of the intertoobz will not allow themselves to be silenced. They'll find a workaround. They always do. [via Progressive Pam]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

You Oughta Be in Pictures

Dozed off earlier and now I'm awake too late. Expect I'll be sleeping in, once I get back to sleep, so here's the early bird special. I'm ready to stop talking about Fox but Rachel did do a great segment on them tonight.




By the way, that whole story about Fox being shut out of interviewing the pay czar was a lie.

Meanwhile, the White House released a new official Obama family photo taken by Annie Leibovitz. I like it.

I didn't watch this yet, but I've heard that Michelle Obama rocked the house with her speech on health reform.

And Sweet Jesus Flying. This is why I got out of ballooning. For some reason, it became overrun with fundies. [via racymind]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Faux outrage of the week - Obama v. Fox

I'm really not getting the outrage over the White House pushing back against the disinfo being spewed daily by Fox and their right wing critics. The way the media and the wingnuts have been carrying on about it, you might think Obama was trying to shut down his critics altogether. Which is of course, not the case at all. First Amendment rights don't end at the White House door and the Obama team is using the F.A. exactly as it was intended, by countering bad speech, with good speech and lots of it. Their critics are still free to speak as well.

I got into an argument about it on Twitter with Jake Tapper yesterday morning. He pissed me off with his disingenuous posturing, first demanding I provide specific examples of Fox's mendacity and them mocking me for refusing to engage on those grounds. As if he doesn't really know what they do. Frankly, I think I won the argument but I didn't press it. I don't need to be validated by an admission of surrender.

In any event, Media Matters jumped in with a long and varied accounting of Fox mangling of facts, or as I like to call it lying, and I'm not the only one supporting the White House in this fight. The bottom line, as Atrios put it, is that people, and yes I'm looking at you Jake, pretending that Fox isn't the broadcast arm of GOP is not OK. I remain astounded that clearly intelligent people don't see how excusing Fox mendacity destroys the credibility of the whole traditional media. Which is pretty shaky already.

Boggles the mind but in any event, ranggrol digs out one of my favorite MMFA mash-ups. Really, some people -- they just don't get it.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]