DOWNLOADS: (90)

PLAYS: (461)

Embed

Former Congressman Allen West on Sunday (R-FL) said that an admission by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that it had improperly scrutinized tea party groups was part of a wider conspiracy that included President Barack Obama's administration forcing Republican-owned car dealerships to be shut down during the auto bailout in 2009.

Fox News host Alisyn Camerota asked West if he had any indications that the recently-revealed IRS practice of examining whether tea party groups were abusing their tax-exempt status was not limited to "rogue, low-level IRS agents in the Cincinnati office who thought that they were going to personally stick it to the tea party."

"Well, of course," the tea party-favorite Republican declared. "The most important thing we need to come to understand is your First Amendment rights is you have the right to petition the government for redress of your grievances. If we start to have a government that is targeting certain groups for their political ideology because they don't believe it is in concert with their beliefs, this is Orwellian, to put it in the least manner."

"We've got to come back and have hearings on this," he continued. "This is something that is criminal."

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (94)

PLAYS: (764)

Embed

From this Saturday's Fox & Friends, regular guest and host of his own show on the weekends, Mike Huckabee is very sad that there are people "on the left" who are making him feel bad about being able to demonize Muslims. Here's what he said while discussing the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing:

HUCKABEE: But they still don't want to just come out and say, we have a serious threat because of radicalized Islam. Not all Muslims are terrorists, for heaven sakes. No one I know of suggests that. But it's just, it's dishonest and disingenuous for us to continue to say, right after the bombing, this is probably the work of some right-wing anti-tax, anti-government person when no one knew.

And there was never like an on-air apology from some of the people who made those ridiculous speculations. That's why I think that it's very important that Americans understand, we do have a threat. That threat is jihad. It is not about what we've done to them. That's nonsense. It is a fundamental part of their doctrine to believe that we're all infidels and that we must die. [...]

Well, take it a step further. Christians who are still, you know, holding to old fashioned traditions about marriage for example are cast as bigoted homophobes. Now, what is the position in Islam regarding homosexuality? Not same sex marriage. Just homosexuality. It's death by stoning.

I don't understand. We have a very harsh, radical, carried out kind of zaniness going on. Same thing with honor killings.

CARLSON: If these radicals came to the United States, the first people to be executed would be liberals.

HUCKABEE: Yeah.

CARLSON: So I don't understand why they don't perceive the threat for themselves.

HUCKABEE: There is no rationale for the way in which the left basically treats Islam in the public square. It just doesn't make any sense.

Sorry, but there are plenty of reasons for treating every citizen, no matter what their religion, the same under the law and it has nothing to do with what "liberals" want, unless of course you think just wanting everyone to obey our laws is somehow a "liberal value."

And to Huckabee's remarks, he wants to pretend we've never had any "Christian" terrorists like abortion clinic bombers doing harm to or killing their fellow citizens. Huckabee needs to go take a good long look in the mirror when it comes to domestic terrorism. He's right up there with Bill-O when it comes to whipping up the hatred with the extremists on that issue.

In the mean time, he's happy to play the victim card for his audience while pretending Muslims are the only people capable of committing acts of domestic terrorism.

DOWNLOADS: (111)

PLAYS: (1338)

Embed

I'm quite sure that there are plenty of constructive things you could say about President Obama's recent trip to Mexico and what policies would actually benefit the citizens of both countries, such as our trade laws and our drug policies among other things, but you weren't going to find that on this Saturday's Fox & Friends.

Hosts Tucker Carlson, Alisyn Camerota and Clayton Morris opened up the segment by using the speech as an opportunity to trot out the old "apology tour' attacks. Then after playing a portion of President Obama's speech where he said this:

In the United States, we recognize our responsibilities as well. We understand that the root cause of much of the violence here—and so much suffering for many Mexicans— is the demand for illegal drugs, including in the United States. [...]

We also recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States.

...they of course had to bring up one of Fox's other favorite faux scandals, the trumped up Fast and Furious failed gun trafficking sting. And for good measure, heaven forbid a former Mexican diplomat and writer that Obama quoted in his speech said something critical about the United States thirty years ago, so therefore Obama must be siding with anti-American radicals.

They did their best to twist what the president said in his speech as well, and claimed that his comments about the drug trade and guns meant he was blaming the United States for all of their problems, which, as anyone can read for themselves, is not exactly what he said to the audience there, to put it charitably. He said we shared some responsibility for those specific problems.

As I already said, there are plenty of legitimate items to criticize about our relationship with Mexico. You'd never know it listening to the garbage being spewed by these clowns.

DOWNLOADS: (36)

PLAYS: (179)

Embed

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Saturday asserted that a Phoenix program to hire more black and Latino lifeguards at public pools was the "same rationale that propped up Jim Crow for 80 years."

NPR last month reported that the city of Phoenix had set out to hire more minorities because more than 90 percent of the swimmers at some pools were black or Latino, but a majority of lifeguards were white.

On Saturday, Crystal Wright, editor of ConservativeBlackChick.com, snarked to Fox News that "if you're downing, you want to relate to a lifeguard that's going to save you, right guys?"

"Is there any social science evidence that shows that people don't want to be saved by people who have a different melanin content from they do?" Carlson wondered.

Wright said that Phoenix "would rather have people drown or risk drowning in our pools all in the name of diversity. It's the most perverse thing I've ever seen."

Co-host Alisyn Camerota pointed out that Phoenix had not said that children would be put in danger by diverse lifeguards, but that the program would help overcome a language barrier for Latino children with poor English skills.

"I'm a black American, I have no language barrier with a white person," Wright replied. "I'm talking to you and Tucker right now, we seem to be speaking English."

"This is the same rationale that propped up Jim Crow for 80 years, right?" Carlson opined. "You want to swim in a pool with people who look like you. You want to sit in the same bus or the same movie theater or use the same water fountain as people who look like you. It's diversity."

"Segregation," Wright agreed. "My parents grew up during segregation and they didn't really like to be on the beach and at pools and seeing white people be able to use a different beach. Phoenix is making no sense, and they're forcing some kind of segregation."

Wright added that the Phoenix program was not like former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's so-called "binders full of women," which she said was "common sense."

"Hispanics and blacks tend to not be as good swimmers as whites, and many more black Americans and Hispanics, actually those kids don't know how to swim," Wright concluded. "This is just putting -- it's not good."

(h/t: Media Matters)

DOWNLOADS: (139)

PLAYS: (652)

Embed

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of abusing members of the media like "battered" women and prostitutes -- that he had a one-night stand with and then left them because "he got what he wanted."

Ingraham told the hosts of Fox & Friends that "you can see the whole Obama machine begin to crumble" if members of the press began to doubt the president's assertion that Republicans should get most of the blame for refusing to avert automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester.

Fox News host Alisyn Camerota noted that Obama had recently asked the media to leave a meeting with members of the National Governors Association.

"It's like the battered press syndrome," Ingraham opined. "These people are so in love -- many of them, not all of them -- so in love that, like, 'Oh, he's telling me to leave? I guess that means he loves me.' I mean, at some point -- the battered press syndrome -- you have to shake them from this and say, 'You guys have been used and played and manipulated.'"

"Should we tell them he's just not that into you?" Camerota asked.

"Well, he used them," Ingraham explained. "It's like the one-night stand that lasted for four years. He got re-elected, he got what he wanted. 'So, sweetheart, I'll leave your payment on the table and I'm gone.' I'm sorry, but it's embarrassing."

(h/t: Media Matters)

DOWNLOADS: (481)

PLAYS: (5388)

Embed

After a number of the talking heads over at Fox "news" slammed Congressional Republicans for not going after Hillary Clinton hard enough during the Benghazi hearings this week and showing the exchange between Clinton and Sen. Ron Johnson during the Senate hearing, Colbert accused Johnson of allowing Clinton to "step all over Ron's Johnson" and"spank him."

Colbert showed Johnson ending the exchange by saying "thank you Madame Secretary" and wondered why the Senator would do so unless "thank you Madame Secretary" was his "safe word."

After showing Johnson and a bunch of the talking heads on the right claiming that Clinton's anger during the hearings was just an act and made up, Colbert followed with this:

COLBERT: Don't get me wrong. These guys know something about faking emotions. They do it every day and I respect them for it. But in this case I'm not buying it. First, it just makes the Republicans look weaker. Now they lost to something that wasn't even real.

And second, second... if you're saying Hillary could fake that kind of anger, that's saying that every woman I've ever enraged might have been faking it. I don't think so fellas. I mean I've infuriated my share of the ladies over the years and let me tell you, I get them there, okay? They always seem pretty worked up. You know, you can tell when it's real. I mean, they're screaming the whole time. I've even had my neighbors complain. [...]

Anyway, these hearings were a debacle that left unanswered the one question they were really about. Is there anything we can do to stop Hillary in 2016?

DOWNLOADS: (143)

PLAYS: (915)

Embed

Looks like Grandpa McCranky-Pants McCain is still irritated over the exchange between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Rob Johnson at her hearing this Wednesday. And as we've come to expect, the man's hypocrisy meter is completely broken: The pot accuses the kettle of having an 'adoring media':

At yesterday's Senate hearing on September's Benghazi attack, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a series of questions, all of which seemed rather familiar. Indeed, the odd thing about McCain's inquiries is that he would already know the answers to all of his questions if he'd familiarized himself with the publicly available information, including the findings (pdf) of the independent investigation.

And while I was willing to let that go, McCain's appearance on Fox News this morning was even more difficult to endure. [...]

Clinton never said it "didn't matter" how the four Americans were killed. She said the opposite.

As was obvious to anyone paying attention, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was preoccupied with preliminary intelligence reports about a possible protest in Benghazi and Clinton said that was irrelevant as compared to the death of four Americans -- and she was correct.

If McCain found this too confusing to understand, perhaps the Senate Foreign Relations Committee isn't the best place for him to serve.

What's more, Clinton has "an adoring media"? This from a man who spends so much time on the Sunday shows that he has his mail forwarded to green rooms? This from a senator who's so adored by the D.C. political establishment that he's considered reporters his base?

Yep. Heaven forbid McCain ever turns down a chance to get his mug in front of the camera, just like his BFF Lindsey Graham. If there's ever a day where I don't have to see either of them on the television again, it can't come soon enough.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (110)

PLAYS: (499)

Embed

Mike Huckabee appeared on Fox & Friends this Saturday to complain about the tax-exempt status of the new non-profit political action committee, Organizing for Action, which as we already noted here will build on infrastructure of President Obama's campaign apparatus. Funny I don't ever seem to recall Huckabee, or anyone else at Fox for that matter having any issues with Karl Rove and his tax-exempt PAC, even though it appears they've broken the law and not complied with the rules they were supposed to be following.

And as Media Matters pointed out, Huckabee hasn't minded taking advantage of those same laws in regard to his own organizations: Mike Huckabee's Poor Grasp Of Tax Law And Irony:

Fox News host Mike Huckabee is irked at President Obama for converting his campaign apparatus into a tax-exempt non-profit advocacy group. Appearing on Fox & Friends Saturday, the former Arkansas governor admonished the president by saying: "Fine, go ahead and have your organization. Pay taxes on it like the rest of us have to when we get out and speak in our businesses and personal lives."

This is nonsense. Huckabee has his own tax-exempt political action committee, Huck PAC, that he has hyped up on Fox News and uses to "promote conservative principles and help elect conservative candidates at every level of government." Indeed, Huckabee has made ample use of tax-exempt groups throughout his political career and actually has a sketchy history with non-profits.

Back when he was lieutenant governor of Arkansas, Huckabee and his allies formed a non-profit group that had just two functions: to pay for Mike Huckabee to travel across the country bashing health care reform, and to pay Mike Huckabee. The New York Times reported in December 2007, when Huckabee was running for president, that Huckabee had been losing money serving as lieutenant governor, and "to bridge the gap between his income and his expenses, Mr. Huckabee and a few close political advisers came up with a plan. They formed a nonprofit organization that raised money for Mr. Huckabee to travel the country promoting conservative politics to fellow ministers and attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan."

The group, Action America, existed for only three years and paid Huckabee a total of $61,500 -- money that Huckabee failed to disclose, drawing a "letter of caution" from the Arkansas Ethics Commission. Read on...

As always, IOKIYAR. And as the Media Matters post noted, the PAC has said they're going to disclose all of their donors and the people drawing a salary there are certainly going to be paying their individual income taxes.

DOWNLOADS: (68)

PLAYS: (163)

Embed

Conservative Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson on Sunday suggested that the reason he had been unpopular with liberals for years was because "people despise you when you wear a bow tie."

"How boring is it to wear a hoodie to work?" Carlson asked during a Fox News segment about how Americans were revolting against the tradition of dressing casually on Fridays. "If you are truly cutting edge you will wear gloves. White gloves."

One viewer in London noted that "bow tie Thursdays" were becoming popular at his workplace.

Carlson, who wore a bow tie for years while working as a host of CNN's Crossfire, noted that he could have been "pummeled" for wearing the formal necktie if he had not believed in self defense.

"People despise you when you wear a bow tie," he explained. "Not in Charleston, not in Newport, Rhode Island. There little strongholds of bow tie-philia. But the rest on the country -- especially the Big Apple -- not for the bow ties."

"I mean, if you're a Nation of Islam guy -- in fact, they would come up to me often. They were so nice to me, it was unbelievable. The Nation of the [Louis] Farrakhan guys, they loved the bow tie."

"Was your behavior better when you were wearing a bow tie?" Fox News co-host Alisyn Camerota wondered.

"Oh, no," Carlson admitted. "It was much filthier because, look, you're wearing a bow tie so nobody suspects it."

DOWNLOADS: (147)

PLAYS: (754)

Embed

The hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday slammed former Democratic Vice President Al Gore for being a "great American businessman" and selling his Current TV network to the "clearly anti-American" Al Jazeera network instead of former Fox News host Glenn Beck.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gore had turned down an offer from Beck's The Blaze before deciding to accept $500 million to hand over Current TV to Al Jazeera.

Fox Business host Stuart Varney told the Fox & Friends hosts that Gore was guilty of "gross hypocrisy" for trying to sell his network before tax rates went up in 2013.

"Here's Al Gore -- extremely wealthy, ultra-leftist -- he's scrambling to book a profit on the sale of his TV network last year, when the tax rates are low," Varney opined. "That is hypocrisy."

Co-host Alisyn Camerota noted that Gore had been "desperately trying" to sell the network but the deal closed on Jan. 2 so it would be subject to the higher tax rates.

"You don't even have to say the word hypocrisy, you just have to say the statement," co-host Brian Kilmead quipped. "People at home use the word hypocrisy in their own kitchen, in their bathrobe with rollers in their hair."

But the detail that really seemed to outrage the Fox News personalities was that Gore shot down their former colleague, Glenn Beck, when he tried to buy Current TV.

"Glenn Beck wants to buy this TV network, so Al says, 'No, we're very sensitive to the network's not being aligned with our point of view,'" Varney explained. "In other words, 'Get lost, Glenn Beck,' but 'Okay, big oil, the sheikhdom of Qatar.'"

"Al Jazeera! That's their point of view?" Kilmeade exclaimed. "You can see more eye-to-eye with Al Jazeera than Glenn Beck -- Mr. Red, White and Blue?"

"May I move to the disgrace of this situation?" Varney continued. "This is the former Vice President of the United States of America, and he sells his news network to a clearly anti-American news channel called Al Jazeera. Are you kidding me?"

"That is just crazy," co-host Steve Doocy agreed. "But, you know what? Being a great American businessman, he was -- his first instinct, like Brian pointed out -- he was trying to save as much money as he could. We don't like the tax policy that he likes, but that was his inclination."

During a second Fox News segment later in the morning, guest Matt McCall said that Gore was now linked with terrorists because he was doing business with Al Jazeera.

"Remember after 9/11, al-Qaeda," McCall remarked. "That's who they gave the voice too, really? I mean, again, this is somebody who ran for president of the United States, he's trying to back the green, he's trying to back our country. At the same time, he's selling out to a country -- not saying Qatar's bad -- but they do have the support behind them of some of these terrorist groups and they let them get their voice across on their network."

"So, to me, he's now associating himself with al-Qaeda," he added. "And to me, that is actually disgusting what he is doing."

According to a 2005 report, a classified transcript indicated that then-President George W. Bush told then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to bomb Al Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar in 2004 because of the network's negative coverage of the Iraq war. The classified transcript came after the U.S. military fired a missile at offices the television network was using in Iraq in 2003. At the time, officials said that they believed the building was being used by al-Qaeda.

After launching Current TV in 2004, Fox News owner News Corporation -- and CEO Rupert Murdoch -- agreed to pay the network lucrative licensing fees and distribute it to 20 million homes through its DirectTV broadcast satellite service provider.

(h/t: Mediaite)