“I don’t think I’ve been abandoned. I think maybe they misunderstood me a little bit. But I think Fox and I, I think, Hannity and I are just right on. I have no doubt that he would support me if he understood really what’s in my heart. And I think he does understand me.”
Cliven Bundy
Now persona non grata (non Greta?) at Fox News, Bundy has moved to CNN, which apparently has stopped getting ratings on the Malaysian airliner.
Yes, Cliven Bundy said some racist things, Sean Hannity admitted tonight, but…Benghazi, but…the IRS, but…Obamacare, but…Katrina, but…Jon Stewart, but…eminent domain, but…the Delta smelt. If you’re wondering how any of this made sense, it didn’t. As his incoherent and irrelevant rant became more and more bizarre, I kept waiting for guys with a straitjacket to emerge from the wings, but they never arrived.
Sean, much more defiant than apologetic, played old clips of himself interviewing African Americans. And I mean old — like nine years ago. Sean had an African American guest, David Webb, a conservative talk show host. You could imagine Sean reading Bundy’s quotes this morning, and screaming, “Get me Webb!”
I doubt Hannity’s staff EVER had a worse day. But it’s tough to feel bad for people who have sold their souls to the devil, and even harder to feel sorry for the devil himself.
Sean Hannity gave two segments last night to Cliven Bundy, and he took the opportunity to refer to the U. S. as a “foreign government.”
Why is Fox News championing this delusional lunatic? Put him in jail or in an insane asylum, but don’t put him on TV.
Sean also kept asking how Bundy could owe the feds a million dollars in grazing fees, saying cows can’t eat that much, either not knowing or pretending not to know that Bundy owes court-assessed daily penalties as well.
“Pretty soon, there was an armed standoff as men with guns assembled around the ranch. The BLM people wisely backed off, and there was a great cock-a-doodle-do’ing all over the right, because Cliven Bundy’s inalienable right to get something for nothing from the rest of us had been upheld with Second Amendment enthusiasm. Bear in mind that Bundy’s entire position is that he can not pay his bills, and that he can ignore a federal judge, because he feels the federal government is illegitimate. … This is conservatism — and, therefore, Republicanism — playing footsie with sedition. This is not the first time, either.
“Republican politicians, especially in the west, have slow-danced with the militia movement for quite some time. A Republican congresswoman named Helen Chenoweth was so close to the movement that, after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, she pronounced herself upset that the government had failed truly to understand the militia movement.
“In the states, the Republican party has embraced the traditional historical basis for this movement, having actively discussed — and, in some cases, tried to implement — the doctrine of nullification. This, of course, was the fundamental theoretical basis for the greatest act of sedition of all time, and one for which too many people seem overly nostalgic these days. The difference between the present moment, and the days when Helen Chenoweth was riding the range, of course, is the fact that there is a powerful and loud right-wing media infrastructure at the disposal of the people peddling this constitutional poison. Americans For Prosperity jumped right on the Bundy case. Of course, AFP — and the Koch brothers who fund it — isn’t in this for airy philosophical debates on the role of government. They’re in it to break the control of the federal government over the lands that they want to exploit for their own profit, and they are willing to help engage the single most destructive political theory in the country’s history to help them do it. It is reckless and dangerous, and anybody who gets used by these people is a sap. And useful idiots, like Sean Hannity and all the someones like him, are going to get somebody killed behind this stuff.”
“Range War in Nevada,” Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
I get party differences over abortion, gay marriage, taxing and spending, etc. But why shouldn’t D’s and R’s agree that a man who refuses to pay his grazing fees is a criminal and should be punished, not celebrated? I thought the GOP was supposed to be the “law and order” party. Why are they all freaked out about food stamp fraud, but don’t want this guy to pay the million bucks he owes?
When HealthCare.gov wasn’t working, Fox News bitched and moaned about how awful it was that you couldn‘t use the web site. Now that the site’s much improved, they’re trying to scare people away, claiming you shouldn‘t use it because of vague “security” risks. They have yet to actually find a family who bought health insurance and had a cyber thief book a Mediterranean cruise using their AmEx, but still…
Sean Hannity has gone from having Ainsley Earhardt sit there unable to log on, to having her refuse to give HealthCare.gov her Social Security number, which clearly is what Fox News wants everyone to do. If that sweet little South Carolina cupcake Ainsley pouts her glossy lips and says “Hell, no,” you can (and should) too! Because if we all refuse to give our Social Security numbers, Obamacare will fail, the Muslim Socialist will go back to Kenya, and America will be saved.
Meanwhile, down the hall, Megyn Kelly is obsessed with the 834’s, the form that HealthCare.gov sends to the insurance company you choose. While the error rate on the 834’s was about 25% back in October and November, some of those errors were de mininis (your middle initial was wrong) and that rate is now about 10%. And mostly we are talking mistakes, like people getting enrolled twice, not “lost” applications where people think they have insurance, but they don’t.
Anyway, Megyn is worrying her pretty blonde head about how in the world people can possibly figure out if they have insurance, without showing up at the hospital on January 1st and being left in the lobby to die. Actually, it’s pretty simple, something even folks who work at Fox News should be able to grasp. If you get a bill for your first premium, which happens pretty quickly after you enroll, congratulations, you have insurance. Well, as long as you pay that bill. If you don’t get a bill, you don’t have insurance, and you need to contact the company you wanted to sign up with. Since this is basic capitalism — you get stuff by paying for it — you’d think Fox News would understand the whole billing-and-premium-paying thing, as opposed to the how-the-Hell-can-anyone-tell thing Megyn Kelly is pushing.
I thought Forbes was a serious publication, but apparently not. Check out Chris Conover’s “Obamacare Will Increase Health Spending by $7450 for a Typical Family of Four.”
Here’s a news flash for you — if you provide health insurance to 30 million more people, health care spending will go up! Conover takes the Medicare actuary’s prediction that health care spending will go up $621 billion over the next ten years, and works that out to $7,450 for a “typical” family of four.
Conover contrasts this increase in spending with Obama’s promise that premiums would go down $2,500 a year for a family of four. Now, if you read the article carefully, it’s clear that he’s comparing the apples of $7,450 over ten years with the oranges of $2,500 per year.
Guess who either didn’t really the article carefully or who doesn’t give a damn about the truth (and I suspect it’s the latter)? Sean Hannity and Ted Cruz. On his show tonight, Sean explicitly said that it would be an increase of $7,450 per year for a family of four. Ted Cruz chimed in that it was a $10,000 swing compared to Obama’s promise. Um, only if you purposely confuse a single year with a decade because you’re trying to scare the hell out of people. I’m guessing that many more people watch Sean than will read the Forbes article, let alone read it carefully.
The other problem with Conover’s article is that he talks about an increase in health care spending as if he were talking about a family’s out–of–pocket costs. He makes no attempt to distinguish how much will be paid by the government (expanded Medicaid, health insurance subsidies, etc.), how much will be paid by insurance, and how much will actually paid by that “typical” insured family of four.
Because if he did that, if he were honest, it wouldn’t be anywhere near $7,450, and it wouldn’t be so impressively scary.
Sean Hannity will interview Anthony Weiner’s former sexting buddy Sydney Leathers on his show tonight. Eeeeeeeew.
They report, you decide — to change the channel.
Latest rumor is that Sean Hannity is getting pushed to 7 o’clock when Megyn Kelly takes his 9 P. M. slot. That’s not prime time.
Smart move by Ailes. Who watches Fox News? Old white guys. And the ones who now turn off Fox after O’Reilly (and that’s a third or more of Loofah Boy’s audience) will stay tuned to watch the pretty young blonde lady.
Megyn Kelly is getting the 9 P. M. slot on Fox News when she returns from maternity leave, so where does that leave Hannity?
Roger Ailes loves, loves, loves him some Megyn.
Sean Hannity has been bashing President Obama for saying that he identifies with Trayvon Martin. But, as Jordan Chariton points out at Salon*, it’s Hannity who wants us to think of Obama when we think of Trayvon (and not in a good way):
“One development that might not have been so predictable, though, was the emergence of Fox personality Sean Hannity as not just a Zimmerman supporter, but an obsessive one who would adopt the cause as his own. I worked in cable news for years, including at Fox News. Sean Hannity’s coverage in the past year has been more than shocking, and has gone beyond his typical conservative bluster. It’s been dangerous.
“So, what’s the real reason behind Hannity’s impassioned defense of Zimmerman? I’d suggest he would have never covered the story as hard if not for one man, for one cause: taking down Barack Obama. Hannity’s short-term mission is to rile up the base against Obama for the 2014 midterms, and with the last few months’ scandal-palooza dying down, using a tragedy as his new tool in the arsenal to paint Obama as the most divisive president in history is just what the showman ordered.” Emphasis added.
* “Hannity’s Zimmerman Obsession: What’s really behind it?”
Embattled Farmers 