DOWNLOADS: (198)

PLAYS: (1920)

Embed

This is really pitiful by even Fox's standards. As Rachel Maddow noted in the clip below where she responded to this segment that aired on Megyn Kelly's America Live this Thursday, it seems Fox is hoping to fool their blind viewers, because anyone who actually watched the recent ad being run by Mayors Against Illegal Guns would be able to tell that the man in the ad was not aiming his gun at the children in the background.

Here's more via Media Matters: Fox Analyst's Attack On Gun Safety Ad Requires Lack Of Depth Perception:

Fox News is continuing their effort to rebut a TV ad calling for stronger gun laws by falsely claiming it shows a man pointing a gun at children.

Fox News digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt criticized a recent ad produced by Mayors Against Illegal Guns that features a man with a shotgun calling for expanding the background check system, claiming that the man had the gun "sort of pointing back at the kids" who are playing behind him. Laughing, Stirewalt claimed that this allegedly unsafe behavior was "too hilarious" given that the ad's title is "Responsibility," adding, "I don't think too many Arkansans will be convinced that these people know what they are talking about."

In fact, as video from the ad Fox aired during the segment makes clear, the man in the ad is not pointing his shotgun in the direction of the children.

Stirewalt also joined several other conservative media figures in falsely claiming that the man in the ad had "his finger on the trigger" in an unsafe manner. But as Media Matters has documented, this is a false claim that critics are making based on a misunderstanding of where the trigger is on the firearm.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (122)

PLAYS: (531)

Embed

They just can't stop themselves, can they? Fox will just find any excuse possible to continue their bogus New Black Panther fearmongering, the latest being the possible nomination of Thomas Perez for Labor Secretary: Fox Uses Labor Secretary News To Revive New Black Panthers Nonsense:

Fox News is using reports that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez may be nominated as Secretary of Labor to revive their manufactured scandal that the Obama administration favored the New Black Panther Party in a 2008 voter intimidation case.

The right-wing media has spent years propping up the bogus charge that President Obama's Justice Department engaged in racially charged "corruption" in the New Black Panther Party case. The claims, promoted by GOP activist J. Christian Adams, fell apart given the fact that the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one defendant, while the Bush DOJ declined to pursue similar allegations in 2006.

America Live anchor Megyn Kelly highlighted news of Perez's possible appointment and said that his "fingerprints are all over some rather significant controversies," including the New Black Panthers case, during the March 11 edition of America Live.

Kelly previously led Fox's charge to tar President Obama and the Justice Department with the unsubstantiated claims of former DOJ attorney and GOP activist J. Christian Adams, who claimed in a June 30, 2009 interview with Kelly that the DOJ decision not to pursue charges in the New Black Panthers case demonstrated unprecedented, racially charged corruption. Read on...

As Stephen Webster at Raw Story noted, Perez "is likely going to face some jaw-droppingly dumb questions in the Senate if he is nominated to become President Barack Obama’s next labor secretary." I can hardly wait for the hearings to begin.

DOWNLOADS: (186)

PLAYS: (1301)

Embed

On this week's Fox News Sunday, the Washington Examiner's Chris Stirewalt apparently thinks negotiating entails one side getting everything they want and then stomping off before giving even one iota of the concessions they agreed to when talks started. In my world, that's called bargaining in bad faith, or hostage taking, not negotiating.

BREAM: Chris, you had sort of a visceral reaction when Bill said they won't reach a deal.

STIREWALT: Well, look, the problem for the president in all of this is that he can have a deal anytime he wants. He's driving the bus and he can stop at any moment.

He feels tremendous pressure from markets, tremendous pressure from the largest question that looms over his reelection, which is the condition of the economy. He needs a deal quickly.

Now, he can stop today. They already have a deal in principle for $1.4 trillion, $1.5 trillion in cuts, with the cap extension to match. That takes them maybe not to the 2012 election, but very close. It's a year's worth of borrowing, probably.

And he can stop this buggy any time he wants and they can have a deal. But he's afraid to do that because of two things.

One, he wants to make sure that they get it past the election so that he doesn't have to go through this next summer. And the other problem is, as Nina pointed out, he took a lot of blowback for extending the Bush tax rates. That was a big deal. Supporters did not like it, Democratic members of Congress felt that he sold them out.

So he feels political pressure to push this to the end. But every day longer he goes, the less the markets like it and the more damage to the economy it does. It's a real sweet spot.

DOWNLOADS: (1191)

PLAYS: (5116)

Embed

CNN's "media critic" Howard Kurtz brought on Air America's Ana Maria Cox and the Washington Examiner's Chris Stirewalt to discuss the statement by the White House Communications director Anita Dunn that "Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party".

The topic turns to ACORN and Cox points out that the story Fox was pushing on ACORN was really not a story and notes that the problem was not voter fraud but in problems with some voter registrations and before Kurtz can change the subject says this about Fox’s attacks on Kevin Jennings.

Cox: And I’m sorry, I have to say something about this Jennings story because I think it’s really offensive. They’re persecuting someone because he’s gay.

Kurtz: We don’t have time to go through each controversy right now, but did Fox have the same appetite for stories that reflected poorly on the Bush administration?

Somehow Kurtz then found the time to talk about the reaction to President Obama being given the Nobel and later the David Letterman sex scandal.

Media Matters has much more on Fox’s attacks on Kevin Jennings.

DOWNLOADS: (829)

PLAYS: (2977)

Embed

Geez Louise. What in the hell does Lou Dobbs have to do next before CNN decides to reign him in or can him? Apparently Dobbs didn't take too kindly to Karen Finney calling him out as using hate speech for the comments he made about her former boss, Howard Dean on his radio show. Our friends at Media Matters posted that one: Dobbs on Howard Dean: "[H]e's a bloodsucking leftist -- I mean, you gotta put a stake through his heart to stop this guy".

DOBBS: Do you think they are also evil mongers? Is that the latest from Senator Reid? We've gone from un-American now to evil mongers.

FINNEY: Our American values say that we believe in free speech. We believe in --

DOBBS: Then why is everybody trying to constrain expression?

FINNEY: Because what we're seeing is, I believe that tyranny is when you organize for the purpose of being disruptive, or when you use hate speech like "I want to drive a stake through Howard Dean's heart."

DOBBS: Really? Did I say I wanted to do that through Howard Dean's heart?

FINNEY: I heart that on your radio program.

DOBBS: You heard me make a reference to Bram Stoker, an allusion to Howard Dean and, as a matter of fact, I was --

FINNEY: That is a convenient correction, Mr. Dobbs. But you called him a blood sucking liberal.

(CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: But how does your saying things like that --

DOBBS: Excuse me. Excuse me. If you will permit me, I called him a blood sucking leftist because of the approach he took.

(CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: Oh, excuse me, leftist, not liberal.

As Finney pointed out, the "leftist" vs "liberal" part wasn't exactly the portion of his comments that concerned her the most. So what does Dobbs do? He plays this from Ed Schultz as some sort of defense that there is hate talk from the left as well.

SHULTZ: Sometimes I think they want Obama to get shot. I do. I really think that there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out. They fear socialism. They fear Marxism. They fear that the United States of America won't be the United States of America anymore.

So there's your left wing hate speech in Dobbs' world folks. Pointing out the obvious. And what does Dobbs finish the segment with? Attacking Finney again, and defending the idiot who brought a gun to a town hall. Wow.

Full transcript below the fold from CNN. Apparently they decided to leave out some of the ugliness with "(CROSSTALK).

Continue reading »