Earlier today, I posted about Fox News tellin’ whoppers, and how Canada don’t allow that kind o’ (stuff). Here’s the link to that story.
Well, a sharp-eyed and dedicated reader sent me an email, asking if I’d seen the YouTube entitled “Fox Lies – Cenk Busts Fox News On MSNBC”. I hadn’t seen it, so: I did. And now you can too – let’s look!
Oh, and about those “palm trees” Cenk referenced in that YouTube? Some of the fine folk in Madison that are protesting against GOPer Governor Scott Walker’s attempt (aided and abetted by Wisconsin’s GOPer Legislators) to slash public employee’s wages, kill their unions, and sell off state assets to the lowest bidder and/or closest political cronies noticed there weren’t “palm trees” in Madison before, so – there are now!
(photo credit to @matt_is_a_nerd)
(cross posted atMnProgressiveProject.com; comments welcome there)
On February 25th, Toronto’s The Globe And Mail newspaper reported:
Canada’s broadcasting regulator has abandoned its attempt to change a regulation that prohibits the dissemination of false or misleading news.
In a nutshell, it’s illegal in Canada to go on the air tell lies. Period. End of story.
And I should point out, and will demonstrate below, that decision to continue the prohibition was specifically aimed at keeping Faux Noise OUT of Canada.
That said, here in the good ol’ USofA? No such prohibition, and just two days after Canada reaffirmed that they will not tolerate BS (that’s “B” as in “bull” and “S” as in “(stuff)”), Faux Noise demonstrated that while Canada has a high regard for facts and truth, Fox News does not.
Faux Noise “Fox News” has a Repeater “Reporter” on the scene in Madison, flinging bull(stuff) “filing reports” about the ongoing demonstrations against GOPer Governor Scott Walker’s attempt (aided and abetted by Wisconsin’s GOPER Legislators) to slash public employee’s wages, kill their unions, and sell off state assets to the lowest bidder and/or closest political cronies.
Posted above is a screen shot of two tweets by said Faux Noise’s Sock Puppet “Man” On The Scene, @MikeTobinFox.
There’s just one problem with what Sock Puppet “Man” On The Scene, @MikeTobinFox tweeted:
It’s not true.
In fact, it’s complete BS.
As Media Matters reports:
In an interview with Media Matters later Monday, Tobin sought to downplay the incident, which he continued to describe as a “punch.”
“It was a punch. A punch is a punch, but it was just a punch in my arm. I grew up with three older brothers, it’s not my first time being punched. I don’t want to overdramatize it for the sake of TV or anything like that.”
Then came the video.
On Tuesday morning, what appears to be footage of the alleged incident recorded by someone in the crowd was posted at LiveLeak.com.
Mediaite, which had trumpeted Tobin’s initial allegations, reported that the new video “certainly seems to counter the initial claim that Tobin had been hit.”
And Raw Story reported that “someone merely touched [Tobin's] shoulder, as evidenced in the video. … The incident he claimed was a ‘punch’ could instead be described as a pat, at most.”
After the video emerged, Media Matters once again contacted Tobin for comment. This time, he didn’t respond.
Instead, a Fox spokesperson called Media Matters and said that Tobin would have no further comment on the matter. (more, here)
Well, OF COURSE Tobin “would have no further comment” – he’d just been caught tellin’ a whopper. In other words, Tobin’s tweets – posted above – are lies.
Now, back to Canada, and why they don’t let Faux Noise broadcast their propaganda to Canadians. First, we’ll go to a public comment on the matter, by Professor Stephen Phillips from the Dept. of Political Science, Langara College in Vancouver:
Date reçu / Date Arrived: 2011-02-09
Numéro de processus public / Public Process Number: 2011-14
Numéro d’intervention / Intervention Number: 3166
Cas / Case: 146611Demande à comparaître à l’audience publique / Request to appear at the public hearing: Non/No
Commentaire / Comment:
I oppose the proposed amendments to regulations governing the broadcasting of false or misleading news. The proposed qualification (viz, false or misleading news “which is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public”) would have the effect of narrowing significantly the scope of the current restriction. I fail to see the rationale for making it easier for broadcasters to mislead the general public. News organizations have a duty to use the public airwaves in a responsible manner. The should not have carte blanche to deceive the public.Like any right, free speech is not absolute. It must be balanced against other rights and vital interests. The parliamentary committee that recommended this review is evidently of the opinion that the current regulations may run afoul of Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, largely based on past jurisprudence (the Zundel case in particular). Be that as it may, it would not be appropriate in my view to amend the current regulations merely because they “may” be found one day by the courts to violate the Charter. It is difficult at best to anticipate how the courts may rule in Charter cases. That is especially so given that the facts and circumstances of the Zundel case are materially different from those having to do with the regulation of Canada’s public airwaves. Notwithstanding their ruling in Zundel, the courts may well conclude that the public interest in accurate, reliable news coverage by licenced broadcasters trumps the rights of those who would flood the airwaves with false information.
In any case, were the courts to strike down the current regulations, it would be open to Parliament to sustain them by using the notwithstanding clause. Such a move would be an entirely legitimate exercise of Parliament’s constitutional authority. It would therefore be presumptious to loosen regulations that the courts might uphold or that parliamentarians may choose to reaffirm.
In conclusion, there is no compelling need to weaken the current restrictions on the broadcasting of false or misleading news. On the contrary, it would have undesirable consequences for Canadian democracy. The impunity with which disreputable news organizations like Fox News spread lies and invective in the United States should alert us to the dangers of removing the regulatory safeguards now in place in Canada.
Copie envoyée à la réquérante / Copy sent to applicant: Non/No
Let’s take a look again, at the professor’s last sentence:
The impunity with which disreputable news organizations like Fox News spread lies and invective in the United States should alert us to the dangers of removing the regulatory safeguards now in place in Canada. (emphasis added)
And there’s a whole bunch of comments, from concerned Canadian Citizens, saying essentially the same thing: “We do NOT want Faux Noise’s BS here in Canada.”
Now to be fair, there IS something Sock Puppet “Man” On The Scene, @MikeTobinFox reported that IS true; he said he was surrounded by protesters chanting “Fox Lies” and holding signs saying the same thing: “Fox Lies.”
But the protesters were only chanting “Fox Lies” and holding signs saying “Fox Lies” for the old-fashioned reason: it’s true.
Sock Puppet “Man” On The Scene, @MikeTobinFox reporting on-air, on Faux Noise, that he was “punched” is NOT true.
Faux Noise: We distort; You Abide.
In Canada, that’s illegal. Here in America, it’s not. (Thank you, Uncle Ronnie – NOT.)
Which, of course, helps explain the 2010 election results…
It’s like I always say: “Those that forget the lessons of history (and, watch Faux Noise) tend to vote GOP”
(cross posted at MnProgressiveProject.com; comments welcome there)
I’ve written about the GOP’s Small Tent Party; I’ve often said that Republicans are morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest, and institutionally corrupt. And at the bottom of my comments, here on MPP, it always says “Those that forget the lessons of history tend to vote GOP.”
I bring this up today, because of a column the other day on Alternet.org:
10 Historical ‘Facts’ Only a Right-Winger Could Believe
Facts, including historical ones, are ‘biased’ against the right’s worldview.
By Roy Edroso February 11, 2011
Here’s a couple off the list:
10. The Robber Barons weren’t robbers — they were capitalist heroes.
7. The Founding Fathers really tried to end slavery.
4. Margaret Sanger was all about the eugenics.
1. FDR: History’s greatest monster.
And here’s how the author concludes his column:
Clearly the War on FDR is a proxy struggle with the (substantially less aggressive) current president — they seek to make activist government look foolish, in hopes of preventing it from being tried again. But then, in a way all their other historical revisions are also directed at their current enemies. They go through the ghost of Margaret Sanger to stymie feminists; through the shades of Galileo and Darwin to warn off scientists; through the late MLK to get at voters whose enthusiasm for a black president thwarts their own electoral ambitions, etc. For them, history, like everything else, is just politics by other means.
This column is all about “dividing and conquering” – the only way the GOP – The Small Tent Party – can achieve electoral victory.
Tell an untruth – a “lie” if you prefer – and splinter off a segment of the electorate (eithe through gaining their vote, or disgusting them to the point they stay home on election day) is how the GOP operates.
“I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends… that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.” ~ Adlai E. Stevenson
True then, true now, and it’ll be true tomorrow too – just as “Republicans are morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest, and institutionally corrupt” is true.
The only way to stop the GOP’s Small Tent “divide and conquer” strategy is to band and stand together with people you simply will not always agree with, but agree with most of the time.
The “DFL” here in Minnesota is, by definition, a coalition. “Democrats, Farmers, and Labor.” By definition, the diverse members of this coalition have not/ do not/ will not always agree. And that’s ok. Just remember that while you’re arguing an issue with someone that generally agrees with you on other issues, they generally agree with you on other issues. Agree to disagree on that issue when the day is done, because being part of this coalition makes strength through numbers; strength to fight The Small Tent Party’s lies, deceit, revisionistic history – the GOP’s “divide and conquer strategy.”
(cross posted at MnProgressiveProject.com; comments welcome there).
In 2003, Al Franken wrote LIES And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.
In my copy, in the chapter titled “Who Created the Tone?” Al wrote:
“(T)urning the public arena into a wasteland of personal destruction takes an entire army of like-minded ideologues hell-bent on shredding the already tattered standards of decency that once permitted a reasonable discourse on matters of import.
The left, sadly, has no such army. Our attack dogs are a scrawny, underfed pack of mutts that spend half the time chasing their own tails and sniffing each other’s butt. The right, by contrast, appears to have a well-oiled puppy mill for pit bulls, bred to kill and trained to go for the jugular. Or the balls.” (from LIES And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them)
Al wrote that in 2003. Who can tell me what – if anything – has changed in the last 7 years?
(cross posted from Mn Progressive Project; comments welcome there)
