Broken borders
November 15, 2011
Fox And Friends Outsource Smears To Comedian Brad Stine Again
Proving they learned absolutely nothing from the Hank Williams, Jr. fiasco—when he blurted out that President Obama was the enemy, leading to Williams being forcibly retired as ESPN’s Football Readyist—those Foxy Friends on Fox and Friends dragged out comedian Brad Stine for his weekly attack on the left. [Does two Mondays in a row on Fox “News” constitute “weekly”?] After last week’s appearance Priscilla noted that Stine, “as a youth, led the ‘carny life’ and went on to doing stand-up. After his conversion to Christianity, he made his faith the focus of his acts. Because he's a Christian, he doesn't use profanity… He founded ‘God Men’ a Christian group that emphasizes ‘spiritual Christianity’ and who ‘give thanks’ to God for their testosterone.” Yet, despite his proclaimed deep faith in Christianity, Stine demonstrated none of the compassion and charity that one might expect from Jesus, even a Jesus with balls. No matter. Stine was brought on to smear unemployed ‘Merkins as lazy people and he didn’t disappoint. Watch:
Continue reading >>November 8, 2011
Gretchen Carlson Sympathizes With Ex Border Agent Who Violated "Illegal's" Rights
As documented on Media Matters, Fox "News" treatment of the immigration issue is not exactly "fair & balanced." Fox & Friends, in keeping with the Fox stance, never wastes an opportunity to talk about those "illegals" who are, according to Fox, causing chaos on the border. This morning, Gretchen Carlson got to combine the scary "illegals" meme with the ongoing Fox & Friends meme of conservative victimhood. And as an added plus, former Miss America also did a little right wing rehab for a former border patrol agent who was sentenced to prison for violating the civil rights of an "illegal." But as he told a very supporting Gretchen, he was just following orders so it should have been all good. And the reason that it wasn't is because a district court found that Gretch's new friend's use of excessive force violated the rights of the "illegal." The decision was upheld by a federal court of appeals. Gretch didn't mention this. But Gretch isn't a lawyer. She's host of a Fox opinion show where opinion takes precedence over the facts so it's all good. And as Gretch was able to work in another Fox meme; i.e. criticism of Eric Holder in the "fast & furious" thing - it's even better!
Continue reading >>June 11, 2011
Bill Hemmer Allows Sheriff Paul Babeau To Bash Obama & Gov. Patrick Re "Illegals"
As I said yesterday, Fox "News" never wastes an opportunity to promote right wing propaganda even if it means milking a murder. Earlier this week, Martha MacCallum used a past and present unsolved Arizona border area murder to promote the right wing meme that the border is out of control. In his second appearance with Martha MacCallum, AZ rancher Jim Chilton reinforced the Fox/right wing talking points about how the President isn't doing his job regarding border security. So it came as no surprise that Fox "News" person, Bill Hemmer, would advance the same propaganda. And it came as no suprise that Hemmer would utilize the services of Fox go to law enforcement person, the right wing, xenophobic Sheriff Paul Babeau who regularly provides the Fox audience with the requisite border chaos talking points, as well as a healthy does of Obama bashing. What did come as a surprise is that he's extending his range to Massachusetts where he is teaming up with some seriously right wing local sheriffs to promote the meme that MA governor Deval Patrick is soft on immigration. Just like MacCallum's guest, who had an almost uninterrupted monologue and an affirming Fox host, Sheriff Babeau had the same.
Continue reading >>June 10, 2011
Martha MacCallum Uses AZ Death To Advance Border Chaos Meme
Last year, when an Arizona rancher was killed, the nativist right wing jumped all over the case in order to show that the Mexico/US border was out of control. Bill O'Reilly even declared, on his website, that an "illegal immigrant" had "killed" the rancher despite the fact that there were no (and are no) suspects. Recently, another Arizona man, Larry Link was killed in Arizona but law enforcement has no suspects. But that didn't prevent Martha MacCallum from doing more fear mongering about the border. She even brought back a border fear mongerer whom she interviewed, in April, about border safety. During both of her interviews, she asked leading questions and validated this man's claims about how the border was just out of control. Gotta hand it to Fox "News." They never waste an opportunity to turn a personal tragedy into right wing propaganda.
Continue reading >>February 21, 2011
Bill Hemmer Discusses Border Report With Dreadlock Admiring Former ICE Chief Julie Myers Wood
This morning, Bill Hemmer did a segment about a recent GAO report which showed that the border is not totally under control. Obviously, the meme of an out of control border is standard fare on Fox News; but other than Bill's dramatic emphasis on the report's scary findings, the discussion between Bill and his guest was more technical than propagandistic. His guest was Julie Myers Wood, who was an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Bush years. You might think that she's the kind of bureaucrat who might not be the life of the party. Well think again, cuz Ms. Julie had to do some damage control after she awarded a most original costume award "to a Homeland Security Department employee who dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup for a Halloween gathering at the agency.” And not only did she present the award, she posed with him. And not only did she pose with him, she ordered the destruction of the photos! In addition to being quite the party girl, Ms. Julie has some other major "junk in the trunk" which, as you probably guessed, wasn't mentioned by Hemmer who was focusing on that scary border thing...
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