Fox And Friends Muse About ‘Special Screenings’ And ‘Special Debriefings’ For Muslims In The Military
Fox And Friends Muse About ‘Special Screenings’ And ‘Special Debriefings’ For Muslims In The Military
After news broke yesterday that the suspected gunman responsible for the “horrific outburst of violence” at Fort Hood, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was Muslim, some commentators began assigning “collective responsibility for the actions of one man” to the Muslim community as a whole. On Fox and Friends this morning, Geraldo Rivera warned against casting “a gloomy cloud of suspicion over all the Muslim G.I.s who serve with great honor”:
RIVERA: I think that the great tragedy of this incident is that it will cast a gloomy cloud of suspicion over all the Muslim G.I.s who serve with great honor and who are an amazing assist to the United States in this conflict we’re having with radical Islam. This will, and also, I remember my dad, just very briefly. When we were growing up there would be a notorious crime and my dad used to gather the family. We used to say, like a little prayer, “please God” that it’s not a Puerto Rican. You know because we had, dealing with so many social pressures and prejudices, dealing with all the rest of it, we didn’t want one of these awful examples to cast aspersion and negativity on our group. And this is the same thing with American Muslims now, specifically American Muslim G.I.s.
But, as both Raw Story and Media Matters have noted, later in the segment the hosts of Fox and Friends suggested that “special debriefings” and “special screenings” of Muslim soldiers should be considered. “If I’m going to be sticking in an outpost, I got to know the guy next to me is not going to want to kill me,” said Brian Kilmeade. Gretchen Carlson pondered whether the military had been “exercising political correctness in not approaching” Hasan “as seriously as they would have had he not been a Muslim.” Watch it:
Muslim- and Arab-American organizations have loudly spoken against Hasan’s attack. “We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law,” said a Council on American-Islamic Relations statement. In a statement, the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military urged “the media, government officials and all of our fellow Americans to recognize that the actions of Hasan are those of a deranged gunman, and are in no way representative of the wider Arab American or American Muslim community.”
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Is Glenn Beck Being Treated By SEIU Nurses?
Is Glenn Beck Being Treated By SEIU Nurses?
One of right-wing TV host Glenn Beck’s most frequent targets is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Beck has in the past repeatedly referred to SEIU members as “thugs” involved in radical leftist conspiracies, even going as far as to say that SEIU president Andy Stern is trying to re-create the Bolshevik Revolution. “When you start to figure out who SEIU is and what they want, you’re not really comfortable,” Beck said last month.
In recent days, Beck has been hospitalized for appendicitis. As Alternet’s Alexander Zaitchik points out, the staff treating the ailing pundit is likely under the auspices of SEIU nurses:
The security-conscious Beck has not disclosed the name of the facility, but it’s a safe bet that it is staffed by proud members of a storied union: New York’s Local 1199, aka United Healthcare Workers East, which belongs to the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU has organized all of Manhattan’s major hospitals, including every facility to which Beck could have conceivably been sent.
Beck certainly isn’t complaining about being treated by nurses who were organized by the union he regularly demonizes. On his Twitter account, he praised the staff that is attending to him:
If it does turn out that Beck’s “amazing” nurses happen to be members of the SEIU, will he retract the statements he has made condemning the union or will he continue on his McCarthyite tirade?
Palin to promote her book with multiple Fox News interviews: ‘Variety is the spice of life.’
Palin to promote her book with multiple Fox News interviews: ‘Variety is the spice of life.’
On her Facebook page yesterday, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin announced that she was “very excited about the upcoming road trip” to promote her book, which will be released later this month. As CNN’s Alexander Mooney notes, Palin “hinted she’d likely sit down with a string of friendly faces during the tour that begins in two weeks.” Indeed, Palin is hoping to do interviews mainly with Fox News hosts and contributors:
We’re in the process of arranging interviews with local and national media. An interview with Oprah Winfrey is already scheduled, and I’m also hoping to have the opportunity to talk with Bill O’Reilly, Barbara Walters, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Miller, Tammy Bruce, and others, including local Alaska personalities Bob & Mark and Eddie Burke. (Variety is the spice of life!)
As Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) vice presidential running mate in the 2008 election, Palin gave Fox multiple interviews while avoiding other news efforts. Apparently, she plans to follow the same strategy as she promotes her book.
Diane Sawyer Uses Glenn Beck To Attack Al Gore For Not Eating ‘Tofurkey’
Diane Sawyer Uses Glenn Beck To Attack Al Gore For Not Eating ‘Tofurkey’
ABC’s Good Morning America host Diane Sawyer sandbagged Vice President Al Gore this morning with an attack by Glenn Beck. Gore was appearing on the show to discuss his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. Smiling, Sawyer introduced a mocking clip from the Fox News pundit. “Here’s Glenn Beck,” she said, “giving you a challenge about cows and methane”:
BECK: I’m siding with PETA on this one. Once again asking Al Gore if you really want to save the planet, Al, why don’t you put down the cheeseburger and pick up the veggie burger? Time for, maybe, soy milk and tofurkey?
Watch it:
Sawyer somehow failed to note that Beck denies the science of climate change and has claimed efforts to build a green economy are “fascism.”
Of course, Our Choice addresses the question. Chapter Ten of Our Choice, “Soil,” discusses the complex range of challenges and opportunities related to food production and consumption, noting in particular the costs of industrial agriculture. The chapter concludes with a series of recommendations, including practical ones for American consumers, like supporting farmers’ markets and eating less meat. And Gore follows his own advice:
There is a serious issue about the connection between the growing meat intensity of diets around the world and damage to the environment. And like a lot of people, I eat less meat now than I used to. I’m not a vegetarian, don’t plan to become one, but it’s a healthy choice to eat more vegetables and fruits. So it’s not a laughable issue.
Sawyer laughably replied, “So, tofurkey for you.”
As The Media Obsesses Over New York Special Election, It Ignores Leftward Lurch In California Special Election
As The Media Obsesses Over New York Special Election, It Ignores Leftward Lurch In California Special Election
In the past few weeks, conservatives and their allies in the press have obsessed over the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district. Pundits have claimed that the rise of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman as the likely winner in that race is a “referendum on the Obama-Biden spending agenda” and evidence of a rightward shift in the nation’s politics, despite the fact that this particular district in New York hasn’t elected a Democrat in a century.
While pundits have obsessed over the special election in New York, they’ve completely ignored another race that evidences a progressive resurgence. Today, voters in California’s 10th congressional district will go to the polls to elect a member of congress to replace former Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), who was brought into the Obama Administration to serve as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.
As The Nation’s John Nichols notes, CA-10 is a far more competitive district than NY-23:
If [NY-23] elects a Republican Tuesday – and, though Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party line, he is now backed by local, state and national GOP leaders and organizations – the district will hold to the pattern it has been on since Ulysses Grant was president. On the other hand, California 10 was represented by a Republican until Tauscher beat him in 1996 – and in the past century, Republicans have represented the core counties of the district more frequently than Democrats. In other words, California 10 is the more historically competitive turf.
Despite the competitiveness of his district, Democrat John Garamendi leads Republican David Harmer by ten points in the latest polling.
What makes Garamendi’s lead all the more impressive is his progressive stances. While CA-10 was previously held by a Democrat, Tauscher legislated as a centrist. A member of the business-friendly “New Democrat Coalition,” Tauscher was a supporter of rolling back the estate tax, tightening bankruptcy rules, and expanding free trade agreements. Following the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives in 2006, she famously warned her colleagues to not run “over the left cliff” by passing too much progressive legislation.
Garamendi, on the other hand, is an unabashed liberal. He is a strong supporter not only of a public option, but of a single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system, supports the creation of an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and actually defeated the hand-picked candidate for the Democratic endorsement.
If he is elected, and he likely will be, it will mark a dramatic leftward shift in CA-10. But with all the media coverage of NY-23, most Americans may never know that.
Cable news networks help spread Republicans’ ‘highly misleading’ stimulus math.
Cable news networks help spread Republicans’ ‘highly misleading’ stimulus math.
Back in January, the Republicans claimed that the economic stimulus package would cost $275,000 for every job created, which they calculated by taking the entire cost of the stimulus package and dividing it by the number of jobs created in just one year. At the time, Paul Krugman called the Republicans’ number a “bogus talking point.” With the White House’s announcement last week that the stimulus package has created 640,000 to 1 million jobs, the GOP is employing fuzzy math once again. Don Stewart, spokesman for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), told reporters on Friday to “get out your calculators” and divide the spending by the jobs, producing a figure of $230,769 per job. Media outlets Fox News, CNN, and CNBC have all repeated some variation of the number (using slightly different estimates) in the last few days. Watch a compilation:
The AP’s Calvin Woodward was not fooled, and today released a piece telling readers to “beware the math” coming from the Republicans and calling it “satisfyingly simple but highly misleading”:
First, the naysayers’ calculations ignore the value of the work produced. Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker’s output — a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid. Second, critics are counting the total cost of contracts that will fuel work for months or years and dividing that by the number of jobs produced only to date.
As Woodward wrote, “dividing apples by oranges won’t settle” whether or not the stimulus package has been a success.
Bob Schieffer Likens H1N1 Flu Vaccine Shortages To Hurricane Katrina
Bob Schieffer Likens H1N1 Flu Vaccine Shortages To Hurricane Katrina
This summer, the Obama administration announced that it would spend more than $2 billion to buy enough H1N1 flu vaccines to inoculate every American and said that companies could have up to 80 million ready by October. But only a fraction of those vaccines have been produced so far. “[W]e probably did overpromise, and we overpromised on the basis of what was represented to us” by the manufacturers, senior White House adviser David Axelrod said this week.
Some conservatives are now calling the mishap “Obama’s Katrina.” Today in an interview with Axelrod on CBS’ Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer advanced that view:
SCHIEFFER: What do you do to correct this kind of thing? You’re told one thing, you’d have so much and you didn’t. These are the kinds of things we heard after Katrina during a previous administration.
NPR’s Juan Williams noted the huge distinction between the two situations on Fox News Sunday this morning:
WILLIAMS: I must say that there’s a huge difference between Hurricane Katrina in government failure and what we’re seeing here in terms of delivery of the vaccine. This is a matter of private manufacturers not living up to promises in terms of the delivery system. …But I don’t think most Americans are blaming the Obama administration for this as they blamed, as they said that President Bush’s administration failed to properly understand or pay attention to what FEMA was not doing with regard to helping Americans with Katrina.
Watch it:
Indeed, Williams is right, Americans aren’t blaming the Obama administration. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “69 percent of respondents said they were confident in a federal response to the outbreak.”
Even conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer acquitted the Obama administration of responsibility over the vaccine shortages today on Inside Washington. “I would be inclined to blaming this all on Obama but I rise in his defense because…this stuff is extremely hard to do safely, it’s a long process. … I would give him a pass in terms of assigning political blame,” he said.
Fox’s Chris Wallace Conducts Sycophantic, Softball Interview With Rush Limbaugh
Fox’s Chris Wallace Conducts Sycophantic, Softball Interview With Rush Limbaugh
When the White House snubbed Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace of an interview with President Obama in September, Wallace defended his program by claiming it is a “truly fair and balanced show.” This morning, he had an opportunity to demonstrate his fairness, but failed miserably.
During his 30-minute on-air interview with Rush Limbaugh, Wallace did not ask a single critical question of the hate radio host, nor did he ever seriously challenge Limbaugh’s views at any point in the interview. Wallace relished engaging in a hostile interview with President Clinton in 2006, arguing afterwards that, “My instinct is to go after them with the high hard one.” He showed none of those instincts this morning.
Instead, Wallace teed up a series of softball questions, allowing Limbaugh to offer unchallenged accusations of Obama. Some examples:
WALLACE: This week it will be one year since Barack Obama was elected president. In that time, what has he done for and to the country?
WALLACE: You have now taken to calling Mr. Obama the man-child president. What does that mean?
WALLACE: Let’s talk about a couple of the big issues the president is dealing with now — first of all, Afghanistan. You suggest that he is taking all of this time to decide what to do in Afghanistan to keep his left-wing base on board for health care reform.
WALLACE: But you don’t think that Barack Obama has a profound respect for our soldiers and the families that are giving the sacrifice?
WALLACE: Do you think the individual mandate is constitutional? Do you think the government has the right to tell people, You’re going to get health insurance, and if you don’t get it, you’re going to pay a penalty?
WALLACE: To press my question, why aren’t people turning to the Republicans?
WALLACE: I think you’re a great broadcaster. How can you possibly be worth that kind of money?
WALLACE: If he does win, how is Rush Limbaugh going to handle seven more years of Barack Obama?
Limbaugh took the opportunity to issue screed after screed — calling Obama a “radical” leader who is “destroying” the country, claiming Obama “doesn’t care” about the troops in Afghanistan, and dismissing Obama’s trip to Dover Air Force base to see the fallen soldiers as a “photo op.” Wallace silently went along for the joy ride.
Full transcript of the interview below: More »
Limbaugh lumps Fox News into ‘conservative media,’ Chris Wallace doesn’t object.
Limbaugh lumps Fox News into ‘conservative media,’ Chris Wallace doesn’t object.
For weeks now, Fox News has been vigorously objecting to the Obama administration’s contention that the network often acts as “the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” But on Fox News Sunday today, host Chris Wallace did not object when Rush Limbaugh included Fox News as an example of the “conservative media” that has been spawned in the wake of his success on the radio:
LIMBAUGH: Look at 1988, there was nobody doing what I’m doing. Nobody. You had CNN was the only cable network and you had the three networks and the newspapers. And now, look, now look what’s out — all this conservative media. Conservative talk radio, television, Fox News, the conservative blogosphere. I mean, in one way, I could, if I wanted to have my ego be as big as Obama’s is, I could say, look what I created.
Instead of pushing back on Limbaugh’s description of Fox as ideologically conservative, Wallace moved on to the next question, saying, “let’s talk about you.” Watch it:
Right Wing Falsely Asserts Right Wing Boogeymen Bill Ayers And Jeremiah Wright Visited The White House
Right Wing Falsely Asserts Right Wing Boogeymen Bill Ayers And Jeremiah Wright Visited The White House
Early this evening, the White House voluntarily released nearly 500 visitor records of “individuals visiting the executive mansion between Inauguration Day and the end of July.” The easily-searchable list includes some famous names like Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, William Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright. Of course, the mere suggestion of Ayers and Wright has sent the right wing into a tizzy.
The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb:
The Weekly Standard’s Mary Katharine Ham:
The Washington Times’ Amanda Carpenter:
Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey:
But as the original post by White House ethics counselor Norm Eisen makes clear, the “William Ayers” and “Jeremiah Wright” on the list are actually different individuals who merely share the same name:
Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few “false positives” – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly (”R. Kelly”), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.
Mainstream news outlets have reported this fact accurately. But for the right wing, the story was simply too good to be fact-checked.
Kristol Says He Helped Congressional GOP Formulate ‘The Best Arguments Against’ Health Care Reform
Kristol Says He Helped Congressional GOP Formulate ‘The Best Arguments Against’ Health Care Reform
In Dec. 1993, Bill Kristol, a current Fox News contributor and the editor of the Weekly Standard, issued a now-infamous memo to Republican leaders, arguing that they should “defeat” President Clinton’s health care reform plan “outright” instead of negotiating a compromise. In later memos, Kristol counseled that Republicans should oppose reform “sight unseen” because “there is no health care crisis.” Kristol’s advice “animated” Republicans, who concluded “that all-out opposition to the Clinton plan” was “in their best political interest.”
Throughout this year’s debate over health care reform, Kristol has played a similar role, arguing in the media that Republicans should “kill” reform instead of trying to be “constructive.” In an interview on the Washington Times’ America’s Morning News radio show yesterday, Kristol revealed that he had met with some congressional Republicans on Wednesday night to devise strategy for defeating reform:
KRISTOL: Next week will really be a first crescendo in the big health care debate. And this dinner I was at last night was some Republican members, Senate and House, some staffers, some outside people, trying to think about how to, the best arguments against it and where the politics of this lies. She is really going for it. And I think the issue is Medicare. I mean this will be the largest package of Medicare cuts I think the Congress will ever have passed.
Later in the interview, Kristol distilled the conclusions from the strategy session with congressional Republicans, saying that citizens “need to go see their congressman and say ‘do not vote for this until either we have a chance to read it more carefully, but really more importantly just don’t vote for it because it’s going to cut my Medicare and raise my taxes.’” He echoes the same attack line in his Weekly Standard column today: “There will be no Republican votes for the Pelosi Plan of tax hikes and Medicare cuts. Will there be enough Democratic resistors so the bill is either withdrawn or defeated?.” Listen here:
For the past month, Fox has been claiming that it is not actually a “communications arm” for the Republicans. What do they think about one of their regular contributors advising Republicans on strategy behind closed doors? Will they disclose Kristol’s advisory role when he appears on the air?
Colbert signs petition to ‘Close Gitmo Now.’
Colbert signs petition to ‘Close Gitmo Now.’
Last week, a group of international musicians that includes Trent Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, and others joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo and filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking to declassify all secret government records pertaining to how music was used in detainee interrogations in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Last night, Roseanne Cash promoted the cause on The Colbert Report, where she successfully got the host to sign a petition calling for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Watch it:
Daily Show Heckled, Attacked For Airing Interview With Leader Of Palestinian Nonviolent Democratic Movement
Daily Show Heckled, Attacked For Airing Interview With Leader Of Palestinian Nonviolent Democratic Movement
This past Wednesday, The Daily Show aired an interview with Anna Baltzer, a Jewish American peace activist and author of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories, and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a leading figure in the Palestinian democratic and nonviolent movement for peace.
At the beginning of the interview, Barghouti told Stewart that he thinks the “Jewish people have been in the avante garde of struggling for justice…and democracy,” and concluded that it was “natural” for Palestinians like himself and Jewish activitists like Baltzer to work together for a just resolution of the conflict.
Barghouti explained his experience as a Palestinian growing up under occupation. “It’s Palestinians who have been subjected to the longest occupation in modern history and a system of segregation that is totally unjust,” he said. This prompted a heckler from the crowd to yell, “Liar!” — the first heckling in The Daily Show’s 11-year existence. Stewart responded by joking, “Apparently Joe Wilson is with us tonight.” Watch it:
Following their joint appearance, Baltzer revealed in an open letter that “the show was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel. … The entire staff were very nervous and may come to regret the monumental decision (and not make it again) as they will surely be inundated now that the show has aired.”
While some may feel that views like those of Barghouti should not be aired, the truth is Barghouti represents a Palestinian voice for nonviolence and democracy that is valuable to voice on U.S. airwaves. Despite the suffering he has endured living under occupation — he has been imprisoned and beaten several times for taking part in demonstrations and sit-ins — he has been a leading voice for nonviolent resistance and democratic reform, crafting his philosophy after that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Barghouti’s many accomplishments include founding a leading health relief NGO, removing anti-Semitic programs from the Palestinian airwaves, and running as an independent presidential candidate offering a “democratic and independent ‘third way’ for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas.”
Baltzer is urging viewers who appreciate Stewart’s fortitude in bringing them on to thank him and the producers of The Daily Show by using the show’s contact form here.
New Jersey Police: Reports Like Lou Dobbs’ ‘Not At All Uncommon’ During Hunting Season
New Jersey Police: Reports Like Lou Dobbs’ ‘Not At All Uncommon’ During Hunting Season
Several media sources have reported that shots were fired at the residence of CNN’s Lou Dobbs. While Dobbs and his anti-immigrant supporters were quick to jump to conclusions about the motive of the shooting, Sgt. Stephen Jones confirmed to ThinkProgress this morning that the New Jersey State Police are stilling “looking at all the possibilities” and that a hunting-related accident has not been ruled out.
Sgt. Jones, a spokesperson for the New Jersey State Police, confirmed that a bullet was found which struck the siding of Dobbs’ house. However, he pointed out that Dobbs’ residence is located in a “very rural” area. “With hunting season starting up,” such incidents are “not at all uncommon,” Jones told us.
Nonetheless, anti-immigrant groups are already claiming that “the lies and hate coming from these radical pro-illegal alien groups is now manifesting in the form of gunfire.” Dobbs was quick to start pointing fingers at Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera and “ethnocentric interest groups” for “creating an atmosphere” that led to a shot being fired at his house:
I’m thinking about these lies, that I wasn’t going to respond to — but Geraldo now has just pushed it over. I gotta tell you the lies of the ethnocentric interest groups like LULAC, La Raza, MALDEF, America’s Voice — funded basically by George Soros — all attacking me because as they put it, or as Geraldo put it I’m the only thing standing between those open borders and unconditional amnesty for illegal immigrants. So they want to destroy me and they’re taking their best shot at it believe me…They’ve created an atmosphere and they’ve been unrelenting in their propaganda.
It’s became a part of a way of life: the anger, the hate, the vitriol. But it’s taken a different tone. They threaten my wife. They’ve now fired a shot at my house…My wife and I have now been shot at, my driver, my house has been shot and hit…I’m not in the mood to put up with little fools like Geraldo Rivera.
Listen:
The New Jersey State Police’s investigation has not progressed to the point where it can confirm or deny Dobbs’ allegations. However, considering the fact that Dobbs has “repeatedly amplified the falsehood that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately violent,” it’s no surprise that he immediately connected the incident at his home to the immigration debate.
A report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund revealed a close correlation between the “shrill anti-immigration reform commentaries” of Dobbs and other media personalities and a growing number of hate crimes against Latinos and “perceived immigrants.”
Jon Stewart Praises ‘SuperFreak’ Author: ‘I’m Sorry You’ve Taken So Much S**t’
Jon Stewart Praises ‘SuperFreak’ Author: ‘I’m Sorry You’ve Taken So Much S**t’
On last night’s Daily Show, host Jon Stewart heaped praise on the contrarian approach to global warming taken by SuperFreakonomics author Steve Levitt, a University of Chicago economist. Stewart was dismissive of the widespread criticism of Levitt and co-author Stephen Dubner, asking, “Have you stepped on a secular religion?” Stewart, often a tough interviewer, coddled Levitt, saying, “I’m sorry you’ve taken so much s**t for it.” He blamed the uproar over SuperFreakonomics on people who “feel you are betraying environmentalism”:
I’ve been somewhat surprised at how angry people are. The global warming chapter, you don’t deny global warming. You don’t say that CO2 isn’t a factor, but they feel you are betraying environmentalism or our world. Why are people so mad?
Watch it:
SuperFreakonomics mischaracterizes the field in order to argue that “moralism and angst” has blinded scientists and policymakers from pursuing the “cheap and simple solution” of geoengineering. Although the book condemns scientists for fearmongering and promotes a radical alternative to existing policy, Levitt tells Stewart, “I don’t try to pretend I know the science.”
In reality, the critics of Levitt’s treatment of climate science and policy are not “dogmatic” believers of a “secular religion” — they are highly respected climate scientists, energy experts, and economists, including climate scientist Ken Caldeira, who has said Levitt and Dubner misrepresented his views. The widespread criticism isn’t based on the book’s personal attacks on Al Gore or its mocking of global warming as a “religion,” but on the multitude of factual errors, misrepresentations, and false conclusions that the authors use to promote their mindless contrarianism. As science journalist Eric Pooley writes, “The book claims the opposite of what Caldeira believes.”
Levitt recommends untested, planetary scale geo-engineering to block the sun as a “band-aid” that “buys us time” if “we might need to do something,” because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for a long time. However, scientists concerned that global warming needs to be reduced rapidly have already found a well-proven approach that’s cheaper and safer than pumping unlimited amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere: stopping black carbon emissions of soot from diesel and biomass burning.
Stewart rightly concluded, “I really don’t know what I’m talking about, do I?” However, he failed to understand his mistake when he added that he had “apparently frightened our audience by suggesting that conservation isn’t the only way out of any of our problems.”
Stewart has excoriated other media darlings for their laissez-faire approach to serious issues, from Tucker Carlson to Jim Cramer, and just last week skewered CNN for its failure to do even basic fact-checking of its guests. Unfortunately, in this instance, there was nothing funny about Stewart’s inaccuracy.
Fox News promotes incoherent ‘Obama Change Index’ to argue the President is tanking.
Fox News promotes incoherent ‘Obama Change Index’ to argue the President is tanking.
FoxNews.com, the official website of the Fox News anti-Obama propaganda network, is promoting what it calls the “Obama Change Index.” The index purports to chart “the impact of policies promised by President Obama,” and conveniently graphs Obama’s progress on a scale of 0-700. It appears that Fox’s “change index” is tabulated by asking one Democratic, Republican, and Independent pundit what they think of Obama on 7 different issues: budget, stimulus, homeland security, foreign/military affairs, social issues, dealing with Congress, law and justice. While Obama’s favorable ratings have been going up recently, Fox News’ index unsurprisingly shows Obama tanking. Reddit user KingBeetle writes of the index, “I can’t even figure out what it means, but for some reason this week, Obama is down 271 points.” It’s now 282 points:
A couple of interesting observations from the “Obama Change Index”: On the week of 9/16/09, Obama scored a zero on Homeland Security for no apparent reason. Similarly, Obama scored a zero on “social issues” the week of 6/30/09 because he “tried to placate the gay community.”
Lou Dobbs Slams ‘Vile Stupidity And Ignorance’ Of ‘Annoying’ Geraldo Rivera
Lou Dobbs Slams ‘Vile Stupidity And Ignorance’ Of ‘Annoying’ Geraldo Rivera
This afternoon, Lou Dobbs attacked Fox News host Geraldo Rivera for stating that Dobbs himself is “almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country.” While Rivera accuses Dobbs of defaming an entire race of people, Dobbs insists that he loves immigrants and Latinos and claims that his accusations are nothing but a reflection of Rivera’s “stupidity” and the company of “ethnocentric left-wing activists” that he keeps:
DOBBS: I’m just still fuming over something that Geraldo Rivera said. I shouldn’t let — This guy is nothing but a fiction of his own imagination and a figment of whatever he sees in the mirror. But, I gotta tell you — the guy is so annoying. I should not let people get to me like this, but you know what? I’m starting to get short of patience with them. [...]
Geraldo Rivera wouldn’t know a fact if it hit him in the rear end — and that would probably be an appropriate place if you wanted him to absorb the information. … This is the kind of vile stupidity and ignorance that he spews everywhere he goes.
Listen here:
“Over the years, Lou Dobbs has consistently used his CNN platform to spread hatred and fear,” states Drop Dobbs, one of three campaigns aimed at pressuring CNN to hold Dobbs to journalistic standards or drop him altogether. News Corp. is reportedly “keen” on luring Dobbs over to the Fox Business Channel. However if CNN does drop Dobbs, it doesn’t look like he’ll have too many friends over at Fox. Last week, Dobbs ripped Fox Business News anchor John Stossel as a “self-important ass” with his “own brand of myopic idiocy” after Stossel told Fox News’ “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck that he does not support “the Lou Dobbs-kind of rants about immigrants wrecking America.” Rivera says that one of his Fox News bosses assured him that Dobbs “is not coming to Fox News.”
Beck lashes back at Jane Hall: ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave.’
Beck lashes back at Jane Hall: ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave.’
On CNN’s Reliable Sources yesterday, former Fox News contributor Jane Hall said that Glenn Beck’s presence at the network was a “factor” in her decision to leave Fox. “I’m also, frankly, uncomfortable with Beck, who I think should be called out as somebody whose language is way over the top,” said Hall. On his radio show today, Beck responded to Hall, calling her an “idiot” who wouldn’t be missed at Fox:
BECK: Well, don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave. I’m going to miss you, I am, whatever your name is. My language is scary! Since when did language become scary? Boy, I put a lot of that language in books. Maybe we should gather all those books together and burn them as well. Because there is language in there. I wouldn’t want to scare anyone. Read our Founding Fathers. You want scary language, read the Founding Fathers. We haven’t even gotten to the scary language yet.
Listen here:
A Fox News spokesperson claimed to Mediaite that “Hall’s contract was not renewed.”
Perino: Obama’s Criticism Of Fox Is Akin To Chavez’s Tactics, Sets A Bad Example For ‘Emerging Democracies’
Perino: Obama’s Criticism Of Fox Is Akin To Chavez’s Tactics, Sets A Bad Example For ‘Emerging Democracies’
Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace made sure to devote plenty of time to covering President Obama’s “war on Fox News”; he even played a clip of Sean Connery as Jim Malone “The Untouchables” talking about “the Chicago way” of getting things done. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino sharply criticized the Obama administration’s tactics and expressed absolute shock at the example the United States was setting for “the free press in emerging democracies,” comparing the criticisms of Fox News to when “Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations”:
PERINO: That was a coordinated, calculated attack. It was unbecoming. And if you look at some of the coverage of what mainstream media covers when, for example, somebody like a Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations, he calls them illegitimate.
Now, I’m not suggesting that this White House believes that they are going to come over here and shut down Fox News. But they are defining a narrative in their first year, and it’s going to be very hard to recover from it. [...]
Through our State Department, we are trying to help emerging democracies get journalists and government officials to talk to one another, because freedom of the press is essential to any democracy. Believe me, they are watching this, and they have — surely are raising questions.
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The Obama administration, according to Reporters Without Borders, is actually setting quite a strong example of press freedom for the world. In 2008, the organization found that in terms of press freedom, the U.S. ranked 36th out of 173 countries. Its report singled out “wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism” as a cause for the steep decline in press freedoms around the world. Just one year later, the United States has jumped from 36th to 20th. “Barack Obama’s election as president and the fact that he has a less hawkish approach than his predecessor have had a lot to do with this,” concluded Reporters Without Borders.
So what type of example did the Bush administration set? A few lowlights:
– The Pentagon had a secret program to use retired military analysts to “generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” Most of these analysts had “ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.” When the “message machine” became public, Perino defended the program as “absolutely appropriate.”
– The U.S. military was “secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.” The articles contained anonymous quotes from U.S. military officials — which may or may not have been authentic — and “read more like press releases than news stories.”
– The Education Department paid conservative pundit Armstrong Williams hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. Even after the corruption was uncovered, the administration defended it as “a permissible use of taxpayer funds.”
– The Government Accountability Office found that the Bush administration violated anti-propaganda laws when it disguised two promotional ads — on federal drug policy and Medicare — as news reports. The “reports” aired on dozens of stations, and the GAO “faulted the administration for distributing seemingly independent, ready-to-air reports that did not inform viewers that they came from the government.”
Bush also called a New York Times reporter “a major league asshole” — and never apologized. In fact, Bush never gave the NYT a single interview throughout his presidency. (Update: Bush gave the New York Times interviews in 2001, 2004, and 2005.) The White House frequently went after NBC News, and Perino has admitted that they essentially froze out MSNBC “towards the end.”
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Former Fox News contributor: I left the network because I was ‘uncomfortable’ with Glenn Beck.
Former Fox News contributor: I left the network because I was ‘uncomfortable’ with Glenn Beck.
Today on CNN’s Reliable Sources segment, Washington Post reporter Howie Kurtz hosted Jane Hall, associate professor in the School of Communication at American University, to discuss the Obama administration’s criticisms of Fox News. Hall was a contributor to the network for 11 years and a frequent guest on The O’Reilly Factor and Fox News Watch. Kurtz asked Hall why she left Fox and whether she felt like she was “being used to give Fox a certain degree of legitimacy.” Hall replied that part of the reason she left was because of how “scary” Glenn Beck is:
HALL: No, I didn’t. The reason I left was in part because they’ve had less debates than they used to. It is a fair point to say how much debate is there on MSNBC? How many Republican strategists? We have a bifurcation of the media.
KURTZ: Wait a second. The reason you left is because you feel they have less debate than they used to. In other words, it used to be Hannity and Colmes, now it’s just Hannity. It used to be Bernie and Jane. Now it’s just Bernie.
HALL: I think there’s less debate than there was. And I’m also, frankly, uncomfortable with Beck, who I think should be called out as somebody whose language is way over the top. And it’s scary.
KURTZ: Was that a factor in your decision to leave Fox?
HALL: Yes, it was.
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