Republican Lies category archive

Leonard Pitts, Jr., thinks Fox News’s decision, not only to countenance, but to support Bill O’Reilly as more persons publicize his perfidy says a lot about Fox News. A snippet (emphasis added):

For the one falsehood, (NBC News’s Brian–ed.) Williams received a six-month suspension without pay. For a handful of apparent falsehoods, O’Reilly has received unstinting support from his bosses at Fox.

This rather neatly makes the point I sought to make a month ago. Namely, that Fox – the window-dressing presence of a few bona fide reporters notwithstanding – is not a real news-gathering organization but, rather, the propaganda arm of an extreme right wing that grows ever more cult-like and detached from reality as time goes by. Fox is a belief system, not a news network. Exhibit A is the fact that O’Reilly is not now fighting for his professional life.

To anticipate what his believers will say in his defense: Yes, he is a pundit and yes, pundits are entitled to their opinions. But that does not release them from the obligation to be factual.

Via Job’s Anger.

A. Republicans.

Werner Herzog’s Bear analyzes Republican attempts to ban factual history in Oklahoma and other places. A snippet (emphasis added):

Historical knowledge is the greatest bullshit detector of them all. Calls for the newest war don’t look so inspiring once you know America’s imperial past. The slayings of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner don’t look so random and accidental if you know the history of racist violence undertaken by the authorities against people of color. Scorched earth libertarianism looks mighty stupid if you know how that worked out the first time during the Gilded Age.

There is a very powerful segment of society that relies on the masses being ignorant of a broader, more historical perspective on the present.

Do read the rest.

The start of Bob Cesca’s headline pretty much sums it up:

Republicans in Oklahoma Seek to Replace History Classes with GOP Speeches . . . .

The why is simple. Republicanism is counter-factual, so Republicans fear encountering facts.

Details at the link.

Let Shaun Mullen explain.

Dick Polman explains that Brian Williams is a piker compared to Scott Walker.

Both of them, though, are amateurs compared to Fox News.

In the Bangor Daily News, Bloomberg’s Noah Smith exposes Rand Pauls ignorance of accounting. He cites three points on which Paul gets stuff exactly backwards. Follow the link for his explanation of each point.

Paul’s first error was in his understanding of leverage.

(snip)

His second error was his definition of bankruptcy.

(snip)

The senator’s third error came from his calculation of the size of the Fed’s liabilities.

Via Farnsworth.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., goes to the no-go zone.

Fox is, after all, the network of death panels, terrorist fist jabs, birtherism, anchor babies, victory mosques, wars on Christmas and Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. It’s not just that it is the chief global distributor of unfact and untruth but that it distributes unfact and untruth with a bluster, an arrogance, a gonad-grabbing swagger, that implicitly and intentionally dares you to believe fact and truth matter.

Many of us have gotten used to this. We don’t even bother to protest Fox being Fox. Might as well protest a sewer for stinking.

Follow the link. Read the rest.

Tony Norman. Just read it.

Now Playing: Attack of the Stupid, starring Will Wheaton.

It’s must-read four star production.

Via the Professional Left.

Foxy twits.

Jonathan Chait explains why the Republican Party wants to subvert mathematics.

The Congressional Budget Office is a 40-year-old institution that has acquired enormous clout within Washington by virtue of its reputation for ideological neutrality. It furnishes Congress and the public with budgetary estimates that, if necessarily imperfect (as all predictions must be), are arrived at fairly. It is also a perfect modern expression of an old Progressive Era–ideal: that policymakers should be informed by the work of impartial experts. That the conservative majority has set out to corrupt this institution as one of its first major acts is, therefore, perfectly fitting.

Follow the link to see how he parses the equation.