Trump Indicted by the Manhattan Grand Jury Probing His Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels

Posted by Mark NC on March 30, 2023 at 4:11 pm. 5 Comments :

FINALLY! Donald Trump has been indicted by the Manhattan Grand Jury that has been investigating his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. This will likely be just the first of many indictments to come for a corrupt, life-long criminal who briefly occupied the White House.

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The indictment of Trump is still sealed as of this writing, so the specific charges are not yet known. But there is already some speculation among pundits that it contains a felony charge. In any case he will be put under arrest, there will be a booking and a mug shot, and a furious flurry of whining from Trump and his sycophantic cult disciples.

In the meantime, lets recall some of the recent comments from Trump and others leading up to this day…

Trump Can’t Imagine the NYPD Defending the City If His Indictment Triggers Riots By His Followers
“CAN YOU IMAGINE THE GREAT NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, CORRECTLY REFERRED TO AS ‘NEW YORK CITY’S FINEST,’ WHO, FOR THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME IN HISTORY, ENDORSED A PRESIDENT, ME, & HONORED ME AS ‘MAN OF THE YEAR,’ HAVING TO DEFEND & PROTECT THE ‘DEFUNDERS’ & ‘COP HATERS’ OF THE RADICAL LEFT THAT WANT TO PUT THEIR GREATEST CHAMPION & FRIEND IN PRISON FOR A CRIME THAT DOESN’T EXIST…ALL THE WHILE THE SOROS BACKED D.A. ALLOWS MURDERERS & OTHER VIOLENT CRIMINALS TO FREELY ROAM THE SIDEWAKS OF N.Y.?”

Fox News Hack Tucker Carlson Rants that Prosecuting Trump Would Forever End Democratic Elections
“If the Democratic Party is allowed to do this, allowed to crush the presidential front-runner, the main threat to their power, with a bogus criminal case, where does that leave us? We’re done because that precedent will live forever and voters will never again determine the outcome of a presidential election. It’s remarkable when you think about it.”

Trump Warns of ‘Death and Destruction’ if He is Indicted for Crimes that He Actually Committed
“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely (sic) hates the USA!”

Jon Stewart’s Snarky Swipe at Nutty Notion that a Trump Indictment Would Make Him a Martyr
Stewart (sarcastically): I think the law should always take into account someone’s popularity. I mean, what’s happened to our country? It’s as though you can’t even commit financial fraud anymore. You can’t inflate the value of your property when you need a loan, and then deflate it with taxes. The next thing you know they’re going to send YOU to jail instead of your lawyer, and your accountant, and your campaign manager, and everyone else around you. The idea that someone may face accountability, who’s that rich and powerful, is outrageous, and this country shouldn’t stand for it.

And let’s not forget that just the day before this indictment, Trump posted this comment expressing his “respect” for the Grand Jury…

“I HAVE GAINED SUCH RESPECT FOR THIS GRAND JURY, & PERHAPS EVEN THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM AS A WHOLE. THE EVIDENCE IS SO OVERWHELMING IN MY FAVOR, & SO RIDICULOUSLY BAD FOR THE HIGHLY PARTISAN & HATEFUL DISTRICT ATTORNEY, THAT THE GRAND JURY IS SAYING, HOLD ON, WE ARE NOT A RUBBER STAMP, WHICH MOST GRAND JURIES ARE BRANDED AS BEING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAINST A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE OR AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF LEGAL SCHOLARS ALL SAYING THERE IS NO CASE HERE. DROP THIS SICK WITCH HUNT, NOW!”

And that was only a week after he posted a comment stating flatly that that he “WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY” and urging his cult followers to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

“NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”

Trump posted his response to the indictment (and a longer and lie-riddled rant here) saying that…

“These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED (sic) the 45th President of the United States of America, and the leading Republican Candidate, by far, for the 2024 Nomination for President. THIS IS AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE. IT IS LIKEWISE A CONTINUING ATTACK ON OUR ONCE FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS. THE USA IS NOW A THIRD WORLD NATION, A NATION IN SERIOUS DECLINE. SO SAD!”

Trump is very upset that he has been “INDICATED”? But he is right that “THE LIKES OF [THIS] HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE.” But that’s only because no president has ever been so flagrantly criminal before. And he’s only going to get worse from here. Stay tuned for updates.

UPDATE: Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts “that Trump falsified internal business records at his private company while trying to cover up an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments that silenced claims” of his affair with adult film star, Stormy Daniels.

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Fox News Caught Coddling Conspiracy Crackpots for Fear of Losing Audience and Advertisers – Again!

Posted by Mark NC on March 29, 2023 at 1:17 pm. 1 Comments :

The billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News is getting closer to being played out in court. And with an April 17 trial date, there is still more evidence of Fox’s fraudulence coming out on a nearly daily basis. The extent of their ethical emptiness continues to astonish and disgust.

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The latest exposure of Fox’s unscrupulousness came in the form of a “slide deck” that Dominion lawyers used at a March 28 hearing. Matthew Gertz of Media Matters posted images of the presentation by Dominion’s lawyers (in this Twitter thread). And while it contains some cringeworthy examples of deceitfulness, it is also all too reminiscent of what has been published previously.

Among the new disclosures are internal communications from Fox News executives and hosts. They show that these people have no regard for journalist principles or the welfare of the nation. What follows are some samplings from the hearing…

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott:
[Reacting to a reporter’s fact checking] “This has to stop now. This is bad business and there clearly is a lack of understanding what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material. Bad for business.” […]

“I can’t keep defending these reporters who don’t understand our viewers and how to handle stories. The audience feels like we crapped on and we have damaged their trust and belief in us. We lost 25k subs from FOX NATION.

Fox News Host Maria Bartiromo:
“We have to go to a full on war. They have used all systems to defraud… Jared says he doesn’t want to hear about any conspiracy theory… The campaign is not doing shit.” […]

“The country needs to survive. We need to keep this president. Noone (sic) thinks anyway that people voted for Biden.” […]

“It was sophisticated funded and orchestrate & uses all areas of fraud including digital. We now know Nancy Pelosi has an interest in it. It’s directed also by Soros.”

Fox News Host Tucker Carlson:
“[Sidney Powell] is a psychopath. She’s getting Trump all spun up and has zero evidence. Same with Rudy [Giuliani].” […]

“[Mike] Lindell seems to really have gone off the deep end. He is definitely crazy… I agree there’s concern about Lindell being a conspiracy theorist now. But he has bailed us out loads of times when no one else would.” […]

“We can concentrate on cancel culture rather than his wild claims… If no one is buying him, he loses money to be able to advertise with us. And then we lose our biggest advertiser.”

[Note: After most major advertisers pulled out of Carlson’s show to avoid association with his racism and conspiracy theories, Lindell was indeed his biggest advertiser. Although he had problems of his own]

Fox News “Brain Room” staffer Leonard Balducci:
“Claims about Dominion switching or deleting votes are 100% false. Dominion systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local authorities as well as fact checkers, have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process.” […]

“Dominion has no company ownership relationships with any member of the Pelosi family, the Feinstein family, or the Clinton Global Initiative.”

These are the sort of statements that prompted the Society of Professional Journalists to respond to the allegations against Fox News in a damning statement by their Professional Standards and Ethics Committee. They found…

“…the allegations against Fox News deeply troubling. A fundamental ethical rule of journalism, set out in the SPJ Code of Ethics, is to seek the truth and report it. If a news organization knowingly spreads lies, either in news reporting or opinion, it has clearly breached this most sacred of principles. No responsible journalist can accept or excuse this behavior. […]

“[And that] responsible opinion hosts and commentators have a duty to use verified facts as the basis of their arguments and to not peddle what they know to be lies and disinformation. Many people use the information they get from their favorite hosts and commentators to form their own opinions.”

Indeed, that last line illustrates the problem that Fox News creates when they deliberately mislead their viewers. Of course, Fox doesn’t view it as a problem, It’s precisely the effect they intend to have on their audience. And the truly sad part of this is that it’s working.

SEE THIS: IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies

If anyone still thinks that Fox should be considered a “news” enterprise, ask yourselves this question: Why havn’t any of the alleged “journalists” at Fox resigned after learning about just how corrupt and dishonest the organization is? How could anyone who regards themselves as an ethical reporter continue to work for such a company? Why won’t they even make a public statement of disapproval?

The answer, of course, is that there isn’t anyone at Fox with the integrity to take such a stand. They are all equally responsible and, thus, reprehensible. There isn’t one of them with an ounce of honor or professional decency.

UPDATE I: In a March 31 ruling on summary judgement, the judge found that “The evidence is ‘CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements [made on Fox News] relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.'”

UPDATE II: The judge in the Dominion case has sanctioned Fox News for withholding evidence. He also made several other rulings that hamper Fox’s ability to deflect from the issue of defamation.

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The Wacko in Waco: Trump Lavishes Praise on Fox News and the January 6th Insurrectionists

Posted by Mark NC on March 26, 2023 at 12:02 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s no coincidence that Donald Trump chose Waco, Texas, to hold his first official campaign rally for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. It’s a city best known as the home of a radical cult that went to war with the police and the U.S. government. Which is a pretty good description of Trump’s MAGA movement.

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Trump opened his Waco cult rally by playing the hokey song recorded by January 6th insurrectionists currently in prison for everything from criminal trespassing to obstructing Congress to seditious conspiracy. And to make that even worse, he accompanied the song with big screen images of the riots in progress. So while he has blatantly lied that he never intended to incite the violence, he is now glorifying it, exalting the perpetrators, and fomenting more violence.

Following that opening, Trump spent much of the rest of his speech whining about the investigations of his numerous crimes. He complained about the prospect of his being indicted and lashed out viciously at the prosecutors. He spent barely any time at all on actual issues that affect the American people. If nothing else, this speech revealed what will likely be Trump’s campaign slogan for the 2024 presidential cycle. and it isn’t “Keep America Great.” It’s “Keep Me Out of Prison.”

Trump’s defense of the January 6th rioters isn’t his first foray into supporting these treasonous thugs. In December Trump promised to halt their prosecutions if he were to return to the white House. Which is just another good reason to prevent that from ever happening. But his Waco address showed that he is committed to rewarding the domestic terrorists who assaulted America’s seat of democracy…

“Under Joe Biden American patriots are being arrested and held in captivity like animals. Look at what’s happening in Washington. […] These are people that shouldn’t have been there. And when you look at the Tucker Carlson tapes from two weeks ago, and you see so many things that turned out to be false. Very important what Tucker’s done. What Sean has done. What Laura did. Laura did a piece last night that was incredible.”

Trump: When you look at the Tucker Carlson tapes and you see so many things that turned out to be false pic.twitter.com/TaRbIohAR1

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 26, 2023

It isn’t surprising that Trump would lean on his favorite Fox News sycophants to support his celebration of the January 6th assault. Tucker Carlson, in particular, has spearheaded Fox’s whitewashing of the rampaging StormTrumpers. Neither Trump, nor Carlson, nor the rest of Fox News cared at all about the 140+ law enforcement officers who were injured, or the millions of dollars of damage to the Capitol, or the harm to the very concept of democracy.

To the contrary, they all applauded the mayhem and destruction conducted on Trump’s behalf. They crave the authoritarian dictatorship that Trump aspires to. And they will distort reality to fit their grotesque lust for what America should become under Trumpism. It’s what Trump was referring to when he spoke of “the Carlson tapes,” which were actually videos from the Capitol when it was being attacked. And despite having exclusive access to 41,000 hours of video, Carlson utterly failed to present any coherent argument that the rioters were merely innocent and peaceful tourists, as he claimed.

SEE THIS: Tucker Carlson Spins January 6th Insurrection Videos to Spread Blatant Lies, Trump Praises Him

In his speech, Trump also laid out his vision for the near future as he embarks on his presidential campaign…

“2024 is the final battle. That’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over. And America will be a free nation once again. Our enemies are desperate to stop us, because they know that we are the only ones who can stop them.”

So Trump is framing this as an apocalyptic clash that will determine the fate of humankind. He positions himself as the one and only Savior of humanity. And he calls his political opponents “enemies.” All of that is purposefully designed to rile up his glassy-eyed cult followers and prepare them to fight for his ascendency to the throne.

The good news is that Trump’s grunts are too weak, stupid, and lazy to pose any real threat. And while some individual crackpots could still cause serious harm on a small scale, Trump’s incendiary and subversive schemes are destined to fail, as long as the rest of the nation (the vast majority) remain vigilant, unified, and committed to the principles of freedom and democracy.

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Fox News Hack Tucker Carlson Rants that Prosecuting Trump Would Forever End Democratic Elections

Posted by Mark NC on March 21, 2023 at 12:26 pm. 2 Comments :

The pandering politicians and pundits propping up Donald Trump are storming the media with mendacious defenses of his criminal misconduct. Among the ludicrous arguments that they throw against the wall is that an indictment would benefit the twice-impeached, reality TV game show host. Perhaps there is some truth to that with regard to the Deplorables already indoctrinated into his cult. However, everyone else would be further repulsed by his recidivist criminality.

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If it would be such a boon to Trump, then why are so many of his glassy-eyed sycophants erupting in outrage? If they really believed that an indictment would propel him to victory, wouldn’t they be rooting for the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg (and the New York Attorney General Leticia James, and the Georgia D.A. Fani Willis, and special counsel Jack Smith) to bring on their prosecutions? Trump himself is consumed by fear, as exhibited in the flurry of frantic posts on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social.

SEE THIS: The Desperate and Dystopian Delirium of Donald Trump as He Descends Into Drooling Dementia

Naturally, Fox News is joining the crusade to absolve Trump of any responsibility for his abhorrent crime spree. And leading the pack is, as usual, Tucker Carlson. In a tedious harangue on Monday night’s tele-sermon (video below), Carlson unleashed his typically rage-fueled brand of conservative crackpottery. The subject was reporting that Trump might be indicted soon by the Manhattan District Attorney for violating financial and campaign laws, Carlson complained that Trump was – as always – a victim of the all-powerful Democratic cabal that had stolen the election in 2020, and now is determined to – as the Trumpists say – “LOCK HIM UP!”

Carlson’s interminably long tirade rambled aimlessly, flinging baseless and childish insults at Bragg as being funded by George Soros and looking like Al Sharpton (because to racists like Carlson, “they” all look alike). He dismissed the notion that Trump’s “hush money” payoff to adult film star, Stormy Daniels, and the subsequent cover up and obstruction of justice, was a crime at all. According to Carlson, “paying people not to talk about things, hush money, is ordinary in modern America.” And it’s hard to criticize him for that opinion considering that he got his current show on Fox News when his predecessor, Bill O’Reilly, was fired for sexual harassment, for which he and Fox paid out millions to sweep under the rug.

In summary, Carlson concluded that indicting Trump would result in the end of democracy. That’s not an exaggeration of his remarks. That’s precisely what he said…

“If the Democratic Party is allowed to do this, allowed to crush the presidential front-runner, the main threat to their power, with a bogus criminal case, where does that leave us? We’re done because that precedent will live forever and voters will never again determine the outcome of a presidential election. It’s remarkable when you think about it.”

Tucker Carlson is now saying that if Trump is indicted, "voters will never again determine the outcome of a presidential election": pic.twitter.com/MWR0c9grGc

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) March 21, 2023

What’s remarkable is that Carlson can pretend that he was thinking when he came up with that. First of all, an indictment of Trump would not be done by the Democratic Party. It would be done by a Grand Jury of local citizens and an elected D.A. Secondly, Carlson’s characterization of this as “a bogus Criminal Case,” is purely his biased, dishonest, and ill-informed opinion. And finally, there is no logical path from indicting a criminal like Trump, to the assertion that elections are gone forever. It makes about as much sense as saying that if you wear a hat, your dog will stop talking to you.

Carlson is being especially worshipful of Trump these days as penitence for his recently discovered sacrilege. Internal communications released by Dominion Voting Systems in the billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News reveal that Carlson told his Fox colleagues that he “hates [Trump] passionately.” And in the rarified world of Trumpism, that could not be allowed without Carlson being forced to atone. So you end up with nonsense like this. But sadly, no amount of up-sucking will ever be sufficient for Trump.

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Should ICC’s War Crimes Arrest Warrant for Putin Include His American PR Flack, Tucker Carlson?

Posted by Mark NC on March 17, 2023 at 6:55 pm. 3 Comments :

The Associated Press is reporting that “The International Criminal Court said Friday that it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes.” The ICC cites Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the tactics he has employed that include targeting civilians, torture, abducting children, and other unambiguous war crimes.

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While many observers will regard this as the inevitable consequence of Putin’s terroristic campaign, it should be also be considered just the beginning. Putin had allies and comrades that contributed to his unprovoked hostilities. Among them is Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has served as Putin’s primary media mouthpiece in the United States.

Carlson has been disseminating Russian propaganda about the attack on Ukraine from its earliest days. And therefore, Carlson and Fox News ought to be considered as accomplices. What follows are some examples of Carlson’s commentaries that affirm his support for Putin and his imperialistic aspirations.

So It Wasn’t a Hoax After All: Tucker Carlson Admits that Russia Got Trump Elected
Carlson is finally conceding that Russia deliberately interfered in American politics on Trump’s behalf saying that “Biden has just pushed the EU to stop buying Russian oil. It’s payback for getting Trump elected.” But Carlson is criticizing Biden – not Russia or Trump – for this.

EU Bans Russian Propaganda TV Networks, While Fox News Still Peddles Putin’s Lies in the US
“Why do I care about what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And why shouldn’t I root for Russia, because I am.”

Only on Fox News: Russian Foreign Minister Praises the Network’s Pro-Putin Propaganda
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, in an interview on the Kremlin sponsored RT (Russian Television) cable channel, lavished praise on Fox News as a singular voice for Russia’s interests, saying that “only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view.” Alternative meaning anti-American.

Fox News Senior Putin Apologist, Tucker Carlson, Pleads to Keep the Russian Dictator in Power
“We can force Vladimir Putin from office entirely […but…] Would the next Russian president be an improvement over Putin?” Do you suppose that Carlson would have used the same argument for keeping Hitler in power?

Tucker Carlson of Fox News Rattles Off His Ridiculous Reasons for Why You Shouldn’t Hate Putin
Carlson demonstrates his habit of asking asinine questions: “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic…” And he went on for several more minutes of that idiocy absolving Putin of any wrongdoing.

WTF? Fox News Traitor Tucker Carlson Takes Russia’s Side Against Democracy and America
“Why would we take Ukraine’s side? Why wouldn’t we have Russia’s side? I’m totally confused.”

This is the sort of collaboration that ought to earn Carlson an arrest warrant of his own.

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REALLY? Tucker Carlson Claims the NSA Scared Him Off From Interviewing His Hero, Vladimir Putin

Posted by Mark NC on March 12, 2023 at 12:15 pm. 1 Comments :

It really seems like a day can’t go by by without Fox News Senior Propaganda Dispenser, Tucker Carlson, making ever more ludicrous claims that serve only to exalt himself or the foremost objects of his affection, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It must be exhausting having to come up with such asininity day after day.

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This week Carlson had an especially strong incentive to spread his BS. He desperately needed to deflect from a couple of recent stories that cast a spotlight on his utter lack of principles.

First there was the public disclosure – via the billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News – of his internal communications with his colleagues following the January 6th insurrection. Those communications exposed him and his fellow Foxies lying to their viewers, advancing baseless assertions of election fraud, while privately conceding that there was none. Even worse, he revealed his true feelings about Trump, saying that “I hate him passionately,” and “can’t wait…to [be] able to ignore” him. [Update: Trump finally posted a weak response to Carlson hating him, saying that “He doesn’t hate me, or at least, not anymore!”]

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

Secondly, Carlson made a pitifully unsuccessful attempt to portray the January 6th insurrection as nothing more than peaceful tourists on a sightseeing tour. He presented what he regarded as video evidence (acquired exclusively from House Squeaker, Keven McCarthy) that assertions of a violent insurrection were false because part of the time there were people observed just wandering around. Never mind that they were already criminals for having broken through police barriers, doors, and windows, in order to trespass and try to block Congress from certifying the election.

SEE THIS: Tucker Carlson Spins January 6th Insurrection Videos to Spread Blatant Lies, Trump Praises Him

With those humiliations haunting him, Carlson appeared on the ultra-rightist Fullsend podcast in order to rescue his floundering reputation (video below). In the course of that appearance, Carlson spun a preposterous story of intrigue involving his attempt to interview Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin that was allegedly scotched by the National Security Agency (NSA). He began by stating that he was “hiding my plan to go interview Putin, because it’s an interview.” Then, when asked how he knew that the NSA had interfered, he said that it was “Because they admitted it. I got a call from somebody in Washington – who would know. Just trust me”

Carlson then recounted a tale of a mysterious figure who asked him about his planned trip to Russia and appeared to know all the details. This shocked Carlson because he said that he hadn’t told anybody, including his wife. His source told him that the NSA had “pulled his texts.” Whereupon, Carlson said that “I was immediately intimidated,” and he called off the interview, which he said he was “embarrassed to admit.”

If any of this is true – a highly specious assumption – it is no wonder that he’s embarrassed. The whole story is profoundly stupid. First of all, Carlson says his reason for hiding his plan to interview Putin was because “it’s an interview.” Which isn’t actually a reason. Then Carlson introduces his source as “somebody in Washington – who would know,” and asks us to trust him on that. This, coming from a known liar who was just revealed to have been lying to his audience for years about 2020 election fraud, and his “passionate” hatred for Trump, who he’s been fawning over every night on his program.

Furthermore, why would Carlson be so astonished that the NSA was monitoring the communications of a Putin associate in Russia? That’s their job. It would be worrisome if they didn’t know about Carlson’s prospective interview.

Finally, why on Earth would he cancel the interview just because the NSA knew about it? Did he think that he could travel to Russia and meet with Putin without American intelligence being aware of it? Any legitimate reporter, who had nothing to hide, would still conduct their interview and proudly air it as a journalistic coup.

Carlson, however, may have had much to hide, considering his long adulation for, and support of, Putin. He has taken Putin’s side on the war in Ukraine. He has heralded Putin as a strong, Christian leader. He has argued that Russia should be treated as an ally. He has positioned himself as staunchly pro-Putin and anti-American.

Consequently, any meeting that he has with Putin should be regarded as suspicious and potentially harmful to U.S. interests. He is no more trustworthy in that respect than Putin’s fanboy, Donald Trump.

In a new interview, Tucker Carlson recounts how he secretly planned to go to Russia to interview Putin, but called it off when someone in DC tipped him off that the NSA had seen a text message with whoever he was setting it up with, and that intimidated him into calling it off. pic.twitter.com/9WCFmfg0WG

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 12, 2023

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Does the White House Consider Fox News a News Organization? Let’s Ask the WH Press Secretary

Posted by Mark NC on March 11, 2023 at 12:42 pm. 3 Comments :

The question as to the legitimacy of Fox News is not one that has been difficult to answer. It was designed from the start to be a right-wing propaganda dispenser by its founders, Rupert Murdoch (an ultra-conservative newspaper baron), and Roger Ailes (a Republican media consultant). That’s not exactly a roster of reputable journalists.

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Twenty-seven years later, Fox News has exceeded the aspirations of its politically prejudiced founders. In recent weeks the network has been exposed as being brazenly dishonest. Internal communications made public by Dominion Voting Systems in their defamation lawsuit against Fox reveal that its executives and hosts were telling their viewers one thing, while saying the opposite to one another in private.

Those depositions affirm that Fox News knew very well that there was no truth to their “reporting” of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. While they were lying to their viewers on the air, they were discussing privately among themselves about the “crazy” and “idiotic” assertions that Donald Trump had actually won. They even openly disparaged Trump as dangerous confessed their personal hatred for him.

The subject of the Dominion vs Fox News lawsuit came up Friday on MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight.” Wagner prefaced a question addressing the matter during an interview with White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, by noting that “The White House has been fairly outspoken about what’s happening in certain Republican circles – specifically, what’s going on over at Fox News.” Which led to the following exchange…

Wagner: Does the White House consider Fox News a news organization?

Jean-Pierre: I’ll say this. When you look at the depositions that have been out there recently, it even states from FOX leadership that they do not see Tucker Carlson’s show as news or even truthful. That is coming from the FOX News leadership. That is not coming from me. That is coming from them.

I also would quote – I’ll paraphrase here – what the Chief of Capitol Police said. He said essentially when you watch Tucker Carlson as it relates to January 6th, it is misleading, and it is misinformation as with the conclusion of what happened on January 6th, the attacks that happened. As you saw from the President’s statement, nearly 140 officers were injured on that day. It was an attack on our democracy. It was an attack on our constitution. And you cannot whitewash that. Tucker Carlson cannot whitewash that.

Wagner: So, I’m gonna say that sort of sounds like the White House doesn’t think Fox is a news organization, but we gotta leave it there.

Q: Does the White House consider Fox News a news organization?
A: pic.twitter.com/nxwcvxt6Vu

— Alex Wagner Tonight (@WagnerTonight) March 10, 2023

Jean-Pierre correctly noted that Fox News itself has defended its hosts (successfully) in defamation lawsuits by arguing that “no reasonable person” would take what they say seriously. Fox News lawyers singled out Tucker Carlson saying that…

“[Carlson] cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead that he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect. [and that] given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”

In other words, Carlson is a known liar whose commentaries can be dismissed out of hand as the ravings of a dishonest blowhard. And the evidence from the Dominion case drives that point home. The problem with this legal argument, however, is that Fox’s viewers are not remotely reasonable. Consequently, there is real and measurable harm done to millions of feeble-minded cultists.

While Jean-Pierre didn’t give a definitive yes or no answer, the gist of her response was plainly evident. Wagner got the message and rephrased it as an affirmative. Jean-Pierre smiled knowingly, and didn’t challenge Wagner’s interpretation. What’s more, the fact that Fox News is not a news organization was an opinion that the Biden administration held from the first days of its term. And they said so explicitly…

“Biden’s aides also promised not to allow outlets to use the briefings to spread baseless conspiracies. ‘We expect reporters covering the White House to operate in good faith and tell their audience the truth, and this White House will do the same. We are moving forward with that mutual understanding,’ […] ‘Organizations or individuals who traffic in conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies to spread disinformation will not be tolerated.”

If the Biden press team, as well as the White House Correspondent’s Association, were to adhere to those principles, they would be required to ban Fox News from all White House media events, including the daily briefings. And the revelations from the Dominion case provide the strongest argument yet to impose that ban.

A pseudo-news operation like Fox should not be credentialed so that it can masquerade as legitimate journalism. At the very least, they should be required to acknowledge their lies, apologize to their audience, their peers, and the nation, and take reparative action (i.e. fire Fox CEO Suzanne Scott, as well as hosts Carlson, Sean Hannity, and other offenders) before their credentials are restored. Short of that they should be shunned and banished to the pod swamps with the likes of Alex Jones and Steve Bannon.

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Fox News Fabulist Tucker Carlson Launches a Laughably Lame Defense of His January 6th Lies

Posted by Mark NC on March 8, 2023 at 1:33 pm. 3 Comments :

On Tuesday night Tucker Carlson took to his Fox News balcony and delivered the second chapter of his January 6th insurrection inquisition. It was the sort of typically tedious televised tantrum that Tucker excels in. It provided no new information, nor any advancement of the ludicrous premises he has been so impotently implying.

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The sequel to Monday’s Capitol riot mythmaking practically ignored Carlson’s entire theme that there was no insurrection at all, just a bunch of patriotic “sightseers” paying a friendly visit to the Capitol that they “revered.” On Monday Carlson portrayed the rioters as peaceful tourists who “were orderly and meek,” despite the abundant video proof that they were violent and destructive.

Tuesday night, however, was a different matter. Carlson’s first installment of his Grim Fairy Tales resulted in a barrage of well warranted criticism and ridicule. But much to his dismay, it wasn’t all coming from Democrats. While few in number, there were some notable Republicans who took offense to Carlson’s embrace of the seditious StormTrumpers who assaulted Congress. Take the following GOP senators for instance…

Kevin Cramer: To somehow put that in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie.
Thom Tillis: I think it’s bullshit.
Mike Rounds: I thought it was an insurrection at that time. I still think it was an insurrection today.
Chuck Grassley: The point is, what happened that day shouldn’t have happened.
John Thune: I think it was an attack on the Capitol.
Mitt Romney: Any attempt to normalize what was a violent attack on the United States Capitol only makes it more intriguing for people to do such a thing in the future.

Even the Republican minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, weighed in saying that…

“The Chief of the Capitol Police correctly describes, in my view, what most of us witnessed first hand on January 6th… It was a mistake, in my view for Fox News to depict this in a way that is completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol says.”

Renowned woke lefty marxist Mitch McConnell condemns Tucker Carlson and Fox for his deceptive and false depiction and commentary on J6. pic.twitter.com/NGOwwjB2pA

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 7, 2023

Needless to say, Carlson’s humungous, yet fragile, ego was wounded, and he wasn’t going to take this disrespect laying down. So his Tuesday tantrum devoted a significant chunk of his program to whining and lashing out at his tormentors. Sadly, he was apparently too distressed to think straight (if he ever could). Consequently, after his reality-defying insistence that there was no violence on January 6th, Carlson wound up conceding that there was indeed a “massive disturbance” on Capitol Hill that “the Capitol Police were not prepared for.” And after having so carefully crafted his propaganda with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Carlson also sputtered out some additional displays of derangement. Such as his assertion that “If there was a security failure on January 6, and demonstrably there was, it was probably Nancy Pelosi’s fault.” Which is another admission that there was a violent clash, but the thugs who conducted it weren’t to blame.

Carlson also complained that “The people who fell down on the job, who didn’t do their job, they were not punished. They were rewarded.” He doesn’t identify any of these alleged failures who were rewarded, but only because they don’t exist. And he is notably ignorant of the fact that three top security officials did lose their jobs. He’s probably just upset that some of the front line officers who risked their lives to protect Congress and its members were recognized as heroes.

Carlson also murdered irony by proclaiming that “In free countries, governments do not lie about protests as a pretext to gain more power for themselves. They don’t selectively edit videos for propaganda services and then lie about them and fake hearings and show trials.” No, that’s Carlson’s job, damn it!

Carlson’s harangue continued with a direct slap at the Republican senators who dared to find fault in his fiction. He began by chastising McConnell for agreeing with Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, that Carlson’s lies were shameful and dangerous. Just the act of agreement was an atrocity. According to Carlson, any persons who “share the same outrage” are presumed to be colluding in some sort of nefarious cabal. What Carlson bragged that he learned from this was that all of his persecutors are “on the same side.” And it isn’t because they simply see the facts. It must be a conspiracy.

“The Senate majority leader joins the Senate minority leader – Thom Tillis, Mitt Romney. They’re all on the same side. So, it’s actually not about left and right. It’s not about Republican and Democrat. Here you have people with shared interests, the open borders people, the people like Mitch McConnell, who are living in splendor on Chinese money, the people who underneath it all have everything in common are all aligned against everyone else, and that would include almost all news organizations in this country as well. So, if you’re watching, this might be kind of interesting to keep a list.”

Tucker now lashing out and accusing Republican Senators who criticized him of lying and wanting open borders. Tells his viewers to keep a list of them pic.twitter.com/Yruvak3QzJ

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 8, 2023

See? They are all against him. It won’t be long until Carlson is declaring that it’s all a witch hunt. And it appears to be because he won’t take Chinese money to open the borders. It surely couldn’t be because Carlson is acutely paranoid and devoted to dishonesty in pursuit of his own infallibility, could it?

Not to be left out, Donald Trump, who has lately been castigating Fox News for being insufficiently worshipful of him (and who Carlson told his colleagues privately that he “hates passionately“), has apparently been watching this week. And he likes what he sees. In a post on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, Trump praised Carlson for doing a “great job,” and attacked the bipartisan House Select Committee that investigated the January 6th insurrection that he incited, as “thugs [who] should be tried for Fraud and Treason.” Once again, every accusation by Trump is a confession.

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Tucker Carlson Spins January 6th Insurrection Videos to Spread Blatant Lies, Trump Praises Him

Posted by Mark NC on March 7, 2023 at 11:42 am. 2 Comments :

In February House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he would give 41,000 hours of raw video of the January 6th insurrection to the malicious liar and shameless sham artist, Tucker Carlson of Fox News. It was a brazen act of partisanship intended to allow Carlson and Fox News to craft a flagrantly false narrative of the treasonous assault on the seat of American democracy.

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On Monday night’s episode of his primetime propaganda hour, Carlson didn’t disappoint McCarthy and reality-challenged Republicans when he aired his first program featuring the cherry-picked video clips. Carlson has made it his mission to spread flagrant lies about the January 6th insurrection. He’s celebrated the rioters as “patriots.” He’s maligned the FBI, without evidence, as the perpetrators of the violence. He even produced a lie-riddled crocumentary about the insurrection. And this is the person McCarthy chose to curate the thousands of hours of video to force feed their BS propaganda to the American people?

Given his predisposed positions on the subject, it isn’t surprising that Carlson concluded that the Capitol riots incited by Donald Trump were innocent excursions by peaceful tourists. “They were orderly and meek,” Carlson lied. “These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers.” But Carlson is not only lying, he’s contradicting himself. He’s illogically asserting that a mob of protesters who “were angry. [because] they believed that the election” was “stolen” were merely sightseeing. They can’t be both sightseers and an angry mob. Yet that’s precisely how Carlson presented them…

“On January 6th two years ago thousands of protesters walked from a Trump rally on the ellipse outside the White House to the U.S. Capitol where the certification of the presidential election was underway. The protesters were angry. they believed that the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted. They were right. In retrospect, the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy given the facts that have since emerged about that election. No honest person can deny it.”

Tucker Carlson kicking off his reveal of the Capitol's Jan 6 footage: "2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy given the facts that have since emerged about that election. No honest person can deny it." pic.twitter.com/AKc8YiYi5S

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) March 7, 2023

Carlson has the advantage of not having to comply with any standard of honest personage. After all, his own Fox News lawyers defended him (successfully) in a defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” would take him seriously.

For the record, more than 1,000 people have been charged with crimes ranging from trespassing to seditious conspiracy. And nearly 500 of them have pleaded guilty, including the notorious “QAnon Shaman” who Carlson went out of his way to defend. What’s more, many of those who confessed fingered Trump as their leader and inspiration.

In addition to his blatantly dishonest mangling of the facts, Carlson also took the opportunity to assist Dominion Voting Systems in their lawsuit against Fox News by reiterating the lie that the 2020 election was rigged. He refers to “facts that have since emerged about that election,” but, like Trump and everyone else, was unable to cite any of those alleged facts.

Carlson’s characterization of the insurrectionists as “orderly and meek” was proven false by some of the video that he aired. Never mind his absurd assertion that “the video does not support the claim that January 6th was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim.” In actual fact, the StormTrumpers can be seen breaking into the Capitol and violently assaulting police officers, more than 140 of whom were injured.

pic.twitter.com/zKQ19B6IGQ

March 7, 2023

Carlson attempts to support his claims by carefully selecting video where there was nothing untoward occurring. But that’s a ridiculous argument. There is plenty of video of President Kennedy riding in a car in Dallas where he is smiling and waving to the crowd. So, by Carlson’s logic, he was never assassinated.

1963 #OTD #POTUS #JFK was assassinated while riding a motorcade in #Dallas, Texas pic.twitter.com/ZZbQMf0tOV

— NBC News Archives (@NBCNewsArchives) November 22, 2016

Of course, the expected response by insurrection inciter, Donald Trump, was posted to his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, shortly after Carlson’s program aired. And it was just as psychotic as you might imagine…

“Congratulations to Tucker Carlson on one of the biggest ‘scoops’ as a reporter in U.S. history. The New Surveillance Footage of the January 6th Events sheds an entirely different light on what actually happened. The Unselect Committee was a giant SCAM, and has now unequivocally been stamped as CRIMINAL FABRICATORS OF THIS MOST IMPORTANT DAY. Pelosi & McConnell failed on security. The Police story is sad and difficult to watch. ‘Trump’ and most others are totally innocent, LET THEM GO FREE, NOW!”

Literally everything in that rant was false. It was not a “scoop.” Carlson is not a “reporter.” There was no credible new “light” shed. The House Select Committee that investigated the insurrection was neither a “SCAM,” nor criminally “stamped.” Yet Trump still persists in repeating his intention to free the perpetrators if he – gawd forbid – returns to the White House.

After slobbering all over Carlson, Trump turned his drool to McCarthy. about whom he said that “Great courage shown […] in releasing the surveillance footage to Tucker Carlson.” He elaborated saying that ” A whole new, and completely opposite, picture has now been indelibly painted.” Which was, of course, the whole purpose of McCarthy’s gift to Carlson. He wanted to give Carlson a head start on creating a fake narrative – and also to restore Trump’s love for him as he embarks on his role as House Speaker.

McCarthy providing these videos to a devoted, Putin-loving, propagandist like Carlson was an act of naked partisanship and, worse, a betrayal of democratic principles. And Carlson’s predictable treatment of the information he received affirms his rank dishonesty, and that of the network that employs him.

UPDATE: Trump had another outburst over Carlson’s garbage report. And he truly went off the rails saying “LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO. THEY WERE CONVICTED, OR ARE AWAITING TRIAL, BASED ON A GIANT LIE, A RADICAL LEFT CON JOB. THANK YOU TO TUCKER CARLSON AND SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE KEVIN McCARTHY FOR WHAT YOU BOTH HAVE DONE. NEW VIDEO FOOTAGE IS IRREFUTABLE!!!” Meanwhile Carlson’s Fox News colleagues are completely ignoring his alleged “BOMBSHELL” report.

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Trump Pitches Perverse Proposal to Give Pulitzer Prizes to the Loud Boys (Only) of Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on March 5, 2023 at 10:23 am. 4 Comments :

Donald Trump’s speech at the “Conference for the Party of Ass Clowns” (CPAC) on Saturday was everything that a glassy-eyed Trump cult follower could have wanted. He touched on all of his greatest fits from his “Big Lie” that the 2024 election was “stollen” (his spelling) from him, to the unfinished vanity wall on the southern border, to the wind turbine bird holocaust.

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Along with his standard lies, self-exaltation, and infantile insults, Trump reiterated his nightmarish narrative of a dystopian future marked by world war, rampant crime and drug addiction, communist oppression, and invasions by “thugs, Marxist radicals, and dangerous refugees,” from “shithole” countries. It was reminiscent of his brutally bleak 2016 “American Carnage” inaugural address, and his more recent apocalyptic announcement for the 2024 GOP nomination for president. It was everything that Trump promised it would be in his preview prior to Saturday…

SEE THIS: Trump Teases His Uplifting CPAC Speech Celebrating ‘The Fact That Our Country is Going to HELL’

Among the most malodorous moments of his malevolent monologue was the part where he whined about the Pulitzer prizes awarded to the Washington Post and the New York Times for their accurate reporting on his unsavory associations with Russia. Trump raged that…

“We’re trying to get the Pulitzer Prize taken away. They got Pulitzer prizes. We’re suing. You know what the prize says? ‘For its concise and accurate reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia event…’ And they have it actually totally wrong.

“Actually, Mark Levin should get a prize. And Gregg Jarrett should get a prize. And even it’s not his deal, Sean Hannity should get a prize. And frankly Jesse should get a prize. And you know who should get a prize? Tucker should get a prize.”

Trump at CPAC whines that he's trying to get the Pulitzer Board to revoke awards they gave to the Washington Post and the New York Times, and give awards instead to Fox News hacks Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, Tucker Carlson, Mark Levin, and Gregg Jarrett.pic.twitter.com/iggjPGJWjj

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) March 5, 2023

Trump has been yammering about this for almost a year. However, in December he did indeed file an utterly impotent and frivolous lawsuit against the Pulitzer board demanding that they revoke the awards they gave to WaPo and the Times. The Board responded with a statement that said essentially, “No friggin’ way!” They noted that they had conducted an independent review after receiving Trump’s complaint and that the review found that “no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.”

As if Trump’s comical commandment for revocation of the awards wasn’t sufficiently humiliating, his nominees for who should get the awards instead included Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, Tucker Carlson, Mark Levin, and Gregg Jarrett. Never mind that these hacks were just exposed as flagrant liars and promulgators of pure propaganda. Their rancid partisanship, ethical vacancy, and rank dishonesty was revealed in their own words in documents produced in the billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems.

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

Also notable in Trump’s praise of his Fox News fluffers was that it included only the alleged men on the network. Apparently Trump doesn’t think that Laura Ingraham, Maria Bartiromo, or Jeanine Pirro, are deserving of Pulitzer prizes, despite their equally sycophantic subservience to Trump. That’s not especially noteworthy considering his long history of misogyny and abusive treatment of women.

Fortunately, Trump’s puerile perspective will not travel far. CPAC is suffering from “Trump Fatigue Syndrome.” Attendance is way down, and many conference regulars of the past are skipping the affair this year. Those that showed up are especially fringy and unabashedly Trumpian (i.e. Donald Trump Jr, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ronny Jackson, Jim Jordan, and the MyPillow Guy, Mike Lindell).

For a taste of Trump’s Conservative Political Action Cult address, see this Twitter thread.

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