Closing in Lou Dobbs: Embrace of famed 'birther' Corsi another reason for CNN to dump their nuttiest xenophobe
By David Neiwert Thursday Sep 17, 2009 6:00amLou Dobbs has gone and done it again:
On his radio show -- broadcast from the anti-immigration organization Federation for American Immigration Reform's "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" legislative advocacy event -- Lou Dobbs interviewed WorldNetDaily staff reporter Jerome Corsi, who Dobbs described as "a pretty good guy to talk to" about immigration issues. Corsi is a consistent promoter of the conspiracy theory -- previously advanced by Dobbs -- that President Obama has yet to produce a valid birth certificate; the author of falsehood-laden books about Obama and Sen. John Kerry that Dobbs' CNN colleagues panned as "discredited;" and has a history of making bigoted comments, some of which he later apologized for.
The piece documents Corsi's long history of promoting conspiracy theories, including most recently the "birther" nonsense, but more famously the "Swift Boat" garbage that sank John Kerry's candidacy.
Perhaps even more germane is that, beyond the "birther" conspiracy theories, Corsi has most recently been promoting the theory that President Obama is planning to round up conservatives and put them in concentration camps.
This willingness to abet the most insane wingnuttery is yet another drop in the bucket of evidence that CNN needs to give Dobbs the boot if it ever hopes to salvage what little credibility it has left.
A new site called DropDobbs.com is a joint effort by various progressive organizations -- including Media Matters, America's Voice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Council of La Raza -- to demand CNN make the change:
Over the years, Lou Dobbs has consistently used his CNN platform to spread hatred and fear. He played a critical role in skewing the immigration reform debate in 2006, leading to the derailment of that effort, and his obsession with the issue of immigration and with defeating immigration reform continues unabated. Adding to his repertoire of hate and fearmongering, he has recently aligned himself with the “birther” conspiracists and their racially tinged attack on the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency. From his CNN platform, he has bolstered the claims of those on the fringe by asserting repeatedly that President Obama has failed to produce adequate proof that he was born in the United States. His recent focus on the birth certificate conspiracy issue has reinforced what immigration reform proponents have long known — that Dobbs has a long history of the worst kind of pandering by promoting hate and ethnic and racial division.
Timothy Karr at HuffPo has a thoughtful piece on what we can start to do to confront the flood of toxic garbage that is spewing out of right-wing media these days. Lou Dobbs is only one of the most prominent problems.
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you just can't quit that birther thing can ya?
HA!
Say goodbye to CNN ya xenophobic bastard...Im sure they can find a nice comfy desk for ya over at faux noiz.
for a new Fairness Doctrine - and then watch the corporate-owned media squeal like the little piggies they are.
You think health care has too many lobbyists owning too many Congresscritters? Touch their media propaganda machines and watch what happens!
Dobbs has flourished on cable-only television, which is not subject to the same regulations as broadcast venues. It's the same reason why Howard Stern can find a home on Sirius Satellite Radio.
The Fairness Doctrine was, among other things, based on the principle that the public airwaves are held in public trust. (God knows how this excuses the abysmal lack of fact-based content on ABC/NBC/CBS.)
Cable and satellite, on the other hand, are private venues - the cable is owned by a commercial entity, as is a satellite ... as opposed to it being a commodity licensed and regulated by the FCC.
.. to get them to shut faux up, isn't going to work. Dammit!
needs to be adapted to address these things.
... we need a state entity to rule on approved thought, we have to address factual content and distinguish it from opinion/commentary. The original guidelines for the Fairness Doctrine were, 'fair, equitable, and honest.'
Thus, this 2+2=5 shit that passes for serious discourse in 'news' programming (both cable and broadcast) needs to be replaced by objective reporting. And, as I've stated before, objective reporting nonetheless makes a determination as to the factual content of a subject. It is not the laissez-faire free-for-all of Rush Limbaugh's imagined 'marketplace of ideas' (or rather, the mosh pit ruled by the fat ass with the microphone).
is not going to solve the problems with our media outlets.
We would have to totally trash the 1st amendment to "fix" something that can't be fixed through regulation alone. It's a social problem, it's not the fault of shady businesses.
Maybe we could have enforced fox's ability to intentionally lie about a story, but that also failed.
Thank you. The media is consumer driven - not only 'how much money are we pulling in through advertising,' but a lot of headless chicken dances to try and sell the consumer on our product being different and exciting and providing the content you need to function ... without actually doing so.
For example, we're pushing a 'from the newsroom' look, but we're not doing anything that wouldn't appear on a standard news set. And this is supposed to keep us competing with the internet.
Current consumers driving current content perhaps.
I haven't consumed most mainstream commercial media beyond second hand information in many years. I only know what Dobbs and Beck say because people tell me what they say. The same for Moyers even. I only go grab a segment and view it when someone points me to it (for good or bad reasons).
I know I am not alone. If it were really consumer driven, the market would step up to grab the untapped market share non-viewers like me represent. It isn't.
Something has to be done.
to Free Speech, and a corporation's ability to monopolize the dissemination of information.
Which is why the Right-Wing controlled SCOTUS is now looking at a potential ruling that will sidestep this issue and give carte blanche to corporations to give unlimited money to promote a specific political candidate or agenda.
If they allow corporations, with their unlimited funds, to also have unfettered ability to lie and promote specific political agendas, then this discussion really will be a moot point.
Faux Noise won't even have to pretend to be a cable news network.
BUT, that certainly does not mean they should be able to operate dishonestly without regulation or consequence.
If a show promotes itself as a children's show and then shows porn, don't tell me the Feds couldn't, or wouldn't, step in, even if it's on cable.
If a show, or an entire cable channel, promotes itself as a "news" organization and then disseminates lies that promote violence, then we have a situation that is potentially dangerous and deserving of oversight.
I mean, really, when are we going to get it? Free market does not mean unregulated market - that's another lie from the greedmeisters. A free people still need laws.
And the more the lying bullies squeal about their precious free market, the closer we know we're getting to fixing the problems their greed causes.
"Laws are made for when men forget to behave."
... that which is not explicitly stated to be illegal is entirely permissible.
I usually draw complaints when I maintain that freedom of speech is a privilege, not a right. Consequently, its value is highly dependent on the manner in which we exercise it.
I'll paraphrase Edward R. Murrow, who once pointed out that television has the ability to enlighten and inform ... but if it does not, it is nothing more than lights and wires in a box.
The same is true for our speech. Freedom of speech is not a mantra intended to excuse ignorance and hatred, but to allow the community at large to uplift and inform the minority through intelligent and reasoned discourse.
Fact is the Reaganistas who deregged the FCC knew satellites owned by other nations could not be held accountable by the US FCC.
I would't be surprised to see a FOX satellite flying a jolly roger flag shooting out other satellites with lazer beams (Reagan's Star Wars).
Some other hate monger will simply replace Dobbs. It is not so much that people like him get airtime, it is that they have such a huge audience. "It's the electorate, stupid". We are collectively ignorant sheep, easily manipulated. So, what are ya gonna do when the next Lou Dobbs fills the void? Spend another decade dissing him/her? When does the hate and fear stop?
Dobbs for months now...Dobbs' snide , condescending, patronizing demeanor gets on my last nerve! Email Cnn with your suggestions for replacement!
... a steaming pile of dog mess?
It's not something you want to look at, it's not something you want to touch, you can't hold an intelligent conversation with it, it stinks up the room, and if - by chance or design - you step in it, it tracks all over the house, sticks to your shoes, and generally convinces people that you're blind or just plain stupid.
I think it's a perfect fit.
and I'm LMAO.
Lou Dobbs, you've gotta know that your time is nearing an end on the planet and then you're going to have to answer to a higher power than both spineless democratic do nothing houses for all of the evil venom that you've spilled over the last few years. the world may never wake up to your rottennesws, but believe me, everyone pays in the end one way or another. Do you really think you can take it with you, or is the legacy you leave behind seemingly worth all of the suffering you have caused or will incur yourself. legacy, schmegacy, ask GW whether it was worth it.
Lou Dobbs retirement from my porch in NM!
lol
..that these right-wing loons just get stupider? I just read where the whole concentration camp for conservatives (hey its the C..C..C just like F..D..R!) is in reality camps for hurricane refugees, wha? did I read that right and this whole corzi bs/crap has been spun to putting conservatards away? What an okole puka!
we really need to stop pretending it is anything but evil when they do this.
Imagine some elderly conservatives being taken to a safe place because of a hurricane and freaking out because they think they are being taken to a concentration camp to be put to death for being Republicans.
How evil it is for people like Corsi to deliberately plant that fear for their own power and profit?
Evil, plain and simple. And we need to face it and call it by name, every day, every chance we get.
When we are silent, we validate their lies.
To the media whores: (we know who you are).
What did you ever do for the world ? Nothing…except spread your hate and lies that contribute to increase violence and intolerance. It divides people and that’s what you want. You are old hat, you have had the same format for ever now, it’s just getting old. You don’t fool anyone all you care about is making $$$$ for your bosses ,and your greedy selves. You are afraid of us uniting because we will take you down.
You are afraid of the truth because your are fading away.
Desperation is just that desperation…it’s honestly pathetic.
Stop selling hate… The world doesn't need that, it never did and it never will. Satisfying your own ego doesn't bring any improvement to a society. You are weak, you are insignificant little creatures, unable to distinguish your own immature fantasies from reality.
Get off the air.
Hate is contagious.
But hate can also be fought by people who stand together…..
I’m going to stand and fight.
Boycott them …. They need to gooooooooooo………………!!!
CNN is turning into another Faux Noise with the Reslug nutcases they have on spewing lies and conspiracies theories that already have been proven untrue. I will Boycott CNN until the liar Dobbs is gone.
I used to watch CNN often. I would even tune into Lou Dobbs for a few minutes to see what he was up to. NOT ANY MORE!!! I can't stomach to watch Dobbs for even 30 seconds. I don't switch to CNN very much either. I just have no confidence in them at all. They are just not credible when they have someone like Dobbs on during a prime time telecast spewing his hate and then he is on the radio for hours spewing more hate. It only confirms my opinion that John King is not trustworthy either.
Dobbs is a victim of the epidemic of crazy that is decimating the population.
Forget Swine Flu, it's the epidemic of Greedy Pig disease that's making so many Americans sick in the head.
Corsi makes me sick. He will shill anything and lie about everything to keep himself in the limelight. Dobbs should have been let go long ago, there's to much talent out there to keep Grampa Denpends on.
Business is so good when you sell hate to the stoopid.
Good frakkin' hell...
I suppose I should toss out the usual caveats that if this paranoid delusion were even remotely possible, even in the most fevered mind, I'd oppose their institution with my very life.
But the ever-growing part of me that is just worn out, sick and tired, and utterly enraged by some sort of bullshit about 'concentration camps' is rapidly reaching a point where I'm ready to say FINE - and advocate that the administration do just that.
I'm tired of trying to rationally discuss health care reform, but first - having to wade through miles of crap about death panels and phantom government reapers that will be dispatched to kill caribou barbie's children.
I'm tired of having to defend an underfunded - and yes, sometimes poorly performing nfp - which gets fractions of pennies of what Blackwater/Xe gets from Uncle Sam because these 'thugs' that have the temerity to help poor, urban dwellers get housing, vote, and file their taxes.
I'm tired of having to explain to anyone why the fat turd Limbaugh is out of his mind for trying to tie a school bus fight to the 'other' taking over, raping our white women, and taking all the jobs.
I'm just tired.
So fine... let's have the camps.
All I ask is that I be staffed to the bloc that houses Limbaugh, Corsi, and Beck.
I really don't like the idea of trying to get someone fired. I really don't care what the right wing ass hats say daily. I just wish there was a way that media would respect the truth more. I also blame the millions of people that want so desperately want the believe the lies even in the face of easily accessible, mountains of evidence, they insist that the world is flat, up is down, round is square and the lies are the truth. I don't care what the slant people take when talking about issues but they need to stick with the facts and not fix the facts to match their opinion. How many times I have argued with someone who has come to their conclusions based on a set of lies. Even when I convince them of the lies they use the out that will they may have some of the facts wrong but the overall point is correct. Well no, the over all point is based on lies and the truth comes to a different conclusion. Lou Dobbs is just a symptom of a large percentage of the population wanting some to confirm the wrong opinion they hold and I don't know how to change that.
just go ahead and move over to fox news with stossel.
You'll have a larger audience and make more $$$, too.
You won't even sound so evil over there.
That audience laps your kind of s**t stew up.
and end to this diet of cheap media garbage and demanding the highest standard of integrity in broadcasting and journalism it's not going to happen.
It's like a guy who goes into Borders, or Barnes and noble, grabs a half dozen books and starts to walk out. The clerk says . . Hey what you doing where you going? And the guy replies "what you mean I got what I wanted" and walks out and no one even does anything.
Remember, Beck was on Headline News for years. They're probably hoping Lou starts crying about patriotism and takes it up a few more notches to catch some of the Beck viewers. Hell, they're probably wondering where this super-crazy Beck was when he was on their network? Think of the rating's they'd have had if they hadn't muzzled the loon to some degree.
Insane asylum escapees like Bachman, then that's one conspiracy theory I wish was true. Hell I'll volunteer to be the warden of that place, I'd run it like SuperJail.
"Corsi has most recently been promoting the theory that President Obama is planning to round up conservatives and put them in concentration camps."
How absurd. Doesn't this idiot know that South Carolina already serves the purpose?
Since when?
Seriously, CNN has been stuffed with corporate flacks and right wingnuts since the very beginning. CNN is little more than Fox News with a bit less foam in the mouth.
America hasn't had a credible news organization since Republicans took over PBS.
in reply to a stupid radical right wing anti-immigration e-mail:
Yeah about the Border patrol e-mail. It's insinuating that illegal immigrants are overwhelming our institutions. It's simply not anywhere near as bad as the e-mail suggests. People who start these types of e-mails most often consider those of Latino ethnic background illegals even if their families have lived in America since the 17th century. And then there's the little thing in New York Harbor called the Statue of Liberty which on it's base has a plaque that says:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Immigration and immigrants literally built this country! An attack on immigration IS an attack on America. The interesting thing is that the lies about immigrants have been pushed since America's earliest days. These exact types of anti-immigrant claims were made against the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Chinese, etc., etc.What's so extremely galling about the attacks against them is that they all came because there was work to be done to make this country better and stronger. And THEY did that work. It's not a coincidence that those that hire immigrants most often praise them as some of the most hard working workers they have. I'm not saying that illegal immigration isn't a problem at all I'm saying that the people attacking them lump legal immigrants as well as generations old US citizens in with them and that the problems of illegal immigrants are no where near as e-mails like that one try to paint it.
...who, like glenn beck, is willing to do ANYTHING to boost his ratings with ANYBODY....right wing nuts especially, and has sold his moral fibre to the devil long ago.
A worthless, hateful and media whore who doesn't care about himself or his country.
The Moron has no real news credentials other than to say I was there and I am here. Why aren't any of the alleged real reporters hammering this Baffoon, this Idiot hasn't had it right lately, so why take so long he IS NOT a JOURNALIST he is NOT qualified to be called a JOURNALIST yet the Spineless media lets him flaunt his hatred and bias, because they DO NOT have the Intestinal Fortitude to write this SCUM BAG off. He is a Merchant of hate a Racist, White Supremacist, Hate Monger, White Trailer Trasher, closet KKK member yet the alleged real reporters just rollover hoping to collect yet another check fot having the title of journalist. sic
Anyone see that a judge threw out Orly Taitz's latest birther lawsuit yesterday?
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/09/orly_tai...
The judge said she had "no credible evidence."
He also said this: "Plaintiff's complaint is not plausible on its face," Land concludes. "Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so."
And, he made it clear that if she and her attorney were to bring another frivolous lawsuit before him, she and the attorney would be in trouble!
Wonder what Mr. Dobbs thinks about that?
I'm waiting for Dobbs to slash
his... his wife's wrist for ratings...filled Dobb's seat once he's outta there, though the studio would need to be fumigated first for the excessive sulphur content which they once generated together.
..if Dobbs goes to Faux, Kitty Pilgrim will need to go too. It's in their contracts, I think.
It's a Lou-fer!
am i the only one that thinks keith olbermann doing lou dobbs voice sounds like james mason with emphysema doing a ronald coleman impersonation?
probably an unacceptable post but things need a little levity these day.
This idea keeps coming back like the undead. But I've only heard about it as a fear about the U.S. government.
Do other Western, democratic countries have this meme?
Of course, plenty of totalitarian and authoritarian countries do have or have recently had concentration camps. And a few now-democratic countries did within living memory. But is anyone now in New Zealand or Denmark or Canada or wherever having the same nightmare fantasy as the teabaggers today (or the Panthers of 40 years ago)? If anyone reading knows, please reply. With references, if possible. Thanks.
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