Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) brought forth the truth to power that has been so lacking in the liberal progressive movement as of late.
The Bush Tax Cuts, COBRA, & S-CHIP, were all passed by the same tactic these Republicans are now calling the "nuclear option."
Anyone watching the plays on health care reform knows that it is nothing less than the simple truth that the Republicans are wholly owned by the insurance companies.
"When hearing something unusual, do not preemptively reject it, for that would be folly. Indeed, horrible things may be true, and familiar and praised things may prove to be lies. Truth is truth unto itself, not because people say it is."
"You save that for your friends on the other channels."
"Fox News has it fair and balanced, as always."
This interview / clash is a perfect example of why Fox News is most certainly not a bipartisan source of news.
Kelly literally shouts-down Burton as if it was talk radio, and then repeats the corporate motto like a good little Fox-minion.
I have been a long-time viewer (on and off) of Fox News and they have never been "fair and balanced." Recently they have become nothing more than the media-wing of the GOP; these people make up the “news” to suit their now very obvious political agenda.
I love how they all try to excuse their lack of evidence by the fact that their are a million-plus viewers of Fox.
As if their credibility record and their ratings scores are one and the same. It's just pure comedy to this as the retort from the Fox News Loyalists.
Almost everything Megyn Kelly said in fact applies were I to be speaking to the network-at-large:
You just keep attacking the truth, I'll just keep defending the truth.
You save this racist code language & these fearmonger-screeds for your friends in the White Supremacy movement and the zany antics of talk radio, where it belongs.
No element of Fox News, Fox News Talk, & the NY Post is in any way "fair and balanced." False advertising from the top-down. The network can repair it’s image by simply stating itself to be in favor toward the anti-Obama movement and in disfavor of the liberal-progressive movement. It is that simple.
And you guys just can't help yourselves, you just can't stand to ethical when being unethical is just so much more provocative!
Fox News has a long way to go before it can say it does anything but promote preconceived notions as reality and sell a pro-conservative, anti-Obama narrative.
These neoconservatives always talk about the "media is in the tank for Obama" but not one of them is willing to address just how heavily Fox News is in the tank for Palin / McCain / Bush / Cheney. They won't even address all these times when clearly, under review, Fox News failed to cover the story with the widely available credible evidence and footage.
Dishonesty and misinformation are the currency Fox News chooses to deal in.
Partisanship and political pandering is all the other networks are guilty of.
Add to that the matter of the New York Post being taken to court over allegations of promoting a hostile environment toward African-Americans and promoting a workplace environment friendly to sexual harassment and you have some of the final elements of this puzzle that the people at Fox Broadcasting are trying their hardest to scramble up before anyone takes a close look.
--
If I spread enough American Flags and say "God" enough times on this weblog, will I also be unchallengeable in the value in all of my blog-content and all of my internet-claims?
I'd like that very much.
If that were so it would be pure statement of fact to say that TEA Party members mainly did not vote in the Presidential 2008 Election.
I like where this is going…
Drudge is no good! (Then everyone just ignores Drudge from here out because I said so.)
--
Who the heck started The News Wars, anyway?
Oppositional Research certainly didn't start with Fox News, but they most certainly fired the first shot in this "war" of the commercialized-news.
What I detect is the same thing again and again that I heard expressed by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC:
"When we do, we're cool, but when you do you're Hitler." (In regards to some of Glenn Beck comments)
When they bring in oppositional researcher--Inside Edition smear merchant--Bill O'Reilly in and start letting him call himself a "journalist," the dam began to crack and when a Democratic President took office we then finally saw the true colors of Fox Broadcasting Company.
They will use any tactic they see fit to push through their political-social agenda and when called out on their actions they intend to label all who point out their inaccurate & biased coverage as the source of the problem instead of focusing on the issue.
An example: When I used a Beck-tactic on my weblog, and clearly labeled it as "satire," some people took huge offense and some tried to claim I was using the very tactic of "defamation" that I was decrying so often.
But it's a "comedic roast" on Glenn Beck, nothing more.
It was a "joke" when I said you should tell everyone.
The only reason I did it, is to show how very easy it is to just throw around wild rumors and place anybody you want on the “hot-seat” to explain themselves.
Some people were trying to say to me in course of throwing up red flags as Glenn Beck crusades against America that it: “doesn‘t matter.”
Oh, it matters. Who will they come after next? Who is the next target for them to demonize and spin? Maybe tomorrow it will be just everyone who is not in a “tea party” who is a “racist,” trying to “destroy” this nation with “socialism / communism.” If one dares to even call themselves a Republican instead of TEA Party or Conservative Party then they will have the attack-dogs unleashed to sew fear about them?
Opinions are great, but pure political-extremism combined with the bitter rejection of looking at the issue from multiple sources of information gathering is just plain willful ignorance. Not an opinion. Glenn Beck is an enabler for fringe anti-government groups, anti-black groups, anti-liberal groups and other hate-based organizations.
I once said I might sot down and talk broadcasting with him and other of the conservative-media feed. I take it back.
I have nothing to learn from these broadcasting-jackals that I could not learn reading Mad Magazine or listening to late-night AM Radio.
...
The News Wars started before there even was such a beast as MSNBC to bite back at that wild dog of "Fox News."
The News Wars started with people like me, and much more importantly people like LiberalViewer, who spoke truth to network-power and demanded better coverage from any network that would make such a bold claim as to be "fair & balanced news."
It may not be clear to millions of Americans what a "fabricated conspiracy theory" is, exactly.
But it is perfectly clear to me.
Barack Obama is no more a "socialist," than George W. Bush is a "fascist."
If people in the public insist on extremist labeling then so be it, but no recognized network should be promoting this notion that extremist political labeling is an action of "fairness" or an element of "balance."
I have put on my "Colbert-suit" for a blog post, or two.
They circulated (to the best of my knowledge) in conservative-internet circles rather quickly.
But if I mimic the vile tactics of their new poster-boy Glenn Beck, I am a naughty & vile person.
I believe my form of internet-satire has some small value only that I will admit outright that is satire thereby meaning entirely ambiguous information. However, I believe I will lean away from internet-satire in that it goes greatly misunderstood even when clearly declared as just pure hyperbolic nonsense.
Unbeknownst to them of course that the one they were linking to would much such statements as:
I recently checked the pay-outs to Democrats versus Republicans in terms of Monsanto campaign slush-money, and while the totals are not significant the individual contributions to Congressmen are quite significant.
Two Democratic Congressmen took $500 each, one from my home state, and two Republican took $10,000+ each. Both in states where the corn market is more significant to the "big-agriculture" industry.
The fact remains that Canada has discussed banning the use of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in their food and Britain has a labeling procedure in place while North America continues to ignore the matter by and large.
Like many of a somewhat scientific persuasion, I believe further research is needed on the usefulness of GMOs and primarily concerned the matter of the repeated failure to disclose both sides of the story on the matter by major news outlets across the U.S.
I see now the great failing in alarmism and it more important to have a public making informed decisions on matters regarding our food, or even matters regarding our health care insurance, rather than being given misleading and omitted coverage from any news group.
It is important to note in a discussion of media-finance and corporate hush-money that the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) recently started receiving corporate-donations from Monsanto. I am of the persuasion to believe that an entity like PBS would likely graciously turn down the money if only they had the public support in donations to do such a thing.
As it stands PBS remains a credible news source despite some amount of corporate funding and Fox (News Corp) is the least credible of any television broadcasting to date.
The inner glow that lets you know to call your brother son,
The story that just begun,
The promise of what's to come,
And I'll remain a soldier until the war is won.
(Lyrics by Asheru)
These words can be taken many ways and turned to suit the ends of the unjust and the power hungry.
But that is not how these words were writ, not how they were intended.
They are like the mantra of the truth-speakers and the brave souls still fighting for social justice in an age of mainstream racism on entities like Fox News.
I will remain a soldier until this war is won. I want to make that clear. I am not backing down, nor going away.
They'll have to kill me to get me to stop spreading the truth about the corruption in our government and our press.
When I first set forth to imprint myself upon the wildly evolving beast of the blogosphere I held with me a tenuous goal: to create a fully bipartisanblog.
A place that would be both policy and ideology neutral, yet dealt in real news topics.
While the value of this concept in itself still appears quite sound in my mind, I discovered through personal experience that throwing that concept away was the best thing I ever did for my blog as a rank amateur in the mix. (Still working on that.)
Blogger tis I:
My posting entitled “Ann Coulter Still Sucks” was one of first impressions unto this wild animal of internet-posting that I can claim to my credit. Every word of that is partisanship, I am completely unashamed.
My posting entitled “The Libra-Scorpio Cusp” is enjoyed by many. I point out an internet inconsistency between websites and briefly address my feelings on Astrology.
Recently I was honored to have received an Editor’s Pick on Open Salon for what accounts to the end result of these bipartisan efforts of mine.
In course of presenting the issue of Jimmy Carter’s words concerning race in America, I unconsciously fell into my routine of trying to revive the lost art of bipartisanship.
I presented the words of Alan Wilson rebuking the words of Carter directly as to any racial motives in his father Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst.
I withheld the words of what I view as righteous indignation and retained myself to news-commentary.
However, my truly Bipartisan Blogging is dead. I fully intend to address every issue that I view as significant regardless of the possible offense drawn from that perspective.
Once you mix an opinion with a platform, you get punditry. Once the opinion is interjected into the Left versus Right Debate, it is already too late.
What remains within me though are the principals of striving toward fair play and equal consideration of alternative perspectives, and still with my own case intact. The value of this bipartisanship effort is lost, but the spirit remains intact. The reason being for this loss, in my view, has to do this the source from which it comes.
Despite all reports to the contrary, I am not a big deal.
The person to revive journalistic standards in the United States, is not I.
I instead must cry out into the wilderness to capture this beast, while those within the press need only touch a laptop. So is the way of things. But while ‘truth’ can be subjective, the facts are not.
--
“You can have your own opinion, but you don’t get to chose your own facts.”
--
I make a great many declarative statements in the course of blogging, formed primarily from simple political and media analysis, which accounts to online punditry.
But I believe strongly in full disclosure of the fact that I am a liberal and freely admit it may alter my world view in some cases.
But the facts don’t lie, and I believe in the growing majority of cases the facts are on my side.
Pointing Fingers:
It could be said that I am extremely critical of the right wing in US Politics.
If one were to ever take the time to read backwards into my blog it can be found that I have tried to draw a line between "Thinking Conservatives" and "Limited Conservatives".
Treading this line in not some political game on my part, but rather my honest opinion on those matters.
I believe that is what we have escaped from in the madness of mass computing and super-fast news-cycles. Partisanship sells books as much as it moves blog-hits, so perhaps some of these political shock jocks like Ann Coulter would rather be reasonable in her arguments, but it simply doesn’t pay the bills.
The truth being what is lost in this exchange, and I think that sort of thing is a shame.
I would much rather have a discussion in disagreement than just label others as “tools”, “fascists”, “un-American”, or “racists”.
But that creation of mine that might cross party lines, and maybe bring sanity to the mix to see what happens will have to wait for a another day. The raw truth of opinion should not replace factual evidence. Such is the road to tyranny.
So I have taken another road. I drew a line in the sand that allows me to say what I will of Republicans, or Democrats.
For instance, the Republican Party is currently self-destructing and the Democratic Party has dropped the ball on health care reform.
Such statements embody my current stage in blogging evolution.
Finale:
The spirit of political bipartisanship and the need for balance remains within me, but the middle ground is now mainly unattainable without the acceptance of false claims and baseless assertions. Any critical review of facts debunks most conservative mantras.
There is much to be said for ideological differences enhancing a debate but when the debate is centered around misrepresentations and sweeping accusations of assumed wrong-doing there simply to no room in which to move in.
I will most likely continue to be mistaken for a conservative by both machines that dictate ad banners and internet users alike, but this just a by-product of my attempt to split everything down the middle.
To me, most these differences are best settled in the voting booth at election time.
But if the accuracy of the information we receive is suspect and unverifiable then we have a responsibility as citizens to recognize this fact.
This tense political and social division has forever been an element of American Life, but I believe that the situation is amplified by media-giants who profit from the repetition of partisan smears of any person or group.
I can only pray for a day of more a more honest and non-biased form of journalism catching the eye of the American public, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
Wallace attempted to defend the ACORN slander atrist, James O'Keefe III, by repeating false claims that have irrefutable evidence stating otherwise.
As is the par for the course, nobody cares to speak out against these truth-spinners and defenders of McCarthyism in the US.
MediaMatters.org has covered the story far better than I ever could hope to, but I think it needs to be understood that when FOX News reports via Megyn Kelly that O'Keefe and Giles were in fact asked to leave ACORN offices, while O'Keefe and Giles have previously denied these claims on the air of FOX News, it is the obvious responsibility of Chris Wallace to inform you of this lack of credibility native to these people along with any other claims or assertions he would like to make.
That failure to report this information, and the failure of FOX News to hold their employees responsible, is an affront to American democracy as much as it is to journalism in the modern age. If these people continue to lie to the public there may need to be some serious consideration made toward the goal of civilly disrupting and peacefully dismantling an agency dedicated to spreading misinformation, racist sentiments and un-American propaganda.
.. Carter, who said racism accounts for most criticism of Obama, but says "That's not what's driving" Obama's detractors ..
Words are important. To lie about the words of a former United States President, even in a cable news-ticker, is an insult to this nation and there is no doubt to me that this is far from some minor accident.
Look carefully at that sentence.
The whole statement is designed to make Jimmy Carter look like he is talking in circles, when in fact the FOX News organization is using their own language "most criticism" to put words in Carter's mouth. A shameful and un-American thing to do.
Carter was quite clear and not all ambiguous like the false and downright slanderous FOX News-version of events.
The words are "intense animosity", not "criticism". And "overwhelming portion", not "most".
Jimmy Carter can defend himself. I will not dissect every angle of this for the sake of this singular posting.
I am simply saying you look at the words someone spoke for what they are, not twist them around until they say what you want them to say.
And it amounts to a simple, and for some hard to accept, fact:
FOX News is in the business of promoting and advocating racist ideals in the US.
Until I see clear examples of the end of their unwillingness to accurately report on scandals like ACORN, the controversy over Jimmy Carter's words or something to the issue of finally questioning the wisdom in keeping an avowed racist like Glenn Beck on the payroll, I see no reason to think or say otherwise.
There are some good people who work at FOX News. But there are good people who work at the IRS, too.
Was anyone else paying attention, or was it just me?
The last thing we need these days are people running a fast game and rolling out the carpet of corporate lies for anyone put in front of them.
What we need is an army of intelligent and savvy business people who can stand behind what they do and not become fast talking cheats.
I stand here in a world of sales and marketing to tell you that certain people push you toward something you don't really want and all they really see when they look at you is a big dollar sign with feet.
We are not all this way. And I would like to say I'm proud to tear myself from the mold and stand on my own two feet of integrity.
There is still many things that I don't do, that I could to help others out in their sales endeavors, that might be an ultimate factor in proving just how I am playing the sales game over here. But holding onto trade secrets and keeping things from rebounding back to the office is hardly the same thing and trying to get you to buy something you don't really want or need.
I stand here the Last Honest Salesman in America. And when you deal with me you deal with the truth.
