Tag Archives: Sean Hannity

March 25, 2013 · 12:01 AM

Rachel Maddow Blasts Fox News For Skipping President Obama Medal Ceremony In Israel

Mediaite

On Thursday night in the Jerusalem residence of Israeli President Shimon Peres, American President Barack Obama received the Medal of Distinction, the highest honor that Israel’s government can award a civilian (and also a hunk of hardware that looks like it could be murder on the ole sciatica). As Rachel Maddow noted on Thursday night’s The Rachel Maddow Show, however, only some cable news viewers got to see that ceremony live: all of the cable news viewers who weren’t watching Fox News.

One of the most important functions that a news program can perform, and perhaps the most basic, is to inform the viewer. While technically a so-called “opinion” program, this short segment of The Rachel Maddow show was packed with information. For example, I already knew that Republican deity and former President Ronald Reagan never visited Israel, nor did George H.W. Bush, and that George W. Bush didn’t make the trip until late in his second term. However, I did not know that the Medal of Distinction/Dothraki Battle Shield was the highest honor the Israeli government can give to a civilian, or that President Obama is the only U.S. President ever to receive it. Information.

Viewers of the Maddow show who had missed news of the President’s trip would also have been informed of several events of the day, such as the heckler who interrupted President Obama’s speech to a group of students, or the weird robot snake he checked out, or clips from the speeches he gave that day.

One of the other ways that news programs inform viewers is by bringing them live video of newsworthy events, such as the first American president to be awarded the Medal of Distinction. It was the middle of the afternoon in the U.S., and both CNN and MSNBC carried the event live. As Rachel noted, though, Fox News had other business to attend:

Fox was running a commercial about how Sean Hannity thinks President Obama is strengthening Israel’s enemies. When I saw the Maddow segment, I sus[ected there might be more to the commercial (sorry, Rachel), that there might be some part at the end that sort of redeemed it, like “But they gave him a medal!!” But I checked, that was the whole thing.

I also checked the President’s schedule for Thursday, and as expected, the dinner and the award ceremony were covered by the White House traveling press pool. That means that whether or not Fox News aired the video of the first ever American president receiving Israel’s highest civilian honor, they paid for it.

Much has been made, recently, of a Pew study that compared the ratio of “opinion” to “straight news” among the three major cable networks, but it didn’t really take into account the quality of the programming. Rachel Maddow’s show, while containing heavy doses of commentary, also fulfills journalism’s duty to inform.

The study also made the assumption that “opinion” can’t also be news, an assumption belied by recent events (Robert Gibbs made news on several MSNBC opinion shows with a revelation about the drone program), and by one of the more pivotal moments in the 2012 presidential campaign. Mitt Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom made his now-infamous “Etch-a-Sketch” remark during an interview segment that Pew would have counted as “opinion.” The question was asked by comedianJohn Fugelsang.

On the flip-side, your straight news is only as good as the news you’re reporting. If you can’t get your facts straight, or you select which stories not to air based on something other than established news practices, then it doesn’t really matter how straight it is.

Related articles

 

Comments Off

Filed under Fox Nation, Fox News

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 22, 2013 · 1:34 PM

“Obama’s Sequester?” No Way

“Obama’s Sequester?” No Way

Speaker of the House, John Bohener, et al are making sure that they pin the “sequester” bill on President Obama.  The idea is to blame Obama for anything that goes wrong once the sequester is set in motion.

Economist and former Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden,  Jared Bernstein knows a thing or two about these things and wrote the following piece:

Salon

It’s time to defuse the latest fiscal time bomb

This originally appeared on Jared Bernstein’s blog, On the Economy.

For my sanity and yours, I rarely get into the silliest corners of politics, but this conservative talking point that the word “sequester” must actually be called “Obama’s sequester,” like they had nothing to do with it, is really beyond the pale.  I get that both sides are trying to position themselves to not get blamed for this totally preventable, self-inflicted wound, but here are some facts that belie this ridiculous Republican disowning of a policy they supported.

–The sequester was part of the Budget Control Act, passed in 2011 with bipartisan support.  In fact, a larger share of House R’s voted for the bill than D’s: 174 (73%) voted for it and 66 against, while Ds were split 95-95.   In the Senate, 28 Rs voted for it and 19 against, while D’s supported it 45-6.

–Voting in support of the bill that contained the sequester were Reps Boehner, Ryan, Cantor and Sen. McConnell.

–Speaker Boehner said of the bill including the sequester: “I got 98% of what I wanted.”  Given their highly amped up disdain of the sequester now, I find it hard to believe that this was the 2% he didn’t want.

–On the day of the vote, Rep Paul Ryan explained the spending cuts in the bill to Sean Hannity, adding the following:

“And if they breach that amount across the board, sequester comes in to cut that spending, and you can’t turned that off without a supermajority vote. We got that in law. That is here…”

–Then there’s the Power Point slide that the Daily Beast put up yesterday from Speaker Boehner in July of 2011 advertising the sequester as a selling point to his fellow R’s: “[The bill] sets up a new sequestration process to cut spending across-the-board…”

So, should we be calling this “Ryan’s sequester?”…“Boehner’s sequester?”

No.  We—they—should stop acting like truculent kids on the playground, get to work, and defuse their latest fiscal time bomb.

Related articles

4 Comments

Filed under Sequester

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

December 9, 2012 · 1:05 AM

With Sean Hannity Getting Stomped In the Ratings Fox News Attacks Rachel Maddow

Fox News epitomizes what’s wrong today’s the Conservative movement.  If things don’t go their way (and they’re used to having things their way) they manifest their rotten philosophy of “our way or the highway”.

Whether they are right or wrong, it seems to me that most conservatives in the media and in politics act like spoiled children when the tide of approval shifts from them to their opposition.  It’s what most would call plain old sour grapes.

Remedy: Get over it!  You screwed up, now it’s time for the grown-ups to clean up your mess and take over.

PoliticusUSA

Since election day, Rachel Maddow has been beating Sean Hannity in the key demo ratings. Fox News has responded with a juvenile attack on Maddow.

There is something happening in cable news that can no longer be ignored. MSNBC is seriously challenging Fox News. Specifically, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell are regularly beating their Fox News competition in the key 25-54 demo. Last week, Maddow beat Hannity, 378,000 viewers to 352,000 in the demo.

This week Maddow handily defeated Hannity on Monday (394,000-336,000) andTuesday (388,000-285,000). Even with guest hosts filling in for Maddow on Wednesday and Thursday, Hannity was only able to eek out small wins of 55,000and 38,000 in the demo. From election day through the end of November, Maddow beat Hannity by 13%.

Hannity’s margin over Maddow in total viewers is inflated by the fact that Fox News is available in more homes than MSNBC. Bill O’Reilly’s show is the only thing keeping Fox News ahead in the primetime demo. If anything ever happens to O’Reilly, Fox News will be in deep trouble.

The biggest sign yet that Fox News knows they have a problem was how they responded to Rachel Maddow being nominated for a Grammy for her spoken word version of Drift.

Here was the headline on Fox Nation:

This behavior is nothing new for Fox News. Every since Jon Stewart started crushing them in the ratings, they have regularly and sometimes personally attackedThe Daily Show host. Among other things, Fox News has edited his appearances on their network and called Stewart a racist.

Stewart and Maddow both are the anti-Fox News. Both draw big ratings, and both are now enemies of Fox. As more younger Americans continue to rebel against information bubbles like Fox, they are seeking out alternatives that place an an emphasis on information over propaganda, and perhaps no show on Fox is as propagandistic as Hannity. On occasion during his broadcasts, Sean Hannity literally reads or quotes verbatim from Republican talking points. Maddow’s show is the exact opposite. She is fair to her guests, and is does not shy away from being tough on the Obama administration and Democrats.

If MSNBC was available in more homes, Maddow would have probably blown by Hannity in total viewers a while ago.

The Fox News style network is being rejected by more and more viewers. There may be little that Fox can actually do to stop this slide. So like the the impotent old man of cable news that they are becoming, Fox News has resorted to using juvenile attacks against younger and stronger competition that is gaining on them every day.

Related articles

3 Comments

Filed under Fox Nation, Fox News, Rachel Maddow

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 26, 2012 · 9:36 AM

John Sununu’s History Of Racial Remarks About Obama

Think Progress

On Thursday, Romney campaign co-chair advanced the theory that Gen. Colin Powell endorsed President Obama because he’s black. But this isn’t the first time Sununu or even Mitt Romney’s campaign have introduced Obama’s race into the election. The former New Hampshire governor has repeatedly suggested that Obama or his policies are “foreign,” European, and something less than American. Here are some of his greatest hits:

– Obama is foreign. Obama doesn’t understand the “American system” because “he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, another set of years in Indonesia, and, frankly, when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure.” [Fox News, 7/17/2012]

– Obama doesn’t know how to be an American. During a conference call, Sununu claimed, “The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world. It is the American way. And I wish this president would learn how to be an American.” [Conference call, 7/17/2012]

– Obama is a lazy idiot. Sununu described Obama’s debate performance as “babbling,” “lazy,” and “disengaged,” and dismissed the possibility that he could do better in the future. “When you’re not that bright you can’t get better prepared.” [Fox News, 10/4/2012]

– Obama has no class, just wants to be cool. “That moment of using the B.S. word was kind of a self-defining moment for the president,” he told Sean Hannity. “No class, wants to be cool. Sacrifices the dignity of the presidency for appearing cool to a magazine that works for some of his base.” [Fox News,10/25/2012]

Romney has never publicly rebuked Sununu’s racial remarks, though Sununu has previously issued retractions of some of his statements. With just 11 days before Election Day, he remains the campaign’s most prominent spokesperson and is even attacking Obama for dividing Americans along racial lines. During an appearance on Fox News on Thursday he complained that Obama has instituted “class warfare,” adding, “This guy has tried to create some racial divides.”

Related articles

7 Comments

Filed under U.S. Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

October 3, 2012 · 9:31 AM

Tucker Carlson attacks Obama over ‘phony’ black vernacular

Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson speaks to Fox News

The Raw Story

Tucker Carlson, founder of The Daily Caller, on Tuesday night slammed President Barack Obama for using black vernacular in a “racially divisive” speech that occurred five years ago.

“Let me just be totally clear, anyone who just watched it and has seen Obama speak in public over the last ten years will note this accent is absurd,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “This is not the way Obama talks. At least it is not the way he talked in the scores of speeches I’ve watched him give, the public appearances I’ve seen him make. This is a put on. This is phony.”

The Daily Caller on Tuesday published a “never-before-seen” video of Obama delivering a speech at Hampton University Annual Ministers’ Conference in 2007 in which he spoke about poverty among African-Americans.

Tucker said the speech was meant to tell the mostly African-American audience that the federal government was racist. He accused Obama of making “appeals to racial solidarity.”

“The falseness here is overwhelming,” Tucker said, after Hannity played two clips where Obama spoke in different tones.

“And I would say whether he was putting on a southern accent or Asian accent, it doesn’t matter. He is playing a role in one of these cases. It is not clear in which one. I assume in the Hampton’s speech he is putting on a persona he doesn’t usually occupy to pander to the crowd, but who knows?”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:

 

Related articles

5 Comments

Filed under U.S. Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 19, 2012 · 1:38 PM

Barbara Walters Rejects George Zimmerman’s Interview Demands

 

Barbara Walters Daytime Emmys

I wonder when all is said and done, will the Zimmerman defense team plead that their client is insane?

The Huffington Post

Barbara Walters revealed on Thursday that she had rejected demands made byTrayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman in exchange for an interview.

The New York Post reported on Thursday  that Walters had traveled down to Florida with the intention of interviewing Zimmerman, but walked away after he requested that ABC get him a hotel room for a month.

Walters was not competing for the first interview with Zimmerman, as he had already granted that privilege to Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Hannity’s interview aired on Wednesday night.

Walters confirmed much of the Post’s story on Thursday’s “View.” She explained that Zimmerman’s lawyer, whom she referred to as “effective,” confirmed Tuesday night that Zimmerman would do an interview. Walters said that Zimmerman was going to tape an interview with Hannity before sitting down with her. Walters said Hannity “had been very supportive to [Zimmerman] in the past and George Zimmerman told me that he was very grateful, and I appreciated his loyalty to Hannity.”

Walters agreed that her interview would tape and air after Zimmerman sat down with Hannity. She said that she had then flown down to Florida for the interview.

When Walters and her team arrived in Florida, she said that Zimmerman came in dressed in a t-shirt, rather than a suit. “That should have been my first clue,” she said.

According to Walters, Zimmerman said that the plans had changed, and he was refusing to do the interview unless ABC granted him one request. Walters refused to confirm that he had requested a month-long stay in a hotel. “It was a condition that, being a member of ABC News, I was unable to grant,” she said.

Walters described Zimmerman as “desperate for money” and “very worried about his family.” She also said he was “polite, soft-spoken, stubborn.” She said that his lawyers “wanted him to do the interview.”

The drama took a bizarre twist when Walters announced that Zimmerman wanted to call into the show to speak to Walters. “He wouldn’t do the interview, but now he has something to say,” she said, later adding, “This has been an interesting day, to say the least.”

She then pointedly refused to put him on air. “Mr. Zimmerman, if you could not do the interview yesterday, I don’t think we should do a quick one today,” she said. “In the future if you feel differently, we will consider it.”

Though she did not acknowledge that there had been any monetary request made of the network, Walters has asserted in the past that ABC News does not pay for interviews.

In July 2011, ABC News chief Ben Sherwood announced that the network would stop licensing photos, since questions about payment would inevitably follow after ABC News nabbed a major interview.

Related articles

 

1 Comment

Filed under George Zimmerman

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

May 22, 2012 · 10:42 AM

Palin advises Romney: ‘Go rogue’ and use Rev. Wright to attack Obama

Sarah Palin speaks to Fox News

She’s baaack and as clueless as ever!

The Raw Story

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney should “go rogue” and attack President Barack Obama for his former associations with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Marxists and radicals.

During an interview on Fox News on Monday, host Sean Hannity told Palin that he thought the president’s former pastor was “relevant” even though Romney had repudiated a proposal to use Wright in attack ads.

The half-term Alaska governor replied: “I thought so in 2008 and that’s why I went rogue, if you will, and disagreed with some of John McCain’s advisers when they said, no, a lot of these issues like past associations and Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers and those that helped shape Obama’s world view needed to be off the table and not discussed. I disagreed then, I disagree now.”

“Barack Obama in 2008 was an empty vessel,” she continued. “The public did not know who or what filled this vessel in order to create what has become a very confused and mission and visionless leader for our country. Well, now it’s not too late to change course and this next go around understand what has filled up that vessel. Who are these people? Who are the radicals, the Marxist professors that he said he would hang out with, some of his friends and associations.”

Hannity noted that Democrats and the media were willing to bring up Romney’s alleged 1965 gay bullying incident, putting a dog on his car roof, the so-called war on women and “throwing granny over the cliff” by privatizing Medicare — but Republicans were refusing employ the same type of tactics.

“Amen, brother,” Palin agreed. “A one-sided, cease-fire call is not something to agree to. Some of these GOP operatives, Sean, they seem to have the fighting instinct of [Sesame Street character] Mr. Snuffleupagus. And if you remember him, he would hide, he would back down, he would run the other direction.”

“It’s disgusting, the double standard,” she added. “And I’m really tired of, again, too many in the GOP establishment just kind of kowtowing to what the left will dictate in terms of how this election is going to go.”

Palin also reiterated her advice that Romney pick tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) as his vice presidential running mate.

“I love people who understand the Constitution and will fight tooth and nail and are willing to put their lives and their families lives on the line to defend our republic. That is who I want to see as that teammate for the GOP nominee.”

Video…

Related articles

4 Comments

Filed under Fox News, Sarah Palin

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

May 18, 2012 · 5:53 AM

Mitt Romney On His Reverend Wright Attack: ‘I Stand By What I Said, Whatever It Was’

I think robot-like Mitt Romney needs to go in to the RNC and get a “tune-up”….

Think Progress

Mitt Romney’s campaign is apparently worried about being associated with a Republican proposal, first reported by the New York Times today, to run $10 million worth of racially-tinged ads attacking President Obama for his connection to Reverend Jerimiah Wright. Depsite criticizing Obama for “listening to reverend Wright” in an interview on Sean Hannity’s radio show in February, the presumed GOP nominee twice slammed the proposal today, after his campaign manager did the same earlier.

At a press conference in Florida today, Romney repeated that he “repudiated” the Wright attack. But when asked about his comments on Hannity’s show, Romney said he stood by them, even though he said he couldn’t remember them:

ROMNEY: I’m actually gonna — I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was. I’ll go back and take a look at what was said there.

Watch it:

Related articles

Comments Off

Filed under Mitt Romney

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 10, 2012 · 5:31 PM

George Zimmerman’s attorneys quit: We have lost contact with him

Attorneys Craig Sonner and Hal Uhri via screenshot

I’ve always thought that George Zimmerman is not in the contiguous United States.  I think he’s in Cuba or some other Caribbean Island.

The Raw Story

The attorneys for George Zimmerman, who claims to have shot and killed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in self-defense, said during a press conference Tuesday that they had terminated their relationship with him.

Attorneys Craig Sonner and Hal Uhri said they had not be able to contact him since Sunday, but would continue to represent him if he decided to contact them. The attorneys said it would be wrong for them to claim to represent Zimmerman if they were not in contact with him.

“He has gone on his own,” Sonner said.

The attorneys had only talked with Zimmerman on the phone, but had planned to have face-to-face meetings.

Zimmerman called Fox News host Sean Hannity and special prosecutor Angela Corey’s office in Florida, according to the attorneys. Hannity refused to tell the attorneys what Zimmerman told him.

Zimmerman has completely avoided the media and has gone into hiding. Sonner and Uhri refused to indicate where he may be, but said anyone looking for him should look “far away from Florida.”

The attorneys said Zimmerman was “not doing well” and probably suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. They described him as being “emotionally crippled.”

The attorneys said they didn’t believe that Zimmerman planned to flee the country.

Despite withdrawing their counsel, Sonner and Uhri still believe Zimmerman acted in self-defense.

Zimmerman told police that he had followed Martin on foot, but eventually lost sight of him and turned around to walk back to his SUV. That is when, according to Zimmerman’s account, Martin approached him from behind and confronted him. He said that Martin punched him in the nose, knocking him down, and then began banging his head into the ground. That is when Zimmerman allegedly shot Martin.

When police arrived on the scene, Zimmerman claimed that he shot and killed the unarmed African American teenager out of self-defense, which allowed him to benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Zimmerman was not arrested that night, a fact that later sparked national outrage and a flood of criticism.

Related articles

4 Comments

Filed under George Zimmerman

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 12, 2012 · 12:10 AM

Rush Limbaugh Scandal Proves Contagious for Talk-Radio Advertisers

It really is about time right-wing talk radio advertisers took these steps…

The Daily Beast

Ninety-eight major advertisers—including Ford and Geico—will no longer air spots on Premiere Networks’ ‘offensive’ programs. Insiders say the loss will rock right-wing talk radio.

Rush Limbaugh made the right-wing talk-radio industry, and he just might break it.

Because now the fallout from the “slut” slurs against Sandra Fluke is extending to the entire political shock-jock genre.

Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”

This is big. According to the radio-industry website Radio-Info.com, which first posted excerpts of the Premiere memo, among the 98 companies that have decided to no longer sponsor these programs are “carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm), and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).” Together, these talk-radio advertising staples represent millions of dollars in revenue.

Continue reading here…

Related articles

Comments Off

Filed under Hate - mongering

Tagged as , , , , , , ,