Right Wing folk hero and criminal shows what his ilk is made of, playing the "race card" as it was played for centuries in parts of this country but that Conservatives claim no longer exists in their party or is just empty scapegoating by Lefties.
And Sean Hannity, the most septic influence on politics in America, more than one some small or large deception every show ("the liberal-controlled pollsters are lying to Americans; Romney in a landslide" and their, not his, predictions were perfect), is dead to t***h. But what follows will be dismissed by many on the Right just as Hannity dismissed the "liberal-controlled pollsters."
Cut and paste from
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/04/dana-loesch-if-bundy-trespass-cows-were-illegal-a...
The Cliven Bundy standoff, involving an angry rancher who refuses to pay federal grazing fees, took a new, ugly turn Wednesday night when the New York Times reported horrifying comments he made about the Negro and s***ery. Meanwhile, Bundys quest continues to grip Fox News audiences. This is largely because his story is more reasonable if you watch Foxs creative, often fictionalized version of it.
Here, then, are nearly two dozen claims that have been uttered in defense of Bundy by Fox personalities, other right-wing pundits and Bundy himself. (A good deal of them, alas, come from Sean Hannity.)
For each claim, weve offered a bit of a fact-check or t***hful context afterward.
1. The B*Ms actions lacked proportionality. (Sean Hannity) The Bureau of Land Management simply arrived to take cattle, per a court order. They didnt show up with guns drawn and they never even entered Bundys property. They did, however, carry arms for a good reason: They had received intelligence that Bundy and his crew might cause trouble. There is nothing disproportionate about being prepared.
2. The B*M pointed guns at children. The Republican Nevada Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore has been saying this during her 15 minutes of fame, including on All In With Chris Hayes on MSNBC last week. There has been no evidence offered that the B*M pointed guns at children. Bundys teenage son attempted to assault officers and kicked a police dog and resisted arrest, and so they used a taser on him, as well they should have.
3. The Feds are going to cause another Waco. (Cliven Bundy, et al.) The feds are trying to avoid another Waco. The U.S. government did not cause Waco but rather botched the response; they could have waited it out more patiently to avoid the loss of life of innocent children. And this is exactly why the feds have not pressed the issue (yet) with Bundy, and why the B*M stood down.
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4. Since when does the government send armed officers to collect a debt? (Hannity) Many repossession and foreclosure actions often involve a sheriff or other armed officials, and confiscation of property is an ordinary means by which a government resolves a debt. For example, if you accumulate 20 years of unpaid parking tickets, a court will order that your car be booted and towed until you pay. And if you point a rifle at the cop or otherwise assault him, you might get shot (or tased).
5. Nobody has seen any bill for $1.1 million. It doesnt exist. (Michelle Fiore, R-Nevada Assembly, on MSNBC) Bundy says he has never been sent a bill but also says he never opens mail from the U.S. government because he does not recognize the U.S. governments existence. A court has ordered him to pay a debt of $1.1 million in accumulated fines and fees for having put greater than his allowed quota of cattle on federally protected tortoise habitat.
6. The B*M provoked, escalated this controversy. Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, made this accusation, as have numerous others. If an armed resistance is put up against an asset seizure by law enforcement officials who are acting under a court order, the provocation is exclusively the work of those who have chosen to threaten the lawmen with violence.
7. The land is not being used its not like they want to build a school, road or hospital on it. (Hannity) How federal land is used is determined by federal law. A citizen does not get to decide for himself whether the land should remain vacant or grazed, or whether something should be built on it.
8. Harry Reid and his son have a financial motive to remove Bundys cows. (Bob Massi, Fox News legal correspondent) There is no evidence at all that Harry Reid or his son have any financial or political interest in what is going on. Dont believe everything you hear on Fox News, especially when the reporter qualifies it, as Massi did here, by saying, We dont really know if its true.
9. The B*M k**led cattle and put the corpses in a mass grave. There is no evidence that the B*M euthanized Bundys cattle except some photos and footage of dubious pedigree being aired nightly on Fox News. That said, it is possible that a cow or two could have died during the roundup. Cattle are occasionally k**led in large roundups. Now, if there was a mass euthanizing of cattle, the B*M should be forced to explain that.
10. The sheriff is the only man with arresting power in Clark county. Bundy has made this claim in his nightly appearance on the Sean Hannity show, and it has long been a favorite talking point of Tea Partyers, especially in the West. But it is false. Federal officers have arresting power where federal land is trespassed or where federal law has otherwise been broken. The B*M does have an obligation under federal regulations to seek the cooperation of local law enforcement to resolve certain disputes. But in this case, the sheriff refused to help out.
11. People should not die over a few cows eating free government grass. (Hannity) Thats true, which is why Bundy and his m*****a members should not have chosen to point guns at federal officials and escalate the situation. Now, those m*****a members could find themselves getting shot or even k**led. Such is the consequence of pointing rifles at lawmen trying to do their job.
12. How could a cow possibly eat $1.1 million of grass? (Bundys daughter, Stetsy Bundy) Cows can easily eat a million bucks worth of grass but thats neither here nor there. Grazing fees are not assessed by weighing the amount of tonnage that a cow eats. It is a per-animal-unit, per-month fee, and it adds up over 20 years. Furthermore, Bundys liability is as much for fines for illegal trespass as it is for fees.
13. Whats wrong with Bundys cows simply cutting the grass for free? (Hannity) A trespass is not forgiven simply because the trespasser believes he is performing a service for the owner. Furthermore, cutting grass is not depriving the owner of a nuisance but rather taking a valuable resource (edible grass) from the owner.
14. Bundy has rights to the land because his ancestors worked the land prior to formation of B*M. Bundy has made this argument himself and others have echoed it, but even if Bundys ancestors did work the land (and we only have his word that they did, and he is notoriously dishonest), as of the passage of the Taylor Act in 1934 they would have had to pay grazing fees. And it was never private land. The parcel that Bundy is trespassing has been owned by the U.S. government ever since it was purchased and/or won from Mexico or Spain.
15. This is all predicated on a tortoise that is not even endangered. (Hannity) The decision as to whether the tortoise is endangered and whether it can withstand grazing, and how much, is one for biologists to make and can be challenged in court by anyone that disagrees with it, in which case the government must show that it is using valid science.
16. Grazing more cattle on federal land will keep beef prices down. Sean Hannity made this i***tic remark two nights ago. If the government wants to centrally control the market for beef (as it sometimes does with other commodities) it is a policy decision to be made by Congress and the Department of Agriculture, not Mr. Bundy or Sean Hannity.
17. We have rapists, p*******es and murderers. Why is government focusing on this piece of land? (Hannity) The governments decision to seize the assets of a scofflaw will not cause rapes, murders or acts of p********a to be neglected. Law enforcement is capable of multitasking.
18. The feds should simply put a lien on Bundys property. (Fiore, Hannity et al) Yes, they can and they should (and likely have already, since its been going on 20 years), and this would mean that when his cows arrive at market, the proceeds would go directly to the government. But realized that the collection of the past due amount is only one issue the other is that Bundy continues to run his cows on land that is closed to grazing, and a lien wont accomplish that.
19. If you owed money, would you like it if the government came to your house and pointed guns at you and your wife and family? (Fiore) The B*M did not point guns at the Bundys until the Bundys assaulted them. The B*M was doing its job, and Bundys armed supporters threatened them with force and the son assaulted one of the officers and his dog.
20. Peaceful protesters were relocated miles away from entrance to the Bundy ranch, and denied their First Amendment Rights. (Brian Sandoval, GOP governor of Nevada) When law enforcement needs to operate in a tense situation, they are within their rights to move protesters to an area safely away from the action. This is for their own protection, and it is especially appropriate where some of the protesters bring weapons.
21. Bundy has already paid fees to Nevada County. Dana Loesch, a frequent guest on Fox, has repeatedly made this peculiar argument. Wh**ever Bundy might have paid to Nevada County is of no consequence to his federal tax bill. You cannot avoid a federal tax bill by paying fees and taxes to the county.
22. If the cattle were i*****l i*******ts, the Justice Department would be running guns to them and Homeland Security would be giving them free phones. (Dana Loesch) Even if this were true (and it isnt), cattle are not i*****l i*******ts. Nor does this silly hypothetical scenario bear in any way on the fact that Bundy and his thugs have broken the law by ignoring several court orders, and interfering with law enforcement in many ways.
Almost any serious journalist finds Sean Hannity a disgrace to the profession. Besides not having any journalism courses or background, the man averages three half-t***hs a show by using quotes out of context or abbreviated to give a false impression. But below is a short list of documented outright lies:
On the Feb. 27 edition of Hannity, host Sean Hannity replayed part of his Feb. 26 interview with Rep. Keith Ellison. During the exchange, Ellison responded to Hannitys question about the federal debt being immoral by saying, You are immoral for telling lies. Hannity asked, Im immoral? What did I do thats immoral? Ellison responded, You tell mist***hs. You say things that arent true. Speaking before the clip was aired, Hannity said Ellison at times, seemed incoherent and really started grasping at straws. After the clip was aired, Hannity said to guest J.C. Watts, I just gave him the rope and said, go. Here you go, rant away.
10. Hannity Hyped RNCs Doctored Audio of Supreme Court Arguments. Hannity uncritically aired a Republican National Committee (RNC) ad that used audio from Supreme Court oral arguments to attack health care reform but the audio used in the ad was dishonestly edited. [Media Matters, 3/30/12]
9. Hannity Distorted CBO Data to Attack Obama. Hannity claimed that a January 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showed that if Obama were to win a second term, taxes would go up 30 percent. In fact, the report only stated that taxes would increase at such a rate if all the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire. [Media Matters, 2/2/12]
8. Hannity Falsely Claimed a White House Adviser Advocated Compulsory A******n. Hannity claimed that White House science and technology adviser John Holdren advocated compulsory a******n and sterilization. PolitiFact had previously rated a similar claim made months earlier by Fox News Glenn Beck pants on fire false. [Media Matters, 9/9/09]
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7. Hannity Falsely Claimed Obama Called the Death of Four Americans Just a Bump in the Road. Hannity claimed that Obama referred to the death of four Americans in the September 2012 attack on a U.S. compound in B******i as just a bump in the road. In fact, Obama was referring to the difficulties Arab countries were facing in t***sitioning from autocratic rule to democracy. [Media Matters, 9/25/12]
6. Hannity Spread False Report That Egypt Was Considering Necrophilia Bill. Hannity hyped a thinly sourced report from an Egyptian newspaper to claim that the Egyptian government was considering a law that would allow a husband to have sex with his dead wife. The Christian Science Monitor called the story utter hooey, and multiple sources later debunked the claim. [Media Matters, 4/30/12; Huffington Post, 4/26/12]
5. Hannitys Special on Liberal Bias Featured Wildly Distorted and Out-of-Context Quotes. Hannitys Behind the Bias special, in which he purported to investigate the bias of the mainstream media, featured multiple deceptively cropped quotes. For example, he played a clip purporting to show that Katie Couric called President Ronald Reagan an airhead; in fact, Couric was citing a conclusion from a biography of Reagan. [Media Matters, 4/24/11]
4. Hannity Cast Doubt on Scientific Consensus About C*****e C****e. Even though the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that g****l w*****g is occurring and is likely caused or exacerbated by human activity, Hannity has repeatedly denied or cast doubt on the existence of c*****e c****e. [Media Matters, 12/4/09, 1/13/10, 8/27/10, 11/19/10, 6/24/11]
3. Hannity Fueled Myth That Obama Is a Muslim. During a segment in March 2011 in which he fueled the smear that Obama was not born in the U.S., Hannity claimed that Obama went to a Muslim school. In March 2012, while claiming that he was not doubting [Obama's] faith, Hannity said, [L]ook, he did write about his early years, that he did study the Quran, that one of the most beautiful moments in life was prayer at sunset. So, I mean, he does have that background. [Media Matters, 3/24/11, 3/21/12]
2. Hannity Fed the Birther Movement. Hannity repeatedly fed the long-standing smear that Obama was not born in the United States, even after Obama released his birth certificate and multiple fact-checkers debunked the smear. Hannity denied that Obama had shown his birth certificate and once falsely claimed that Obama grew up in Kenya. [Media Matters, 3/28/11, 4/20/12]
1. Hannity Ignored Overwhelming Evidence to Repeatedly Claim Obamas Policies Have Not Helped Improve the Economy. Hannity has repeatedly claimed that President Obamas policies have not improved the economy. In fact, numerous economists and independent analysts have noted that many of Obamas policy achievements, such as the stimulus, have benefited the economy: GDP is growing rather than contracting as it was at the end of 2008, and the economy has added millions of jobs. [Media Matters, 1/13/10, 7/14/11, 2/2/12]