Rachel Maddow: Fake GOP/Fox "BULL..." - ACORN & 'Climate Data' Exoneration Stories

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 08:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9KjQUSZXqE   Posted on YouTube: April 03, 2010 By YouTube Member: firedoglake Views on YouTube: 2   Posted on DU: April 03, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 5879

 
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - FOX News, GOP further 'the unmooring of politics from fact.' Rachel reports on the investigation in California by AG Jerry Brown this week that exonerated ACORN - Brown saw the unedited O'Keefe tapes ('severely edited') and the investigation by the UK House of Commons saying 'climategate' scandal did not challenge the consensus that climate change is human-caused and occurring. Republicans also fake outrage over other things.

MADDOW: "ACORN shut down all of their offices this week, in the same week, that the California attorney general released his assessment of what really happened in the supposed ACORN 'Pimp' video scandal that ultimately brought the group down. Fox News, you'll recall, trumpeted this video from a conservative 'activist' named James O'Keefe, in which Mr. O'Keefe supposedly dressed up like a flamboyant blaxploitation version of a pimp.

- snip -

Mr. O'Keefe and his ACORN pimp video were promoted by an offshoot of the right-wing website, the Drudge Report. Mr. O'Keefe, personally, and his supposed expose were promoted heavily - heavily, heavily, heavily - on the conservative Fox News channel. And it might have been a tip-off early on when Mr. O'Keefe refused to release unedited versions of what he actually taped in those ACORN offices.

What Fox and O'Keefe decided to show from his videos was damning: Him in the pimp costume, you know... 'How outrageous! How could these people not have known this guy was not a bad guy? Those ACORN people must be used to seeing people like this all the time! And then their answers to his questions, they actually offered to help him with this plainly illegal thing he was doing. How outrageous!' It was very damning. Right?'

Well, after the videos came out, California governor Arnold Schwarznegger was one of the Republicans who pounced on the ACORN 'issue' as if ACORN was a real threat to the republic... Schwarznegger asked California attorney general Jerry Brown to investigate. Mr. Brown did investigate, and as an official law enforcement investigation, he actually got a hold of the unedited O'Keefe tapes - the raw footage, before it was cut down to make the point that Mr. O'Keefe and his conservative activist patrons and Fox News wanted to make. And when you look at that unedited footage, well, whoa-ho! Lo and behold...

Attorney General Brown describes as 'severely edited' ... 'he never claimed he was a pimp.'

- snip -

So the whole premise of the attack on ACORN was false. 'This guy dressed up like a pimp and went into the ACORN offices and they gave him straight-up advice like that was normal!' Actually, no. He was dressed up like a law student and they called the cops on him. Oh, well, no harm no foul, right?

Well, no. Quoting from the attorney general again: 'The original storm of publicity creatd by O'Keefe's videotapes was instrumental in ACORN's subsequent denunciation in Congress, a sudden tourniquet on its funding, and the organization's eventual collapse.'

So ACORN is now gone. And it is an afterthought that the attack on them that killed them off was totally made up, bogus, bullpuckey.

You know what else was bullpuckey? Climategate.

- snip -

Thank god we have Fox. I don't mean to rain on all their excitement here, but it turns out that climategate is totall bullpuckey, as well. Little-noticed news this week that the British House of Commons officially investigated the controversy and found that no one misrepresented any data. Nobody lied... nothing about the supposed bomb-shell climategate scandal, at all, challenges the scientific consensus that 'global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.'

So which did you hear more about? That climate change deniers had uncovered some huge scandal about some climate change data being faked? Or that when responsible, uninterested parties looked into the supposed scandal, they found that no one was faking anything? Did you hear more about there being some scandal about ACORN giving prostitution advice to a right-wing activist dressed up like a pimp? Or did you hear more about the fact that when responsible, uninterested people looked into it they found that it was all made up...

What we're dealing with here is the unmooring of politics from facts. The activists pushing the ACORN scandal knew it was fake, after all, they faked it. But it made a political impact, so they win, right?

- snip -

It's the triumph of fake politics - outrage or advantage gleaned from stuff that's not real. And who cares if it's not real, if it has a political impact.

- snip -

The recess appointments outrage is bull. Republicans are faking their outrage over there being an individual mandate in health reform. It's a Republican idea. Republicans are faking their outrage over terrorist suspects being read their Miranda rights. They had no problem with that when it was being done by a Republican administraton.

- snip -

Republicans are faking their outrage over the stimulus. You can tell because when they go to their home districts, they admit that it's working great...

The anti-ACORN crusade was BULL. Climategate was BULL. Repealing health reform was BULL. The lawsuits against health reform are BULL. The death panels - BULL. The President's secretly foreign and doesn't have a death certificate? BULL. Fear of the census is BULL. Supposed threats to end the second amendment? BULL. The claim that thousands of armed IRS agents are going to be storm troopers to enforce health reform. It's BULL. The administration taking away the right to go fishing? It's BULL. Scott Brown saying I'm running against him is even BULL. It's made up. It's bull.

It's bull. It's not real politics. Let them eat fake. These are not real problems to worry about and work on as a country, right? But there's more bang for the political buck to make stuff up like this than to try to debate real problems in the real world, so just go with the bull.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that billboards against Obama are popping up in the Atlanta area, right now. They say things like 'Stop Obama's Socialism!' and 'Now, It's Personal.'

- snip -

Dissent is not the aberration in a democracy, dissent is the norm. Our political vitality depends on dissent. No one expects that a President is going have the whole country agree with his actions and his priorities. Nobody expects Americans to share the same political opinons. But has there ever been a time when we shared so few political FACTS?

- snip -

It makes the country better when we have those debates. And your country needs you, it needs all of us. But, two things disqualify this process: You can't threaten to shoot people and you have to stop making stuff up."

[WhoIsNumberNone]

1. What casn I say that Rachel hasn't already?

K&R

[davidhilton]

8. I don't think the Baggies, Righties, or GOPee's are going to stop the lies,

or stop the violent threats, theses tactics are working for them.
Their base is energized and they will have a massive voter turnout.
We need to get out the vote as intensely as when Obama was running.

[Grassy Knoll]

2. Their program is quite simple.....

Make Obama look worse that GWB, deny & lie, they hate the fact that debya"s final rating was 22% ,
and they are determined to bring him down further than that, at any cost.

[rocktivity]

3. They frighten, bully and lie because playing dirty is the only thing that works for them.

They don't play fair because they can't. And they can't play fair because they know they can't win. Then we get so caught up in untangling their lies, we don't have enough time to tell the truth--which they define as our being weak on defense.


rocktivity

[rhett o rick]

4. Happy birthday Rachel. nm

[Turborama]

5. Whoever is in charge of the Reich Wing's propaganda machine must have been studying Mein Kampf

The Big Lie (German: Große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf for a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

=snip=

Used in Hitler's psychological profile

The phrase was also used in a report prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler's psychological profile:<3><4>

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.<5>

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie

- - - - -

Hitler on Propaganda

In chapter six of Mein Kampf,Hitler reviewed the use of propaganda during World War I. In the course of his criticism of the German effort, he included comments on the function of propaganda in general. His statements offer insight into the methods used by the Nazi Party.

Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf,translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943.

The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.

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

All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be extended in this direction.

The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be. And this is the best proof of the soundness or unsoundness of a propaganda campaign, and not success pleasing a few scholars or young aesthetes.

The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are.

Once understood how necessary it is for propaganda in be adjusted to the broad mass, the following rule results:

It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance.

The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.

Thus we see that propaganda must follow a simple line and correspondingly the basic tactics must be psychologically sound.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

What, for example, would we say about a poster that was supposed to advertise a new soap and that described other soaps as 'good'?
We would only shake our heads.

Exactly the same applies to political advertising.

The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.

Original source: http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/people/DocPropa.htm

(The main body of this text if from Hitler's Mein Kampf so I'm assuming copyright rules don't apply)

[Deadgnome]

23. Now I want to see

THAT on a anti-Teabagger protest sign. I think next time there is one in Lincoln, NE. I am going to walk around with copies of Mein Kampf and a bookmark in the spot where it points to the Big Lie and just hand them out.

[bjobotts]

6. Every single thing repubs say is a LIE. All they do is try to demonize their opposition

[bjobotts]

7. And here we are forced to tolerate them as they cultivate the American "Brownshirts" to intimidate t

the majority. I've had enough of watching them destroy the democracy, the nation I so love. It will be all of our undoing if we don't end the reign of violent propaganda. In this new age of overpopulation and a world bent on continuous growth with finite resources we are bound to lose it all if we don't find a balance.

Only Democratic socialism or total totalitarianism will result. It's the people vs the corporatocracy. There are no 'good' republicans left, only hypocrites bent on anything that gains them power and wealth. They have no clue as to how to govern and must be eliminated from the process if we are to survive.

No, both sides don't do it, only one side does and it is blatantly obvious. Hate radio must end and propaganda TV though legal is way outside the spirit of the law which is always in the public interest which means factual honest and truthful is the intention for using "our" airwaves.

Repubs want us fighting among ourselves just so they can sell more tickets to increase their wealth and influence. They cultivate those who are angry enough to close their minds to truth and misinformed enough to blame those whom they are told to blame for their troubles without even listening to discussion or debate or opposition to their already formed opinions. Like Rush always said, "The next time someone tells you you can't think for yourselves, this is what you tell them..."

[Moostache]

9. More classic projectionism....

Republicans have devolved into the party of "here is the worst things we actually DO, but we are going to fake outrage and pretend that it is actually Democrats who believe in and implement our deranged policies".

Alternet has a classic outline about all of this fake outrage posted right now....well worth a read and a print to hand to any wingnut that happens to start spouting off talking points within earshot!

[Hissyspit]

10. Do you have a link? I don't see it.

Thanks.

[JHB]

14. Probably this one...

The Only Republican Plan Is to Destroy Democrats, Not Solve Problems
Republicans want to block Obama and the Democrats from solving national problems, even at the risk of the personal safety of their political opposition. by Robert Parry
http://www.alternet.org/news/146277/

another possibility:

"No Lie Is Too Low For Them": What the Terri Schiavo Affair Can Teach Us About Today's Right-Wing Zealots
Five years after the death of Terri Schiavo, right-wing opportunists continue to use her case to advance their political agenda. by Bill Berkowitz
http://www.alternet.org/rights/146252/

[Hissyspit]

26. I think it's the first one.

I had read it earler, but forgot. I believe babylonsister posted it here at DU originally.

Thanks!

[Nostalgic]

11. Let's make this clip go viral.

[defendandprotect]

12. The Swiftboating Party . . . but Americans should have more sense . . .!!!

GOP got what they wanted -- ACORN is gone --

and many idiots now think Global Warming info has been fraudulent!!

Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the public's ability to sort information!

[activa8tr]

13. I'm so glad someone posted this. It's Rachel at her best!!!

But, then again, Rachel is always at her best.

[eagertolearn]

28. Dittoo!!!!!

[TheBigotBasher]

15. Maddow at her finest.

She is absolutely brilliant on every level.

[fascisthunter]

16. FOX needs to be sued... this is just not right

they are telling american bold-faced lies and dividing this country of ours to a point where one side is willing to wage violence against another. I blame FOX news and AM right wing radio for this specifically. The rest of the media deserves blame too for remaining silent when matters were front and center, such as the run-up to invading Iraq, and 9-11 itself.

[Overseas]

17. K&R for Rachel. This segment was great.

Yes Rachel, we did see and hear lots and lots of reinforcement on "climate gate" and the fact that the data actually held up hasn't been trumpeted everywhere.

And I am shocked to learn that the fake pimp didn't even wear that Disney Pimp get-up in the ACORN offices at all. Yet all our major media allowed the real tape to be withheld and went along with the fake story, helping this right wing hardball PR campaign succeed.

[AlbertCat]

18. The BEST commentary ever! I wish it could really get through.

[bluestateboomer]

19. You Go Girl!

At least there are some people who can expose the truth about the liars.

[Bitwit1234]

20. Please answer this question..

So in regards to the made up tape and lies about these things, what can someone do about FOX and DRUDGE. Isn't this libel can't they be sued. I don't understand why someone doesn't start suing the hell out of
FOX. OK. They got big bucks but the courts aren't that crooked that they won't be able to rule that they should be fined, their license suspended or something. This has got to stop. They are making up anything and everything they want and no one stops them.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

21. Bravo, Rachel!

K&R!

[valerief]

22. GOP politics, like religion, don't rely on facts but faith. nt

[Demeter]

24. Well, Rachel, If the Government Stopped Making Things Up

and stopped shooting people or even tasering them, maybe the level of discourse would revert to something a little more factual and civilized.

I'm not excluding people in other countries from this shooting ban, either.

A government that ignores its own laws hasn't got a leg to stand on.

A government that "massages" economic data so that bad is good and worse is better can't expect respect. Or prosperity.

A government that can't even hold a clean election doesn't deserve the title Democracy.

A plague on the Teabaggers AND their Government.

I didn't even get into the war crimes....

[DFW]

25. Rachel is simply THE best

Facts, logic, good mood, humor, coherency.

Fox, how's that fakey bullshitty thing working out for ya? Good ratings, not too much candlepower.......

[JDPriestly]

27. Thank you, Rachel Maddow, for so clearly explaining why that

propaganda is just lie after lie.

[eagertolearn]

29. How could I put this clip on facebook? My connections are of all ages there

and I want the high school and college age to see this too. It is one of the best clips I have ever seen her do. Though my day is not complete until I see her show because she really real and it feels so goos when someone is getting to the heart politics and actually creating changes. My husband asked how come she doesn't run for an office? My answer is that she can actually help accomplish change with her news show (C-Street, Uganda etc) where as if she was a senator she couldn't be herself and probably get anywhere (and look how long Ted Kennedy worked on health care reform). Thank-You Rachel for clearing all that up for us all!

[Hissyspit]

34. Click on this YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9KjQUSZXqE

Then click on the Share button underneath the video window. It has a Facebook logo in it. There, you will log-in and can add other stuff to your Facebook post.

[eagertolearn]

41. Thank-You. I've been trying to get an account on youtube for several years

but my kids made one under my e-mail address a long time ago and they couldn't remember who. So I tried again and got one so i could put this on facebook and it worked!!! This is so Rachel at her best.

[Hissyspit]

44. Glad you are "eagertolearn"

:)

[GameChanger]

30. I would be more inclined to praise Rachel if she exposed the truth regarding BOTH sides of the issue

Rachel is good at what she does. Her show has covered some very good stories, even breaking news that others alphabet news companies failed to touch.

I do have a complaint about her and also radio host Thom Hartmann when it comes to Climategate. Not one peep has been mentioned by either of them about WHO benefits IF climate control legislation IS passed which includes carbon credits trading.

The list of those ready to profit from climate change legislation reads like a who's who of Goldman Sachs:
former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson
David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management
Mark Ferguson, former co-head of GSAM pan-European research
Peter Harris, who headed GSAM international operations

Goldman Sachs itself bought a stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Other corporations buying in include Ford Motor Company, Amtrak, DuPont, Dow Corning, American Electric Power, International Paper, Motorola, Waste Management.

Then there's Maurice Strong, George Soros and Al Gore. Especially Al Gore. All stand to make billions off passage of climate legislation.

I know, I know, the Koch family will benefit by legislation not passing. We've heard all about it. What I want to know is why aren't Rachel, Thom and others not talking about who profits on the other side?


As the old saying goes, "Follow the money."

[travelingtypist]

32. National Review's Climate Profiteers

What, did you transcribe it word for word?

[zbiker]

31. wow, i must have

seen a different showing on the acorn deal, the one i watched the acorn adviser explicitly laid out a plan how do the prostitution ring and stay ahead of not only law enforcement but the irs as well :O
she even went as far as to label it as performance art.....
guess mr. brown missed that one, may we should send a copy to Rachel, might help clear things up

[Hissyspit]

33. What part of 'The tapes were selectively edited,' 'taken out of context,' and 'they called the cops'

don't you understand?

THREE different state investigations found no illegal activity or exonerated ACORN.

[zbiker]

35. hhhhhhhhmmm , true but

like i said, they must have missed the episode i watched. simply being let off the hook proves nothing for so many considering the sources. heck even o.j. got exonerated

[Hissyspit]

36. I saw it, too.

It was taken out of context. It was selectively edited. It was taken out of context. It was selectively edited. O'Keefe LIED. You were being PLAYED. It was MANUFACTURED outrage.

What is your reason for buying right-wing bullshit smear tactics? Haven't we had enough examples of right-wing bullshit? Rachel lists a whole bunch of them in the video.

O'Keefe got arrested for misrepresenting himself in a U.S. Senator's office. You buying his crap? Yes, O.J. got off. Because people bought the bullshit.

Did I mention it was taken out of context and selectively edited?

[punkin87]

37. Maybe if you watched what Rachel said again, that might help to clear things up.

[Beartracks]

38. Reference to "death certificate" above...

... should be "birth certificate." I didn't watch the video -- I'm certain Rachel got it right -- but the transcript above says:

"The President's secretly foreign and doesn't have a death certificate? BULL."

If Rachel did in fact say "birth certificate" then please edit the transcript if it's not too late! (Oh -- it's probably too late.)

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

[spicegal]

39. The Right wingers create their own reality. Sadly, I fear their version of reality is

is spreading like a virus and getting hard to stop. With the exception of a few, our main stream media refuses to do it's job and debunk their lies. Once the lies are out there for public consumption, it's hard to undo the damage, as in the case with both ACORN and climategate. How many people know that both these groups were vindicated? I blame the Republican leadership for stoking the fires. What they are doing is treasonous. They are literally ripping this country apart.

[eagertolearn]

42. Many people live for disasters and the excitement dysfunction brings into

their lives. Otherwise life is pretty boring. I've got a mother who lives for this stuff. She is sure all our rights will be taken away and she has her guns and all her stuff to live it out. She is so busy with this crap with the tea baggers (and especially Glenn Beck) that she has no time for anyone outside of her own world. She hardly knows her grandchildren. Her whole time is spent on this made-up world of the right all viewed from her computer and the TV.

[nxylas]

40. These would be the same right wingers...

...who feign outrage every time Michael Moore edits an "um" or a pause in one of his interviews. Funny how it's different when it serves The Party.

[ericblair]

43. Obama renews the Patriot Act with out debate. Bull!

...oh wait.