Up Date 19:30 3/6: Via Raw Story: After the recent reports that Fox News has openly become an extension of President Donald Trump‘s White House, the Democratic National Committee announced it would not partner with the network for any primary debates. Trump responded to the news by saying that he might refuse to go to …
Tag: Fox News
Mar 04 2019
Fox News All-In For Trump. And?
OMG!!! the media and the internet is all agog over The New Yorker‘s investigative reporter Jane Mayer’s article on how Fox News was all in for Donald Trump in 2016. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel knew about Donald Trump’s illegal hush money payment to a pornographic film actor ahead of the 2016 election but killed …
Aug 09 2018
No More Dog Whistles
The right wing talking heads are coming out of the closet and showing their true racist colors. Fox News host Laura Ingraham let loose with a racist rant on how immigration and demographic change are ruining America. Poor Laura whined, “the America we loved doesn’t exist anymore.” What Ingraham was really saying is that both …
Mar 03 2016
Republican Debate #11; Now There Are Four
Tonight is the eleventh Republican debate and, as Matt Taibbi noted , we have a sobriety problem. Only four of the original nineteen candidates will take the stage tonight after retired brain surgeon Ben Carson announced Wednesday that he would not participate since after the Tuesday primaries he saw “no path forward.” He hasn’t formally …
Jul 19 2013
New DOJ Journalist Rules: For Thee But Not For Me
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
In the recent embarrassing uproar over Attorney General Eric Holder’s labeling a James Rosen, reporter for Fox News, a co-conspirator in a federal leak probe and issued a secret search warrant for his e-mails, Holder said that Department of Justice rules would be reviewed and revised as needed. The “New Rules” on media policy (pdf) were issued last week. The rules, as Marcy Wheeler at empty wheel points out, will only apply to explicitly to “members of the news media,” not journalists per se.
The definition might permit the exclusion of bloggers and book writers, not to mention publishers like WikiLeaks. [..]
That approach would have several advantages over protecting “the news media.” First, by protecting the act of journalism, you include those independent reporters who are unquestioningly engaging in journalism (overcoming the blogger question I laid out, but also those working independently on book projects, and potentially – though this would be a contentious though much needed debate – publishers like WikiLeaks), but also exclude those news personalities who are engaging in entertainment, corporate propaganda, or government disinformation.
The rules also are a move to set up an “official press.” More from Marcy who goes into detail:
The First Amendment was written, in part, to eliminate the kind of official press that parrots only the King’s sanctioned views. But with its revised “News Media Policies,” DOJ gets us closer to having just that, an official press.
That’s because all the changes laid out in the new policy (some of which are good, some of which are obviously flawed) apply only to “members of the news media.” They repeat over and over and over and over, “news media.” I’m not sure they once utter the word “journalist” or “reporter.” And according to DOJ’s Domestic Investigation and Operations Guide, a whole slew of journalists are not included in their definition of “news media.” [..]
The limitation of all these changes to the “news media” is most obvious when it treats the Privacy Protection Act – which should have prevented DOJ from treating James Rosen as a suspect. [..]
The PPA, however, applies to all persons “reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication.” [..]
I’m clearly covered by the PPA. But the FBI could easily decide to exclude me from this “news media” protection so as to be able to snoop into my work product.
Congratulations to the “members of the news media” who have been deemed the President’s official press. I hope you use your privileges wisely.
Update: I’ve learned that the issue of whom this applied to did come up in background meetings at DOJ; in fact, DOJ raised the issue. The problem is, there is no credentialing system that could define who gets this protection and DOJ didn’t want to lay it out (and most of the people invited have never been anything but a member of the news media, making it hard for them to understand how to differentiate a journalist).
Ultimately, I think DOJ is so anxious for Congress to pass a shield law (which they say elsewhere in their report) because it’ll mean Congress will do the dirty work of defining who is and who is not a journalist.
The full article is a wealth of information and worth the time to read it, along with all the links.
The Obama administration and Congress are coming very close to creating a state sanctioned press, a true “Pravda on the Potomac,” as The Washington Post is unofficially called. This is Cass Sunstein’s dream come true.
Dec 20 2011
Newt Is Nuts
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Who knew? Presidential candidate for the GOP nomination, Newt Gingrich is like the family’s crazy uncle that gets let out for family gatherings and then gets sent back to is room. His recent emergence as the “favorite” for the nomination has met with some harsh criticism and not just from the left. Many of the right wing punditry are not happy with Newt Gingrich’s surge in the polls for the nomination. During Newt’s interview on Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer, he said he would have “activist judges” (translation: judges who disagree with Newt) hauled before Congress to answer for their decisions, if necessary arresting them:
SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a Congressional hearing… how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?
GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.
I have no idea how Schieffer didn’t react with disbelieving “what?” much like Barbara Walters’ response when Herman Cain said he would want to be Secretary of Defense.
Obviously Newt is off the rails and a couple of former Republican Attorney Generals with some questionable constitutional decisions under their belts think so, too. Former attorney generals Alberto Gonzalez and Michael Mukasey, also a former judge, weighed in on Newt’s judicial lunacy to defy the Supreme Court and, if necessary according to Newt, eliminate the courts that disagree with him all together. In appearances on Fox News they called Newt’s ideas “ridiculous,” “irresponsible,” “outrageous,” and “dangerous”:
KELLY: He wants to see the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals entirely abolished, your thoughts on that?
MUKASEY: Ridiculous. . . . to say that you’re going to undo and entire court simply because you don’t like some of their decisions, when there are thousands of cases before that court, is totally irresponsible. It’s outrageous because it essentially does away with the notion that when courts decide cases the proper way to have them reviewed is to go to a higher court. It’s dangerous because, even from the standpoint of the people who put it forward, you have no guarantee that you’ll have a permanent majority. . . . It would end with having a Democratic majority that then decides to abolish the Fourth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit. And you go on and on and on. And I guess they could then reconstitute another court. It would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle.
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had a similar reaction:
GONZALES: The notion or the specter of bringing judges before the Congress, like a schoolchild being brought before the principal is, to me, a little bit troubling . . . . I cannot support and I would not support efforts that appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges.
Keep in mind that these two men, supported some if the most unconstitutionally egregious of George W. Bush’s policies, including torture.
But poor Newt, he’s even slipping in the polls. According to Public Policy Polling, Rep. Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa:
Newt Gingrich’s campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He’s at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.
Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row. His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%. And there’s been a large drop in his personal favorability numbers as well from +31 (62/31) to +12 (52/40) to now -1 (46/47). Negative ads over the last few weeks have really chipped away at Gingrich’s image as being a strong conservative, now only 36% of voters believe that he has ‘strong principles,’ while 43% think he does not.
Paul’s ascendancy is a sign that perhaps campaigns do matter at least a little, in a year where there has been a lot of discussion about whether they still do in Iowa. 22% of voters think he’s run the best campaign in the state compared to only 8% for Gingrich and 5% for Romney. The only other candidate to hit double digits on that question is Bachmann at 19%. Paul also leads Romney 26-5 (with Gingrich at 13%) with the 22% of voters who say it’s ‘very important’ that a candidate spends a lot of time in Iowa. Finally Paul leads Romney 29-19 among the 26% of likely voters who have seen one of the candidates in person.
Iowa is no predictor of who will get the nomination and the caucuses are an undemocratic form of voting with no absentee ballots and very low voter turn out but Iowa is a predictor for early primary states. However, the recent harsh criticism from right wing politicians and pundits may keep Newt out of the Oval Office. Poor crazy Newt. Back to your room.
Aug 06 2011
The Masterminds Behind The IP Protect Act Bring You The “Ten Strikes Bill”; YouTube Will Be Illegal
Cross-posted to CandyBullets
Isn’t YouTube great? Better enjoy it while you can folks, because if this bill passes it won’t exist in any recognizable form. The same big business lobbyists who masterminded the Internet Blacklist Bill are back. To be exact this bill (S. 978) will make it a felony crime to stream copyrighted content, like music in the background of a YouTube video, or a news clip, TechDirt points out you could even go to jail for posting a video of your friends singing Karaoke:
The entertainment industry is freaking out about sites that embed and stream infringing content, and want law enforcement to put people in jail over it, rather than filing civil lawsuits…. We already pointed to one possibility: that people embedding YouTube videos could face five years in jail. Now, others are pointing out that it could also put kids who lip sync to popular songs, and post the resulting videos on YouTube, in jail as well.
And here’s the kicker, this new felony would hold criminal penalties worse than the crime of child molestation: 5-10 years in prison.
Jul 04 2011
On Being Bumped, Or, Let’s Have Another Roundup
So I thought I was going to have another Jay Inslee story for y’all today, but it turns out that I’m going to have to do more research before we can “come to press” with that one.
But that’s OK, because the world’s been busy doing a lot of other things – and while many of them get media coverage, some don’t get a lot of notice at all.
And of course, there are also those stories that look one way at first glance…but look a lot different when you dig a bit deeper.
We’ll hit a few of those today, have a bit of fun doing it, and get ready for what promises to be another busy week of strategically not doing things in Washington.
To make things even better, some of the stories will be real, and some won’t.
We’ll see if you can tell the difference.
Jun 22 2011
Stewart to Wallace: “You’re Insane” (Up Date)
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show appeared on Fox News Sunday to debate with Chris Wallace “media bias”. Guess who lost? No betting, I won’t take your money.
WALLACE: Even you make fun of the fact that “The New York Times” and the “Washington Post” when this document dump of 24,000 e-mails of Sarah Palin was released, and they got so excited about it, they asked their readers, can you help us go through these 24,00 documents?
STEWART: Right.
WALLACE: How do you explain the fact that they would do that? They would ask the readers to help them go through the Palin e-mails — inconsequential as they turned out to be —
STEWART: Right.
WALLACE: — but they never said help us go through the 2,000 pages of the Obama health care bill?
STEWART: Because I think their bias is towards sensationalism and laziness. I wouldn’t say it’s towards a liberal agenda. It’s light fluff. So, it’s absolutely within the wheelhouse.
I mean, if your suggestion is that they are relentlessly partisan and why haven’t they gone and backed away from Weiner? Now, they’ve dove, they’ve jumped into the Weiner pool — so, with such delight and relish, because the bias —
WALLACE: Some things are indefensible.
STEWART: — the bias of the mainstream media — oh, I’m not saying it’s defensible, but the bias of the mainstream media is toward sensationalism, conflict and laziness.
Amazing. Who was interviewing whom? Comparing Fox News to Comedy Central? Wallace is not only insane but really stupid. Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow discussed Jon’s “interview” on O’Donnell’s The Last Word:
Up Date: From John Aravosis @AMERICAblog News: Fox Edits Out Jon Stewart’s criticism of Fox exec
May 01 2011
The Week in Editorial Cartoons – So, Who’s the Hair Apparent Now? (Special Appeal)
Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette
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Note: Sections 1-4 contain dozens of additional editorial cartoons and commentary. I’m not sure why but I was getting the below error when trying to post the complete diary. Check out the remaining portions of the diary at Daily Kos.
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Apr 07 2011
On Reincarnation, Or, Was Glenn Beck Just Promoted?
So, the thing is, I’m not the one who tends to follow the herd.
If everyone’s backed up on the freeway, I’m the one who will look for the longer but less crowded country road. When everyone’s talking about whoever out-sang or out-danced or out-cake-bossed someone else, I’m the one with the blank face-and if there’s a room full of people line dancing, I’ll be the one over in the corner having a smoke and wondering what went wrong with y’all.
And that’s why, while everyone else is all excited about Glenn Beck’s imminent “disappearance” from the television firmament…I’m not so sure.
In fact, I can easily see a scenario that leads to a lot more Beck, and that’s what we’ll be talking about today.