DOWNLOADS: (768)

PLAYS: (8403)

Embed

Bill Maher had some fun in this Friday's edition of New Rules with everyone from the wingnuts who doubted Nate Sliver's math, to Sean Hannity, to Ted Nugent and Victoria Jackson, to Fox News and their fearmongering about the New Black Panther Party.

And he reminded everyone that when it comes to reelecting our first black President, with white people, far too often it's one step forward and two steps back in regard to race relations in this country. Having Fox or right wing hate talk off the air would go a long way towards remedying that situation. As Maher noted, there is one thing to be hopeful about on that front, which is that like The Beach Boys, their fans are dying from old age.

DOWNLOADS: (734)

PLAYS: (6499)

Embed

Rachel Maddow hits another one out of the park with the motivations behind those exploiting this trumped-up "ground zero mosque" debacle and this one sentence pretty well sums it up: "It`s time to scare white people for political profit."

RACHEL MADDOW: We begin tonight with what has past becoming the most embarrassing non-Justin Bieber related obsession of the summer of 2010. It is the proposed building of an Islamic community center in downtown New York City.

Now, this story, this talking point maybe, has quickly become a study in political awkwardness for many conservatives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: The imam from the Ground Zero mosque apparently wants Sharia law in America.

The imam of the proposed Ground Zero mosque won`t even denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Now, let me ask you this, would a moderate imam, a peaceful Muslim, employ another imam who told an Arabic language Web site that, quote, "Only the Jews could have perpetrated the 9/11 attack"?

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

MADDOW: Here`s what I mean about awkwardness with this story on the political right. That host that you just saw there in those clips, this guy here, Glenn Beck, before spending this summer in being against the imam and what Mr. Beck calls the Ground Zero mosque, before this became this summer`s scare story talking point, Mr. Beck himself appeared on TV with that very same imam. Not to envy against him but to join him in promoting a moderate vision of Islam.

Former Bush administration official Karen Hughes is having the same kind of awkwardness with her own record in this story. Ms. Hughes has now written a op-ed arguing that the planned cultural center in downtown New York City should be moved further away from the World Trade Center site, calling the plan to build there, especially contentious because, she says, quote, "it goes to the heart of who is to blame for the attacks of September 11th, 2001."

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (739)

PLAYS: (1818)

Embed

Fox News has gone too far in hyping 2008 case of alleged voter intimidation, according to one New York Times columnist.

The conservative news network has recently produced a flurry of reports about a case where a member of the New Black Panther Party is accused of wielding a billy club outside of a polling place in Philadelphia. Appearing on MSNBC Monday, The New York Times' Charles Blow called out the network for exploiting the case.

"I think that the media, depending on what you call the media, some parts of the media, I think have exploited this to a degree that the president of the New Black Panther Party is on Fox on a regular basis now, it seems," Blow told MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski.

"You have a tough case here, because, to my understanding, we still don't have any person who has come forward to make an official complaint that they have been -- they were intimidated. You have a voter intimidation case with no intimidated voters," he said.

No on-air personality has promoted the story more than Fox News' Megyn Kelly.

Writing for The Atlantic, Dave Weigel accused Kelly's reports of inciting a crowd at a town hall event hosted by California Democrat:

Watch her broadcasts and you become convinced that the New Black Panthers are a powerful group that hate white people and operate under the protection of Eric Holder's DOJ. That "Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Kirsten Powers" video that I mentioned begins with her introducing a clip of a town hall meeting with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Ca.) in which he gets an angry question about whether the DOJ has a policy of not prosecuting African-Americans.

"I am extremely sure that we do not have a policy at the Department of Justice of never prosecuting a black defendent."

The crowd rises up. "Yes you do!" shouts one voter. When Sherman says he doesn't know much about the Panther case, the crowd erupts in boos. They've been driven to fear and distrust of their DOJ by round-the-clock videos of one racist idiot brandishing a nightstick for a couple hours in 2008.

Congratulations, Megyn.

Also appearing on MSNBC Monday, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) suggested that the Obama administration may have a political motivation in ignoring the case.

"Congressman, what is your suspicion about why they are fearful to look into it?" asked MSNBC's Willie Geist. "What are you suggesting?"

"I don't know that I really ought to comment what it is," replied Wolf. "I think there is politics involved, but I think until we see, it's really hard -- very difficult to say."

But Blow disagreed. "The idea that the Obama administration, which is what is happening here which is people are trying to tie the Obama administration to black radicalism and that has been happening since the campaign and it continues to happen," said Blow.

"It strains logic to think that this tiny group, [Obama] somehow benefits politically from protecting them," Blow continued. "There's nothing to gain. In fact, there's everything to gain in prosecuting them."

DOWNLOADS: (552)

PLAYS: (845)

Embed

Well, we can add another show to the list where Fox is hyping their phony New Black Panthers scandal. Syndicated columnist and Fox News Watch regular Cal Thomas took his turn today and when asked about the NAACP's criticism of the racism in the Tea Party, responded by asking why the Civil Rights organization wasn't paying attention to their drummed up scandal instead.

Thomas: Well the NAACP doesn’t have George Bush to kick around any more so they’ve got to get some attention somehow. And apparently the only way they can get it from the media is to play the race card. But let’s see, have they condemned the New Black Panther Party yet about killing cracker babies. I… did I miss that resolution?

And yes, sadly, someone actually pays this man to write his opinions in newspaper columns across the country week after week.

DOWNLOADS: (236)

PLAYS: (266)

Embed

Bill O'Reilly brought on serial liar Dick Toe-Sucker Morris to discuss Fox's latest bit of race baiting which Dave already told us about here: Fox News runs incendiary video of New Black Panther's racist rant. Here are some other racists they don't show you.

As Media Matters pointed out, it was the Justice Department under George W. Bush that decided not to pursue criminal charges in the case:

On The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly and Fox News legal analysts Lis Wiehl and Kimberly Guilfoyle criticized President Obama's administration for not pursuing criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party. In fact, it was the Justice Department under President Bush that decided not to pursue criminal charges in the case.

It was Bush's DOJ that decided not to press criminal charges

Bush administration decided to file a civil, not a criminal, complaint. In his May 14 testimony before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said that the Bush administration's Justice Department "determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes" but instead decided to "file a civil action on January 7, 2009." From Perez's testimony:

PEREZ: Moving to the matter at hand, the events occurred on November 4th, 2008. The Department became aware of these events on Election Day and decided to conduct further inquiry.

After reviewing the matter, the Civil Rights Division determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes. The Department did, however, file a civil action on January 7th, 2009, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief under 11(b) against four defendants.

Read on...

But in the world of the O'Reilly and Morris' out there, it's Media Matters that are the liars here. And whoever the hell they're talking about at MSNBC. Who knows. All I know is that O'Reilly, Morris or anyone else as ClusterFox had no business criticizing anyone at any of the other networks. Talk about one huge case of projection.

These two clowns wrap up the segment with trying to pretend that Obama has lost the right that he never had and the center and that he's moving further to the left to keep that support. In what world they think that Obama is not a centrist is beyond me but that's their lie of the day and if called on it I'm sure the two of them are going to stick to it.

I hope Bill Clinton is proud of himself for inflicting this idiot who throws him under the bus on a weekly basis on the rest of us.