Tag Archives: Fox News

national news, political news

Palins were punchin' 'em out?

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This little tidbit from the tundra almost defies anything that makes sense.

Almost …

It’s been reported that the family of former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin got involved in a brawl at someone’s home near Anchorage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2014/09/11/stretch-hummers-a-bloody-brawl-and-sarah-palin/

The Palin Gang showed up in a stretch Hummer — allegedly — went inside and then a fight broke out. Involved in the altercation reportedly were Sarah Barracuda’s husband, Todd, son Track and daughters Willow and Bristol. It apparently also involved a former boyfriend of one of the daughters.

And then, supposedly, someone apparently from the Palin Gang yelled, “Don’t you know who we are?”

Here’s how the Washington Post reported the story:

“Anchorage Police Department’s communications director Jennifer Castro confirmed to the Loop that there was a fight at a party where the Palins were in attendance. Castro said ‘just before midnight Anchorage police responded to a report of a verbal and physical altercation taking place between multiple subjects…’”.

Ugghhh!

And to think some people actually take seriously what this one-time Republican vice-presidential nominee has to say about anything.

I suppose equally interesting might be that on the day the news broke about this brawl, Sarah Barracuda appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” show to discuss President Obama’s strategy for destroying the Islamic State. Of course, Palin was critical of the president’s plans. However, Sean Hannity didn’t bother to ask her anything about the fight and whether she and her family were involved.

She still thinks of herself as a serious political pundit? You betcha.

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Tired of the Ferguson story

Let’s discuss this one a little.

OK, I’ll start. I am tired of the Ferguson, Mo., story. Does anyone else out there share that thought?

We know many of the facts already. A young African-American man, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb. Residents protested. The protests got violent. The Ferguson police responded with a very heavy hand. The state police took over. The governor declared a curfew and called out the National Guard to keep the peace.

The cable news networks have been all over this story. They’re covering it like a blanket. 24/7, or so it seems.

I’m weary of it.

The Ferguson story, I think, gets to the heart of what sometimes ails TV journalism. Reporters get fixated on stories and then beat them into the ground.

I grew tired of the Trayvon Martin story, which had a similar context. I grew sick and tired of the Natalie Holloway story — remember her? She was the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba. The networks were all over that one for seemingly forever. I got sick of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappearance story. CNN was the worst, reporting “breaking news” when none existed. One news anchor asked someone if it was possible if the plane flew into a black hole; he was then reminded by the guest that a black hole would swallow the entire solar system.

What am I missing in this Ferguson story?

It’s not that that my heart isn’t broken over the death of the teenager. Or that the police made a mess of their response to the protests. Or that the state police captain who’s taken charge of things hasn’t acted with nobility and courage. I get all of that. I’d like answers to questions surrounding the militarization of the police department and whether minorities are being targeted unfairly by police. How about the Ferguson political structure? It needs to change. A majority black community needs more African-Americans in positions of authority.

I just cannot watch it at length any longer. I’ve grown tired of the media saturation, just as I tired of one cable network’s obsession with the Benghazi tragedy in Libya and its coverage of the IRS non-scandal.

Is there something wrong with me?

I’m all ears.

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Listen carefully to Fox News

Living in the World That Fox News Built

The above link is a short essay posted on Mother Jones, a left-wing political website.

The blog posted here is from a guy named Kevin Drum, who invites viewers to watch Fox News for an extended period to fully understand how the network has helped redefine the American political conservative movement.

Drum writes: “Over the years, the more that I’ve thought about the evolution of conservative politics over the past few decades, the more I become convinced that Fox News is really at the center of it. Sure, it all started with a base of Reagan and the Christian Right and talk radio and the Republican takeover of the South. But Newt Gingrich was the game changer. He’s the one who brought conservative politics to a truly new, truly unprecedented level of toxic rancor.”

I don’t watch Fox News much any longer. I used to tune in to a few news shows. Then I, too, became disinterested in the Fox bias, which of course ran counter to my own bias — which I admit to freely and without apology.

This notion of watching a media outlet with which one disagrees takes me back to a time, back in Beaumont, when I did the same thing.

I was talking at the time to the then-mayor of Beaumont, Maury Meyers, a fine gentleman with whom I had a nice relationship. I complained to Meyers about Rush Limbaugh’s TV show, which aired briefly in the early 1990s. Maury invited me to watch more than a single episode before passing judgment on Limbaugh’s show.

I did as Meyers suggested — and concluded after a week of watching Rush’s rants that he was worse than I imagined.

I wrote in a column, after subjecting myself to the ordeal, that Limbaugh was to political commentary what Willard Scott was to weather forecasting. Neither man really knew anything about the subjects with which they dealt. “Willard Scott makes me laugh,” I wrote at the time, “Rush Limbaugh makes me sick.”

Fox News is a major player these days in the on-going American political drama. Drum concludes:

“Yes, the tea party has won. But it won because of support from Fox News. In reality, it’s Fox News that won. And for all that Fox gets a lot of attention, I still wonder how many non-conservatives really watch it. Not just the occasional clip on Jon Stewart or Media Matters that’s good for a laugh or an eye roll. How many really sit down occasionally and take in a full evening? Or a whole day? Because that’s the only way you’ll really understand.”

Yep. I do understand.

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Bundy said what about blacks?

Cliven Bundy has gone from right-wing hero to racist goat just like that.

Oh … my … goodness.

Bundy is the Nevada rancher who’s fighting with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees he is being told to pay because he is running his cattle on public land. He’s resisting the BLM order and has drawn fawning praise from right-wing media personalities for his defiance of the federal mandate.

Now comes word that the guy is quite capable of saying some truly idiotic things.

Such as this about African-Americans, according to ThinkProgress.com: “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Bundy said at a news conference Saturday, recounting how he had seen black people in a public housing project in North Las Vegas. “Because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Better off as slaves? Did this clown actually say such a thing?

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/04/24/3430265/bundy-racist-comments/

The folks who’ve been cheering him on have been a bit slow to condemn his commentary as the racist rant that it is.

One key Senate Republican, Dean Heller of Nevada, was quick to put lots of distance between himself and Bundy. Heller said he “completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., followed suit.

Bundy is breaking the law by grazing his cattle on federal land. The BLM is seeking to collect fees that Bundy owes it. That’s it. He’s become a hero to those who despise the feds.

Now this. Good bleeping grief.

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Loudmouth O’Reilly makes news

One of the many things I dislike about contemporary broadcast “journalism” is when the so-called journalist becomes the newsmaker.

Such was the case prior to the Super Bowl on Sunday when Fox News loudmouth Bill O’Reilly interviewed Barack Obama — and tried to steal the thunder from the president of the United States.

As he has done before when the men have met, O’Reilly interrupted the president repeatedly. He cut him off. He wouldn’t allow him to answer questions, many of which were excellent and pointed.

I don’t mind one bit journalists digging hard for answers to questions that linger out here in Viewer Land. I do mind, though, when journalists seek — by virtue of their outsized personality and ego — to become part of the story.

That ain’t their job.

Their job is to ask questions, to collect answers and to allow consumers of the news and analysis to decide for ourselves what we believe to be correct or incorrect. This consumer, me, cares not one bit what the interviewer thinks about anything. Just ask the questions and get the heck out of the way.

Once again, O’Reilly demonstrated that news and entertainment have melded into some new form that — in my view — is hard to watch.

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Let’s be self-aware, Dr. Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer was a psychiatrist before he became a political pundit.

As such, he surely had some training in medical school about self-awareness, and how to counsel patients who perhaps lack that important emotional quality.

I was struck, therefore, by Dr. Krauthammer’s own lack of self-awareness as he lambasted President Obama for what he called the president’s “repulsive” lack of respect for those on the other side of any given political debate.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/23/krauthammer_obamas_self-righteousness_and_refusal_to_give_respect_to_the_other_side_is_repulsive.html

Krauthammer told Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly that the president thinks he’s always right and that his foes are always wrong and that he shows his arrogance regularly when he puts down his adversaries for their so-called “lack of patriotism.”

Isn’t the good doctor listening to the other side? Has he not heard Republicans step way beyond the bounds of decency when they criticize things such as, say, the Affordable Care Act. For that matter, he ought to listen to himself when he levels such criticism at Barack Obama or those allied with the president. All that talk about arrogance and self-assuredness can be directed right back at the individual who makes such a claim in the first place.

I’ve lost count of the number of ACA foes who have proclaimed it to be the “worst legislation” in U.S. history, or those who contend it is the moral equivalent of a terrorist attack on the U.S. health care system. Gosh, I would rate any of the many laws enacted that sanctioned slavery to be quite a bit worse than the ACA.

Does the doctor forget about all the times former Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich proclaimed Democrats to be the “enemy of ‘normal Americans'”? How about the ridiculous assertions that many tea party Republicans have made regarding Obama’s citizenship, allegiance to the country or whether he’s “American” enough to hold the office to which he’s been elected twice?

The other side — Dr. Krauthammer’s side — has plenty of examples of precisely the kind of repulsiveness he lays at Barack Obama’s feet.

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Obamacare vs. Affordable Care Act

An interesting new poll has revealed a curious element of the public opinion about the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare”.

When you ask Americans if they favor “Obamacare,” 47 percent of them say they oppose it. When you ask them if their views of the Affordable Care Act, the number drops 36 percent.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101064954

“Obamacare” was the name hung on the ACA by its opponents who sought to put a derisive label on the health care reform overhaul approved by Congress in 2010. “Obamacare” has become the pejorative term of choice for those in politics and the media (such as Fox News) to use when discussing the ACA, which hasn’t even been implemented fully.

The Affordable Care Act is the legislation’s official name. It is used by those who support it. Although it’s interesting to me that President Obama occasionally uses the “Obamacare” term to describe it, all the while taking note that “Obamacare” is the critics’ term of choice.

I’m beginning to think, though, that these public opinion surveys are becoming almost as detailed as baseball statistics. You can find a stat for almost any category of hitting, pitching, fielding or base-running performance in the Grand Old Game. The same appears to be happening with public opinion polling.

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Talking heads becoming the story

This is a big part of what I find distasteful about cable TV news: The talking heads have a habit of becoming part of the narrative they’re supposed to be covering.

The latest example is a feud that’s apparently brewing between lefty Al Sharpton and righty Bill O’Reilly. Sharpton is one of the hosts of MSBNC’s talk-show lineup; O’Reilly hosts his show on Fox.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/the-al-sharptonbill-oreilly-feud-marches-on_b190254

Allow me this brief commentary on both men.

Sharpton came to be known to many Americans when he ran interference for a young African-American woman, Tawana Brawley, who contended some white New York City police officers raped and beat her. Sharpton became Brawley’s voice in a heated exchange with the New York Police Department. He demanded justice for this poor girl and raised the volume to a fever pitch. One big problem emerged: Brawley’s story was fake. The cops ended up suing Brawley and Sharpton for slander and they won. Now, all these years later, Sharpton has lost a lot of weight, cleaned up his TV image and is known as a “leading civil rights activist.”

In my mind, he’s a charlatan.

O’Reilly has been a fixture at Fox for many years. He’s had other broadcast network gigs. He’s a simpleton, who makes simplistic arguments to cover complex issues. He fancies himself as an “independent,” but he’s nothing of the kind. He’s a card-carrying conservative who, when interviewing subjects on his show, delights in out-shouting them. He interrupts at will. O’Reilly even treated President Obama rudely while interviewing him during the 2012 presidential campaign; he’d ask a question and refuse to wait for an answer before butting in while the commander in chief of the most powerful military establishment in the history of the world was trying to answer.

O’Reilly is a gasbag.

Now these two clowns are fighting in public. They both see themselves as bigger than any story they cover for their respective networks. They disserve the craft they purport to practice when they engage in these televised tit-for-tats with each other.

I don’t care one damn bit what these guys think of each other. I care only what they say about the issues. Stick to your talking points, gents. If you want to insult each other, pick up the phone and do so in private.