MSNBC:Slate’s Dave Weigel reminds us that Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are the only candidates to have been pranked by the venerable comedian-actor Sacha Baron Cohen. The video below shows Gingrich’s awkwardly hilarious 2006 interview with “Ali G.” But Ron Paul had an even worse awkward encounter with Cohen in his incarnation of “Bruno” in the 2009 film.
The scene with Paul, filmed in early 2008, occurs about halfway through the movie, after Bruno gets the idea that you have to make a sex tape to become famous.
Cut to a nondescript hotel suite where Bruno sits across from Ron Paul. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, a light blows out on the set. Bruno apologizes for the technical difficulties and suggests that he and Paul wait in the other room while the crew fixes the light.
The other room, it turns out, is a bedroom. The lighting is low, and the film is now grainy?not unlike a sex tape?as it cuts to a hidden spy camera. There’s a spread of Champagne and strawberries and caviar on a table.
Bruno tells Paul to make himself comfortable. Paul sits down on the bed. Bruno turns on some music and starts dancing. Paul is visibly uneasy but doesn’t say anything at first. He picks up a newspaper and pretends to read it. “You can tell at each weird gay detail, he [chalks] it up to, This guy is European,” says one of the attendees.
Finally, Paul asks what’s going on. “Don’t worry about it, Dr. Paul,” says Bruno, who then unbuckles his belt and drops his pants. At that point, Paul snaps up and storms out of the room. [ READ MORE ]
—————————————————————– In Other Republican Nonsense, Racism and Attacks on Obama…..
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“Skinny, Ghetto Crackhead“: Fox Celebrates Holidays With Outrageous Race-Based Attack On Obama [ READ MORE ]
Special Report’s Bret Baier Continues Fox’s Practice Of Using Slurs To Refer To Immigrants
Fox’s Five Agree With Limbaugh That “Comrade Obama” Is Indeed A Socialist
Fox’s “Brain Room” Seizes On “Low Quality” Research To Further Attack On Electric Vehicles
On Fox, Lars Larson Labels Obama “A Joke” And Calls Him The “Marxist-” And “Narcissist-In-Chief“
Kilmeade: “Do You Think [Obama] Does Not Care How [The Iraq] War Turns Out Because He Never Wanted It To Begin With?”
Doocy: Despite Rising Approval, Obama’s Numbers Are Down With Some Groups Because “They Don’t Buy His Blame Game Mantra“
When Uncle Rupert and fat slob Roger Ailes feel the heat — they excite their male and ‘lactating’ female hyena employees into bone-crushing attack mode! [ See Video Below ]
MMFA: Over the past three weeks Fox has run dozens of segments attacking Media Matters — on Fox “news” and opinion shows, on the Fox Business Network, and as the top three simultaneous lead stories on its website, Fox Nation. They have repeatedly encouraged viewers to file complaints with the IRS, even providing a direct link to a pre-filled form on their website.
This attack is nothing more than an attempt by Fox News to silence a vocal critic. Because they’re nervous about how we’re exposing what they truly are.
We will continue working every day to make sure America’s political dialogue is based in fact. [ MORE FROM MMFA ]
The Fox Cycle in Action
While Media Matters is supplying the heat to Rupert Murdoch’s ass in the United States, Britain is doing the job in Europe.
A Crumbling Empire
Boehlert On CNBC’S Squawk Box: Rupert Murdoch “Is On His Own And He’s In Over His Head”
It is unusual for an advocacy group to target a news network, but as almost everyone will agree, Fox is an unusual news network. “We report, you decide” is a Fox slogan that Media Matters takes literally. – Victor Kamber, Vice President, American Income Life Insurance
David Mark (Moderator @ Politico Arena): Fox News is ratcheting up its counterattack against Media Matters, a liberal advocacy group and the network’s most persistent critic. The news channel has recently run more than 30 segments calling for the nonprofit group to be stripped of its tax-exempt status.
Has reporting about Fox by Media Matters been unfair? And should the self-proclaimed watchdog group lose its nonprofit status?
If the IRS starts pulling exempt status from organizations that engage in political advocacy, the right has far more to lose than progressives.
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Brad Bannon:President, Bannon Communications Research
If Media Matters deserves to lost its non profit status, so should most evangelical churches. The religious right beats up on Democrats as much as Media Matters does on Fox.
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Robert Greenwald:Founder and president, Brave New Films; producer, Outfoxed
Media Matters spends enormous time, energy and resources making sure that everything they do is accurate and factually based — unlike Fox, by the way.
Look, Fox is a bully. Bullies hate to be confronted and Fox is desperately looking for some grounds to attack them. I?ve not seen one credible legal argument of any kind or shape that indicates Media Matters is not doing exactly what it?s supposed to do, meant to do and legally entitled to do under its tax-exempt status.
Gloria Feldt:Author of “No Excuses” and former Planned Parenthood CEO
Oh, good grief. Fox going after Media Matters reminds me of the time my sister complained to our mother that I had hit her back.
Fox is a corporate Goliath that uses its powerful franchise of the airways to skew public perception to advantage right-wing political power, and yet it has the hubris to call what it does “fair and balanced.” For giant Fox to attack the tax exempt status of its David-sized critic is as ludicrous as my sister’s complaint.
To begin with, as the legal experts have pointed out, there is the small point of free speech on the side of Media Matters. The Constitution applies regardless of whether an an organization is for profit or not. Equally important, it’s only fair and balanced that the left should have the opportunity to research and respond to news reportage, since in addition to the Fox behemoth, the right has funded nonprofit organizations that criticize the mainstream media for decades.
In fact, these conservative groups have prevailed largely by intimidating journalists with the fear of being labeled “liberal” regardless of the veracity of their reportage. If Fox News is so sure of its reporting quality then it should have nothing to fear from its far less well-heeled critics.
But then perhaps the big media bully remembers how the Biblical story ends.
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Steve Murphy:Democratic consultant; Managing Partner at Murphy Vogel Askew Reilly
Very little of the reporting on the Fox News network is fair. Of course they justify that by saying all the other networks are biased, too, in the other direction. In this case, they are making a huge mistake showing their weakness, making it clear Media Matters is getting to them. They want to discredit Media Matters because they could embolden the rest of the news media to start being honest about Fox being the Republican house network. That’s what Fox really fears.
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Martha McKenna:Democratic media consultant, McKenna Pihlaja
In America, we should be encouraging people to get more information and get more involved in civics, politics and government. Cable news is a fast-growing source of news and information. But when right wing candidates, members of Congress or pundits make outrageous statements on Fox News – it’s commentary, not news.
That’s the genius of Media Matters. They expose Fox News by using the exact tape of the sometimes hateful commentary, sometimes outrageous spin, occasionally downright lies. It’s why Fox News finds them so infuriating. It’s hard to argue with the facts.
If Fox News were a legitimate news organization with occasional conservative commentary, then there wouldn’t be a fight here. But since Fox is an incendiary, propaganda operation – it’s important that Media Matters can set the record straight.
Playlist: Fox – The Most Biased Name in News — Fox News Channel wraps itself in slogans of journalistic objectivity like “Fair and balanced” and “We report, you decide,” but ample evidence conclusively indicate a race-baiting, terroristic, right-wing tilt in the network’s ‘news.‘
Playlist: Fox & Friends — A Bunch of Fraudulent Buffoons
The Most Recent Fox Lies:
Conservative Media Continue To Claim That ACORN — Which No Longer Exists — Is Getting Federal Funds [ READ MORE ]
Fox Hypes Photo Of One Man Climbing Border Fence To Fearmonger Over Border Security [ READ MORE ]
How Many Times Can Bill O’Reilly Say “Income Redistribution” In 45 Seconds?
Media Matters’ Ilyse Hogue On MSNBC’s The Last Word: “The Tentacles Of The Murdoch Empire Reach Deep Into The U.S.”
Even Roger Ailes, Fox president and master race-baiter — has had it up to the neck with Glenn Beck. The fraudulent, blubbering baboon, who knew just how to please his audience of conservative suckers, has bitten the hand that feeds him — Rupert Murdoch’s criminally insane Fox News Channel.
For two years, after leaving CNN, Beck, a neo-Nazi shit-face — has been the chief lying, lunatic skunk at Fox News — replete with outrageous conspiracies and shameless anti-Obama race-baiting.
That’s what they do at Fox, preaching to an audience of “denialists,” “racists,” “bigots” and a plethora of ill-educated nin-compoops spread all over the “villages” of the United States.
But alas, stink-master Beck proved super-toxic even for a business model built on a premise of strong appeal to the racist juices of one third of America — the ideological remnants and descendants of confederate America.
Beck is still at Fox, but I doubt if he will linger around on TV, after all he has scooped multi-million dollars — while soothing the racist and/or hopelessly gullible souls of Republican America.
ADIOS Monster! ..and may you choke in your vomit!!
Beck: “To All Those Who Say ‘Celebrate,’ You Are Going To Pray For The Days Of 5 PM”
Beck Compares Himself To Paul Revere While Discussing The End Of His Fox News Show
NY Times Reporter Brian Stelter Tells CNN That Those On “The News Side Of Fox” Were Embarrassed By Beck
Playlist: Glenn Beck – Fox News’ Fraudulent in-House Baboon — GLENN BECK: A SAVVY FRAUD WHO KNOWS JUST HOW TO PLEASE HIS AUDIENCE OF CONSERVATIVE SUCKERS – Fox News host Glenn Beck has done all the necessary spadework to position himself at the center of a brewing and increasingly paranoid right-wing insurgency.
From challenging Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison to prove he isn’t working with Al-Qaida, to taking tearful stands against Barack Obama’s Democratic Reich, the self-described “rodeo clown” is pushing his televised tirades and skits closer to the angrier, more unhinged fare of his daily talk radio show, now ranked third nationally, where he has been honing his confessional Molotov-throwing shtick for a decade. READ MORE HERE: http://tinyurl.com/Glenn-Beck-Fraud
Fox News personalities are developing a pattern of violent rhetoric:John Stossel Said He Has “Barney Frank In Effigy” Hanging Above His Sofa… Glenn Beck: “To The Day I Die, I Am Going To Be A Progressive Hunter” … Dick Morris: “Crazies” Who Want To Kill ATF Agents “Beginning To Have A Point” [ READ MORE ]
Elsewhere, Civil Rights Groups Decry Beck’s Questioning of Obama’s Name: Today, Media Matters for America joined six civil rights organizations in decrying Glenn Beck’s comments on President Obama’s name. Beck said “You don’t take the name Barack to identify with America,” but to identify with “your heritage,” “your father in Kenya, who is a radical.”
The coalition of organizations, which includes America’s Voice, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Center for New Community, Color of Change, NCLR (National Council of La Raza), Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, and Media Matters, released the following statement: [ READ MORE HERE ]
