The Dirty Half-Dozen: Exposing Some Recent Right-Wing Fairy Tales and Deceptions
1. Myth: Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation media possessions, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, are the only national media outlets making money and increasing audience right now. Truth: Murdoch’s News Corp. is losing money hand over fist, $6.4 billion in the last two quarters, and cutting staff as the circulation of the WSJ and ratings for Fox News decline. Proof: Here’s an excerpt from an AP report:
“News Corp., the global media giant controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said Thursday it lost $6.4 billion in its most recent quarter because of a massive write-down in the value of its assets.
“The New York-based company, which owns The Wall Street Journal and the Fox broadcast network, also forecast a 30 percent drop in operating profits for the fiscal year to June from a year ago, when it earned $5.13 billion.” [...]
“News Corp. also said it had cut 800 positions across its Fox properties, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, in moves that it expected to save $400 million a year. The Wall Street Journal said Thursday it is cutting about two dozen newsroom positions.”
– Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writer, “News Corp. loses $6.4 billion in 2Q,” Feb. 5, 2009.
2. Myth: “Government jobs don’t stimulate the economy.” Recently Sen. Tom Coburn (R-NotOK) was promoting this bit of balderdash on MSNBC, but I’ve heard and read it elsewhere in the right-wing media as well. Truth: This is nonsense from the days of Herbert Hoover. Proof: Under Franklin D. Roosevelt such government employment programs as the WPA and CCC reduced unemployment dramatically during the Great Depression and improved the economy, as much as many neocon economists are desperately trying to rewrite history to reflect the opposite. Just like everyone else, government employees pay taxes and buy things – houses, cars, food, clothes and appliances –– that stimulate the economy.
3. Myth: Rush Limbaugh never actually said about President Obama, “I hope he fails.” Truth: Yes, he did and I heard it. Proof: Here’s the audio clip. He plainly says he was asked for quote about Obama and replied, “I hope he fails.”
4. Myth: “Tax cuts are the best way to improve the economy.” Truth: No, they aren’t. Proof: The last eight years of tax cuts under Bush.
5. Myth: “Free market capitalism will regulate itself.” Truth: You’re crazy. It’s like saying a basket of vipers will regulate itself into a litter of puppies. Proof: The economic collapse engendered by the ‘hands-off’ policies of Bush as well as bankers, Wall Street, automakers and other large corporations begging for bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. Then there’s Bernie Madoff, Enron, and all of the other members of the Corrupt Bastards Club, with the latest outrageous entry being the Peanut Corporation of America, who knowingly sold salmonella-tainted nuts to poor kids enrolled in school free-lunch programs while Bush’s FDA inspectors slept on the job. (Maybe they should have tried cake instead.)
6. Myth: “Bill O’Reilly and Fox News never really got anything wrong.” Truth: Yes, they have, and the list is as long as your arm. Proof: Here are some highlights and a link:
Reviewing the accuracy of Fox News and O’Reilly over the past eight years:
– They were wrong about WMD in Iraq.
– They were wrong about the length of the occupation of Iraq.
– They were wrong about the strength and military capabilities of the Iraqi insurgents. (They even denied the insurgency was happening at first.)
– They were wrong about Ahmed Chalabi, who turned out to be providing information to Iran.
– They were wrong about Pat Tillman’s death.
– They were stupendously wrong about the economy.
– They were wrong about the torture Bush and Cheney have since admitted to — O’Reilly initially denied it happened and said it was the invention of sick fringe-left minds to bash the Bush administration.
– They were wrong in asserting Obama was a Muslim.
– They were wrong in questioning the legality of Obama’s presidency based on a few fumbled words during his swearing-in ceremony. (In fact, the law states the new president takes office at Noon on January 20, with or without being sworn in.)
– O’Reilly, much to the anger of vets and their families, on two occasions, in 2005 and 2006, erroneously claimed that German prisoners were massacred at Malmedy, Belgium, by US forces in WWII. In fact, it was the other way around: 81 unarmed American POWs were brutally gunned down at Malmedy by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge. O’Reilly has never apologized for getting this wrong — twice.
The right-wing can believe any fantasies it wants (until reality rears its ugly head), but the truth is that over 4,000 Americans are dead and tens of thousands permanently disabled, along with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, thanks in large part to the lies and misinformation spread by O’Reilly and Fox News.
More of Bill O’Reilly’s lies here.
Why are you so hell bent on distorting the All Knowing All Seeing All Loving (He Who’s City I’m Not Worthy To Walk In) Rush Limbaugh?
What he really said was “What (Obama’s) talking about is the absorbtion of as much of the private sector by the U.S. govt as possible…I hope he fails.”
He doesn’t hope O fails, but that this Marxist socialist trend fails.
I agree. I don’t hope O fails as president but that this policy of govt takeover and growth by him fails. In his pushing for more fed govt, take over of autos, banks, health care, brokage institutions, etc., I hope Obama fails.
Grim
Comment by grimgold — February 8, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Grim, if the government doesn’t take over the businesses you mention, we’re going to have taxpayer money paying to keep them in business without any control over what they do. That, based on their track record, seems an insane investment to me.
OTOH, if we don’t bail them out, the economy, both domestic and international, collapes completely and we have the Great Depression times ten. Do you want to live in that world?
BTW, I didn’t distort anything Rush said. In another post, you claimed he never said “I hope he fails.” I was just proving that he actually did say those words. He also said this to Sean Hannity:
“This is the conversation that took place on air between the two Titans of conservative broadcasting, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity:
“Hannity: ‘So do you want [Obama] to succeed?’
“Limbaugh: ‘I’m so glad you asked me this question … No! I want him to fail.’”
– Ed Pilkington, “I Hope He Fails,” The Guardian (UK), Feb. 2, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/02/barack-obama-right-wing-pundits
It’s good for Limbaugh and the GOP if Obama fails, so why wouldn’t he want him to fail? Rush has never been a man who put his country first before his career and the Republican Party.
BTW, I haven’t been posting replies to your other comments because my comments were blocked as spam. I guess that must have been fixed.
Comment by RS Janes — February 8, 2009 @ 6:56 pm
RS, thanks for the non-hateful response. You are right on to be worried about the economy.
So am I.
I wish, however, that our Congress would do the same. Their pork additions show their true colors as far as I’m concerned. We desperately need term limits.
It’s just fact that Hoover raised taxes (I think in 1930) and also at that time the Smoot-Hawley act was passed by Congress raising tariffs by 50%. This caused that recession to slide into the Great Depression.
This time there is no rising of taxes, though govt spending is going to go up, causing a deepening national debt and inflation, and the ‘buy American’ proposition (which would be equivalent to Smoot-Hawley) isn’t going to fly.
In spite of the fact it isn’t a quick fix, which is what O is looking for (understandably), I think we should turn the work of GW around and decrease the amount of govt by at least 40%, the amount he increased it.
I think we need to go to a non-inflating dollar.
I think we need to go from taxing people when the earn money to taxing them when they spend it.
We need uniformity, transparency, and the vigorous pulling of ALL past pork projects like extracting rotten teeth (such as the 25 million spent to look for the ivory-billed woodpecker in Florida, for example). The fed govt should get entirely out of things they’ve failed at, such as farmer influencing, welfare, and the building of Florida dikes to hold back Katrina water.
I could go on but then I’ll be anti-spammed.
BTW, I did this on word, then posted it so if it didn’t fly I’d not lose my writing. I suggest you do the same.
Grimmy
Comment by grimgold — February 9, 2009 @ 2:25 am
RS, read your Feb 7 comment in response to me.
Tell me something, do you have to try to come up with such funny stuff, or are you one of the lucky ones who’s writing simply flows out of the pen?
Grinny
Comment by grimgold — February 9, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
Grim, I’ll answer your third comment after I’ve done a little research.
As far as the ‘funny stuff,’ it just comes to me like gas or a belch. Sometimes I have to rewrite it a tad so that it makes sense, but it just flows out like a head in a toilet during a frat party.
Comment by RS Janes — February 10, 2009 @ 8:23 am
RS, please consider writing a real piece on some topic that you think will better the country if enacted.
I know it’s easier to sit back and critique the work of others than to create your own stuff, but you can certainly do it.
Tell me, what exactly should Congress should do precisely (besides recess) that would improve this country.
1000 words or more.
Comment by grimgold — February 10, 2009 @ 10:47 am
Grim, maybe I’ll do that after I finish the piece I’m working on. And I still haven’t forgotten about the post on socialist Norway, which I know you’ll love.
Comment by RS Janes — February 12, 2009 @ 7:45 pm