CATO is a lot like Fox News in that they are really "think tanks," or rather propaganda machines, that are paid to work backward from the point of view that conservative policies are fantastic then produce a product that is supposedly "unbiased." However, with a smack of intellect anyone can see they are fudging their numbers / playing word games.
The sad fact of the matter is that 2 million some Americans will watch this Fixed News crap and love it and call it "credible" no matter how many racist witch hunts they engage in.
The very essence of capitalism keeps them alive; CEO Rodger Ailes has committed to making a billion dollars a year with Fox News & Fox News Talk and so far he done exactly that. Trouble is the way he is making that much money with just broadcasting platforms.
It's bully-tactics applied to news, and something called "oppositional journalism" that was unknown to cable news until these bastards came to town.
I enjoy what Bill Press said about Fox News:
"If one more person complains to me about Rupert Murdoch [or Rodger Ailes] I'm going to scream! We on the left need to start our own Rupert Murdoch."
I've been saying the same for years: money is going to decide The News Wars.
Progressives need some ultra rich backer doing media-battle with Murdoch to even things out a bit.
Microsoft is the man behind the curtain at MSNBC and Monsanto the man behind the curtain at PBS.
So there is room for a truly "progressive network" to do our own "news."
Ailes said that he believed it "accurate" to compare to this administration to that of Stalin or Hitler, or his words leave the question hanging as it is obvious to anyone that Beck was not speaking in a past tense of historical nature but in a wild-eyed screaming call to the present situation. Rodger Ailes lied on ABC airwaves in saying that Beck was talking about "Stalin and Hitler" when he spoke of "leading people to the slaughter."
I could by the same tokens that Glenn Beck tosses around say that Rodger Ailes & Fox News are leading us to slaughter. Slaughter of the truth, slaughter of free speech, slaughter of ethical journalism. If Rodger Ailes truly supports the insane logic of Glenn Beck then surely he still understands the need to balance out perspective and provide everyone the opinion of people who think that they are the ones destroying America and intentionally creating fear and hate for the sake of sheer greed. Would that not be "fair and balanced"?
Ailes also created a false apology from Glenn Beck, that never happened. Glenn Beck never apologized for spreading racist lies about an elected leader of the United States of America, he only apologized for his phrasing and inserted literally the exact wording I used when mocking him here on the internet; almost verbatim.
Beck never apologized for what offended so many on many sides of politics, and we are supposed to believe that begging the same race baiting line of questioning is some kind of "apology"!?!
Rodger Ailes lied once again, in a very tight time constraint, to defend Glenn Beck from facing the truth and the light of day.
This would be very much like if I called it an "apology" to just repost "Did Glenn Beck Commit a Murder-Rape in 1990?" & links to GB1990.com and at the top of the post just inserted: "I phrased myself poorly before but this issue is very important and I think needs a serious discussion."
One matter was settled though: Fox News is not a news agency.
When the president of an outfit states that he is "not in the news business, he is in the ratings business" then it proves case-and-point exactly what I, and many others, have said for a very long time: Fox "News" is not news, it's just pure entertainment from every last inch of it right down to the news tickers.
It's like a window into what it's like to be a conservative for the sake of pure entertainment, and nothing more. Like an episode of "Lost" or watching "Family Guy" it is just a big bunch of fun ... but when you really get down to it, it's pure fiction just built to get ratings.
I'm glad that Rodger Ailes was honest to this regard, at least. Because he most certainly is not in the news business.
"You save that for your friends on the other channels."
"Fox News has it fair and balanced, as always."
This interview / clash is a perfect example of why Fox News is most certainly not a bipartisan source of news.
Kelly literally shouts-down Burton as if it was talk radio, and then repeats the corporate motto like a good little Fox-minion.
I have been a long-time viewer (on and off) of Fox News and they have never been "fair and balanced." Recently they have become nothing more than the media-wing of the GOP; these people make up the “news” to suit their now very obvious political agenda.
I love how they all try to excuse their lack of evidence by the fact that their are a million-plus viewers of Fox.
As if their credibility record and their ratings scores are one and the same. It's just pure comedy to this as the retort from the Fox News Loyalists.
Almost everything Megyn Kelly said in fact applies were I to be speaking to the network-at-large:
You just keep attacking the truth, I'll just keep defending the truth.
You save this racist code language & these fearmonger-screeds for your friends in the White Supremacy movement and the zany antics of talk radio, where it belongs.
No element of Fox News, Fox News Talk, & the NY Post is in any way "fair and balanced." False advertising from the top-down. The network can repair it’s image by simply stating itself to be in favor toward the anti-Obama movement and in disfavor of the liberal-progressive movement. It is that simple.
And you guys just can't help yourselves, you just can't stand to ethical when being unethical is just so much more provocative!
Fox News has a long way to go before it can say it does anything but promote preconceived notions as reality and sell a pro-conservative, anti-Obama narrative.
These neoconservatives always talk about the "media is in the tank for Obama" but not one of them is willing to address just how heavily Fox News is in the tank for Palin / McCain / Bush / Cheney. They won't even address all these times when clearly, under review, Fox News failed to cover the story with the widely available credible evidence and footage.
Dishonesty and misinformation are the currency Fox News chooses to deal in.
Partisanship and political pandering is all the other networks are guilty of.
Add to that the matter of the New York Post being taken to court over allegations of promoting a hostile environment toward African-Americans and promoting a workplace environment friendly to sexual harassment and you have some of the final elements of this puzzle that the people at Fox Broadcasting are trying their hardest to scramble up before anyone takes a close look.
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If I spread enough American Flags and say "God" enough times on this weblog, will I also be unchallengeable in the value in all of my blog-content and all of my internet-claims?
I'd like that very much.
If that were so it would be pure statement of fact to say that TEA Party members mainly did not vote in the Presidential 2008 Election.
I like where this is going…
Drudge is no good! (Then everyone just ignores Drudge from here out because I said so.)
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Who the heck started The News Wars, anyway?
Oppositional Research certainly didn't start with Fox News, but they most certainly fired the first shot in this "war" of the commercialized-news.
What I detect is the same thing again and again that I heard expressed by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC:
"When we do, we're cool, but when you do you're Hitler." (In regards to some of Glenn Beck comments)
When they bring in oppositional researcher--Inside Edition smear merchant--Bill O'Reilly in and start letting him call himself a "journalist," the dam began to crack and when a Democratic President took office we then finally saw the true colors of Fox Broadcasting Company.
They will use any tactic they see fit to push through their political-social agenda and when called out on their actions they intend to label all who point out their inaccurate & biased coverage as the source of the problem instead of focusing on the issue.
An example: When I used a Beck-tactic on my weblog, and clearly labeled it as "satire," some people took huge offense and some tried to claim I was using the very tactic of "defamation" that I was decrying so often.
But it's a "comedic roast" on Glenn Beck, nothing more.
It was a "joke" when I said you should tell everyone.
The only reason I did it, is to show how very easy it is to just throw around wild rumors and place anybody you want on the “hot-seat” to explain themselves.
Some people were trying to say to me in course of throwing up red flags as Glenn Beck crusades against America that it: “doesn‘t matter.”
Oh, it matters. Who will they come after next? Who is the next target for them to demonize and spin? Maybe tomorrow it will be just everyone who is not in a “tea party” who is a “racist,” trying to “destroy” this nation with “socialism / communism.” If one dares to even call themselves a Republican instead of TEA Party or Conservative Party then they will have the attack-dogs unleashed to sew fear about them?
Opinions are great, but pure political-extremism combined with the bitter rejection of looking at the issue from multiple sources of information gathering is just plain willful ignorance. Not an opinion. Glenn Beck is an enabler for fringe anti-government groups, anti-black groups, anti-liberal groups and other hate-based organizations.
I once said I might sot down and talk broadcasting with him and other of the conservative-media feed. I take it back.
I have nothing to learn from these broadcasting-jackals that I could not learn reading Mad Magazine or listening to late-night AM Radio.
...
The News Wars started before there even was such a beast as MSNBC to bite back at that wild dog of "Fox News."
The News Wars started with people like me, and much more importantly people like LiberalViewer, who spoke truth to network-power and demanded better coverage from any network that would make such a bold claim as to be "fair & balanced news."
It may not be clear to millions of Americans what a "fabricated conspiracy theory" is, exactly.
But it is perfectly clear to me.
Barack Obama is no more a "socialist," than George W. Bush is a "fascist."
If people in the public insist on extremist labeling then so be it, but no recognized network should be promoting this notion that extremist political labeling is an action of "fairness" or an element of "balance."
I have put on my "Colbert-suit" for a blog post, or two.
They circulated (to the best of my knowledge) in conservative-internet circles rather quickly.
But if I mimic the vile tactics of their new poster-boy Glenn Beck, I am a naughty & vile person.
I believe my form of internet-satire has some small value only that I will admit outright that is satire thereby meaning entirely ambiguous information. However, I believe I will lean away from internet-satire in that it goes greatly misunderstood even when clearly declared as just pure hyperbolic nonsense.
Unbeknownst to them of course that the one they were linking to would much such statements as:
I recently checked the pay-outs to Democrats versus Republicans in terms of Monsanto campaign slush-money, and while the totals are not significant the individual contributions to Congressmen are quite significant.
Two Democratic Congressmen took $500 each, one from my home state, and two Republican took $10,000+ each. Both in states where the corn market is more significant to the "big-agriculture" industry.
The fact remains that Canada has discussed banning the use of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in their food and Britain has a labeling procedure in place while North America continues to ignore the matter by and large.
Like many of a somewhat scientific persuasion, I believe further research is needed on the usefulness of GMOs and primarily concerned the matter of the repeated failure to disclose both sides of the story on the matter by major news outlets across the U.S.
I see now the great failing in alarmism and it more important to have a public making informed decisions on matters regarding our food, or even matters regarding our health care insurance, rather than being given misleading and omitted coverage from any news group.
It is important to note in a discussion of media-finance and corporate hush-money that the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) recently started receiving corporate-donations from Monsanto. I am of the persuasion to believe that an entity like PBS would likely graciously turn down the money if only they had the public support in donations to do such a thing.
As it stands PBS remains a credible news source despite some amount of corporate funding and Fox (News Corp) is the least credible of any television broadcasting to date.
The Anti-Defamation League has joined with me in trying to raise awareness over a violent propagandist spreading anti-Americanism on a low credibility network.
Glenn Beck's linkage of Hitler's plan to round up and exterminate Jews with Al Gore's efforts to raise awareness of global warming is outrageous, insensitive and deeply offensive. Unfortunately, his remarks are just the latest example of a troubling epidemic on the airwaves, where comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust are becoming all-too facile.
It has become almost commonplace for talk-show pundits to use comparisons to the Holocaust and Nazi imagery to attack people whose views they disagree with, whether the issue is global warming or immigration, as we witnessed when CNN's Lou Dobbs recently suggested on his program that immigrant rights groups use tactics similar to those of Nazi propagandists.
The six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of Hitler deserve a measure of respect. Their deaths should not be used for political points or sloganeering. Every time a radio or television personality takes that unique event in history and twists it for their own political agenda, it cheapens the public debate and distorts and trivializes the Holocaust.
It is more important than ever before to speak openly about the culture of dishonesty, fear and violence promoted by the likes of Glenn Beck and held in place by the likes of Fox Broadcasting Company.
The element to understand here is that there will always be some wild shock-jock to spread falsehoods, incite fear and violence, scare the public with fabricated theories, and just plain be an unpatriotic American.
These shameful people who commited a propaganda campaign against the poor and against blacks just got finished being soft-ball interviewed by Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity.
These people both lied on this same exact program in regards to the matter of being asked to leave ACORN offices in the process of their so-called "expose" which was in fact a racist-propaganda crusade funded by anti-Obama dollars.
These are the elements in which I would say that the Fox Broadcasting Company is not a "news agency" and is rightly banned from the White House press-pool.
This radical right wing lobby has proven its anti-society stance in that it refuses to retract the lies of O'Keefe and Giles even with hard evidence of this being part of the story at this stage. This group of anti-American slander artists are promiting the worse kind of coverage one could possibly create.
This agency may have bits and fractions of non-biased journalism but when a story that hurts their political agenda rears its head they care nothing for covering the facts and keeping the guests honest.
These people are enemies of American families and enemies of the truth.
O'Keefe and Giles claim to have a "new video" coming out that Sean Hannity "can't wait to see." No doubt more anti-black propaganda designed specifically to wage war on the poor.
There are not strong enough words to express my distaste for these spreaders of ungodly and racist lies in the public, and then to have this carade of a man on his comedy-program disguised as a news show still refuse to retract their venomous lies.
It is obvious that Fox News is an enemy of the truth and an enemy of the poor. Shame on their false-Christian network.
Pretty much since the thing started I have been a member of Alan Colmes’ website “Liberaland” as the user: EricG.
Both this username and all other usernames I create linked to my email have been deleted, or so it would seem.
Recently, I have tried posting on this website under my Facebook account under different usernames. All these attempts at posting on the this supposedly “come one, come all” political-talk website have been removed by website moderators, or so it would seem.
I seem to be free to access the Alan Colmes' Facebook page, as of now, and comment in that fashion rather than on the original blog post.
I sent an angry email that I already feel bad about. The Alan Colmes Radio Show is one of the few worthwhile programs on all of Fox News Talk, entirely thanks to the primary author of the blog in question. In terms of confronting real social issues and covering politics, I have no issue whatsoever with Alan Colmes or his website.
What I am saying is rather simple: warn me or block me. Don’t let me post my truthful thoughts and then continuously delete all my comments because I expressed opinions you didn’t enjoy. (Not like web-admins give a damn anyway.)
This is very much like my problems with Fox News (that seem to be the real reason I am being moderated while neoconservatives are perfectly welcome) in that it is fine to be exclusionary and rigid in your website / radio show / television show but completely dishonest and completely unethical to claim you have open doors when in fact you close them shut if you see specific issues being brought to the forum.
The Alan Colmes Radio Show is another matter entirely.
If I want to whine in Alan’s ear about this later tonight, nothing is stopping me.
If you call that show, most likely, you will be on Fox News Talk not long thereafter. Alan puts everyone on the air, just about.
I commend his radio efforts, fully.
However, I warn other liberal-bloggers out there that you may be moderated in your comments as I have and fed the round-about in terms of the whole matter.
I am not removing Alan Colmes from my Blogroll, but I might suggest only that the website is not as much as an open-forum on politics & issues as my own blog is. Which is a shame because it is an excellent website in every other respect.
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The unspoken big rule here is:
Don’t talk about the network.
Hush child.
Didn’t you hear? Fox News and Fox News Talk are not held accountable to the public like the rest. They get a special pass to spread misinformation, misquote former-presidents, spread hatred and race bait.
Here is what disturbs me:
Liberalism is about speaking truth to power.
So what does one do when that power is wielded by the network?
I’m supposed to ignore that, am I?
No thanks. I love this country and love the truth too much to stand silent as a radical right-wing lobby disguised as a news network lies to public in every promo, in every slogan, and in any possible clever way they can.
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It is always possible I am mistaken, but I believe “Liberaland” has become one more Fox News Apologist Hotbed. You are welcome to come and chat stream or comment on a post, but if you want to talk about Fox News or any version of it you will be pulled without notice.
I suppose I am making a Net-Neutrality argument more than I am trying to drive anyone away from a fun blog. Hardcore Net-Neutrality, though, it most certainly is not.
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I cannot control another’s work nor would I want to, but my weblog is entirely open-forum and I practice Net-Neutrality. The only thing I truly moderate would be spam and the incitement of violence against others. As you may or may not have noticed, I have comments of all types of opinions other than my own approved. I leave them open as long as possible and try to reply to everyone.
I can claim the “come one, come all” were I ever to promote this website the way Alan Colmes does on his Fox Radio time-slot.
This is also true of his radio show as well.
But my experiences with his website are more like: “come here, go away.”
Perhaps they should re-name it: “Don‘tTalkAboutFoxLand”
…
It just rings to me of this Fox-Conservative way of politics and dealing with people:
You came come in the tent and even not fawn all over me too, but if you say certain things I believe are not true with stern conviction then you are banned.
And like I’ve said before many times: you just hear people out and if they have nothing but flames to share they have nothing to say and the people who are making fact-based arguments that you don’t like are very, and obviously, different from screaming nut-jobs.
Anyway, that’s my beef. I feel it to be a very dishonest thing to do.
Some people do need to be called out when they have the facts plain wrong and refuse to even address the matter rationally, but they are merely misinformed and adamant about remaining as such.
None of this involves throwing them out of the tent. It’s more about addressing matters like Joe Wilson’s unpatriotic outburst and venomous tongue, and the blind-hatred stewed up for liberals everywhere than it is about whatever the tea-baggers have to say.
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This is just my little internet-tale of woe.
It is a minor one, at that.
Chances are they want me transferred to the Facebook section of his internet handiwork because I am a self-admitted “radical.”
Radical peace and radical disarmament.
So all this label-bashing coming from the people that Alan Colmes sits across the table from on Fox News applies to me just fine.
Here I am destroying his whole point about “liberals are not radicals.”
I realized long ago there are many definitions and degrees of liberalism.
I guess I am just too liberal for Liberaland these days.
So be it.
=========================================
UPDATE:
Joel, the moderator who "could give a damn" according to me, has sent me an email that closes the matter for me.
If anyone reads my comments you'll see this was what I was asking for the moment they started treating me differently than the other users of the website.
Joel is a good man. I wish him well.
Here are his words to me:
Eric, You’re not helping your case by falsely claiming that you were banned because of comments about Fox. That claim is easily disproven by countless posts that have been allowed – and continue to be allowed – on Alan.com by people of all views about the network. You were warned that you were crossing the line on a post that had absolutely nothing to do with Fox. When another commenter mentioned that to you on another post, after you again went overboard, your response – instead of considering whether your own behavior was appropriate – was to make a personal insult about me. Obviously you have no interest in civil discourse, so your comments are no longer welcome.
Joel
We see here that he is stating that I am indeed banned but I have posted recently and admitted to my bad behavior.
Essentially I forgot that it wasn't time to impersonate Glenn Beck and I should reserve such banter for this website.
The truth is I was out of line in the first place, but I have also endured vicious attacks on that same website.
One does not negate the other any more than my feelings of justification only in my anger over the hate I allowed myself to spew forth.
This blog posting exists only to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. I don't claim to know the truth of this matter. I only claim to know of a rumor floating around saying that Glenn Beck committed a murder-rape, and I believe that this should be discussed. So I, along with others, are going to do our part to get to the bottom of this.
I'm not saying I think he did it. I, in fact, think he is innocent of these serious criminal charges.
I'm saying that we should discuss this seriously as a nation and people should ask your friends, your boss, and your colleagues.
The Freedom of Speech must be heard over this specific matter. The voice of the people must come to be known throughout the United States on this very serious national issue we all face.
GREGORY:"Is it [the right-wing conspiracy] still there?"
CLINTON:"Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was, .. I mean, they're saying things about him [Obama] -- you know, it's like when they accused me of murder and all that stuff they did,"
I agree with the former president's assessment that we have changed demographically as a nation and that the virulence of the right-wing smear factory is as virulent as ever, but Clinton failed to touch on two critical points surrounding this current crusade of baseless slanders against these two democratically elected leaders.
Point One: The major platform to carry the broken logic of these claims was primarily talk radio when Clinton held the White House. Today these same kind of untrue slanders are carried by FOX News Talk Radio, FOX Cable News, and other talk mediums that include satellite broadcasting which did not even exist within the time he was in office. Then add on top of that a new spinster has come to rival Rush Limbaugh: Glenn Beck.
Point Two: The McCarthyist and anti-democratic rhetoric coming from the right-wing did not start until several years into the Clinton presidency but have begun almost immediately in the Obama presidency. Likely he seeks to try to disempower the media-jackals of FOX News, by evading the heart of the matter of the foundationless smears directed against President Obama he trying to avoid giving them bait.
But it must be said, these smears have propagated themselves in much more virulent manner and much sooner than they did for Clinton. It took them years to get around to accusing him of anything even half as extreme as some of the myths about Obama that have been floated around from several months back. What is worse is the very foundation of this conspiracy is not the same as the one that attacked Clinton. Only the tactics and one of the actors (Limbaugh) remain from that old sideshow.
This is far, far worse and I can not label it anything less than fundamentally un-American. It seeks to undermine our very system of democracy and our very system of public discourse.
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The government is trying to kill you and everyone not with you is a "shill".
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Or ... if it's not the wild conspiracy theories of those like Alex Jones, it's the equally wild claims of those like Glenn Beck.
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The government is trying to control your life and everyone who doesn't think so is a "Marxist".
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All of this is simply designed to sow fear and distrust for both anyone who supports any not of their opinion then simultaneously spread fear about the government at-large. In a democratic society we cannot afford to simply forgo coming to the table to discuss our positions with facts and reason then replace this with media-crusades and continuous vicious untrue labeling without dire consequence. Those who refuse to educate themselves except from known liars need to be recognized as dealt with non-credible.
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The insidious plot that is in play here is of another caliber entirely.
A certain element of racism exists not just in what Jimmy Carter said about some white people in the US not feeling a black man should lead this great nation, but also within this intense rush to judgment of Barack Obama in terms of the full scope of his presidency.
The matter of those on the right who wished to keep their children home from school because Obama would address the class in a video is more short-term example of this same rush to negative judgment.
I personally will allow no person to wrap themselves in this claim that anyone is saying that everyone anti-Obama is by value of that a racist.
What is disturbing is the number of people who obviously have never looked into what people are calling "racist" or "racialist" on the left but truly have a high level of indignation more about the fact that the issue is being discussed than anything else.
To not even entertain thought long enough to form any kind of argument begs the question if they are within heavy stages of denial.
Make no mistake, once these neo-conservatives no longer have an enemy to publicly defame and lie about they will go right back to trying to get people to vote for The Republican Party.
Wallace attempted to defend the ACORN slander atrist, James O'Keefe III, by repeating false claims that have irrefutable evidence stating otherwise.
As is the par for the course, nobody cares to speak out against these truth-spinners and defenders of McCarthyism in the US.
MediaMatters.org has covered the story far better than I ever could hope to, but I think it needs to be understood that when FOX News reports via Megyn Kelly that O'Keefe and Giles were in fact asked to leave ACORN offices, while O'Keefe and Giles have previously denied these claims on the air of FOX News, it is the obvious responsibility of Chris Wallace to inform you of this lack of credibility native to these people along with any other claims or assertions he would like to make.
That failure to report this information, and the failure of FOX News to hold their employees responsible, is an affront to American democracy as much as it is to journalism in the modern age. If these people continue to lie to the public there may need to be some serious consideration made toward the goal of civilly disrupting and peacefully dismantling an agency dedicated to spreading misinformation, racist sentiments and un-American propaganda.
.. Carter, who said racism accounts for most criticism of Obama, but says "That's not what's driving" Obama's detractors ..
Words are important. To lie about the words of a former United States President, even in a cable news-ticker, is an insult to this nation and there is no doubt to me that this is far from some minor accident.
Look carefully at that sentence.
The whole statement is designed to make Jimmy Carter look like he is talking in circles, when in fact the FOX News organization is using their own language "most criticism" to put words in Carter's mouth. A shameful and un-American thing to do.
Carter was quite clear and not all ambiguous like the false and downright slanderous FOX News-version of events.
The words are "intense animosity", not "criticism". And "overwhelming portion", not "most".
Jimmy Carter can defend himself. I will not dissect every angle of this for the sake of this singular posting.
I am simply saying you look at the words someone spoke for what they are, not twist them around until they say what you want them to say.
And it amounts to a simple, and for some hard to accept, fact:
FOX News is in the business of promoting and advocating racist ideals in the US.
Until I see clear examples of the end of their unwillingness to accurately report on scandals like ACORN, the controversy over Jimmy Carter's words or something to the issue of finally questioning the wisdom in keeping an avowed racist like Glenn Beck on the payroll, I see no reason to think or say otherwise.
There are some good people who work at FOX News. But there are good people who work at the IRS, too.
In this age of misreported facts and ‘gotcha-journalism' those who claim to hold the truth dear and have a love for American democracy would do well to take note of these modern propagandists and spreaders of lies.
1. James O’Keefe III
2. Hannah Giles
3. Andrew Breitbart
4. Mike Flynn
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles have both lied on the air of the FOX News show “Hannity” regarding the issue of being asked to leave from ACORN offices in the process of their film making.
The Philadelphia ACORN office is on record as filing a police report against O’Keefe and Giles for misrepresenting themselves and making illegal requests.
O'KEEFE:“In none of the facilities -- none of the facilities kicked us out. That's a lie.”
BREITBART:“There's no place, as ACORN tried to state, that kicked them out based upon the premise that they were doing something nefarious.”
Both Breitbart and O’Keefe reveal in their quotes that they have no credibility behind their case. They claim ACORN is a “criminal organization” but engaged in illegal videotaping to produce these videos and have made baseless slanders against ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis even as the people in question have been fired for their actions caught on tape.
Were it the goal of these people to see quality, ethical journalism they would not misrepresent themselves nor place a blanket charge of criminality to the entire organization by value of the misdeeds of a few.
These slander artists are clearly seeking to destroy an organization based on political and possibly racial motives, and are clearly not invested in uncovering malpractice for the betterment of the community.
O’Keefe has been asked to leave the Leadership Institute after taping phone calls with Planned Parenthood representatives in which he made the proposition of a possible donation under the condition the money would go toward an abortion of a black child.
James O’Keefe has expressly chosen to target a group that helps mainly impoverished blacks living in the inner-city. He has a record of creating disgusting racial sentiments in his own mind and then imposing that racist view to any person unlucky enough to answer his phone call. There is no small amount of evidence to assume that O’Keefe harbors ill will toward African-Americans.
It is also very likely that this story has been picked up but poorly reported on by certain media figures because of a strong desire to connect President Barack Obama with ACORN’s problems.
If these same newsmedia-types were to convey that the credibility of these film makers is below even the lowest measuring bar I might not call them biased, but to me it just proves once more that bias against the truth is one of the strongest factors present in the news media today.
Joe Conason quite clearly lays out that this has been exaggerated from the very beginning, that ACORN helps struggling families, and stating the fact that ACORN has never been found guilty of any voter registration fraud.
Andrew Breitbart, on the other hand, produced a piece on RealClearPolitics that touts the entire slander crusade as courageous. Breitbart is quite clear that he stands with the McCarthyist tactics involved in the Van Jones resignation.
I see the same anti-American tactics at play in this un-Christian and ungodly campaign against minorities and against all of the poor. These people care nothing for the hard facts, and only care to paint others with a brush of guilt by association.
If one person is guilty of something in an ACORN office, they all are guilty in all ACORN offices. Evidence and solid proof be damned!
There is a strong value in good investigative journalism, but no value in anti-minority slander campaigns.
The people in the videos were dismissed and this in itself was a small service to ACORN, however the purpose of the video series was never to improve ACORN but rather to destroy it. Rather than balancing the matter with facts and open disclosure of the footage, these slander artists have elected to lie about the number of times they were asked to leave. This in itself calls to question if they have any desire to cover the story or if they merely wish to present this as irrefutable case of corruption regardless of solid facts.
The American Media also failed utterly to convey this story in full.
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show jumped on board the ACORN smash-wagon.
The Washington Post has ignored the fact that O’Keefe and Giles previously claimed they were never turned away from any office.
FOX News (to my knowledge) has made no effort to obtain the police report, in the procession of CNN, to refute the on-air claim that they were never asked to leave any ACORN office.
And I won’t even get into the matter of the numerous outright lies told on the radio.
I believe this story is an excellent example of how easy it is to besmirch and publicly defame a group.
On that topic, the group Live Action that O’Keefe belongs to is a corrupt organization that uses racial entrapment to levee false claims against innocent citizens. This possibly criminal organization apparently promotes illegal videotaping, dishonest conduct when speaking with the press and engages in false advertising of it’s purposes and functions.
This group is dangerous to our country, dangerous to our communities and dangerous to our democracy. Live Action films is an agent of propaganda and an actor in baseless public defamation.
James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles, Mike Flynn and Andrew Breitbart are currently invested in actions aimed against the well being of the community and against the well being of the poor.
I cannot remain silent as this group of vile individuals wage war against the needy and seek to destroy a community-based group that lends aid to others, rather than seeking to improve it.
I well aware of how vastly arrogant my headline for this post is.
I’m not a TEA Party ("Taxed Enough Already") person, nor a right-winger, nor a libertarian, nor a fringe radical. But I actually pay attention to both sides of the political spectrum, in fact all sides of the political spectrum, and I do it on my own without relying on the work of others to decipher it all for me.
I am stepping outside of my ‘box’ here, but what I’m telling you is based off of real comments of real people who didn’t get paid more if they screamed louder or lied harder.
And these people enraged with everything Obama does or says did not vote. Period.
They all sat home and decided that it was all a wash. Or the vast majority of them did at least. Maybe a few voted for the anti-American psychopath Alan Keyes.
Now Obama came out to say, in a very clever way, that the animosity against him is political and not racial.
I think very likely this is, for the most part, completely accurate.
A lot of these people are so angry because they didn’t vote. And that’s really it. There isn’t a lot more to understand.
Sure they are ‘anti-government‘, but not really. They are only anti-government when the government is run by mainly Democrats and their hatred for the government dissolves as soon as the Republicans are in power. It’s laughable and complete partisanship, but also not racist in any form.
The issue of this modern strain of racism is far more subtle and far more disguised than something so simple as overt anti-black statements.
This is part of why the rightwing cannot process the words of Jimmy Carter.
His courageous words involved looking at the world in more than a black-and-white, on-and-off, bumper sticker mentality. One must dabble in nuance and undercurrents to come to this conclusion.
It’s rather simple:
Some white people in this country are not willing to share power with non-whites.
If you actually read Carter’s comments, that is exactly what he said.
And it would be deplorable and insane if President Barack Obama was going to back up the words of Jimmy Carter. That would be completely wrong-headed and bad for the country.
So this whole issue has been a-swing-and-a-miss in terms of the conservative response to these charges. They constantly imply that Carter said that all rejection of Obama is based on race and everyone political knows that such a statement is completely false.
This example here of the TEA Party people and how they in fact placed no trust in democracy whatsoever during the election and then want to place faith in democracy through protest at this stage is just one of many examples that shows that it‘s not all racial motives.
Basically they came late to table and that’s part of their extreme bitterness. They are quite angry with themselves for the nonsense they were spouting, that I was listening to, that voting was completely pointless. Now they really wish they had gotten out there.
The big point a lot of people on the left fail to make about all this is that it is the failure to reject racialists like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and the failure to reject McCarthyist claims, that started long before Glenn Beck started repeating them, is the best example of racism in The Republican Party.
The howling silence from major ticket Republicans in regards to race-baiting and McCarthyism running wild in their party is pretty much the best evidence that exists that not only was Carter right, he understated the problem.
But I’m no brazen fool, I know exactly what I’m asking the GOP to do. I want them to throw away the Southern White Racists and throw away the White Nationalists, both of which really do vote Republican. So my request is for them to throw away votes.
And they won’t do that. Especially not now that they are wounded, limping party relying on media hounds to do CPR to their wrinkled husk.
But it’s about doing what is right for the country even when that might not be what is best for the party.
And this complete unwillingness to even admit that a boil of festering racism exists upon the fringe of the rightwing, makes me think that perhaps this veiled racism against any non-white leadership is actually present in a vast majority of cases.
Something Carter never said. Something I’ve never heard anyone say whatsoever.
But when many people won’t even explain why they believe Carter was mistaken and all they do is engage in bigoted insults against him, misrepresent what he said and just plain arrogantly insult anyone who backs Carter up; it truly does the beg the question if they just view the matters from a different lens or if they actually are so enraged because they know these statements are true and cannot abide by it being discussed openly in public.
Today on The Drudge Report we see the latest example of bias and slander against the president by means of using a misleading photo of Barack Obama above the title of the wbsite.
ABC has the whole video, in which you can see what truly transpired.
Yahoo News is where the link provided by Drudge leads you, but the headline "The Second Stimulus" has nothing to do with the article on Yahoo from which this image originated from.
Mike Drudge knows exactly what he is doing by only posting that photo above and then linking into an article that not enabled with the video version thus the 'whole story.'
It is clear to me, and everyone who did more than giggle at the cover piece, that Drudge will use any excuse to slander and degrade the image of President Barack Obama. Even at the cost of his own credibility.
It was in fact Sarkozy taking a look at the young lady's behind, and not Obama. But such facts mean nothing to people care to do nothing but demean Obama's character with their every breath.
The only person affliated with FOX News to accurately report on this issue has been Greta Van Susteren. Further enforcing the concept that FOX News is a network mainly dedicated to this style of misleading coverage of news events and utterly biased content.
In terms of criminal responsibility to Bill O’Reilly or FOX Broadcasting in the murder of Dr. George Tiller, I can see none.
In terms of moral and civic responsibility, I see plenty. I believe it to a shameful state of affairs in America today that I am a ‘far left’ blogger for demanding responsible broadcasting and moral standards in addressing social issues like abortion and women’s reproductive health. The crazies will do what they do.
Bill O’Reilly is not responsible when a lunatic reads his book and murders fourteen people in a church, nor is he responsible when a man watches his broadcasts and goes out and kills a man over it. In a legal sense this is true. In a moral sense Bill O’Reilly has blood on his hands for passing along biased and jaded perspectives on liberalism in America and his outrageously dangerous and slanderous coverage of Dr. Tiller.
The responsibility of a broadcaster is vapid in terms of serious social issues and FOX News is just part of a much larger problem. This is not in anyway exclusive to The O’Reilly Factor.
Just tonight Geraldo Rivera made insinuations of vigilante violence against a child molester in Oklahoma in the course of denouncing vigilante violence himself.
The fact remains that the both the network and the broadcasters themselves have a responsibility to the public they serve to protect the lives of all citizens and protect the due process of law.
By calling Dr. Tiller a "killer" repeatedly on the air Bill O’Reilly risked inciting violence.
By vaguely insinuating that the Oklahoma child molester might be killed and have his body dumped on the side of the road Geraldo Rivera risked inciting violence.
The responsibility to the community for news broadcasting that does not risk the incitement of violence in the nation is fundamental to our domestic security as a nation.
This entire issue has absolutely nothing to do with an individual political agenda on my accord and I am willing to retract my provocative statements in regards to Mr. O’Reilly provided he states clearly to the public that he will no longer use his media platform to play dangerous games with people’s lives and then follows through on this promise.
Mine is a cry for an end to irresponsible broadcasting coming from FOX News.
For whatever failures of bias to found on vast quantity both on MSNBC and FOX, there is only one network inciting violence and using radical rightwing propaganda to do more than simply share an alternative perspective. Quite often the network is used as an agent for unscrupulous pundits to gamble with the safety of physicians and the liberal population of America.
Ultimately, I believe these people have become drunk off their own power and will never admit their own misdeeds let alone their own inability to recognize their contributions to a climate of violence in America.
As long as the publiccontinues to support their "crusades" they will remained deluded and ignorant to the harm they cause in their wake. When the veil of public approval is lifted it becomes clear that these men will say anything to get ratings and if that means risking inciting violence, then so be it.
O’Reilly:"I would say we have covered this story passionately."
O’Reilly:"Now if something happens to this Oklahoma rapist guy, they are going to try to blame us for it."
Geraldo:"You mean like the Tiller thing."
Geraldo:"If this guy [child rapist] was found on the side of the road I wouldn’t shed one tear."
O’Reilly:"When someone does something like the person who killed Tiller and engages in vigilante violence they commit just as immoral an act as this rapist in Oklahoma."
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I finally agree with Bill O’Reilly on something and have lost a good deal of respect for Geraldo Rivera.
Bill O’Reilly brought this up as a chance to defend himself and I think he made his case well. I still think he engaged in irresponsible broadcasting in the past but not tonight.
Tonight the mantle of Irresponsible Broadcaster of FOX Cable News is: Geraldo Rivera.
I think he is pretty deluded to think that denouncing vigilantism and eluding to it in the same statement is anything but ironic and sad.
Passionate reporting is one thing, and making vague statements about people being killed or otherwise harmed is very possibly why someone like me might declare The O’Reilly Factor as inciting domestic terrorism.
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I wouldn’t shed one tear if Mark Sanford is found on the side of the road.
Freedom of speech.
As if I care to defend rapists. I only seek to point out that vigilantes exactly as immoral as the ones they wish to kill.
And we only hear this little bit of sanity from Bill O’Reilly well after the fact he crusades against all liberals and against Dr. Tiller.
I still thank him for it. Let his minions absorb this deep into their minds.
That they are no more than child molesters when they go and ’save some babies’ with a gun.
