Liberal Analyst Found Out Through ‘Google Alert’ That Fox News Fired Him
Liberal Analyst Found Out Through ‘Google Alert’ That Fox News Fired Him
Last Friday, during a News Corp. shareholders meeting, Chairman Rupert Murdoch was asked why Fox News would hire liberal analyst Marc Lamont Hill, who, the questioner said, has a “reputation of defending cop killers and racists.” Murdoch reportedly replied that Hill had already been fired. While both Fox and Hill were initially tight-lipped about Murdoch’s reported comment, Mediaite later confirmed that Hill had indeed been fired by the network.
When asked “what happened” during a recent interview with conservative radio host Steve Malzberg, Hill said that he has no idea why he was fired. “I don’t have a lot of information because I wasn’t given a lot of information.” In fact, Hill said he found out from a “Google alert” that Fox let him go:
HILL: Yeah I mean it’s an interesting thing. I wish I could give you a great deal of information that I don’t have a lot of information because I wasn’t given a lot of information. To date, Fox News Channel hasn’t given me any information as to why. … I’m just a little puzzled. [...]
MALZBERG: First of all, you told me you found out when you got a Google alert, so I mean, did anybody eventually call you from Fox and tell you that you were fired?
HILL: Yeah I eventually – I got a Google alert at 11 o’clock [a.m.] that it had been announced that I’d been fired. After that, I guess someone followed up later in the day, you know because I was sort of trying to figure out what was going on. … I found out that it was true but other than that I don’t have any other information. … I haven’t had any thorough conversation with anyone.
Listen here:
Indeed, shortly after reports surfaced of Hill’s dismissal, he tweeted (which has since been deleted), “You ever had anyone break up with you by text?” So why did Fox News fire Hill? While Fox never responded to inquiries from ThinkProgress, Hill told Malzberg that “people can certainly look on the internet and Google and see all sorts of stories and information” as to why he was fired.
Right-wing propagandist Cliff Kincaid, who works for “Accuracy in Media,” has been on a crusade to try to get Hill fired from the network because, as Kincaid has said, Hill is a “left wing cop-killer apologist.” In a celebratory note after Murdoch’s announcement, Kincaid noted that he had in fact asked about Hill during last week’s News Corp. meeting and criticized Fox for not doing “elementary analysis” of Hill before they hired him. During his interview with Malzberg, Hill called Kincaid’s charges “unfair misrepresentations.”
In the segment, Hill also commented about the recent spat between the White House and Fox News. “Is Fox News a right-leaning organization? No doubt about it,” Hill said. But he later added that he doesn’t yet “feel comfortable” commenting on whether Fox News is an “arm” of the Republican Party.
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Rove: ‘People Would Go Nuts’ If Bush Had Campaigned Against NBC, New York Times
Rove: ‘People Would Go Nuts’ If Bush Had Campaigned Against NBC, New York Times
Last weekend, top White House officials escalated its campaign to distance Fox News from the ethical standards of journalism. “It’s not really a news organization,” senior adviser David Axelrod said. Yesterday during the White House press gaggle, ABC’s Jake Tapper came to Fox’s defense, asking, “Why is that appropriate for the White House to say?” “You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said, referring to Fox programs hosted by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.
Last night, Fox host Greta Van Susteren seemed pleased that Gibbs narrowed down the criticism. “I’m grateful that now they’ve at least refined it to two hours,” she said. But former top Bush adviser Karl Rove was incensed, complaining that “people would go nuts” if President Bush attacked NBC or the New York Times:
ROVE: I mean, imagine what would have happened if President Bush had said, “You know what, I’m not going to — I’m going to call NBC not a news organization because, well, MSNBC has some ugly left- wing opinion programming”? I mean, people would go nuts.
What would happen if somebody said, “You know what, the people who are working for The New York Times are not journalists because on the opinion page of The New York Times there are very liberal journalists and very liberal editorials?” I mean, people would be up in arms.
Watch it:
Rove must have a short memory. The Bush administration’s war with the New York Times started even before Bush assumed office. As a candidate, Bush called a Times reporter “a major league asshole,” and never apologized. In fact, President Bush never gave the New York Times a single interview throughout his presidency. (Update: Bush gave the New York Times interviews in 2001, 2004, and 2005.)
The Bush White House’s war with NBC News is more well known. In May 2008, then-White House counselor Ed Gillespie publicly sent a scathing letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, accusing them of deceptive editing and blurring the lines between “news” and “opinion.” Soon after, then-White House press secretary Dana Perino expounded upon the campaign against NBC from the White House podium:
PERINO: The reason that we sent the letter yesterday is because we had gotten fed up with the way that the President’s policies are being mischaracterized, or the situations on the ground weren’t being accurately reflected in the reporting. We had complained before. And it just reached a boiling point.
And indeed, Fox News did “go nuts”…in support of the White House.
Gingrich Calls On The Country To ‘Rise Up’ To ‘Repeal’ Health Care Reform If It Passes
Gingrich Calls On The Country To ‘Rise Up’ To ‘Repeal’ Health Care Reform If It Passes
Last night on Fox News, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich joined some of his colleagues on the fringe right and urged the GOP to make repealing health reform the “number one” campaign issue in 2010 and 2012:
GINGRICH: Let me make a straightforward promise. These bills can’t be implemented before 2013. If they pass a bill which is a disaster the number one campaign issue in 2010 and 2012 is going to be repeal the bill.
We repealed the catastrophic health legislation that was a disaster. We can repeal this monstrosity. If they’re determined to put something bad in the country, the country can rise up, defeat the people who do it and repeal it.
Watch it:
Gingrich is referring to the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 which was repealed a year after it passed because it raised seniors’ Medicare premiums disproportionately to pay for benefit expansions.
But the former House Speaker may have a tough time getting the “repeal” theme on current reform measures to stick. A new ABC/Washington Post poll out today finds that 57 percent of Americans support reform proposals currently before Congress that would include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurance to bring costs down — part of health care reform that Gingrich presumably feels would be a “disaster.” In fact, more Americans would rather have a bill with a public option that one “that is approved with support from Republicans in Congress.”
Gingrich has signed onto the right’s fringe movement, led by Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Tom Price (R-GA), and Joe Barton (R-TX), to repeal health care reform if it ultimately becomes law. “[A]fter we defund the left, we pass repealer bill after repealer bill after repealler bill,” Bachmann recently boasted.
Fox News Reportedly Fires Liberal Analyst Marc Lamont Hill
Fox News Reportedly Fires Liberal Analyst Marc Lamont Hill
Yesterday, Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid announced that at today’s annual News Corp. meeting, he would urge Chairman Rupert Murdoch to fire Fox News analyst Marc Lamont Hill, whom he called a “left-wing cop-killer apologist.” Hill appears as an on-air contributor on shows such as The O’Reilly Factor.
The Live Feed reports that when Murdoch was asked this question (presumably by Kincaid), he replied that Hill had already been fired:
Rupert Murdoch continued Fox News Channel’s duel with the White House on Friday while also announcing the termination of the network’s left-leaning analyst Marc Lamont Hill. [...]
Murdoch also said that Hill has been fired. He revealed the move after a shareholder had raised the question of how Hill was hired, citing his “reputation of defending cop killers and racists.”
According to the report, Murdoch did not say why Hill had been fired. On his twitter feed, Hill seemed to acknowledge news of the report — saying, “Relax, y’all. Don’t believe the internet rumors” — but he didn’t directly deny that he had been fired. Neither Hill, nor Fox News have responded yet to inquiries from ThinkProgress.
But Hill appeared on the Fox Business Network just yesterday. In fact, just after radical Fox host Glenn Beck led a crusade to oust Van Jones from his position as White House clean jobs adviser, Hill defended Jones on the network:
HOST: We now know that he was involved in signing a petition that asked the question of whether or not the Bush administration had involvement in 9/11. He admits he signed it. He says…he didn’t know what he was signing. Would that have come up if he had been required to fill out this form?
HILL: Probably not, actually, because he — if we believe in good faith that he didn’t do it on purpose — and I believe that he didn’t do it on purpose — then he probably wouldn’t have put that down. And I’ll tell you why I believe he didn’t do it on purpose because he’s been very straightforward.
Hill also criticized the White House for not defending Jones. “[Obama] could have dispensed surrogates on the Sunday shows to defend Van Jones. Instead, they did nothing,” Hill complained.
Also during today’s News Corp. meeting, when asked about recent criticism from White House communications director Anita Dunn that Fox News is the “communications arm of the Republican Party,” Murdoch didn’t exactly deny it, saying her comments have “tremendously increased their ratings.”
We’ll update this post as we learn more.
Romney: Public Option ‘Is Absolutely Death, I Think, Across This Country’
Romney: Public Option ‘Is Absolutely Death, I Think, Across This Country’
Last night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney propagated a fearmongering claim that a public health insurance option would bring death to the country:
ROMNEY: The right way to have proceeded was to let each state create their own plan, to learn from the laboratories that the states were meant to be, and then adopted the very best in the federal system. But that hasn’t been done. And as a result, you’re seeing Democrats fighting Democrats. And the idea that we’d have — the government get into a — if you will, the public or government option is absolutely death, I think, across this country.
Watch it:
Romney’s hysterical scare tactic has sadly become the norm in the health care debate. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin issued the absurd statement that the House health reform bill would create “death panels” for the nation’s elderly — a claim conservatives advanced with glee despite the fact that it had been thoroughly debunked. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) similarly claimed that reform would “pull the plug on grandma.”
During last night’s segment, Romney touted Massachusetts’ health care system that he helped enact as governor (despite downplaying the plan during his 2008 presidential bid). Romney boasted that the Massachusetts plan is “on budget,” but what he omitted is the fact that when approving the plan, he “deferr[ed] until another day any serious effort to control the state’s runaway health costs” and now “the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.”
The public option of course won’t cause “death” across the country, as Romney claimed, but rather, it would be a key component of bringing down the cost of health care.
Limbaugh dropped from bid to purchase St. Louis Rams.
Limbaugh dropped from bid to purchase St. Louis Rams.
After nearly a week of controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh’s involvement in a bid to purchase the NFL’s St. Louis Rams franchise, ESPN reports today that that the hate radio host has suffered a major defeat. Dave Checketts, chairman of the National Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues and “point man in the Limbaugh group attempting to buy the Rams,” will drop Limbaugh from the bid:
[Checketts] realizes he must remove the controversial conservative radio host from his potential role as a minority member in the group in order to get approval from other NFL owners, the sources said.
Three-quarters of the league’s 32 owners would have to approve any sale to Limbaugh and his group. Earlier this week, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay predicted that Limbaugh’s potential bid would be met by significant opposition. Several players have also voiced their displeasure with Limbaugh’s potential ownership position, and NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith, who is black, urged players to speak out against Limbaugh’s bid.
Limbaugh would not comment on Checkett’s reported move. However, on his radio show today, he remained defiant and defensive, saying criticism of his bid is “all about smearing mainstream, traditional conservatism” and accusing his critics of “spread[ing] lies.”
After Previously Blaming Obama For Slumping Markets, Boehner Now Downplays Surging Dow
After Previously Blaming Obama For Slumping Markets, Boehner Now Downplays Surging Dow
Today on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above 10,000 for the first time this year as “U.S. stocks approached their highest levels since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the global economy into a tailspin.” In fact, the index is up 13 percent since the start of the year.
When asked about the surging markets, House Minority Leader John Boehner grumbled at the news. “[You're] certainly not talking to the American people,” if you’re placing any significance on the 10,000 mark, Boehner contended:
“The American people understand that unemployment is almost at 10 percent, they understand that they might be next so there are concerns about the economy,” Boehner said. [...]
Boehner said the stock market’s rebound is a reaction to the extreme shock from earlier this year, but it says little more than that.
“At the end of the day, the American people aren’t looking at the stock market in terms of putting food on the table,” Boehner said. “They want jobs, and they want them now.”
But Boehner hasn’t always been so dismissive of the stock market’s significance. In search of an attack line on the newly-inaugurated President Obama back in March, the GOP leader thought that the dismal numbers coming from Wall Street represented the public’s dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies:
“The president certainly remains popular, but his policies are becoming less and less popular,” Boehner said, citing the continuing slide in the financial markets. “Certainly the stock market hasn’t acted very well” since Obama’s inauguration.
As the markets continue to falter, Republicans are becoming more confident in their criticisms of the president — some have already taken to using the phrase “the Obama economy.”
But Boehner has also used the markets to tout the leadership of the Republican Party. At a rally just before the GOP got its “thumpin’” in the 2006 mid-term elections, then Majority Leader Boehner argued that his party would best handle the economy reportedly by “point[ing] to a hot stock market.”
Fox’s Williams: There’s no debate that Fox News is ‘conservative audience-oriented programming.’
Fox’s Williams: There’s no debate that Fox News is ‘conservative audience-oriented programming.’
Last Sunday on CNN, White House communications director Anita Dunn defended her past comment that Fox News is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” “The reality of it is that Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” she told CNN’s Howie Kurtz, adding, “it really is more of a wing of the Republican Party.” Many of Fox News’ hosts spent most of the day yesterday defending against Dunn’s remarks. But during the Special Report All-Star panel last night, Fox News contributor Juan Williams appeared to be the only one to recognize the reality:
WILLIAMS: Well, the case that the White House is making is largely that some of the personality driven shows on Fox go over the top, that they are trying to say that the president wasn’t born in the country or that the president is a racist or he’s socialist or a communist. [...] Now what they have lost in this is, first of all, a lot of those programs, people know exactly what to expect when you’re watching prime time Fox. We’re a conservative audience-oriented programming. And I don’t think anybody is going to debate that.
Watch it:
Discussing Afghanistan, McCain Dodges Question On ‘Whether We Should Have’ Invaded Iraq
Discussing Afghanistan, McCain Dodges Question On ‘Whether We Should Have’ Invaded Iraq
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been a regular face on the Sunday morning talk shows this year, primarily because, as ABC’s George Stephanopoulos has said, he “is the leading GOP voice on Afghanistan” (despite the fact that he has consistently been wrong about the war there.)
McCain made his 14th Sunday show appearance since January on CNN today to discuss Afghanistan. During the interview, McCain again called on President Obama to ramp up U.S. troop levels there, modeled after the “surge” in Iraq. “Many see a parallel to Iraq in the sense that it’s been eight years in Afghanistan now it has been billions of dollars” and “we have shed American blood there,” host John King said. But McCain didn’t want to go there:
MCCAIN: First of all, rightly or wrongly we were focused on Iraq. I happened to believe we had to win there. Whether we should have gone in or not, weapons of mass destruction, you covered on other days.
Watch it:
McCain probably doesn’t want to discuss “whether we should have gone in” to Iraq or WMD because at the time, he got it all wrong. Just like Bush administration officials, he hyped the Saddam-Al Qaeda link and Iraq’s non-existent WMDs and said war in Iraq would be easy and that Sunnis and Shias would “probably get along” after Saddam because there was “not a history of clashes” between them.
And as New York Times columnist Frank Rich noted in a scathing column today on McCain, it isn’t all that clear how much the “surge” contributed to reducing violence there or if that strategy can be transferred to Afghanistan. But also, Rich noted that, “What’s more mortifying still is that McCain was just as wrong about Afghanistan”:
Two years after 9/11 he was claiming that we could “in the long term” somehow “muddle through” in Afghanistan. (He now has the chutzpah to accuse President Obama of wanting to “muddle through” there.) Even after the insurgency accelerated in Afghanistan in 2005, McCain was still bragging about the “remarkable success” of that prematurely abandoned war. In 2007, some 15 months after the Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf signed a phony “truce” ceding territory on the Afghanistan border to terrorists, McCain gave Musharraf a thumb’s up. As a presidential candidate in the summer of 2008, McCain cared so little about Afghanistan it didn’t even merit a mention among the national security planks on his campaign Web site.
If McCain has been so demonstrably wrong about these wars in the past, why is the Beltway media so eager to call on him time and time again for his views on Iraq and Afghanistan?
Black NFL Players ‘Wouldn’t Play’ For Limbaugh’s Team: ‘He’s A Jerk’
Black NFL Players ‘Wouldn’t Play’ For Limbaugh’s Team: ‘He’s A Jerk’
Earlier this week, the media reported that hate radio host Rush Limbaugh is involved in a bid to purchase the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams franchise. Many sports media figures lambasted the idea of Limbaugh owning an NFL team, with one writer saying it “would definitely hurt” the Rams while another said his “head exploded after hearing this Limbaugh news” because he is “a pungent bowl of stark raving bigoted lunacy.”
Now, the players themselves are piling on. Specifically, many African-American players have explicitly stated that they would never play for a team that Rush Limbaugh owns. “All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting ‘right on,’” New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka told the New York Daily News, adding, “I don’t want anything to do with a team that he has any part of.” Other black players expressed similar sentiments:
[New York Jets linebacker Bart] Scott says players remember what Limbaugh said [about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donavan McNabb], and adds that the NFL would be wise not to allow the nationally syndicated host into the league.
“It’s an oxymoron that he criticized Donovan McNabb,” Scott said. “A lot of us took it as more of a racial-type thing. I can only imagine how his players would feel. I know I wouldn’t want to play for him. He’s a jerk. He’s an —. What he said (about McNabb) was inappropriate and insensitive, totally off-base. He could offer me whatever he wanted, I wouldn’t play for him. … I wouldn’t play for Rush Limbaugh. My principles are greater and I can’t be bought.”
Indeed, as CNN reported at the time, ESPN fired Limbaugh from Sunday NFL Countdown for “his statement that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.” But, of course, Limbaugh has a long sordid history with making racist remarks. Some of his more recent lowlights:
– “Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
– “We need segregated buses. … This is Obama’s America.”
– “President Obama is black. And I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder.”
– Democrats are interested in Darfur to secure black “voting bloc.”
– “Minorities never do anything for which they have to apologize.”
– Obama’s nomination for president “goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy.”
– Obama is a “halfrican-American.”
Advising the NFL to block Limbaugh’s pursuit of an NFL franchise, St. Louis Dispatch sports columnist Bryan Burwell wrote recently, “Dancing with Limbaugh is like dancing with a snake. Eventually, the snake will bite you. That’s his nature.”
Miss America pageant selects sexist Rush Limbaugh to judge its competition.
Miss America pageant selects sexist Rush Limbaugh to judge its competition.
Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren reported on her blog last night that the Miss America Organization (MAO) announced that hate radio host Rush Limbaugh will be named as one of the seven judges for the 2010 Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas:
Limbaugh will be one of a panel of seven distinguished judges that will help decide which of the 53 contestants will capture the Miss America 2010 title and serve as the Goodwill Ambassador for the Children’s Miracle Network, as well as introduce the first Go Green platform for MAO. [...]
“We are thrilled to have Rush join us for our pageant this year,” said MAO President and CEO, Art McMaster. “He will bring a thrilling new dimension to the competition and we know that the 2010 Miss America Pageant will be filled with new twists and exciting opportunities with him as one of our national judges.”
It’s odd that Limbaugh will take part in choosing someone who will ultimately help the MAO “Go Green,” considering that he is a staunch anti-environmentalist. But the MAO’s choice is most shocking because of his fairly solid history of making sexist remarks. He has once said that women love Hillary Clinton because they’ve “had two or three abortions,” that women “live longer than men because their lives are easier,” and that all women want is to be hired as “eye candy.” Limbaugh also regularly rails against feminism, the “feminization of this culture,” “feminazis,” and the “chickification” of America. Unsurprisingly, women don’t like Rush Limbaugh. One wonders what MAO President Art McCaster is so “thrilled” about.
Boehner Brushes Off Past GOP Moves To Rush Bills Through Congress: ‘It Was A Different Time’
Boehner Brushes Off Past GOP Moves To Rush Bills Through Congress: ‘It Was A Different Time’
Last night on Fox News, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) complained about the process of moving bills forward for a vote. “I’m going to introduce a resolution here in the House that would require all committees to post within 24 hours the actions taken by their committee,” he declared.
Host Greta Van Susteren piled on. “Why in the world don’t we have that?” After Boehner spent much of the segment calling on the Democratic majority to “let people read these bills,” Van Susteren turned the tables and asked Boehner what the standard practice was when the Republicans were in power:
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, when your party was in leadership in the House and there were issues about transparency, any recollection how you handled it? Did you guys resist it at all? I realize that different times, but did you resist it at all?
BOEHNER: Well, it was a different time. I can tell you when I was Majority Leader, at the time, in almost all cases, I insisted that members have at least 24 hours to read a bill before it came to the floor. But that was — it’s a different time. I’ve made a commitment, and as have my Republican members, that if we take the majority back, we will have a requirement that no bill will come to the floor that hasn’t been out and available to the public and to the members for at least three days.
Watch it:
Boehner may have “insisted” that members have at least 24 hours to read a bill before a vote when he was (briefly) Majority Leader, but that guidance wasn’t always followed. At 9:21 P.M. on Sept. 26, 2006, the House Rules Committee reported the Military Commissions Act to the House, which then was voted on and passed at 4:45 P.M. the next day. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 also had about a day after it was reported out of committee and before it was voted on in the House.
When asked if the GOP leadership waved rules requiring at least 72 hours for members to read bills before voting on them, former Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA) said, “Absolutely — it is among the most commonly waived rules the House has.”
Indeed, during the GOP’s House reign, Republican leaders rushed major pieces of legislation through without giving 24 hours for members to read over the bills, let alone 72, including the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit, President Bush’s second tax cut for the wealthy in 2003, and the USA Patriot Act of 2001.
In fact, presumably much to Boehner’s delight, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently pledged to put health care reform legislation, and any amendment, online “for at least 72 hours before the House votes.”
O’Reilly: Fox News Doesn’t Report Stories That Will ‘Hurt Anybody’
O’Reilly: Fox News Doesn’t Report Stories That Will ‘Hurt Anybody’
Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) criticized the partisan political environment, saying, “Can you imagine writing the Constitution today?” Graham asked, speculating that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly would complain of “Ben Franklin giving in on something.” Last night on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly playfully confronted Graham about the accusation and attempted to defend the integrity of his network. O’Reilly said that unlike the New York Times, Fox News doesn’t break stories that hurt people:
O’REILLY: And I think you raise a very interesting point in what you said. And you said — I’m glad you mentioned me because that got attention And then people to think about this. We don’t break stories that are going to interfere with President Obama or President Bush or whoever’s in office if we feel that the story is going to hurt anybody, our military, our policymakers. We’ll hold it back. Okay? We’re not The New York Times. We’re not trying to do that.
Watch it:
Fox News and O’Reilly may not “break stories” that directly “hurt anybody,” but they certainly haven’t made great efforts to take targets off anyone’s back either. In fact, O’Reilly producer Jesse Watters regularly stalks and ambushes anyone O’Reilly and his goons disagree with (like TP’s own Amanda Terkel), even if it means following them home and confronting them in places such as their garages.
In May, a radical anti-choice crusader gunned down Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas physician who administered abortions. Prior to this incident, O’Reilly regularly singled out Tiller on his show, referring to him as “Tiller the Baby Killer,” saying that he “has blood on his hands” and that he “executes babies.” After the murder, O’Reilly stood by all his claims and even lied that he never called Tiller “Dr. Killer.”
Other hosts, such as by Glenn Beck, have attempted to scare the American public by calling the President a “socialist,” saying that he has ties to communists (or fascists), or that he’s even a “racist” who hates “white culture.” Beck regularly fears that the country is being “stolen” and has even said that the Obama administration had created concentration camps.
Indeed, other major conservative media figures have noticed this constant incendiary rhetoric, and one CNN host noted that “Americans are scarfing up guns and ammunition at an alarming rate.”
Coburn Ignores His Own Committee, Says We ‘Don’t… Have The Answer Yet’ On Legality Of Obama’s ‘Czars’
Coburn Ignores His Own Committee, Says We ‘Don’t… Have The Answer Yet’ On Legality Of Obama’s ‘Czars’
For the past few months, many conservatives, led by Glenn Beck and Fox News, have been on a witch-hunt against the Obama administration’s so-called “czars,” accusing the White House of a power grab because they “are not subjected to congressional oversight” (despite the fact that a Fox News reporter noted that “there is no constitutional issue”).
The Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, led by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), held a hearing on these “czars” yesterday to determine their constitutionality. During an interview sometime after the hearing with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) — the subcommittee’s Ranking Member — cited “18 different” czars that are “supposedly” of concern (meanwhile, Fox ran an on-screen graphic showing 30 supposed “czars”). But later in the interview, Coburn said that even after the hearing, the constitutional question on these “czars” is still open:
COBURN: So I think we don’t know, and I think the general, fair inquiry into what is going on without partisan sniping and to say what is really going on, is there any violation of the constitutional — any intended violation of the constitutional prerogatives of the legislative branch over advice and consent. And I don’t think we have the answer yet.
Watch it:
Coburn must not have been paying any attention to his own committee’s hearing. In fact, all five constitutional experts that testified during yesterday’s hearing concluded that these “czars” are legal:
Bradley Patterson, a senior analyst for the Brookings Institution who served on the White House staffs of Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford, said Obama clearly had the power to appoint such top-level aides under the historic prerogative of a president to hire White House personnel without benefit of the Senate’s advice and consent.
“The president’s staff are personally responsible only to the president, and in the end he is the only ‘czar’ that is,” said Patterson in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee. “And he is accountable to the American people.”
The special advisers’ “practical authority,” said University of Virginia Law professor John Harrison during the hearing, “is not legal authority, and as long as the distinction is rigorously maintained there will be no legal problem.”
Fox’s Shep Smith Takes Down Fox News Talking Point On Public Option: ‘It’s Not A Government Takeover!’
Fox’s Shep Smith Takes Down Fox News Talking Point On Public Option: ‘It’s Not A Government Takeover!’
“Why would we not want a public option?” Shep Smith asked Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), kicking off a tense and lively exchange this afternoon on Fox News. When Barrasso quickly launched into his Frank Luntz-inspired GOP talking points, calling it a “government take-over of health care,” Smith — who’s been known to go off the Fox News reservation from time to time — pushed back:
SMITH: It’s not a government take over, Senator! That’s not fair and we both know it. It’s not a government takeover because what it would be is a government option if you have insurance now and you like it you can keep it. … That’s not a government take over if we’re being fair is it Senator?
Barrasso struggled to muster a response. “Well compare it to Medicare, which we know right now is going bankrupt,” he said. Later, Smith engaged in fierce advocacy in favor of the public option:
SMITH: As the costs have gone up, the insurance industry’s profits on average have gone up more than 350 percent and it’s the insurance companies which have paid and have contributed to Senators and congressman on both sides of the aisle to the point where now, we can’t get…what more than 60 percent of Americans say they support, is a public option. This has been an enormous win for the health care industry. That is an unquestioned fact. [...]
[E]very vote against a public option is a vote for the insurance companies, sir. It is!
Again, Barrasso replied with trite talking points. “We’re not even allowing the people of America to read the bill,” he said, later adding that “Washington is incapable” of running health care. “I want to be clear,” Smith told Barrasso, “this wouldn’t be Washington running the system, Senator. It would be a government run plan paid for by the people who sign up for the plan.” Watch it:
As Smith railed against insurance companies, Barrasso responded, “I’m not going to defend the insurance companies — I’ve been fighting them for the last 25 years of practicing medicine.” In fact, the Wyoming senator has received a considerable amount of contributions from the health care industry: Over $500,000 from health professionals and nearly $100,000 from the pharmaceuticals and health products industry over his career and nearly $40,000 bundled from health care lobbyists in the last two years.
Fox News constantly peddles the false talking point that the Democratic health care plan would be a “government takeover” (see e.g. Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Greta Van Susteren). Kudos to Smith for letting the Fox audience know that most of their anchors are lying to them.
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Galbraith: ‘It Makes No Sense To Ramp Up’ Troops In Afghanistan
Galbraith: ‘It Makes No Sense To Ramp Up’ Troops In Afghanistan
Last week, the United Nations fired its number two official in Afghanistan, U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, after he wrote a “scathing” letter accusing the U.N. mission leader of concealing election fraud that benefited Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On ABC’s Good Morning America today, Galbraith stood by his complaint. “The flaw that took place in Afghanistan was preventable,” he said, adding that the U.N. “did not exercise its responsibility” in ensuring a fair election.
Later in the segment, Galbraith argued strenuously against flooding more troops to Afghanistan:
GALBRAITH: In the absence of having a credible Afghan partner…it makes no sense to ramp up. On the other hand we cannot afford to pull out. … At this point, no surge. … [W]e also don’t have unlimited resources and unless those troops can secure an area in a way that then Afghan partners, the government, the Afghan army, the Afghan police can come in and fill in after them, we’re going to be there as an occupying force for a very long time and that to me doesn’t make sense.
Watch it:
Those such as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are urging President Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan, citing the “lessons of Iraq” (i.e. President Bush’s troop “surge” there in 2007). But Galbraith dismissed McCain’s logic, noting that the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the same:
GALBRAITH: Unfortunately, there is no analogy between what happened in Iraq and what’s going on in Afghanistan. In Iraq in the Sunni areas of the country, the al Qaeda element, the fundamentalists, moved from attacking the Shiites to attacking the tribal sheiks themselves so this was a matter of their self-defense.
In Afghanistan the tribal elders, many of them are supporting the Taliban, they are the Taliban or and this is the more common situation, they are neutral. They see no reason to choose a government which they experience as inexperienced, corrupted and abusing power.
Despite this obvious disconnect, McCain accuses those who disagree with his “surge” call of “playing politics.”
Pentagon Official On Military Action In Iran: ‘We Can Imagine A Number Of Destablizing’ Consequences
Pentagon Official On Military Action In Iran: ‘We Can Imagine A Number Of Destablizing’ Consequences
Today in Geneva, the United States, along with Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the EU, engaged in direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program. The talks produced “constructive” progress, with Iran agreeing to allow U.N. inspectors to visit the newly disclosed uranium enrichment facility. Following revelations about the secret facility last week, the right-wing instantly mobilized for war, calling for military action and “regime change” in Iran.
ThinkProgress asked Dr. Colin Kahl, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, what the consequences might be if the war hawks had their way. “We’re a long ways away from that being an eventuality,” Kahl said, adding that the U.S. “is committed” to the “diplomatic track.” Noting that “military action is not desirable,” Kahl then laid out the sobering ramifications:
KAHL: [I]t will have an unpredictable set of consequences for the region but we can imagine a number of destabilizing ones. Depending on how Iran chose to retaliate, whether they chose to retaliate through the use of proxies in places like Iran or in Afghanistan through incitement of Shia communities in places like Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. Obviously if there was direct retaliation against U.S. forces in Iraq or Israeli interests. They could activate potentially activate or encourage Hizballah and Hamas to engage in reprisals and you can imagine the second and third order consequences of that on the peace process and on our outreach to the Muslim world and all of that.
“We don’t exactly know how it would unfold you have the prospects for unintended escalation and kind of losing control of what’s going on,” Kahl warned, adding that even though any military strike could delay Iran’s nuclear program, it could also “incentivize the Iranians to go all the way to weaponize” their nuclear material. Watch it:
Earlier this year, President Obama made it very clear that “regime change” is no longer the U.S. goal in Iran. When asked if the militaristic right-wing rhetoric undermines U.S. negotiations with Iran, a senior State Department official told ThinkProgress that it “could”:
I just saw the other day a quote from Ahmadinejad that talked about President Obama can’t even get his own job done let alone deal with us effectively. We should not underestimate the sophistication of Iran’s foreign policy apparatus and how they hear the messages from us and again, that’s one of the reasons we spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill is trying to make sure that the message they’re hearing from us are consistent.
Thankfully, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appears to have no interest in taking any advice from the neocons, saying on Sunday that “there is no military option that does anything more than buy time.”
Transcript: More »
Arab Media Correspondent Trashes White House Press Corps: They’re ‘Arrogant’ And ‘Obnoxious’
Arab Media Correspondent Trashes White House Press Corps: They’re ‘Arrogant’ And ‘Obnoxious’
Yesterday, ThinkProgress attended a roundtable with members of the Arab media at the Middle East Institute. Discussing the differences between covering the Bush and Obama administrations, Nadia Bilbassy, White House correspondent for the Dubai-based satellite TV network MBC, complained that she has not been called on once in these first eight months of the Obama presidency. The foreign press are “treated like a fifth-class citizen in the briefing room,” she said.
Later in the discussion, ThinkProgress asked about the reporters’ experiences working with the American journalists covering the White House (a.k.a. “The Village”) and about their knowledge of Arab and Middle East issues. They are “the most arrogant, obnoxious group of people,” Bilbassy charged, adding, “They don’t know jack-squat” about the Middle East. The MBC journalist continued:
BILBASSY: I found that I think they really think that if you make it to cover the White House then you must be bigger than God, therefore, you know, you have to be treated as such.
So for them the foreign media is invisible. … So I think they’re opportunistic, rude, as I said, really self-centered. … I find them, not even on like a – people again, the people at the State Department, it’s a different story altogether. But what I’m talking to now are the people in the White House that occupy the first two, three rows, with exception to two or three people you know. I’m talking about all the networks and all the organizations. So I find the relationship is a bit strange.
Watch it:
Bilbassy then said that many of the American journalists covering the White House ignore her and other foreign journalists unless they suddenly become useful:
BILBASSY: Normally they ignore you. You can go to the White House all the time, it’s not just like, I saw you before I would say like, “Hi,” not even “Hi,” not even a smile, nothing. […]
They’re interested in you, like, […] if you know something and they don’t know who you are, you become important for example, …[y]ou know during the Bush administration, when I have interviews with Bush, then all of the sudden [they] come up and goes like, “Oh can we have the transcript before it goes on air?” or “Can we, you know, what did the President say?” Then the next day they forget who you are. So I think it’s really more opportunistic.
“I think they must have been tortured as kids,” Bilbassy concluded. Either that, she said, or “something happened to them as adults. That can’t be normal behavior, honestly.”
Inhofe on why global warming isn’t real: ‘God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles.’
Inhofe on why global warming isn’t real: ‘God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles.’
On C-Span’s Washington Journal this week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the godfather of global warming deniers, said that he will travel to the climate change summit in Copenhagen this fall to present “another view.” “I think somebody has to be there — a one-man truth squad,” he said. Throughout the program, Inhofe went through his tattered global warming denier claims: that climate change is a “hoax,” that CO2 is not a pollutant, and — latching on to the latest false right-wing talking point — that clean energy legislation will cost American families $1,700 a year. At the end of the interview, Inhofe explained what guides his views:
CALLER: Yes, I agree with the Senator on what he says about the climate change. I believe that the world is just changing like it usually does. [...]
INHOFE: I think he’s right. I think what he’s saying is God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles. … I really believe that a lot of people are in denial who want to hang their hat on the fact, that they believe is a fact, that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, are causing global warming. The science really isn’t there.
Watch it:
Beck Refuses To Define What He Meant By The Phrase ‘White Culture’: ‘Ummmmm, I Don’t Know’
Beck Refuses To Define What He Meant By The Phrase ‘White Culture’: ‘Ummmmm, I Don’t Know’
In July, Fox News’ radical host Glenn Beck called President Obama a “racist,” saying that he “has a deap-seated hatred for white people, or white culture” — a comment that sparked a successful advertising boycott of his Fox News program. This week in an interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric, Beck said he was “sorry” for the way he “phrased” the claim, but still contended that it’s a “serious question” as to whether Obama is a racist.
During the interview, Couric posed a question from a Twitter user who wanted to know what Beck meant by “white culture” in his attack on Obama. Beck responded by stuttering: “Ummmmm, I don’t know.” He then suggested that he had already answered the criticism on his website, and therefore didn’t want to “make news” by responding to Couric.
“Can you explain what you mean by the white culture?” Couric insisted, “because some people say that sounds kind of racist.” Beck complained that he shouldn’t be the “target” for “asking” if Obama is a racist. Then he turned snarky as Couric persisted with her line of questioning:
COURIC: People just want to know. What is white culture?
BECK: I’m going to see if I can play your game. People just want to know.
COURIC: You know, well, [Twitter questioner] Adrian wants to know.
BECK: That’s good for Adrian.
When Beck said that he’s “not going to get into your soundbite gotcha game,” Couric noted that the interview would be “completely unedited so if you felt like you wanted to explain it, you have all the time in the world.” But Beck still wouldn’t give an answer. Couric gave Beck a final opportunity to disavow his view that Obama is a “racist,” but Beck just dug in:
COURIC: But basically, you stand behind your assertion that in your view, President Obama is a racist.
BECK: I believe that Americans should ask themselves tough questions. Americans should turn over all the rocks and make their own decisions.
Watch it:
So what did Beck mean by “white culture”? A Google search of his website and a Lexis/Nexis search of the transcripts from his Fox News program found no evidence that Beck addressed its meaning.
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