Fox News is SHOCKED that Biden Blew Off a ‘Stupid Question’ About Bogus Criminal Allegations

Posted by Mark NC on June 19, 2023 at 12:36 pm. 10 Comments :

This week President Biden held a press conference to promote the progress made by his administration on eliminating the “junk fees” that are often applied to tickets for concerts, travel, and other activities. He achieved this without burdening companies with new regulations. The companies volunteered to reduce the fees and disclose them more prominently.

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However, Fox News is incapable of reporting anything positive about Biden or Democrats. So they had to find a way to nitpick the affair in order to cast the President in a negative light. They did this by latching onto a throwaway response to an inane and irrelevant question by a reporter from Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. “Why did the Ukraine FBI informant file refer to you as the ‘big guy?’ the reporter asked. And Biden replied slyly, “Why did you ask such a dumb question?”

Reporter: “Why did the Ukraine FBI informant file refer to you as the 'big guy?' … Why is that term continuously applied?”

President Biden: “Why do you ask such a dumb question?” pic.twitter.com/RHCyMFwZyt

— The Recount (@therecount) June 15, 2023

This is a subject that Republicans have been yammering about for weeks. Unfortunately for them, they have zero evidence of any misconduct by Biden. The “informant” they touted has mysteriously disappeared. The audio tapes they claimed to have don’t seem to exist. And the FBI report that they are obsessed with contains only unverified hearsay by a disreputable and biased source.

SEE THIS: HOW CONVENIENT: GOP Oversight Committee Chair Says He Can’t Find His Star Witness Against Biden

Instead of reporting the real news that actually benefits American consumers, Fox chose to go after Biden for supposedly being rude to the reporter who hijacked the press conference with a hostile diversion. On Fox’s “The Five” co-host Dana Perino complained that Biden declined to answer the question. But what did she expect him to say? Did she expect that he would breakdown and confess to the trumped up charges? Or lash out in an incoherent, infantile temper tantrum like Trump?

Had Perino observed Biden’s demeanor throughout his career, she would know that he has a calm and respectful manner. It would be improper and pointless for him to answer such a ridiculous question. Nevertheless, Perino’s comrade, Jeanine Pirro had an even more preposterous take on the matter…

Pirro: First of all, I think it’s rich for Barack Obama, who is the President who created this division between the press and the White House when he started trashing Fox News and conservatives during his time as president.

Judge Jeanine Pirro claimed Pres. Barack Obama created a division between the press and the White House. I guess she forgets how Trump called the press the enemy of the people and encouraged his crowds to heckle and shout at reporters. I have receipts. pic.twitter.com/NKEuCYXJo1

— Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) June 19, 2023

REALLY? First of all, Obama rarely took shots at the media, even Fox News. When he did it was entirely appropriate and directed at specific instances wherein Fox News was out of line, unprofessional, and brazenly biased. Obama had a generally cordial relationship with the press, as does Biden. And Pirro has apparently forgotten that it was Trump who viciously denigrated the press in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” and personally insulted reporters – especially Blacks and women – at every opportunity.

SEE TRUMP For More on Creating Divisions Between the White House and the Press

For the record, the allegations that the reporter was hounding Biden about on behalf of his GOP handlers, are allegedly contained in a document that the FBI has already made available to Republicans in Congress. It cannot be disclosed because of an investigation that is currently in progress, and because it contains unverified accounts provided by an unreliable source.

Consequently, Republicans have been making up what they want it to say and repeating their fabrications on right-wing TV programs. The ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Jamie Raskin, countered that fictional narrative. telling the press that…

Once again Chairman [James} Comer has failed to provide factual evidence to support his wild accusations about the President. He continues to bombard the public with innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies, recycling baseless claims from stories that were debunked years ago.”

In the meantime, GOP House Squeaker, Kevin McCarthy, is attempting to bully FBI Director Chris Wray with threats to hold him in contempt of Congress if he refuses to obey. Wray previously advised McCarthy that it would be improper for the FBI to reveal “unverified or incomplete information that could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputational interests, or create misimpressions in the public.”

But McCarthy and his Republican cohorts couldn’t care less about judicial fairness or legal ethics. And neither does Fox News.

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Tucker Carlson’s Attempt to Malign Biden as a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Describes Trump Much Better

Posted by Mark NC on June 16, 2023 at 12:08 pm. 3 Comments :

On Tuesday afternoon, during the Fox News coverage of Donald Trump’s arrest and arraignment on a historic 37 felony count indictment, they aired a now infamous chyron that maligned President Biden in a particularly malicious manner. It read “WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.” Most of the reputable media castigated Fox for it’s unethical bias expressed in a childish insult. But not everyone was appropriately disgusted.

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Tucker Carlson apparently concurred and, in the fourth episode of his Twitter rant-cast, he delivered a full-throated defense of the repugnant message. He claimed that it was written and approved by a Fox News producer who was later fired by Fox secretly, so as not to further inflame Carlson’s hateful fans. And there is confirmation that the chyron wasn’t the work of a rogue intern, but was actually the former producer of Carlson’s own canceled Fox News program. Which may explain why Fox has been getting crushed in the ratings lately.

Carlson’s latest Twitter tirade (video here if you can stomach it) embraced the fallacious Fox framing of Biden. He disingenuously suggested that “You’ve gotta wonder, if you’re being honest with yourself, is Joe Biden a wannabe dictator?” Then he blatantly lied that Biden was “trying to put the other candidate [Trump] in prison for the rest of his life for a crime that he himself has committed.” Carlson is trying mightily to outdo the outrageousness of the previous episode of his Twitter screed.

Of course, Biden didn’t indict Trump. That was a citizen Grand Jury in Miami. Also, Biden never committed the crimes that Trump has been indicted for, and has even confessed to. Biden never withheld any documents from the FBI. He never lied to authorities about having them. He never shared them with others. He never attempted to move and hide them. He never tampered with witnesses. And he never defied a search warrant or subpoena.

Nevertheless, Carlson raged for 13 minutes over the assertion that Biden is an aspiring totalitarian tyrant. The only problem with his harangue is that it was a far better description of Trump than Biden. If no names were mentioned, most people would associate the following with Trump…

“It is not a small thing to become a wannabe dictator. It’s quite a process. There are a lot of steps. First off there is the money. The one thing that all dictators have in common is they enrich themselves and their families, their tribe, even as the countries they govern grow steadily poorer and more desperate. They take kickbacks from businesses and other dictators. They use the official functions of their governments to funnel cash to themselves. They don’t bother to hide the fruits of this. They live in garish mansions with big lawns far from the teeming cities.

And that was just for starters. Carlson plundered on saying that…

“If Joe Biden was a wannabe dictator he’d have the family to match. Saddam Hussein had Uday and Qusay.”
You mean like Eric and Don Jr?
“He doesn’t do photo-ops in mirrored sunglasses driving a sports car.”
No, just with his private jet, Trump Force One
“Joe Biden doesn’t award ridiculous, inflated titles to his relatives, that the media are then required to take seriously. He doesn’t call people ‘doctor’ who didn’t go to medical schools.”
Or make up fake Time Magazine covers?
“A dictator would stockpile ammunition for his own bureaucrats, including his tax collectors.”
And perhaps command private militias like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers?
“He’d define what attitudes they were allowed to have about sex, and religion, and how to raise their families.”
Like banning abortion, oppressing LGBTQ people, and forcing a warped version of Christianity?

Everything that Carlson is directing at Biden is patently false. For example, his reference to arming tax collectors relates to the fallacy that Biden’s budget called for 87,000 armed IRS agents. And his allusion to fake doctors is a dig at First Lady Jill Biden (which he has done before), who does, in fact, have a PHD.

Carlson is especially fond of attacking women. In this new video he complained that “the women who run the network panicked.” He’s probably angry with Fox’s CEO Suzanne Scott, who fired him. But for the record, most of those running Fox News are men, including it’s chairman, Lachlan Murdoch, its president, Jay Wallace, and ten of the twelve members of its executive management team.

It will be interesting to see how Fox News responds to this latest Carlson video. After all, they have already sent him an official “cease and desist” letter to notify him that he is in violation of his contract’s non-compete clause. if Carlson persists it could cost him tens of millions of dollars. Although a Tucker Carlson/Fox News legal cage match would be loads of fun.

SEE THIS: Fox News Sends Tucker Carlson a Letter to Cease and Desist From His Twitter Rant-Cast

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MSNBC Trouncing Fox News Post-Trump Indictment is a Preview of Democrats vs Republicans in 2024

Posted by Mark NC on June 15, 2023 at 1:33 pm. 3 Comments :

In what was perhaps the biggest news story of 2023 so far, Donald Trump was indicted in Miami on 37 felony counts ranging from obstruction of justice to violations of the Espionage Act. It is the first time that a president or former president has been charged and arrested for federal crimes, and most of the media turned out to report on this historic event.

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Fox News, however, covered Trump’s indictment predictably, managing to twist the news into an attack on President Biden with a chyron reading “WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.” It’s that sort of bias and political hostility that affirms Fox’s place in the mediaverse as a propaganda outlet that regurgitates right-wing lies and takes its cues from their Dear Leader Trump.

The foundations of Fox News have lately been on the decline. For the first time in more than two years they lost their Nielsen ratings leadership. The week of June 5 was won by their arch nemesis, MSNBC. According to Mediaiate…

“MSNBC beat Fox News last week in prime time in both total viewers and in the key 25-54 age demographic, ending a 120-week winning streak for Fox in prime time. […] MSNBC averaged 1.52 million total viewers across prime time, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., and 172,000 demo viewers, which was enough to beat Fox’s 1.5 million total average viewers and 139,000 demo viewers. CNN landed in third place with 677,000 total average prime time viewers and 131,000 demo viewers.”

What’s more, on Tuesday, during the hour that Trump’s indictment took place, Fox News came in third behind CNN and MSNBC, which drew almost twice as many viewers as Fox. As reported in CNN’s newsletter…

“During the 3pm hour, when Trump was taken into custody and pled not guilty, CNN averaged 1.6 million total viewers, with 287k in the demo and MSNBC averaged 2.3 million viewers, with 311k in the demo. On right-wing talk TV, Fox News averaged 1.7 million total viewers, with 179k in the demo.”

This bad news for Fox is not due solely to Trump being brought up on charges for crimes against America. Actually, Fox viewers regard that favorably as proof that he is the victim of a cabal of nefarious “Deep State” operatives. The Trump crowd is naturally drawn to liars and criminals. But despite that, much of the Fox News audience has abandoned the network for having terminated Tucker Carlson. They have now embraced the delusional notion that Fox News is collaborating with ultra-liberals bent on destroying the MAGA movement.

What this tells us, though, is relevant to the upcoming elections in 2024. MSNBC’s good fortunes reveal that progressives and Democrats have been energized by events in the news and the political successes by their representatives in Washington. So they are paying close attention on the network that is most aligned with their views.

On the other hand, Republicans and Trump cultists are despondent and can’t handle the flurry of foreboding affairs that are dragging down their party and its leader. So they are tuning out in massive numbers. That’s a condition that is likely to be repeated in November of 2024 as Republicans choose to stay home rather than wallow in ignominious defeat. And Fox News isn’t wasting any time invalidating the results of the next presidential race.

SEE THIS: Anticipating Failure? Fox News is Already Gaslighting About Imaginary Election Fraud in 2024

In the meantime, the GOP is desperately trying to manufacture scandals of their own. The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, went on Fox News to whine about “the liberal media like MSNBC with their a low IQ audience.” Look who’s talking. And they are asserting preposterous allegations against Biden that have no basis in reality.

James Comer on Maria Bartiromo's show says MSNBC has "a low IQ audience" pic.twitter.com/e7qDqsy4N2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 15, 2023

To top matters off, Trump is scheduled to be interviewed on Fox News by Bret Baier on June 19. It will be interesting to see if Baier asks any legitimate questions about Trump’s indictments or, more importantly, the underlying crimes that comprise them. And if Trump gives his routine deflections and lies in response, will Baier ask appropriate follow-ups? In the hopes of preventing any tragic asphyxiations, please do not hold your breath waiting for any of that.

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Tucker Carlson Paints Trump as a Messianic Victim of False Apostles in His 3rd Twitter Tirade

Posted by Mark NC on June 14, 2023 at 12:05 pm. 5 Comments :

The continuing saga of Tucker Carlson is unfolding in his third installment of “Tucker on Twitter,” the social media replacement for his canceled White Supremacist Hour on Fox News. The Twitter show thus far has consisted of poorly produced, ten minute disgorgements of Carlson’s inbred hate and conservative crackpottery. The new episode is more of the same.

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Carlson’s new chapter may be even cheesier than the previous ones. He rambled for 13 interminably tedious minutes about his theory that the reason people hate Trump is because he was a peacenik who took on the war mongers of Washington. Carlson based this blather on a few seconds of Trump criticizing the war in Iraq during a 2015 Republican primary debate. And for this Carlson is risking millions of dollars in defiance of a Fox News demand to “cease and desist.

SEE THIS: Fox News Sends Tucker Carlson a Letter to Cease and Desist From His Twitter Rant-Cast

According to Carlson, Trump’s alleged antiwar stance launched eight years of unyielding animus toward Trump. Carlson is oblivious to the fact that millions of people have actually long despised Trump for his bigotry, dishonesty, and policies that hurt middle and low income Americans, and enriched corporations and the wealthy. Most people probably have no recollection of the sound bite that Carlson plucked from nearly a decade ago.

Carlson doesn’t explain why there was no such contempt for everyone else who held antiwar views way before Trump. Democrats and progressives opposed the war in Iraq and castigated the Bush administration’s false allegations of “weapons of mass destruction” long before Trump adopted it merely as a cudgel with which to bash his primary opponent, Jeb Bush.

Somehow, Carlson spins this nonsense into an incoherent defense of Trump, who he says must now be forgiven for the completely unrelated crimes of having stolen hundreds of sensitive national security documents, stashed them in bathrooms and ballrooms around his Mar-a-Lago home/hotel, defied subpoenas, obstructed justice, and lied to the FBI and other law enforcement authorities.

REALTED: Trump and His MAGA Minions in Media and Congress Go BONKERS Over His Criminal Indictments

After his perversely twisted introduction, Carlson got into what really irked him: people who he believes were deceptive and insincere Trump supporters (video here, if you can stomach it)…

“They ran toward Trump, not away from him. They sucked up to him to him. They ingratiated themselves to the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery. Which Trump is. And they did this in order to subvert his new administration from the inside. There were a number of these, and you could spot them immediately.”

It’s impossible not to notice that Carlson is describing virtually everyone in the Republican caucuses in Congress and on Fox News and other right-wing media. And, of course, himself. What’s more, Carlson is conceding that Trump is “susceptible to flattery,” which makes him an easy mark for political shenanigans. A puppet for other GOP operatives to control. Even worse, it makes him a national security risk, because it isn’t just all of these domestic suck ups that were able to manipulate Trump, but every foreign leader, friend and foe. Carlson continued…

“They were flatterers. Invariably the ones who flattered Trump the most, hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences. They were there slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a god. It was a scene from the Ottoman Court. And it was filthy and decadent, and it was false. Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in the Congress. They all called Trump a visionary genius up until the moment he lost power.”

Well said, Tuckems. Except that you left out a particularly notorious and unscrupulous Trump-fluffer – Tucker Carlson. After all, you frequently “slobbered” over Trump publicly but, as we learned in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit, you privately said that you “hated him passionately” and called him a “demonic force.” Carlson, however, correctly characterizes Trump as the leader of a “filthy and decadent” cult that worships him.

SEE THIS: In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

Carlson’s Twitter show is proving to be as nauseating and deceitful as his Fox News show. At least it is much shorter in duration, minus his noxious guests, and confined to his Twitter account, where it is being mostly ignored. Don’t be fooled by his boasting about the “views” it racks up. Those numbers are grossly misunderstood. Views on Twitter are not comparable to viewers on television, as explained by Aidan McLaughlin, the Editor in Chief of Mediaite…

“According to Twitter, if you watch a video for two seconds, with only half the video player in-view, you count as one video view. The tweet view metric is even less valuable. It merely counts how many people viewed the tweet, so if you scrolled past Carlson’s video on Twitter, you counted as one of the 114 million. […] If you scrolled past the tweet multiple times, you counted more than once.”

The good news is that, like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Megyn Kelly before him, post-Fox Carlson is sinking into oblivion. Right where he belongs.

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Fox News Sends Tucker Carlson a Letter to Cease and Desist From His Twitter Rant-Cast

Posted by Mark NC on June 12, 2023 at 1:19 pm. 4 Comments :

The feud between Fox News and their former top host, Tucker Carlson, has been growing rapidly more intense and bitter. It’s been seven weeks since Carlson was unceremoniously banished without notice from his Fox News perch. In the interim both have suffered significant declines in audience, as well as reputation, which was already in the gutter.

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Carlson has sought to resurface by posting poorly produced, ten minute tirades on Twitter. They have been nothing more than the sort of factless, right-wing monologues, riddled with conspiracy theories, that he used to open his program on Fox News with. Shortly after his first Twitter episode, Fox News advised him that he was in breach of his contract’s non-compete clause. Although it’s a stretch to regard what Carlson is putting out now as “competition,” given its sub-standard production values and tedious content.

Fox News has now taken the next step to send Carlson a “cease and desist“ letter. Since Carlson is still being paid by Fox, this notice is an official signal that they will file a lawsuit to get Carlson to either stop posting his videos, or lose the millions of dollars that remain in his contract, as well as additional compensatory and punitive damages. In response Carlson has apparently dismissed Fox’s warning and continued to post new material on Twitter. His attorney issued the following statement…

“Fox News continues to ignore the interests of its viewers, not to mention its shareholder obligations. Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election. Tucker will not be silenced by anyone — whether it be Media Matters, the ADL or Fox News.”

It’s awfully thoughtful of Carlson to be concerned with the interests of Fox’s viewers and shareholders. However, that isn’t a rational legal argument for him to continue breaching his contract. It’s also cute that he regards his cancelation as “the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news.” Considering the fact that Carlson’s irresponsible lies contributed to Fox News having to shell out nearly a billion dollars to Dominion Voting Systems for defamation, canceling Carlson was a prudent decision that that should have made years sooner.

Carlson believes that his Twitter show is outperforming his old program on Fox. He boasts about the number of “views” his video has racked up. However, like pretty much everything else that he says, he is deliberately misleading his fans and the media. Views on Twitter are not comparable to viewers on television. Aidan McLaughlin, the Editor in Chief of Mediaite, provided an enlightening analysis of how those metrics are starkly different…

“According to Twitter, if you watch a video for two seconds, with only half the video player in-view, you count as one video view. The tweet view metric is even less valuable. It merely counts how many people viewed the tweet, so if you scrolled past Carlson’s video on Twitter, you counted as one of the 114 million. […] If you scrolled past the tweet multiple times, you counted more than once.”

So Carlson contends that nobody, not even Fox News, will be able to silence him. Which sounds more like a threat than a boast. But his public exposure has severely declined since becoming just another Tweeter with attitude. The only consolation for him is that his absence from Fox has hurt them just as much as it has hurt him. Fox’s primetime ratings have been cut in half since Tuckers termination. The good news is that America benefits from the decline and fall of both of them. So let the war continue, and best of luck to both sides.

SEE THIS: With Lawsuits, Lost Hosts, and Lying Pundits, the Future of Fox News Has Never Been Weaker

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Trump’s Attorney Tells Fox News He’s Not Facing Reality, He’s Denying the Prospect of Prison

Posted by Mark NC on June 11, 2023 at 12:24 pm. 10 Comments :

No rational observer is ever going to characterize Donald Trump as someone who has a firm grip on reality. He lies with extraordinary abandon, and constantly presents a version of the world that is in stark contrast to the one that the rest of us live in. However, it is still rather astonishing that his own lawyer takes the position that he is something less than cognizant of the circumstances he faces and the legal peril that is looming.

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After being indicted on 37 felony charges ranging from obstruction justice to violations of the Espionage Act, Trump is suffering a severe mental meltdown that is evident in his remarks in public and online. And he isn’t getting much help from his legal team, two of whom he dismissed immediately after the indictments were announced. One of his remaining attorneys, Alina Habba, has been making the rounds of right-wing media to attempt to state his case. But she has not been particularly effective.

On Sunday morning Habba was interviewed by Shannon Bream on Fox News, who actually asked a pretty good question. She did not, however, get a very good response…

Bream: “I know you’ve been with the president. What is his mood? I mean, a conviction here on any number or multiple of these charges could be decades in jail. Has that sunk in?”
Habba: No, I don’t think he’s thinking of it that way, and I don’t really think that’s a realistic way to think about this case. He’s done nothing wrong. He said that this is completely politically motivated. It’s election interference at its best by a political opponent.

For any criminal defendant to approach a case this serious with the view that it’s not “realistic” to consider the prospect of decades in prison if convicted, is bizarre, to say the least. It’s an admission that Trump isn’t facing reality at all. And the defenses that Habba floats (“politically motivated,” “election interference”) are equally distant from reality. But then again, she is not an especially qualified lawyer. She went on to say…

“So to his credit, and the world should understand, an indictment is a one-sided document. He has a defense. The defense is real. He had the Presidential Records Act, which only he has in play. Hillary Clinton didn’t have that. Biden didn’t have that. And we’ll put that defense on. The team he’s going to have will be strong and knows exactly what they’re doing.”

Habba’s assertion that the Presidential Records Act is a defense ignores the fact that Trump’s indictment doesn’t charge him with anything related to that. It is never even mentioned. What’s more, it wouldn’t exonerate him if it were included. And her deflecting to Hillary Clinton and President Biden is just plain pathetic. Whatever crimes she thinks they committed, it wouldn’t have any bearing on Trump’s guilt or innocence. Although, she has apparently coordinated with Trump as to what their legal strategy should be…

SEE THIS: Crybaby Trump’s Indictment Defense Strategy Revealed: Whine Endlessly About President Biden

Habba also praises Trump’s legal team, which currently consists of just one newly named lawyer, Todd Blanche, who has yet to actually assemble a team. So she can hardly pretend to know that Trump’s team “knows exactly what they’re doing.” However, another lawyer who has had some history with Trump – his former Attorney General, Bill Barr – has an opinion that diverges significantly from the Trump defense. Barr now says about the Trump indictment that “If even half of it is true, HE’S TOAST!”

BARR (on Trump indictments): If even half of what it says is true, HE'S TOAST! … He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those docs. … And he kept them in a way at Mar-a-Lago that anyone who really cares about national security, their stomach would churn at it." https://t.co/S92yB7QhUd

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) June 11, 2023

Consequently, Trump is running around crying about being a victim and the target of “Deep State” persecutors who hate him. He’s trying desperately to rile up his cult followers and incite them to commit more acts of violence on his behalf. So far, that isn’t working. But it’s still too soon to rule out the harm that could be done by the crackpots who have devoted themselves to his malicious MAGA movement. He is a clear and present danger to the nation, and has already predicted a political apocalypse should he be held to account for his crimes.

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Fox News Weighs in with a Typically Tunnel-Blind Take on the Firing of CNN Boss Chris Licht

Posted by Mark NC on June 7, 2023 at 12:58 pm. 1 Comments :

The head of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, dropped a highly anticipated bomb on the media world Wednesday morning with the announcement that the troubled CNN boss, Chris Licht, had been terminated effective immediately. Zaslav informed his staff and the company via an internal memo that was mostly complimentary toward Licht, but conceded the obvious that “It didn’t work out.”

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Licht appeared to make the wrong moves at every juncture of his brief tenure. He began by promising to make CNN “more Republican friendly,” as if that were an appropriate journalistic goal. He sought to “balance” the truth with blatant lies and conspiracy theories. He clearly envied the ratings of Fox News and delusionally believed that he could emulate them. But why would any Fox viewer tune into CNN, the network they were indoctrinated to hate, when they still have Fox?

Licht’s changes only served to prove how poorly he understood the news business. He canceled the popular program, Reliable Sources, one of the only regularly scheduled media analysis programs on television news. And he fired its host, Brian Stelter. Then he moved Don Lemon to a morning show with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. Shortly thereafter he fired Lemon.

Perhaps the most brain-dead move by Licht was to tap Donald Trump for a town hall, moderated by Collins, that allowed Trump to lie almost uninterrupted for an hour and a half. Licht packed the audience with Trump supporters, and prohibited any displays of disapproval. It was so badly planned and executed that even CNN insiders were openly appalled.

SEE THIS: How Horrible Was CNN’s Lie-Riddled Trump Town Hall? Let’s See What CNN Has to Say About It

Following the Trump debacle, Licht promoted Collins, a former correspondent for Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, to a primetime spot. And through all of this Licht also managed to alienate CNN personnel in front of, and behind, the camera. An extensive article documenting his failures was published with his cooperation by The Atlantic.

Several of Licht’s hand-picked lieutenants were also pink-slipped. But don’t expect much to change at CNN with Licht’s departure. Zaslav is still the corporate head, and right-wingers like John Malone are packed on the company’s board of directors. However, now that Licht is officially gone, his transient reign is being scrutinized by his former colleagues across the mediaverse. And not to be left out, Fox News weighed in with a gleeful obituary that was astonishing for its utter absence of self-awareness. Fox’s media hack, Joe Concha, celebrated the suffering of their competitor saying that…

“It was an internal coup led by on-air talent at the network, even its own media team, that ultimately brought him down. And why? Because many could not accept that Licht was attempting to move the network from being seen by conservatives and many independents as an activist news network, a resistance news network aimed at disparaging, through provocative and personal opinion, those right or right of center and thereby destroying the decent credibility it once had. And remember, he had inherited a network that lost 75% of its audience when you’re comparing early 2021 with the spring of 2022 when he came in. And new leadership there gave him marching orders saying basically, move this network back to the center.”

So Concha believes that Licht was fired because others at CNN “could not accept” his determination to turn CNN into “Fox Lite.” While there were surely those who opposed that boneheaded editorial detour, Licht’s fall from grace was more the result of his failure to advance CNN’s place in the cable news race. CNN’s already declining ratings just got worse as Licht implemented his plans.

Concha correctly noted that CNN’s ratings were awful. However, what he missed was that nearly every criticism he lobbed at CNN could have been aimed at Fox News itself. Concha specifically referred to what he thought CNN needed: “Less provocative reporting. More solid reporting. More Republicans on the air.” That’s coming from the media analyst at Fox News where they have virtually nothing but provocative “reporting” and Republicans on the air. He went on to note what he called “the audacity of hosting Donald Trump.” Which, by the way, Fox News is doing a week from Monday.

Concha also missed that Fox News has suffered a ratings collapse similar to that of CNN’s. It has lost fully 50% of its audience since they fired Tucker Carlson. And that’s on top of a 34% drop going back in 2021.

Consequently, if Concha’s analysis were to be taken seriously, Fox News should fire their brass, Suzanne Scott and/or Lachlan Murdoch. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that. While Concha thinks that CNN was failing because they had not moved “back to the center,” he’s perfectly happy to see Fox News stuck at the far right. Never mind that Fox News is languishing at lows it hasn’t seen in years. It’s losing to MSNBC. And its prospects for the future don’t look any better. But sure, focus on CNN’s problems instead of acknowledging how horrible things are at Fox, Joe.

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Trump Viciously Attacks Fox News, the Network He Says is ‘Dead, Totally Fake, Unwatchable’

Posted by Mark NC on June 6, 2023 at 1:35 pm. 2 Comments :

Being the subject of multiple civil and criminal investigations can lead to some bizarre behavior. And when those investigations turn to indictments, that behavior becomes even more frenzied and downright deviant. It can lead to frantic outbursts that serve only to reveal one’s festering fears and result in further incriminating statements.

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Case in point: Donald Trump, who is exhibiting extreme anxiety as he anticipates the imminent issuance of criminal indictments by Grand Juries in Washington, D.C., Florida, and Georgia. The special counsel, Jack Smith, just met with what’s left of Trump’s legal team in order to beg the Justice Department to refrain from charging Trump. But if Trump’s reaction after the meeting is any indication, that didn’t go very well for him.

SEE THIS: Crybaby Trump is Panicking Over the Likelihood that He is About to Be Criminally Indicted

Another example of Trump’s gnawing nervousness is his desperate decision to accept an invitation to be interviewed on Fox News by Bret Baier. It will air on June 19, and will be a pre-taped conversation, presumably to edit out any potentially defamatory comments and embarrassingly idiotic Trumpisms. What makes this peculiar is that Trump has spent much of the last few years mercilessly thrashing Fox News for being less than unwaveringly supportive and adoring. Among the aspersions he has cast are that…

SEE MORE HERE: Trump’s Year of Vicious Bashing – and Devoted Sucking Up To – Fox News

Nevertheless, Trump has agreed to grace Fox with his presence. But only because he needs all the unflinching fluffing he find. So he’s condescended to sit down with Bret Baier for a free, hour long infomercial for his 2024 campaign. Apparently his nauseating tongue bath with Sean Hannity a few weeks ago – wherein Hannity made sure that every question he asked had the answer embedded in it so that Trump wouldn’t have to strain himself coming up with a plausible excuse or a believable lie – wasn’t sufficient.

However, if anyone thinks that Baier is going to be any less obsequious than Hannity, you can disabuse yourself of that fallacy right now. Baier’s biases were discovered in the defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Internal communications revealed Baier was worried about losing viewers after Trump lost the 2020 election. In one message he “noted the audience’s anger and suggested rescinding the [Arizona] call, even awarding the state to Trump.” In another he complained that “It’s hurting us. The sooner we pull it — even if it gives us major egg. And we put it back in his column. The better we are. In my opinion.”

But don’t kid yourself that Baier is genuinely interested in being fair to Trump. Just as Trump needs Fox News, Fox News needs Trump. Baier knows that Trump lost and has been lying about alleged election fraud. In a subsequent message, Baier admitted that “There is NO evidence of Fraud. None. [and] We have to prevent this stuff … We need to fact check.” So, do you think that Baier will ask Trump about that? Don’t hold your breath.

And there’s more where that came from. Many other Fox News regulars were found to be dismissive of Trump’s “Big Lie.” Including Tucker Carlson, who said that “I hate [Trump] passionately [and he is] a demonic force.” and Rupert Murdoch, who said that it’s “Really crazy stuff. […] We don’t want to antagonize Trump further.” Let’s see if Baier bothers to mentions any of that, along with the standard GOP propaganda that will surely dominate this farce.

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Anticipating Failure? Fox News is Already Gaslighting About Imaginary Election Fraud in 2024

Posted by Mark NC on June 4, 2023 at 12:07 pm. 5 Comments :

The 2024 election cycle has barely begun. There has not yet been a single primary. Many expected candidates haven’t officially announced their plans. No debates have been scheduled. In fact, it hasn’t even been established if there will be debates or who will participate.

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However, the Republican National Committee has been preparing the field for an utterly useless debate season. For instance, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel has decreed that GOP presidential candidates will be prohibited from participating in the RNC’s debates if they agree to any debates sponsored by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates. She is also demanding that all candidates sign a pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee. And she actually believes that Donald Trump would honor such a pledge, which he has broken in the past.

In light of this emerging melodrama, Fox News is leapfrogging the debates, primaries, and general election campaigning, and starting early to invalidate whatever the results of the 2024 election might be. Fox has apparently determined that there is no reason to wait until they’ve already lost next November before starting to whine about election fraud and stirring up future violent insurrections?

To that end, Fox News Senior Trump-fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, invited Newt Gingrich on her Sunday morning propaganda program to gaslight their viewers and set the stage for another effort to undermine democracy. Which led to the following exchange…

Bartiromo: Are the Republicans doing enough to ensure a free and fair election in 2024?
Gingrich: Well, I think it’s almost impossible, under current law, to ensure an accurate election. And I think the only Republican strategy in the long run is to pick issues and win by margins so big that they can’t steal them. If you have a very close election Democrats have a passion for stealing them.”

Newt Gingrich claims Democrats “have a passion for stealing” elections, so Republicans have to win by a huge margins in 2024 to keep it from being stolen from them. pic.twitter.com/8oUWXnJ6sv

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 4, 2023

First of all, the assertion by Gingrich that current law makes it “almost impossible” to have an accurate election is based on nothing more than his reality-challenged imagination. He never bothers to cite which laws he’s referring to. And he is ignoring recent history wherein the allegations of election fraud in 2020 by Trump and his confederates (including Gingrich himself) were universally debunked in more than sixty court cases. They were never able to produce a shred of evidence that any voting irregularities occurred.

Gingrich also engages in textbook projection, wherein he accuses his foes of that for which he and his GOP cohorts are guilty. It is the Republican Party that has exhibited a “passion” for “stealing” close elections by filing frivolous lawsuits to invalidate legitimate votes and voters. And more often than not, it is the GOP that has been caught attempting to commit election fraud.

That said, Gingrich should be encouraged to promote a strategy for Republicans of picking issues with which they can win by big margins. Because he’s been so good at it before. Republicans continue to be convinced that harsh anti-abortion laws, racist immigration policies, pandering to corporations and the wealthy, befouling the planet, and manufactured outrages against buzzwords like CRT, DEI, and “wokism” are the key to their electoral triumphs going forward. Those would all be great subjects for the debates with Democrats next year If Trump doesn’t chicken out.

For his part, Trump has already questioned why he should be bothered with debating his nomination opponents. He is presenting himself as the inevitable victor whose “approval” is required before any debates can be scheduled. “I see that everybody is talking about the Republican Debates, but nobody got my approval,” Trump raged on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social.

Trump continued saying that, “When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA hating anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?” Which is just his way saying that he’s scared of debating and would rather continue libeling and abusing his foes from the safety of his website and his Mar-a-Lago bunker. Then, with the help of Fox News and flunkies like Gingrich, he can cry about the election being “rigged and stolen” from him again.

SEE THIS: Trump Announces that He’s Afraid to Debate Republicans for the 2024 Presidential Nomination

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McCarthy Threatens FBI Director with Contempt for Not Aiding His Petty Persecution of Biden

Posted by Mark NC on May 31, 2023 at 11:57 am. 2 Comments :

The Republican controlled House of Representatives has rapidly proven that it has no real interest in governing and is utterly unfit to do so. Since assuming the barest of majorities, its concerted efforts to smear Democrats have fallen flat as they held hearings that produced little more than rancid allegations with no basis in reality.

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Nevertheless, the Republican crusaders continue to pursue their political theatrics with casts of dubious characters as witnesses and fantastical stories as testimony. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, leads the GOP’s Bogus Scandal Caucus with ludicrous hearings aimed solely at maligning President Biden and other Democrats.

SEE THIS: HOW CONVENIENT: GOP Oversight Committee Chair Says He Can’t Find His Star Witness Against Biden

On Tuesday House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy visited with his propaganda cohorts on Fox News to complain that FBI Director, Chris Wray, has declined to turn over a document that Comer seeks as part of his Biden persecution. McCarthy falsely insisted that he has jurisdiction over the FBI and demanded that they obey his dictate…

“I personally called Director Wray and told him he needs to send that document. Today is the deadline. So let me not tell just you, let me tell Director Christopher Wray right here, right now. If he misses the deadline today, I am prepared to move contempt charges against him.”

I have a message for FBI Director Christopher Wray: If he misses today's deadline to turn over subpoenaed documents to Congress, I am prepared to move contempt charges against him. pic.twitter.com/D3hyW3VIpX

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) May 30, 2023

McCarthy threatened Wray and the FBI with contempt of Congress if they don’t comply with his petulant demand, saying that “they are not above the law.” Which is particularly ironic considering that McCarthy himself failed to comply with a congressional subpoena last year that was issued by the Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that Donald Trump incited.

To no one’s surprise, the FBI told Comer and McCarthy that they would not be providing the document in question. Consequently, Comer announced that his Committee “will now be taking steps to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress.” And you can bet that Wray is shaking in his boots. His boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, is not likely to proceed with any legal action against Wray. And that’s not because of politics, but because there is no legal justification for it. For the record, the FBI rejected Comer’s original request weeks ago saying that…

“It is critical to the integrity of the entire criminal justice process and to the fulfillment of our law enforcement duties that FBI avoid revealing information — including unverified or incomplete information — that could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputational interests, or create misimpressions in the public.”

Wray also previously advised the Committee of “the importance of us protecting sources and methods and ongoing investigations.” And an FBI spokesperson told the Committee that “there are strict Justice Department guidelines about when that information can be provided outside of the FBI.” He further educated the GOP inquisitors that the document they seek (an FD-1023 form) is “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from a confidential human source.” He elaborated saying that…

“An FD-1023 form documents information as told to a line FBI agent. Recording the information does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI. The mere existence of such a document would establish little beyond the fact that a confidential human source provided information and the FBI recorded it. Indeed, the FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations, and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime, or even terrorists.”

In other words, the GOP’s desired document might just be the dishonest ravings of a partisan player with a political axe to grind. It would be irresponsible to disseminate that information as it could defame others and irreparably damage reputations. Which is precisely why Republicans want it. It is their mission to defame and damage their political foes.

Wray knows that McCarthy and Comer cannot be trusted with unverified reports. They would just exploit them for political purposes. And their whining about not getting the information is brazenly hypocritical. During the course of their congressional hearings they have refused to provide information that would validate their accusations. They won’t even give that information to Democrats on the Committee, in violation of committee rules. Their sole objective is to attack Democrats in order to advance their own electoral prospects in the future. They have even said so explicitly…

SEE THIS: New GOP Subcommittee Chair Openly Admits His Only Purpose is to ‘Make Life Hell’ for Democrats

UPDATE: FBI director Chris Wray agreed to allow access to the FD-1023 form. However, even after doing so, Republicans maintained their threat to find Wray in contempt of Congress.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
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Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

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