Paranoia The Destroyer

As if we needed further proof that a key requirement to being a prominent conservative is acute paranoia, Roger Ailes gives us a shining example:

In 2008, Roger Ailes purchased the Putnam County News and Recorder in rustic Putnam County, New York to start feathering his retirement nest. The idea was that he and Elizabeth would retire to their 9,000-square-foot redoubt in nearby Garrison, N.Y., and Roger would live out his days as the gentleman publisher of a sleepy small-town newspaper. (He bought another paper, the Putnam County Courier, a year later.)

But it was not to be. Ailes—who installed Elizabeth as the day-to-day manager of the papers while he finishes his tenure at Fox News Channel—has run the papers with the singularly paranoid and abusive management style he brings to all his projects, resulting in the defection of his hand-picked editor and two top reporters earlier this month after Ailes told them he'd had them followed, and their private conversations surveilled, to catch them saying mean things about him. The spying followed years of intense weirdness between the editor and the Aileses, who once asked him to personally stop a break-in at their home and who implied that, after Roger's death, he'd be expected to replace him in their marriage.

Go read the whole piece because, believe it or not, it gets weirder.

Though Ailes’ alleged surveillance is bizarre, it’s worth noting that NewsCorp is in trouble in the U.K. over a phone hacking scandal. Not quite the same as the Ailes story -- these were NewsCorp’s News Of The World editors hacking the voicemail of celebrities so they could gather tabloid dirt. Ailes appears to have been indulging in a private sociopathy. But still, what is with the conservative jones for playing spy?

Fox News Lies

[UPDATE]:

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!!!

Shocking.

Palm trees in Madison, Wisconsin?? Green leaves on trees in March?

And they wondered why people shouted “Fox News Lies!” at them. Really, Mike Tobin? Really?

Yes, this would be the very same Mike Tobin whose specious claims of being “punched” by a union thug were neatly debunked with this video. It’s the ol’ “shoulder tap of death.” Ow ow ow!

We know Fox News are not honest brokers, they lie and doctor video footage and switch poll numbers to make them say what they want them to and take quotes out of context and repeat GOP press releases verbatim and commit all manner of sins against journalism because they are not journalists, they are partisans with a political agenda. Yet they continue to be treated as journalists, by the White House Correspondents Assn. and President Obama himself. Enough, already. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?

This will get written off as just another minor error committed by an overzealous staffer. Feh. Meanwhile, Judith Regan announces that Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes told her to lie about her affair with Bernie Kerik to protect Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions -- a claim she says she can back up with an audio recording. Oh, my.

Yes, this rotten carcass of a news organization stinks from the head down. Not a shocker, of course. But one wonders how much longer this propaganda machine can keep up the charade or, more importantly, how much longer everyone else in the media will keep up the pretense, as well. I mean really: don't you folks take pride in your work? In your industry? It's almost like the rest of the media universe is purposely pretending that Fox is a legitimate media outlet, but why?

Every broadcast minute Fox shits on the Fourth Estate. They delegitimize an entire industry. They tell the world, and American viewers in particular, that the news media is an industry akin to used car salesmen and bail bondsmen. I don't for the life of me understand why people like Brian Williams and Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric and Christiane Amanpour and the rest don't kick folks like Mike Tobin out of the club. Don't they understand that claiming to be "punched" when you were tapped on the shoulder and cutting in video footage of some other event at some other time and place to give the erroneous perception that union thugs are running amok in Madison Wisconsin is a serious breach of journalistic ethics? And when Fox News does it, that tarnishes everyone? Don't y'all see that?

I guess not.

I really don't get it.

[UPDATE]:

This nails it:

If the events in Wisconsin prove one thing, it is that the mainstream media has become journalistically irrelevant when it comes to national issues and coverage. Broadcast media is incapable of explaining anything outside a macropatriotic framework and has proven allergic to anything that puts off even the slightest whiff of the class warfare that scares away big-market advertorial. Meanwhile, the other side is cable news' partisan echo chamber of regurgitated self-assurance, where no blow is too low and no fact needs sourcing before being leveraged to make a prearranged point. Cable news reporting on Wisconsin is like going to a whorehouse and then bragging to your buddies about this girl you seduced.

Our corporate media is now irrelevant. And it’s not the fault of foul-mouthed bloggers.

Time To Play Glenn Beck Off?

I don’t think this from the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol is a random piece of conservative opinion:

But hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Bill Kristol is one of those intellectually dishonest neocons of whom I’ve said, repeatedly, that he’s been wrong about everything since forever. I happen to think if Bill Kristol had an original thought it would die of loneliness, by which I mean, he doesn’t come up with these ideas by himself. I think some serious seeds are being planted within the Republican Party to shove Beck out the door.

Why? Well, I have long suspected Glenn Beck would become a liability for conservatives, sooner rather than later. He was a very useful tool in rallying the partisan base for the midterms, but a presidential election requires an appeal to more mainstream voters. That requires a less divisive approach and in that regard, Beck is a liability.

Last week I saw this item about Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who has a 7% stake in NewsCorp. Al-Waleed bin Talal is the billionaire Saudi financier who is nephew to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I guess he’s been able to overlook all of the Muslim-bashing Beck and other FOX News folks have been engaged in all these years. But now it appears he’s getting a little nervous about his investment. In the U.K. a Murdoch-owned British tabloid is embroiled in a major phone-hacking scandal which took down the Prime Minister’s director of communications and threatens a major deal to acquire BSkyB; Stateside, Beck’s increasingly unhinged rantings offend American rabbis and tarnish the NewsCorp brand:

Those familiar with bin Talal, who has given tens of millions of dollars to charities seeking to bridge gaps between western and Islamic communities, say he will have been dismayed by any whiff of controversy threatening his business interests.

"He is an incredibly intelligent man and deeply honourable; you can only speculate about what he must be thinking now," said an acquaintance.

Coming at a time when News Corp wants regulatory approval to take over British satellite broadcaster BSkyB, both the phone-hacking scandal and the row with the rabbis are damaging not only to the company's reputation but its bottom line.

[...]

Worryingly for Murdoch, who is used to his investors taking a back seat, the prince is a far from passive backer. As a sizable investor in bombed-out banking giant Citigroup, bin Talal has been vocal in calling for its management to improve the firm's fortunes, warning its chief executive last year that the "honeymoon was over".

I have to think that Beck is far too big a liability for both Republicans’ political aspirations and Murdoch’s business aspirations to hang around much longer. It will be interesting to see if I’m right.

I also find it curious that the U.S. media has done so little coverage of Rupert Murdoch’s UK woes, considering what a navel-gazing bunch our American media is. Anderson Cooper gets bonked on the head and it’s headline news from coast to coast. And you know darn well if MSNBC were in this kind of trouble, FOX would be all over it.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Beck’s fortunes took a sudden turn south. And when that happens, I’m sure liberals will get the blame -- some cockamamie story will be concocted to allow conservatives to continue to demonize the left and keep the anger and rancor alive.

(h/t DougJ at Balloon Juice.)

Holiday Hilarity, TDS-Style

The Daily Show traces the history of the War On Christmas as only they can, starring Roger Ailes as The Grinch. Hilarious!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas
www.thedailyshow.com
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Jet Packs, Bitches!

Ooops:

'Fox and Friends' falls for ruse alleging purchase of $1 billion of jetpacks for LAPD, Fire Department

October 5, 2010 |  5:10 pm

Anchors at the Fox News national morning news show "Fox and Friends" reported Tuesday that the city of Los Angeles had ordered 10,000 jetpacks for its police and fire departments. The price tag: a whopping $100,000 per unit.

For those doing the math at home, the cash-strapped city of Los Angeles, which is regularly sending its police detectives home because it can't pay all their overtime, allegedly shelled out a billion dollars on space-age transportation that it has never used in an emergency situation, much less tested.

"We certainly haven't bought any jetpacks," said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. "We haven't bought [squad] cars for two years."

As Gawker.com was the first to note, the "Fox and Friends" report appeared to contain material taken right out of a story from the Weekly World News tabloid, which bills itself as "The World's Only Reliable New Source."

Hilarious! Last week we learned of James O’Keefe’s failed attempt to punk CNN, meanwhile it appears Fox News snapped up this bogus tabloid story. What next: Bat Boy for president?

CNN wasted no time poking fun at its rival:



A favorite meme among liberal bloggers is that we were all promised jet packs back in the day of bold futuristic fantasizing. Thus the schadenfreude is especially delicious this morning.

And When They Say “Friends” They Really Mean It

Want a national TV interview where you’re guaranteed of being presented like the greatest thing since sliced bread? Fox & Friends is the place for you--as long as your agent is co-host Gretchen Carlson’s husband:

What was left unsaid was that Carlson’s husband is Jeter’s agent, Casey Close. This interview was such a transparent puff piece lauding Jeter’s current professional status that he should have paid a fee for it to be broadcast. But in the world of Fox News, conflict of interest is business as usual. A reputable news organization would not permit such a transgression, and would punish any employee who engaged in it. But Fox is already knee deep in ethical conflicts via their association with the Republican Party. Remember, they are the network that broadcast GOP talking points straight from the party’s own memo - typos and all.

And we wonder how the media elevated Tiger Woods to the status of God.

Fox Is Still Comedy Gold

[UPDATE]:

For those who asked, here is the video clip:



How absolutely precious that Fox News management would suddenly lay down the hammer about the constant lies “inadvertent errors” that have plagued the network (or, in Fox parlance, “quality control”). And they’re totally serious! They really really really mean it, you guyz!

Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the "mistake chain," and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews.

Oh noes, not the dreaded performance review. That must be the “official record” my mom always warned me about when report card day rolled around.

Anyway, now that management has promised to go all tough love on their hapless employees, I wonder what punishment may befall the individual responsible for this fuck-up?

Dear Lamar: Thank You For Playing!

ThinkProgress pokes some fun at Sean Hannity, Lamar Alexander and the whole “enemies list” meme. Watch it:



ThinkProgress concludes, noting:

The irony is rich, of course. In attempting to debunk Anita Dunn’s argument about Fox News, Sean Hannity has instead validated it — proving just how effective Fox News can serve as the “communications arm of the Republican Party.”

Thanks for playing along!

Lamar Alexander Listing To The Right

[UPDATE]: Pith has video of Lamar's floor rant.

--------------------------------

What is it with Tennessee Senators making bizarro comparisons? Yesterday Sen. Corker compared the American Medical Assn. to a prostitute.

Today Sen. Alexander compares President Obama to Richard Nixon:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Republican invoked the memory of the scandal-marred Nixon administration on Wednesday to urge U.S. President Barack Obama to "back up" and not "start an enemies list."

Senator Lamar Alexander told Reuters he has begun to see the Obama White House adopting an attitude similar to that of the Richard Nixon White House four decades ago, that "everybody is against us and we are going to get them."

Gee, you don’t say. Excuse me, but you kept your yap shut when the Bush Administration created its own de facto enemies list by politicizing the Dept. of Justice, outting a CIA agent because her husband called bullshit on pre-war lies about Saddam Hussein, and even engaged in its own long-running feud with the New York Times. Don’t recall you clutching your pearls about an “us vs. them” attitude back then, Senator.

Of course, he’s just reciting a Karl Rove talking point from three days ago. Which makes so much sense. The “enemies list” is one of those silly political mudballs one side throws at the other when they’ve got nothing better handy. It conjures up negative historical connotations (Nixon! Hoover! McCarthy! Bad!), negative social connotations (they must be paranoid! And a narcissist!) and emotional fears (A list! That means conspiracy!). It's also a great distraction from more pressing business--in this case like, oh, how the Republican Party is bleeding voters at the seams.

During the last presidential campaign the Clintons supposedly had one. So did, incidentally, the Obama campaign. Everyone from Michael Moore to Markos Moulitsas supposedly made George W. Bush’s list. Bill O’Reilly said his was real, and he threatened to post it on the internet.

There’s more:

Alexander made the comments at the Reuters Washington Summit, a series of interviews with key Washington figures, in advance of a speech that he plans to give later in the day on the same topic on the Senate floor.

Seriously? You’re going to devote a floor speech to a point Karl Rove made on Fox News Sunday?

All in defense of Fox News?

You know, not too long ago when the Republican base was frothy-mouthed about birth certificates and death panels and tea party “patriots” hung Democratic Congressmen in effigy, a few of us went to Sen. Alexander’s office in Nashville and asked why he was remaining silent. As a member of the Republican leadership, an elder statesman of the Republican Party, we viewed him as someone with the gravitas needed to influence his colleagues and urge everyone to dial back the rhetoric.

But now we know why he kept silent. He has no interest in being the measured voice of reason. That’s not how he rolls these days. He’s cast his lot with the wackadoodle wing of the Republican Party, proving his conservative bonafides by spreading nonsense about an “enemies list” right alongside Karl Rove.

Nice work, Senator.

Shameless Shilling For The F-22

This is depressing, yet entirely predictable. On Monday I wrote we needed to watch for those retired military “analysts” boosting the F-22 without disclosing their financial ties to military contractors like Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman.

As if on cue, Fox News brings us this:

Yesterday, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney appeared on Fox News to discuss the Somali pirates situation, and managed to use it as an opportunity to shill for the F-22:

McINERNEY: I’d put F-22s and combat air patrol out there, two of them, with tankers. … The reason I’d put the F-22s is because they can go 1.6 to mach 2, and they have a very quick reaction time and a 20 millimeter canon.

“It doesn’t take an Air Force general to see how bizarre McInerney’s military reasoning is,” Gawker’s Ryan Tate writes, noting that the F-22 — an exceedingly expensive fighter jet designed for air combat — could do nothing to solve the current problem.

Indeed, McInerny spread good ol' fashioned propaganda and misinformation:

He neglected to mention virtually every U.S. fighter made in the last 30 years carries such a cannon (usually the six-barrel M-61 Vulcan), including the F/A-18 Hornet already in use by the U.S. Navy. He also fails to mention that, no matter how fast the F-22 might be, it can't be based off an aircraft carrier. So its reaction time could never be as good (from a land base on, say, the Arabian Peninsula) as a Hornet or other existing Navy jet floating in the waters nearest the pirates.

As I noted yesterday, we were attacked on Sept. 11 by the lowest of low-tech: men armed with box-cutters, slipping through lax airport security. It seems the world of warfare has changed and big, expensive weapons systems can’t combat the low-tech terrorism we’re seeing on the high seas or on the streets of Baghdad. I'm not saying we don't need any big fancy weapons systems, I'm just thinking we don't need any more.

And here’s Fox News putting an “analyst” with ties to a defense contractor on the air so he can pluck a piece of news from the headlines and fashion it into a talking point to save the F-22.

Utterly predictable.

How utterly reprehensible. He should have his “military analyst” pass revoked.

Fox News Caught Serving GOP Propaganda

Via MediaMatters, Fox News is caught red-handed for being the GOP shills we always knew them to be:

Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research -- typo and all

Summary: In purporting to "take a look back" at how the economic recovery plan "grew, and grew, and grew," Fox News' Jon Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods -- all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release.

Come on, guys. Can’t you even pretend to follow that “fair and balanced” shit you’re always crowing about?

Constitutional Crisis!

[UPDATE]:

And no, it doesn't appear to be a joke. Wallace went so far as to opine that it will go to the courts.

Sorry, Roger.
--------------------
Just saw this on Twitter:

chris wallace: i'm not sure obama is actually the president, based on the oath being said wrong.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha .....

Steeped in denial, Chris Wallace and Fox News reach further into unreality. They just can’t help themselves!

Time to put away the childish things, fellas.

More Crafton Bogus Language Hysteria, Oregon Division

Once again, Eric Crafton picks on a favorite punching bag of the wingnut right: “liberal” Oregon. And once again, his allegations, culled from Fox News, are just ... well, wrong.

The homepage of Crafton’s English Only website prominently displays this Fox News clip about an Oregon state rule requiring firefighters for the Dept. of Foresty be bi-lingual. Crew bosses are even being “laid off or demoted” because of the rule, warned the Fox News anchor.

Oregon’s ABC affiliate, KATU, interviewed this Oregon firefighter on the rule:

Jaime Pickering, a squad boss overseeing 20 firefighters, says the rule means "job losses for Americans. The white people."

Ah yes, you just can't hide the bigotry of the English Only crowd. Hate to break it to you, Mr. Pickering, but Americans come in all sorts of colors.

According to Fox News and KATU, the rule, which applies to contractors not state employees, was enacted because there were so few firefighters in the state, contractors were hiring people from out of state who do not speak English. The state thought it was a good idea to require crew bosses to speak both English and the language of their firefighters, hence the rule.

I guess Eric Crafton hopes this will push some "war on English" fear buttons. But, as with so much that one hears on Fox News or coming out of Crafton’s mouth, it’s all wrong.

From the Oregon Dept. of Forestry website, under “Contracting for Wildland Firefighters”:

English is the language of wildland firefighting.  It is the national standard.  It is spoken in briefings and on two-way radios, and is the language of operating plans, reports and other documents.

Hispanic and Native American contract crews have operated in the west with bilingual leadership since the 1960s.
 
The number of Hispanic crews in the Northwest has increased markedly in recent years. A count of Spanish surnames on crew rosters suggests that about 85 percent of current contract firefighters are of Hispanic descent. This rough estimate doesn’t indicate how many crew members speak English.
 
There is no contract requirement that supervisors on contract crews speak any language other than English. There is a requirement that supervisors be able to communicate with the workers for whom they are responsible. This is essential to ensure that all personnel are made aware of safety hazards that can develop quickly in firefighting.
 
Consequently, if private companies elect to hire crew members who do not speak English, those supervisors must be bilingual or multilingual.

[...]

Public agencies have not found it necessary to require all frontline crew members to speak English. Bilingual supervision has proved successful in ensuring adequate crew safety and performance.
 
Due to the nature of the work, English proficiency is required for direct employment by ODF.
 
No ODF employees have been fired or demoted because of any language requirement; there is no requirement other than English proficiency for agency employees.

Once again, Fox News and Eric Crafton are wrong wrong wrong.

Hoping to scare Nashvillians into passing their pet referendum, Crafton & crew have resorted to fear mongering and outright lies. Way to keep it classy, guys.

Goodbye Alan Colmes

Saying goodbye to Alan Colmes on The Daily Show last night .... Hall & Oates style. Sorta FGF-ish, no?

Regardless, it was absolutely hilarious:

The REAL Secret To Fox News' Success?

Every now and then I’m forced to watch Fox News. This morning at the gym one of the six televisions was tuned to “Fox & Friends,” and I got to see Michelle Malkin make her bizarre facial contortions above the chyron:

"Culture of Corruption: Democrat Party plagued by scandals."

Um, paging Illinois Gov. George Ryan, Republican, who is still in jail! Paging Ted Stevens of Alaksa! And Duke Cunningham ... and Larry Craig ... and David Vitter .... and Tom DeLay ... and Mark Foley .... etc. etc.

This is why I hate Fox News. No legitimate news organization would promote the ridiculous idea that it’s Rod Blagojevich’s party affiliation that made him corrupt, any more than they would say belonging to the “Republic Party” made Ryan, Stevens, Vitter, Craig and the rest corrupt and sleazy.

Isn’t that what blogs are for?

Fox News does this all the time, though. Another thing I’ve noticed about Fox News is how much tabloid TV crap they air in between their partisan attacks and slanted news. There’s a lot of celebrity gossip, funny pet video clips, shark bite stories, and other sensational National Enquirer-style trash TV. It’s human interest TV with a dash of far-right ideology.

I have to wonder if this has as much to do with their appeal as anything. Though it seems counter-intuitive, cable news is a veritable wasteland for news coverage. Earlier this week I channel surfed in vain for news that wasn’t about the Big 3 auto bailout. I even tuned in to Free Speech TV, only to hear Ralph Nader talking about the unions and how they sold out their members back in the day.

Surely to God there was something else happening in the world besides the auto bailout? CNN, MSNBC and the rest just can’t seem to cover news. They take one story and repeat it ad nauseum, turning it upside down and inside out until you are thoroughly sick of it. Everything else that may be happening in the world is ignored.

I’m not sure Fox News does that, at least not to the same degree as CNN and MSNBC. At least on Fox you can find out about the Virginia toddler kept alive in the woods by puppies. If you’re into that sort of thing, of course, which I daresay the vast majority of American viewers are. How else to explain the appeal of The Today Show? Remember, too, that Bill O’Reilly got his start at Inside Edition. That’s no coincidence.

As layoffs and cutbacks are announced at NBC, NPR, CNBC and CNN, I hope the news execs take a hard look at what they’ve been doing wrong. I say it’s less any political slant their broadcast may have than it's the fact that they’ve basically programmed themselves into irrelevancy. By covering the same story as everyone else for 24 hours solid, five days a week, some of us are actually sick and tired of the topic du jour and are forced to look elsewhere for information. Hard to believe, I know, but I don’t think Americans are nearly as myopic as the average cable news executive.

I mean, honestly. If I have to go through another election season like this last one, I am shooting my television.

I frequently turn to Current TV for something different (when I can remember where on the dial it appears ....) I read more newspapers, and I surf the ’net. And sometimes I’m so thoroughly sick of news that I’ll switch to Bravo TV to watch two hours of “West Wing” re-runs just so I don’t have to hear the same crap for the fifteen gazillionth time.

Alaska Is Next To Russia?

Fox News informs us that Sarah Palin does too have foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia!

OMG. Remember this?

And there was something undeniably unusual about the governor turning to the arena of international affairs as he sought to regain his balance.

But his advisers said that the speech was scheduled weeks ago, and they noted that unlike several of his previous addresses on international affairs, this one allowed him to claim some firsthand knowledge of the subject, given that Texas and Mexico share a border.

Yes, it really is more of the same, no?

IOKIYAR ... On Steroids!

It was only a matter of time before the partisans at Fox News came up with this one:

Fox News: “Is Obama Bashing ‘American Dream’ By Bashing McCain’s 7 Homes?”

On Fox News’ Your World, host Neil Cavuto defended John McCain’s inability to recall the number of homes he owns by attacking critics who have sought to highlight McCain’s failure. He opened the segment by asking, “Well, instead of slamming McCain, is Obama really bashing the American Dream?”

Dude, you’re on the side that keeps bashing the American Dream, with your “elitist” slurs and attacks on Obama’s education. And I don’t know about you, but the guy raised by a single mother who attended school on a scholarship is more representative of the American Dream to me than the one who dumped his wife for a wealthy heiress. But I guess it depends on what you mean by “dream.”

I’ve always been amazed at the chutzpah of conservatives to attack their opponents for being what they themselves are to the 100th degree. Look, we aren’t voting for dog catcher here. This is the president of the United States. If he isn’t smarter, better looking, better educated, more well traveled, more experienced, wealthier and better connected than me, why the heck would I want him in the highest office of the land? Average Joe cannot do this job. It takes someone spectacular.

Come on, people. This stupidity has got to stop.

KFC-Fallujah Hoax

I saw this video when it made the rounds last week. It shows U.S. troops, supposedly in Fallujah, ordering buckets of chicken in the city’s new Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise. Fox News saw it too, and turned it into a news story about how well things are going in Iraq--so well, in fact, that even war-torn Fallujah has embraced America’s fast food restaurants.

Well, hold the hot wings, soldier. It’s starting to look like it’s a hoax:

Last Thursday, Fox News ran a brief segment on a KFC restaurant opening in Fallujah before segueing into an interview with former CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks, who was asked to comment on the presence of an American fast food restaurant in the notoriously violent Iraqi city. "Do they have a drive-thru window?" Steve Doocy asks. "They get in and get out. And, so far, they do it safely," answers Brian Kilmeade:

Now, call us cynical, but something about that segment seemed off -- oddly upbeat even. On Friday I put in a call to KFC headquarters to ask if the Fallujah chicken joint is the real deal. KFC told me they were looking into the matter. Today, Yum! Restaurants International spokesman Christophe Lecureuil wrote me back:

I understand you wanted some details about the store in Falluja that looks like a KFC. This store is not approved by KFC International and we have working with the US Military to warn the troops of this situation.

Not surprisingly, TPM goes on to report that “the story seems to have popped up two weeks ago in a report by a Marine public information officer.”

Of course.

It’s Not A Gang, It’s A Club

Actually, it’s not even a club. It’s a made up story. Well, what do you expect from those clowns at Fox News?

As Bill O’Reilly and Fox News sink ever deeper into self-parody, the jokes just write themselves. Last week Bill O’Reilly claimed that pink pistol-wielding “lesbian gangs” are taking over American cities, including one right here in Tennessee called GTO (for Gays Taking Over).

Pink pistols. I kid you not.

O’Reilly’s “expert” for this shocking news story was Fox News “crime analyst” Rod Wheeler, whose bio says he is in “corporate security and safety management” at Boston Market. Some bloggers are wondering if that means he’s a security guard. Heh.

Blogger Erin Wiegand looked into the incidents Wheeler detailed in his O’Reilly appearance and found there’s nothing behind them. Read her post, it’s absolutely hilarious. Those “pink pistols”? It’s the name of a pro-gun gay organization--you know, NRA types. They aren’t a gang and they don’t really carry pink pistols.

Hilarious. Well, what do you expect. Fox News doesn’t even know real news from parodies. A school administrator in Maine is suing after he got harassed when Fox failed to check out a bogus story about ham bones supposedly thrown at Somali students at a Lewiston, Maine, middle school.

I remembered this one: all the wingnut bloggers were apoplectic about it. The ham bone throwers were supposedly suspended, since Somalis are Muslim and throwing a ham bone would be considered offensive. Sadly for our dumber right wingers and Fox News, the story was bogus; it came from a parody website. That didn’t stop Fox from thinking it was real and unleashing its hordes of bigoted viewers on the poor Lewiston Maine school district.

None of the scary lesbian gang stories checked out either, but that hasn’t stopped the story from getting picked up by conservative Christian groups. With hate crimes against gays a reality in this country, this kind of shoddy fear-mongering is incredibly irresponsible.

IOKIYAR

I really don’t think Fox News should be doing things like this when their own political analyst, a self-described “constitutional scholar,” is doing stuff like this:

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been cleared of allegations that she falsified her Palm Beach County voter's registration and voted illegally — this, after a high-level FBI agent made unsolicited phone calls to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office to vouch for Coulter.

The caller wasn't just any G-man. According to PBSO documents, he was Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald, of the FBI Academy's Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Va. — the closest reality gets to the serial-killer catchers on CBS' Criminal Minds.

So why would an FBI profiler who went after the Unabomber take time from his busy day to even think about a municipal election snafu?

Yes, why indeed? Of course, this is no mere “election snafu,” but a third-degree felony. So, who exactly is Supervisory Special Agent Jim Fitzgerald? Would you believe he’s Ann Coulter’s former boyfriend?

You just can’t make this stuff up. Imagine the outcry if a liberal figure like, say, Michael Moore or Jon Stewart or heck, even Martha Stewart got their high-ranking ex to pressure local law enforcement into dropping third-degree felony charges. Oh my, the wailing! The pearl clutching! The gnashing of teeth! I shudder to think of it. But Ann Coulter?

*** cricket cricket ***

Remember folks: It’s always OK If You Are Republican.