Earlier this week, progressive champion Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) called out Fox News’s Sean Hannity for his disinformation around the sequester, telling him he was the “worst excuse for a journalist” he had ever seen.
Last night, Hannity responded by smearing Ellison when he wasn’t there to defend himself. He implied that the Congressman held anti-semitic views, and brought up debunked attacks used against Ellison during his 2006 campaign.
But this behavior is nothing new for Hannity himself along with the network he belongs to. Hannity and the network have a history of inciting islamophobia and racial and ethnic animosity. Here are a few examples:
- Fox Host John Gibson Said We “Need More Babies” Because The Majority Of Americans May Be Hispanic In 25 Years [5/12/06]
- Fox Host Steve Doocy Claimed Barack Obama Went To A “Madrassa” And Was Possibly A Muslim Extremist [1/19/07]
- Fox News Managing Editor Said Barack Obama Had “Fairly Controversial” Views About “The White Race” [3/28/08]
- Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade Suggested “Special Screenings” For Muslim American Soldiers After The Fort Hood Shootings [11/7/09]
- Fox News Host Blamed Desecration Of A Tennessee Mosque On The “Stubbornness” Of Muslims Building A Community Center In New York City[8/24/10]
- Fox News Immediately Hired Disgraced NPR Commentator Juan Williams, Who Was Let Go For Making Insensitive Comments About Muslims [10/21/10]
- Fox Host Glenn Beck Said The 3/5 Compromise Was A “Way To Take A Step To Abolish Slavery” [1/6/11]
- Fox Host Sean Hannity Repeatedly Suggested That Middle East Uprisings Are Signs Of “World War III” [2/8/11, 2/10/11, 2/22/11]
- Fox Host Glenn Beck Claimed That The Pro-Democracy Movement In Egypt Was Evidence Of A Muslim-Marxist Conspiracy To Establish An Islamic Caliphate [2/11/11]
- Fox News Radio Reporter Todd Starnes Published Tweets About “Blacks Rioting” At A Burger King And Asking If Muslims “Will Stop Trying To Blow Us Up?” [3/24/11, 9/11/10]
- Fox News’s Sean Hannity Referred to Islam’s Holiest Figure As The ‘So-Called Prophet Muhammad’ [12/10/12]
- Fox News’s Sean Hannity compared Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison’s beliefs to those of the Ku Klux Klan: “What is the difference, I mean, do we have somebody then in Congress that is the equivalent of one side of what the Klan is?” [2/28/13]
Recall that Fox News head Roger Ailes himself engaged in extreme Islamophobia, implying that all of France’s Muslims wanted to commit violence. He once complained about an interview with the French president like this: “Nowhere in the Time magazine interview do they say, ‘Mr. Chirac, do you have any business dealings with Iraq? Mr. Chirac, is there a one-hundred-and-twenty-billion-dollar oil contract with Iraq? Mr. Chirac, weren’t you the guy that went over and set up a nuclear reactor?…How about the seven million Muslims down the street that are going to blow up the Eiffel Tower? Does that bother you?’”
Show Keith Ellison he is not alone by donating $3 to his campaign. Progressive Change Campaign Committee members have pitched in $15,000 in the last 24 hours.
Last year, Michigan Republicans pushed through a radical “right to work” anti-union law. In the days before the law was passed, thousands of Michiganders protested, as it was being pushed through in a lame duck session so a number of defeated Republicans could vote for the unpopular measure.
