Kevin Koster commented on Bill O’Reilly Wants Dan Rather To Help Protect His Credibility
2015-02-23 01:06:55 -0500
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The accounts from Engberg and the others strongly indicate that Dan Rather would have no reason to try to help Bill O’Reilly paper over his record. Rather does not seem to have wavered from his dismissal of O’Reilly back in the day, when he made certain that Bill’s antics would never taint his broadcasts. I think it’s more likely that Rather will join the chorus on the other side.
Again, we should keep in mind that this will not likely change O’Reilly’s status at Fox News. They’ll probably just wait for this to blow over and then act like it never happened. But it does strike another, and potentially fatal, blow to O’Reilly’s desperate wish for mainstream respectability. And in the end, when we discuss this in ten years, that will be all that matters.
Again, we should keep in mind that this will not likely change O’Reilly’s status at Fox News. They’ll probably just wait for this to blow over and then act like it never happened. But it does strike another, and potentially fatal, blow to O’Reilly’s desperate wish for mainstream respectability. And in the end, when we discuss this in ten years, that will be all that matters.
Kevin Koster commented on O’Reilly’s Former CBS Colleague Blasts His ‘War Zone’ Reporting
2015-02-22 16:03:56 -0500
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I don’t think Enberg is going to give O’Reilly the satisfaction of a back-and-forth. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he consented to an interview with a real journalist at CNN or another network. Enberg’s account, as well as those of Rabel and Roberts, is specific and devastating. All O’Reilly has been able to come up with in response are, once again, personal insults.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Blames ISIS Execution Of Jordanian Pilot On Obama Not Saying ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’
2015-02-05 02:30:31 -0500
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Hannity’s obvious intent throughout this segment and others was to call President Obama a coward, something he would have violently attacked had anyone said that kind of thing about George W. Bush. He made a point of repeatedly inserting the claim that the President is “too scared” to use the terminology that Hannity wants to hear. The fact that Bill Richardson didn’t want to entertain that kind of nonsense just seemed to set Hannity farther off. This was frankly a strange segment to watch.
Kevin Koster commented on Is Bill O’Reilly Too Chicken To Face Vermont High School Students?
2015-02-03 13:57:26 -0500
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I hate to say this, but I actually expected better conduct from O’Reilly on this, considering that he makes hay out of having been a teacher himself. No person who truly had the heart of a teacher would have tolerated the kind of snide behavior Watters pulled last night in relation to the students.
The proper thing for O’Reilly to have done would have been to have the students on the show, with their teacher, and with Watters, and go through the complaints. That would have been a teachable moment for everyone. Instead, O’Reilly decided it was a joke and let Watters throw in a few more cheap shots just for fun.
The proper thing for O’Reilly to have done would have been to have the students on the show, with their teacher, and with Watters, and go through the complaints. That would have been a teachable moment for everyone. Instead, O’Reilly decided it was a joke and let Watters throw in a few more cheap shots just for fun.
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Huckabee Takes No Responsibility For His ‘Trashy Women’ Remarks
2015-01-29 17:51:10 -0500
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It’s pretty clear that Huckabee didn’t just “all but say it”. He did say it. He was making the point that he as a good Southerner was offended by women using profanity in a professional setting. I agree he was also making a point that men who use the profanity around women are also trashy. All of which went to his larger point with “The Culture of Crude” – that the folks living in New York City behave in a less civilized manner than the good Christian folks living in the flyover states.
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Huckabee Calls His Female Fox Colleagues ‘Just Trashy’
2015-01-29 05:08:24 -0500
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There was a phenomenally strange bit on Megyn Kelly’s show about this situation just this evening.
In it, Kelly was clearly trying to rehab Huckabee for this scenario. She repeatedly supported him while he said that he really wasn’t talking about Fox News when he discussed producers he’d worked with in New York over the past 6 years. She never asked him who he WAS talking about, but she presumably accepted that he wasn’t talking about Fox News.
And then at the end, she dropped the bomb: She made a comment to Huckabee that I don’t think was what the Ailes crew had in mind. She finished the segment with a bit where she pointedly told him, and I’m paraphrasing: “You know, we do swear, and we drink, and we have premarital sex too. And we even do it before we come to work.” Huckabee had no answer other than a nervous laugh. I think that may have been her answer, but I’ll leave it to others here to see whether my take on this was close to the mark.
In it, Kelly was clearly trying to rehab Huckabee for this scenario. She repeatedly supported him while he said that he really wasn’t talking about Fox News when he discussed producers he’d worked with in New York over the past 6 years. She never asked him who he WAS talking about, but she presumably accepted that he wasn’t talking about Fox News.
And then at the end, she dropped the bomb: She made a comment to Huckabee that I don’t think was what the Ailes crew had in mind. She finished the segment with a bit where she pointedly told him, and I’m paraphrasing: “You know, we do swear, and we drink, and we have premarital sex too. And we even do it before we come to work.” Huckabee had no answer other than a nervous laugh. I think that may have been her answer, but I’ll leave it to others here to see whether my take on this was close to the mark.
Kevin Koster commented on Another Suspicious Fox Focus Group Attacks Obama’s State Of The Union
2015-01-22 15:02:27 -0500
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Richard, you’re not nitpicking. I agree with you that Big Oil has repeatedly played this game – although I don’t think they did it in 2012. During that cycle, the right wing approach was different. Big Oil kept the prices high all the way to Election Day, I believe in the hopes that it would convince the country that things were tough under President Obama and would be tougher still under a second term. And it also would help make it harder for certain groups to make it to the polls, as the right wing was hoping they’d be discouraged and not show up. (This was at the same time that the right wing pollsters were doubling down and predicting that Romney landslide. Which even they admitted later was another tactic to try and help push Romney’s voters up and push the Dem voters down. I believe that secretly, they were terrified that 2012 would be a repeat of 2008, which turned out to be the case in terms of the Presidential race.)
I remember that during the summers of 2005, 2006 and 2007, the gas prices would go through the roof during the summer months when people would be driving and travelling the most. In 2007, this got so bad that my father lent me his Costco card as the prices were slightly lower there. The prices would then drop back down in the winter months, although never to as far down as they’d been before the skyrocket. I remember that when people would call the oil companies out for this obvious gouging, right wing pundits would chastise the public, saying that the oil companies were just doing the best they could in the global market, or that there were other circumstances we couldn’t possibly understand, or the old standby – let’s go drill in ANWAR. I remember that the drop in prices didn’t help the GOP in fall 2006 as the public was completely fed up with Bush and his wars by that point. And the drop in prices did nothing for McCain for the obvious reasons of the massive recession, the general public dislike of Bush and his Administration at that point (with approval ratings down in the low 20s!), and the fact that the public wasn’t convinced that McCain and Palin had any clue whatsoever of how to get us out of the wars, out of the recession, or anything else.
I remember that during the summers of 2005, 2006 and 2007, the gas prices would go through the roof during the summer months when people would be driving and travelling the most. In 2007, this got so bad that my father lent me his Costco card as the prices were slightly lower there. The prices would then drop back down in the winter months, although never to as far down as they’d been before the skyrocket. I remember that when people would call the oil companies out for this obvious gouging, right wing pundits would chastise the public, saying that the oil companies were just doing the best they could in the global market, or that there were other circumstances we couldn’t possibly understand, or the old standby – let’s go drill in ANWAR. I remember that the drop in prices didn’t help the GOP in fall 2006 as the public was completely fed up with Bush and his wars by that point. And the drop in prices did nothing for McCain for the obvious reasons of the massive recession, the general public dislike of Bush and his Administration at that point (with approval ratings down in the low 20s!), and the fact that the public wasn’t convinced that McCain and Palin had any clue whatsoever of how to get us out of the wars, out of the recession, or anything else.
Kevin Koster commented on Vermont High School Students Eviscerate Fox News ‘Ethics’
2015-01-19 01:56:44 -0500
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I’ll be curious to see if O’Reilly addresses this on the air this week. I agree that he’ll likely spend much of the week pre-attacking and then post-attacking President Obama’s State of the Union address. (Of course, if the real fire breathers had their way, President Obama would be barred from delivering that address at the Capitol…)
To be fair to O’Reilly, as a former teacher, I hope that he actually tries to do something educational here. I would be happy to see a segment where he brought several of the students on to directly address Watters and specifically talk about the ethics that were breached. The key would be for the students to be able to present their positions in a clear manner that reflects their education.
To be fair to O’Reilly, as a former teacher, I hope that he actually tries to do something educational here. I would be happy to see a segment where he brought several of the students on to directly address Watters and specifically talk about the ethics that were breached. The key would be for the students to be able to present their positions in a clear manner that reflects their education.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Wastes No Time Exploiting Charlie Hebdo Attack In France
2015-01-07 14:55:31 -0500
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To most people in the civilized world, what happened in France today was shocking, to say the least. A satirical magazine, which has not spared anyone its comedy (including Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, etc), is viciously attacked by terrorists who murder several of its cartoonists. No question that this was a coordinated, vicious attack by terrorists who wanted to kill as many people as they could as quickly as possible. And most people in the world are appalled.
But not Fox News or AM radio. In that alternate universe, this situation becomes a reason to attack President Obama and John Kerry, and to revisit false statements the right wing made about the “Innocence of Muslims” attack video from 2012. The situation suddenly isn’t about the deaths or about finding those responsible. It exists solely to try to pull some kind of “gotcha” comparison between the French magazine and the 2012 YouTube video. As if defending the rights to expression by the magazine meant that it was somehow hypocritical to have dealt with the obvious hate speech of the “Innocence of Muslims” video. And this incident gives the right wing a double pump – as they also play the card of “Why does Islam get offended so easily, huh?” Not to mention some fairly cheap shots at John Kerry for speaking in French.
So let’s be honest and show the actual difference between Charlie Hebdo and the work of Nakoula in 2012. Nakoula, a convicted fraudster, committed a fairly serious act of hate speech in 2011-2012, pulling together what was supposed to be a video called “Desert Warrior” and then dubbing and editing the project into something called “Innocence of Muslims”. The edited version was uploaded to YouTube in July 2012 and spread virally all over the world, particularly after Nakoula uploaded an Arabic dubbed version in early September 2012. The thirteen minute “trailer” video was advertised in Arabic at various places with verbage that indicated it was going to tell the truth about who was really responsible for things like “the killing of our children in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan”. Anyone watching it saw an outrageous video depicting Muhammad in as vicious and horrible a manner as possible. So this was obviously being set up as click bait for angry people in the Islamic world to begin with. Once the dubbed video went viral, all hell broke loose in the Middle East, and US Embassies were the targets of protests and full-on riots, particularly in Cairo, where demonstrators came over the wall and burned the US flag. Fox News of course covered these protests and riots with increasing glee, with Sean Hannity barely able to contain himself while crowing that “under President Obama’s ‘leadership’, the Middle East is ON FIRE!” This was presumably meant to support Mitt Romney’s failing presidential bid while undermining President Obama’s experience in foreign relations. The protests and riots around the Middle East resulted in over 50 people dying, nearly 700 being injured and a fair amount of property damage as well. (And in the cloak of all the unrest, Libyan terrorists launched their own attack on the US Benghazi Annex – thus scoring a big hit for themselves as they were able to continue their attack much longer than they could have had the rest of the region not been “ON FIRE!”, as Hannity put it so nicely just a few days earlier.)
The video was traced back to Nakoula, who was using multiple aliases to both produce and distribute the video, which was a direct violation of his probation for earlier fraudulent activity. YouTube tried to block the video where it could, and there were orders to actually pull the video down. But it was a bit late – the video had already spread virally and the horse was long out of the barn. Given that the video was perceived as a US production, it was more than appropriate for US officials, including the President, to condemn it as hate speech and as nothing that reflected the actual thoughts or feelings of Americans toward the Islamic people of the rest of the world. What happened here was a deliberate act of hate speech, intended to provoke people into violence, and it succeeded. Nakoula’s actions were intended to cause unrest and presumably notoriety for himself, and he succeeded. He also sparked the deaths of over 50 people. This was not an act of Nakoula just trying to write a poem or a book or make a personal statement of his artistry. This was a YouTube video literally being used as a weapon. There is a huge difference between Salman Rushdie writing a book called “The Satanic Verses” where he dealt with the issue of Muhammad as a man on Earth (much like Nikos Kazantzakis did with “The Last Temptation of Christ”) and Nakoula throwing this video at the world and lighting the match. Given that Nakoula couldn’t be directly prosecuted for the deaths of all those people, there is at least some justice in that the US was able to get him for what they could –he pled guilty to four counts, was imprisoned for a year in federal prison and is still considered under supervised release today.
Contrary to what the right wing wants you to believe, Nakoula’s video was seen by millions of people when it went viral, and those who had seen it told millions more people about it – that it was an American video deliberately attacking Islamic culture. It was not a “YouTube video that NOBODY EVER SAW”. (The right wing may be mistaking that idea from a comment by one person who said that “the full version of the movie” was only shown once to an audience of 10 people in Hollywood. We don’t know that a “full version” of the movie ever existed – we only know that the thirteen minute version exists, and that it was seen by a LOT more people than ten.)
Now, contrast that with Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine in France that has existed for several decades. They are known for being unabashedly left wing and for being anti-religious. They do not discriminate against any one religion. They have posted cartoons critical of Islam, of Catholicism, of Judaism, etc. They are not considered hate speech by any means, as their cartoons are not intended to provoke anyone into violence or anger. They are poking fun. If you’re reading Charlie Hebdo, you know what you’re getting into. It’s like reading The Onion here. Launching an attack against Charlie Hebdo meant literally gunning down cartoonists at their desks.
There is a difference between exercising your right to free speech, and exercising hate speech. The former involves expressing a point of view and debating others with it. The latter involves using speech as a weapon – such as yelling FIRE in a crowded theater and triggering a stampede. It’s not hard to understand the distinction. And the right wing is fully aware of it. Which makes their latest statements even harder to stomach.
But not Fox News or AM radio. In that alternate universe, this situation becomes a reason to attack President Obama and John Kerry, and to revisit false statements the right wing made about the “Innocence of Muslims” attack video from 2012. The situation suddenly isn’t about the deaths or about finding those responsible. It exists solely to try to pull some kind of “gotcha” comparison between the French magazine and the 2012 YouTube video. As if defending the rights to expression by the magazine meant that it was somehow hypocritical to have dealt with the obvious hate speech of the “Innocence of Muslims” video. And this incident gives the right wing a double pump – as they also play the card of “Why does Islam get offended so easily, huh?” Not to mention some fairly cheap shots at John Kerry for speaking in French.
So let’s be honest and show the actual difference between Charlie Hebdo and the work of Nakoula in 2012. Nakoula, a convicted fraudster, committed a fairly serious act of hate speech in 2011-2012, pulling together what was supposed to be a video called “Desert Warrior” and then dubbing and editing the project into something called “Innocence of Muslims”. The edited version was uploaded to YouTube in July 2012 and spread virally all over the world, particularly after Nakoula uploaded an Arabic dubbed version in early September 2012. The thirteen minute “trailer” video was advertised in Arabic at various places with verbage that indicated it was going to tell the truth about who was really responsible for things like “the killing of our children in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan”. Anyone watching it saw an outrageous video depicting Muhammad in as vicious and horrible a manner as possible. So this was obviously being set up as click bait for angry people in the Islamic world to begin with. Once the dubbed video went viral, all hell broke loose in the Middle East, and US Embassies were the targets of protests and full-on riots, particularly in Cairo, where demonstrators came over the wall and burned the US flag. Fox News of course covered these protests and riots with increasing glee, with Sean Hannity barely able to contain himself while crowing that “under President Obama’s ‘leadership’, the Middle East is ON FIRE!” This was presumably meant to support Mitt Romney’s failing presidential bid while undermining President Obama’s experience in foreign relations. The protests and riots around the Middle East resulted in over 50 people dying, nearly 700 being injured and a fair amount of property damage as well. (And in the cloak of all the unrest, Libyan terrorists launched their own attack on the US Benghazi Annex – thus scoring a big hit for themselves as they were able to continue their attack much longer than they could have had the rest of the region not been “ON FIRE!”, as Hannity put it so nicely just a few days earlier.)
The video was traced back to Nakoula, who was using multiple aliases to both produce and distribute the video, which was a direct violation of his probation for earlier fraudulent activity. YouTube tried to block the video where it could, and there were orders to actually pull the video down. But it was a bit late – the video had already spread virally and the horse was long out of the barn. Given that the video was perceived as a US production, it was more than appropriate for US officials, including the President, to condemn it as hate speech and as nothing that reflected the actual thoughts or feelings of Americans toward the Islamic people of the rest of the world. What happened here was a deliberate act of hate speech, intended to provoke people into violence, and it succeeded. Nakoula’s actions were intended to cause unrest and presumably notoriety for himself, and he succeeded. He also sparked the deaths of over 50 people. This was not an act of Nakoula just trying to write a poem or a book or make a personal statement of his artistry. This was a YouTube video literally being used as a weapon. There is a huge difference between Salman Rushdie writing a book called “The Satanic Verses” where he dealt with the issue of Muhammad as a man on Earth (much like Nikos Kazantzakis did with “The Last Temptation of Christ”) and Nakoula throwing this video at the world and lighting the match. Given that Nakoula couldn’t be directly prosecuted for the deaths of all those people, there is at least some justice in that the US was able to get him for what they could –he pled guilty to four counts, was imprisoned for a year in federal prison and is still considered under supervised release today.
Contrary to what the right wing wants you to believe, Nakoula’s video was seen by millions of people when it went viral, and those who had seen it told millions more people about it – that it was an American video deliberately attacking Islamic culture. It was not a “YouTube video that NOBODY EVER SAW”. (The right wing may be mistaking that idea from a comment by one person who said that “the full version of the movie” was only shown once to an audience of 10 people in Hollywood. We don’t know that a “full version” of the movie ever existed – we only know that the thirteen minute version exists, and that it was seen by a LOT more people than ten.)
Now, contrast that with Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine in France that has existed for several decades. They are known for being unabashedly left wing and for being anti-religious. They do not discriminate against any one religion. They have posted cartoons critical of Islam, of Catholicism, of Judaism, etc. They are not considered hate speech by any means, as their cartoons are not intended to provoke anyone into violence or anger. They are poking fun. If you’re reading Charlie Hebdo, you know what you’re getting into. It’s like reading The Onion here. Launching an attack against Charlie Hebdo meant literally gunning down cartoonists at their desks.
There is a difference between exercising your right to free speech, and exercising hate speech. The former involves expressing a point of view and debating others with it. The latter involves using speech as a weapon – such as yelling FIRE in a crowded theater and triggering a stampede. It’s not hard to understand the distinction. And the right wing is fully aware of it. Which makes their latest statements even harder to stomach.
Kevin Koster commented on Rep. Luis Gutierrez Calls Out Megyn Kelly’s Bias
2015-01-07 14:03:27 -0500
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Lanny Davis and Kirsten Powers also spoke up about this kind of nonsense in their appearances this week. Davis noted that he was getting stuck in the middle of a “two on one” in a discussion about Hillary Clinton’s qualifications, and Powers actually managed to back Bill O’Reilly down during her segment with him last night.
The typical routine from Kelly and the others is one that any non-right winger must keep in mind if they’re going to appear on Fox. I’d advise not only finding out what the topic is for discussion (thus making sure we don’t have to hear things like “Well, I haven’t really read up on that” while the host is waving their talking points about it) but also finding out who is going to be appearing alongside. So that if it’s, say Scott Rasmussen, the liberal guest can point out that Rasmussen tilted his 2012 polling to push Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid, etc.
Otherwise, these situations just turn into an angry and loaded question by Hannity or Kelly, followed by 10 seconds of the liberal guest sputtering while they try to unpack the actual question from the bias, followed by the host and the favored far right guest shouting the liberal guest practically off the screen. It really does get old after a while. Again, the concepts of meanness, smugness and bullying come to mind.
The typical routine from Kelly and the others is one that any non-right winger must keep in mind if they’re going to appear on Fox. I’d advise not only finding out what the topic is for discussion (thus making sure we don’t have to hear things like “Well, I haven’t really read up on that” while the host is waving their talking points about it) but also finding out who is going to be appearing alongside. So that if it’s, say Scott Rasmussen, the liberal guest can point out that Rasmussen tilted his 2012 polling to push Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid, etc.
Otherwise, these situations just turn into an angry and loaded question by Hannity or Kelly, followed by 10 seconds of the liberal guest sputtering while they try to unpack the actual question from the bias, followed by the host and the favored far right guest shouting the liberal guest practically off the screen. It really does get old after a while. Again, the concepts of meanness, smugness and bullying come to mind.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity's Even Sleazier Attempt To Make Prince Andrew Sex Scandal About Clinton
2015-01-07 04:14:45 -0500
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The actual reason Fox News has been trumpeting this one is that they’re desperate to find a scandal, any scandal, to outweigh the Scalise matter and the McDonnell conviction. So we get all these false equivalences between McDonnell and say, Al Sharpton’s tax bill – since this will presumably show that Bob McDonnell didn’t do anything all that bad, did he? And we get the false equivalence between the Scalise scandal and hey, an unfounded allegation about the right wing’s favorite boogeyman before Obama.
None of this changes the fact that Scalise is likely to be forced to either step down or seriously reduce his profile in short order. Or the fact that McDonnell and his wife are about to serve real time in prison, whether the GOP and Fox News like it or not.
None of this changes the fact that Scalise is likely to be forced to either step down or seriously reduce his profile in short order. Or the fact that McDonnell and his wife are about to serve real time in prison, whether the GOP and Fox News like it or not.
Kevin Koster commented on Got Irony? Fox & Friends Proclaims 'Banner Year' For Mainstream Media Bias!
2015-01-02 01:54:12 -0500
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The MRC is not a credible organization, and frankly has not ever been one. The greatest achievement of Brent Bozell was his disastrous confrontation with the World Wrestling Federation due to the scurrilous accusations made by Bozell’s MRC wing, the Parents Television Council.
In 1999, Bozell attacked the WWF via the PTC by saying that the program “Smackdown” was not only inappropriate but had caused the deaths of children. WWF sued him and the PTC for defamation in 2000. Bozell was forced to settle in 2001. He had to pay the WWF 3.5 million dollars and issue a humiliating public apology for his behavior. The PTC spent the next decade fruitlessly attacking various network programs and usually being laughed out of court. By 2010, their own executives were abandoning ship and accusing the group of misrepresenting themselves and their memberships, including statements that they had 1.3 million supporters when in fact they had at most 12,000.
In more recent events, Brent Bozell distinguished himself in 2011 by referring to President Obama as a “skinny ghetto crackhead” while responding to a Chris Matthew insult of Newt Gingrich.
I wouldn’t pay any attention to anything being perpetrated by the MRC or Bozell. They should simply be ignored as unimportant and irrelevant pundits.
In 1999, Bozell attacked the WWF via the PTC by saying that the program “Smackdown” was not only inappropriate but had caused the deaths of children. WWF sued him and the PTC for defamation in 2000. Bozell was forced to settle in 2001. He had to pay the WWF 3.5 million dollars and issue a humiliating public apology for his behavior. The PTC spent the next decade fruitlessly attacking various network programs and usually being laughed out of court. By 2010, their own executives were abandoning ship and accusing the group of misrepresenting themselves and their memberships, including statements that they had 1.3 million supporters when in fact they had at most 12,000.
In more recent events, Brent Bozell distinguished himself in 2011 by referring to President Obama as a “skinny ghetto crackhead” while responding to a Chris Matthew insult of Newt Gingrich.
I wouldn’t pay any attention to anything being perpetrated by the MRC or Bozell. They should simply be ignored as unimportant and irrelevant pundits.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Spends 20 Seconds On GOP Whip Scalise Palling Around With A White Supremacist Group
2014-12-31 05:00:52 -0500
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I believe there was some discussion of this over the last day, but it was purely in context of whether John Boehner should be voted out as Speaker. In other words, the idea was that the “conservative base” (meaning Fox News viewers and AM listeners) would reject Boehner if he didn’t stick with Scalise. Of course, they’re already planning to reject him because they believe he’s been working too much with President Obama. (Which tells you just how far off to the right the hardliners have gone at this point.)
Then they of course brought up all the false comparisons they could about Robert Byrd or whatever Democrat they wanted to attack, which looks like the Fox News Line of the Day for tomorrow or later. Idea being that hey, Scalise didn’t do anything any more wrong than stuff the evil Dems did, and look what they did to poor Trent Lott over so much less than this! And the simple answer they’d rather not hear is – “Your guy did an event with a modern Klan group in 2002. The complaints you’re bringing up are from decades before then. Do you have anything from within this century?”
Then they of course brought up all the false comparisons they could about Robert Byrd or whatever Democrat they wanted to attack, which looks like the Fox News Line of the Day for tomorrow or later. Idea being that hey, Scalise didn’t do anything any more wrong than stuff the evil Dems did, and look what they did to poor Trent Lott over so much less than this! And the simple answer they’d rather not hear is – “Your guy did an event with a modern Klan group in 2002. The complaints you’re bringing up are from decades before then. Do you have anything from within this century?”
Kevin Koster commented on On Fox & Friends: Dennis Michael Lynch Says 'Mass Deportation' Will Be 'Christmas In America'
2014-12-29 13:13:56 -0500
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Well, this was an unqualified jaw-dropper. I’ll give Lynch points for at least stating openly what many right wingers think – he hates the undocumented immigrants and wants them thrown out of the country. I presume in Lynch’s America, we’d have mass roundups and buses dumping people across the border. Sounds charming.
Kevin Koster commented on Black Lives Matter Protests Scheduled For January 2 At Fox News HQ
2014-12-29 04:46:57 -0500
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I appreciate the kind thought, and the thoughts toward preparing for the inevitable Fox News counter to any protest at their doors.
And again, I urge anyone organizing protests at Fox News to have calm, prepared answers to the nonsensical provocations that are sure to be thrust at anyone daring to speak up. The entire concept of “anti-dis-establishment-arian-ism” comes from the old pro-Nixon groups. They will certainly come at any protestors from the angriest POVs possible, including the idea that the protestors are against free speech, or are trying to restrict Fox News’ ability to represent a segment of the population.
Only a calm prepared response can deal with the silliness that someone like a Jesse Watters or a Steven Crowder will try to inject into these situations. I strongly urge any protestors not to play into the intentions of such provocateurs.
And again, I urge anyone organizing protests at Fox News to have calm, prepared answers to the nonsensical provocations that are sure to be thrust at anyone daring to speak up. The entire concept of “anti-dis-establishment-arian-ism” comes from the old pro-Nixon groups. They will certainly come at any protestors from the angriest POVs possible, including the idea that the protestors are against free speech, or are trying to restrict Fox News’ ability to represent a segment of the population.
Only a calm prepared response can deal with the silliness that someone like a Jesse Watters or a Steven Crowder will try to inject into these situations. I strongly urge any protestors not to play into the intentions of such provocateurs.
Kevin Koster commented on Watch Kirsten Powers Shred Attempt To Turn NYPD Shooting Into Watergate
2014-12-24 11:54:03 -0500
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Thanks for noting the wacky Nixon reference. And Nixon has been shown to not only have created an “atmosphere” that allowed the Watergate break-in to occur, but to have been fairly involved in CREEP and in the coverup of the various illegal activities. But Fox News will never get over the fact that Nixon did resign in disgrace in the midst of the complete collapse of his disastrous presidency. They’ll also never get over the fact that a record number of people were indicted and convicted out of Reagan’s presidency. They’ll never get over the fact that a significant number of people both in the George W. Bush presidency and in the GOP congress out of the past decade were indicted, convicted or forced to resign in disgrace. So they manufacture these false equivalences and comparisons. It’s a fairly obvious case of desperate projection.
I’ll give Kirsten Powers credit for trying to get her points across here – but she was repeatedly interrupted, talked over and shouted down both by Bolling and Crowley throughout the segment. The pattern was that Bolling and Crowley would make an outrageous statement, Powers would begin to respond to it, and then be interrupted before she could finish nearly every time. To add injury to insult, Bolling made sure that Crowley’s last nonsensical comment stood unrebutted, and cut off Powers to end the segment. The last moments had Bolling condescendingly telling Powers he’d have to pick it up another time, while she was given no opportunity to answer.
This followed an obvious pattern all through yesterday of repeatedly demanding that de Blasio resign immediately – something that had to have been the Fox News Line of the Day.
But the best two gems that came in were even more outrageous than what we heard here. One was Bill O’Reilly in his phone comments, not only angrily demanding de Blasio resign TODAY but also asserting that out of 8.5 million New Yorkers, 800,000 of them could hurt you, I mean really hurt you. In other words, O’Reilly is saying that nearly 10 percent of the population of NYC are violent criminals. That’s an amazing statement.
And then we have Andrea Tantaros in the Kurtz/Tantaro Attack de Blasio segment smugly attesting that de Blasio is really a communist. That was the part where my own jaw dropped completely. I suppose we could go back to the old oil company commercial: Do Fox News people really hate Mayor de Blasio (and President Obama) that much? Fox News people do.
I’ll give Kirsten Powers credit for trying to get her points across here – but she was repeatedly interrupted, talked over and shouted down both by Bolling and Crowley throughout the segment. The pattern was that Bolling and Crowley would make an outrageous statement, Powers would begin to respond to it, and then be interrupted before she could finish nearly every time. To add injury to insult, Bolling made sure that Crowley’s last nonsensical comment stood unrebutted, and cut off Powers to end the segment. The last moments had Bolling condescendingly telling Powers he’d have to pick it up another time, while she was given no opportunity to answer.
This followed an obvious pattern all through yesterday of repeatedly demanding that de Blasio resign immediately – something that had to have been the Fox News Line of the Day.
But the best two gems that came in were even more outrageous than what we heard here. One was Bill O’Reilly in his phone comments, not only angrily demanding de Blasio resign TODAY but also asserting that out of 8.5 million New Yorkers, 800,000 of them could hurt you, I mean really hurt you. In other words, O’Reilly is saying that nearly 10 percent of the population of NYC are violent criminals. That’s an amazing statement.
And then we have Andrea Tantaros in the Kurtz/Tantaro Attack de Blasio segment smugly attesting that de Blasio is really a communist. That was the part where my own jaw dropped completely. I suppose we could go back to the old oil company commercial: Do Fox News people really hate Mayor de Blasio (and President Obama) that much? Fox News people do.