(Let's see...and Caldara is Rush Limbaugh with a goatee? They're both loudmouth know-it-alls who say outlandish things to further their own agenda. In Caldara's case it's to keep getting donations for his organization, whose ideology leads to a catastrophic rise in food borne illness. - promoted by johne)
Repeating the racially tinged remark
he made
during the 2008 election campaign, Independence
Institute President Jon
Caldara on the March 5 broadcast of his Newsradio 850 KOA
program referred to President Obama as "Jimmy Carter with a tan."
Caldara repeated the comment in falsely claiming that "in The Wall Street Journal, op-eds are saying the same thing."
Caldara referenced a March 6 guest op-ed
in the newspaper (subscription
required) by Michael J. Boskin,
a senior fellow
at the conservative Hoover
Institution and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under
President George H.W. Bush. But
contrary to Caldara's statement,
Boskin's comparison of Obama to Carter did not include any racial
element:
The illusion that Barack Obama will
lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining
the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill
Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President
Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian
defense drawdown.
As Colorado
Media Matters pointed out
previously, on the July 10, 2008,
broadcast of public television KBDI
Channel 12's Independent Thinking, Caldara parroted
other conservativecommentators
by stating that he perceived then-Sen.
Barack Obama "as Jimmy Carter with a tan." Caldara also has referred to Obama on the
air as being "Marxist of center"
and as voting "like a communist."
On his February 24 Newsradio 850 KOA broadcast, "Gunny"
Bob Newman falsely claimed that in an address to a joint session of
Congress earlier that evening President Obama "bragged about creating a program using your tax dollars to
buy your neighbor a nice, new car." The president's speech
did not reference any such program.
Newman
provided no details to support his claim. While a provision of the economic
recovery legislation (H.R. 1) Obama signed into
law on February 17 does allow qualified
tax filers to take a
deduction on their federal income tax for the sales and excise tax paid on the
purchase of a new car,
Obama did not "brag[] about" this tax benefit in his speech.
(Let's see, they hate brown people, check; women, check; government, check; oh yeah, and facts. But they seem to have no problems with swastikas. - promoted by johne)
Sounding like his life depends on inhaling the decaying remains of Darth Vader (wtf is that goddamned sound when he breathes?), Boyles and Caldera pat each other on the back for rallying the basest of the Republican base from yesterday's umm... demonstration. Included in their mannish exchange, they intersperse their suggestions of a job especially well done (it was like, 200 people and 3 pigs with media, ya know!) with making special note of Diana Degette's gender.
With the news that the investment firm he touted for years might have vaporized much if not most of his life savings, we've seen the remaining shreds of KOA right-wing radio host Mike Rosen's credibility waft away like smoke from Michael Phelps' bong.
Media ranging from the Denver daily newspapers to Dow Jones columnist Al Lewis disclosed earlier this month that Boulder-based Agile Group had frozen the accounts of Rosen and its other clients late last year because of losses it suffered by investing in the alleged multibillion-dollar pyramid schemes of Bernard Madoff and Tom Petters.
For months, Rosen hid the news from the listeners to whom he had shilled the firm in recent years. Finally, he told the Rocky Mountain News regarding Agile in an article published Feb. 3: "I had come to believe they were very sensitive to the downside and would protect the funds from risk. But they took more risk than I thought or, apparently, than they thought."
Read that quote carefully: Rosen essentially stated that he endorsed Agile for years - both in ads on KOA and in personal meetings - even though he did not fully grasp the firm's investment strategy or its level of risk-taking.
You'd think the cut Rosen got for hawking their crap would make up for risk Rosen didn't understand. Oh well.
As a guest host on KOA, Bob Beauprez referred to "the governor's office and the Democrat leadership" of Colorado as "demons" for proposing to help balance the state budget by transferring workers' compensation funds to the state's general fund -- even though he and his guest, Republican state Rep. Mike Kopp, acknowledged that former Republican Gov. Bill Owens did the same thing in 2002.
The Denver Post and Colorado's Morning News
co-anchors April Zesbaugh and Steffan Tubbs on January 29 uncritically allowed U.S.
Rep. Mike
Coffman (R) to
repeat several myths and falsehoods regarding the economic
recovery bill supported by President Obama. The Post
published a Coffman guest
commentary parroting the distorted GOP talking point that the
legislation would amount to spending more than $275,000 per job
created. Neither the Post nor
Coffman noted, as economists such as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman have, that the
"cost-per-job-created" figure omitted
other tangible
benefits stemming from the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, such as infrastructure improvements
and investments in education, health, and public safety.
Moreover, Coffman's
guest commentary inaccurately
asserted that according to "a Congressional Budget Office
analysis, just $26 billion (7 percent) will be spent in the current fiscal
year, and less than half --
38 percent -- will be
spent in the first two years." The column also falsely claimed that the legislation
earmarked $10 million for the Association
of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).
During their interview on
Newsradio 850 KOA, Zesbaugh and Tubbs
also uncritically allowed Coffman to suggest falsely that the plan earmarked
money for ACORN.
Coffman's assertions were similar
to several myths and false claims media
figures have advanced relating to the details and effects of the plan, as Media Matters for America has documented. After the fold...
(I wonder how many people standing around Schultheis speaking spanish it would take to make his head explode. - promoted by johne)
According to Colorado Media Matters in January 27 news articles, The Denver Post,
the Rocky Mountain News, and the Greeley
Tribune each reported Republican state Sen. David Schultheis'
(Colorado Springs) criticism of a planned Spanish-language public service
announcement from the Colorado Department of Transportation without noting
Schultheis' past controversies regarding
the Hispanic community in Colorado -- such as his
"questioning the immigration status" of the Hispanic family of three
children killed in a 2006 Weld County car crash. On Newsradio 850 KOA, Colorado's Morning News hosts April Zesbaugh and Mark
Johnson interviewed Schultheis on January 27 about his criticism but also
omitted any reference to the controversies.
The newspapers published print or
online articles reporting
Schultheis' remarks about a new CDOT Spanish-language ad campaign urging
drivers to buckle their seat belts;
none noted his history
of controversy involving Hispanics. The News
and Tribune in fact ignored their own previous reporting that, as
Colorado Media Matters has noted,
covered a controversial October 4, 2006, email Schultheis sent to the Tribune inquiring about the legal residency of the auto accident victims.
(And allowing morons like this to openly serve in the miltary means more will be exposed to these morons - promoted by johne)
On his January 7 broadcast,
Newsradio 850 KOA's
"Gunny"
Bob Newman asserted that allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military
would increase the risk that members of the armed forces contract the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), develop AIDS, and then die "because [they]
happened to get a transfusion from ... say, an openly gay person with a very active
sexual, open lifestyle."
In making the claim as part of an attack on President-elect
Barack Obama's pledge to allow gays to serve openly in the military,
Newman cited a conversation with a "military doctor" who had called
earlier in the program. However, Newman omitted that everyone applying to serve
in the U.S.
armed forces is screened for HIV at enlistment and every two years of service
thereafter; HIV-positive applicants
are excluded from service. Newman also omitted that regulations
require that military
members who test positive for HIV while on active duty overseas be reassigned
to the United States.
Further, Newman
provided no facts to substantiate his assertion that allowing gays to serve
openly would increase the overall number of HIV-positive military personnel
serving in what he termed
"battlefield" situations.
(Now try to keep your acceptance speeches short or we'll cane you. - promoted by johne)
In a year of spirited debate and reporting about topics related to the election, public
policy, and social
issues, Colorado
conservative voices managed to work a fair amount of lies, personal smears, and otherwise dubious
remarks into the public discussion. After documenting hundreds of hours and
printed pages of media commentary and
news, Colorado Media Matters
presents the worst conservative misinformation of 2008:
Most irresponsible
use of the airwaves 630 KHOW-AM "Troubleshooter"
Tom Martino, who acknowledged
intentionally making a false statement Colorado Media Matters had
documented 10 days earlier
Most hypocritical
statement Newsradio
850 KOA's "Gunny" Bob Newman, for ignoring his own
history of on-air falsehoods and offensive
remarks when he urged
conservatives to stop exaggerating, lying, and using "only fear as a
catalyst"
Misinformer of the
year Colorado news media, for
uncritically conveying much of state Republican
Party chair Dick Wadhams'
misinformation about Democrats
Right-wing
conspiracy of the year KHOW's Peter Boyles and other
right-wing local radio hosts, for sustaining myths and falsehoods about Barack Obama's
birth certificate
Campaign whopper of
the year Rocky Mountain News, for publishing a
recycled false op-ed claim by the "Personhood"
amendment sponsor that it "doesn't change the constitution in any
way"
Broken record of
the year Colorado news media, for its distortion
of the actual provisions of the
defeated "right-to-work" Amendment 47
Most outrageous
political comment Independence
Institute's Jessica Peck Corry, for
her remark
made on public television that the Democratic ticket "should
be" called "Obama bin Biden"
Worst exploitation
of tragedy KDVR Fox 31 and conservative media
figures, for exploiting the deaths of three people to replay immigration myths and falsehoods
Most gratuitous
comment Boyles, who stated regarding
a Hispanic accused rapist: "[I]t's, you know, jobs Americans
won't do"
(Iraq, Kenya, Indonesia. Can't you guys get your lies straight? I don't know who's worse, Boyles or Gunny. I think Gunny, because in this piece the hypocrite claims to be above partisan politics. - promoted by johne)
While
arguing with a caller regarding the scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, "Gunny"
Bob Newman stated on his December 10 Newsradio 850 KOA
program that president-elect Barack Obama "was really born
in Iraq."
As Colorado
Media Matters has noted, Newman has called
Obama "Osama,"
asserted
that there would be "an
invasion of Muslim terrorists" if Obama were to become president, and disputed
the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate, even after the Hawaii Department
of Health confirmed it.
(I would have thought a "top" GOP attorney could have leveled better insults than that. I mean, most of us can do better in our sleep. - promoted by johne)
Guest
hosting on the December 7 broadcast of KNUS 710 AM's Backbone Radio,
former state treasurer and current Republican National Committee member Mark Hillman, who was
serving as guest host, laughed when Scott Gessler, a prominent attorney for GOP campaigns, said he liked referring
to several prominent progressive benefactors as "the 'Gang of
Four' because of its Maoist connotations."
Gessler
did not indicate how the four he referenced -- Tim Gill, Pat Stryker,
Rep.-elect Jared Polis, and Rutt
Bridges -- were Maoist, and Hillman did not ask for any
elaboration.
Following the lead of 630 KHOW-AM's
Peter
Boyles, several conservative
Colorado radio hosts have sustained discussion regarding the myth that
President-elect Barack Obama has not produced a valid U.S. birth certificate,
hosting guests who continue to make the false claim without mentioning information from
a variety of sources that directly contradicts it. KHOW's Tom
Martino; Newsradio 850 KOA
hosts "Gunny"
Bob Newman and Mike
Rosen; 1310 KFKA's
Amy
Oliver, and KNUS
710 AM's Karen
Kataline all have promoted discussion of the birth certificate issue and the implication that Obama might
not be eligible for the presidency without noting the information
refuting it.
After pointing out during his December 1 630 KHOW-AM
broadcast that
nationally syndicated conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh,
Laura
Ingraham, Bill
O'Reilly, and Sean
Hannity have ignored the debunked
claim that President-elect Barack Obama has not produced a valid U.S. birth certificate, Peter
Boyles asked, "Now, is there something wrong with me? And is there
something right with them that they don't see this as a question? This is
a serious self-criticism that I've asked myself over the weekend."
Boyles spent much of his remaining program promoting the widely discredited claim. As Colorado
Media Matters has documented, Boyles during several previous programs has hosted
Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg and others who promoted the falsehood that Obama
has not released a valid birth certificate establishing he was born in the
United States and therefore could be ineligible for the presidency.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Denver Art Museum
Colorado Media Matters will host media figures and political personalities for a panel discussion on how the Colorado media covered the 2008 election. Please save the date so that you can attend this discussion.
On his
November 19 program, 630 KHOW-AM's Peter Boyles again
promoted the discredited claim that President-elect Barack Obama has not produced a valid birth
certificate, and allowed the guest making the claim to repeat the false
assertion that Obama has called for creation of "a civilian national
security army." Boyles did not note that the birth certificate claim has
been debunked by the state of Hawaii
and numerous other sources, and did not cite Obama's actual remarks making it clear he has not
called for creation of "a civilian national security army."
Making
the assertions was Orly Taitz, an attorney in the lawsuit recently filed by Alan
Keyes, Obama's opponent in the 2004 Illinois U.S.
Senate race and again as the America's Independent Party
(AIP) candidate in the 2008 presidential race, claiming Obama has not
released a valid birth certificate establishing he was born in the United
States and therefore could be ineligible to be president.
As Colorado Media
Matters noted after Boyles hosted Pennsylvania attorney Philip J.
Berg on his October
9, October
23, and October
29 broadcasts, the Obama campaign posted a copy of Obama's birth certificate on its "Fight the Smears"
website and reportedly provided the original document to FactCheck.org, whose
staff concluded in an August 21 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the
State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." Furthermore, the Hawaii
Department of Health has confirmed
that the birth certificate the Obama campaign posted
on its website is "a valid Hawaii state birth certificate," and a
department spokeswoman has called the speculation about Obama's citizenship
"pretty ridiculous." Berg had filed a similar lawsuit against Obama, which a federal
judge dismissed on October
24.
Ah, what lovely people. Here's just a smattering of the best worst on our local airwaves:
KHOW's Caplis likened African outfit worn by Obama to "the kind of garb you often see Osama bin Laden in" and to "Somali warlord garb"
Hosting Berg for the third time, KHOW's Boyles again allowed Obama birth certificate smear
KOA's Newman repeated concern that "crushing tyranny of the left" could "lead to legal human-animal marriage"
On Caldara's KOA show, right wing pundit Ann Coulter claimed women's suffrage "explains the destruction of America"
This this bit was put together to go with a recent Media Matters report on tactics like this in local radio around the country. Right wing liars and smear merchants from Colorado were well represented in the report.
(Don't let the door hit you on the way out Dick. - promoted by johne)
During the 2008 election cycle, Colorado Media Matters documented
numerous instances in which the
Colorado media's uncritical reporting provided Colorado
Republican Party chair Dick
Wadhams with a
platform to make false,
dubious, and
unchallenged claims regarding Democrats -- frequently while ignoring or
downplaying Wadhams' well-documented history of negative
campaigning in Colorado and other
states.
Numerous
Colorado media outlets repeatedly allowed Wadhams -- who
also was manager of U.S.
Senate candidate Bob
Schaffer's failed
campaign -- to attack Schaffer's opponent, now U.S. Sen.-elect Mark Udall, and to make misleading
assertions in Schaffer's defense without providing any response from Democrats.
After the jump are examples Colorado
Media Matters documented of the Colorado media uncritically reporting
Wadhams' falsehoods, distortions,
and unchallenged claims.
(Schaffer really will say anything. - promoted by johne)
During
an October 29 interview on Colorado Public Radio
affiliate KCFR's Colorado
Matters, host Ryan
Warner uncritically allowed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer to suggest
that if "the country" were "to do it over again," it would vote in
favor of going to war in Iraq. Warner did not ask Schaffer to reconcile his
assertion with recent national polls that directly
contradict it, showing a majority of respondents indicating that the war in Iraq was
"a mistake" and that the United States should "have stayed
out" of Iraq.
Referencing
Schaffer's vote as a U.S. representative in favor of the 2002 resolution
that authorized the use of force against Iraq, Warner asked, "And, if
you had to do it over again, would you cast a different vote?" Schaffer
responded, "No, not a vote that I would change. And I don't think
the country would, either." However, Warner did not point out that nationwide polls going back more than a year show a consistent
majority of Americans not only have opposed the war in Iraq, but also have held the
opinion that the United States "made a mistake" and was "wrong in going to
war," and "should ... have stayed out" of a war that was not
"worth fighting."
(Wow, they're late on their talking points. Don't they know McCain is recycling his old shtick to trying to scare us about Iran again? Keep up guys. - promoted by johne)
On October 27 and October 28 broadcasts, Newsradio
850 KOA's "Gunny"
Bob Newman and Independence
Institute Director of Operations Amy
Oliver echoed the false claim, originating on
the Drudge Report, that in a January 18, 2001, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio interview, Sen. Barack Obama said he regretted that the
Supreme Court has not pursued wealth redistribution.
After playing a clip of the interview on his October
27 broadcast, Newman asserted that Obama said it was "a tragedy that we
didn't get the
redistributive change through the courts. Redistribution of wealth. And he laments that."
Referring to Obama on her October 28 1310 KFKA
broadcast, Oliver similarly stated, "We're talkin' about a guy who
would like to see the Supreme Court redistribute wealth." She later
added, "When we start having a judiciary, when we have a Supreme Court
that just ignores legislation or ignores the Constitution and starts redistributing wealth
from the Supreme Court -- I mean,
I look at that, and I'm frightened."
In fact, Obama did not say he would like the Supreme
Court to "redistribute wealth." Rather, as Media Matters for America has noted, the
"tragedy" Obama identified during the 2001 interview was that the
civil rights movement "became so court-focused" in trying to bring
about political and economic justice. Obama stated: "And one of the -- I
think, the tragedies of
the civil rights movement was, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that
there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the
ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through
which you bring about redistributive change."
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