It looks like Politifact got it right this year, or at least more right than the past. They have selected their "Lie of the Year", and it was definitely a doozy. For 2012, Politifact has named Mitt Romney's lie about Jeep moving jobs to China as the Big Lie.

People often say that politicians don’t pay a price for deception, but this time was different: A flood of negative press coverage rained down on the Romney campaign, and he failed to turn the tide in Ohio, the most important state in the presidential election.

PolitiFact has selected Romney's claim that Barack Obama "sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China" at the cost of American jobs as the 2012 Lie of the Year.

But as the Baltimore Sun points out, the real story is that Fox News and Karl Rove are equally responsible for that lie spreading and getting enough traction to land right smack dab in the middle of the 2012 election:

No, the news about Fox News that mattered Wednesday was connected to PolitiFact naming the Mitt Romney campaign ad that said Jeep was going to move production and ship jobs to China “Lie of the Year.” Lie of the year.

And why that matters in any discussion of Fox is that the Rupert-Murdoch-owned channel “fact checked” the ad during the campaign and vouched for its accuracy – not once but twice. And, furthermore, Fox did it in one instance with Jim Angle, who is part of the news operation not the host of an evening show, doing the vouching. The channel’s website describes Angle as “chief national correspondent.”

And that cuts to the heart of the lie Fox News tries to sell about its news operation being as journalistically sound and non-ideologically driven as anything on the networks or CNN. Sure, Fox executives have said to me, the prime-time shows have opinion in them – just like opinion pages in a newspaper. But not our news programs and the reports by our correspondents.

Except, I guess, when it’s an election year, and things are going badly for the Republican candidate. Then, you use your chief national correspondent to vouch for the essential accuracy of the ad that is the “Lie of the Year.”

For a fuller discussion of Fox’s role in helping create an echo chamber for this Jeep-jobs-to-China lie, check out Media Matters. I know it’s an ideologically-driven liberal website. I’ve fought with Media Matters and been denounced by some of the best folks there. But the research and reporting on this matter are detailed and accurate.

The first part of that article described how sad and disheartened Rove and O'Reilly were over, well, just everything. Good. They should be sad. They are not news; they are propagandists, and they undermine our democracy on a daily basis when they pretend they're "fair and balanced."

Congratulations to Rove, Fox News, and Mitt Romney! They've received an honor which finally matches the recipient: Lie and Liars of the year.

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All of Sean Hannity's show Thursday night was an exercise in whining babble. You almost had to have a translator to understand all of his nonsense about taxes and cliffs and the vaunted values of conservatism. But right in the middle, he took a time out to spend a few minutes smearing...the Occupy movement.

Now why would he do that, do you think? After all, the Occupy Wall Street folks have been instrumental in organizing and getting assistance to people in the hurricane-ravaged areas of New York.

Aside: Hannity spent a full five minutes earlier in the show interviewing angry residents of Staten Island as though he had sympathy for them before he brought on a guest to explain why they were all victims of liberal "gimme-ism." No sympathy for YOU, little folks, but if he can use them to slap President Obama while slapping them, he sees it as a two-fer, I guess.

Indeed, the OWS people have been hard at work organizing and doing good things to effect change in their communities. From their hurricane relief efforts to their debt relief efforts, they've definitely been a force for good, not evil.

Continue reading »

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Nothing riles the rubes quite like screaming OBAMAS TURNING US INTO EUROPE as Mark Steyn did on Hannity.

STEYN: A majority of Americans essentially voted for European levels of spending...we're 1% under Canada. Americans, conservative Americans think there's a difference between America and Canada. There actually isn't any more, not in terms of government spending. We're close to Norway, we're not quite the full Sweden yet. But we're spending like Europeans but we're not taxed like that, and the idea that you can close that gap...if he [Obama] can make this level of spending permanent, he changes the United States into a European social democracy and he will be the most consequential president of the last 100 years. He will finish the work of FDR and LBJ and that'll be it, we'll be a big Sweden.

First, it's amusing that wingers are always trying to make Canada and European countries something to fear when those nations are hugely popular with Americans.

In fact, polling shows that Americans want an income distribution that's close to, wait for it -- Sweden's.

So when you say "Sweden" and "Canada" to non-Fox viewers, they think, "Yes, please."

Second, it goes without saying that Steyn's numbers are all made up. The US is nowhere near Sweden in terms of spending as a percentage of GDP.

We are, however, spending more than Syria, Haiti and Tanzania, so maybe Steyn would be more comfortable there.

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On Friday November 30th, Charles Krauthammer got so frustrated with Bill Kristol's appearance on the All-Star Panel of Fox News Special Report that during the last segment of the show he called Kristol a socialist.

KRISTOL: I'm continuing my class warfare theme here. The winners I think are the 19 top executives at Hostess brand who may get bonuses worth up to almost $2 million as the company goes out of business, for managing, going out of business – while the workers', of course, pension funds haven't been filled up for, a year.

And the losers, uh, the workers of America, because you know, in this budget deal everyone's talking about, the one tax that everyone agrees should go up, apparently on the Democratic and Republican sides, with a couple of outliers, is the payroll tax – Social Security payroll tax – so there's going to be a two percent, there is going to be tax increases January, unless someone steps up and says, “Wait a second, we're giving everyone else a tax break and everyone's Social Security taxes go up.”

BAIER: Winners and losers.

KRAUTHAMMER: Kristol's turning into a Socialist... He's the Secretary of the Treasury sitting right over there. Worker's champion.

Kristol has been standing by his position that conservatives should not look like the party of the 2% and fight for millionaires and instead acquiesce over raising tax rates, but the nail in the coffin came when Kristol then defended workers yet again.

What chapped Dr. Strangehammer was that he attacked the Twinkified executives of Hostess for getting a $2 million bonus for destroying the company, and then called the workers the real losers because ownership pillaged their pension benefits along the way. Good on you, BIll. Even if it is but a fleeting moment, I'm enjoying Conservatives carving each other up. (h/t Heather for coming up with a great video clip for me)

It appears that two of Fox News' biggest Republican shills are being benched for the near future after embarrassing themselves and the network over their roles as Romney-denial pollsters.

NY Mag has the story:

The post-election soul searching going on inside the Republican Party is taking place inside Fox News as well. Fox News chief Roger Ailes, a canny marketer and protector of his network’s brand, has been taking steps since November to reposition Fox in the post-election media environment, freshening story lines — and in some cases, changing the characters. According to multiple Fox sources, Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff: He wants the faces associated with the election off the air — for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris — a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox’s anti-Obama campaign — Ailes’s orders mean new rules. Ailes’s deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking Rove or Morris. Both pundits made several appearances in the days after the election, but their visibility on the network has dropped markedly. Inside Fox News, Morris’s Romney boosterism and reality-denying predictions became a punch line.

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Multiple sources say that Ailes was angry at Rove’s election-night tantrum when he disputed the network’s call for Obama. While the moment made for riveting television — it was Ailes’s decision to have Kelly confront the statisticians on air — in the end, it provided another data point for Fox’s critics.

At last some pundit fallout for a change, even if it will be short-lived. Rove should never be allowed on TV as a pundit if he's going to continue to raise 300 million dollars for the GOP cause, and Morris is always wrong. These two guys might have been the worst of the worst, but there were plenty of other Republican pinheads who were trying to discredit all the national polls that had Obama ahead and others who also predicted a big Romney win. Should they face a similar fate?
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Brit Hume: Polls Showing Romney Losing Are 'Puzzling'

Peggy Noonan Predicts Romney Win!

Michael Barone Predicts Romney Win

George Will Predicts Romney Win With 321 Electoral Votes

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Nothing smokes out the wingnut crazy quite like suggesting, as Bob Costas did the other day, that it might be a wee bit too easy to get a hold on the all the guns floating around this country. Take Lars Larson on Fox News.

LARSON: Well, I don't say this lightly Megyn, but Bob Costas, based on the standards of our society today and the standards of our industry...deserves to be fired for these remarks. He's done the equivalent of suggesting that 300M Americans be stripped of a right so important that the Founders of our country put it in the Constitution.

Costas did nothing of the sort. Also, I love it when right-wing propagandists talk about their "standards" on Fox News. Snort.

LARSON: If he had suggested stripping Civil Rights from any other group large or small in this country, for instance, Megyn, if today you said black Americans shouldn't be able to vote, you'd probably either be disciplined or fired tomorrow or later on this afternoon.

Follow that? Somehow "our gun culture is destructive" became "blacks shouldn't be able to vote."

Anyway, there's plenty more crazy in this segment. Love when they compare Costas' criticism of our gun culture to Hank Williams Jr.'s "Obama's like Hitler!" remarks.

Charming.

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Nestled deep in Sunday's Washington Post Style section, there is a little bombshell from Bob Woodward about secret messages passed by Fox News commentator KT McFarland to General David Petraeus about a possible run for the White House in 2012, or 2016.

The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.

McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.

Roger Ailes shrugged it off with a laugh, minimizing McFarland's involvement as some kind of cloak-and-dagger joke. Anyone with half a brain knows that's nonsense. Roger Ailes would have died a happy man after running a Petraeus campaign.

There are a lot of disturbing things about just the snippet of audio I've posted above. The transcript is posted here, and highlights some of the things illustrating how deeply entrenched Fox News is in the military-industrial complex. Here's one highlight:

MCFARLAND:: That’s not the question at this point. He says that if you’re offered chairman, take it. If you’re offered anything else, don’t take it, resign in six months and run for president. Okay? And I know you’re not running for president. But at some point when you go to New York next, you may want to just chat with Roger. And Rupert Murdoch, for that matter.

PETRAEUS: Well . . . Well, Rupert’s after me, as well. Look, I . . . what I have told people is, I truly want to continue to serve my country if it is in a — you know, a quite significantly meaningful position. And there’s all of about two of those in the world. You all have really got to shut your mouths — or shut your . . . Yeah, shut your mouths, too.

Yes, General Petraeus. Please do pay Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch a visit so they can determine your political future. Or the one you may have had before you started playing potsie with your biographer, anyway.

Who is Roger Ailes to be telling anyone what to do, anyway?

Honestly, it's McFarland that bothers me far more than Petraeus. For example, she raises the possibility of President Obama ignoring the Constitution and running for a third term.

Q: Well, but . . . and here’s the thinking: that they’re nervous about. . . . They feel that Obama had this mandate. And the mandate — in his own mind. Obama wanted to do Obamacare. . . . He wanted to do environment, which is basically controlling all aspects of the economy. And education, which is the future. So he pushed for Obamacare. He got that done. They didn’t anticipate 2010 results. But he now is going to lie low and be very centrist so that they win in ’12 and they get the other two. Now, what they need — and this is not from the chiefs, this is from political people — and what they need to cement it so that it doesn’t get reversed is a third term. And that means 2016, they need to win, the Democrats need to win, and they need to win with their guy. Their kind of guy. So that then you’d have the stuff as locked in place for a generation. Nobody can come in like Reagan came in and reverse.

And you thought wingnut theories were just for the likes of Alex Jones.

Earlier in the conversation Petraeus complains that Fox (yes, Fox!!!) has made a skeptical turn about the wars. That's disturbing too. At one point early in the recording, McFarland asks Petraeus what he thinks they're doing right or wrong. Petraeus' response is astonishing: He complains that they don't seem to be as gung-ho on the wars as they once were, and aren't bolstering them like they used to.

Kathleen McFarland isn't any kind of objective reporter at all. She's a Republican ideologue who cut her teeth in the Reagan administration, flogs "Benghazi-gate" to death every chance she gets, and functions as the Fox News spokespiece for neocon fantasies of world domination. Just a week ago, she was spouting nonsense on Fox News about Obama's Middle East policy being a failure because he does the opposite of George Bush. She was beside herself with joy at the prospect of a Mitt Romney presidency in August, and joined the frat boys on The Five to call young progressives "dorks" and "bastards."

If you are reading this and think we exaggerate here at C&L about Fox News, I suggest you listen to that paid Fox News commentator relay messages on behalf of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. When you finish, you'll realize how insidious Fox really is.

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BillO goes from one nutty conspiracy to another. First, he's been treating Benghazi like a complex Len Deighton novel -- which it ain't -- and second, he needed a juicy target for his annual ritual, the "War on Christmas" and its associated nonsense. So he went out and found Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican, to be his patsy.

BillO has been running stories about the Rhode Island holiday tree story, in case you've had the good fortune to miss it.

A beaming Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee calmly weathered a cross-country Christmas controversy yesterday, standing by his PC pronouncement that the 17-foot spruce in the State House rotunda is a “holiday tree” as outraged residents cried foul. Taking the Christmas out of the tree is in the Rhode Island spirit, Chafee said, invoking the 1663 Colonial charter and the legacy of state father Roger Williams. “I’m just continuing what other governors have done,” Chafee told the Herald after dedicating a separate tree to soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I just want to make sure I’m doing everything possible in this building to honor Roger Williams.”

O'Reilly has been pining to get the governor on and he finally agreed to join him on The Factor. The first part of the video is Bill's talking points segment, which features Bill rambling on about secular progressives and atheists and so on. Then on comes Chafee, giving BillO the launching pad to ratchet up his patented "War on Christmas" hysterics on the governor.

Chafee made the case that it's a publicly funded building where the tree is located and he feels that these times-are-a-changin'. That's not music to Bill's ears -- after all, we know he sees his white dominant America slipping away -- and he kept pounding away. Chafee used as an analogy about how forcing students to say Christian prayers in public schools was the same thing, since not all the students were Christians -- but Bill wasn't buying it.

Chafee: Of course you can't ask non-Christians to say a Christian prayer in public school so these controversies, you generate them here, but they really shouldn't be controversies. It's a public building paid for by everybody...

O'Reilly: I think you're conflating two different issues.

Chafee: No, not at all.

O'Reilly explained that the Lord's Prayer was a religious act, but claimed that a Christmas tree is a secular symbol. Huh?

Governor, the Lord's Prayer is obviously a religious expression, a Christmas tree is secular.

OK, let's ask my Jewish friends about Christmas trees.

Near the end of the interview the Governor was getting tired of the attacks and pompousness and he loudly proclaimed for this holiday season that O'Reilly and Fox News are just plain angry all the time.

O'Reilly: You're making people unhappy. Everybody's unhappy with you.

Chafee: Merry Christmas

Governor, you know I'm right in your heart you know I'm right.

Chafee: No, your show -- Fox News, you guys are too angry. This is an angry network.

O'Reilly: I'm not angry, Governor. Look, I'm a happy guy.

Chafee: Listen to yourself, you're yelling.

O'Reilly: I want our traditions to be respected, that's all.

Chafee: Well, Merry Christmas.

Snap! BillO got played. Listen to yourself, O'Reilly. Way to go, Gov. Chafee. You didn't buy into his idiotic argument and you made him appear small, petty and angry all at the same time. Bravo.

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I know lots of entertainers are conservative these days, but Dennis Miller is not just conservative. He's not funny, and he's not nice. There's nothing even slightly entertaining about this nasty rant. In fact, if I were to speculate, I'd think he was possibly auditioning for Rush Limbaugh's dwindling audience.

At any rate, I'm sure conservative heads are exploding all over the planet, with Rush leading the way, since Sandra Fluke was nominated as Time's Person of the Year. In fact, Rush went into his usual paroxysms of outrage about women, calling for men to marry them or else they'll just be dependent on government.

Here comes Dennis Miller, echoing the same theme, saying that the women's movement has spawned "helplessness" among single women. Calling her "Moan of Arc," he goes on to say she'll probably "only accept the cover if they agree to comp her subscription."

And Bill O'Reilly giggles.

I can honestly say that aside from Rush Limbaugh, I've not heard anything quite as hateful and nasty as this against women in general, and Fluke specifically. These guys have their panties in a bunch because women get their birth control covered? This is worth demeaning over half the population?

I'm waiting for the day when news breaks that Dennis Miller begged his pregnant girlfriend to get an abortion. As hypocritical and puffed-up as he is, you have to know it's coming.

Fox News took a break from their BENGHAZIGATE! and ZOMG FISCALCLIFF!!!! coverage this morning for a little EEEEEK TERRISTS!!! update.

The Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence committee commissioned a federal report to identify prison facilities in the U.S. that are suitable for housing Guantanamo detainees, concluding the option is viable -- despite congressional opposition to such a plan when the Obama administration proposed it.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think my backyard would be a great place for Gitmo detainees. For one, my kids' playscape is in disrepair.

On the other hand, this country has a) lots of prisons; b) lots of military bases; and c) lots of open space. So unless you think these guys have superhuman powers, or just wet the bed at the sight of a Muslim, there's no good reason why we have to keep spending over $100M a year to keep them in Cuba.