February 2011
82 posts
Fox News’ Megyn Kelly spins the ridiculous: “non-consensual sex partner” to replace “rapist”?
Fox News cheesecake model Megyn Kelly desperately wants us all to take her seriously. Which might explain why her hobby appears to be a pin-up model. I just wonder what the mainstream media bashers over at Fox News would do if, say, Katie Couric did a bikini spread for Sports Illustrated? Well, maybe that isn’t so great of an analogy but you get my point.
However, showing off her bosoms to the cultural conservative hypocrites glued to Fox News isn’t Megyn’s only play to climb the propaganda factory’s corporate ladder. Her main selling point is she’s a smart, aggressive pit bull promoting GOP TV’s conservative message. In a crowded Fox News field of leggy opinion journalists wearing very short skirts Megyn has clawed her way nearly to the top.
Speaking of hypocrisy, GOP TV’s doesn’t end with making a complete mockery of their laughable “fair and balanced” slogan. Nor is it even the fundamental hypocrisy of a network sanctimoniously promoting superficial Christian traits while pushing sex like some sort of cable news pimps. No, if the lips of one of their opinion journalists is moving there’s a very good chance they’re spewing hypocrisy.
“Political correctness”. It’s a term the right has repeated to the point most people accept it as the sole province of liberals. Those bleeding hearts who use language to protect the sensitivities of us all while promoting their agenda. So why does Fox News talk about the “death tax” when the proper term is “estate tax”? Why, as I recently posted, is Fox News reviving the term “death panel”? Why is Bill Sammon instructing reporters to use the term “government option” instead of “public option”?
We know the answer. Fox News’ conservative version of political correctness is very successful at casting a negative light on political issues. Fox News analyst Frank Luntz, the author of Words That Work, developed the successful “death tax” spin phrase in focus groups. “Death panels” earned the PolitiFact Lie of the Year, in large part, because of its success in dishonestly changing the debate on health care reform.
Leo E. Laurence over at the Society of Professional Journalists blogged that “illegal immigrant” is an offensive term and should be replaced with “undocumented worker”. Fox News opinion journalists and pundits pounced on this pretty much churning the same talking points including coming up with ridiculous sounding ‘what’s next’ examples to make a mockery of Laurence’s suggestion. What brings Megyn Kelly to the forefront is her ‘what’s next’ example of “non-consensual sex partner” replacing “rapist”.
A key to Fox News’ success is turning mundane news into sensationalism. Congratulations to Megyn for hitting the top of the blogsphere charts. However, after witnessing her segment what really struck me wasn’t her headline grabbing example. What struck me is her complete dishonesty in blowing up the scope of the movement behind this change far beyond reality. Being an opinion journalist, it’s not surprising Kelly didn’t do any research beyond what she dug up on red blogs. She opens with the bogus claims the Society of Professional Journalists is pushing for this change. That’s what’s known as a lie.
However, it’s a sizzling lead-in to get the conservative fanboys to pay attention. Later she qualifies this saying it’s their Diversity Committee behind it. Well, that’s a lot different. However, it’s still a lie. It’s only the opinion of one man: Leo E. Laurence. Because of the furor, he updated his post to make this perfectly clear.
As you watch Megyn Kelly in this segment clearly using her role as anchor to steer the discussion to the right it’s not particularly surprising her facts are so inaccurate. All that’s missing is her wearing a bikini during the broadcast to make it a GOP TV ratings home run.
Follow author EyesOnFOXorg on twitter: http://twitter.com/eyesonfoxorg/
@FoxNews Reveals Its True Colors In On Air Attack On the Constitution w/#video
On Fox and Friends today, Fox News argued against liberty and freedom with a claim that the Constitution is too outdated to handle the war on terror. Gretchen Carlson said, “Ok, well back in the 1700s and 1800s, we didn’t have this thing called the war on terror where you have to get to the bottom of things quickly.”
Fox News had on contributor former judge Andrew Napolitano to discuss the Constitution and the Patriot Act. Napolitano said, “I feel like I’m shoving against the tide when it comes to the Patriot Act, although there were 26 Republicans who voted against it. Here’s the problem with that. The Constitution says if the government wants to read your mail, or look at your business records, or listen to your phone calls it has to go to judge present evidence that you’ve done something wrong. The fancy phrase is probable cause, and if the judge agrees, the judge will authorize the government to do that. The Patriot Act lets the government bypass the Constitution.”
Napolitano was interrupted by Steve Doocy who tried to say that the Patriot Act doesn’t bypass the Constitution, just the judge. Napolitano straightened him out, “Bypass the Constitution by letting federal agents write their own search warrants.”
Gretchen Carlson made the Fox News argument that the constitution to too outdated to fight the war on terror, “Ok, well back in the 1700s and 1800s, we didn’t have this thing called the war on terror where you have to get to the bottom of things quickly and if we wait, people argue, to go to a judge then sometimes that terrorist could already do the dirty deed.”
Napolitano knocked down that argument, “That is not a serious argument to be made and I’ll tell you why, because judges sit 24/7. The person now speaking to you used to issue search warrants in my gym shorts in my living room at three o’clock in the morning when the police needed them…This argument about speed does not justify violating the Constitution.”
Andrew Napolitano’s comments perfectly illustrate the ideological feud that is currently unfolding within the Republican Party between the neo-cons and the Tea Party. Fox News through propaganda mouthpiece Gretchen Carlson took the neo-con position that the Constitution is outdated, so it is fine to violate the Constitution anytime a president, but only a Republican president, feels like it. The fact that the hosts would try to argue that the Constitution is outdated shows just how deeply the Bush era idea that the Constitution is an optional guideline has permeated parts of the Republican Party.
Just in case the Fox News position on the Constitution wasn’t clear enough, later in the show, the Fox and Friends crew hosted Donald Rumsfeld, who criticized Obama for not using the term war on terror.
Here’s the video:
Fox News has finally shown their true colors on the air. The network doesn’t care about freedom or liberty. They don’t even care about the Constitution. Their singular interest is in advocating for the Republican Party. Fox News isn’t about protecting our freedom. They attacked the Constitution as an outdated document that doesn’t need to be followed all of the time. Fox News is nothing, but the Republican/neo-con propaganda network. All of you libertarians and self described Tea Party Patriots would be wise to join with the rest of us on this one. If you value your freedoms, turn off Fox News.
follow the author on twitter: http://twitter.com/politicususa
read more: Fox News Reveals Its True Colors In On Air Attack On the Constitution
WTF, you can't get cable without @FoxNews propaganda, why not Al-Jazeera? They report, we decide.
Censorship In America: Al-Jazeera And PBS
Posted by Mark on February 15, 2011 at 1:19 pm.
At a time when some of the most consequential news stories are emanating from the Middle East, America’s cable companies are almost uniformly refusing to carry Al-Jazeera English, the news channel best equipped to cover events on the ground in their native territories.
Al-Jazeera has received high marks from a broad spectrum of analysts for their coverage of the uprising in Egypt. And with similar protests emerging in places like Algeria, Yemen, and Iran, they have insured that these important stories are being told throughout the world. American news organizations often pick up the Al-Jazeera feed for re-broadcast. This includes Fox News, whose pundits have harshly criticized Al-Jazeera even while their editors have incorporated the Al-Jazeera feeds into their programming.
Yesterday the Boston Globe published an op-ed by Juliette Kayyem, Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Programs at the Department of Homeland Security. She said in part that…
“Not carrying the network sends a message to the Arab world about America’s willingness to accept information, unfiltered, from the very region we spend so much time talking about.”
Kayyem proposed that Al-Jazeera be made available so that Americans can make their own decisions about its content. Cable companies ought not to be the arbiters of what constitutes legitimate news. Reaction to that op-ed was swiftly expressed by right-wing media including Fox Nation who linked to a post on the hysterically misnamed American Thinker. The item stated that AL Jazeera…
“…is filled with anti-American propaganda. It is also awash in anti-Semitism. The material broadcast stokes terror and violence.”
And that it is…
“…a channel that cannot help but inflame tensions and anger and one that is not known for unbiased accuracy.”
That sounds more like a description of the Glenn Beck Program. If that’s to be the standard for carriage of news networks on American cable, then Fox News should be immediately banned and removed from all systems.
It’s ironic that the conservative objections to Al-Jazeera come as they are also attempting to defund PBS and NPR. The right likes to complain about imagined assaults on free speech when they control one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and their domination of talk radio is nearly universal. But they simultaneously work to suppress the free speech of those with whom they disagree – or more correctly, those who report honestly, which generally serves to refute the lies propagated by the rightist press.
If you have cable you should immediately call your provider and demand that they carry Al-Jazeera. And while you’re at it, ask them to carry Current TV as well and place it in their basic package.
Also, call your representatives in Washington and demand that they support Public Television and Radio. There are bills that may be coming up for votes this week and we need to present a united front in favor of these invaluable resources.
Several organizations are mobilizing support for PBS and NPR.
Please visit each of them and sign on to save unbiased, corporate-free news.
PBS: 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting
MoveOn: Save NPR and PBS
Free Press: Don’t Let Congress Silence NPR and PBS
read more: News Corpse » Censorship In America: Al-Jazeera And PBS:
Associated British Foods Drops Glenn Beck
On February 8, 2011, Halifax ads were among the small number of ads that returned to Glenn Beck’s UK broadcast. Halifax is the trading name for the Bank of Scotland.
As with other advertisers, participants in the StopBeck effort promptly reached out to Halifax. We kindly requested that they follow the responsible action of hundreds of other advertisers and refrain from advertising on Glenn Beck’s show.
In a statement sent to the StopBeck effort, Halifax confirmed that the ad that ran on 2/8/11 would be their last ad:
“We have no plans to advertise in this slot post 8/02.”
Asked if this means that we can count on Halifax not advertising on Glenn Beck’s show going forward, Halifax confirmed that they would no longer advertise on Glenn Beck’s show, saying:
“We’ve other preferable opportunities and no planned slots”
Halifax Will No Longer Advertise During Glenn Beck’s Show
On February 8, 2011, Halifax ads were among the small number of ads that returned to Glenn Beck’s UK broadcast. Halifax is the trading name for the Bank of Scotland.
As with other advertisers, participants in the StopBeck effort promptly reached out to Halifax. We kindly requested that they follow the responsible action of hundreds of other advertisers and refrain from advertising on Glenn Beck’s show.
In a statement sent to the StopBeck effort, Halifax confirmed that the ad that ran on 2/8/11 would be their last ad:
“We have no plans to advertise in this slot post 8/02.”
Asked if this means that we can count on Halifax not advertising on Glenn Beck’s show going forward, Halifax confirmed that they would no longer advertise on Glenn Beck’s show, saying:
“We’ve other preferable opportunities and no planned slots”
read more: Halifax Will No Longer Advertise During Glenn Beck’s Show
Jordans Cereals Decided Not To Advertise On Fox News
Jordans’ ads were among the small number of ads that returned to Glenn Beck’s UK broadcast. Jordans is a company that makes cereals and cereal bars; it is the UK’s fourth largest cereal manufacturer.
As with other advertisers, participants in the StopBeck effort promptly reached out to Halifax. We kindly requested that they follow the responsible action of hundreds of other advertisers and refrain from advertising on Glenn Beck’s show.
read more: Jordans Cereals Decided Not To Advertise On Fox News
Fox Employee Confirms — Fox News Makes Stuff Up
“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”
The employee spoke in an exclusive interview with Media Matters and confirmed what the rest of the world already knew.
“I don’t think people would believe it’s as concocted as it is; that stuff is just made up.
“They say one thing and do another. They insist on maintaining this charade, this façade, that they’re balanced or that they’re not right-wing extreme propagandist.”
“You have to work there for a while to understand the nods and the winks, and God help you if you don’t because sooner or later you’re going to get burned.”
The source continues;
“Like any news channel there’s lot of room for non-news content. The content that wasn’t ‘news,’ they didn’t care what we did with as long as it was amusing or quirky or entertaining; as along as it brought in eyeballs. But anything—anything–that was a news story you had to understand what the spin should be on it. If it was a big enough story it was explained to you in the morning [editorial] meeting. If it wasn’t explained, it was up to you to know the conservative take on it. There’s a conservative take on every story no matter what it is. So you either get told what it is or you better intuitively know what it is.”
Yes, FOXNEWS lies. read more: Fox Employee Confirms - Fox News Makes Stuff Up
The real threat of Glenn Beck's fantasies ~
About two years ago, Glenn Beck, the Fox News personality, began a series of tirades against what he called the Cloward-Piven plan for orchestrated crisis to collapse the system. The plan, he explained to his audience, had been laid out in an article written by Richard Cloward and me, and published in the Nation magazine in May 1966. In the article, we proposed a mobilisation of poor people and their advocates to claim the welfare benefits to which poor families were legally entitled, but that they often did not receive. We thought that the ensuing problems of rising rolls and costs would create pressures for federal reform of the archaic welfare system.
Whatever you think of that article, and I still like it, it was written some 45 years ago in a magazine with a rather small readership. But, astonishingly, in Glenn Beck’s world, it had led to most of America’s ensuing troubles, including the rise of SDS, Acorn, George Soros and the Open Society Institute, the election of Barack Obama and the financial crisis. Beck depicts this on his chalkboard as the “tree of revolution”, and he continued to feature this theory of American history on some 50 subsequent shows, as well as on the Blaze, his blog. read more: The real threat of Glenn Beck’s fantasies | Frances Fox Piven | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Glenn Beck, campaigning with his chalkboard, in Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska in September 2010. Photograph: AP Photo/Michael Dinneen
Andrew Breitbart argues, like Glenn Beck, that liberals are violent sub-human animals #WarRhetoric #P2
YouTube - Andrew Breitbart: The Leftists Are Not Just Anti-American, They’re Animals
Glenn Beck Was For Revolution Before He Was Against It: Video.
Just how crazy does a conservative have to be to get Bill Kristol to say please stop, you’re embarrassing us? I bet you can guess who was the first to find out…
Yes, Glenn Beck has been raining on Kristol’s neocon parade by portraying Egypt’s revolution as a scary uprising of communist Islamofascism that will “cascade” and sweep across the entire Middle East… as opposed to a triumphant, heartwarming vindication of Bush’s belief that the Muslim world is so thirsty for freedom and democracy that it would even welcome it at the point of an American gun.
read more: Glenn Beck Was For Revolution Before He Was Against It | Firedoglake
Fox News Website Uses Plastic Fetus For Story Visual
News Hounds: Fox News Website Uses Plastic Fetus For Story Visual
Why They Hate Him -- Luntz Focus Group Repeats What They Heard on Fox
The staff at The Ed Schultz Show did a nice job putting this mash up together explaining just where the people in Frank Luntz’s focus group the other night on Sean Hannity’s show might have gotten some of their ideas about President Obama.
Brave New Films’ Robert Greenwald who’s organization has been documenting Fox for years now joined Ed to discuss how their viewers, some of whom were obviously represented in Luntz’s focus group, are propagandized daily and exposed to nothing but a steady stream of hatred and lies.
John posted the video of the original segment earlier today.
Why They Hate Him — Luntz Focus Group Repeats What They Heard on Fox | Video Cafe
In Unhinged Rant, Beck Tells Critics: "You Want To Call Me Crazy? Go To Hell. Call Me Crazy All You Want" video
Bill O'Reilly: There Are "Strains Of Anti-Americanism" At MSNBC #video
So says the guy who treated President Obama like his lawn boy throughout their Super Bowl Sunday interview.
O’Reilly: There Are “Strains Of Anti-Americanism” At MSNBC | Media Matters for America
There’s Method to Fox’s Rudeness to the President
Interrupting the President - O’Reilly Did It 70 Times, up from 30 by Fox’s Bret Baier in March - Is Intended to Prevent Obama from Communicating with GOP Voters
During the live portion of Fox’s interview with Pres. Obama before the Super Bowl on Sunday, Bill O’Reilly interrupted the president 43 times, according to Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” on Monday. (See #1 above.)
The interruptions continued in a second, taped part of the interview that was shown later, so that by the end of the 15-minute sit-down, O’Reilly had interrupted the president more than 70 times — once every 19 seconds, according to O’Donnell in a follow-up segment Tuesday night.
Conversely, the number of times O’Reilly let the president finish a sentence was zero, by O’Donnell’s count.
O’Reilly’s 70-plus interjections more than doubled the number of interruptions the president endured in his previous interview on Fox. In March 2010, O’Reilly’s lesser known colleague Bret Baier — host of Fox’s daily round-table presentation of Republican talking points — stopped the president in mid-sentence just 30 times or so. (See video #2.)
So, other than rudeness, what is behind this behavior from Fox? In a word: fear. Click here to read more and see more video: Pensito Review » Interdiction: There’s Method to Fox’s Rudeness to the President
