Wendy Bell To Fox News CEO: "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Ailes!"

With reverse discrimination lawsuit and new blonde 'do in tow,

Wendy Bell readies for an audition with FOX News (we assume).

Megyn Kelly is Dreaming of a White Christmas -- a really, really white Christmas

 

Fox News host Megyn Kelly on the shiny, clean, unassailable whiteness of Santa and Jesus (via Raw Story):

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white,” Kelly said. “But this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. But Santa is what he is.”  

“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change, you know?” she added. “I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure, that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa — I just want the kids watching to know that.”

The freak out on FOX

Via TPM:

We’re going to have a piece on this shortly. But in case you weren’t watching Fox News over the last 45 minutes or so, something for the ages just happened. Shortly after Fox and everyone else called Ohio and the election for President Obama, Rove staged a live TV mutiny. He insisted that the Ohio call had been premature and then forced Fox’s Megan Kelly to make an SNL like walk through the Fox building and confront the network’s official number counters with Rove’s objections.

They have the video too.

Too damn funny!

Contrasts

First, President Obama at a campaign event in Sandusky, Ohio:

At one point, he consoled a crying woman, Stephanie Miller, who was telling him a story.

President Barack Obama, right, talks to Stephanie Miller after speaking at an ice cream social at Washington Park in Sandusky, Ohio, Thursday, July 5, 2012. Miller's sister, Kelly Hines, died from colon cancer four years ago. She could not afford proper health insurance, had no employer-provided coverage, and "even after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was told her income was too high for Medicaid," Miller said. Miller thanked Obama for the getting the Affordable Health Act passed.

Miller, reached by phone afterward, said her sister, Kelly Hines, died from colon cancer four years ago because she could not afford proper health insurance. She had no employer-provided coverage

"Even after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was told her income was too high for Medicaid," Ms. Miller said. "I thanked him for the getting the Affordable Health Act passed," she said.

And now, Senator Mitch McConnell on, of course, Fox "News":

Pressed by Chris Wallace to say what he would do to insure the 30 million people who will get insurance under Obamacare, McConnell at first dodged the question, instead launching into a litany of complaints about the law. He repeated the debunked claim that it would cut $500 billion from Medicare. Asked the question again by Wallace, McConnell actually laughed, and said he’d “get to it in a minute,” before claiming the best thing we can do for the health system overall is to get rid of the law and all of its “cuts” to health providers. He labeled Obamacare a “monstrosity” and vowed that there would not be a “2,700 page” Republican reform bill.

Asked a third time how Republicans would insure those 30 million people, McConnell said: “That is not the issue. The question is how you can go step by step to improve the American health care system.”

Allowing a few people to die so that the GOP "improvements" can be implemented step-by-step - that's the plan.

This from the pro-life party.

Fox - A Trusted Name In News

Only not so much.

Yesterday Fox "News" viewers saw this:


Media Matters has a description:

Fox News host Eric Bolling pulled a Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday, asserting that there were no terrorist attacks on "American soil" during President Bush's term in office.

Giuliani famously made a similar assertion in early 2010, saying, "we had no domestic attacks under Bush." Of course, the 9/11 attacks happened under Bush.

Bolling's misstatement came during a discussion on the network's Glenn Beck replacement show, "The Five." He and a panel—which included former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino—were arguing about whether Bush had been guilty of "fear-mongering" during his tenure. Panelist Bob Beckel said that the former president had used fear-mongering around the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As he attempted to continue his point, Bolling cut him off and started to move on to the next segment.

"America was certainly safe between 2000 and 2008," he said. "I don't remember any attacks on American soil during that period of time." Nobody on the panel challenged this comment.

Today, Bolling tried to correct himself:

Yesterday I misspoke when saying there were no U.S. terror attacks during the Bush years. Obviously, I meant in the aftermath of 9/11. But that's when the radical liberal left pounced on us and me. Media Matters posted my error, saying I forgot about 9/11. No, I haven't forgotten. You see, I happened to be standing there watching in true terror as radical Islamists slammed planes into the towers that morning. I remember the towers collapsing, killing 3,000, including 16 of my close friends. And I really remember trying to comfort the kids of my friends at their memorial services. I'll never forget 9/11. But thank you liberals for reminding me how petty you can be.

Only he's still wrong. As Mediamatters dutifully points out:

2001 Anthrax Attacks. A March 2004 State Department report on "Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003" quotes then-Attorney General John Ashcroft saying of the letters containing anthrax mailed to various targets: "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it's a terrorist act." Five people were killed as a result of those letters in the autumn of 2001.

2002 Attack Against El Al Ticket Counter At LAX. In July 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at an El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport killing two people and wounding four others before being shot dead. A 2004 Justice Department report stated that Hadayet's case had been "officially designated as an act of international terrorism."

2002 DC-Area Sniper. The state of Virginia indicted Washington, D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad -- along with his accomplice, a minor at the time -- on terrorism charges for one of the murders he committed during a three-week shooting spree across Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Muhammad was convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed for the crime.

2006 UNC SUV Attack. In March 2006, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV into an area of campus, striking nine pedestrians. According to reports, Taheri-azar said he acted because he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world." Taheri-azar also reportedly stated in a letter: "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11/01 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree."

Fox News - a trusted name in news, huh?

The Truth About Fox "News"

From Jon Stewart.

For a long time, I've wondered about where Fox "News" comes down on the ideological spectrum - or at least how they see themselves. Do they see themselves as unbiased or do they see themselves as a counterweight to what they perceive as a liberal bias in the media.

Are they in the middle of the seesaw or are they on the other side?

Well now we have our answer:

A partial transcript from Huffingtonpost. After Fox host Chris Wallace says that Fox "tells the other side of the story, Stewart's analysis is in full mock mode:

We don't tell both sides of the story, we tell one side...the other side, the one we perceive is never told. Because as you know, news only comes in two sides. And if the conservative side isn't being told what's being told must be liberal. Fox News isn't fair and balanced. It's balancing the system, man. Don't you get it? The system's unfair and unbalanced. To balance the system, Fox has to be the purest form of right wing resin. Because of how heavy left wing America is. Hollywood, comedians, every single news organization, the Internet, facts, history, science, it's all just left wing bullshit, man....

He summarizes the mock:

Is Fox unbalanced? Yeah. Seriously, their ears are nearly touching the floor. But it's only because the system is unbalanced.

They're not at the center of the seesaw, they're miles to the right.

They're Taking Credit Already

Just watched a few minutes of Fox And Friends this morning and they're already taking credit for the death of Osama bin-Laden.

Steve Doocey, Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson interviewed retired New York City firefighter Tim Brown on this story. And in case you're wondering, Brown's been on Fox before. Here he is arguing against the so-called Ground Zero Mosque (which, let's all remember, wasn't a Mosque and it wasn't at Ground Zero - but who cares about facts when you're smearing on Fox?):



Given his position on the (non) Mosque (not) at Ground Zero, perhaps we can guess Brown's general position here. And of course this is Fox and we know that they're up to.

And he and Fox and Friends certainly delivered this morning. Here's their story: Given that the intelligence regarding the courier that eventually led the intelligence community to bin Laden's compound was initially learned 4 years ago, credit has to be given to the previous administration for it (meaning Bush and not Obama) for it. Kilmeade further went on to say that that intelligence was gathered during the "enhanced interrogations" that some have complained about (meaning the illegal waterboarding).

The bottom line from Fox and Friends: The Bush Administration (through its brave use of torture) is ultimately responsible for finally bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.

The Bastards.

More Anti-Science Chicanery At The Trib

They must've been running low on teh crazie at the Tribune-Review over the past few days. Take a look at this convoluted route to try (yet again) to do their pro-business science debunking:

Kudos to JunkScience.com's Steve Milloy for debunking suspect blame-mankind research behind demonization of humanity's mercury emissions.

A new Harvard University study links such emissions with increasing levels of methylmercury -- "inorganic" smokestack and tailpipe mercury in the food chain -- and reproductive problems in black-footed albatrosses over the last 140 years.

But as Mr. Milloy points out, the study is manifestly flawed.[Italics in original.

This being the braintrust the first thing a rational person would do is to ask about the source. And the writer, Steven Milloy.

What those sources don't tell you is that Milloy according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute he's (or at least had been, depending on the reliability of the website) an adjunct analyst at CEI as well as an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

What the braintrust won't tell you is that both institutes have been beneficiaries of Scaife Foundation funding.

• $2.9 million for CEI.
• $2.5 million for Cato.

Shouldn't they have?

Milloy is also an "expert" over at Fox "News" and accourding to sourcewatch.com

In January 2006, Paul D. Thacker, a journalist who specializes in science, medicine and environmental topics, reported in The New Republic that Milloy has received thousands of dollars in payments from the Phillip Morris company since the early nineties, and that NGOs controlled by Milloy have received large payments from ExxonMobil. A spokesperson for Fox News stated, "Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."

Someday the braintrust will disclose that info, too.

Ha! This One's Funny!

From today's Tribune-Review:

The George Soros-funded liberal group Media Matters might be violating its tax-exempt educational status by announcing it will engage in "guerrilla warfare and sabotage" against Fox News, says Mark Tapscott of The Examiner in Washington. That's because the group's 501(C)(3) status prohibits partisan political activity. The IRS will nip this in the bud, right? If we had a buck for every snicker just snorted, we'd be rich.

Here's the politico article the Scaife-funded editorial board references. In it, Mark Tapscott writes:

Media Matters, the George Soros-backed liberal agit-prop shock troops based in the nation’s capital, has declared war on Fox News, and in the process quite possibly has stepped across the line of legality.

David Brock, MM’s founder, was quoted Saturday by Politico promising that his organization is mounting “guerrila warfare and sabotage” against Fox News, which he said “is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”

To that end, Brock told Politico that MM will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests …” Murdoch is the founder of Fox News and a media titan with newspaper, broadcast, Internet and other media countries around the world.

There is nothing in the Politico article to suggest that Brock, who was paid just under $300,000 in 2009, according to the group’s most recently available tax return, has moved to change his organization’s tax status as a 501(C)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation.

Here's the Politico article Tapscott references.

The only problem with this whole argument is that the only way for Fox "News" to defend itself is to declare that it IS a part of the GOP. Fair and balanced, no more.

Even then, it's iffy -because here's what the IRS actually says:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention. [emphasis added.]

So unless Mediamatters starts telling people to favor one campaign or set of campaigns looks like they're safe.

Another made up scandal brought to you by the right wing media noise machine.

More On John Stossel

From Talkingpointsmemo:

Stossel was on Fox & Friends [on March 24] to discuss some high-paying government jobs recently reported in The Daily Caller. The report found that the "Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs needs someone to run the Facebook page for the Dept. of the Interior and they'll pay up to $115,000 a year." Stossel took that as an opportunity to wonder about the entire concept of a Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"Why is there a Bureau of Indian Affairs?" he said. "There is no Bureau of Puerto Rican Affairs or Black Affairs or Irish Affairs. And no group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians, because we have the treaties, we stole their land. But 200 years later, no group does worse."

The video:


Good to see he includes the "we stole their land" part. So I guess he's not a complete moron. From the Department of State:

The story of westward expansion by European Americans is a basic theme of the American experience, but it also is a history of Indian removal from their traditional lands. Indians lost their lands by purchase and through war, disease, and even extermination, but many transfers of Indian land were formalized by treaty. The Constitution of 1789 empowered Congress to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes. Federal policy regarded each tribe as a sovereign entity capable of signing binding treaties with the U.S. Government. In the first 40 years of the new republic, the United States signed multiple treaties with Indian tribes, which usually followed a basic pattern: the signatory tribe withdrew to a prescribed reservation and in return the federal government promised to provide supplies, food, and often an annuity. In 1830, Congress chose to disregard Indian treaty guarantees when it passed the Indian Removal Act, a bill engineered by President Andrew Jackson. Despite its language suggesting a voluntary and fair "exchange" of lands, the act opened the door for the militias of trans-Appalachian and Southern States to simply drive the Indians across the Mississippi by force. The Indians' destination was to be an "Indian Territory" set aside west of Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas.

And:

The U.S. Government's inability and unwillingness to abide by its treaty obligations with Indian tribes was clearly related to an insatiable demand for cheap land for European settlers. To make matter more difficult, Indians generally had a different concept of land ownership than Europeans, emphasizing land use for hunting, farming, or dwelling for the tribe, but not recognizing the concept of individual ownership. Indian society was loose, decentralized, democratic, and nonauthoritarian where "chiefs" were often men of respect and informal authority but not designated by the tribe to make decisions. The result was that treaties were often signed with Indian leaders who did not have the authority of the tribe. Whether the system of Indian treaties were ever meant to work is a matter of debate, but in reality, most Indian treaties were broken.

Nice to see Stossel acknowledged the treaties as well.

Moron. On Fox "News" of course.

O'Reilly Vs. Obama

The Big Lie: Fox DOESN'T Make Nazi Comparisons

Take a look:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
24 Hour Nazi Party People
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

Fact is, it's the folks at Fox "News" are quite adept at Reductio ad Hitlerum.

Here's Something We Knew All Along

From The Politico:

As the debate over the health-care public option heated up, a Fox News executive told staffers to change the way they talked about it. Howard Kurtz on the memo that echoed a GOP talking point.

And guess how (and why) they shaded the "way they talked about it." The "why" first:

As the health-care debate was heating up in the summer of 2009, Republican pollster Frank Luntz offered Sean Hannity some advice.

Luntz, who counseled the GOP on how to sell the 1994 Contract With America, told the Fox News host to stop using President Obama’s preferred term for a key provision.

“If you call it a public option, the American people are split,” he explained. “If you call it the government option, the public is overwhelmingly against it.”

“A great point,” Hannity declared. “And from now on, I'm going to call it the government option, because that's what it is.”

And now the email itself (from Mediamatters):

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the "public option"

1) Please use the term "government-run health insurance" or, when brevity is a concern, "government option," whenever possible.

2) When it is necessary to use the term "public option" (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation's lexicon), use the qualifier "so-called," as in "the so-called public option."

3) Here's another way to phrase it: "The public option, which is the government-run plan."

4) When newsmakers and sources use the term "public option" in our stories, there's not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

Of course they are. Unless it's something from Andrew Breitbart or Glenn Beck. But that's a story for another day.

Fox's vice president for news, Michael Clemente, in a response email, agrees that #3 is the way to go. Mediamatters continues:

Sammon's email appears to have had an impact. On the October 27 Special Report -- unlike on the previous night's broadcast -- Fox journalists made no references to the "public option" without using versions of the pre-approved qualifiers outlined in Sammon's and Clemente's emails.

Reporting on health care reform that night, Baier referenced the public option three times. In each instance, he referred to it as "government-run health insurance" or a "government-run health insurance option" -- precisely echoing the first wording choice laid out by Sammon.

On the same show, correspondent Jim Angle referred to "a government insurance plan, the so-called public option"; "a government insurance option"; and "a government insurance plan."

Of course the defense of Fox News gets it wrong. First the strawman of it being a "ban" on the term "public option". Look back at Sammon's email. No ban. No one said "ban". Execpt Kate Pickert when defending Fox. Hmm. Here's what she says:

Here's what Kurtz and Media Matters fail to note: Most Americans did not understand what the “public option” was. The term, in fact, seemed almost intentionally non-descriptive. Scores of journalists asked me during the health care debate to explain to them what the public option was – and these were folks interested in the news and paying attention to the issue.

And then after going through an explanation of what the "public option" would have been she concludes:

There's nothing wrong with saying “government-run plan.” That's what the public option would have been.

Thus missing the point. It wasn't about what Fox called it. But why. Look back at what Luntz told Hannity. Calling it "the public option" people were split on it. Calling it "the government option" and people are overwhelmingly against it. By telling his staff to change the way they called it, he was framing the discussion. Away from supporting something the GOP didn't want supported.

This is the news service that tells its audience "We report. You decide."

With the Sammon email, we can now respond, "Yea, right.

Get out your hankies, Right Wing, Keith Olbermann is back on Tuesday

Well, that was quick.

MSNBC suspended Keith Olbermann without pay on Friday and will have him back on the air Tuesday.

As many know, MSNBC said that they suspended Olbermann allegedly due to his contributions to Democratic political candidates which violates NBC's rules for journalists -- despite Olbermann fronting an opinion show. (The rule also does not apply to NBC's owners.)

When it came out that other MSNBC hosts/personalities including Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan had donated to Republican candidates without any apparent retribution, then the story became that Olbermann was suspended for not asking for permission to contribute.

Now Politico has reported that MSNBC really suspended Olbermann because he wouldn't do an on-air mea culpa for his donations.

Of course, as MSNBC host Rachel Maddow pointed out on her own show on Friday, the whole controversy just demonstrates the difference between FOX News and MSNBC where the former not only allows their "news" people to donate freely to political campaigns but does actual on-air fundraising for GOP candidates.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) got 300,000 signatures (including mine) on their online petition to put Olbermann back on the air. You can sign their welcome back card here.


.

Let's go to the video tape!

Bill O'Lielly claims that nobody ever said on Fox News that people will go to jail if they don't buy health insurance. Right...

Some Comedy For Y'inz

Jon Stewart illustrates just how "fair and balanced" Fox "News" is.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Anchor Management
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Jason Altmire: Profile in Courage!

Jason Altmire: "I'm not going to cast a vote my constituents aren’t comfortable with." . . . No matter how many Americans die

It would be oh so easy for Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) to heed the pathetic cry of the 45,000 Americans who die each year because they have no health insurance. But, Altmire is made of sterner stuff than that. He has the courage of his convictions to ignore the whiny sick and dying to ensure that no campaign contributor .conservative voter constituent in his district is made to feel the least bit of discomfort over some sort of giveaway to those people.

Here's part one of his FOX interview:


Here's part two:



(h/t to PoliticsPA)
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I Heard Jim Quinn Rant About This

It's just so surprising that the RightWingMedia gets the story wrong.

From Mediamatters:

Right-wing media seized on Fox News and Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reports and claimed that in December "five Muslim soldiers" were "arrested for trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson," often while fearmongering about a "jihadist" plot against the base or speculating that the delay in reporting on the allegations was due to a "Fort Jackson cover-up." The right wing has made these claims despite the fact that military officials have said "there is currently no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations."

So even though there's no credible evidence, our friends in the wingnut press spread the story anyway. What value is the truth when there's fear to be mongered?

Ka-ching! Palin cashing in, you betcha!

Former Gov. Sarah Palin to become a regular contributor on Fox News (quelle surprise).

You can't deny that she's a natural for the small screen:



.

Brit Hume: Tiger Woods needs to convert to Christianity

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger turn your faith, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"

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