Fox News never wastes an opportunity to smear President Obama with right wing lies and propaganda. Fox News never wastes an opportunity to pimp the candidacy of GOP candidates who also never waste an opportunity to smear the President. So, on Saturday, Fox & Friends scored a propaganda twofer in its presentation of Nebraska GOP Senate Candidate Ben Sasse's oh so clever smear of the President which takes the form of brackets, just like the NCAA basketball brackets, that rank "Obama's worst constitutional violations." Of course these so-called violations are all in the eye of the Republican beholder. But for Fox & Friends these tired right wing tropes (now making the rounds of all the usual right wing blogs) were not only taken at face value; but were also a source of amusement
Saturday, Clayton Morris reported that Sasse, recently endorsed by Sarah Palin, is using the bracket system to examine how "the lawlessness in the American system right now is unfolding." The gang stood in front of a large white board which illustrated the brackets which included - wait for it - "death panels." It should be noted that the "death panels" are not on Sasse's brackets which start with the second round in which the death panels have lost to a delay in compliance for the ACA. What Fox is showing as "death panels" is identified, on Breitbart, as the Independent Payment Advisory Board which reviews health care costs, particularly Medicare. Sasse has four "East" brackets, while Fox and Breitbart have eight. The lie that the ACA funds abortions, however, did win over the bogus "violation" of ACA subsidies to members of Congress.
In citing categories, Peter Johnson Jr. highlighted issues that "a lot of Americans are concerned about in terms of constitutional violations that have been alleged against the Obama administration." (Just those who watch Fox News, the reality based community, not so much) He cited the IRS non-scandal and the Arizona immigration law which was the subject of a Dept. of Justice lawsuit over what the government felt were civil rights violations. Clayton Morris said that the IRS using its power against the Tea Party is a "tough one." Naturally, he cited "the White House spying on Fox." This being Fox News, nobody mentioned that the AP was also included in the administration's subpoena of journalist's records.
As the chyron stated, as Fox Fact, that these brackets are "bracketing lawlessness" and White House "affronts to the Constitution," the Johnson, Morris, and Anna Kooiman all chuckled over how while the President makes his picks, America will be picking "what is unconstitutional." To Clayton Morris' quip that the White House hasn't been making these picks, Johnson responded "they have been doing it; but they haven't been putting it up on the board."
LOL?!
And BTW, what could be considered constitutionally dubious, i.e. NSA spying and use of drones, isn't in the brackets.
And I’d like to just throw it out there that, had Romney won, and someone done something like this criticizing Paul Ryan’s morbid little “You live if you have enough friends!” voucher plan… Fox News would be railing 24/7 to see them off the air. Why? Because when it’s their guy, everything but “SIR, YES SIR!” is an attack, Punishable by permanent revocation of your 1st Amendment rights, on top of them trying to get you thrown in prison every time you sneeze for the rest of your life.
