As a purveyor of propaganda, Fox News knows the value of repeating the message. Thus, when Fox gets what they think is a juicy right wing meme, it is reinforced throughout several shows such as last week's Obama-is-doing-nothing-about-persecuted Iraqi-Christians series - a meme that dovetailed nicely with Fox's ongoing homage to the ongoing sense of Christian victimhood, much of it supposedly caused by atheists. As the morning show for persecuted Christians, it wasn't surprising that, earlier this week, Fox & Friends covered the latest bit of Christian outrage over a recent agreement between an atheist group and the IRS whereby the agency will more closely monitor election activities of churches. On this morning's Fox & Friends, the standard Fox memes of persecuted Christians and evil atheists were reinforced by Tucker Carlson and his discredited right wing guest, J Christian Adams. And Tucker Carlson even repeated the opening words of Elisabeth Hasselbeck! Wash, rinse, repeat.....
Wasting no time framing the message about the evil atheists working with the evil IRS, famous "dick" Carlson took the words straight from Hasselbeck's mouth: "The IRS could be coming to a church near you and you can thank the atheists for that." The chyron supported the persecuted Christian message: "Faith under fire, deal encourages IRS to investigate churches." Tucker described how the IRS is, OMG, "keeping a closer eye on non-profits and religious groups monitoring sermons and homilies for religious content." As usual, Carlson didn't tell the whole story which is that this suit was filed as a result of what were attempts, by several churches, to influence the votes of their parishioners through not just sermons but statements in parish bulletins.
He introduced his guest, former Dept. of Justice Attorney and legal editor of PJ media (Tucker didn't mention that PJ media is a right wing operation) J. Christian Adams who, you might recall, is a GOP operative who was hired “in the Civil Rights Division Voting Section under a process the DOJ Inspector General later determined was improperly influenced by politics." Adams has been described as a "fabulist" for his role in pushing the fable, advanced by Fox News, particularly Megyn Kelly, that the Eric Holder's DOJ was protecting the News Black Panthers in a bogus voter intimidation case. So we're talking some serious credibility here - not!
Tucker wanted to know "what is there about the left asking the IRS to crush organizations they don't agree with." (Bit of hyperbole here considering that all the right wing organizations that sought tax free status got it!) Adams engaged in more hyperbole: "The left always goes after religion, they don't like religion." Given that the Christian right/Catholic Church seeks to impose its views into politics, Adam's claim that the Freedom From Religion Foundation "seeks to convert its views on theology onto politics" was absurd. As he continued to rant about how the FFRF is trying to influence the IRS the chyron reinforced the agitprop: "Church crackdown, atheist lawsuit gives IRS room to 'explore'." The hyperbole continued with Adam's claim that liberals "want to use the IRS as a weapon against Christianity against faith."
Not surprisingly, Carlson brought race into the discussion with his accusation of how "urban" churches, "organs of the Democratic party" (Catholic churches aren't "organs" of the GOP?) are "'paid to get out the vote." Knowing the answer, he asked Adams if these churches will "come under scrutiny." Adams, expectedly, said no because the FFRF "hates what the conservative wing stands for," such as abortion and gay marriage, and "that's what they want to shut people up about." As he ranted, the chyrons did more reinforcing: "They'll be watching, IRS to investigate tax exempt churches" and "Don't preach! Violation could end tax exempt status." Adams claimed that "this is using the power of government to go after faith."
After Carlson played video from the FFRF's Dan Barker who made the legitimate point that non-profit churches should not be a source for money to "mobilize the vote," he snarked about the FFRF's tax exempt status and claimed that "this is basically an assault on people of faith, no?" Adams, not surprisingly, agreed, and continued to rant about how the FFRF wants to "turn belief in God into a political thing." (Uh, no, they want exempt organization to abide by the rules). He opined that this is "a dangerous development in this country."
What is dangerous is that a "fair & balanced" news network can push lies and propaganda with absolute impunity
I must have miss it, ugh?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Of course, Tuck-tuck would be the first demanding that the IRS crack down—and harshly—against such activities.