Not Everyone Likes the Fourth of July-Themed Al Jazeera Video that Mocks Americans as Fat, Gun-Toting Racists

Al Jazeera’s digital media platform AJ+ posted a Fourth of July-themed video mocking Americans as fat, cheese-eating, gun-toting, pill-popping, racist porn watchers.

While some on social media applauded the creation, others slammed the Qatar-owned network for using the holiday “to dump” on America.

Social media users got particularly riled up by the criticism coming from the channel owned by Qatar — a country where stoning is a legal punishment under Shariah law, women have second class legal status, writers can be imprisoned for criticizing the emir and abuse of foreign laborers has been repeatedly criticized by human rights groups.

The video is sarcastically titled “Americans Show Why USA Is The #1 Country In The World.”

After lauding the U.S. as world leader in Olympic medals, Nobel laureates and billionaires, young actors then go on to mock the U.S. for “the most incarcerated people in the world. God-bless the prison industrial complex.”

“When it comes to obesity … a third of us can’t even see our own toes,” said a man waving an American flag.

Another assertion left the impression that nine out of 10 Americans have guns.

“Pew Pew, we’ve got 90 guns per 100 persons. Sorry, Yemen, we beat you in drones and guns!” said one of the actors.

“Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s painkillers. Makes sense though, right? I mean racism in this country is a big pain in the ass,” said a female actor.

Al Jazeera also credited the U.S. with having the “most number of teen pregnancies per capita,” leading the world in credit card debt and “the most deaths by lawnmower.”

“This sort of seems mean spirited to be honest,” Benjamin Buzbee wrote on YouTube. “It’s important to keep perspective and some of these are important issues, but the spirit of this video is to dump on the US the day before independence day – seems more sensationalistic than journalistic. Can’t say I approve.”

Via: The Blaze

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Americans Being Forced to Pay for Al Jazeera

Two weeks ago, Al Jazeera America launched, beaming into 48 million homes across the country. The media company that allowed Osama bin Laden to use it as a vehicle to communicate with jihadists around the world is now on your TV screen and you are paying for it. The network pushed its way onto basic cable packages with several providers. If you subscribe to Verizon, Comcast, Dish Network or DirecTV, you are forced to subsidize Al Jazeera's propaganda as part of your cable bill whether you like it or not.

I represent a district about 70 miles north of where the Twin Towers once stood. Thousands of my constituents commute to Manhattan every day.  People from this area perished in the savage attacks of September 11, 2001.  Serviceman from our community made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting to prevent another attack.  Four Marines I served with left everything they had on the battlefields of Iraq.  When constituents contacted my office to express outrage that Al Jazeera America is now part of their basic cable package, I took it very seriously.

We should not have to fund Al Jazeera through our cable bills. Americans do not want to pay for their vile propaganda. I'm launching a petition drive calling on cable companies to drop Al Jazeera from their basic cable packages.

Via: American Thinker

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Al Jazeera America’s First Week of Ratings Are Here…

With distribution in less than half the households that its cable news competitors enjoy, Al Jazeera America has a long way to go in the television ratings game. That fact was apparent during the new channel’s first week on the air, in which itsmajor programs appeared to hover in the 30-40,000 range, with only one show topping 50,000 viewers.

That honor went to former CNN host Ali Velshi, whose Thursday evening broadcast of Real Money with Ali Velshi drew the week’s best number with 54,000 total viewers. Other relative high points included the 2pm Saturday edition of News Live with 48,000 viewers and the Thursday 12:30pmInside Story with 41,000.

The debut of the channel’s prime time centerpiece America Tonight with host Joie Chen brought in just 34,000 viewers. And the 3pm launch hour Tuesday, which mainly served as an explanatory promo for the network, had only 22,000 viewers, below Nielsen’s minimum accuracy threshold.

Considering all of the channel’s obstacles, these numbers could certainly be worse, but they are of course dwarfed by the ratings from CNN, MSNBC and especially Fox News. Looking at Tuesday through Friday last week, in terms of prime time total viewers, Fox averaged 1.574 million viewers, MSNBC average 509,000 and CNN averaged 450,000.

Watch the first 5 minutes of Al Jazeera America’s launch below, in case you weren’t one of the 22,000 people watching it live:

Via: Mediaite.com

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AT&T Sued Over Refusal to Carry Al Jazeera Cable Network

AT&T Inc. (T), the largest U.S. phone company, was sued by Al Jazeera over its refusal to to carry the Qatar-based broadcaster’s new U.S. cable-news channel as part of its pay-television service.

The Dallas-based company is violating an agreement with Al Jazeera’s U.S. unit by refusing to broadcast the channel, which began airing in the U.S. yesterday, according to a filing inDelaware Chancery Court. The network, controlled by the Qatari royal family, paid $500 million for Al Gore’s money-losing Current TV in January and rebranded it.

AT&T’s U-verse pay-TV service said Aug. 19 it wouldn’t carry Al Jazeera America because of a contract dispute. U-verse began in 2006 and has 5 million video customers in states such as Texas and California.

AT&T officials’ decision amounts to a “wrongful termination of an affiliation agreement,” Al Jazeera said in the filing, which accompanied a sealed complaint. Details on the case came from a cover sheet that contained a brief description of the network’s claims.

Under the court’s rules, a public version of the complaint must be filed within five days unless a judge grants an extension to the sealing of the case.

‘Certain Breaches’

“As a result of our inability to come to terms on a new agreement and due to certain breaches of the existing agreement we have decided not to carry Current TV on U-verse,” Brad Burns, an AT&T spokesman, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

Al Jazeera officials contend the AT&T left them “no choice” other than to file a breach-of-contract suit over the decision to drop the channel, according to an e-mailed statement,

“AT&T’s decision to unilaterally delete Al Jazeera America presented us with circumstances that were untenable -- an affiliate that has willfully and knowingly breached its contractual obligations,” Stan Collender, a partner in Qorvis Communications in Washington, said on behalf of the broadcaster. The aim of the suit is to “compel AT&T to do the right thing,” he added.

Via: Bloomberg 

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