Progressive News Feeds

Conservative media figures are using the Boston Marathon bombings to pressure lawmakers to halt attempts at immigration reform, the details of which were released last week by eight bi-partisan members of the Senate known as the “Gang of Eight.” By suggesting that immigration reform could facilitate future terrorist attacks, right-wing media are attempting to obstruct legislation that a majority of Americans support.

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First lady Michelle Obama has responded to conservative criticism over her Academy Awards appearance, saying it was “absolutely not surprising” that her participation in the ceremony set off a national conversation.  On February 24, Obama made a surprise appearance via satellite at the 85th Academy Awards where she helped announce the Best Picture Oscar winner. Academy officials invited the first lady to take part in the presentation.   Following the first lady’s appearance, right-wing media falsely suggested that her participation was unprecedented, ignoring that former presidents and former first lady Laura Bush had previously participated in the ceremony.

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Zeb Colter, an anti-immigrant character from World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) that has recently drawn the ire of right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck, would be right at home in the conservative media.   Many of Colter’s bigoted and flawed arguments have been the right’s stock-in-trade for years.  Beck targeted the Colter character on his radio show, arguing that Colter is “demonizing the Tea Party.” Beck also accused the WWE of “mocking me for standing up for the Constitution.” Beck’s co-host Stu Burguiere complained: “It seems that the villain, the guy you’re supposed to hate, is this stereotype of a conservative that I’ve never met.” Colter currently appears on WWE programming alongside wrestler Jack Swagger, spouting a lot of heated anti-immigrant rhetoric in the middle of a scripted feud with Mexican-born wrestler Alberto Del Rio. According to WWE, Colter’s rhetoric is intended to “to build the Mexican American character Del Rio into a hero given WWE’s large Latino base.” WWE explains that in order “to create compelling and relevant content for our audience, it is important to incorporate current events into our storylines.”

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Two conservative hosts for MSNBC are criticizing Fox News and Rush Limbaugh in the latest salvo in the right-wing media’s civil war. Since the presidential election, what had been a low-grade conflict between members of the right-wing media has dramatically increased in intensity. Some in the conservative media have criticized their colleagues for failing to provide credible reporting and reasonable predictions during the campaign

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David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook , nominated for eight Oscars, is hardly the first movie to find critical acclaim with a searing portrait of the impact of mental illness

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When former FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey complained to Media Matters last week that the Tea Party group had wasted money when it paid Glenn Beck and Rush to say “nice things” about the organization on the air, Armey sounded a lot like a record label executive bemoaning the high cost of radio promotion. Armey protested that in making the payments to the high-profile talkers, FreedomWorks was “spending too damn much” and “getting too little value out of it.” The former House majority leader didn’t know the details of Limbaugh’s contract, but said Beck had been paid at least $1 million last year to help the organization fundraise, an effort internal FreedomWorks documents reveal garnered the organization roughly $850,000 (not including some third party event ticket sales).

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“Slut.” “Prostitute.”  These words  defined  Rush Limbaugh in 2012 after he smeared Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student who testified before Congress about women’s health care. Limbaugh’s misogynistic attack, which spanned three days of his radio show, did incalculable, long-term  damage  not only to Limbaugh’s brand, but also  to the right-wing talk-radio format  he helped to build and the conservative movement he has shaped for decades.

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One week after a mass shooting at a school in Newtown, Connecticut that left 20 children and six adults dead, the National Rifle Association broke its silence with a  question-free “press conference”  that featured a number of inaccurate claims about school safety and the role of entertainment in violence. The media has a responsibility to evaluate the truthfulness of the claims made the NRA and should not merely pass along statements made in the press conference as fact.  During the  press conference , NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre claimed that gun free school policies make students less safe, misled about the Obama administration’s position on school safety funding, and suggested that increasing armed security at schools is a comprehensive policy to stop violent attacks. LaPierre also falsely suggested there exists a link between violent video games and actual acts of violence while ignoring the documented link between gun availability and violence.

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Gawker obtained a 2005 note through a Freedom of Information Act request recently that shows Fox News president Roger Ailes offering the Bush administration “help off the record.” The note is consistent with Ailes’ influence in making Fox the communication arm of the Republican Party. The Gawker find , which comes on the heels of news that Ailes’ contract to run Fox News was

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Over at The Atlantic, I took a look at NBC’s reboot of The Munsters , Mockingbird Lane , and beyond that, the question of what monsters are for and whether they can have any actual impact when they’ve become ubiquitous: So if we aren’t supposed to be frightened of the Munsters, what are they for? Mockingbird Lane has stripped away the working-class symbolism of The Munsters, which at the time was meant as more direct commentary on a kind of family sitcom that doesn’t quite exist anymore, replaced by self-aware, upper-middle-class juggernauts like ABC’s Modern Family. Herman no longer works at a funeral home, or even seems to work at all, and Lily’s so ethereal—she appears in clouds of smoke and wears designer frocks weaved for her by friendly spiders—it’s hard to imagine her starting up even so posh a business as a beauty parlor

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