Stranger than fiction

Sun’s Nemesis Pelted Earth with Comets, Study Suggests

Nicknamed Nemesis or The Death Star, this undetected object could be a red or brown dwarf star, or an even darker presence several times the mass of Jupiter… Our solar system is surrounded by a vast collection of icy bodies called the Oort Cloud. If our Sun were part of a binary system in which two gravitationally-bound stars orbit a common center of mass, this interaction could disturb the Oort Cloud on a periodic basis, sending comets whizzing towards us.

Beck the isolationist: “We are going to be Switzerland. That is what our founders wanted us to be”

From the March 12 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program:

20 Signs That The United States Is Rapidly Becoming A Totalitarian Big Brother Police State

The End Of The World | In the name of “security” all kinds of bizarre proposals have been implemented on the local, state and national levels.

Black and White Homegrown al-Qaeda

Kurt Nimmo | In addition to creating the specter of homegrown terrorism, the corporate media has launched a campaign to demonize the internet as a medium that facilitates terrorism.

Beck: Pearl Harbor bombed “because Woodrow Wilson told England, ‘You need to align yourself with us and not Japan’ “

From the March 12 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program:

Media Matters staff: Fox Nation: “Should Rep. Slaughter Be Expelled From Congress?”

From the Fox Nation, accessed on
March 12:

Fox Nation includes the following of Slaughter:

Conservative radio talk show host
Mark Levin called for the expulsion of Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., after she
reportedly explored the option of passing Obamacare whereby the House wouldn’t
have to directly vote on the actual Senate health care bill. “An utter violation
of the United States Constitution,” Levin
proclaimed.

Previously:

Doocy baselessly claims
Slaughter is angling to pass health care reform without a
vote

Limbaugh pushes baseless claim
that Dems will pass health care reform without
voting

$650 Million Payout Proves Government Conspired To Lie About 9/11

The $650 million dollar payout in the 9/11 toxic dust settlement serves as a stark reminder amidst an attempted establishment purge of any questions surrounding what happened on September 11, that the government did indeed conspire to lie about 9/11 in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

Jamison Foser: Is Newsbusters trying to undermine the conservative media critique?

Newsbusters’ Tom Blumer demonstrates once again the idiocy upon which the Right’s media criticism is based.

Blumer is upset that an Associated Press article about a former Detroit city councilwoman’s bribery sentencing didn’t mention in the headline that the councilwoman is married to Democratic Congressman John Conyers.  Blumer thinks this reflects a pro-Democrat double-standard because a separate AP article about a former aide to Republican Congressman Chris Shays pleading guilty did mention Shays in the headline.

Now, on its face, Blumer’s complaint probably seems like small potatoes — but that can be forgiven.  Sometimes small transgressions can be representative of greater trends.  No, the problem with Blumer’s complaint isn’t that it doesn’t identify a problem of sufficient magnitude.  The problem with Blumer’s complaint is that it’s really, really stupid.

See, Monica Conyers is a public figure in her own right, and she was sentenced for crimes she committed as a Detroit city councilwoman — crimes that had nothing to do with her husband.  That’s why the AP’s headline identified her as “Ex-Detroit councilwoman”: because she was convicted of taking bribes in her capacity as a councilwoman.  That isn’t terribly complicated, is it?

Meanwhile, the former Shays aide is … just a former Shays aide.  He isn’t a public official in his own right; his significance stems directly from his relationship to Shays.  And — now, pay attention, this part is important — he is pleading guilty to crimes he committed in his capacity as Shays’ campaign manager, including embezzling funds from the campaign.  I assume it is quite obvious to everyone other than Tom Blumer why Shays’ name would appear in the headline.

Basically, Blumer’s complaint boils down to this: The Associated Press handled different situations differently.  Bias!

Eric Boehlert: Three cheers for Howell Raines (but he didn’t go far enough)

Howell Raines’ forthcoming WashPost column about Fox News represents some necessary truth telling: 

Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on
Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a
propaganda campaign against the Obama administration — a campaign
without precedent in our modern political history? 

Watching the elite Beltway press actually rally around Fox News last year after the White House called it out as an illegitimate outlet for real news was one of the saddest journalism spectacles in recent memory. Recall that during the Bush years, the GOP White House often cooked up allegations and lashed out at prominent (i.e. genuine) news organizations, such as NBC and the New York Times, and I don’t recall anybody rallying around them.

But when a Democratic administration called out Fox News for what it really is, a GOP propaganda tool (i.e. the Opposition Party), the same D.C. press corps played defense for Murdoch’s dishonest empire and actually demanded Dems back off.

Good grief. 

As Raines notes in his column, and as Media Matters has been documenting for a very long time, today’s Obama-era Fox News has  shredded any semblance of professional, modern day American journalism. It long ago cut the chord with that tradition. 

And yet last fall, the tsk-tsking chattering class agreed that it was the White House that was way out of line when it fact-checked Fox News.  

Raines asks all the right questions, and his essay is dead-on in every way, except one. When it comes to answering the essay’s central question (why won’t journalists label Fox News for what it really is), I think Raines chickens out. His conclusion is that in this age of mass news media layoffs, journalists don’t tell the truth about Fox News because they might have to work for Murdoch one day [emphasis added]: 

He and his video ferrets have
intimidated center-right and
center-left journalists into suppressing conclusions — whether on
health-care
reform or other issues — they once would have stated as demonstrably
proven by
their reporting. I try not to believe that this kid-gloves handling
amounts to
self-censorship, but it’s hard to ignore the evidence. News Corp., with
64,000
employees worldwide, receives the tender treatment accorded a future
employer.

I don’t believe that for a second. Well, that
might account for a fraction of the playing dumb that routinely goes on
regarding Fox News.

But I think the huge majority of it is explained
quite simply: fear or the ‘liberal media bias’ charge. Conservatives have been
pounding the press for more than four decades about their alleged bias and the
Beltway press corps has developed rabbit ears when it comes to the allegation.
And frankly, there’s plenty of evidence that jouranlists are terrified of the
charge and nervous about what can happen to their careers if that tag
sticks. 

So what’s an easy way to prove you’re not
liberal? (Aside from becoming lapdogs during the Bush years.) You
pretend Fox News is legit. You pretend that sure, Ailes has some opinion guys
on at night, but there’s a clear dividing line between the news and opinion. You
pretend that Fox News is just the mirror opposite of MSNBC. 

Basically, you sign off on a charade that, as
Raines points out, any newsroom pro can see is a complete joke.  

The whole thing was embarrassing to watch, and
the cone of silence that Raines highlights continues to be a stain on the
industry. I’m glad Raines, the former Times editors, is coming forward. It would be even better if more high-profile,
working members of today’s press corps did the same. 

Beck: “I thought this year would be less divisive … and it’s more divisive”

From the March 12 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program: