Fox News Claims That US Government Rigged The 2012 Election For Obama

Fox News Claims That US Government Rigged The 2012 Election For Obama
Jason Easley
Politicususa

Fox News has invented a new reason why Mitt Romney lost the election. They are claiming that government bureaucrats unfairly tilted the playing field for Obama in the 2012 election.

On Fox and Friends Stuart Varney said, “It’s bigger than the IRS. There’s a suspicion here that the machinery of government has been used to suppress conservatives. That the election in fact was not a level playing field. There was a tilt, and it was orchestrated by government bureaucrats. You just mentioned the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, almost always when liberal groups apply for a waiver of document fees, they were granted that waiver. Conservative groups had to pay. Now that’s a form of financial pressure on conservative groups. Then you’ve got disaster relief funds. Four states, red states run by Republican governors, were denied disaster relief funds. Then you’ve got the IRS. It’s not just the tax exempt office. Conservative supporters, supporters of conservative groups, they were audited. Republican donors, audited. And there’s a consistent pattern here. So Republicans, conservatives are looking back over the last four years and saying there is a pattern. There is a pattern of going after conservatives which affected the election. The government bureaucracy was used as a hammer in a way that it was not supposed to be used.”

Brian Kilmeade claimed that it was hard to argue with these examples because there are actual living breathing people that have proof of it.

It is really easy to argue with Varney’s examples, because they are either not true or come from dubious sources. The claims about the EPA come from the Koch and Scaife funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). CEI’s mission is to shill for some of the biggest polluters in the country through climate change denial. In the 1990′s CEI was funded by the tobacco industry, and spearheaded tobacco disinformation campaigns. CEI opposes automobile fuel efficiency standards. CEI is anti-regulation, and is also funded by corporate giants like Ford and Coca-Cola. The source on Fox’s claims of EPA right wing persecution has a definite political agenda.

The claim that four red states have been denied disaster relief funds is dubious at best. These states were denied a disaster relief declaration but they received aid and support from FEMA in other ways. To make it sound as if they got nothing because they were conservative is not true. It is likely that the IRS audited or questioned more conservative donors, because conservative groups that received non-profit status outnumbered liberal ones 34 to 1. The odds of Republicans being audited are also higher because Republicans/conservative groups have a smaller donor base. Republicans rely on a few wealthy individuals to fund the majority of their activities. These individuals were donating heavily to dark money groups, which raised the suspicion of the IRS.

This was another example of Fox News trying to make excuses for Mitt Romney’s loss while building their factless case for Obama impeachment. Mitt Romney didn’t lose because Barack Obama used the government to rig the election. Romney lost because he was a terrible candidate who alienated everyone who wasn’t a conservative with his 47% comments.

Obama didn’t cheat to win reelection. He won despite numerous Republican efforts rig the election by suppressing the vote in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Fox News knows how to tap into their audience’s paranoia, and that’s exactly what they were doing here. Paranoia about government oppression is almost as old as American conservatism itself. Republicans can never accept the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency, so they continue to invent reasons for their defeat.

Campaign officials found guilty in court.
Specific targeting.
Baseless claims of who gives what.

The smitten will always be smitten. The blind will always be blind.

There are parallels here. Paranoia only a conservative thing huh??? Florida circa 2000 anyone??? That paranoia still flares up from time to time.

Someone is trying really, really hard. Protectionism at its best.

Marconius wrote:
There are parallels here. Paranoia only a conservative thing huh??? Florida circa 2000 anyone??? That paranoia still flares up from time to time.

Didn't some of the Supreme Court Justices who effectively decided the case by stopping the recount in 2000 turn around recently though, and say that maybe they'd made the wrong decision?

:-P

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
There are parallels here. Paranoia only a conservative thing huh??? Florida circa 2000 anyone??? That paranoia still flares up from time to time.

Didn't some of the Supreme Court Justices who effectively decided the case by stopping the recount in 2000 turn around recently though, and say that maybe they'd made the wrong decision?

:-P

May have made is not equal to made.

Besides you know that article is reaching.

I saw the interview just now and basically what they were talkig about was the use of data tracking of persuadable voters. Beyond that, every incumbent takes the advantages of incumbency, but then you add in the irs, and potential doj targeting of conservatives, the investigating of journalists and their families like james rosen and you only begin to smudge the surface of the greater institutionalized and systematic chicago-style dirty politics of the obmin.

I agree. This administration is acting sort of "thuggish". I cant point a finger directly at Obama (yet), but I find it hard to believe he didn't know what is going on.

I will say, however, that although I like James Rosen...I find little fault in the Dept of Justice looking into his contacts. They got a court order and did this legally. Otoh, its a bit ...shady how they targeted his own family. But sealing up leaks is important. Bush had a terrible time with leaks and I wish his administration could have been more proactive in stopping them.

Because its unprecedented to do so under the espionage act