Justin's Political Corner
Jennifer Rubin demands CNN ‘mute’ David Shuster for ‘Media Matters talking points’ (via Raw Story )
Neoconservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin on Sunday demanded that CNN “mute” Take Action News host David Shuster for using what she insisted were “Media Matters talking points” to slam ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl for inaccurately reporting details about the…
The NRA is bringing in some really charming people for their annual conference, including a number of conservative media figures known for their violent rhetoric and promotion of pro-gun conspiracy theories.
Fox hosts Eric Bolling and Sean Hannity respond to abusive coach Mike Rice being fired by defending, and even praising his behavior. Stay classy, Fox News.
“Slut.” “Prostitute.”
These words defined Rush Limbaugh in 2012 after he smeared Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student who testified before Congress about women’s health care. Limbaugh’s misogynistic attack, which spanned three days of his radio show, did incalculable, long-term damage not only to Limbaugh’s brand, but also to the right-wing talk-radio format he helped to build and the conservative movement he has shaped for decades.
Limbaugh’s attacks on Fluke led to a paradigm shift in talk radio, as advertisers reassessed their support for inflammatory hosts. Limbaugh’s toxic rhetoric helped shine a glaring spotlight on the broader conservative movement’s policies toward women, focusing public attention on the radical right-wing effort to dismantle reproductive rights and the social safety net.
Limbaugh’s unique brand of misinformation was not limited to sexist rhetoric. Throughout 2012, Limbaugh was an architect of the right-wing bubble that pushed conspiracy theories and denied reality, notably helping to create a false narrative that Mitt Romney was on the verge of winning a landslide election. As that right-wing bubble collapsed, so, too, did Limbaugh’s four-year campaign of hoping - and trying to ensure - that President Obama would fail.
It is for these reasons that Media Matters recognizes Rush Limbaugh as the 2012 Misinformer of the Year. Past recipients include: Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. (2011); Sarah Palin (2010); Glenn Beck (2009); and Sean Hannity (2008).
On February 23, 2012, Sandra Fluke testified before a congressional panel about women’s health care and the benefits of insurance coverage for contraceptive care. During her testimony, she spoke about a woman who needed birth control pills to treat a medical condition, but who was denied coverage by her insurance company and couldn’t afford the medication.
On February 29, Limbaugh began a series of attacks on Fluke, pointing to her testimony and calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” In a complete distortion of Fluke’s actual testimony that was shocking in its ignorance, Limbaugh claimed that she was essentially asking to be ”paid to have sex”:
LIMBAUGH: What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.
She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.
Limbaugh continued his screed against Fluke the next day, saying: ”If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.” Over the course of the March 1 and March 2 editions of his radio show, Limbaugh spent nearly six hours directing a hate-filled tirade at Fluke, saying that she was “having so much sex it’s amazing she can walk,” saying that she had boyfriends “lined up around the block,” and saying that Fluke admitted she was “having so much sex that she can’t pay for it.”
Limbaugh’s sexist tirade quickly found support throughout the right-wing echo chamber. CNN contributor Erick Erickson wrote on his blog, RedState, that Fluke “really believes that American tax payers should … pay for her birth control pills so she can have sex.” Conservative talk radio host Dana Loesch wrote on Breitbart.com that Fluke was “testifying that she simply cannot stop getting it on and her inability to control her urges constitutes infringing upon everyone else for a bailout.” Fox News Radio reporter Todd Starnes posted more than a dozen comments on Twitter supporting Limbaugh’s attacks. Blog posts at National Review Online, Hot Air, and NewsBusters also defended Limbaugh’s points.
But outside the right-wing media bubble, Limbaugh was savaged from a variety of sources. Republican and Democratic congressional leaders as well as commentators from the left, right, and center all offered criticism for what Sen. John McCain called comments that were “unacceptable in every way.”
While Limbaugh began publicly denying that his show was suffering from the loss of advertisers, privately he was going into crisis management mode. The New York Times reported in March that he hired a reputation and crisis manager. And while Limbaugh was bragging about his ratings on the air, Politico reported in May that his show ”took a significant radio hit in some key radio markets” in the wake of his Sandra Fluke attacks.
Limbaugh’s partners were soon losing millions of dollars as a result of the loss of advertisers. The New York Times reported that less than two weeks after his attack on Fluke, Premiere Radio Networks had lost nearly $2 million in advertising revenue. In May, Limbaugh affiliate Cumulus Media reported losing several million dollars in revenue over two quarters. In August, Cumulus suggested it had lost more than $5 million on its top three radio stations alone due to factors related to the Limbaugh advertiser boycott.
As Daily Beast columnist John Avlon noted: “Rush Limbaugh made the right-wing talk-radio industry, and he just might break it.”
At the same time Limbaugh came under fire for his slut-shaming campaign against Sandra Fluke, it became impossible to separate his misogynistic comments from a larger critique of the conservative movement.
In targeting Fluke, Limbaugh was specifically reacting to testimony about the benefits of using health insurance to expand access to contraceptive care. That testimony came as conservatives were fighting against efforts to require insurers to provide this basic health care coverage to women. Limbaugh, long identified as a leader of the conservative movement, explained the opposition by likening health insurance coverage of contraception to a woman knocking on his door in the middle of the night and demanding money so she could “have sex with three guys tonight.” Sean Hannity echoed Limbaugh’s explanation of the movement’s opposition, saying that requiring insurance companies to provide coverage for contraceptive care amounted to “the taxpayer bearing the cost of the sex life of students at Georgetown University law school.”
Throughout the year, as questions were raised about the negative effects fringe conservative positions would have on women, Limbaugh was at the forefront. In February, when conservative lawmakers in Virginia came under fire for pushing legislation that would have required women to undergo an invasive ultrasound prior to seeking an abortion, Limbaugh downplayed the concerns. When Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin came under fire for saying it was “really rare” for women subjected to “legitimate rape” to become pregnant, Limbaugh first called on Akin to put the country first in weighing whether to remain in the race. But as it became clear that Akin was going to remain in the race, Limbaugh was quick to move on, touting polling numbers suggesting the Republican Party had forgiven Akin for the comments.
“Everything - except the polls - points to a Romney landslide.”
So said Rush Limbaugh on the eve of the 2012 presidential election, an election that has come to be defined by the right-wing media’s absolute denial of reality and embrace of paranoid conspiracy theories in order to convince themselves that Obama would fail to secure a second term.
When conservatives accused the Labor Department of cooking the books to make the unemployment rate seem lower than it was in order to help reelect Obama, Limbaugh was there. When conservatives warned that pollsters were colluding to unfairly bias their samples in favor of Obama, Limbaugh was there. Limbaugh pushed poll trutherism so far to the fringe that he began stoking fears of violence in the aftermath of a Romney election victory.
Rush Limbaugh did not react well to being proved so wrong and so all wet. The day after the election, he told his audience that “we’re outnumbered” and “we’ve lost the country.” He also suggested that “one of the most outrageous thefts of an election in the history of elections has taken place.” On November 15, Limbaugh declared that “freedom did not win in this election.”
But government did work. Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been credited by experts with increasing economic growth, creating jobs, and lowering unemployment. The auto rescue was only made possible with the use of taxpayer money to successfully shepherd the three big auto companies through bankruptcy — saving well over a million jobs. The Affordable Care Act survived Supreme Court scrutiny. And voters opted for four more years.
Rush Limbaugh may still rank at the top of the talk radio industry, but he has also undeniably weakened the very industry he has dominated for so long. The advertiser backlash did not just damage Limbaugh and his business partners short-term; the entire talk radio industry is still suffering massive financial losses due to his utterance of “those two words.”
Maybe CNN has (hopefully) learned their lesson by hiring morons like Dana Loesch. Speaking of Loesch, she has not been writing for Breitbart.com’s websites since 09.13.2012.
WRONG, Dana! It’s YOUR own website(s), along with countless other right-wing sites (including WND and Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs blog), that are promoting Birthers.
On Tuesday’s edition of KFTK 97.1’s The Dana Show, notorious Islamophobe Dana Loesch revived the false and widely debunked smear (that her current employer CNN debunked) that “President Barack Obama attended a ‘madrassa’ in Indonesia.”
In her September 2010 column on her radio show’s page on WordPress, Loesch baselessly accused “all Muslims as violent terrorists.”
Who burned the Koran that resulted in the murder of ten Christian missionaries last month?Or the murder of CIA agents earlier this year?
Or the USS Cole?
Or the countless airplane hijackings, discotheque bombings, etc., etc., etc.Obama says that “As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.”How many thousands of people must be murdered by Islam before he stops saying such?
Where did this nation’s balls go?
No, Ms. Loesch, almost all the Muslims are peaceful and non-violent, and it’s only the radical fundamentalist Islam types such as the Wahhabis and Al-Qaeda that do the terrorist activities, which are disavowed by the mainstream Islamic community.
Yet another day in the office for Breitbart.com hacks like Dana Loesch, Dan Riehl, Lee Stranahan, and others to lead the Media Matters Derangement Syndrome attacks. One of Loesch’s henchmen, Dan Riehl, blogged in Big Journalism and falsely accuses “MMFA of assaulting Dana Loesch’s right to free speech.”
If there’s anything shameful in what only antisemitic Media Matters apparently still feels is an ongoing Sandra Fluke debate, it’s the way antisemitic Media Matters continues it’s un-American, Soros-funded war on free speech in America.
While they may be especially focused on coming for the Jews in certain areas, anyone on the Right is ultimately fair game for the crew at antisemitic Media Matters. As far as they’re concerned, antisemitism is just fine, but if one dares speak out against a leftist policy of Barack Obama’s, all bets are off and they will lie and stretch any truth to silence you.
Yesterday’s attack targets Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch. Not coincidentally, Dana was written up at length today by Tricia Romano at the Daily Beast. Point being, if you’re of the Right, the higher one’s profile rises, the more vicious and dishonest are Eric Boehlert’s and antisemitic Media Matters’s attacks.
Antisemitic Media Matters posts an audio clip of Dana Loesch’s FM radio show. Listening to it, Dana talks about many associated topics. In between she discusses the left’s war on religion by attempting to force the Catholic church to purchase and distribute birth control. That’s the heart of the matter and little more.
Among several other related remarks, Loesch suggests House Speaker John Boehner “just got out of the tanning bed, he’s a little bit dizzy,” going on to ask if Boehner is “an agent for Obama.” Now, are we supposed to take that literally, as Media Matters would suddenly like us to with regard to pretty typical talk radio comments on Sandra Fluke? No, of course not.
What Media Matters is actually engaged in is a grossly un-American hate campaign to silence critics of the Left, Media Matters itself and Barack Obama. Such campaigns are as dirty and malignant and un-American as one might find on the Internet, or elsewhere. They deserve to be condemned, marginalized, if not wholly ignored, and little more. It’s that they always come in a purely political context that makes them as pathetic, as they are un-American. If Media Matters, a reportedly bizarre and erratic David Brock and Eric Boehlert had their way, only those who agree with them would be allowed to speak in America. Now, back to your bunker, boys - and take merry little band of paid storm trooper hacks along with you.
No, Mr. Riehl, Loesch’s “free speech” hasn’t been assaulted because MMFA was right to call her out on her constant attacks against Sandra Fluke. And for the 10,000th time, Eric Boehlert and MMFA are NOT “Anti-Semitic.”
Bret Baier, the host of Fixed Noise’s Special Report, misleadingly stated that “there were no examples of our hosts saying Barack Obama is a ‘Muslim.’” Totally false, as several FNC/FBN personalities (including Baier and his program) have questioned Obama’s faith and alleged that he was a “Muslim”, a “fake Christian,” or even “[Godless] atheist.”
Special Report On Obama: “Islam Or Isn’t He?”
During a June 2009 segment, Special Report aired a quote by Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough, in which he talked about how Obama “experienced Islam on three continents” and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia with a Muslim father. Special Report included this question above the quote: “Islam Or Isn’t He?” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 6/3/09]
Fox Hosted “Conservative Comedian” Who Claimed Obama Is “Faking” Being Christian.
Fox & Friends hosted “conservative comedian” Brad Stine, who said of the president: “If Santorum doesn’t want to question his Christianity, I will, because he’s not really part of that.” Stine continued, “why can’t Obama be slammed for faking [Christianity]?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/20/12]
Ms. Loesch, you have lost this round to David Corn, and he’s more truthful than you.
Here we see CNN contributor and Andrew Breitbart editor Dana Loesch defending recently-fired MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan, saying that Buchanan’s First Amendment rights have been violated by a “progressive” conspiracy to silence “diversity of thought:” Controversial Pat Buchanan Forced Off of MSNBC by Van Jones, Media Matters - Big Journalism.
“Diversity of thought” is a rather ironic phrase to apply to Pat Buchanan, a man who is viciously opposed to diversity in any other form. And “controversial” is an oddly watered down word to apply to someone who has a history of associating with open white supremacists. But on with Loesch’s apology for Pat:
Of course, when Dana Loesch says “I’ll debate you in the public square,” she actually means she’ll call you a “pervert” and a child molester.
But it’s really awful that poor Paleo Pat’s constitutionally guaranteed free speech has been unceremoniously stripped away by the evil liberal cabal, isn’t it?
For more on this abominable censorship, read Pat Buchanan’s latest column atTownhall.com, RealClearPolitics.com, HumanEvents.com, World Net Daily,Creators Syndicate, and practically every other right wing site on the Internet.
Meanwhile, in objective reality, Pat Buchanan’s First Amendment rights have not been “abridged,” because the First Amendment pledges that the government will not make laws censoring speech, and Buchanan’s firing by MSNBC has nothing to do with the government. As you can see, he is still perfectly free to promulgate his hateful ideology at any website and/or cable news channel that will allow it. (Hey, Fox News — opportunity’s knocking.)
Dana Loesch clearly doesn’t understand the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
CNN contributor and Editor-in-Chief of Big Journalism Dana Loesch took a lot of flak over the weekend for her declaration of solidarity with the four Marines who videotaped themselves urinatingon the corpses of alleged Taliban fighters, in which she said “I’d drop trou and do it too.”
RELATED: Dana Loesch Endorses Taliban Desecration By Marines: ‘I’d Drop Trou And Do It Too’
Countdown host Keith Olbermann and liberal watchdog Media Matters, among others, havecalled for CNN to fire Loesch over the remark, and according to Big Journalism, even Politico is in on the act. Lest you think that this is all a bunch of ginned-up liberal outrage, however, a conservative think-tank in Illinois also backed away from Loesch over the comments, withdrawing an invitation for her to appear at their ”Women, Liberty, and America’s Future” event.
Olbermann took to Twitter to slam CNN, and to add some trademark innuendo:
A) why hasn’t CNN fired her already; b) she sounds way too familiar w/topic @DLoeschsays she’d urinate on dead Taliban
He also paid Loesch a backhanded compliment, while also saying she was worse than the Taliban:
Actually, no. They are unthinking religious fanatics. You’re worse RT@DLoeschSo @KeithOlbermann thinks I’m the Taliban? So ridiculous.
The implication there is that, unlike the Taliban, there is thought behind Loesch’s remarks.
Big Journalism‘s John Nolte notes that Politico, like Mediaite, reached out to CNN for comment on Loesch’s remark, but went the extra mile by wondering “whether or not it will have any impact on her role at CNN.”
CNN responded with this statement to Mediaite:
CNN contributors are commentators who express a wide range of viewpoints—on and off of CNN—that often provoke strong agreement or disagreement. Their viewpoints are their own.
Media Matters, though, has gone full-bore at Loesch. In addition to a Twitter barrage from Eric Boehlert challenging Loesch to repeat the sentiment on CNN’s air, their investigative reporter Joe Strupp has published an article in which numerous CNN on-air sources (anonymously attributed) express displeasure and embarrassment at Loesch’s remarks.
That last item is probably the biggest reason for concern for Loesch, who could probably count on CNN to ignore pressure from liberals, but might lend a more attentive ear to internal voices. Loesch’s supporters can tell themselves that Strupp’s reporting is meaningless because the sources are unnamed, but he’s a real reporter with a real reputation. Those quotes are real, and depending on the relative juice of the speakers, could signal trouble for Dana Loesch.
As someone who knows a thing or two about being fired over political speech, I think it would be wrong of CNN to fire Dana Loesch over this. Within reason, my philosophy is that more speech is always better than less speech. Most of the speech-related firings of the past few years could have been handled more productively, in my view, by expanding the dialogue, rather than shutting it down.
In this case, rather than see Dana Loesch fired for saying something so silly and wrong, I’d rather see her defend those remarks on a panel with people like Bill Maher (who, while not cheering the desecration, said he didn’t see what all the fuss was about), former Marine Goldie Taylor, and maybe even Sen. John McCain, who knows a thing or two about war atrocities. Like it or not, Loesch’s false bravado resonated with a lot of people, and such a discussion could prove clarifying for Loesch and her defenders. Alternately, Loesch could possibly smoke them all in a debate, and we’d all run out to look for an appropriate corpse to piss on. Who knows?
The point that the “fire Loesch” crowd misses, and that CNN apparently gets (if their statement is any indication), is that aside from being offensive and cheap, Loesch’s remarks were revealing in a way that true journalism is supposed to be. Having disparate viewpoints represented on their air has value to CNN viewers because they come away knowing something they previously didn’t. In this case, I learned that if Loesch is going to be at my funeral, I’d better request a closed casket.
Earlier this week, CNN “Contributor” and Big Journalism’s fartknocker-in-chief (er, Editor-in-Chief) Dana Loesch baselessly implied that Media Matters For America (and Eric Boehlert especially) were “anti-Christian.” Today, on her lie-infested blog at Breitfart’s Big Journalism, Loesch misleadingly portrayed Media Matters for America as an “anti-Semitic leftist organization,” when it’s anything but an “anti-Semitic organization.”
Media Matters for America has had a bad year, with declining traffic and regular knocks from more notable media outlets. This week alone, MMfA was slammed by Politico and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for antisemitism, so they are eager to deflect by trumping up an attack on Big Journalism.
On Dec. 15, 2011, at 10:02 p.m. EST, Media Matters for America’s Kevin Zieber posted a blog criticizing the use of a graphic in a post at Big Journalism that, Zieber argued, was reminiscent of a cartoon that appeared in antisemitic propaganda in the 1930s.
Approximately seven hours before that–well before we had received any complaints, but after Big Journalism post was published–Breitbart editor-in-chief Joel Pollak noticed the graphic, and alerted me that he suspected it was a recycled anti-Jewish cartoon. (He’s an Orthodox Jew with a degree in Jewish Studies, so he tends to pick up on these things.) He hadn’t seen the image before, but he had suspicions, and asked that we take the image down and stop using it in future. It had been used innocently, without knowledge of the provenance of the image. Nevertheless, it was replaced in the article almost immediately.
Again, all of that was proactive, done hours before Media Matters or anyone else had even noticed. There was no antisemitic intent in the use of the cartoon, nothing like what one can find on the pages of MMfA daily (for which they refuse to apologize, retract, or explain). We removed it anyway, as soon as humanly possible. Let’s see MMfA do the same to Rosenberg.
Loesch lied about Media Matters For America as she always does, and earlier this year on her radio show, she erroneously stated that “Obama was siding with the Terrorists, and not with the Israelis.”
Media Matters for America busted the Breitbart hate machine machine for using an image that was connected to a Nazi Germany-era magazine called Kladderdatsch.
In at least three instances, Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism website has used an image connected to a Nazi-era German magazine noted for anti-Semitic cartoons and pro-Hitler leanings.
Heidelberg University in Germany maintains an online archive of Kladderadatsch. From the magazine’s March 29, 1942, edition:
In his book The Offensive Art, Leonard Freedman, professor emeritus of political science at UCLA, wrote that the periodical, which “burst into print in 1848,” came to “serve the Nazi regime docilely.” Calvin College professor Randall Bytwerk, an expert on Nazi and East German propaganda, has noted Kladderadatsch’s shift toward using its cartoons to express support for the Nazis:These cartoons all come from 1934 issues of Kladderadatsch, a leading German satirical weekly that quickly adopted to National Socialism. These cartoons reflect the Nazi propaganda line at the time: Germany wanted peace, whereas the rest of the world was preparing for war.Heidelberg University explained that the magazine became increasingly anti-Semitic after Hitler’s rise.
Ben Armbruster at ThinkProgress Security had this revealing report on the Pro-Israeli AIPAC shills on the right demonizing ThinkProgress for its alleged “anti-Semitism” and “anti-Israeli” viewpoints:
Yesterday, Politico published an article written by Ben Smith purporting to highlight a divide on the left on Middle East policy. The story quoted sources — including former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block — saying that bloggers here at the Center for American Progress are “borderline anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” In the process, Politico also cherry-picked a few posts out of hundreds ThinkProgress has written on Middle East issues to back up its case. Yet Politico misrepresented the posts in question and CAP’s wider Middle East positions.
Salon’s Justin Elliott reports today that Block sent out an email to a neoconservative journalist list-serv called “The Freedom Community” urging members to read and “amplify” Politico’s story, promoting it because in his view it shows that CAP bloggers are “anti-Israel” and vilify “pro-Israel Americans, Jews, Members of Congress, and pretty much anyone who thinks Iran with nuke is a problem, or supports a strong US-Israe [sic] relationship.” He said of our writing, “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players.” Block also said in the email — without offering any evidence — that we engage in “hate speech.” (CAP and its affiliated bloggers are pro-Israel, support a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship, believe Iran with a nuclear weapon is a serious problem and do not vilify Jews). While it’s unclear who is on this list-serv, Jen Rubin at the Washington Post, Commentary and the Weekly Standard amplified the Politico article shortly after it was published.
Salon’s Elliott notes that Block is a go-to for reporters looking for a right-wing view on the Middle East and that he now is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and also a partner in a lobbying and PR firm, Davis-Block. “It’s not clear,” Elliott adds, “whether Block is shopping the oppo trove on progressive bloggers as a personal project or as part of work for a client.”
So the moral of the story is if a Liberal-leaning person even slightly criticizes Israel in any way, shape, or form, they get derided as “anti-Semitic”, “Jew haters,” or even “Palestinian Terrorist Sympathizers” by the Right-Wing Pro-Israel Lobby. In contrast, left-leaning pro-Israel/pro-peace group J Street, is a advocate of the “two-state solution”, anti-Ahmadinejad, and anti-Hamas. It has led to accusations that J Street is “anti-Israel” to the Pro-Israel apologists on the Right, mostly due to its support for rights for Palestinians.
Dana Loesch, CNN’s senior Tea Party correspondent and editor of Andrew Breitbart’s BigJournalism, is engaged in a dust-up with Eric Boehlert of Media Matters over her delusional campaign to disparage the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement as anti-Semitic. Her claim is wholly unfounded, although typical of her deceitful brand of yellow journalism.
The squabble began when Loesch appeared on CNN attempting to smear OWS due to a report that the American Nazi Party had endorsed the movement. That is the sort of dishonest associative logic that propagandists like Loesch love to employ to bash their opponents. Commentators who are not pathological liars know that fringe groups frequently try to align themselves with popular movements to draw attention to themselves. Perhaps she should be made to explain why the Tea Party is not racist in light of the fact that they were endorsed by white supremacist and KKK leader David Duke.
Boehlert responded to Loesch’s ravings with a series of Tweets that made the point that these endorsements exist on both sides and that they aren’t necessarily indicative of anything. Loesch fired back that Boehlert had not proven his argument – even though he had. Then she set forth a list of demands that she expected Boehlert to comply with. I don’t know if Boehlert has any intention of wasting his valuable time answering Loesch. After all, he is running a busy media monitoring and analysis organization. On the other hand, I’m an unemployed, Cheetos-munching, blogger in my mother’s basement with nothing but free time due to all the government handouts I scam. So I thought I’d take a stab at Loesch’s list where she asks: “I need Eric Boehlert to do the following:”
Back up his analogy that Fox (and other network coverage) of the tea party is the same as NBC’s Ratigan writing messaging while pretending to report on OWS by showing examples of Fox writing tea party messaging.
First of all, Ratigan never wrote messaging for OWS. He merely made comments on an email list that expressed his opinions. He was not serving as an adviser and the list was not even an official OWS group. The emails were stolen by a hacker and published by Breitbart.
What Fox did, however, was much worse than what Ratigan was accused of. They openly promoted Tea Party events, even branding them as “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” They sent their producers out to ride Tea Party buses, attend rallies, and try to whip up the crowd when they did not seem sufficiently excited. Sal Russo, founder of the Tea Party Express, gushed that “There would not have been a tea party without Fox.” That’s a good deal more damning than an assertion of message writing.
Explain why Obama was present at a rally with hate leader Malik Shabazz.
Obama was not present at a rally with Shabazz. He was present at the 42nd anniversary of a famous 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. As the event was open to the public and thousands of people attended, there is no way that then-Senator Obama could have known who else had shown up.
Explain why Obama’s DOJ refused to prosecute the NBPP for voter intimidation.
It was the Bush administration’s Justice Department that made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation. And it was Obama’s DOJ that successfully obtained a default judgment against Samir Shabazz for carrying a nightstick outside the Philadelphia polling center on Election Day 2008.
A subsequent investigation concluded that the department acted appropriately and that there was “no evidence of improper political interference or influence from within or outside the Department in connection with the decision in the case.”
Explain why the ADL had to issue a condemnation to Occupy Wall Street for antisemitism.
The ADL did not issue a condemnation to Occupy Wall Street for antisemitism. That is an outright lie. They issued a statement that condemned remarks by individuals attending OWS events, but also stated that “antisemitism has not gained traction more broadly with the protestors, nor is it representative of the larger movement at this time.”
Perhaps Loesch can explain why the ADL had to issue a condemnation to Fox News and Glenn Beck over comments about Jews that “demonstrate his bigoted ignorance.” And again with regard to Beck’s vilification of George Soros saying that Beck was “completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.” Not to mention the apology they graciously accepted from Roger Ailes after he called NPR executives Nazis.
Explain the antisemitism at occupy protests and give video equivalence of equal or greater antisemitism at tea parties since no one has seen such.
There is no justification for antisemitism anywhere, but as noted in the answer above, the anti-Semitic remarks of a few repugnant individuals is not representative of OWS. But maybe Loesch would like to answer for these remarks:
David Duke: The Tea Party movement is a great sign that the people are finally waking up.
Tea Party, Republican Activists Circulate Anti-Semitic E-Mails Against Presumptive Texas Speaker.
Weisel blasts the tea party ‘antisemitism’: ‘Indecent and disgusting.’
White Supremacists and Anti-Semites Plan to Recruit at July 4 Tea Parties.
California GOP Decries Anti-Semitic Tea Party Activism.
GOP must condemn “Tea Party” signs.For Loesch to assert that no one has seen any antisemitism, racism, or other bigotry at Tea Party events illustrates the selective recall of a bigot.
Explain why there have been over 1,o00 OWS arrests and zero tea party arrests if the tea party are “violent racists.”
There are two reasons there have so many OWS arrests. One is that the participants believe passionately in their cause and the honorable practice of civil disobedience as demonstrated by leaders like King and Gandhi. The other is that the police are often utilized by the corporate classes to protect what they regard as their assets rather than protecting the rights of the people.
It also needs to be noted that Loesch makes an absurd correlation between the arrests of peaceful OWS protesters and the violent tendencies of some in the Tea Party. OWS protesters never carried signs saying “We came unarmed – this time.”
Explain why communists are endorsing OWS.
Already answered above. However, I’ll humor you: To exploit a popular movement to draw attention to themselves.
Explain why felons need to carry guns at OWS.
Just because someone may have found a single person doing that does not mean that there are wild gangs of felons running around Zucotti Park with guns. It’s a rather idiotic insinuation that you should be embarrassed for having brought up. And again, it has nothing to do with any official representation of OWS. However, It is good to hear that you are in agreement with the majority of progressives who support stricter gun control laws that would prevent such behavior.
Explain what a man who has exposed himself repeatedly to children was doing at the occupy protests.
Same answer as above. Do you really think that in any group of thousands that there aren’t some despicable low lifes with questionable character? Hell, you can’t even say that about a few hundred people in Congress. Have you not heard about the GOP senators who solicit sex in airport restrooms (Larry Craig) or patronize prostitutes (David Vitter). Perhaps you could explain Charles Leaf, the Fox News reporter who was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault on a four year old girl.
Loesch’s tirade failed utterly to prove any point. The only thing she succeeded in doing was to open the door to the dark side of Tea Party and force her to answer for it. That’s what she is asking Boehlert to do. So either she steps up to take responsibility for all the nutjobs in the Tea Party, or she admits that she is an unscrupulous hypocrite. Technically, the latter is a given so don’t hold your breath waiting for her to respond.
h/t: newscorpse.com
