Day: March 2, 2011

Did Fox Mean to Deceive with ‘Palm Tree Lie’ – Or Were O’Reilly’s Producers Just Being Sloppy?

Jon Ponder
Palm trees in Wisconsin?
Palm trees in Wisconsin?

Have the protests in Wisconsin turned violent? On legitimate news outlets, the crowds appear to be quite peaceful. But coverage on Fox relentlessly promotes the idea that outside agitators and union thugs are fomenting unrest. Fox’s Mike Tobin even claimed to have been assaulted as he was reporting live from the scene — but video taken by bystanders appears to show he was lying.

On the Factor yesterday, as Bill O’Reilly and Tobin discussed the protests, the Factor’s producers ran B-roll of unruly protesters hurling epithets that appeared to prove there was trouble in the streets in Wisconsin. Big problem: The backdrop of the incident was not snowy, frigid Madison but a street lined with California palms.

Now the question is, did Fox intentionally deceive or were O’Reilly’s producers just being sloppy?

We report. You decide.

[…]

Verbatim

Buck Banks

I am going to reveal a secret. There is an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilizing the Arab world. The operations room is in Tel Aviv and run by the White House.

— Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, quoted by the AP, accusing the United States of instigating protests against his and other Arab regimes.

Rev. Grant Storms Caught In Flagrante Delicto with Rosie Palmer and Her Five Sisters

Buck Banks

Grant Storms' booking photo.
Grant Storms' booking photo.
Fundamentalist Christian Rev. Grant Storms, the longtime leader of protests against New Orleans’ gay-pride festival, was caught masturbating in the parking lot of a playground in Metairie, La., Feb. 25, according to the Times-Picayune.

Storms, 53, of 2304 Green Acres Road in Metairie, was taken into custody at Lafreniere Park after two women reported seeing him masturbating in the driver’s seat of his van, which was parked near the carousel and playground, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office report said.

Storms told deputies he was having lunch at the park when he decided to urinate in a bottle instead of using the restroom. He was booked on obscenity charges, bond was set at $10,000, but he was released due to jail overcrowding.

A self-styled “Christian patriot,” Storms led a small West Bank congregation called The Reformer Church and for 10 years hosted “The Reformer Radio Show” on WSHO. Storms has railed against the Roman Catholic church, calling it “satanic” and “demonic.”

He is especially known for arming followers with bullhorns, Bibles and picket signs to protest Southern Decadence, the three-day gay festival held in the French Quarter during Labor Day weekend. Storms grabbed national attention in 2003 with his failed attempts to shut down what Southern Decadence organizer Chuck Robinson called a peaceful festival that celebrates gay and alternative lifestyles.

“He’s done everything through the years to disturb that and try to make it into something nasty that it’s not,” Robinson said. “If the Rev. Storms is caught doing that in our city, it is ludicrous and heinous that he would have the nerve to complain about any kind of sexuality.”