FORGET GLENN BECK: the UPS Store has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole

While I'm definitely thrilled to see the success of Color of Change's threatened boycott of companies that advertise on FOX NEWS CHANNEL (FNC) during the Glenn Beck Show, I'm more excited by this line from the Associated Press article on the effort:

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"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.
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Now does this mean that the UPS Store will stop advertising on FNC completely? Who knows. But what it does mean is that the boycott on Beck is making advertisers really evaluate where they advertise and hopefully this is the beginning of a new era in broadcast advertising, a new era in which personalities are not rewarded for spreading lies and hate.

I do feel that the AP and others do the public a disservice when they group MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman with FNC's Beck and Sean Hannity because the reason for the backlash is not liberal/progressive vs. conservative, its about responsible rhetoric vs. irresponsible rhetoric.

By drawing this comparison we are being led to believe that they all do the same thing, they don't. Folks like Beck, Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs are not problems because they represent a conservative point of view, they are problems because they use misinformation and outright lies to divide us. I am no fan of MSNBC's MORNING JOE, but while Joe Scarborough has not entirely avoided misinforming, this show for the most part is responsible when it comes to dealing with some of our most divisive issues of our time.

Tea baggers do themselves proud and rough up CNN reporter

. . .and call Obama a fascist, however the dude who called President Obama a fascist could not explain why he was a fascist. The best is the guys in the background yelling Ba Ba Boooie,

Hannity update: the hooker pics were from a TV segment he did promoting prostitution

Yesterday we posted pictures of one of FOX NEWS principal hypocrites, Sean Hannity, with the ladies of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (MBR) as well as their pimp Dennis Hoff, and questioned how he came to appear in these pictures. A YouTube scan turned up a video of this visit posted by the folks at NewsHounds and it appears that Hannity visited the brothel with a TV crew in tow in an effort to "Hannitize" them during a segment on "Hannity's America" which aired originally aired on July 29, 2007.

We aren't too sure what "Hannitize" is supposed to mean but in our unbiased critical analysis (wink, wink) we take it to mean that when you get "Hannitized" you get a slick 3.5-minute commercial masquerading as a news segment.

Although Hannity appeared to lecture the girls and Pimp Hoff for less than a minute, we also got to meet the women who work at the ranch, learn about the process of selecting a lady (or ladies), we find out that folks from all walks of life visit MBR and Hoff tells us how the the privacy of patrons is safe. The segment also featured a rhythmic music bed and a laid back Hannity in jeans topped off with a black open collared shirt. After watching this segment we realized that if we were in the market for a legal brothel in Nevada MBR would be our choice.

Shouldn't our moralizing friend have gone with bible in one hand and a cross in the other?

Our guess is this "Hannitization," which was probably pitched by whomever does the media relations for the MBR, actually DROVE business to the brothel rather than discouraged it. If we were Hoff, the ladies of MBR or the media relations team we would be THRILLED with this segment. In essence Hannity used his TV show to promote prostitution, seriously.

We enjoy watching “Cathouse” on HBO and are not making moral judgments here, as we mentioned yesterday we are just calling out the hypocrisy. Hell, we can even be accused of promoting prostitution ourselves, but let the record know we don’t portray ourselves of moral crusaders.

When we made our initial post yesterday we did not know the circumstances behind the photos and now that we do it just reinforces Hannity’s hypocrisy.

Sean Hannity PHOTOGRAPHED CAVORTING with hookers and their pimp

On March 2, Megan Kelly of FOX NEWS CHANNEL (FNC) went out of her way to distort the facts of President Obama’s stimulus plan and claimed it included a provision that would fund a high-speed train between Los Angeles and the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (MBR), a brothel which is featured in HBO’s hit series “Cathouse.” We wonder if she got that info from fellow FNC personality Sean Hannity, who may know the brothel intimately and was PHOTOGRAPHED cavorting with a bunch of MBR ladies as well as their pimp Dennis Hoff.

While Kelly was doing what FNC is known to do, MAKE SHIT UP, the photos of Hannity were sitting right there, not on some paparazzi page but on the official MBR website.

We will not accuse Hannity of any illegal behavior, MBR is a licensed brothel in Nevada, but we will accuse him of being a grade A HYPOCRITE. We don’t claim to know the circumstances surrounding these photos, however we do know that in 2005 Hannity went after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg claiming she supported legalized prostitution.

On November 1, 2005 MediaMatters quoted Hannity:

“I guess where I am on this, if you look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I mean, she -- the Ginsburg rule, she doesn't have to answer specific questions, clearly pro-choice going in, thinks there may even be a constitutional right to polygamy, has a controversial view we should lower the age of consent to 12, supports legalized prostitution, very left-wing.”

Upon seeing these photos we immediately we wondered, “what will Hannity’s religious right fans say about this?”

If Hannity is the moral crusader he claims to be, why the hell did he put himself in a position for these pictures to be taken? Did he visit the brothel? Is he a customer? Did he run into Hoff and the MBR ladies at a trade show or convention?

The Hannity we know and HATE, would never put himself in proximity of these “sinners.” If he couldn’t have avoided meeting them shouldn’t he have lectured them on their lack of morals, told them they were going to hell and REFUSED to take a picture with them?

Right?

On numerous occasions those of us on the “secular left” have laughed hysterically when moralists on the right (Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard and David Vitter to name a few) have railed against us for our alleged “lack of morality” only to see these folks exposed as hypocrites. We knew Hannity would eventually be exposed, we were just waiting on the evidence.

Sean you have some ‘splaining to do.