Month: March 2021

THE HORROR! Joe Biden is ‘Boring’ and It’s Driving Fox News and Republicans Insane

Posted by on March 19, 2021 at 10:29 am. 11 Comments :

The rage addicted disciples of Fox News and the Trump Republican Party are undergoing a severe bout of withdrawal in the opening weeks of the Joe Biden presidency. They are no longer being fed massive megadoses of melodrama on a daily (hourly?) basis, and it’s gnawing at them to the point of physical dysfunction.

Fox News, Joe Biden

This is the direct result of exposure to a former reality TV game show host and fake gazillionaire occupying the White House for four years and pumping blind fury into the veins of gullible cultists. The subsequent dependence on a steady supply of contrived outrage has produced a pandemic of psychotic sufferers.

Among the first casualties of this affliction was Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas (or Cancun, depending on the weather). Last week Cruz complained to Sean Hannity of Fox News that Biden’s capacity for stirring up extraneous excitements was insufficient to fuel the nation’s engines of anger:

Hannity: “Boring but radical” kind of sums it up. Explain.
Cruz: You know, you think about the last two months. I think Joe Biden made a political decision – and it was probably a pretty good political decision – to be very boring. The last four years Donald Trump was anything but boring. […] But it is all a subterfuge. It is all a mask designed to hide what is an incredibly radical policy poicy agenda.

So it’s official. “Sleepy” Joe is both boring and a national menace who is masterminding the end of Western civilization. It’s downright diabolical. Never mind that the president isn’t supposed to be “entertaining.” That’s what reality TV drama queens like Trump are for.

What these ultra-rightists consider entertaining is yelling at reporters, insulting women, maligning Democrats (and even Republicans) who disagree, bigoted ranting, Capitol insurrections, and dividing America. What they consider boring is making real progress on the COVID-19 pandemic, racial equity, mitigating climate change, improving healthcare, and reforming immigration. In short, they are bored by competence, compassion, and honesty.

That puts the Trump Confederates at a distinct disadvantage since their criteria for excellence requires the unique characteristics of Trump: Lying pathologically, bragging profusely, whining pathetically, and attacking ponderously. Anything short of that is vilified as the new yawn-inducing opiate of the masses. That point was affirmed on Thursday by Fox’s Senior Rage-aholic, Dan Bongino, who worried that his future in bombastic radio ranting was in jeopardy due to Biden’s troublesome sense of calm:

“It’s just terrible for talk radio. I think Biden is a disaster for the country and his ideas are an atrocity. But he’s boring. He’s just boring. […] I’ll tell you that it’s made me, I believe, a better broadcaster and host because you really had to dig. You’ve had to find interesting angles to stories. And Donald Trump was just a cornucopia of material.”

Exactly! It is totally unacceptable that Biden is forcing these shlock jockeys to “dig” for faux scandals to blame on him. Trump always provided a steady stream of bullpucky to mine for material. Now the poor schnooks on Fox News have to peddle such inanities as Dr. Seuss cancelations, Mr. Potato Head gendering, imaginary immigrant caravans, and Grammy porn. It was even pointed out on Fox by Democratic pundit Chris Hahn, who told the ladies on “Outnumbered” that they would just have to live with the fact that…

United states senators got nothing to complain about Joe Biden because people are so happy with him. They’ve gotta pick a fight over whether John Kerry wore his mask for the entire flight.

What may be worst of all for the Fox News crowd is that Biden’s scheme to give relief to the American people is working. His approval rating just hit 62% and shows no sign of slowing down. If this sort of atrocity continues, Fox may have to abandon their long-held editorial mission of riling up the rank and file (with an emphasis on rank). They may have to concede that being boring is an asset that attests to leadership and competency. After all, no one gets overexcited because everything is going along smoothly.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

NAACP to NFL: ‘Don’t Fund Fox News’ Hatred, Bigotry, Lies and Racism’

Posted by on March 18, 2021 at 4:34 pm. NO Comments :

For a quarter of a century Fox News has been disseminating a torrent of disinformation and purposefully twisted propaganda aimed at advancing their ultra-conservative agenda and propping up radically right-wing politicians. They have pursued that mission via a relentless crusade of flagrant lies and vicious slander.

Fox News Racist

For most of that time those offended by Fox’s deceit have sought to mitigate it by calling out their dishonesty, campaigning to persuade people not to watch, and boycotting Fox’s advertisers. Those tactics have produced uneven results. While successfully shaming many companies into refusing to advertise on certain programs (i.e. Tucker Carlson, whose show is surviving on the largesse of the MyPillow guy), Fox has the wealth and political will to keep money-losing programs on the air.

A more productive means of impacting and disabling Fox’s Lie Factory would be to persuade cable operators to either drop Fox News or put it on a tier that requires subscribers to pay specifically for that channel. Fox actually makes more from cable licensing than from advertising. Media Matters has a project aimed at addressing just that: UnFox My Cable Box.

Now another method has been initiated by the NAACP. The venerated civil rights organization’s CEO, Derrick Johnson, recently sent a letter to the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, asking him to stop helping Fox News to spread lies and hate. Johnson called Fox News “a uniquely destructive force” that “foments racism, undermines public health recovery from the pandemic, and repeatedly attacks the legitimacy of last year’s Presidential election.” USA Today reports further on the contents of the letter:

“The letter, sent to Goodell from Derrick Johnson, the president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, on March 9, and obtained by USA TODAY Sports, also says in part that ‘the NFL’s programming should not be used as a bargaining tool for Rupert Murdoch to help fund Fox News’ hatred, bigotry, lies and racism.'” […]

“In a statement to USA TODAY Sports, separate from his letter to the NFL, Johnson said: ‘It is immensely perturbing that the NFL would consider extending its relationship with Fox, especially after the January 6th insurrection on our Capitol. The NFL should not be used as a bargaining tool to help fund Fox News’ racist and dangerous programming.'” […]

“‘Fox News has gone far and beyond to disinform its viewers, inciting hate, bigotry, and ultimately threatening American democracy,’ Johnson said. ‘We have grave concerns with the NFL’s contract renewal with Fox, and we look forward to having a serious conversation'”

Unfortunately, The NAACP’s letter went out too late to prevent the NFL from making a deal with Fox. But that doesn’t diminish the potential for this as an effective means of protest. There are other organizations and other contracts pending. The NAACP has identified a rich vein of activism that should be mined by groups seeking to put an end to Fox’s destructive impact on our nation. And it’s critical that we use all the tools at our disposable to fight for truth and equality.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Has Trump’s Influence on Fox News – and America – Dwindled to an Impotent Trickle?

Posted by on March 18, 2021 at 1:36 pm. 6 Comments :

It’s been two months since Joe Biden was inaugurated as President of the United States. In that time of national celebration and relief, Donald Trump has retreated to his Mar-a-Lago bunker, emerging only briefly for a speech at the Conservative Political Action Cult (CPAC), and a phone-in to Senior Fox News Trump-fluffer, Maria Bartiromo.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Trump is either suffering a severe depression at having been rejected by millions of voters, or he’s he’s hiding from legal process servers and state prosecutors. And while he’s cowering in near obscurity, unable to tweet his pent up outrages, his grip on the political world is slipping away. This shift to irrelevancy is evident in how the media covers his recent remarks about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Trump spent months promoting the vaccine development and bragging about accomplishments that exist only in his mind. After which he clammed up and refused to encourage his cult followers to get vaccinated. This week that changed after prodding from politicians, the press, and even Dr. Fauci. “I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it,” Trump told Bartiromo. “And a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.” For some reason Trump seems to be proud that his voters are uniquely ignorant about the wisdom of being immunized.

Despite Trump’s sudden interest in endorsing the vaccine, his former confederates in the media are not falling in line. Tucker Carlson is doing extended segments casting doubts on the safety, efficacy, and necessity of vaccinations. Sean Hannity immediately began having doubts about the vaccine after Biden was inaugurated. Laura Ingraham, in a reference to public health experts, told her audience that “it’s time to retire or just ignore the control freaks.”

This was all summed up nicely in a clip from The Daily Show that revealed how “Fox News isn’t explicitly telling its viewers not to get vaccinated, it’s just questioning whether they should over and over again”:

Trump’s waning influence was clearly displayed in how Fox News reported his vaccine recommendation. Media Matters reports that…

“Trump’s remarks will have an impact only if his supporters hear them. And while his comments originally aired on Fox, that network — by far the most popular and influential among Trump voters — has largely ignored them since.

In the 36 hours following Trump’s vaccine endorsement, Fox devoted only about six and a half minutes to the remarks. Only a handful of programs covered the remarks; flagship ‘straight news’ broadcast Special Report and popular opinion shows The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and The Ingraham Angle are among those that have not referenced the comments.”

By contrast, in the 36 hours after Biden’s commentary about “Neanderthal” Republicans who prematurely lifted mask mandates, Fox News ran about 1 hour and 20 minutes of coverage about the phony “scandal.” That’s twelve times as much coverage as allotted to Trump’s weak vaccine plug.

So apparently Fox isn’t jumping on Trump’s bandwagon on this life-or-death subject. And his formerly reliable suck-ups aren’t sucking quite as vigorously. Does this mean anything with regard to Trump’s forward prospects as a politician or a public figure. Who knows? But it surely doesn’t bode well for a former president and future felon who was never particularly well liked or respected in the first place.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Hapless Hannity Mocks CNN’s Ratings While Ignoring His Own Downward Spiral

Posted by on March 17, 2021 at 4:16 pm. 3 Comments :

The presidential election last November heralded real change for America. And it wasn’t just by evicting Donald Trump from the White House. Almost immediately the Fox News audience cratered due to the network having bent to reality by recognizing that Joe Biden had decisively beaten Trump.

Fox News, Sean Hannity

In addition to Fox’s viewers being disappointed that their formerly favorite dispenser of ultra-conservative propaganda had betrayed them by not embracing Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was “stolen,” Fox also had to deal with some competition from a couple of upstarts to their already extreme right (who are also having ratings troubles). Consequently, for the first time in twenty years, Fox News fell to third place behind MSNBC and CNN. And you know that’s gotta hurt. According to Forbes…

“Fox News Channel, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp, has dominated the rating books since the start of the 21st-century, but over the first two weeks of 2021, it has averaged fewer viewers throughout the day than both CNN and MSNBC.”

The pain from having been crippled in the ratings clearly got to Sean Hannity. On Wednesday he posted an item on his website that celebrated that CNN was in a “Free Fall” having “Los[t] 47 PERCENT of Primetime Audience in Key Demographic Since Trump Left Office.” The article excitedly declared that…

“Without wall-to-wall coverage of all-things Donald Trump, CNN’s primetime line-up has lost nearly half of its entire audience in the 25-54 age demographic since the former President left the White House on January 20th.”

There are a couple of notable slants in Hannity’s twisted take. First of all, notice that he is only measuring the ratings decline from Biden’s inauguration day on January 20, rather than from election day on November 3rd. That’s because by January there had already been a massive spike for both CNN and MSNBC, so the subsequent drop looks considerably steeper.

Even more bizarre is Hannity’s description of CNN as having “wall-to-wall coverage of all-things Donald Trump,” when it is Fox News that wears that description so much better. Fox continued to cover every utterance of Trump during that period, which was not the case with CNN and MSNBC. They were, however, covering Biden’s public events that Fox virtually ignored. Hannity even commented on his program that he couldn’t find Biden. Obviously, he must have been looking on Fox News.

Fox News has regained some of its losses in the past couple of weeks, but it is still struggling to stay ahead of the competition. What’s more, while all three of the cable news networks saw rollercoaster ups and downs since election day, both MSNBC and CNN are averaging more viewers than they were a year ago. Rachel Maddow even rose to become the number one program in all of cable, not just cable news. Only Fox News is lower year over year. And Fox’s competitors succeeded by covering the real president and his administration. Bloomberg reports that…

“All three of the big cable news networks have seen a decline in viewers since their highs around Election Day. MSNBC, which has been broadcasting news conferences daily by Biden Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, led in total viewers throughout the day last month. It and CNN were up year-over-year in February, while Fox saw a decline.”

However, Hannity’s article provided a hysterical analysis of the ratings landscape with a three year old quote from Ted Koppel:

“Longtime broadcaster Ted Koppel famously mocked CNN’s Brian Stelter to his face back in 2018, telling the network’s media pundit that ‘CNN’s ratings would be in the toilet without Donald Trump.'”

Let’s set aside that the fact that what Koppel said was hardly mockery. It was just an opinion that Brian Stelter likely agreed was plausible. What makes this so laughable is that Hannity must have forgotten this exchange he had with Koppel that literally mocked him to his face on his own show in March of 2017:

Hannity: Do you think I’m bad for America?
Koppel: Yes. … You have attracted people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts.

So Koppel not only told Hannity to his face that he was bad for America, but he insulted Hannity’s viewers as being ignorant cult followers who don’t care about facts. And all of this inspired Hannity to post a celebratory article full of wholly unwarranted pride. It’s hard to think of something more pathetic.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News and the Instigator of the Trump Insurrection Say Biden is ‘Destroying Our Country’?

Posted by on March 17, 2021 at 12:05 pm. 2 Comments :

On Tuesday evening Donald Trump made a return appearance on his former Ministry of Propaganda network, Fox News. He was treated to a twenty minute, primetime tongue-bath by Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, for whom no sycophancy is too extreme.

Fox News, Donald Trump, Maria Bartiromo

Naturally, Trump spent most of the segment consumed with unwarranted bragging about everything from creating the COVID-19 vaccine to the stock market to taxes. But Trump and Bartiromo devoted a significant portion of their lovefest to maligning President Joe Biden and immigrants. In fact, immigration has become the dominant issue on Fox News (not counting Dr. Seuss) since their failure to ignite an insurrection over Trump’s Big Lie about the election being “stolen.”

Trump pontificated tediously on this with flagrant lies that immigrants are “coming in by the hundreds of thousands,” and that Biden is “destroying our country.”

“Today, they are coming in. You take a look. They are coming in from all foreign countries. I see they are coming in from Yemen. They are coming in from the Middle East. They are coming in from everywhere. They are dropping them off and they are pouring into our country. It is a disgrace. They are going to destroy our country if we don’t do something about it.”

There is absolutely zero evidence of any migrants “coming in from the Middle East.” And the numbers aren’t anywhere near “hundreds of thousands.” But reality has never been an impediment to Trump’s lies before, so why stop now? Biden has only been in office for two months and his immigration agenda has yet to be implemented. So the current policy is still largely that which was put in place by the Trump administration. To the extent that there is a border “crisis,” it’s the result of migrants recognizing the difference between Trump’s lawless cruelty and Biden’s far more humane and compassionate approach that complies with U.S. and international law.

Despite the abundance of preposterous declarations by Trump and equally ludicrous affirmations by Fox News, it is still startling to hear them assert that Biden is destroying the country. Especially since that assertion comes after Trump incited an actual insurrection by violent thugs who invaded the Capitol. And after Trump rejected the election results confirmed by all fifty states. And after Trump maligned the Supreme Court for not capitulating to his demands to upend the Constitution.

Add to those atrocities Trump’s presiding over the deaths of more than half a million Americans from a pandemic that was exacerbated by his negligence and incompetence. Yeah sure, Biden is the one destroying the country. We’re lucky we have a country left for Biden to restore after Trump got through with it. And by the way, here is Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, articulating the Biden policy in response to a question from Fox News:

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Chief Fox News Anti-Vaxxer Tucker Carlson Pushes Deadly Pro-COVID Agenda

Posted by on March 16, 2021 at 12:45 pm. 6 Comments :

For a network that has been bleeding viewers for the past four months, you might think that Fox News wouldn’t want to see their audience shrink any further. Especially not due to viewers dying off from a deadly pandemic that they helped to exacerbate. But you would be wrong.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Coronavirus

On Monday night the Chief Fox News Anti-Vaxxer and Pandemic Promoter, Tucker Carlson, demonstrated just how determined he is to kill off as many of his dimwitted viewers as possible. He ran another in his series of coronavirus disinformation segments whose only plausible purpose is to convince his audience to ignore common sense health guidelines that preserve life. But then, Fox News has been doing that for nearly a year now.

Carlson began by dismissing the settled science that social distancing effectively mitigates the opportunities for viral transmission. He attributed that advice to a 19th century biologist whose work has been validated repeatedly in the intervening years but, according to Carlson, should be rejected just because it’s old (aka time-tested). Then Carlson got to the meat of his mendacious monologue that aimed to cast doubts on the efficacy of COVID vaccinations:

“This should prompt some pretty tough questions for our public health experts in this country. And one of those questions is: How effective is this coronavirus vaccine? How necessary is it to take the vaccine? Don’t dismiss those questions from anti-vaxxers. Don’t kick people off social media for asking them. Answer the questions. Especially now that the administration would like you to take this vaccine. As Joe Biden told you last week, you can’t celebrate the Fourth of July if you don’t.”

So Carlson is only “asking questions.” Never mind that these are questions that have been answered a thousand times by experts with far more credibility on the subject than a fatuous Fox Newser. All the evidence shows that the vaccines currently in use in the United States are safe and effective and critical to saving lives and returning to some degree of normality.

Still, in Carlson’s world the utterly disreputable, conspiracy-minded, anti-vaxxers must be paid attention to despite their having been exposed as crackpots long ago. What’s more, Carlson is joining his Fox confederates in distorting President Biden’s hopeful message of defeating the virus and safely enjoying gatherings with friends and family. The Foxies twisted that into an authoritarian dictate to submit to mandatory vaccination.

That ludicrous interpretation, however, exists only in the biases of right-wing deceivers like Carlson. It’s just another purposeful misstatement of fact that poisons the minds of his viewers. The result of those lies has produced a subculture of ignorance. Carlson noted that…

“When you look at the vaccination rates in certain states, it’s pretty clear that some people are not taking the vaccine on purpose.”

What Carlson isn’t mentioning is that the people he’s talking about are his own viewers who he has been lying to for months, along with others on Fox News and Donald Trump. Of course they’re skeptical. And their skepticism is fueling dangerous behavior that will surely result in more fatalities. According to a recent poll…

“Nearly half of Republican men — 49% — say they won’t choose to be vaccinated if a vaccine is available to them […] Among those who said they supported Trump in 2020, 47% said they wouldn’t choose to be vaccinated. […] In contrast, 6% of Democratic men and 10% of Biden supporters said they wouldn’t get the shot. 25% of Black respondents, 28% of white respondents and 37% of Latino respondents said the same.

UPDATE: Late Tuesday Trump finally recommended that people get vaccinated (two months after he did, secretly).

What’s peculiar is that the vaccines that Carlson is maligning and portraying as unexamined and unnecessary are the same ones that Trump is now trying to take credit for. They’re the same ones that his boss, Rupert Murdoch, was vaccinated with way back in December. So since Carlson is so fond of asking questions, here a few for him:

Are you disputing your employer who clearly isn’t worried about the vaccine? Are you contradicting Trump, your political Messiah? Do you disagree with the doctors who are universally supportive of the vaccines and the science validating them? Do you really think people and society will be better off refusing to get vaccinated? Or do you just not give a damn how many people you kill? I’m just asking.

UPDATE: MSNBC’s Ari Melber did a segment on this with a supercut of Fox News shills saying how great the vaccine was when Trump was still in office.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Newsmax’s Idea of ‘Healthy’ Comedy is Ridiculing Biden’s Stutter with a Fake Laugh Track

Posted by on March 15, 2021 at 4:29 pm. 2 Comments :

Conservatives frequently complain about the prominence of left-leaning comedy. And they often try to make up for it by presenting pitifully unfunny characters on so-called “news” networks like Fox News, where goofball Greg Gutfeld just got his Saturday show promoted to five nights a week. Then again, there’s already a lot on Fox that is laughable.

Fox News Bozo

The argument that comedy has a left-wing bias (just like reality, according to Stephen Colbert) could be supported if all one looks at is the content of late night talk shows and Saturday Night Live where most of the targets of the jokes are Republicans or other right-wing figures. It is undeniable that they supply an abundance of raw material for humor.

However, there are numerous reasons for what the right believes is a conspiracy by the Comedy Overlords to suppress and malign Republicans. But you have to look deeper than the surface level evidence of TV jokesters.

Anyone who wonders why there isn’t very much conservative comedy is inadvertently acknowledging a significant truth: Conservatives just aren’t funny. Comedy is a delicate art that requires a certain finesse to pull off successfully. And the subject of the jokes is as important as the punch line. Experienced comedians will tell you that the target must always be someone of privilege. You cannot make fun of the poor without exposing yourself as callous and cruel. In other words, you don’t punch down.

Conservatives still don’t get that simple rule. And since their whole political ideology is one that is dedicated to advancing the interests of the upper-crusters, down is the only direction that they can punch. So the available targets for their humor are limited to the under-privileged who are already suffering hardships. Not only is that an empty source for comedy, it risks insulting the majority of the audience.

Even when conservatives have potential targets who are among the elite, they still manage to flub their efforts at fun-making. An example of that was conveniently supplied by Benny Johnson of the rightist “news” channel, Newsmax. He did a segment about the importance of comedy to a healthy society. And he demonstrated its use by mocking President Joe Biden, a viable target.

The problem is that, even though Biden is a member of an elite class of political power players, the joke that Johnson chose to feature was about Biden’s well-known speech impediment. That was a bad choice. You simply don’t make fun of people’s disabilities. While an able-bodied man slipping on a banana peel could be funny, no one is going to laugh at a paraplegic who fell out of his wheel chair.

With that in mind, check out what Johnson has to say about comedy in his introduction to a bit on Joe Biden. Note that most of of the “funny” parts are making fun of Biden’s stutter with an added laugh track that Johnson must have thought made it even funnier:

“Big tech censors are working in lock-step with the current administration to suppress comedy and criticism of the Biden administration. Cancel culture has eroded the joy in American culture to the point of absurdity. This is why it is more important than ever in American history to keep humor and ridicule alive. Because it is now clear that we could very well be on the verge of losing it. And lastly guys, if we can just admit, right now, together, that we are living under one of the funniest administrations in American history.”

Oh yeah. That was hilarious. A supercut of a man with a stutter, plus some random moments taken utterly out of context to make him look demented. What’s more, Johnson’s whining about imaginary “Big Tech censors” oppressing conservative comics is – well – hysterical. But as for that pressing question of the modern era: Why aren’t there any conservative comedians? Johnson has helped us answer it by his boorish and infantile example. Coming soon on Newsmax: Blind Truckers and America’s Funniest Epileptic Seizures.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News: Take Kids Out of School Because They Teach Hating White People

Posted by on March 15, 2021 at 11:26 am. 4 Comments :

It’s must be getting awfully difficult for the Fox News cult disciples to figure out what they are supposed to be doing. Ever since the election of Joe Biden, their tele-ministry has become cognitively dysfunctional, even as its CEO admitted publicly that it is anti-Biden. It can’t seem to settle on which phony scandal to promote, so they are cycling between piddling idiocies that range from Dr. Seuss to Mr. Potato Head.

Fox News, KKK

On Sunday Fox’s Senior Trump-fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, hosted Candace Owens, the right’s designated Black racism denier and racial disinformation dispenser. Bartiromo primed the discussion by relating a story told to her by a friend, and parlayed it into a universal assertion that at all schools “They are assuming that every kid is a racist.” Owens took that baton a ran with it saying that…

“I know that Megyn Kelly pulled her kids from school for similar reasons. This is a big topic that I cover extensively. I truly believe that it’s time for us to pull our kids out of school. And I know people say, ‘Not all of us can afford to do that.’ But the country wasn’t built on people having a lot of money when they were homeschooling.”

For several months now, many schools have shifted to online platforms due to the risk of exacerbating the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Republicans have been furiously demanding that schools be reopened throughout the country regardless of the danger it represents to students, their families, and their communities. But now Owens is adamant that kids must be removed from the schools that she and her right-wing confederates insist must be open. And it’s notable that she cites notorious racist, Megyn Kelly, to support her ludicrous rant. She continued with her explanation for why kids must be removed from the reopened schools:

“We’re starting to see this more and more. It’s indoctrination that’s happening They’re trying to fuel racism in this country. They’re trying to teach us Marxist ideology. And the bad thing is, Maria, that they’re replacing hard academics. These kids are not learning science. They’re not learning mathematics. They’re learning how to hate white people and they’re learning how to hate their country.”

Really? Owens didn’t provide any evidence of her allegation that schools are teaching kids to hate white people. Then she concluded by complaining that schools are trying to “guarantee that they have an ignorant group of people that vote based on emotion.” But all of her wholly unsupported arguments are pure projection. They precisely describe the conservative curriculum that eschews science in favor of faith and rightist political doctrine.

Bartiromo heartily agreed with Owens, declaring that “This has got to stop.” Then she veered off to an entirely different subject, the Democratic legislation to protect and enhance voting rights (H.R. 1), that the GOP has deemed demonic. Without flinching, Owens slid right along and insisted that there is no voter suppression in America, despite the fact that just this year Republicans have drafted more than 250 bills in 43 states explicitly aimed at suppressing voter turnout, specifically among Black and Latino voters.

Don’t hurt yourself trying to find any logic in any of this. The position of Fox News and its professional outrage generators isn’t based on either reason or facts. It is an enterprise built from its inception to manufacture anger, fear, and the cult-like devotion that those feelings produce. And Fox News clearly intends to continue that mission into the post-Trump era.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. And you can follow this surrogate Twitter account here. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

CNN’s Righteous Rant that ‘Tucker Carlson is the New Donald Trump’

Posted by on March 14, 2021 at 1:26 pm. 2 Comments :

Ever since the election last November, Fox News has suffered a crushing decline. For the first time in twenty years they fell to third place behind MSNBC and CNN As a result of that collapse, the GOP’s propaganda network has embarked on a mission to win back the Donald Trump devotee demographic that was previously their exclusive property.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump

Some of the ratings shrinkage was due to newer and more radical right-wing outlets seducing disaffected StormTrumpers after the decisive victory by Joe Biden. Although Newsmax and One America News Network are also hurting ratings-wise now. The strategy adopted by Fox News has been to shift even farther to the right. They fired some of their more “moderate” presenters and canceled programs that weren’t stridently conservative hype factories.

What’s more, Fox News shifted the content of their existing programs to even more fanatical extremism. The CEO admitted publicly that the network’s mission is to oppose Biden. And no one on Fox News has answered that call more fervently than Tucker Carlson. Some of his recent unhinged diatribes include…

On Sunday morning, CNN’s Brian Stelter opened his program, Reliable Sources, with a monologue about Carlson that hit all the right notes (video below). The theme was that “Tucker Carlson is the New Donald Trump.” It’s hard to know who should be more offended by this comparison. They are both so reprehensible that it’s too close a contest to predict. But Stelter had the goods to back it up:

“Tucker Carlson is the new Donald Trump. Tucker has taken Trump’s place as a right-wing leader, as an outrage generator, as a fire-starter. And it’s all happening on Fox just like Trump’s campaign did. Which means Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are ultimately responsible.

“Think about all the ways these two men are similar. Everyday Carlson is throwing bombs, making online memes, offending millions of people. Also delighting millions of others. Tapping into white male rage and resentment. Stoking distrust of Big Tech and the media. Generally coarsening the discourse. Never apologizing for anything. And setting the GOP’s agenda. Sounds like a recently retired president, right?”

Right! And it’s no accident. Carlson has always been a brazen self-promoter whose primary motivations were to advance his own welfare. Now he sees an opening to raise his profile among a group of people who are like cult followers left adrift when their leader has been deposed. And he’s milking it for all it’s worth. For example, these are few of Carlson’s recent tele-tantrums:

Carlson doesn’t care if he’s leading his flock off of sanity’s cliffs edge. He doesn’t care if he’s harming the country or the desperate people who are sucked into his web of lies. And Fox News doesn’t care either. Stelter closed his monologue with this cogent observation:

“It’s ultimately all about the Murdoch’s and what they want. How they’re gonna keep the profits flowing. By giving the viewers more and more radicalized content. Led by Tucker Carlson.”

The fact that a cable network can operate with such reckless abandonment of principles and callous disregard for people’s welfare is frightening. And while the responsibility rests with shameless liars like Carlson, the management cannot pretend to be blameless. The fault lies with everyone contributing to the madness and the inflammatory rhetoric that is poisoning the weak minds their audience. But sadly, their audience aren’t the only victims. Carlson and Fox are more broadly dangerous because their purposeful lies and disinformation are driving the nation apart. And that’s makes victims of us all.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. And you can follow this surrogate Twitter account here. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

GOP Chair Tweets Proof Biden Was Right About Trump’s COVID Lies 8 Months Ago

Posted by on March 13, 2021 at 11:01 am. NO Comments :

The Republican Party has devolved into nothing more than a culture war slogan dispenser, spending all of its time and energy contriving faux outrage and divisiveness. They have no discernible policies to promote and are relying on the cult appeal of Donald Trump to sustain them until the next election.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump Baby, Fake News

Consequently, The GOP’s Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) is focused tightly on critical issues like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. And they’re tired of hearing about all the dead Americans due to the COVID pandemic that Trump ignored and/or botched. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress voted unanimously against the American Rescue Plan, the most popular legislation in generations.

This callous disregard for the welfare of the nation is integral to the Republican agenda going forward. But since they have no affirmative plans, they are reaching back to distort recent history and claim victories that exist only in their fevered imaginations. For instance, Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, tweeted Saturday morning that “As President Trump was delivering results on the vaccine, Joe Biden was sowing doubt about its efficacy…”

Let’s set aside that McDaniel is still referring to the former guy as “President,” but the current president as “Joe.” The more salient point is that there is nothing resembling the truth in that twantrum. What Biden actually said last July in the video that McDaniel posted is that…

“We’ve got to make sure vaccines are produced and distributed safely, efficiently, and fairly, with independent FDA transparency. And the full FDA public report made public. Because people are already saying ‘If we get a vaccine I’m not sure I’m going to take it. This guy’s lied to us about everything else.'”

Clearly President Biden was not sowing doubts about the vaccine. He was recognizing that the American people already had fully justifiable doubts about Trump’s honesty. All Biden was calling for was full disclosure of the data that would lead to the vaccine’s approval. The fact that so many people don’t trust Trump is what Biden was concerned about. And his remarks were intended to resolve any hesitancy to getting vaccinated, not sow doubts about it.

McDaniel was also wrong about Trump “delivering results on the vaccine.” He had done nothing productive other than inventing a PR campaign that he dubbed “Operation Warp Speed,” which was just another sham that accomplished nothing. In reality, last July Trump was still downplaying the severity of the pandemic, while boasting about phony “achievements” …

Trump tweet

Trump was bragging about “doing so well” when the death toll for the coronavirus was at 150,000. That was horrible. But it’s more than tripled since then. And in light of that, McDaniel thought it would be useful to post a tweet that lied about Trump’s negligence and incompetence, while inadvertently affirming Biden’s honesty and foresight. Thanks, Ronna.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.