FOX News FINALLY Reports on the Dominion Lawsuit and is Predictably Dishonest and Biased

Posted by Mark NC on March 14, 2023 at 11:44 am. 2 Comments :

The biggest media story of the year – or even the century – is the billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting systems against Fox News. Recent disclosures in court filings have unmasked just how brazenly Fox News has deceived their viewers by repeatedly lying on air about matters for which they privately held diametrically opposing views.

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For weeks following the Dominion filings, Fox News refused to even bring up the subject of the lawsuit. Then their chief media correspondent, Howard Kurtz, addressed it briefly on his Sunday program, MediaBuzz. However, his only comments were to tell his audience that he was not going to be reporting on the lawsuit because he had been forbidden to by Fox editors and executives.

MORE HERE: BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

Apparently that censorious edict has been revoked and Kurtz was given some sort of conditional permission to cover the story. So he did so in the most Fox-ish manner possible. Which means that he was overtly dishonest in his starkly biased presentation that looked like it was written by the Fox News PR department. What follows are some of the lowlights of Kurtz’s whitewashing coverage (video below).

Kurtz began by defending the indefensible saying that “there is a crucial First Amendment argument here involving the coverage of unsubstantiated claims of 2020 election fraud by Donald Trump and his allies.” That’s patently false. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Dominion is not Congress. Furthermore, Dominion is not seeking to censor Fox News. They are suing for damages due to Fox’s purposeful and repeated defamation, which is not protected by the First Amendment.

Kurtz then quotes from a Fox News statement saying that “Dominion has been caught red-handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press.” Nothing in that statement is true. Dominion was not “caught red-handed,” and Kurtz doesn’t bother to substantiate any of its charges of “distortions and misinformation.” Yet somehow, Kurtz asserts that his framing of the “facts” will be fair to both sides…

“Now I’m going to give you both sides, but let me say this: Fox’s critics and competitors are denouncing the network, and many of them are rooting not just for Fox to lose the suit, but to be wiped out as a company because they can’t stand the mostly conservative view of a relative handful of opinion hosts”

Notice that Kurtz immediately contradicts his own assertion to give both sides. The criticism of competitors is completely irrelevant to the misconduct that Fox has been engaging in. If Fox News were a legitimate news enterprise, they would tell the truth regardless of what their competitors are saying. And the claim that only “a relative handful of opinion hosts” are disgorging conservative views is pure fiction. Fox’s alleged “journalists” (i.e. Brett Baier) were shown to be just as dishonest as Sean Hannity in the Dominion filings. Even so, Fox’s opinion hosts are the highest rated personalities on the network, so their lies carry more weight than unknown field reporters.

Kurtz went on to soft-pedal Fox’s deceit saying that “The heart of dominion’s suit is a gap” between what hosts said on the air and what they said privately among each other. Referring to Fox’s outright lying as merely a “gap” is like referring to the Grand Canyon as a pothole. Kurtz is deliberately underplaying the severity of Fox’s corruption. And he spent the remainder of his remarks spewing defenses for it. For instance, Kurtz said that…

“There was, to be sure, straight reporting by the news division, which also caused some friction, but the fact that some people in the chain of command privately dismissed the fraud claims as nuts or outlandish or insane doesn’t necessarily mean Fox couldn’t cover and comment on the extremely newsworthy spectacle of a president saying an election was stolen.”

Actually, no reputable media organization would allow a reporter to cover a story they were caught lying about. What’s more, the problem wasn’t that Fox was “covering” what Donald Trump and others said about election fraud. The problem was that the Fox News hosts were endorsing the fraud allegations themselves. That isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda.

In conclusion, Kurtz – still claiming to be fair to both sides – closed with a comment by Fox’s CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, who said that…

“The network has an obligation to report the news fairly. I think a lot of the noise you hear about this case is actually not about the law, and is not about journalism, and is really about the politics.”

Really? For Murdoch to brag about Fox’s “obligation to report the news fairly” after what the Dominion lawsuit has revealed is preposterous. That has never been the mission of Fox News, and the recent disclosures of their internal communications proves that it isn’t now. Not when you have their hosts knowingly deceiving viewers and spreading flagrant falsehoods that undermine democracy and foment violence.

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Ron DeSantis Seeks to Muzzle the Media with Unconstitutional Libel Law Reforms – Just Like Trump

Posted by Mark NC on February 23, 2023 at 11:42 am. 5 Comments :

There is clearly something in the swamp water in Florida that makes its Republican politicians emulate the anti-American derangement of one another. That would account for how Ron DeSantis, while ostensibly preparing to challenge Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination for president is, instead, turning into an even more extreme copy of the twice impeached, former reality TV game show host.

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Politico is reporting that the majority Republican Florida legislature is drafting a bill that would severely threaten the free press were it to be found constitutional – which it surely would not be if the Supreme Court were occupied by fair-minded Justices. To be sure there are some serious problems with the media as witnessed by the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.

However, the reforms sought by DeSantis are dangerously oppressive and intended only to intimidate journalists and silence his critics. According to Politico…

“At the governor’s urging, Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature is pushing to weaken state laws that have long protected journalists against defamation suits and frivolous lawsuits. The proposal is part [of] DeSantis’ ongoing feud with media outlets like The New York Times, Miami Herald, CNN and The Washington Post — media companies he claims are biased against Republicans — as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential bid.

“Beyond making it easier to sue journalists, the proposal is also being positioned to spark a larger legal battle with the goal of eventually overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits public officials’ ability to sue publishers for defamation.”

The DeSantis proposal would make it easier to sue media for defamation. It would also remove journalists’ protection from having to reveal confidential sources, and mandate by law that such reported comments are presumed false in court proceedings. These reforms are contrary to the Constitution and 250 years of legal precedents. They would have a chilling effect on the press and discourage honest reporting.

That discouragement is, of course, precisely the goal of DeSantis. He has assumed the identical position of Trump – and their authoritarian heroes like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping – with regard to suppressing the media. Politico notes that DeSantis has been “refusing to conduct interviews with platforms except Fox News.” That was the same strategy employed by Trump for most his campaigns and presidency. Although lately Trump has taken to even attacking his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News.

However, DeSantis is actually taking this unconstitutional obsession even farther than Trump by committing it to law. Trump often threatened to do so, but never followed through. In January of 2018 Trump whined that…

“Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness. So we’re gonna take a strong look at that.”

Perhaps the reason that Trump chickened out was because he would have opened a can of worms that would have devoured him. No one has exposed himself to more potential libel allegations than Trump. Every time he calls a reporter a liar, or asserts as fact that unnamed sources don’t exist, or alleges that a story was deliberately made up, or unleashes one of his infantile and insulting nicknames on a reporter, Trump is slandering those reporters and harming their reputations and careers.

Someone may have warned Trump to be careful what he wishes for. After all, there have been literally thousands of comments and tweets by Trump that were demonstrably false, but manifestly injured their targets. For instance, what about the sixteen women who have spoken out about Trump’s sexual abuse? He called every one of them liars? One of them, E. Jean Carroll, is currently suing him for defamation.

If DeSantis were smart (doubtful), he would abandon these ill-considered reforms. They are only likely to backfire on him. There are already plenty of safeguards in current law that protect people from deliberate slander and libel. Even if committed by the media. Just ask Dominion Voting Systems.

That, however, isn’t sufficient for Republican press haters who are more interested in censorship than freedom. Consequently, politicians like Trump and DeSantis, who are afraid of a free press, are seeking to shut it down. Trump has already gone to great lengths to do so, and in the process proved that current laws are more than adequate.

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Herr Trump Embraces Fascist GOP Threats to Regulate Twitter and Arrest Their Executives

Posted by Mark NC on February 9, 2023 at 1:08 pm. 6 Comments :

During his brief but abominable occupation of the White House, Donald Trump distinguished himself from his predecessors by relentlessly expressing his aversion to the free press and the Constitution. He repeatedly referred to the media as “the enemy of the people,” and more recently literally called for termination of the Constitution.

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On Wednesday the newly GOP-led House Oversight Committee held a hearing to finally get to the bottom of the Scandal of the Century, Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop. Specifically the Committee sought to prove that the pre-Elon Musk Twitter regime had deliberately skewed their policies to adversely affect conservatives and Republicans and, especially Donald Trump.

The Republicans staged a shamelessly shallow exercise in feigned outrage over imaginary offenses that was triggered by the embarrassingly ineffective attempt by Musk’s “Twitter Files” “exposé” to unveil political bias on the part of Twitter’s previous staff.

Notable during the avalanche of asininity on the part of Republican members of the Committee, were the remarks by Clay Higgins of Louisiana. When it was his turn to question the Twitter executives who were summoned before the Committee to testify, Higgins launched into an unhinged flurry of baseless accusations and culminating in outright threats:

“You, ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly. That’s the bad news. It’s gonna get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrests part. Your attorneys are familiar with that.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene said the same thing.

Clay Higgins tells former Twitter employees they are going to get arrested for rigging the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/vyBoHb3UVl

— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) February 8, 2023

What we have here is a member of Congress threatening to have witnesses arrested for unspecified crimes for which he has no evidence ever occurred. What Higgins is asserting as criminal is the exercise of the constitutional rights of a private social media company to moderate the content on its website. It is wholly inappropriate intimidation by a government official seeking to coerce the behavior of individuals to comply with his political beliefs.

That sort of authoritarian bullying is generally reserved for tyrants and dictators, and those who seek to emulate them. And speaking of Donald Trump… He was thrilled to see how Higgins browbeat the Twitter execs. He posted a video of Higgins along with with his approval on his pitifully failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“Finally we have people with courage stepping forward! The Election was Rigged and Stolen, in so many ways – A mockery of our fully weaponized ‘Justice’ system.”

[For the record, the tweet that Trump was so appalled by that he wanted Twitter staff arrested was by supermodel Chrissy Teigen, who called Trump a “PAB” (look it up) for being to cowardly to tag her in his tweet that insulted her]

Of course, there was nothing in Higgins remarks – or in the entirety of the hearing – that even hinted at any evidence that the “Election was Rigged and Stolen.” To the contrary, Democrats on the Committee conclusively proved that the only bias by Twitter was in favor of Trump and the GOP. Even worse, in questioning by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) it was affirmed that only the Trump White House ever attempted to direct Twitter to censor content. And it did so with an overt threat that, “We’ll shut you down. We’ll regulate you. We Will never allow this to happen.”

Twitter executives verify to the House Oversight Committee that the Trump White House tried to get Twitter to take down tweets from Chrissy Teigen that made fun of Trump. pic.twitter.com/gQU8YWT0kw

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 8, 2023

That is an example of unambiguous government suppression of a free press and a violation of the First Amendment. Nevertheless, Rep. Jim Jordan tried to turn the tables by accusing the Biden campaign of censorship simply because they made a request for Twitter to review certain offensive tweets. Jordan’s argument, however, was ridiculous. He claimed that asking Twitter to review whether tweets were in compliance with their own terms of service was censorship.

"My, my, my, what happens when you hold a hearing and can't prove your point?" pic.twitter.com/ibC1cQUDYl

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 8, 2023

Obviously, it’s not against the First Amendment to ask a company to review content based on the company’s own standards. What’s more, the Biden campaign not only didn’t accompany their requests with threats, they weren’t even in power at the time, so they had no clout with which to threaten. And yet this is the scenario in which Trump posted a comment urging his cult to “Watch the Twitter hearings going on right now in Washington. They admit that the Presidential Election of 2020 was RIGGED & STOLEN!”

Naturally Trump is lying. No such admission occurred in the hearing. But Trump’s flagrant dishonesty is precisely the sort of provocation that resulted in the riots in Washington on January 6th. And his continued presence on social media (both Twitter and Facebook recently reinstated his accounts) will predictably result in more violence.

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FFS: Trump Calls for Arrest of Supreme Court Leak Journalists Unless They Reveal Their Sources

Posted by Mark NC on January 19, 2023 at 3:53 pm. 6 Comments :

During his occupation of the White House, Donald repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance of, and disrespect for, the Constitution of the United States. He pursued an agenda that was most closely associated with fascism and other oppressive models of government. He expected unflinching loyalty to him personally, rather to the Constitution or the nation.

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Trump’s biggest heroes are dictators such as Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and his puppet master, Vladimir Putin. He excused their offenses against free nations and he sought to emulate them. He spoke of having “fallen in love” with Kim Jong Un and he openly stated that he believed Putin over American intelligence agencies.

On Thursday Trump responded to a report regarding the leaked draft of the the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v Wade. The investigation was unable to identity the leaker who provided the press with a draft of the opinion. That news triggered Trump to post a comment on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“The Supreme Court has just announced it is not able to find out, even with the help of our “crack” FBI, who the leaker was on the R v Wade scandal. They’ll never find out, & it’s important that they do. So, go to the reporter & ask him/her who it was. If not given the answer, put whoever in jail until the answer is given. You might add the publisher and editor to the list. Stop playing games, this leaking cannot be allowed to happen. It won’t take long before the name of this slime is revealed!”

And just in case anyone was unsure about his position, Trump followed that up with another post that said…

“Arrest the reporter, publisher, editor – you’ll get your answer fast. Stop playing games and wasting time!”

These remarks are typical of Trump’s tendency toward tyranny. They reveal his seething hatred for the Constitution and the freedom that it mandates for the press.

For the record, it is not illegal to leak drafts of Supreme Court opinions to the press, so long as the leaker didn’t gain access to the documents unlawfully, such as hacking into a private computer. But Trump isn’t talking here about arresting the leaker. He’s demanding that the reporters, editors, and publishers of the documents be arrested to coerce them to reveal their source. According to PolitiFact…

“No federal law clearly prohibits someone with legal access to a draft Supreme Court opinion, such as a justice or clerk, from leaking that document to the press, legal experts said. A draft opinion is not classified, which is usually the grounds for leak investigations.”

The journalists involved in this not only did not violate any law, but they are protected by the Constitution and a couple hundred years of subsequent affirming decisions by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Trump would have them incarcerated until they talk. That is the sort of tactic that would be exercised by Trump’s totalitarian mentors. It is blatantly illegal, grossly offensive, and wholly un-American.

These comments are further evidence that Trump is unfit to serve in any capacity in a free democracy. And any voter or Republican politician who would support Trump’s future electoral aspirations is embracing his treasonous anti-Americanism and his utter lack of patriotic principles.

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Trump’s 2023 New Year’s Wish: Hopefully American Newspapers Will Go Out of Business

Posted by Mark NC on December 31, 2022 at 11:11 am. 8 Comments :

As 2022 winds to close, Donald Trump finds himself in an accelerating downward spiral of legal, political, and personal distress. His mood is decidedly dour and consumed by hate. And true to form, he is handling it like a colicky infant who thinks his whining and tantrums will deliver relief from the misery that is plaguing him from all sides.

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Donald Trump, Newspapers, Baby, Hate

Trump’s 2022 tribulations are bound to torment him well into 2023. They include disclosure of the financial fiascos revealed in his tax returns that were just released after years of fearful defiance; the criminal charges stemming from his incitement of the January 6th insurrection and his theft and hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago hotel/home; the ongoing probes by Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice; and his plummeting political prospects of returning to the White House in 2024.

On this New Year’s Eve Trump is fixated on the media that he despises for daring to report what he actually does and says. He is an avowed opponent of of the First Amendment. His assaults on the free press were a hallmark of his presidency, and they have continued uninterrupted in the months since his defeat for reelection.

Consequently, no one will be surprised by the yammering on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, where he posted a link to an article in the Washington Post about the hard times that American newspapers are facing. He said that…

“Many of these newspapers are going out of business because they only know how to report Fake News. Hopefully the Amazon Washington Post and the Failing New York Times will soon be among the group! Nobody will continue to sustain such losses, especially for a product undeserving of our once great Nation.”

Trump is veritably giddy that American businesses are hurting. So much for “America First.” And it’s ironic that he’s citing the Washington Post, that he thinks is “fake news,” as his source. Apparently when he sees a headline that he likes – in this case “Newspapers are disappearing where democracy needs them most“ – WaPo becomes a reputable news enterprise. However, It’s unlikely that Trump read beyond the headline, because this article laments the failures of small, conservative newspapers that mostly serve rural communities that are largely populated by Republicans.

Trump did once say once that he “loves the poorly educated,” so his aversion to the availability of news would be consistent with achieving that state of ignorance for his cult followers. Trump went on to post more attacks on the media, digging into his kindergarten bag of insults to say that…

“The Failing New York Times is Fake and Corrupt News. Their motto should be, ALL THE FAKE NEWS THAT’S UNFIT TO PRINT. They are the Enemy of the People!”

It’s nauseating how Trump is so eager to trash American businesses and so full of hope for hardship for American workers. But it’s no less than what is expected from him after establishing himself as the nation’s most anti-American politician. It’s notable, though, that Trump also took a swipe at his Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News), whining that…

“Wow!!! So while Trump Hating CNN & MSNBC (MSDNC!) RATINGS are both at record lows, numbers that they have never seen before (‘they’re toast’), Fox News Ratings are also way down because they never say ‘Trump’ or TRUTH, never talk about the Rigged Presidential Election, and is a Fake Polling Network. Our giant MAGA base, much bigger than anyone knows, does not like watching Fox play their games. Their Ratings will continue to sink. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

For the record, Trump has predicted the demise of CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and most other news organizations, for years. And as usual, his predictions have failed to comport with reality. For someone who worked on television for fourteen years, he is profoundly ignorant of how it operates. Ratings are down for virtually everything on TV due to increased competition, such as that from streaming services and the return of patrons to movie theaters.

However, Trump’s animosity toward Fox News is particularly curious considering it’s the home of devout Trump-fluffers like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. But he is known for disparaging anyone who is less than totally worshipful, so even his toadies at Fox News are targets of his wrath. Which is endlessly entertaining for the rest of America.

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WTFox? Fox News Hack Asks Press Secretary if the White House is Going to Shut Down Twitter

Posted by Mark NC on December 1, 2022 at 11:27 am. 2 Comments :

The melodrama engulfing Twitter since it was devoured by the American oligarch, Elon Musk, is spinning ever more ludicrous plots. And in keeping with the themes dictated by Donald Trump, they generally involve some wealthy wingnut’s paranoid delusions of persecution and victimhood. Poor little billionaires.

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Whenever there is some feigned offense as perceived by the uber-elites, the Fox News propaganda machine can be relied upon to pursue its mission of spreading disinformation on behalf of Trump’s Republican Cult Party. Central to that undertaking is the Fox News White House correspondent, Peter Doocy, whose role has always been to manufacture preposterous narratives for his network’s news mangling.

On Wednesday Doocy assumed his position in the White House press room to fulfill his assignment for the day. He quickly excreted another contrived and bizarre scenario that wasted everyone’s time and forced the Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, to school him on some basic principles of communication and free speech.

Doocy: When are you guys gonna delete the White House Twitter account?
Jean-Pierre: Why would we do that?
Doocy: Well, you say that you’re keeping an eye on Twitter because it might not be a suitable platform. So why use it?

It’s difficult to comprehend just how inept and unqualified Doocy is for the job he’s allegedly doing. Unless, that is, you accept that his job is to babble incoherently in pursuit of what he thinks is a “gotcha” question. Obviously the White House can post comments on Twitter that convey their positions without embracing everything about the site that is troublesome. But Doocy needed the remedial explanation…

Jean-Pierre: I want to be very clear here. The President has always said, and he has been very clear in his belief that it is important for social media platforms to continue to take steps to reduce hate speech and misinformation. And he will continue to say that. But media platforms make independent choices about the information that they present. So I don’t have anything to share on any policy or any changes that we will be making. We have multiple platforms, as you know, that we utilize to communicate with the American people.
Doocy: You say that you’re gonna be monitoring the speech on there. If you see something that you don’t like, would you try to shut Twitter down?
Jean-Pierre: When you talk about monitoring, I hate to break it to you Peter, just like everybody else, we very much monitor the news. We pay close attention to everything that you all are reporting. And Twitter is in the news a lot. And that’s what we’re paying attention to. We’re paying attention to what is in the news and what is being reported on the misinformation that’s out there.

Fox News’ Peter Doocy: “When are you guys gonna delete the White House Twitter account?"

White House Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre: “Why would we do that?" pic.twitter.com/6mWbw8FkDH

— The Recount (@therecount) November 30, 2022

Doocy’s laughably illogical leap to the conclusion that the White House would consider “shutting Twitter down” is representative of the mindset of Fox News and the radical right. It’s what they would do. All Jean-Pierre was saying is that misinformation and hate speech are tangible threats to the welfare of the public, and that Twitter and other social media outlets have an obligation to conduct reasonable moderation. But Doocy failed to grasp Jean-Pierre’s clearly articulated point that it is the company’s obligation, not the government.

For the record, the only presidential administration that ever actually threatened to shut down Twitter was that of the former reality TV game show host, Donald Trump.

It is also notable that Trump filed a truly idiotic First Amendment lawsuit against Twitter (which was quickly dismissed), and beseeched his glassy-eyed cult followers to quit Twitter, which he asserted should be outlawed. For more on those execrable exploits, see the following…

Funny, neither Doocy nor Fox News ever had any problem with any of that. They are obviously pro-totalitarian dictatorship when the dictator is Trump of any other Republican.

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Trump Proves His Idiocy (Again): He Thinks Verizon Dropping One America News (OAN) is Illegal

Posted by Mark NC on July 31, 2022 at 11:11 am. 2 Comments :

The depth of Donald Trump’s ignorance is impossible to measure. He is the Mariana Trench of stupidity. And yet, he seems perpetually compelled to show off how pitifully feeble-minded he is at every opportunity. He appears to have a perverse pride in being an utter imbecile. Perhaps it makes him feel closer to his dimwitted cult followers.

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On Sunday morning Trump posted a comment on his miserably failing social media website, TRUTH Social (that is currently being criminally investigated by a Grand Jury), yowling about the decision by Verizon to drop One America News (OAN), his favorite, ultra-rightist disinformation channel. That decision may be the death knell for OAN who have now lost all but one of their cable outlets.

Naturally, Trump was shocked and outraged that a private company made a rational business decision that conflicted with Trump’s inbred biases and petulant self interests. Especially OAN, that has served as his virtual North Korean style Ministry of Propaganda from its inception. So he raged on his Twitter ripoff site that…

“One America News (OAN) is AMAZING, with great ratings and a REALLY loyal following. Despite it being so good, VERIZON, for purely political reasons, will be terminating OAN at the end of this month. Isn’t this ‘stuff’ supposed to be illegal? The good news is that the owners and management of One America News is smart and very wise. They will figure it out!”

In a 3:30 AM post, Trump says it is “illegal” for Verizon to cancel his propaganda network. pic.twitter.com/VmJbbdXF7N

— Ron Filipkowski ?? (@RonFilipkowski) July 31, 2022

What’s “AMAZING” is how ridiculously foolish Trump can be, and how proud he seems to be of it. Trump’s assertion that OAN has “great ratings” is laughably untrue. Their audience is so small that Nielsen doesn’t even track it. So you have to wonder what “ratings” Trump is referring to. Although Trump may be right about OAN having a loyal following, because that’s what cults do.

Trump goes on to accuse Verizon of ditching OAN for “purely political reasons.” Of course, he doesn’t offer a shred evidence to support that charge. However there is an obvious financial justification for dropping a channel that has a negligible number of viewers. What’s more, OAN is being sued for defamation by the voting software company, Smartmatic. The case revolves around the part OAN has played in promulgating Trump’s “Big Lie” about election fraud. Cable programmers would be wise to distance themselves from such potentially damaging legal exposure.

Finally, Trump asks his TRUTH(less) (Anti)Social followers “Isn’t this ‘stuff’ supposed to be illegal?” Sure, if you live in a totalitarian dictatorship where the media is required to obey the mandates of power mad demagogues. But in a nation where a free press is protected by its Constitution, private companies are permitted to make their own business decisions in the best interest of their shareholders, employees, and customers. In the United States it would, in fact, be illegal for the government to interfere with such decisions.

Trump, however, has always leaned toward tyranny. He prefers a country wherein he is the fuehrer making decisions that only benefit him. He had the same autocratic reaction to OAN being dropped by DirecTV earlier this year. And he couldn’t stop whining about it for months. So strap in. We can expect the same sort of obsessive ravings over the Verizon decision going forward.

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Trump Declares that ‘I Am Not Going Back On Twitter’ After the Elon Musk Takeover

Posted by Mark NC on April 25, 2022 at 4:45 pm. 4 Comments :

America’s oligarchy is exercising it’s privilege once again as the world’s richest man drops a few of his billions of dollars to add Twitter to the playroom in his ultra-exclusive world. Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media giant is profoundly significant due to its influence on politics, journalism, and culture.

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The debate over how dangerous this is for society in America – and the world – is complex and will unfold in the weeks to come as Musk’s intentions are revealed. However, in the short term we already have some news about a famous former tweeter. Donald Trump didn’t waste any time telling Fox News (who else) what the Musk acquisition means to him. According to Fox News…

“Former President Trump will not return to Twitter, even as Elon Musk purchases the social media company and reinstates his account, instead using his own TRUTH Social as the sole platform for his voice. […] The former president told Fox News Monday that he will formally join his own TRUTH Social over the next seven days, as planned.

“‘I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,’ Trump told Fox News. ‘I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.’ […] He added: ‘The bottom line is, no, I am not going back to Twitter.'”

Let’s set aside for the time being that Trump lies far too often to take anything he says seriously. If Twitter were to offer to reinstate his account, it’s ridiculous to suggest that he would rebuff the offer because he’s “staying on TRUTH” Social (TS). How can he “stay” on a platform that he has posted on only once nearly two months ago, and from which he has been conspicuously absent ever since? He couldn’t even get the name straight at his recent rally, calling it “Troth Sential.”

Trump was, and is, a Twitter addict (his spokes-shill still posts for him daily in defiance of Twitter’s own rules). And he isn’t likely to trade access to his 84 million Twitter followers (most of which were bots or fakes) for a fraction of that on TS. Trump went on to say that…

“‘We’re taking in millions of people, and what we’re finding is that the response on TRUTH is much better than being on Twitter,’ Trump said. ‘Twitter has bots and fake accounts, and we are doing everything we can.'”

Actually, TS has assigned a little over a million wait list numbers to people who have tried to sign up. Most of them still have not been able to log on. And as for fake accounts, there have already been a multitude of them on TS. The site even “verified” a Fox News account that Fox denied having anything to do with.

What’s more, there is so little interaction on TS that the users who are online have complained that it is an echo chamber of fellow cultists whose homogeneous agreement is terminally boring. And now Trump is promising that it’s going to get even worse…

“‘This is a platform for my voice. TRUTH is a platform for my voice and for my supporters,’ Trump said. ‘But I want everybody to come over to TRUTH—conservatives, liberals, whatever. […] ‘TRUTH Social will be a voice for me,’ Trump continued. ‘And that’s something nobody else can get.'”

It isn’t an accident that Trump keeps referring to the site as simply “TRUTH.” There is nothing “Social” about it. Like everything else in Trump World, it is about him and only him. And he isn’t shy about saying so explicitly.

The worst part of all of this, from Trump’s perspective, is that the site may never even become viable. The shell company that is serving as its Wall Street proxy (DWAC) declined another 12.9% today. It has cratered 64% since the beginning of March. Reuters is reporting that key personnel are abandoning ship and that…

“Another open question is how TMTG is funding its current growth. The company is planning to go public through a merger with blank-check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) . The deal is under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission and is likely months away from being finalized. […] Investors have pledged $1 billion to TMTG but they won’t hand over that money until the DWAC deal closes.”

So the the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) and DWAC deal is likely another illegal Trump scam that will never go through. And when it fails Trump won’t get any of the money that has allegedly been pledged. More likely it will result in investor lawsuits that will cost him and his accomplices a fortune.

As for Twitter’s future under Musk, Jessica J. González of Free Press recently published an editorial that exposes how truly awful the site could be under Musk. She wrote that…

“Musk’s ability to be an accountable steward of this massive online community is questionable at best. […] he has a poor track record of protecting other Twitter users and respecting their free speech. He has used the platform to discredit and disparage those who disagree with him, and he has lashed out at journalists who have written or produced things he didn’t like.”

Musk’s pretense of advocating for free speech is utterly insincere. It is a pathway to tolerating hate speech and disinformation that divides people and incites violence. It would make Twitter unbearable for most decent users, as well as advertisers. And it doesn’t help that Musk has been sued for “racial discrimination and harassment after finding a widespread pattern of mistreatment of Black workers” at his Tesla plant. So look for Twitter to collapse unless its executives and board of directors manage to keep Musk’s worst instincts in check.

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Rittenhouse Judge Schroeder Bans MSNBC from Courtroom in Violation of the First Amendment

Posted by Mark NC on November 18, 2021 at 3:40 pm. 1 Comments :

The trial of teen vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse has produced some bizarre and legally questionable moments. Many of those moments relate directly to the behavior of Judge Bruce Schroeder whose rulings have overwhelming favored the defense and been openly hostile to the prosecution.

On Thursday this tendency of Schroeder to put his right-wing prejudices on display crossed another line of propriety for a jurist. Responding to a report that a reporter allegedly working for MSNBC News was following a bus that was transporting the jurors, Schroeder interrupted the proceedings to make this alarming declaration:

“I have instructed that no one from MSNBC news will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial. This is a very serious matter and I don’t know what the ultimate truth of it is, but absolutely it would go without much thinking that someone who is following a jury bus, that is an extremely serious matter will be referred to the proper authorities for further action.”

NBC News denies that its journalists contacted, or intended to contact, jury members in the Rittenhouse trial: https://t.co/JWAG22XXFm

— The Recount (@therecount) November 18, 2021

This is indeed a “very serious matter,” but not for the reasons that Schroeder suggests. There are several problems with how the Judge reacted to this report. First of all, in his statement he admits that he “I don’t know what the ultimate truth of it is.” But he issues his prohibition against MSNBC News anyway. What if the truth is that the reporter was not from MSNBC? What if there was nothing untoward taking place? Then Schroeder punished the network despite it having done nothing to warrant it. That is the definition of government censorship and violates the First Amendment of the Constitution.

What’s more, Schroeder may have gotten the network wrong. Reports variously describe the reporter as having been associated with MSNBC or NBC, two different networks. So it’s pretty sloppy of the Judge to impose such severe penalties when he doesn’t even know who the suspected offender is affiliated with. In addition to that, it is ridiculous to ban MSNBC from the courtroom when reporters from NBC, who were not covered by the order, are still permitted to cover the trial. They can then appear on MSNBC to give their account of the proceedings.

Finally, Schroeder took the extreme measure of banning the entire MSNBC network, rather than just the alleged offender. At best he could have argued that the reporter who was involved should have his courtroom privileges suspended, not for the duration of the trial, but until the facts were ascertained. But Schroeder didn’t take that rational step. Instead he punished everyone at MSNBC, despite the fact that none of them had done anything wrong. It also needs to be remembered that the reporter in question wasn’t found to have done anything wrong either. NBC News released a statement saying that…

“Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation. While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations, and never photographed or intended to photograph them”

Rittenhouse’s defense attorney has already filed a motion for a mistrial, which Schroeder has yet to rule on. But if anyone is entitled to a mistrial, it’s the prosecution. And Schroeder should be cited for judicial misconduct. He has shown bias throughout this trial. And his disrespect for the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of the press makes his malfeasance on the bench all the more reprehensible.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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CNN’s Jim Acosta Fractures Fox News Fascist Fanboy and Trump-Fluffer, Tucker Carlson

Posted by Mark NC on August 7, 2021 at 4:56 pm. 3 Comments :

This past week Fox News Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson, made a pilgrimage to Hungary to curtsy obediently before its self-proclaimed dictator, Viktor Orban. Carlson displayed his sickly adoration as he performed PR duties for Orban’s oppressive regime. It was a shameful exercise in subservience to a notorious totalitarian strongman.

On Saturday, CNN’s Jim Acosta reported on Carlson’s trek to the totalitarian dystopia with some poignant clips of Carlson’s commentaries while he was there. Acosta and his guests. Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Oliver Darcy, had some cogent insights, but it was Carlson’s own words that tell the story of his noxious anti-democratic and even anti-American obsessions. The entire video clip of the segment is posted below, but what follows are Carlson’s chilling remarks and pro fascist views.

Acosta introduced the first clip saying that “The Soviet Union used to use gullible foreigners to spread their propaganda, but this seems different. Tucker knows exactly what he’s doing.” And Carlson said that…

“if you care about western civilization and democracy and family, and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what is happening here right now. In the face of great international pressure – they called him all kinds of names, the EU called what he was doing illegal – but he did it anyway. He built a wall. We said to a Hungarian minister who was standing there, ‘It’s hard to believe that that’s your policy. When you come here illegally you’re just escorted out politely?’ And he said quote, ‘We’re a serious country.’ How embarrassing to be an American in a conversation like that.”

Darcy pointed out how outraged Carlson and the rest of right-wing America would be if Michelle Obama, for instance, had gone abroad and told an authoritarian dictator that she was embarrassed to be an American. But Carlson has no problem exhibiting his shame. Nor does he mind portraying Hungary as “democratic,” despite the fact that Orban has effectively assumed total control for life. Acosta then introduces another clip of Carlson praising the state controlled media of Hungary…

“Let’s say you lived in a big American city and you decided to loudly and publicly attack Joe Biden’s policies. His policies on immigration or COVID or transgender athletes. If you kept talking like that you would likely be silenced by Joe Biden’s allies in Silicon Valley. If you kept it up you might very well have to hire armed body guards. That’s common in the U.S. Ask around. But it’s unknown in Hungary. Opposition leaders here don’t worry that they will be hurt for their opinions.”

WTF? Carlson is actually attacking Joe Biden’s policies in these clips. And his confederates on Fox News do so every hour of every day. Not only have they not been silenced, they are the number one rated cable news network. As for the need for Hungarian critics to hire body guards, Carlson is partly correct. There aren’t any government critics who need to do that. But only because there aren’t any government critics allowed. As Ben-Ghiat noted, over 500 media media outlets “donated” their assets to a foundation run by Orban’s allies. There could never be a Fox News taking shots at the government the way they do in the U.S. Carlson is deliberately covering that up. But then he goes off on this fantasy rant…

“‘Oh, but he’s a fascist,’ scream people who are happy to imprison non-violent political protesters in Washington. ‘Oh, there’s no press freedom,’ say people who support the overwhelming censorship in the American media. ‘He’s bad!’ They haven’t accused him rigging elections yet. Maybe that’s too much even for them.”

What Carlson is referring to as political prisoners are the insurrectionists who attacked Congress on January 6th. He regards them as non-violent, despite their having broken through doors and windows, injured more than 100 police officers, and chanted their intentions to kill Nancy Pelosi and hang Mike Pence.

Furthermore, you have to wonder what Carlson is talking about when he says that there is “overwhelming censorship in the American media.” If that were true, he wouldn’t be able to say it on a highly viewed television network. Additionally, Carlson mocks those who point out that Hungary does not have a free press. He might want to refer to the study by Reporters Without Borders as reported by Voice of America…

“A press watchdog group, Reporters Without Borders, named 37 world leaders Monday as media ‘predators’ who ‘crack down massively’ on press freedom, including for the first time a Western European leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. […] The watchdog group said oligarchs close to Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party controls more than 80% of the media in the country, while private media is discriminated against and characterized as publishing ‘fake news.'”

Acosta closed by saying of Carlson’s Hungarian PR junket that “It’s very concerning. And I wonder where he’s going next. Maybe to Moscow to do an infomercial for Vladimir Putin. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” Which pretty much says it all. Except that Tucker Carlson is an unpatriotic, anti-American, traitor to his country and no decent network would keep him on the air. Which explains why he’s on Fox News.

Discussing @TuckerCarlson's week-long infomercial for Hungary's authoritarian leader with @ruthbenghiat and @Acosta. pic.twitter.com/tujyX6waBB

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 7, 2021

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

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