In case you missed it, there’s a small newspaper in upstate New York that published the names and locations of gun owners in its vicinity. The result has been a nearly non-stop vilification by Fox News. Now, as the paper faces the predictable threats as a result, Fox is vilifying the paper for hiring armed guards, as if that were some kind of unwarranted act of hypocrisy.
Megyn Kelly was a vision of scripted right-wing outrage yesterday on America Live. Apparently, she thought the paper’s employees should just grin and bear it. Or, maybe grin and get killed. She said in her introduction, “The paper has now hired ARMED GUARDS to protect THEM, the paper, in the face of the public backlash after they attempted to publicly shame law-abiding gun owners in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy.”
Well, not quite, Meggy. Somehow, you got completely wrong the actual reason for the paper’s decision. It was not to shame anyone but to drive home the point that your neighbor could have a stash of weapons without your knowing about it. After a local gun shooting crime shocked the community, the shooters neighbors were shocked to learn about his cache.
“I think that the access to guns in this country is ridiculous, that anybody can get one,” said a neighbor of Wilson’s who requested anonymity because it’s not known whether the gunman, whose unnamed victim survived, will return home or be sent to prison. “Would I have bought this house knowing somebody (close by) had an arsenal of weapons? No, I would not have.”
In the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and amid renewed nationwide calls for stronger gun control, some Lower Hudson Valley residents would like lawmakers to expand the amount of information the public can find out about gun owners. About 44,000 people in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam — one out of every 23 adults — are licensed to own a handgun.
In other words, some of the paper’s readership want that information – which, by the way, was obtained from public records.
For more “fair and balanced” commentary, Kelly trotted out Republican New York State representative Greg Ball. She said by way of opening the interview, “Now they (the paper) went after the people in Westchester County, now they’re going after the people in Putnam County, New York. And the Clerk in Putnam County has said, ‘No. You’re not getting it!’”
Ball got the message and he wasted no time in getting to inflaming the issue which – predictably – did not stop with the paper and spilled over to other permanent Fox News target: the left and anyone or anything with a different point of view:
At some point, as elected officials, we have to say enough is enough. This Journal News editorial board is packed with eggheads to the left of left. The worst of the worst.
Kelly’s show airs during what Fox insists is its “objective” news lineup. But do you think she challenged this outrageous rhetoric? Of course not. She went along with Ball’s outrage. She said, “Think about the domestic violence victim who does not have a gun,” Kelly mused. She never gave a thought to the law-abiding citizen who might do something entirely innocent that got misinterpreted as a threat. I all but expected her to put her arms around Ball and give him a smooch of appreciation.
For the record, I don’t think the Journal did the right thing by publishing the names and addresses. But it hardly merits the kind of daily attacks from Fox News. And, by the way, this is the same Fox News whose incendiary attacks on Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, preceded his assassination. So they are hardly in a position to be whining about responsible journalism.
But speaking of abortion, apropos of absolutely nothing related to this story, Kelly further played the conservative victim by “wondering” what the reaction would have been if the paper had decided to “sit outside a Planned Parenthood on the days that abortions are offered and just followed any woman… and then publish her home address” or “sat outside of stores that sell pornography and followed the men and women home” or published the names of Muslims in New York City.
Of course, none of those examples bore the faintest similarity to what the Journal did, as Kelly, an attorney, almost surely knows. But speaking of publishing home addresses, where was her outrage over the publication of the Journal's staff home addresses? Nowhere to be seen.
Really, she’s the one who should be ashamed of her own role in destroying journalism instead of pointing fingers at anyone else.
For the record, the comment was not really threatening, in my view. But I have a policy of zero tolerance. However, I or another moderator do sometimes miss things and I can’t always get to comments as quickly as I’d like. So that’s another advantage to flagging instead of whining.
If you want to come here and debate civilly, fine. But if you are just here to call us names and throw flames, you’d better move along.
This will be my last warning to you. If you keep on insulting us with ridiculous accusations, I will ban you without further notice.
And possibly that creep I’ve caught following me around town a couple times, since both acounts claim to live here in San Francisco, and what tipped me off to go through Dollar Dump comments for who Shatz is was that there was a post on the Shatz page saying I’m a project.
I implore to the hounds to not feed this troll- let him burn out or get banned.
And I’m saying publicly to U Mad?… If I turn up that you’re the guy who’s been following me around, I’m pressing charges. End of story.
U Mad?, i.e. a pretty clueless troll who first appeared under the name Vicious Killer (only to backpedal furiously from it, claiming it to be the name of his toy poodle) is even more boring actually because one keeps on wanting to catch a glimmer of intelligent reasoning.
Reminds me of a dog I once had. I’d refused to have his tail cropped when he was a puppy and he spent hours – I do mean hours and hours and hours – chasing his tail. He was that stupid.
And yes, the paper did put hundreds at risk. When you post the names and addresses of people with guns that gives people who want to get a gun illegally a shopping list of places to get one. It also gave the addresses of several law enforcement personel. You think some bad people would be interested in that?
And we know what Mike meant. But like I said, you guys will find a way to excuse it. After all, he only wants FOX News people to be hurt. Thats completely fine in your twisted little worlds.
Yeah, that comment sounds like he just wants someone to take a FOX News employee out to dinner.
But im sure you’ll find a way to excuse this too. Its always justified if the victim is from the right.
Gonna write an article about how Newshounds readers want FOX News people killed?
That paper put hundreds of people at risk but its FOX thats the bad guy for pointing out what they did.
And the reason they keep talking about it is because its an ongoing story. They’re not going to treat it like the media treated the union thugs attacking people and making yelling racist comments at a black man.
Those nice little men and women in their pressed professional coats stand guard at the entrance of the Fox “News” studios to make sure non-Fox “News” employees don’t sneak in. Also, Fox “News” staffers and production crew wear identity badges.
When these clowns are on-location, a large number of security guards, usually big, burly men, are posted outside the makeshift studios. They also install fences and gates around the makeshift studios for added security.
That small New York newspaper should write an article about News Corporation’s security guards. That would shut up that Barbie.
Hannocchio has made many enemies in the past, long before he was hired at WABC and Fox “News.” This clown made enemies from Santa Barbara to Atlanta. We can see why he packs heat.
When Hannocchio travels, armed security is near him. During his book tours and on-location broadcasts, he was often escorted by officers or other private security personnel. When he makes personal appearances locally, security is there.
These Fox “News” frauds are all hypocrites. Chastising a publication for hiring armed guards, when these frauds are surrounding by armed security themselves.
NOTE TO KELLY
Where’s your outrage to all the security inside News Corporation, you ditz.
If Newsday, on Long Island, decided to join in, it wouldn’t be telling its readers anything they already didn’t know about LI’s most fearsome American who packs heat!
Of course I’m talking about Slanthead Hannity, who’s made a big point in the weeks since Sandy Hook about his concealed carry license.
Normally, he mentions this about 3-4 times per week (on the radio, at least), but since the tragedy in CT, he’s crowed loudly and incessantly about his Glocks! He once mentioned a while back that he carries two of them on his person.
Just the other day, Hannity claimed any kind of ban on high-capacity magazines was “stupid” because trained shooters can reload mags in a flash. Hannity said he practiced constantly until he could switch mags in less than 1.5 seconds!
Don’t we feel so much better knowing Sean is out there protecting the rest of us?
The other day, Ed Schultz (who as far as I know coined that most apt term “Slanthead”) wondered for several minutes just what Hannity is afraid of that compels him to be armed all the time. (What I also find interesting is that Schultz and Hannity are always calling each other out; Schultz mentions Hannity by name, often as the “jerk across 6th Ave.” while Hannity rarely can bring himself to mention Schultz by name instead saying “that guy at NBC…” or “does Brian Williams agree with…?”)
Schultz seemed genuinely perplexed, but what he probably doesn’t know is that when Hannity had a mere “local” radio program on WABC radio some years back, he was constantly telling his listeners that “they” won’t get his wife or children! Slanthead never defined the “they” but they surely weren’t the nouveau riche pretenders who recently moved to the North Shore like Hannity did. Could they have been the Irish white trash from the South Shore where Seanny grew up? Probably not; if any of them got out of line, they’d get a “boot up their ass” from Father Mulligan (like the song snippet in Hannity’s radio theme these days). So what Hannity probably feared most was them other folks from Hempstead and other towns in the middle of the Island? We know what color these people are, because this was long before Long Island developed a “Mexican problem” to which it could focus its racist wrath (egged on by Hannity of course).
So it’s obvious that early on, Hannity built an armed bunker to protect himself and his family. He won’t say publicy how many other weapons he owns, but he’s often bragged about his mounted patrol stints on the Arizona border with the Minutemen, carrying a fully loaded AR-15 of course. Does Hannity keep a loaded AR-15 in the trunk of his armor-plated Escalade? He surely must have several down in the bunker, maybe RPG launchers too.
We do know that Hannity’s got food and water down in that bunker to last a month-long siege of many month. One of his sponsors — one that he does a “first person” commercial for — is called foodinsurance.com, a food supplier for survialists! That dehydrated crap surely doesn’t taste as good as he Big Macs, super-sized fries and 64-oz. sugar drinks that are Hannity’s regular daily diet, but when you’re protecting America against “them,” one has to make sacrifices!
Does Hannity need protection while wearing his (horned) “broadcaster’s hat?” Probably not, driving his Escalade into a secure underground parking spot, and taking a private elevator up to the 17th floor at Penn Plaza for 3 hours of radio sliming, smearing, besmirching, and lying. He’s then most likely escorted by armed guards uptown to 47th and 6th for his FNC nightcap, a condensed hour of the same sliming, smearing, besmirching, and lying accompanied by doctored photos and video.
Hannity never meets his audience. Occasionally, he sends his hapless interns out onto the street with a cellphone for “(dumb) man in the street” interviews. (“Never pick anyone with more than a 3rd grade education!” are his standing instructions.)
If Hannity actually encounter a “dangerous, threatening” listener, would he stand his ground, and pull out his Glocks? Schultz didn’t ask that question, but one only has to look back to the spring of 2008 and Hannity’s mad chicken-shit dash from the pursing Ron Paul fans in New Hampshire.
It’s well documented that Slanthead is a total coward. When asked by a caller why he never put on a uniform, Hannity exclaimed: “My father served. That was enough!”
Maybe Hannity does expect violent revolution by the left and uses that to justify his concealed carry permit. Ellen has pointed out how he escalated some shouting and shoving into “violent rioting” in Michigan over the union issue. Hannity has been fixating by this perceived theme lately. During the height of Occupy Wall Street, Hannity had all those liberals “rioting, raping and defecating” in lower Manhattan. During the immediate aftermath of the hurricane on Queens, the South Shore, etc, they were once again “rioting, looting, raping and defecating!”
Maybe we all need to chip in and buy Hannity some extra 30-round clips for his sidearms!
I am not even kidding. I think human suffering is a sexual fetish for this woman. And she’s mad here because she thinks she’s been cock-blocked.
O’REILLY: Orlando, Florida, Mike, go.
CALLER: Hey Bill, I appreciate you taking my call.
O’REILLY: Sure.
CALLER: I like to listen to you during the day, I think Keith Olbermann’s show —
O’REILLY: There ya go, Mike is — he’s a gone guy. You know, we have his — we have your phone numbers, by the way. So, if you’re listening, Mike, we have your phone number, and we’re going to turn it over to Fox security, and you’ll be getting a little visit.
HILL: Maybe Mike is from the mothership.
O’REILLY: No, Maybe Mike is going to get into big trouble, because we’re not going to play around. When you call us, ladies and gentleman, just so you know, we do have your phone number, and if you say anything untoward, obscene, or anything like that, Fox security then will contact your local authorities, and you will be held accountable. Fair?
HILL: That’s fair.
O’REILLY: So, just — all you guys who do this kind of a thing, you know, I know some shock jocks. Whatever. You will be held accountable. Believe it.
No wonder Meggy’s so mad; doesn’t the Journal-News know that only Fox is allowed to have a security force . . .
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