Kill Fake News as News

A Proposal to Fine News Agencies That Don't Produce News

Fox News, lies. Tomato, tomahto, right?

I've been frustrated by Fox News Corp and their spin since the last World Trade Center rebar fell from the New York sky eight years ago (on my birthday, no less). After 9/11, the Bush Machine shifted into overdrive, Fox News (a.k.a. Fixed News, Fox Noise, Faux News, and my favorite, Cluster Fox) began an eight year stench as the first news corporation acting as directly as an echo chamber for the White House Briefing Room. While the towers' dust was still settling and people were spinning their heads wondering what the hell just happened, Fox News set sail for uncharted waters, namely suggestive partisan journalism. And sadly most major news organizations at the time followed their lead. Maybe it was out of fear of piercing the brief unanimity we all felt during the aftermath of 9/11. Hell, even some of my closest friends, who couldn't normally stomach the sight of our Monkey-President Bush, wouldn't hear of me speaking a single word in opposition to G.W., even as we stumbled toward an unrelated war.

Bias in journalism is not exactly new, so saying Fox entered "uncharted waters" is an exaggeration. But as long as I've been paying attention to the news in my lifetime, I've never seen such spin directed toward forwarding a President's agenda. Or thwarting it, as their mission has now become. (Funny how it was un-American to speak against the President while their Republican Christian Ideologue was at the helm, but Barack Hussein Obama is somehow fair game.)

My beef with Fox News since Barack Obama was elected is this: the Fox right-wing spin machine, that has the audacity to claim it is "fair and balanced" (!), has switched from greatly spinning news to the right to flat-out lying about the news. There's a term for what they're pulling off (I can't remember what it is off-hand), but it involves a closed-loop news feedback of sorts.

Here's how it works:

Someone at Fox "News" like Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, or one of those less-than-friendly scumbags on "Fox and Friends" (Gretchen Carlson, Steve "Doothy" Doocy, or Brian "Oh Just Kill Me" Kilmeade) makes an editorial comment about what people are supposedly talking about. Of course since none of these idiots mentioned are self-proclaimed journalists (they call themselves "entertainers" as a way of getting away with such ridiculously unsubstantiated comments), everything they say, by definition, is an editorial comment. But I'm getting off point...

So one of these stroke-offs make some crazy comment about what they claim "people are talking about". Sometimes these comments are part of some actual fringy stupidness that's already loose on the public, like "Barack Obama doesn't have a birth certificate". But often times than not they try to stir up their Republican brethren by contradicting anything the President is doing with something outrageous that is totally made up.

In turn, people who watch Fox News as their only source of news (always Republican fundamentalists, and often people who seemingly can't decipher editorial comment from fact and can't think for themselves) begin to get worked up about these newfound "facts". Then to close the loop, Fox News "journalists" conveniently pick up the story as something people are genuinely concerned about, which is only true in that people have heard it on their news station earlier from one of those aforementioned idiots or someone else who echoes Fox garbage and plants it on their right-wing blogs, etc.

You see, before Fox initially planted the story, it didn't exist. But now the people who watch this "news channel" farce may really be concerned. After all, the news told them it was true.

So while the thinkers among us are trying to debate the facts of healthcare reform, a bunch of Fox News-watching sheep herd up behind us and try to lynch us for it, all because they heard Obama wants to kill the elderly or some such fucking craziness.

Recently, there was an NBC/WSJ poll in which they found that the people who were gravely and stupidly misinformed about the facts of healthcare all had one thing in common: They all watched Fox News as their single source for news.

I've fucking had it with this bullshit.

I propose that the FCC start issuing large fines to supposed "news" organizations like Fox News who can't substantiate their so-called facts. They must provide This would promote good ol' real, fact-checking journalism, while ousting the blatant lies sold as news.

Furthermore, I also propose that penalties are given to organizations who lay a claim to being a "news station" without having either 100% actual, fact-based journalism OR issuing a disclaimer before shows like Glenn Beck or Bill O'reilly saying that these shows are for entertainment purposes only and are not to be confused with actual news.

Otherwise this self-fulfilling prophesying of fake news will never be tamed. And we'll be left to having two sets of discussions every time we want to get anything accomplished: one based in reality and actual facts, and one based on the stoked fears of people who have been lied to by their trusted news organizations.

Side note: I've personally had to deal with clinically insane people before, and it's absolutely impossible to get anywhere with them. They have their own reality, and they truly believe it to be true, so no matter what you say, you can't win. It's the most aggravating thing in the world. There are real similarities to my past brush in dealing with the insane and talking to the Republican base about healthcare. It's made all the more aggravating by the fact that these are not insane people. These are sane people who made the mistake of believing something other than fact. Worse yet, these believers just know what they've been is the truth and think us to be the ones who are either lying or misinformed. In short, arguing about reality with Republicans is far more aggravating than arguing with insane people. At least insane people are clinically insane.

GOP Lies putting the Hell in Healthcare

I was watching Platoon yesterday, and in it Charlie Sheen quoted someone anonymous as saying,

"Hell is the impossibility of reason."

Well no shit. That's exactly what we have here. Republicans and big health insurance corporations both are purposely and shamefully spreading flat-out lies in order to prey on people's fears and therefore kill any means of intelligently discussing Healthcare Reform.

What gets me is anytime someone goes on TV and says America is full of stupid people, they get lambasted with the collective anger of those who can't handle any criticism of their precious "US of A", which they view as absolutely infallible. Yet these same angry uneducated masses hear lies perpetrated by Republicans, fake grass-roots organizers initiated and funded by these corporations, and their trusted right-wing news sources, including Fox News Corp -- they hear these lies, and they act on them in mob-style revolt without doing a single ounce of research for themselves to better understand what's really going on. And then these angry masses get all pissy when those of us who have taken the time to understand what's real for ourselves say America is full of stupid people.

Well, if they don't want America to be said to be full of idiots, then they shouldn't act so fucking dumb.

For example, how about looking into what's actually being proposed for Healthcare Reform. Forget the blatant lies that many Republicans and fake "news" sources like Fox News are perpetrating, which seem so absolutely fucking crazy to the rest of us who know how inconsequential the proposed changes are for those who are happy with their healthcare as-is.

Here's how I see real Healthcare discussion happening with the Right:

First off, before you start shouting crazy talk in the hopes of silencing my blog somehow, let's start with a quick preface of what Healthcare Reform means in general. Healthcare Reform is happening solely for the purpose of bettering people's lives, not making anyone worse off. It is its only purpose! To help those who are in dire need of Healthcare! So if someone's told you otherwise, you've been lied to.

Also, if you've heard crazy fucking ludicrous things about Healthcare Reform that couldn't possibly sound reasonable, then guess what? It's a lie. Believing that kind of nonsense, just like believing Obama secretly isn't a US citizen, is fucking retarded. Which is why people on the left in this debate are so exhaustedly unwilling to begin discussing these idiotic "concerns". These things are ludicrous and not worth rational people's time discussing. Plus it's the reason people say America is, on a whole, stupid.

For those of you who are against changes in Healthcare, love your current health plan, and are happy with how much you pay for it, etc: You can now dismiss yourself from the entire discussion forever. With the proposed Healthcare Reform you don't have to change anything if you don't want. The most you'll see as far as changes from this reform bill is that you will eventually see the amount you pay go down significantly. That's it. If you're somehow against paying less for the exact same health plan, well then, I don't know what to say to that...

For the rest of you who want to really know what's going on with Healthcare, imagine this: Imagine a new company joining the free market of the Healthcare Industry. Let's call it "Govco".

Now if Govco enters the market, and you personally have, let's say, Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) insurance, you don't have to buy Govco, so what's the big deal? However, Govco happens to be a non-profit entity that's run by the government, just like Medicare is. And being owned "by the people for the people" means it's not going to focus on having the largest profit margins each quarter like BCBS is. In fact, Govco doesn't have the first care in the world about making a cent of profit, outside of keeping the service afloat in combination with its government funding. Just like Medicare. So because of Govco isn't motivated by profit margins and greed, as competition it will provide a low-cost alternative for those who don't want to pay as much. In turn, greedy big corporations like BCBS will be forced to compete with Govco and therefore become as competitive in pricing as Govco, bringing down your premiums with BCBS.

So now that you understand Healthcare Reform, almost in its entirety, it's not really too scary is it? Now if you want to get more information about the benefits of healthcare, as there pretty much aren't any for those who make less than $1 million a year, then do your homework.

If you're a Republican and like to get your right-wing spin spoon fed to you from Fox News, you won't like me suggesting you watch MSNBC to get the facts on Healthcare. You may think MSNBC spins to the left too much, but the one thing they're good with is facts. I think Walter Kronkite once said that "facts tend to have a liberal bias." People like Rachel Maddow go out of their way to make sure they have the correct facts and makes corrections during her show when she's found she's made errors -- which is a far cry from those people who report their spin on the "news" as fact, such as Bill O'reilly or Glenn Beck, and then defend their lack of trustworthiness by claiming that they're not really journalists (duh), simply "entertainers". (I have personally witnessed both of them make this argument, before you get all worked up about it.) Much worse are the editorial spins of actual so-called "journalists" on Fox News, who slip in their own opinions as "what people are saying" in order to make it actually what people are saying after they watch their show. It's a closed loop of self-prophesied utter bullshit.

If you don't want to do that, then simply listen to the President speaking on the subject. What he says in those addresses is what's being proposed in Congress. Nothing more. Nothing less. There would be absolutely zero advantage of his going on national television and lying about it.

Finally, how about this stupid "Obama Death Panel" lie, also known as the alleged healthcare plan to "kill the elderly"? C'mon, really?? This lie came to life because the bill being proposed allows the newly available healthcare plan to help elderly people make "end of life" plans, namely a living will. It's purely optional. And having a will is also a good idea, and you only have to do it once. Finally, this good idea was added to the bill by Republicans in the Senate!

You're welcome.

And when Healthcare is reformed, and you benefit and see how ridiculous you've been manipulated, you can thank the rest of us then.

Blackwater (Xe) and More Christianity for All

Fucking Christians.

Now, before you get all up in my grill for pissing on christianity, I'm not. Although I find it irritating that part of the Christian Agenda is to force feed non-believers without their invitation and then shun them if they don't buy, that's not at all my beef with them.

My problem is the constant hypocrisy from this group. It's never ending. I grew up christian, and it didn't take me long to find the hypocrisy everywhere in my own church and its sermons. This is way before the spotlight turned to the Grand Adulterer Jimmy Swaggart, the adultery and thieving of shitloads of parish monies by Jim Bakker, the illegal funding sent to the Contras in Nicaragua by Pat Roberts, or the christian citings of David Duke. Of course those are just the contemporary hypocrisies. Never mind the Crusades or the Inquisition or thousands of other bloody disasters in defending the unprovable notions of a righteous few.

Christian Hypocrisy isn't exactly new, let alone news. Hypocrisy is so deeply ingrained within their practice, the contradictions are evident at the very start within the Bible itself (I had the pleasure of reading and studying the entire Bible in high school).

Well, mark another one down for the Hypocritical Bible Thumper Crowd. Yesterday, Right-Wing Evangelical Christian Crazy, Erik Prince (shown right), founder of Blackwater (renamed Xe) was outed for the true christian practices we've come to know and love from the religious right. His company was buying illegal ammunition from an American company named Lemas, as well as AK-47s and other illegal guns from arms dealers, transporting it all to Iraq, and using it so him and his racist crew could kill them-there "rag heads" (Blackwater contractors' words, not mine). Tues, Erikkk was quoted as believing himself "a "christian crusader, tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe."

How Christian is racism again? Or genocide? Oh yeah, it's not. Yet having grown up in the cornfielded flat-nowhere of Indiana, I've determined it can't possibly be a coincidence that most every racist I've stumbled upon has been either raised Christian or claims to be a practicing one. Whether they're the drunken, bi-toothal, confederate-flag-waving racist or the more dangerous, shady but always subtle, anti-Semitic "Secret Racist" who publicly denounces prejudice at every turn, they seem to always have Christ in common.

Of course I'm not saying all Christians are racists. (If you thought I'd made that point in the last paragraph, it's possible you took the same community college logic class as loony Michele Bachman (R-Minnesota).) But I am saying it's alarming how many racists in this country do consider themselves Christians.

Anyway, back to "Cleric of the Week" Erik Prince: his company provided child prostitutes to his Blackwater/Xe Executives, and had a top level wife-swap operating in his North Carolina division. In the Blackwater 'Man Camp', which Prince personally oversaw and participated in, he provided very young local Iraqi girls to give top Executives oral sex and paid the girls one American dollar for their services. Very Christ-like indeed. Yet another self-proclaimed Devout Christian doing the Lord's good work.

Apparently he was also transporting firearms illegally into Iraq via the Blackwater company jet and selling them there. So not only was his crappy company involved in many illegal and unwarranted civilian deaths (a few complaints even made it to court), but to add insult to injury, he sold weapons in Iraq for a quick buck without regard for whose hands they'd end up in. Just whose side is this dick on?? His own, I'm afraid. And of course, God's. Irk.

As far as I'm concerned, that highlights one of the godzillion problems with outsourcing military operations of any sort. Although Blackwater/Xe is an American company that the U.S. is employing in Iraq, they're still a corporation with corporate values. And who does the corporations pledge allegiance to at the end of the day? Answer: Their bottom line, and only the bottom line. Not the U.S., and not Jesus Christ, but instead, the almighty dollar bill. There's a name for people who act in accordance with the highest paid dollar, specifically such soldiers: they're called mercenaries. Mercenaries are like the last goddamned thing we need in the middle of a primarily religious battle whilst attempting to gain the trust of Iraqis and win back the Taliban regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Especially a fucking religious "crusader" who believes genocide is God's mission for him.

By the way, as I see it, by definition a mercenary cannot be a Christian. I supposed a mercenary could believe that Christ died for his sins, believe in God, etc. But there are few things less Christ-like than selling ones ethics for cash -- especially when it involves picking a side and killing the people on the other.

The last bit of fun involving Blackwater, and its founder Erikkk the "Prince of Genocide", is that the illegal ammunition they were bringing over consisted of exploding bullets that the US Military itself found to be inhumane and wouldn't use. A Blackwater employee had bragged that he shot an Iraqi with one of these bullets in the ass and was ecstatic to find that it exploded the entire left side of the Iraqi's body, killing him -- an Iraqi not in battle at the time, who I can only imagine was considered simply worthless in the killer's eyes since he wasn't Christian, or white, or because he didn't have any information they could exploit for their Almighty-driven purposes. Hey guys, go ahead and test those babies out on just anyone. BTW, wouldn't the person have to be running away from gunfire in order to get shot in the butt in the first place. Anyway you spin this, it still sucks.

I wonder what Jesus Christ would say about any of this? I'm pretty sure nothing too good.

Then again, I'm sure there's some right-wing christian faker out there who could somehow spin it all in Jesus' name.

Rise of the Stupid People Party

And the So-called Health Care Debate

First off, welcome to my new blog. If you're reading, I'm surprised. I just started my first blog here, and I haven't even told anyone about it yet. So you're ahead of the curve.

Tonight I was talking about my frustration with the politics surrounding Health Care Reform 2009. After griping about the all-out war of the Insurance Companies and their minions (i.e. the Republican Party and some "Blue Dog" Democrats), Beth asked me, "Have politics always been this stupid?" Of course politics have always been stupid, but she has a good point in asking that question today. There was a time I remember not all that long ago when both sides could disagree but make somewhat coherent arguments in opposition to each other's views.

But more and more lately, the Republican "argument", if you even want to call it that, is just ballyhooing blatant, full-blown lies, with no care whatsoever that people can easily fact-check these things nowadays. For example Health Care: the Republican "reform" isn't a reform at all. They claim that they have their own health care reform, but when given the chance to provide a solution, they realized that they don't have one -- apparently our broken mess of a system is just fine.

On the House floor, dimwitted Republicans like Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) have the gall to denounce healthcare reform because she says it will put seniors in a position to be "put to death by their government", playing to somebody's paranoid fears, I guess. She and others are vocal that the Republican's "Healthcare Plan" is a better option to fix healthcare. But, what the Republicans are proposing, literally, is keeping health care as it is now. So how in hell is Health Care going to better itself, you ask? The suggestion is that the Insurance private sector will magically fix itself. Without government intervention or provocation, according to Republicans and the FRC, they will get "all people insured and lower overall costs."

Yeah, and Sarah Palin's retarded ass will lead us to a new Utopian Age mounted on her flying fucking unicorn.

Simply put, Republicans don't have an argument at all. I don't know why, but they just don't. So instead of getting together and creating solutions, the argument has made way to whatever right-wing (-nut) sound-byte sticks temporarily, no matter how ridiculous it is. e.g. Obama wasn't born in the US, Healthcare Reform will kill old people and promote abortions, Sonia Sotomayor and Obama are "reverse racists" (whatever the hell that is), Obama is going to take yer guns, Obama equals Socialism, "if we kill Health Care Reform, it will be Obama's Waterloo" (Jim "the douche" DeMint (R-SC)), and this stupidity goes on and on. And if those idiocies don't work, then they just oppose anything Obama supports, poling and voters be damned. William Buckley would be turning in his grave to see this type of crapola spew from every Republican's lips.

Even the most fundamental of Republican ideals are cherry-picked per issue anyway. For example, the currently broken health care system is costing us billions and is something, as is, that we can't afford -- our taxes cover everything the insurance companies do not as it is. Yet these "fiscally responsible" Republicans don't want any change! Oh, and of course they're only fiscally responsible when it's not giving their idiot monkey leader Bush whatever he wanted for 8 years. Or if they're spending just stoopid amounts of money on the military -- even defending the F-22 and other military spending that no one can justify and the military isn't even using.

And of course, the cherry-picking of ideals continues (also known as hypocrisy): The GOP is "pro-life" (who isn't pro-life anyway? ..as stupid of a misnomer as pro-abortion. They're really just anti-abortion) yet they support the death penalty. They're all for Christian Values, yet they support torture, let alone far less than Christian ways of life for themselves and in treating the poor. They're against any government run healthcare agency, but they'd never say Medicare was a mistake or that VA Hospitals should be closed. And just which is more Christ like: to make sure everyone has the right to healthcare, or let the private sector and the market figure this out for us, just like it has so far? (Maybe that's not fair -- if I mentioned Christians cherry-picking what they feel like following from the Bible, this paragraph could go on forever.) Hell, I heard a pro-life woman argue recently against stem cell research, saying that her daughter wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for In-vitro fertilization and other medical breakthroughs. But those advancements she mentioned were made through stem cell research. They want it both ways.

The age of intelligent dialogue died the day George Bush was sworn into office. But it's effect wasn't completely realized until people could hear something other than White House spin in the media for the first time in eight long years.

Obama's weakness isn't in wanting to change government for the better. It's in thinking that old-school corrupt politicians would give up their financial-incentive based grip on power for the betterment of their constituents. And it's also in thinking that you can rationalize with the irrational. There can never be bipartisanship so long as one side doesn't deal in facts, let alone busses its minority protesters around to local town hall meetings for the single purpose of "disrupting the health care dialogue" (thanks lobbyist Dick Armey, you asshole).

It was reported recently that Insurance Corporations are spending over $1.5 million dollars each day on lobbying Congress. And that figure was a snapshot of their lobbying practices before the Health Care Reform 2009 discussion even started. Imagine how many people could have healthcare (world-wide) if we pocketed the money spent on lobbyists in a single year. Oh but gee, where's the "value add" in that??

Speaking of Health Care, Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-New York) put an amendment on the House floor to kill Medicare. His intention was to force Republicans to "put up or shut up", allowing them to vote away Medicare -- a government run (and therefore must be evil) health care for seniors. Funny how not a single Republican bitching about how government can't possibly run a health care competitor voted to get rid of Medicare. Not one vote. Fucking Hypocrites.