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Politicization Of Fort Hood Shooting: Smear The Poor Edition

Posted by Ellen -7859.80pc on April 02, 2014 · Flag

Fox News wasted little time politicizing the Fort Hood shooting. I’ll have more on that later. But “former FBI agent” Jonathan Gilliam shockingly used the incident to attack welfare recipients as doing “nothing to earn their citizenship.” Not surprisingly, neither host Sean Hannity nor Fox News contributor K.T. McFarland objected.

Hannity started the discussion by suggesting the shooting may be the result of Obama-administration negligence. Or at least feeding an opening for Gilliam – a guy with no apparent expertise in health issues - to politicize:

Jonathan you heard those statistics. Do we have ticking time bombs on these bases now? The second time this has happened at Fort Hood? One ideologically driven and this case, we assume at this moment, that it was more mental health related?

Even so, Gilliam’s response was jaw-dropping:

Two things come to my mind immediately when I hear these statistics. One is a political thing and the other is a leadership problem. The political thing is, why is it that we’re not spending more tax dollars on veterans and their families welfare than we are on the welfare for people in this country who do nothing to earn their citizenship? Nothing!

And the other one, from a leadership point of view, …why are they so comfortable – these executives in the military – so comfortable with sending men and women over to die for freedom and then bringing them back home and saying, “Look, you’re not responsible enough (to carry a gun on base)?”

Hannity picked right up on the gun issue and the two went on to complain about the difficulty in getting a concealed carry permit.

So I think we can count on “we need more guns” as another avenue of politicization.

By the way, FoxNews.com picked right up on Hannity's "ticking time bombs in the military" suggestion and used it in the title of the video below. Just in case the viewers missed the point the first time around.

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Bemused commented 2014-04-05 02:41:05 -0400 · Flag
I know, and I’m always amazed at how well people on this blog manage to keep focused on the topics.
Ellen commented 2014-04-05 01:09:13 -0400 · Flag
Thank you, Bemused. We try.
Bemused commented 2014-04-04 06:30:39 -0400 · Flag
May I invite any members of the latest troll swarm to take note of what happened on this post:

Carol wrote about something she’d read elsewhere. Ellen looked for verification and decided that there wasn’t enough evidence for a post. IOW, she did NOT take the tip and run with it simply because it was credible.

This is a typical example of the attitude on this blog. Focus on the evidence, not wishful thinking. Perhaps less fun than taking a non-fact born of pre-conceived ideas and running with it frothing at the mouth.
Ellen commented 2014-04-04 00:03:06 -0400 · Flag
I’m going to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt here. I could not find any video showing the context of her saying the shooter’s ethnicity. So it’s possible she said it to tamp down fears of Islamic terrorism. I doubt it and I even remember her saying it and doing a kind of double take as she did. But it is the kind of thing that, taken out of context, could be less than meets the eye or ear.
Ellen commented 2014-04-03 22:44:19 -0400 · Flag
Thanks for the heads up, Carol. I’m going to post on that about Kelly. She was pretty awful last night but my DVD recorder kept acting up and I was unable to get any of it.
Carol Gruber commented 2014-04-03 10:14:41 -0400 · Flag
just read in politico that megan kelly refused to say the shooter’s name on air. i thought maybe she has a shred of decency, but then read where she said- paraphrasing here-
it seems to be a hispanic or latino nationality, but we won’t say his name on air.
clever
truman commented 2014-04-03 09:32:05 -0400 · Flag
KKKlannity’s remedy for the ticking time bomb on our military bases is not more professional mental health services, but more guns. What a stupid fucker.
mlp ! commented 2014-04-03 07:30:02 -0400 · Flag
I’m sure that there was full agreement from Hannity’s listeners…..both of them.
mj - the same one commented 2014-04-03 05:21:17 -0400 · Flag
Wow — first, Allen West on “Hannity” blamed the shooting on a comment by President Obama on Crimea:

http://www.mediamatters.org/video/2014/04/02/foxs-allen-west-links-obama-comment-on-crimea-t/198732#disqus_thread

. . . now, Gilliam is blaming it on welfare recipients (wonder if he knows most of them are white?)

I can’t WAIT for tomorrow, when they blame it on BENGHAZI!!

.
Joe Marsh commented 2014-04-03 03:32:16 -0400 · Flag
Reed, not Reade (which is a theater chain, not a hospital)!

Damn, Joe (the nit-picker) makes another typo.
Joe Marsh commented 2014-04-03 03:28:18 -0400 · Flag
Good argument Jane!

Actually, “lower third” is used to describe almost any on-screen text regardless of location, except a box that contains another picture with or without its own text.

And frankly IMO, lower thirds on many networks these days are far too junked up. In my early days in the “biz,” (the mid 60s), it was a major accomplishment to put two simple lines of text (a name and identifier) beneath a talking head (such as Edwin Newman — anyone remember him? Probably not, but he actually had intelligent things to say).
Ellen commented 2014-04-03 03:18:30 -0400 · Flag
I know from my “Outfoxed” days about “lower third.” But most people I know don’t know what that means. So I usually say, “banner” or “banner on the lower third.”

But I have seen the word “chyron” used in print as a generic by people who know more about the TV biz than I ever will.
Jane S commented 2014-04-03 03:08:54 -0400 · Flag
Joe— Yeah, that is a nit. I have no idea what Fox uses, and honestly, I couldn’t care less. “Chyron” is now like Kleenex and Fridge and Xerox, a generic term for on-screen text. “Lower third” is nice except for all the times stuff gets put elsewhere on screen.

Whether it’s actually a Chyron or not is minimally important for TV production people so they don’t get confused, but for the rest of us, it’s immaterial whether an actual Chyron machine is what put the words on the screen.
Joe Marsh commented 2014-04-03 02:57:18 -0400 · Flag
P.S…. Jane S.

I’ve picked this nit with Ellen before, but if you want to be more accurate, an on-screen graphic in the lower portion of the picture is commonly called a “lower third” these days, especially by people in the teevee business.

Chryon is a brand name of ChryronHego (history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chyron_Corporation) that first made stand-alone, proprietary hardware for character generation in the early days.

There are other products in use these days. Do we know for sure that FNC uses products from Chyron (the company)?
Joe Marsh commented 2014-04-03 02:45:28 -0400 · Flag
Gilliam: “… why is it that we’re not spending more tax dollars on veterans and their families welfare …”

Because your tea party heroes in the Congress keep trying to cut veterans benefits as well as increased medical and psychiatric care for returned military still on active duty.

And they’re cheered on by slimeballs on FNC like Slanthead who constantly pays lip service to the men and women who served their country (unlike Hannity who never put on a uniform because “my father served, I don’t have to”).

We all know Hannocchio’s now-defunct Freedom Concerts were a fraud and sham. Has anyone ever investigated whether his claimed private visits to Walter Reade were another of his thousands of lies?
Jane S commented 2014-04-03 02:01:53 -0400 · Flag
I missed that part. What I did find amusing was the reaction of the nearly nameless Foxnews.com reporter (her name was briefly mentioned, but she never got a Chyron) after Hannity, Gilliam and the loathsome KT. McFarland had been going on and on and on about how outrageous it was that people were saying it wasn’t terrorism instead of waiting to find out for sure. (Yeah, you know, maybe some guy named Lopez is really an Islamic terrorist, you never know.)

Turns out, when she finally spoke up, she’d reported on Foxnews.com what every single other reporter on this story has been reporting, which is that the government and the military officials have said “There’s no evidence of terrorism,” and she was clearly pretty pissed off.

I couldn’t help but think this gal has still some illusions that she’d been hired to be an actual journalist, and she was finding out in a pretty crude and obvious way that actual journalism has no place on Fox.

McFarland also delivered a long, impassioned rant about how military and veterans are getting all their benefits slashed while civilian employees and “bureaucrats” in defense aren’t— presumably a reference to the very tiny proposed reduction in pension payouts to military retirees under 65, virtually all of whom draw their pensions while continuing to work in the civilian world, and will then get full benefits once they reach 65.

Once again, it’s what Fox doesn’t tell you that’s critical.
NewsHounds posted about Politicization Of Fort Hood Shooting: Smear The Poor Edition on NewsHounds' Facebook page 2014-04-03 01:54:57 -0400
Anyone want to bet this guy becomes a Fox News contributor before long?








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