Kevin Koster commented on Jon Stewart Responds To Hannity With An Even Better Takedown Over Bundy's Lawlessness
2014-04-24 20:30:38 -0400
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This was one of the most spectacular Jon Stewart takedowns of all time. I almost felt sorry for Hannity by the end, particularly when we got to the Whiskey Rebellion. But Hannity should know the old saying “Mess with the bull, you get the horns…”
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity’s Bizarre Response To Jon Stewart Over Bundy Ranch Conflict
2014-04-25 13:48:06 -0400
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Great to know.
Kevin Koster commented on Bill O’Reilly And Friends: Race Card Whitesplainers!
2014-04-17 16:31:17 -0400
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It shouldn’t be a surprise that Bill O’Reilly is running a defensive action for Fox News and right wing pundits who have taken every opportunity to attack President Obama and Eric Holder in every manner possible. The current air of outraged moral pretension is in response to Holder’s comments last week, first in properly scolding Louie Gohmert for his tantrum and then at Sharpton’s group where he accurately recounted the deliberate roadblocking being done to him and to President Obama. Somehow, Fox News expects people to believe that President Obama and Holder are being crybabies over their treatment by the GOP and their acolytes.
Let’s be very, very clear as to what has been going on over the past 7 years, and it does go back that far when it comes to this President. From the moment that Barack Obama announced his candidacy, the right wing went on the attack. He was met with every cowpie possible, all the way through his campaign and into the presidency. During the campaign, you had Rush Limbaugh trying to spread havoc by telling his listeners to register as Democrats to foul up both Obama and Hillary Clinton’s candidacies. You had Hillary Clinton being nasty enough to set up the nonsensical birth certificate narrative. You had right wing pundit after right wing pundit all predicting that Barack Obama had NO CHANCE to win the presidency, since white voters would never pull the lever for him no matter what they said to pollsters. You had all the right wing media confidently predicting a John McCain victory, even in the face of what was obviously massive support for Obama.
Then President Obama actually gets elected. And before he can even take office, Rush Limbaugh throws down the right wing gauntlet and screams “I hope he fails!” to rile up the right wing base. GOP leaders and pundits gather around the time of Obama’s first inauguration to map out a strategy of complete obstinance, declaring that no GOP congresspeople will be voting for anything Obama proposes. True to their word, the GOP in Congress refuse to cooperate, so the Democrats are forced to scramble, even with a majority, to get anything done. President Obama repeatedly tries to offer compromises, including sacrificing what should have been the centerpiece of his attempt at health care reform, the public option. And each time he offers a compromise, the GOP responds that it’s not good enough, and they want MORE. Each time he gets anything through the congress, the right wing publicly makes dark statements about how he’ll rue the day he took this or that action.
I wouldn’t say that all of the opposition from the GOP is racially driven. Some of it certainly is. Some of it is just the absolute position of Limbaugh fans that only the farthest right wing candidates are worth supporting. Some of it is a personal resentment toward Obama and his cabinet for having the temerity to be elected and then try to actually get anything done. But when you have groups in the country openly stating that the President doesn’t have a right to hold his office because they believe his birth certificate is forged, and when many of those groups repeatedly try to spread canards about his religion or his personal life, all based on his ethnicity, it all starts to get a bad taste about it. When you have tea party groups openly making nasty and racist statements about the President, it’s hard to avoid the message they’re sending: “Why is this black man President when we wanted our white candidate?”
Since the GOP was able to ride a wave of anger and frankly hatred in 2010 to a majority in the House, they’ve increased the level of their intransigence. Only now, since they have committee chairmanships, they can also assemble bizarre inquiries such as those led by Darrell Issa, a man who has spent his career chasing any ambulance he could in the public square.
It’s clear that the GOP leadership and the pundits had a specific agenda with this Presidency – to try to smear it as much as possible with allegations of corruption and scandal. Hence we get nonsense about how Holder’s DOJ isn’t pursuing a case against some Black Panther idiots, ignoring the fact that the case wasn’t being followed by the Bush DOJ either. We get a conspiracy theory about the ATF “Fast & Furious” program, an idea that had been enthusiastically followed by agents until the Obama appointees took over, at which point some of the agents suddenly had a problem with EVERYTHING. (There’s a great story in Fortune magazine from two years ago that shows the whole F&F problem was actually a personnel dispute inside ATF, not a whistleblower situation at all.) We get conspiracy theories about IRS clerks in Ohio who divided up their piles of tax exemption requests in a manner that the right wing thinks was mean. (And just yesterday, the right wing tries to imply that they have incriminating emails, when those emails actually just show the IRS and the DOJ acting normally.) We get the spectacle of the right wing jumping on a left wing conspiracy theory about the NSA. And with each of these wild goose chases, we get another episode of the “Darrell Issa, Investigative Congressman” soap opera, in which Issa throws tantrums in public about how nobody is cooperating with his small document requests – requests that are actually massive fishing expeditions into what could be millions of pages of documents, many of which full of confidential and personal information that Issa has no business seeing.
The real reason behind the “scandal of the week” approach they’ve been taking is that the right wing is still angry about the attention given to the scandals that engulfed the Nixon, Reagan and W. Bush presidencies. They’re still angry that they got busted with Nixon for the Watergate break-in and the subsequent cover-up. They’re still angry that Reagan’s people got busted for Iran/Contra among many other scandals including graft and influence peddling. As I understand it, Reagan’s administration actually topped the record for indictments and convictions of its membership previously held by Warren G. Harding’s venal operation from nearly 100 years ago. More than the first two insults, they’re really angry that the Bush people got nailed for their behavior. They’re angry that Alberto Gonzalez was forced to resign in disgrace after his improper behavior. They’re angry that Scooter Libby got busted and took a fall for both Rove and Cheney when the Bush people took revenge on a wayward diplomat who’d contradicted them in public. So their response is to try to smear the current administration with all of these faux “scandals”. Their hope is to establish a historical narrative where even if the W. Bush presidency is known for its failures and scandals, the right wing can then immediately bring up all these ready-to-order microwaveable treats about the Obama presidency.
What you’re seeing is the creation of a false narrative – specifically designed to create an alternate version of current history. Within the right wing echo chamber, you’ll hear talking points coming up on right wing radio or at Fox News, and within a day those talking points will spread across the right wing punditocracy. Repeat that three or four times, and you’ve got a consistent story that’s been told in multiple outlets, even if it has almost nothing to do with facts or truth. Keep repeating that story a year or two later when most people don’t remember the details, and you can actually have a chapter in a history book where the reader doesn’t realize that the pages are not accurate. To my mind, this is the real purpose of Fox News in the first place. As I’ve said before, the existence of websites like this one is crucial to defeating this false narrative before it can take hold anywhere. So that when these guys put out a completely biased account of, say, how the Obama Administration dealt with a bust of Churchill, someone can immediately challenge them with the actual facts of what happened.
Given the level of personal animosity and anger the right wing has shown toward President Obama and his entire administration, it’s no surprise that they were doubly infuriated by his re-election, another event Fox News went out of its way to insist would not happen. They actually spent no less than TWO YEARS doing this. We saw Bill O’Reilly confidently predict that Obama had very little chance of being re-elected given the economic numbers. We saw Sean Hannity start every broadcast for over a year with the snarl of “We are On the Road to 2012!” as a battle cry to try to get the GOP base excited about their candidates. We saw multiple on-air pundits confidently predict that Obama would lose to Mitt Romney in a landslide. Even some of the outlets that have prided themselves on accuracy, like Gallup, fell into this trap. Scott Rasmussen’s GOP-leaning polling group even took the position of leaving their thumb on the scale all the way up to Election Day. (In years prior, he would always take the thumb off at the last minute, thus establishing his “record of accuracy”, provided you only counted the final couple of days before the election in question.) As has been recounted, this was all due to the right wing simply not being able to conceive of a world in which Barack Obama could be re-elected. All the way to the last second, even Mitt Romney was convinced he was going to win, even in the face of polling data that consistently showed that not to be the case.
We shouldn’t forget that the right wing also employed Doug Schoen and Pat Cadell at Fox News to publicly muse about the Dems not even running Obama for re-election. We shouldn’t forget that the pundits on Fox News would regularly do things like refer to Obama as “President Crybaby” or as “a pathetic little man”. We shouldn’t forget that the Fox News pundits all predicted Eric Holder would either be forced to resign or be impeached on multiple occasions. It doesn’t seem to have worked – he’s still there. I would argue that his continued presence is a reaction to the constant drumbeat of attacks from the GOP. Had they not repeatedly challenged him, including a ridiculous contempt vote over one of Issa’s tantrums, I think it likely that he would have stepped down for Obama’s second term. But with them constantly calling for his head over every nonsensical thing they could find? There’s no way he was going to give them that satisfaction.
So yes, there is a racial component to what the right wing has been doing here regarding Obama and Holder, and there is also a personal and political component. It’s all intertwined. But Eric Holder is correct to call them out on their behavior. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh can cry foul all they want, but if they acted in a less obstinant manner, they wouldn’t be getting called out in the first place. And they don’t get to rewrite history to whitewash their own actions.
Let’s be very, very clear as to what has been going on over the past 7 years, and it does go back that far when it comes to this President. From the moment that Barack Obama announced his candidacy, the right wing went on the attack. He was met with every cowpie possible, all the way through his campaign and into the presidency. During the campaign, you had Rush Limbaugh trying to spread havoc by telling his listeners to register as Democrats to foul up both Obama and Hillary Clinton’s candidacies. You had Hillary Clinton being nasty enough to set up the nonsensical birth certificate narrative. You had right wing pundit after right wing pundit all predicting that Barack Obama had NO CHANCE to win the presidency, since white voters would never pull the lever for him no matter what they said to pollsters. You had all the right wing media confidently predicting a John McCain victory, even in the face of what was obviously massive support for Obama.
Then President Obama actually gets elected. And before he can even take office, Rush Limbaugh throws down the right wing gauntlet and screams “I hope he fails!” to rile up the right wing base. GOP leaders and pundits gather around the time of Obama’s first inauguration to map out a strategy of complete obstinance, declaring that no GOP congresspeople will be voting for anything Obama proposes. True to their word, the GOP in Congress refuse to cooperate, so the Democrats are forced to scramble, even with a majority, to get anything done. President Obama repeatedly tries to offer compromises, including sacrificing what should have been the centerpiece of his attempt at health care reform, the public option. And each time he offers a compromise, the GOP responds that it’s not good enough, and they want MORE. Each time he gets anything through the congress, the right wing publicly makes dark statements about how he’ll rue the day he took this or that action.
I wouldn’t say that all of the opposition from the GOP is racially driven. Some of it certainly is. Some of it is just the absolute position of Limbaugh fans that only the farthest right wing candidates are worth supporting. Some of it is a personal resentment toward Obama and his cabinet for having the temerity to be elected and then try to actually get anything done. But when you have groups in the country openly stating that the President doesn’t have a right to hold his office because they believe his birth certificate is forged, and when many of those groups repeatedly try to spread canards about his religion or his personal life, all based on his ethnicity, it all starts to get a bad taste about it. When you have tea party groups openly making nasty and racist statements about the President, it’s hard to avoid the message they’re sending: “Why is this black man President when we wanted our white candidate?”
Since the GOP was able to ride a wave of anger and frankly hatred in 2010 to a majority in the House, they’ve increased the level of their intransigence. Only now, since they have committee chairmanships, they can also assemble bizarre inquiries such as those led by Darrell Issa, a man who has spent his career chasing any ambulance he could in the public square.
It’s clear that the GOP leadership and the pundits had a specific agenda with this Presidency – to try to smear it as much as possible with allegations of corruption and scandal. Hence we get nonsense about how Holder’s DOJ isn’t pursuing a case against some Black Panther idiots, ignoring the fact that the case wasn’t being followed by the Bush DOJ either. We get a conspiracy theory about the ATF “Fast & Furious” program, an idea that had been enthusiastically followed by agents until the Obama appointees took over, at which point some of the agents suddenly had a problem with EVERYTHING. (There’s a great story in Fortune magazine from two years ago that shows the whole F&F problem was actually a personnel dispute inside ATF, not a whistleblower situation at all.) We get conspiracy theories about IRS clerks in Ohio who divided up their piles of tax exemption requests in a manner that the right wing thinks was mean. (And just yesterday, the right wing tries to imply that they have incriminating emails, when those emails actually just show the IRS and the DOJ acting normally.) We get the spectacle of the right wing jumping on a left wing conspiracy theory about the NSA. And with each of these wild goose chases, we get another episode of the “Darrell Issa, Investigative Congressman” soap opera, in which Issa throws tantrums in public about how nobody is cooperating with his small document requests – requests that are actually massive fishing expeditions into what could be millions of pages of documents, many of which full of confidential and personal information that Issa has no business seeing.
The real reason behind the “scandal of the week” approach they’ve been taking is that the right wing is still angry about the attention given to the scandals that engulfed the Nixon, Reagan and W. Bush presidencies. They’re still angry that they got busted with Nixon for the Watergate break-in and the subsequent cover-up. They’re still angry that Reagan’s people got busted for Iran/Contra among many other scandals including graft and influence peddling. As I understand it, Reagan’s administration actually topped the record for indictments and convictions of its membership previously held by Warren G. Harding’s venal operation from nearly 100 years ago. More than the first two insults, they’re really angry that the Bush people got nailed for their behavior. They’re angry that Alberto Gonzalez was forced to resign in disgrace after his improper behavior. They’re angry that Scooter Libby got busted and took a fall for both Rove and Cheney when the Bush people took revenge on a wayward diplomat who’d contradicted them in public. So their response is to try to smear the current administration with all of these faux “scandals”. Their hope is to establish a historical narrative where even if the W. Bush presidency is known for its failures and scandals, the right wing can then immediately bring up all these ready-to-order microwaveable treats about the Obama presidency.
What you’re seeing is the creation of a false narrative – specifically designed to create an alternate version of current history. Within the right wing echo chamber, you’ll hear talking points coming up on right wing radio or at Fox News, and within a day those talking points will spread across the right wing punditocracy. Repeat that three or four times, and you’ve got a consistent story that’s been told in multiple outlets, even if it has almost nothing to do with facts or truth. Keep repeating that story a year or two later when most people don’t remember the details, and you can actually have a chapter in a history book where the reader doesn’t realize that the pages are not accurate. To my mind, this is the real purpose of Fox News in the first place. As I’ve said before, the existence of websites like this one is crucial to defeating this false narrative before it can take hold anywhere. So that when these guys put out a completely biased account of, say, how the Obama Administration dealt with a bust of Churchill, someone can immediately challenge them with the actual facts of what happened.
Given the level of personal animosity and anger the right wing has shown toward President Obama and his entire administration, it’s no surprise that they were doubly infuriated by his re-election, another event Fox News went out of its way to insist would not happen. They actually spent no less than TWO YEARS doing this. We saw Bill O’Reilly confidently predict that Obama had very little chance of being re-elected given the economic numbers. We saw Sean Hannity start every broadcast for over a year with the snarl of “We are On the Road to 2012!” as a battle cry to try to get the GOP base excited about their candidates. We saw multiple on-air pundits confidently predict that Obama would lose to Mitt Romney in a landslide. Even some of the outlets that have prided themselves on accuracy, like Gallup, fell into this trap. Scott Rasmussen’s GOP-leaning polling group even took the position of leaving their thumb on the scale all the way up to Election Day. (In years prior, he would always take the thumb off at the last minute, thus establishing his “record of accuracy”, provided you only counted the final couple of days before the election in question.) As has been recounted, this was all due to the right wing simply not being able to conceive of a world in which Barack Obama could be re-elected. All the way to the last second, even Mitt Romney was convinced he was going to win, even in the face of polling data that consistently showed that not to be the case.
We shouldn’t forget that the right wing also employed Doug Schoen and Pat Cadell at Fox News to publicly muse about the Dems not even running Obama for re-election. We shouldn’t forget that the pundits on Fox News would regularly do things like refer to Obama as “President Crybaby” or as “a pathetic little man”. We shouldn’t forget that the Fox News pundits all predicted Eric Holder would either be forced to resign or be impeached on multiple occasions. It doesn’t seem to have worked – he’s still there. I would argue that his continued presence is a reaction to the constant drumbeat of attacks from the GOP. Had they not repeatedly challenged him, including a ridiculous contempt vote over one of Issa’s tantrums, I think it likely that he would have stepped down for Obama’s second term. But with them constantly calling for his head over every nonsensical thing they could find? There’s no way he was going to give them that satisfaction.
So yes, there is a racial component to what the right wing has been doing here regarding Obama and Holder, and there is also a personal and political component. It’s all intertwined. But Eric Holder is correct to call them out on their behavior. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh can cry foul all they want, but if they acted in a less obstinant manner, they wouldn’t be getting called out in the first place. And they don’t get to rewrite history to whitewash their own actions.
Kevin Koster commented on Watch Fox News promote baseless theory that government killed NV Rancher’s Cows And Dug A Mass Grave
2014-04-18 18:34:09 -0400
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Jane’s comment is extremely odd.
As we already know, this was not a “land grab” but instead a situation where a local rancher was flaunting his defiance of US law for 20 years. He was politely asked to stop this behavior for years before they finally decided to take action. And once they did, every wingnut around decided this was some kind of attack on personal liberty.
It’s interesting the levels to which the wingnuts have been trying to push this story, including the falsehood that motivated this thread – the notion that the BHL would slaughter someone’s cattle and secretly bury them. It’s no wonder that Harry Reid has correctly labeled these people as domestic terrorists – I’m not certain how else you describe a group of armed vigilantes threatening BHL agents in the name of someone openly breaking the law for decades.
Jane is correct that we are a nation of laws, but she forgets that she doesn’t get to choose which ones we need to obey. She’s incorrect about laws about the border – the officers are not obligated under law to take certain actions, and they can be asked by higher-ups to prioritize their enforcement. That’s one thing. A rancher openly trespassing for 20 years is entirely different. Neither she nor a band of armed vigilantes can change those faccts.
As we already know, this was not a “land grab” but instead a situation where a local rancher was flaunting his defiance of US law for 20 years. He was politely asked to stop this behavior for years before they finally decided to take action. And once they did, every wingnut around decided this was some kind of attack on personal liberty.
It’s interesting the levels to which the wingnuts have been trying to push this story, including the falsehood that motivated this thread – the notion that the BHL would slaughter someone’s cattle and secretly bury them. It’s no wonder that Harry Reid has correctly labeled these people as domestic terrorists – I’m not certain how else you describe a group of armed vigilantes threatening BHL agents in the name of someone openly breaking the law for decades.
Jane is correct that we are a nation of laws, but she forgets that she doesn’t get to choose which ones we need to obey. She’s incorrect about laws about the border – the officers are not obligated under law to take certain actions, and they can be asked by higher-ups to prioritize their enforcement. That’s one thing. A rancher openly trespassing for 20 years is entirely different. Neither she nor a band of armed vigilantes can change those faccts.
Kevin Koster commented on Esquire: Hannity Is Going To Help Get Someone Killed Promoting Nevada Range War
2014-04-15 12:40:51 -0400
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I completely agree that at some point, Hannity’s shenanigans are going to get someone badly injured or worse. It will likely be someone who has really bought into Hannity’s line of the day, and Hannity will then refuse to take any responsibility for his conduct.
At the same time, I did notice that Rush Limbaugh took a moment to cover the Kansas killer – to play up the idea of the guy being a Democrat. Some things never change.
At the same time, I did notice that Rush Limbaugh took a moment to cover the Kansas killer – to play up the idea of the guy being a Democrat. Some things never change.
Kevin Koster commented on Hannity Deliberately Inflames Nevada Ranch Conflict – While Professing Concern For Safety
2014-04-14 14:29:06 -0400
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Kelly’s hands aren’t totally clean here. She also had Dana Loesch on the air to foment the idea that the Feds were somehow killing Bundy’s cattle!
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Huckabee Isn't Homopobic But A Good Christian Unlike Our Lying President!
2014-04-14 14:07:33 -0400
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Huckabee’s been on a heck of a roll over the past week, racking up a series of hypocritical statements and even outright lies.
His comments about his homophobia are of course based on the resignation of Brendan Eich from Mozilla after his active support (including financial support) of California Proposition 8 in 2008 was exposed. Huckabee wants to find an excuse for Eich’s behavior, so he trots out the right wing trope that ‘Well, Barack Obama agreed with the reasoning of this proposition in 2008, so why doesn’t the left make him resign?". Which is a ridiculous comparison on its face.
Let’s remember the actual history of Proposition 8, and not just the version that the right wing pundits would have their gullible listeners believe. This actually dates back to California’s Proposition 22, which passed by about 65% of the vote in the year 2000. Prop 22 was designed as a parallel to the hateful “Defense of Marriage” act that went through Newt Gingrich’s House in 1996. The purpose of it was to block same-sex marriages from being recognized, specifically in California. Before Prop 22, same-sex couples would try to marry outside California and then use a clause in state family law to have California recognize the marriage as legal inside the state. Anti-gay groups rallied against this idea, supporting both the federal legislation and state initiatives like 22, which were designed to say NO to gay couples. It’s a sign of how things have changed since then that the polling in 2000 indicated that the proposition would narrowly pass, but when the final vote was held, the numbers were much higher for its passage. Which tells us many people didn’t want to publicly say “I support this”, but in the ballot booth, they did just that. For several years, the anti-gay population crowed over this victory, using it to block same-sex couples from having many of the same rights as heterosexual couples. As had been the case in the past, homophobic parents would bar the partner of their son or daughter from their hospital rooms, and would legally deny that there was any official relationship between the partners. This got particularly nasty when one partner would be on their deathbed and the other partner would be forbidden to see them.
In 2008, the California Supreme Court finally overturned Prop 22, among other homophobic pieces of legislation. The anti-gay forces knew this was coming, so they had mobilized to create Proposition 8, built from the same language but designed to circumvent the legal challenges that killed 22. Unlike the year 2000, the campaign in 2008 was much more evenly fought. This time, the opponents of the proposition were even able to out-fundraise the anti-gay forces by about 5 million dollars. (The Prop 8 supporters raised about 39 million, including from Brendan Eich, and the opponents raised about 44 million.) Polling indicated the populace was pretty evenly split, and this time, the final vote was much closer. Prop 8 did pass, but on a much, much narrower basis – at 52 percent. Which tells us that people were thinking a bit more tolerantly in 2008 than in 2000, and tells us that it was only the absolute virulence of the Prop 8 supporters that got it through. We shouldn’t sugarcoat the hatred behind Prop 8 – it was always intended as a slap in the face of same-sex couples and their supporters. Prop 8 supporters were quite open that they despised having gay marriage thrown at them, and that they felt it was wrong for various reasons. Brendan Eich’s support for the proposition, including his financial contributions to it, place him in the camp of people who wanted to once again say NO to same-sex couples and keep us in a world where those couples would be considered second-class citizens. Sadly for the anti-gay forces, Prop 8 got tossed by the courts even faster than Prop 22, with a huge hit coming in 2010 and then a final knockout blow finishing it off in 2013. These guys are still smarting from that, and one wonders what they’ll come up with for an encore. It’s not surprising that Mozilla was publicly embarrassed and shamed by their CEO’s conduct in this matter. It’s also not surprising that Eich decided to resign rather than further besmirch the company. That’s not a matter of him having his free speech censored. It’s a matter of him properly being called out for doing something hateful, and the right wing not liking that one bit.
Huckabee thinks it’s a good analogy to accuse President Obama of supporting Proposition 8, as a way of providing political cover for Eich and other homophobes like Huckabee. Except that Barack Obama expressly OPPOSED Proposition 8. He said that while he personally believed in 2008 that marriage was between a man and a woman and he supported civil unions to allow legal status to other couples, he found initiatives like Prop 8 to be “divisive and discriminatory” in their attempts to change the constitution to codify discrimination. There’s a big difference between saying you personally have a belief about marriage, and openly supporting legislation that would discriminate against one group of people. Huckabee knows this, but he’s hoping that his listeners won’t.
Of course, Huckabee can’t resist pushing the analogy even farther over the line. So he makes up this straw man argument that the left insisted on Brendan Eich resigning because somehow they are intolerant and not interested in free speech. Huckabee makes the wild statement that right wingers are inclusive of everyone’s speech, and says that the proof of this is how he personally enjoys the music of Barbra Streisand regardless of her politics. I’m thankful that I wasn’t drinking anything when he said this over the weekend as I might have laughed it right out of my nose. Let’s see? Huckabee wants us to think that the right wing is TOLERANT and INCLUSIVE? That the right wing would NEVER boycott a product over politics? Really?
Perhaps Huckabee has heard of Bill O’Reilly? You know, the guy who advocated for a boycott against all French products in the early 2000s because they opposed the US attack on Iraq? (And this during a time when US right wingers made the heroic choice to relabel “French Fries” as “Freedom Fries”?) The guy who advocated for a boycott on anyone travelling to Aruba over the Natalie Holloway case? The guy who called for a boycott against Pepsi over their use of Ludacris as a pitchman? (O’Reilly doesn’t get to weasel out of his behavior by saying ‘Hey, I don’t think I used the actual WORD boycott’ since his stated intention was for his viewers to refuse to buy Pepsi…) Perhaps Huckabee has heard of One Million Moms, a right wing group that regularly calls for boycotts against such outrageous institutions as Toys R Us and JC Penneys. Maybe Huckabee knows Rush Limbaugh, who told his listeners to boycott GM in 2009.
Or perhaps Mike Huckabee is aware of a right wing pundit who advocated for a boycott of NPR when they fired Juan Williams for bigotry. Huckabee might remember this, as it happened recently, in October 2010. This pundit was so angry about Williams being called out for his behavior that the pundit even called for Congress to cut NPR’s funding. This pundit was certainly not calling for “More speech” like Huckabee would prefer today. The pundit’s name? Oh. It was Mike Huckabee!
Hmmmm.
His comments about his homophobia are of course based on the resignation of Brendan Eich from Mozilla after his active support (including financial support) of California Proposition 8 in 2008 was exposed. Huckabee wants to find an excuse for Eich’s behavior, so he trots out the right wing trope that ‘Well, Barack Obama agreed with the reasoning of this proposition in 2008, so why doesn’t the left make him resign?". Which is a ridiculous comparison on its face.
Let’s remember the actual history of Proposition 8, and not just the version that the right wing pundits would have their gullible listeners believe. This actually dates back to California’s Proposition 22, which passed by about 65% of the vote in the year 2000. Prop 22 was designed as a parallel to the hateful “Defense of Marriage” act that went through Newt Gingrich’s House in 1996. The purpose of it was to block same-sex marriages from being recognized, specifically in California. Before Prop 22, same-sex couples would try to marry outside California and then use a clause in state family law to have California recognize the marriage as legal inside the state. Anti-gay groups rallied against this idea, supporting both the federal legislation and state initiatives like 22, which were designed to say NO to gay couples. It’s a sign of how things have changed since then that the polling in 2000 indicated that the proposition would narrowly pass, but when the final vote was held, the numbers were much higher for its passage. Which tells us many people didn’t want to publicly say “I support this”, but in the ballot booth, they did just that. For several years, the anti-gay population crowed over this victory, using it to block same-sex couples from having many of the same rights as heterosexual couples. As had been the case in the past, homophobic parents would bar the partner of their son or daughter from their hospital rooms, and would legally deny that there was any official relationship between the partners. This got particularly nasty when one partner would be on their deathbed and the other partner would be forbidden to see them.
In 2008, the California Supreme Court finally overturned Prop 22, among other homophobic pieces of legislation. The anti-gay forces knew this was coming, so they had mobilized to create Proposition 8, built from the same language but designed to circumvent the legal challenges that killed 22. Unlike the year 2000, the campaign in 2008 was much more evenly fought. This time, the opponents of the proposition were even able to out-fundraise the anti-gay forces by about 5 million dollars. (The Prop 8 supporters raised about 39 million, including from Brendan Eich, and the opponents raised about 44 million.) Polling indicated the populace was pretty evenly split, and this time, the final vote was much closer. Prop 8 did pass, but on a much, much narrower basis – at 52 percent. Which tells us that people were thinking a bit more tolerantly in 2008 than in 2000, and tells us that it was only the absolute virulence of the Prop 8 supporters that got it through. We shouldn’t sugarcoat the hatred behind Prop 8 – it was always intended as a slap in the face of same-sex couples and their supporters. Prop 8 supporters were quite open that they despised having gay marriage thrown at them, and that they felt it was wrong for various reasons. Brendan Eich’s support for the proposition, including his financial contributions to it, place him in the camp of people who wanted to once again say NO to same-sex couples and keep us in a world where those couples would be considered second-class citizens. Sadly for the anti-gay forces, Prop 8 got tossed by the courts even faster than Prop 22, with a huge hit coming in 2010 and then a final knockout blow finishing it off in 2013. These guys are still smarting from that, and one wonders what they’ll come up with for an encore. It’s not surprising that Mozilla was publicly embarrassed and shamed by their CEO’s conduct in this matter. It’s also not surprising that Eich decided to resign rather than further besmirch the company. That’s not a matter of him having his free speech censored. It’s a matter of him properly being called out for doing something hateful, and the right wing not liking that one bit.
Huckabee thinks it’s a good analogy to accuse President Obama of supporting Proposition 8, as a way of providing political cover for Eich and other homophobes like Huckabee. Except that Barack Obama expressly OPPOSED Proposition 8. He said that while he personally believed in 2008 that marriage was between a man and a woman and he supported civil unions to allow legal status to other couples, he found initiatives like Prop 8 to be “divisive and discriminatory” in their attempts to change the constitution to codify discrimination. There’s a big difference between saying you personally have a belief about marriage, and openly supporting legislation that would discriminate against one group of people. Huckabee knows this, but he’s hoping that his listeners won’t.
Of course, Huckabee can’t resist pushing the analogy even farther over the line. So he makes up this straw man argument that the left insisted on Brendan Eich resigning because somehow they are intolerant and not interested in free speech. Huckabee makes the wild statement that right wingers are inclusive of everyone’s speech, and says that the proof of this is how he personally enjoys the music of Barbra Streisand regardless of her politics. I’m thankful that I wasn’t drinking anything when he said this over the weekend as I might have laughed it right out of my nose. Let’s see? Huckabee wants us to think that the right wing is TOLERANT and INCLUSIVE? That the right wing would NEVER boycott a product over politics? Really?
Perhaps Huckabee has heard of Bill O’Reilly? You know, the guy who advocated for a boycott against all French products in the early 2000s because they opposed the US attack on Iraq? (And this during a time when US right wingers made the heroic choice to relabel “French Fries” as “Freedom Fries”?) The guy who advocated for a boycott on anyone travelling to Aruba over the Natalie Holloway case? The guy who called for a boycott against Pepsi over their use of Ludacris as a pitchman? (O’Reilly doesn’t get to weasel out of his behavior by saying ‘Hey, I don’t think I used the actual WORD boycott’ since his stated intention was for his viewers to refuse to buy Pepsi…) Perhaps Huckabee has heard of One Million Moms, a right wing group that regularly calls for boycotts against such outrageous institutions as Toys R Us and JC Penneys. Maybe Huckabee knows Rush Limbaugh, who told his listeners to boycott GM in 2009.
Or perhaps Mike Huckabee is aware of a right wing pundit who advocated for a boycott of NPR when they fired Juan Williams for bigotry. Huckabee might remember this, as it happened recently, in October 2010. This pundit was so angry about Williams being called out for his behavior that the pundit even called for Congress to cut NPR’s funding. This pundit was certainly not calling for “More speech” like Huckabee would prefer today. The pundit’s name? Oh. It was Mike Huckabee!
Hmmmm.
Kevin Koster commented on Sen. Lindsey Graham Wins Our Outrageous Quote Of The Week Poll For Blaming Ukraine Crisis On Benghazi
2014-03-14 23:45:11 -0400
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I’m just wondering what Graham was thinking when he was caught on a hot mike offering to help John Kerry with “Boehner”. I noted this when CNN put the video up and wondered if Fox News was going to acknowledge it at any point…
Kevin Koster commented on Kelly Dresses Down Issa – To Improve GOP Messaging In IRS Investigation
2014-03-07 19:48:12 -0500
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Kelly was actually quite pleasant with Issa, all things considered. She didn’t run over him with nearly the enthusiasm she has attacked Democrats in a similar situation. She repeatedly made the point that she understood where he was coming from and went along with the right wing narrative about how horrible the Dems were supposedly to the GOP when they had the majority. This narrative forgets that the GOP repeatedly took every parliamentary trick they could to gum up the works – specifically to stop the Dems from accomplishing anything. After the tactics got really egregious, the Dems would finally put a stop to it. That’s very different from Issa not even allowing Cummings to speak.
It’s also interesting that Issa is projecting the tantrum he threw onto Cummings, making the patronizing comments that Cummings was emotional and having “a hissy fit”. The reality is that Issa has repeatedly thrown public tantrums and embarrassed himself in front of the Congress by playing the role of “aggrieved Congressman in search of the truth” while actually grandstanding for himself. In this case, Issa lost his temper and petulantly shut down the hearing without allowing anyone else to speak. Cummings had a real statement and question which would have addressed the notion of having Lerner’s attorney speak for her, which in turn would have provided the “answers” Issa insists he is seeking. (But Issa isn’t really interested in finding those “answers” – he just wanted to grandstand by shutting down the hearing in a fit of pique.) When Issa not only refused to allow Cummings to speak but then began acting in a condescending manner toward him, interrupted him and made a grand gesture of telling people to cut Cummings’ microphone, Cummings became understandably frustrated. Cummings’ anger over Issa’s behavior was more than merited. Issa’s nastiness towards Cummings and toward Lois Lerner was not.
It’s also interesting that Issa is projecting the tantrum he threw onto Cummings, making the patronizing comments that Cummings was emotional and having “a hissy fit”. The reality is that Issa has repeatedly thrown public tantrums and embarrassed himself in front of the Congress by playing the role of “aggrieved Congressman in search of the truth” while actually grandstanding for himself. In this case, Issa lost his temper and petulantly shut down the hearing without allowing anyone else to speak. Cummings had a real statement and question which would have addressed the notion of having Lerner’s attorney speak for her, which in turn would have provided the “answers” Issa insists he is seeking. (But Issa isn’t really interested in finding those “answers” – he just wanted to grandstand by shutting down the hearing in a fit of pique.) When Issa not only refused to allow Cummings to speak but then began acting in a condescending manner toward him, interrupted him and made a grand gesture of telling people to cut Cummings’ microphone, Cummings became understandably frustrated. Cummings’ anger over Issa’s behavior was more than merited. Issa’s nastiness towards Cummings and toward Lois Lerner was not.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News’ Racial Witch Hunt Against Obama Nominee Adegbile Succeeds
2014-03-08 13:33:49 -0500
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As I understand it, Adegbile and the LDF got involved with the Wesley Cook matter more than 25 years into its tortured history. They were not defending Cook at trial, and to my knowledge, Adegbile never said that Cook was an innocent man. (I’m trying hard to avoid getting us into the weeds of the specific case – I’ve studied it carefully over the years and it’s not the point of this thread)
The point of the NAACP LDF’s involvement here has to do with their consistent position on the Death Penalty. As the statistics continue to show, the Death Penalty has been applied with greatly disproportionate frequency and vehemence against the black community. So the LDF opposes it on principle. Their position on Wesley Cook falls in with that long-held principle. By the time they got to the Cook case, his death sentence had already been thrown out. The LDF’s work was to make sure that it wasn’t reinstated. That’s a big difference from somehow “passionately defending” Cook at trial. Cook was convicted of this murder over 30 years ago, and his guilt wasn’t the subject of the LDF’s briefs. When Cook fired his last batch of attorneys (and he did this many times over the course of decades of appeals), the LDF took over as his attorneys – specifically to insure that he would face a sentence of life behind bars rather than a reinstated death penalty. Faced with this, the Philadelphia DA chose to live with Cook alive behind bars rather than pour more funds into yet another trial situation.
I absolutely agree that Adegbile did nothing wrong. And I’d go farther to say that Adegbile has done exemplary work with the LDF over the years. He was a completely appropriate attorney to be appointed for this position, and it’s shameful that Fox News thinks they can get away with smearing him in this manner. I don’t think President Obama made a mistake in choosing him for appointment – I think it’s more apt to say that Fox News, right wing radio and the GOP have made it their mission in life to attack and frustrate him at every turn. They made it clear from the moment he became a candidate in the first place, and they clarified it multiple times. Adegbile could have had a legal career of helping elderly people across the street, and the right wing would have attacked him for not letting them take care of themselves. They will always find a reason to attack, no matter how ridiculous.
We have no way of knowing the motivations of the Dem Senators who chose to go along with the GOP propaganda here. I doubt it was because they watch Fox News. But we have to acknowledge that the right wing worked hard to establish the premise of the coverage here, as they have done with every single issue over the past 20 years. It doesn’t matter that their premise was false. I think Ellen’s point here is that this is a case where they succeeded in getting their narrative of events far enough into the mainstream to get their way. And we must be aware of when and how they do this, or they’ll get away with it more often.
As I’ve said before, I see the purpose of this website as a corrective to these false narratives that Fox News tries to purvey. For Fox News viewers, there is a completely separate version of history in play – one in which reality is turned on its head and only certain facts are included in the discussion. It’s a philosophy that fixes the facts to a predetermined hypothesis – one that may be comforting to the right wing but which doesn’t have much to do with the real world. We saw the best example of this during the 2012 elections, where Fox News pundits confidently predicted a Romney victory and had fooled even the Romney campaign into thinking they had the election in the bag – while the reality was the opposite.
Fox News is trying to write their version of the history of this presidency, using smears and half-truths and any wisps of smoke they can get their hands around. It’s vitally important to be able to calmly rebut the nonsense with the actual facts, and to show the consistent pattern of hostility Fox News has demonstrated. This is but one example – a small, nasty skirmish victory – and yet it’s important to note how and why it happened. So when the right wingers try to purvey their version of it, anyone with an ounce of education can answer, “Well, that’s not exactly what happened, is it?”
The point of the NAACP LDF’s involvement here has to do with their consistent position on the Death Penalty. As the statistics continue to show, the Death Penalty has been applied with greatly disproportionate frequency and vehemence against the black community. So the LDF opposes it on principle. Their position on Wesley Cook falls in with that long-held principle. By the time they got to the Cook case, his death sentence had already been thrown out. The LDF’s work was to make sure that it wasn’t reinstated. That’s a big difference from somehow “passionately defending” Cook at trial. Cook was convicted of this murder over 30 years ago, and his guilt wasn’t the subject of the LDF’s briefs. When Cook fired his last batch of attorneys (and he did this many times over the course of decades of appeals), the LDF took over as his attorneys – specifically to insure that he would face a sentence of life behind bars rather than a reinstated death penalty. Faced with this, the Philadelphia DA chose to live with Cook alive behind bars rather than pour more funds into yet another trial situation.
I absolutely agree that Adegbile did nothing wrong. And I’d go farther to say that Adegbile has done exemplary work with the LDF over the years. He was a completely appropriate attorney to be appointed for this position, and it’s shameful that Fox News thinks they can get away with smearing him in this manner. I don’t think President Obama made a mistake in choosing him for appointment – I think it’s more apt to say that Fox News, right wing radio and the GOP have made it their mission in life to attack and frustrate him at every turn. They made it clear from the moment he became a candidate in the first place, and they clarified it multiple times. Adegbile could have had a legal career of helping elderly people across the street, and the right wing would have attacked him for not letting them take care of themselves. They will always find a reason to attack, no matter how ridiculous.
We have no way of knowing the motivations of the Dem Senators who chose to go along with the GOP propaganda here. I doubt it was because they watch Fox News. But we have to acknowledge that the right wing worked hard to establish the premise of the coverage here, as they have done with every single issue over the past 20 years. It doesn’t matter that their premise was false. I think Ellen’s point here is that this is a case where they succeeded in getting their narrative of events far enough into the mainstream to get their way. And we must be aware of when and how they do this, or they’ll get away with it more often.
As I’ve said before, I see the purpose of this website as a corrective to these false narratives that Fox News tries to purvey. For Fox News viewers, there is a completely separate version of history in play – one in which reality is turned on its head and only certain facts are included in the discussion. It’s a philosophy that fixes the facts to a predetermined hypothesis – one that may be comforting to the right wing but which doesn’t have much to do with the real world. We saw the best example of this during the 2012 elections, where Fox News pundits confidently predicted a Romney victory and had fooled even the Romney campaign into thinking they had the election in the bag – while the reality was the opposite.
Fox News is trying to write their version of the history of this presidency, using smears and half-truths and any wisps of smoke they can get their hands around. It’s vitally important to be able to calmly rebut the nonsense with the actual facts, and to show the consistent pattern of hostility Fox News has demonstrated. This is but one example – a small, nasty skirmish victory – and yet it’s important to note how and why it happened. So when the right wingers try to purvey their version of it, anyone with an ounce of education can answer, “Well, that’s not exactly what happened, is it?”
Kevin Koster commented on Brent Bozell: Iran-Contra Scandal ‘Piddly’ Compared To IRS Investigation
2014-03-07 13:08:34 -0500
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A few things here:
First, Brent Bozell has no credibility. His organization is noteworthy for having been sued and humiliated by WWE for their libelous statements in the past. He was forced to issue a public apology and retraction on his website and pay a massive settlement to WWE to keep the situation from becoming even worse for him in court. If Fox News wishes to find a credible media commentator, then maybe they could have a real discussion. Bozell is simply a showman with no real knowledge of what he’s opining. As they say, “all hat and no cattle”.
Second, the argument between Issa and Cummings wasn’t so much about this specific non-story, but rather about the fact that Issa has been acting as a dictator on this committee for years now. It’s clearly Issa’s intent to spend his time grandstanding on whatever trumped-up “scandals” he can push on Fox News and talk radio. This allows him to play the role of the “aggrieved congressman in search of the truth” while doing nothing more than bang his gavel and throw public tantrums. Issa has long thought of himself as more important than he is – his biggest stretch was when he engineered the recall of Governor Gray Davis in California, thinking he would be able to walk into the governorship himself. When Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in front of him, Issa had a public meltdown and sobbed at a press conference where he had to admit he wasn’t going to get to be governor after all. Similar to Bozell, Issa has no credibility. When he completes his congressional career, all he’ll have to show for his time is a series of these public outbursts, none of which having done anything to help anyone other than himself.
Finally, there isn’t an IRS scandal. There was a bureaucratic mess that came from the way various IRS staffers categorized the non-profit applications. It’s all fairly dry material and certainly not criminal. It’s a matter of how procedures are handled when it comes to filing papers. That’s not the same thing as the very real criminality practiced by the Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush White Houses. The GOP is desperately trying to find any smoke they can to equate their current arguments with past criminal acts, but it never works. We’ll hear this refrain time and time again on Fox – “Worse than Watergate”, “Worse than Iran Contra”, “Worse than Plamegate”. But that doesn’t make the refrain true, and it doesn’t rewrite the actual history even if Fox News wishes that it would.
First, Brent Bozell has no credibility. His organization is noteworthy for having been sued and humiliated by WWE for their libelous statements in the past. He was forced to issue a public apology and retraction on his website and pay a massive settlement to WWE to keep the situation from becoming even worse for him in court. If Fox News wishes to find a credible media commentator, then maybe they could have a real discussion. Bozell is simply a showman with no real knowledge of what he’s opining. As they say, “all hat and no cattle”.
Second, the argument between Issa and Cummings wasn’t so much about this specific non-story, but rather about the fact that Issa has been acting as a dictator on this committee for years now. It’s clearly Issa’s intent to spend his time grandstanding on whatever trumped-up “scandals” he can push on Fox News and talk radio. This allows him to play the role of the “aggrieved congressman in search of the truth” while doing nothing more than bang his gavel and throw public tantrums. Issa has long thought of himself as more important than he is – his biggest stretch was when he engineered the recall of Governor Gray Davis in California, thinking he would be able to walk into the governorship himself. When Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in front of him, Issa had a public meltdown and sobbed at a press conference where he had to admit he wasn’t going to get to be governor after all. Similar to Bozell, Issa has no credibility. When he completes his congressional career, all he’ll have to show for his time is a series of these public outbursts, none of which having done anything to help anyone other than himself.
Finally, there isn’t an IRS scandal. There was a bureaucratic mess that came from the way various IRS staffers categorized the non-profit applications. It’s all fairly dry material and certainly not criminal. It’s a matter of how procedures are handled when it comes to filing papers. That’s not the same thing as the very real criminality practiced by the Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush White Houses. The GOP is desperately trying to find any smoke they can to equate their current arguments with past criminal acts, but it never works. We’ll hear this refrain time and time again on Fox – “Worse than Watergate”, “Worse than Iran Contra”, “Worse than Plamegate”. But that doesn’t make the refrain true, and it doesn’t rewrite the actual history even if Fox News wishes that it would.
Kevin Koster commented on Clinton Conspiracy Theorist Kathleen Willey Gets The Kid Glove Treatment From Megyn Kelly
2014-02-20 09:45:22 -0500
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If anything, this is a sign that Fox News and the GOP are really getting desperate to find any mud they can to throw at Hillary Clinton. This is of course also tied to the Christie corruption scandal, which Fox News wishes would simply go away. I have a feeling it will only get muddier before we get to 2016…
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Huckabee Pushes Lie: Colorado Brady Amendment 'Not About Abortion'
2014-02-19 17:35:13 -0500
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I’m glad you caught this. I noticed this over the weekend, and after only a moment’s thought during the interview realized it was a sneaky attempt to undermine the rights of women to have a say about their own pregnancies. Huckabee’s concern here was obviously a front for the real goal – finding a back door to overturning Roe v Wade.
There’s another part of that opposition we should also remember. These guys always say that the end of Roe v Wade would only mean that the situation would revert to the states. They deliberately leave out the rest of the sentence – the part where it would be a crime to cross state lines to terminate a pregnancy. Huckabee is a master of just this kind of deceptive propaganda. Which is why I’m relieved that this site exists to help maintain a record of it.
There’s another part of that opposition we should also remember. These guys always say that the end of Roe v Wade would only mean that the situation would revert to the states. They deliberately leave out the rest of the sentence – the part where it would be a crime to cross state lines to terminate a pregnancy. Huckabee is a master of just this kind of deceptive propaganda. Which is why I’m relieved that this site exists to help maintain a record of it.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Sunday Distracts From Christie Scandal By Ambushing Democrat Strickland
2014-02-18 05:08:26 -0500
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This was a despicable move by Rove, and clearly done because he knew he had lost the argument and had no ground on which to present his case. So he fell back to a cheap shot that he knew Strickland wouldn’t be able to knock out with a five second sound byte.
Strickland frankly looked shocked that Rove would play this card – which is dispiriting as he could have simply stopped Rove in his tracks by saying that Rove was bringing up untrue and irrelevant statements and trying to get the conversation back on the actual matter at hand.
Strickland frankly looked shocked that Rove would play this card – which is dispiriting as he could have simply stopped Rove in his tracks by saying that Rove was bringing up untrue and irrelevant statements and trying to get the conversation back on the actual matter at hand.
Kevin Koster commented on Mike Huckabee Urges Viewers To Contact Screen Academy Re 'Yanked' Christian Film
2014-02-14 10:31:03 -0500
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Bruce Broughton is a governor with the Academy, in addition to being an experienced and well-known composer. He is well aware of the rules he broke. He just thought he could get away with it and he couldn’t. If they didn’t smack his paw for the kind of campaigning he was doing, the door would be open for all Academy officials to lobby for their own movies, using their access to email lists and influence that other people don’t have. That’s what this was about, and it’s the reason the song was pulled from the list.
Given that this movie didn’t make any money on its first release, it’s clearly the hope of its supporters that they can use the publicity of this mess to get the hard right wing evangelicals to flock to see it either on DVD or if it can get another theatrical run. The mock concern you’re seeing on Fox News has little to do with changing anything at the Academy. They’re aware they can’t do anything on that front. But they can try to take this moral position of disapproving of the Academy, while they promote this movie. It’s more than a bit disingenuous. And they don’t have a moral leg to stand on.
Given that this movie didn’t make any money on its first release, it’s clearly the hope of its supporters that they can use the publicity of this mess to get the hard right wing evangelicals to flock to see it either on DVD or if it can get another theatrical run. The mock concern you’re seeing on Fox News has little to do with changing anything at the Academy. They’re aware they can’t do anything on that front. But they can try to take this moral position of disapproving of the Academy, while they promote this movie. It’s more than a bit disingenuous. And they don’t have a moral leg to stand on.
Kevin Koster commented on On Fox & Friends: Oscar Song 'Yanked' Because Of Faith Based Bigotry
2014-02-10 11:43:23 -0500
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This has been one of the sillier obsessions of right wingers. The rescinding of the nomination had nothing to do with religion, politics or anything other than Bruce Broughton inappropriately campaigning.
The Academy has repeatedly made clear that the issue here was that Broughton used his access to the Academy’s email list to send out messages telling members of the Music Branch the names of the composer and lyricist for his song – something that is expressly forbidden. It’s one thing for the various producers and potential nominees to hold screenings, parties, etc. It’s one thing for the producers to take out ads in the trade papers and on industry-heavy websites. It’s one thing for the producers/studios to send out screeners of the movies or materials they want people to consider. That’s all par for the course and appropriate – even if it does get annoying at times.
It’s an altogether different thing for a known and influential Academy member to use his position to get a nomination through. Had this been a case where word of mouth was building and people were all telling each other what a great song this was, then there wouldn’t have been a controversy. But the movie in question is so obscure that nobody had heard of it until Broughton broke the rules and tried to bypass everyone else. He knew the movie was going to disappear along with the song, so he figured he’d do a long pass and see if he could push the voters into suddenly listening to it. Instead, he got the movie and the song tangled up in a bunch of bad publicity.
I suspect that there is another reason why the hard right wingers are making so much noise. They know the movie will not be getting that nomination back, and they know they don’t have a leg to stand on. But I think they’re hoping they can get more attention for the movie itself so it can sell a few copies in the home video market – most likely to Fox News viewers and AM radio listeners. Don’t be surprised if a few ads for the DVD release pop up in the usual places, and if you see a few bits like Fox & Friends doing an interview with the filmmakers and the singer again when this release happens.
Fox News thus gets a double bump out of this. They get to feign moral outrage over nonsense, and they get to help an obscure movie they’ve now championed make a little coin.
The Academy has repeatedly made clear that the issue here was that Broughton used his access to the Academy’s email list to send out messages telling members of the Music Branch the names of the composer and lyricist for his song – something that is expressly forbidden. It’s one thing for the various producers and potential nominees to hold screenings, parties, etc. It’s one thing for the producers to take out ads in the trade papers and on industry-heavy websites. It’s one thing for the producers/studios to send out screeners of the movies or materials they want people to consider. That’s all par for the course and appropriate – even if it does get annoying at times.
It’s an altogether different thing for a known and influential Academy member to use his position to get a nomination through. Had this been a case where word of mouth was building and people were all telling each other what a great song this was, then there wouldn’t have been a controversy. But the movie in question is so obscure that nobody had heard of it until Broughton broke the rules and tried to bypass everyone else. He knew the movie was going to disappear along with the song, so he figured he’d do a long pass and see if he could push the voters into suddenly listening to it. Instead, he got the movie and the song tangled up in a bunch of bad publicity.
I suspect that there is another reason why the hard right wingers are making so much noise. They know the movie will not be getting that nomination back, and they know they don’t have a leg to stand on. But I think they’re hoping they can get more attention for the movie itself so it can sell a few copies in the home video market – most likely to Fox News viewers and AM radio listeners. Don’t be surprised if a few ads for the DVD release pop up in the usual places, and if you see a few bits like Fox & Friends doing an interview with the filmmakers and the singer again when this release happens.
Fox News thus gets a double bump out of this. They get to feign moral outrage over nonsense, and they get to help an obscure movie they’ve now championed make a little coin.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox Dredges Up Monica Lewinsky Scandal And Ann Coulter To Attack Hillary Clinton
2014-01-28 12:35:08 -0500
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This was frankly hilarious last night. I believe it shows Roger Ailes’ frustration in a general manner.
First, it does indeed show that the GOP is really scared that Hillary could actually get the nomination in 2016 and they’re willing to throw anything they can at her in the meantime. Keep in mind that we’re still two years out from the primaries and anything could happen between now and then. Fox News is trying to keep up a patter of attacks and establish a counter narrative about her – the same way they think that one was created about Mitt Romney.
Second, it shows that even Fox News is unable to do much with the Benghazi games at this point. Their latest failure in that idea came when the Christie bridge scandal went big. Fox News couldn’t defend that behavior so it tried to celebrate how Christie spoke about it and then tried to amp up discussion about two GOP-led congressional counterattacks regarding Benghazi. (And those counters were both to the current Christie story and to the NY Times article that completely demolished their version of events.) Shockingly for Fox News, no other media outlets thought it was particularly newsworthy for two congressional committees, led by the GOP to suddenly have some thoughts on a consulate attack that was heavily discussed back in 2012. So Fox News is now looking for a new potential embarrassing story to throw at Hillary.
Third, the raising of old Bill Clinton stories serves more to fire up angry right wingers who were as determined to destroy his presidency in the 90s as they are to destroy President Obama’s work today. So they dredge up the gossip from before, which gives an ideologue like Marc Thiessen a chance to grimace before the cameras and talk about how awful the 90s were for everyone. (Which raises yet another reason why this site is important – if these guys were left unchallenged, there are people who could point to ridiculous assertions like Thiessen’s and assume they reflected facts somehow) The hope is clearly to smear both the Clintons with the same brush. And this clearly didn’t work during Hillary’s terms in the Senate, nor during her 2008 presidential campaign.
Somewhere along the way, somebody on the air noted that this approach could potentially backfire (this may have been Kelly). That was the one bit of actual common sense being spoken in the middle of all the hysteria.
First, it does indeed show that the GOP is really scared that Hillary could actually get the nomination in 2016 and they’re willing to throw anything they can at her in the meantime. Keep in mind that we’re still two years out from the primaries and anything could happen between now and then. Fox News is trying to keep up a patter of attacks and establish a counter narrative about her – the same way they think that one was created about Mitt Romney.
Second, it shows that even Fox News is unable to do much with the Benghazi games at this point. Their latest failure in that idea came when the Christie bridge scandal went big. Fox News couldn’t defend that behavior so it tried to celebrate how Christie spoke about it and then tried to amp up discussion about two GOP-led congressional counterattacks regarding Benghazi. (And those counters were both to the current Christie story and to the NY Times article that completely demolished their version of events.) Shockingly for Fox News, no other media outlets thought it was particularly newsworthy for two congressional committees, led by the GOP to suddenly have some thoughts on a consulate attack that was heavily discussed back in 2012. So Fox News is now looking for a new potential embarrassing story to throw at Hillary.
Third, the raising of old Bill Clinton stories serves more to fire up angry right wingers who were as determined to destroy his presidency in the 90s as they are to destroy President Obama’s work today. So they dredge up the gossip from before, which gives an ideologue like Marc Thiessen a chance to grimace before the cameras and talk about how awful the 90s were for everyone. (Which raises yet another reason why this site is important – if these guys were left unchallenged, there are people who could point to ridiculous assertions like Thiessen’s and assume they reflected facts somehow) The hope is clearly to smear both the Clintons with the same brush. And this clearly didn’t work during Hillary’s terms in the Senate, nor during her 2008 presidential campaign.
Somewhere along the way, somebody on the air noted that this approach could potentially backfire (this may have been Kelly). That was the one bit of actual common sense being spoken in the middle of all the hysteria.
Kevin Koster commented on Yes, Hannity Does Love That Dirty Water
2014-01-27 21:54:22 -0500
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If Sean Hannity thought he could get blame the West Virginia situation on President Obama, he’d make it a top story. Since he clearly can’t do that, and since the story doesn’t fit in with his pre-prepared narrative, he will not include it on his show. Because such stories are not about news for Hannity, nor are they about any concern for the victims. Hannity clearly doesn’t care about such things, if those people are not useable as props in his vendetta against President Obama. Hannity doesn’t see an easy political “get” for himself here. So he (and the rest of Fox News) is happy to ignore the problem.
Kevin Koster commented on Why Frank Rich Is Wrong To Tell Liberals, 'Stop Beating A Dead Fox'
2014-01-27 21:50:37 -0500
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Rich makes some very good points, but I would offer a few simple responses.
He’s correct that the Fox News viewership demographic is aging to the point that we can see they’re going to be in serious trouble in about 5-10 years. And we can see this anytime Mike Huckabee’s show is on, as it’s the only one where you can see a happy audience in the house.
He’s correct that Fox News, like Rush Limbaugh, greatly depends on angering non-GOP listeners who they know they can easily offend. There’s also an argument that there’s a good portion of both the AM radio audience and the Fox News audience that listens or watches specifically BECAUSE they disagree with the right wing spin. Frank Rich would have been on the money to tell left wingers to not help prop up what’s left of Fox News’ demographic in the ratings. (I note that Fox News viewers pride themselves on refusing to watch any other channels, which is why you see Fox News’ numbers up a little, and MSNBC’s numbers down.
I would argue that while Fox News doesn’t need any more publicity, and neither does Rush Limbaugh, when they say silly and desperately provocative comments, it’s still important to correct the record. Ten years or fifty years down the road, their misstatements will still be preserved in the internet. Right wingers will cite those misstatements in future publications, asserting that they are coming from a “legitimate news authority”. It is important, not just for now, but really for the future, to make sure that the Breitbarts and O’Reillys of the future cannot make their assertions without being challenged on their factual problems.
And while it’s clear that Rush is really becoming frantic with his statements these days, there’s still a long and sordid record of those statements that must be calmly and patiently debunked. Rush may be on his way out (He was taken off the primary right wing radio station in Los Angeles, KFI, and put on a much smaller range station that can only reach half the audience. And the departure of many of his advertisers has meant that it’s very strange to hear who will still put ads on his shows these days.) but he’s bound to try to make more trouble before he’s done. And when he makes vicious attacks, as he shamefully did against Iraq war veterans (who he called “phony soldiers”), Michael J. Fox (whose Parkinson’s condition he cruelly imitated on the air) and Sandra Fluke, he absolutely should be called out for his behavior. To silently ignore something that offensive is to condone it.
As for the behavior and statements of people like Megyn Kelly and Mike Huckabee, not to mention the other cast of Fox News characters, it’s important to call them out when they do something despicable. At the least, it gives them a chance to do the right thing, as on-air personalities at MSNBC have done when they have misbehaved. Strangely, the Fox News folks seem to enjoy doubling down on the hate, as we have seen. Which is probably a good thing for posterity. Twenty years from now, when unknowing students wonder about the virtues of people like Kelly and Huckabee, their misdeeds and their refusals to apologize for them will continue to be part of the historical record.
As another branch toward the future, I’ve noticed that it’s quite rare that you see anyone from Fox News that can get work at another network after they leave the Ailes/Murdoch embrace. Newt Gingrich took a check to work at CNN, but he isn’t a personality that was created at Fox News. Frankly, Gingrich was likely quite unhappy with Fox News’ pressure on him to jump out of the presidential race in 2012, and going to CNN was his way of thumbing his nose at them. But could you imagine Bill O’Reilly suddenly getting a gig at MSNBC? Or Greg Gutfeld or Eric Bolling? Not a chance. And these guys know it. They’ll enjoy their time at Fox News, and then likely need to either retire or try to get a daytime AM radio slot somewhere. A good part of the reason why is that the public is quite aware of what these people have been doing and why. Which means they no longer have journalistic credibility, and thus are practically unemployable anywhere else.
He’s correct that the Fox News viewership demographic is aging to the point that we can see they’re going to be in serious trouble in about 5-10 years. And we can see this anytime Mike Huckabee’s show is on, as it’s the only one where you can see a happy audience in the house.
He’s correct that Fox News, like Rush Limbaugh, greatly depends on angering non-GOP listeners who they know they can easily offend. There’s also an argument that there’s a good portion of both the AM radio audience and the Fox News audience that listens or watches specifically BECAUSE they disagree with the right wing spin. Frank Rich would have been on the money to tell left wingers to not help prop up what’s left of Fox News’ demographic in the ratings. (I note that Fox News viewers pride themselves on refusing to watch any other channels, which is why you see Fox News’ numbers up a little, and MSNBC’s numbers down.
I would argue that while Fox News doesn’t need any more publicity, and neither does Rush Limbaugh, when they say silly and desperately provocative comments, it’s still important to correct the record. Ten years or fifty years down the road, their misstatements will still be preserved in the internet. Right wingers will cite those misstatements in future publications, asserting that they are coming from a “legitimate news authority”. It is important, not just for now, but really for the future, to make sure that the Breitbarts and O’Reillys of the future cannot make their assertions without being challenged on their factual problems.
And while it’s clear that Rush is really becoming frantic with his statements these days, there’s still a long and sordid record of those statements that must be calmly and patiently debunked. Rush may be on his way out (He was taken off the primary right wing radio station in Los Angeles, KFI, and put on a much smaller range station that can only reach half the audience. And the departure of many of his advertisers has meant that it’s very strange to hear who will still put ads on his shows these days.) but he’s bound to try to make more trouble before he’s done. And when he makes vicious attacks, as he shamefully did against Iraq war veterans (who he called “phony soldiers”), Michael J. Fox (whose Parkinson’s condition he cruelly imitated on the air) and Sandra Fluke, he absolutely should be called out for his behavior. To silently ignore something that offensive is to condone it.
As for the behavior and statements of people like Megyn Kelly and Mike Huckabee, not to mention the other cast of Fox News characters, it’s important to call them out when they do something despicable. At the least, it gives them a chance to do the right thing, as on-air personalities at MSNBC have done when they have misbehaved. Strangely, the Fox News folks seem to enjoy doubling down on the hate, as we have seen. Which is probably a good thing for posterity. Twenty years from now, when unknowing students wonder about the virtues of people like Kelly and Huckabee, their misdeeds and their refusals to apologize for them will continue to be part of the historical record.
As another branch toward the future, I’ve noticed that it’s quite rare that you see anyone from Fox News that can get work at another network after they leave the Ailes/Murdoch embrace. Newt Gingrich took a check to work at CNN, but he isn’t a personality that was created at Fox News. Frankly, Gingrich was likely quite unhappy with Fox News’ pressure on him to jump out of the presidential race in 2012, and going to CNN was his way of thumbing his nose at them. But could you imagine Bill O’Reilly suddenly getting a gig at MSNBC? Or Greg Gutfeld or Eric Bolling? Not a chance. And these guys know it. They’ll enjoy their time at Fox News, and then likely need to either retire or try to get a daytime AM radio slot somewhere. A good part of the reason why is that the public is quite aware of what these people have been doing and why. Which means they no longer have journalistic credibility, and thus are practically unemployable anywhere else.
Kevin Koster commented on Fox News Ignores Radical, Anti-Immigrant Connections Of Pol Endorsed By Persecuted Conservative Actress
2014-01-27 18:26:43 -0500
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Tim Donnelly is well-known in Los Angeles as a far, far right-wing ideologue who has regularly shown up with his invective on KFI radio here. He has regularly made a point of attacking undocumented workers, as well as public employee unions and any other easy targets for the right.
The fact is that he won’t be getting the GOP nomination for the governorship. This idea of running is just to get him a bunch of publicity. The California GOP will run someone a lot closer to the middle, and that person will almost certainly lose to Jerry Brown. Were they to run someone as objectionable as Donnelly, the margin of loss would be exponentially larger. Kind of like what would have happened had Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum not greedily frozen each other out two years ago. I would have been very interested to see a Newt Gingrich presidential campaign in the fall of 2012. Would have given us the rare opportunity to see a 50 state blowout in the double digits and probably would have thrown the House back to the Democrats.
The fact is that he won’t be getting the GOP nomination for the governorship. This idea of running is just to get him a bunch of publicity. The California GOP will run someone a lot closer to the middle, and that person will almost certainly lose to Jerry Brown. Were they to run someone as objectionable as Donnelly, the margin of loss would be exponentially larger. Kind of like what would have happened had Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum not greedily frozen each other out two years ago. I would have been very interested to see a Newt Gingrich presidential campaign in the fall of 2012. Would have given us the rare opportunity to see a 50 state blowout in the double digits and probably would have thrown the House back to the Democrats.