Shepard Smith has spent a good chunk of his time on Fox News today saying how today’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum vindicates the Department of Homeland Security’s report on the threat of right-wing extremists — that birthers and other such conspiracy theorists who vilify President Obama have to stop.
At one point, he focused his ire on a particular group of right-wing extremists — the Fox News viewers who write e-mails to the channel.
“I read a lot of e-mail around here,” said Smith. “And the e-mail to me has become more and more frightening. It’s not a new thing. it’s been happening over the past few months. It’s been happening, you know, to some degree, since the election process went along.”
He then proceeded to read an example of the e-mails, which he collectively described as being “out there in a scary place.”
Not only is shock jock Michael Savage filled with profound hatred for Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants, gay people, President Obama, Brave New Films, and really anyone else he can shit on at The Savage Nation, he’s also filled with Rockstar Energy Drink. According to Consumerist, Savage has strong familial ties to Rockstar Energy. His son Russell Weiner is the founder and CEO, and his wife is the director, treasurer, and secretary of both Rockstar and Savage Productions, which share the same address.
Because having your company’s product linked to a racist, homophobic hatemonger like Savage would cause many to boycott it outright, Rockstar’s lawyers are attempting to quash efforts to publicize this connection by threatening defamation suits. Already, they’ve managed to shut down a “Boycott Rockstar” Facebook account, prompting Facebook to censor the founder of this boycott, Charles Tsai. And AlterNet received a menacing letter from Rockstar’s lawyers for covering Tsai’s boycott campaign.
Rockstar’s lawyers also demanded a partial retraction from Gaywired.com for initially naming Savage as a co-founder. From Gaywired:
What was wrong with this statement? The legal communiqué certainly didn’t deny that Savage has branded gay men as “sodomites,” told radio show callers to “get AIDS and die,” referred to lesbian marriages as “child abuse,” and called a transgender murder victim a “psychopath” and a “freak,” nor that he recently landed on a short list of “hate promoters” who are banned from entering Britain.
No, the problem, according to Rockstar’s attorneys, is that “Mr. Savage is not a co-founder of Rockstar. Russell Weiner, Rockstar’s CEO and principal shareholder is the sole founder of Rockstar and Mr. Savage has never been an officer, director, employee or shareholder of Rockstar.”
I’m always eager to be informed about the politics behind the products I’m buying, as well as the companies I’m buying from. I say who cares if Savage is not a co-founder of Rockstar? The family ties ought to be deep enough to make everyone rethink buying this energy beverage. And if you’re wondering if Weiner shares his father’s unique brand of bigotry, both Savage and Weiner cofounded the Paul Revere Society to support right-wing causes and protest illegal immigration, according to the Oakland Tribune. So don’t buy Rockstar Energy, and don’t be afraid by the company’s lawyers when you spread the word.
I seem to recall that Bill O’Reilly got incensed over “hate speech” on liberal blogs. Does he ever read Fox Nation where the latest race baiting thread has a photo of Michelle Obama next to Carla Bruni, the wife of the French President. The Fox Nation readers are invited to “caption” it.
I seem to recall that Bill O’Reilly got incensed about the disrespectful treatment of Sarah Palin in an Emimem video. Does he ever read Fox Nation where racist (and other stupid and hateful) comments about our First Lady are just part of the terrain of a “nation” where ignorance, hatred, and racism are the “American Dream.” Stay classy, Fox Nation!
To see Fox’s history of attacking the Obamas, visit Fox Attacks.
Sean Hannity once again proves that he’s the guy who put the ‘a’ in moron, this time by pushing the bizarre myth that earlier this week President Obama called the U.S. “a Muslim nation.”
As you can see in the video, President Obama’s actual remarks bear no resemblance whatsoever to Hannity’s false claim.
There was a time when Hannity telling a lie this big was an outrage. Now, however, it’s just sign #4,309 of the complete and utter collapse of the conservative movement as a coherent political force.
Alex Koppelman, at Salon.com, caught former Pennsylvania Senator and Fox News contributor Rick Santorum playing love doctor on On The Record Monday night (6/1/09). Santorum joined the GOP/FOX News attacks on Obama for going on a date with his wife to NYC. But Santorum took it to comical new levels when he offered his condescending thoughts about how Obama, as a role model to the under-married African American community, ought to take his wife to the corner bar instead.
It is tremendously amusing to watch the right-wing talking heads try to bring down Obama Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor by accusing her of being unintelligent, inexperienced, racist, emotional, and of having a political agenda.
Obviously, calling a person who graduated at the top of her class at Princeton, went on to Yale and later edited the Yale law review “stupid” is…well, stupid.
Attacking a Hispanic person for being racist when, in fact, Hispanics can be of any race, well, that just smacks of…inexperience with Hispanics.
To accuse someone of being racist with no evidence, basing the argument wholly on one’s own right-wing perceptions of her non-race “race” (it is an amorphous invented ethnicity, darling) is…well, racist.
As NYU School of Law Professor Kenji Yoshino noted when he declared his support for Sonia Sotomayor in The Nation’s forum “Following Souter,” President Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice “is a judge’s judge” who “would be a great successor to a great justice.” That has not stopped the conservative pundits–never the best judges of character or intelligence (eg: Bush, George W.)–from attacking the eminently qualified Sotomayor. Media Matters has assembled a collection of the right’s most unhinged, delusional reactions to her nomination.
Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh called Judge Sonia Sotomayor, just nominated by President Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court, “a reverse racist,” appointed by “the greatest living example of a reverse racist.”
In synch with Limbaugh, albeit more delicately, Live Desk repeatedly suggested Sotomayor and Obama were racists because a) Sotomayor has said that gender and national origin play a role in judging; and b) Obama said that her “personal story” matters. But later, they took it a step further by distorting Sotomayor’s comments about the role of ethnicity and gender in judging and then legitimizing Limbaugh’s charge by playing the clip of his accusations and asking their guest for a reaction. Updated: Sotomayor’s comments were made while discussing the importance of diversity in race and sex discrimination cases.
Ok he didn’t actually say that. But he ain’t too far off:
Transcript:
LIMBAUGH: As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But in the Oval Office of the White House none of this is a problem. This is the objective. The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation’s wealth and return to it to the nation’s quote, “rightful owners.” Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.
According to ThinkProgress, Racist Rush was endorsing a Republican party leader, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions’ (R-TX) and his claim that President Obama is intentionally trying to “‘diminish employment and diminish stock prices‘ as part of a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy to consolidate power.” Right…
Glenn Beck threw a sanctimonious hissy fit yesterday when a representative from ACORN had the nerve to suggest he is afraid of black people. Of course, Beck and Fox can demonize ACORNandminorities all day long, but my, how sensitive Beck’s widdle feewings get when the tables are turned. In the clip, Beck angrily brags to his audience (which he always self-importantly addresses as “America”) that he threw out guest Scott Levenson of ACORN for saying, during the commercial break, that Beck is afraid of black people.
Interestingly, Beck seems to have understood that as an accusation that he hates black people. But if it was really as ridiculous an accusation as Beck claimed, wouldn’t he have just dismissed it without getting upset? And if it’s so important that Beck wanted to address it, why not have the guy back and prove him wrong to “America?” Meanwhile, Beck’s record of hostilities to ACORN and people of color is well documented. No amount of self-righteous posturing is going to erase it.
Not only is shock jock Michael Savage 
