O'Reilly out at FOX!

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

which is to build comraderie over someone getting trashed.

What? What the hell is wrong with these people? More to the point, what the hell is wrong with these women? Sure, go to the office Christmas party, get drunk as hell, make a fool of yourself so your co-workers can laugh at you. If you're a man, take the opportunity to grope a few of the women, maybe have drunken sex with one. If you're a woman, allow yourself to be sexually assaulted by your drunk male co-workers but let's not mention it later.

Do the women there have no self-respect? Do the men not realize the position they're putting themselves in? I know they don't respect women but you'd think they might consider that a Christmas party romp isn't worth their career. No wonder Faux has to settle lawsuits all the time. I bet their lawyers aren't at the Christmas party yucking it up.

[JMarie]

I know you're all dying to know what Hannity thinks of last night's election, so....

He starts off by discussing the Mueller hearing.  Sebastian Gorka looked cranky.  Lots of rambling.  Hillary, emails, Russian dossier (but no uranium).

Finally, at 9:39, he gets to the Alabama race.  Hannity thinks Mo Brooks will be the best candidate when the seat is up for election.  Coverage from other networks was "over the top," even though Fox News also covered the election last night.  He showed footage from November 8 of last year, and how the MSM seemed upset and apprehensive over the results.  90% of coverage from ABC, NBC, and CBS, from September to November of this year, well it was negative stuff about Trump.  "And despite all of that, the president continues to stay focused, he's working hard, he's pushing his agenda through, the economy's still soaring, we look much better on the world stage, and today he made his argument in support of the GOP tax plan, finished.  Many Americans will be getting money back, thank God."

Goodness, look who stopped by! Why, it's Kellyanne Conway.  She thinks "today was truly one of the most exciting days since we've been there this year, and you can see it, you can feel it, {lots of rambling and gushing}."  She promises we'll all see more money in our wallets when we file our federal taxes in a few months, and called Trump "the paycheck president."  

Hannity thinks that the Mueller investigation is bigger than Watergate (and we all know how that ended -- should he be saying things like that?).  Gregg Jarrett and Tomi Lahren stop by.  Jarrett tries to sound important.  Lahren sounds whiny and defensive.

Why should Hannity waste precious time complaining about Roy Moore's loss, seemingly caused by Mitch McConnell, when he can bash Hillary and her texts?

[GrumpyGran]

32 minutes ago, JMarie said:

I know you're all dying to know what Hannity thinks of last night's election, so....

He starts off by discussing the Mueller hearing.  Sebastian Gorka looked cranky.  Lots of rambling.  Hillary, emails, Russian dossier (but no uranium).

Finally, at 9:39, he gets to the Alabama race.  Hannity thinks Mo Brooks will be the best candidate when the seat is up for election.  Coverage from other networks was "over the top," even though Fox News also covered the election last night.  He showed footage from November 8 of last year, and how the MSM seemed upset and apprehensive over the results.  90% of coverage from ABC, NBC, and CBS, from September to November of this year, well it was negative stuff about Trump.  "And despite all of that, the president continues to stay focused, he's working hard, he's pushing his agenda through, the economy's still soaring, we look much better on the world stage, and today he made his argument in support of the GOP tax plan, finished.  Many Americans will be getting money back, thank God."

Goodness, look who stopped by! Why, it's Kellyanne Conway.  She thinks "today was truly one of the most exciting days since we've been there this year, and you can see it, you can feel it, {lots of rambling and gushing}."  She promises we'll all see more money in our wallets when we file our federal taxes in a few months, and called Trump "the paycheck president."  

Hannity thinks that the Mueller investigation is bigger than Watergate (and we all know how that ended -- should he be saying things like that?).  Gregg Jarrett and Tomi Lahren stop by.  Jarrett tries to sound important.  Lahren sounds whiny and defensive.

Why should Hannity waste precious time complaining about Roy Moore's loss, seemingly caused by Mitch McConnell, when he can bash Hillary and her texts?

All spin and hot air. Trying to make cotton candy without the sugar methinks.

[Botkinetti]

Thank you @JMarie for watching and recapping Hannity. I appreciate it. 

[JMarie]

I couldn't stomach a whole hour of Hannity, but sometimes the last few minutes are the most interesting.

Quote

Before we go tonight, I want to thank all of you, who tune in to the show every night, watching at home.  When we moved back to our 9 o'clock slot, aargh, Hannity's dead meat.  Well, thanks to you for the entire year, both at 10 o'clock and 9 o'clock, this became the. most. watched. cable. news. show. in 2017, that's total audience demo, all the things everyone talks about.  You made that happen.  Your support, we can't put a value on it.  You give us the honor of being here with you every night. I want to thank you, wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year.  If there's a lot of breaking news, we'll be back.  Until then, we have Judge Jeanine and others are going to be filling in, and we hope you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a great New Year.  We will be refreshed and ready to go January 2.

1.  How many of his "viewers" are mocking him, and not gazing adoringly at their television screens?

2.  Must be nice to be able to take a two week vacation at Christmastime.

[GrumpyGran]

32 minutes ago, JMarie said:

I couldn't stomach a whole hour of Hannity, but sometimes the last few minutes are the most interesting.

1.  How many of his "viewers" are mocking him, and not gazing adoringly at their television screens?

2.  Must be nice to be able to take a two week vacation at Christmastime.

Ah, you're not a "news" show, I think you've admitted that. And if you're claiming you are, go back to a refresher class or watch another news broadcast. What you do is not a news format, you don't present your "information" in a news format, if you were a newscaster you would have lost your job the day after you started it.

[JMarie]

Ahh, the love affair between Trump and Fox News

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/16/media/fox-news-campaign-against-fbi-robert-mueller/index.html

Quote

An anti-Robert Mueller, anti-FBI fervor is intensifying among Trump supporters -- partly thanks to a campaign by Fox News and other conservative media sources.

The right-wing commentary and President Trump's criticism of the FBI are part of a vicious circle. The TV hosts encourage Trump, then Trump supplies sound bites for their shows, and then the hosts are even more emboldened.

With Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election reaching closer to Trump's inner circle, Fox hosts like Sean Hannity continue to demand Mueller's firing. Every night, Hannity tells millions of viewers that Mueller's probe is a corrupt plot to take down Trump and reverse the outcome of the election. Trump is a big fan of Hannity's show, and the two men speak on a regular basis.

"The anti-Mueller rhetoric in conservative media right now is part of a feedback loop," Nicole Hemmer, the author of a book about conservative media, "Messengers of the Right," told CNNMoney.

"Conservative media personalities know Trump hates the investigation and wants it shut down," she said in an email. "They bash the investigation and Mueller, and when Trump sees that happening (say, on 'Fox & Friends') it reinforces his belief that the investigation is illegitimate and that he should do something to end it. The likely consequence is that this increases the odds of Trump attempting to fire Mueller."

Hemmer added: "We'll have to wait and see whether internal restraints within the White House — lawyers and advisers — are enough to stop him from doing that."

At this point, a loyal viewer of the pro-Trump talk shows on Fox might be frustrated with Trump — frustrated that Mueller hasn't been axed yet.

For several months, news sources favored by conservatives have been heavily covering every perceived conflict of interest involving the special counsel and every alleged scandal involving the leadership of the FBI.

Many of the storylines revolve around Trump opponents like Hillary Clinton. But some members of Trump's own administration, like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, also come in for scathing criticism. That's why this was a notable comment by Sessions on Friday: "Things that might appear to be bad in the press have more innocent explanations," he told reporters.

He should tell that to TV and radio commentators like Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, all of whom have devoted hours of airtime to anti-Clinton, anti-Mueller and anti-FBI conversations.

That's partly how Peter Strzok became a household name this month. Strzok, an FBI official, helped lead both the Clinton email server investigation and the beginning of the Russian meddling probe. Mueller removed him from the probe when an internal investigation found that Strzok expressed harshly critical opinions of Trump in text messages before Election Day.

Strzok is now cited by conservative commentators as a prime example of widespread anti-Trump bias within the special counsel's office, even though he was reassigned.

Some Republican lawmakers have also spoken out forcefully against the FBI. When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was questioned on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Hannity played highlights and said, "You've heard it here first. We've been doing this now for months."

That's true. Media Matters for America, a liberal media monitoring group that has urged an ad boycott of Hannity's show, recently estimated that "Hannity and his guests have questioned Mueller's legitimacy or called for Mueller to remove himself or be fired 79 times since the special counsel was appointed."

Hannity sometimes uses propagandistic terms like "head of the snake" and "cesspool" to demean Mueller.

He portrays himself as an investigator out to get the truth about an anti-Trump plot. On Wednesday night's show, he said, "By the time we untangle this massive web of corruption, it will be worse than Watergate. It will be Watergate on human growth hormones and steroids, combined, at massive levels."

Other Fox talk show hosts sing a similar tune. On Thursday night, Laura Ingraham said a "web of Clinton and Obama loyalists" have "burrowed into Mueller's office."

Fox's on-screen banners, social media feeds and web site repeat these messages every day.

One recent segment on Tucker Carlson's show had a banner that asked if Mueller's probe was tainted, while the graphic behind Carlson answered the question: "TAINTED PROBE," it said in bold letters.

On Saturday morning, a banner on "Fox & Friends" asked, "TIME TO INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS?"

At the same time, the main headline on FoxNews.com asked: "ANTI-TRUMP AGENDA?" The subheadline said "Did the FBI and DOJ plot to clear the way for Clinton and stop Trump?"

Many of the network's guests amplify this conspiratorial point of view. "I think the FBI's been compromised," Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told Ingraham on Thursday. "Forget about shutting down Mr. Mueller. Do we need to shut down the FBI because it was turned into a KGB-type operation by the Obama administration?"

KGB comparisons have been made on Hannity's show, too. There's been talk about "banana republics" and "third world countries." Jeanine Pirro, a Trump ally who has a weekend show on Fox, has even urged arrests of FBI officials.

"There is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice," Pirro said last weekend. "It needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs."

It's the kind of rhetoric that Trump hears on a regular basis. He claims that Fox News is the only major network news source that's not "fake."

Analysts say he sometimes parrots what he hears on Fox. "It's a shame what happened with the FBI," Trump told reporters on Friday. "It is very sad when you look at those documents," he said, an apparent reference to the text messages.

"You have a lot of angry people that are seeing it. It's a very sad thing to watch," Trump added.

CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reacted this way: "You know who 'a lot of people' are? 'A lot of people' are the people who watch Fox News. Other than that, a lot of people are actually not upset about this investigation. That's shown over and over again in the polls."

But for Hannity, Trump's "angry people" remark reinforced what he's been saying for months. So he played the video clip on Friday night's show.

Elsewhere on TV, Democratic lawmakers have been raising alarms about what they see as an assault against the rule of law.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Congressman Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, on Friday, "Do you think these attacks on the FBI, on Robert Mueller, on the Justice Department, are coordinated between the White House and, let's say, some on Fox News and others in the right wing media?"

"Look, no question" there's coordination, Himes said. "Whether there is a hotline between the Oval Office and Fox News -- I doubt that's true. But when the president is talking about the investigation and makes it very clear he wants them over and uses the words 'do something,' you know, people who will sell their souls, who will trade their integrity... will do precisely that."

He called out Hannity, Pirro and "some of my colleagues" on Capitol Hill, meaning the GOP lawmakers who are casting doubt on Mueller's integrity.

In one media universe, Mueller is a man tasked to find out all the facts about Russia's attack on the election. He's a Republican trying to make sure the Republican president didn't break any laws.

But in another media universe, one epitomized by Hannity, Mueller is a "disgrace" who's overseeing a team of "Trump hating, Hillary loving partisan hacks" on a mission to destroy the president.

That's the divide. Pro-Trump media sources are exacerbating the divide every day.

And some observers are hoping against hope that cooler heads will prevail.

Preet Bharara, one of the U.S. attorneys who was fired by Trump earlier this year, tweeted on Friday, "Robert Mueller's attackers are virtually all political operatives and ideologues. They have always been the swamp; he has always been the oasis."

But," he added, "I would caution liberal ideologues also -- he is not your savior; he's just a lawman. Respect his findings, whatever they are."

 

[GrumpyGran]

14 hours ago, JMarie said:

Ahh, the love affair between Trump and Fox News

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/16/media/fox-news-campaign-against-fbi-robert-mueller/index.html

 

Hannity: "Okay, Faux viewers, I'm going to make up some shit, mostly about how Donald Trump is fabulous, cause that's what he likes to hear. Also I'm going to make up some more lies about people who oppose him cause he loves to have enemies he can beat. Here are the lies: LIESLIESLIESLIES".

Dumpy: "Hannity says I'm great and everyone who opposes me is a criminal. I like that! I'm going to tell America!"

Dumpy to America: "LIESLIESLIESLIES".

Hannity: "President Trump says LIESLIESLIESLIES. We need to believe him and support him. Anyone who doesn't is a criminal and they need to be investigated! Now, I'm going to make up some more lies to feed our feeble-minded leader. Here we go. LIESLIESLIESLIES".

Maybe Hannity should be investigated. He is a danger to our country.

[Cartmann99]

If you are wondering why her name sounds familiar to you, this is probably why:

Quote

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is denying that a $25,000 donation from Donald Trump is in any way connected to her office's decision not to pursue action against Trump University, despite dozens of complaints in Florida, her spokesman said.

Bondi, who endorsed Trump in March, received the donation in 2013 via a political action committee raising money for her re-election.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/politics/pam-bondi-donald-trump-donation/index.html 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Rupert Murdoch expertly returns the sexual harassment spotlight to Fox News"

Spoiler

There’s a certain corporate mind-set that allows a sexual harassment culture to germinate and thrive for decades. And it was on display Thursday, as 21st Century Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch was interviewed by Sky’s Ian King about the company’s deal to sell its entertainment assets to Walt Disney Co. for $52 billion. When King asked whether Fox News’s troubles with sexual harassment over the past two years had harmed the company, Murdoch riffed:

“All nonsense, there was a problem with our chief executive, sort of, over the years, isolated incidents,” replied Murdoch. “As soon as we investigated it he was out of the place in hours, well, three or four days. And there’s been nothing else since then. That was largely political because we’re conservative. Now of course the liberals are going down the drain — NBC is in deep trouble. CBS, their stars. I mean there are really bad cases and people should be moved aside. There are other things which probably amount to a bit of flirting.”

What a grasp of history: Under the always-vigilant supervision of Murdoch himself, that chief executive, the late Roger Ailes, spent two decades at Fox gathering accusers. The stories ranged from the merely gross — like the time he went after Megyn Kelly in the 2000s: “He tried to grab me three times. Make out with me, which he didn’t. But I had to shove him off of me. And he came back. And I shoved him again, and he came back a third time. And then when I shoved him off a third time he asked me when my contract was up,” said Kelly — to the barbaric, like the psychological torture he visited upon a Fox News booker.

New York magazine reported that more than two dozen women had come forward to accuse Ailes of misconduct in these decidedly “isolated incidents.” All this isolated nonsense just happened to take down the career of King of Cable News Bill O’Reilly, as well. As reported by the New York Times, six women who’d accused him of sexual harassment or outright misconduct reached settlements with him or Fox News. In one of them, O’Reilly paid out $32 million to stellar legal analyst Lis Wiehl. After the paperwork was signed, Wiehl left; O’Reilly stayed on, though not for long.

This highly abridged summary makes clear: Fox News’s sexual harassment cannot be minimized. Sure, other networks — including NBC News’s Matt Lauer fiasco and CBS News’s Charlie Rose outrage — have their issues, and one gets the sense that there are still plenty more harassers to be outed. Yet Ailes managed to construct a legal-institutional complex at Fox News — complete with a compliant HR apparatus and extensive use of non-disclosure and arbitration agreements — designed to facilitate the sexual harassment of women.

It’s no wonder, then, that there’s a backlash afoot against Murdoch, as articulated in a HuffPost story by Yashar Ali. “I’m contacting a lawyer tomorrow,” one Fox News host told Ali. “I’m sick of this s[–––].”

Intending to calm things down a bit, a 21st Century spokesperson released this statement:

Rupert never characterized the sexual harassment matters at FOX News as ‘nonsense.’ Rather, he responded negatively to the suggestion that sexual harassment issues were an obstacle to the Company’s bid for the rest of Sky. Under Rupert’s leadership and with his total support, the Company exited Roger Ailes, compensated numerous women who were mistreated; trained virtually all of its employees; exited its biggest star; and hired a new head of HR. By his actions, Rupert has made it abundantly clear that he understands that there were real problems at FOX News. Rupert values all of the hard-working colleagues at FOX News, and will continue to address these matters to ensure FOX News maintains its commitment to having a work environment based on the values of trust and respect.

With all respect to the 21st Century Fox spokesperson, people are capable of reaching their own interpretations of Murdoch’s words.

That’s just what Juliet Huddy did. She’s among the group that reached settlements over the behavior of O’Reilly. Following her settlement and departure from Fox, Huddy has struggled to find work in television. “I can tell you that I’ve been filling in recently as a guest host on Curtis Sliwa’s radio show on 77WABC,” she told this blog earlier this year. “But as for a permanent tv job, all very quiet on that front. I would imagine as I said before that managers may be hesitant to hire someone whose name keeps being brought up as tied to a salacious scandal.”

Responding to Murdoch’s statement, Huddy posted a letter on Saturday warning of consequences to come. In an email to the Erik Wemple Blog, she called Murdoch’s comments “appalling and alarming.” May it never be said that Murdoch lacks a talent for motivating people.

He's such a piece of crap.

[AmazonGrace]

Good news, the Mooch has managed to crawl out from under a rock.

[Cartmann99]

Fox is continuing to poke the bear:

 

[GrumpyGran]

25 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Fox is continuing to poke the bear:

 

They love the hyperbole and hysteria, don't they? "devastating", "Critically", "brazenly". This nut-job can't even interpret the law he quotes. They are in high spin mode.

And Scary Moocher, lol. "Yeah and my girlfriend works here at Faux! That doesn't make me partisan. No!"

[Cartmann99]

12 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

And Scary Moocher, lol. "Yeah and my girlfriend works here at Faux! That doesn't make me partisan. No!"

Scary and Mrs. Mooch have reunited :

Quote

Deidre has left him and has filed for divorce,” a source told Page Six at the time. “She liked the nice Wall Street life and their home on Long Island, not the insane world of D.C. She is tired of his naked ambition, which is so enormous that it left her at her wits’ end. She has left him even though they have two children together.”

The report also sad that in September, things got especially heated when Scaramucci demanded a paternity test because he questioned whether the son whose birth he missed was his.

But it looks like that issue and others have been settled and the couple is back together. But they aren’t talking about their reconciliation to the media. Scaramucci’s lawyer declined to comment when reached by Page Six. Ball’s attorney also failed to respond.

She took him back after that?!?  These two dimwits deserve each other.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/01/anthony-scaramucci-calls-off-divorce-but-what-about-kimberly-guilfoyle/

[GrumpyGran]

3 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Scary and Mrs. Mooch have reunited 

Kimberly needs to dye her hair blond and join the ranks of women who will die alone. Actually she may die alone. This had to sting.

[GreyhoundFan]

Fucker Carlson, hypocritical? Surely the WaPo jests... "The hypocrisy of Tucker Carlson’s anti-Mueller campaign"

Spoiler

Roundabout 10 months ago, Fox News host Tucker Carlson was quite the crusader for privacy rights. Particularly Michael Flynn’s privacy rights. “The most basic civil liberty of all is, as you often say, is privacy,” said Carlson on his eponymous show in February, as he argued with a congressman. “And you need that. So, if you do not have any privacy from the U.S. government spying on you, like, things fall apart.”

The backdrop for Carlson’s outrage was the firing of Flynn, who served a brief tenure as President Trump’s national security adviser. As it turned out, Flynn had lied to his colleagues in the administration about a December 2016 conversation he’d conducted with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. U.S. intelligence officials uncovered the Flynn-Kislyak chat in their surveillance activities. The high-ranking official’s misdeeds leaked to the media.

And that was the story, suggested Carlson. “General Michael Flynn’s downfall was swift, efficient and clean, perhaps too clean,” he said. “In just weeks, a major critic of the foreign policy establishment was politically obliterated thanks in part to U.S. intelligence monitoring his private conversation.”

The host’s very strong and patriotic concerns about leaks continued for months. Here, he said that leaks amount to an “utter perversion” of American democracy. Here, he touted a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report slamming leaks.”I’m not against all leaks. I’ve benefited from a lot of them. I think the public has a right to know more than it does,” said Carlson in a moment of lucidity. Here, he ripped leaks intended to undermine Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

December has afforded the always-consistent Carlson an opportunity to continue his patriotic fight for the privacy rights of embattled U.S. citizens. On Dec. 2, New York Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had removed a top FBI agent — Peter Strzok — from the Russia investigation after the Justice Department’s inspector general probed the employee’s anti-Trump text messages.

Leak.

On Dec. 6, Fox News reported that there were 10,000 texts between Strzok and colleague Lisa Page in the batch.

Another leak.

Last week, reporters got their social-media-twitching fingers on the text messages, though a Justice Department official said that some of that activity wasn’t authorized by the department. Various officials were insulted in the texts, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former attorney general Eric Holder, though Trump got significant thumbs-down commentary, including “idiot” and “loathsome human.”

Leak-o-rama!

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare opined, “The release of private correspondence between two Justice Department employees whose correspondence is the subject of an active inspector general investigation is not just wrong. It is cruel.”

Way to tee up the issue for Carlson, Mr. Wittes. Surely the guy who stood up for the privacy rights of a highly visible national security adviser would do the same for unheralded FBI types. A look at the Fox News host’s statements, however, shows a great privacy gap: Whereas Flynn’s communications were sacred, those of Strzok and Page, well, those weren’t quite as dear. Sample this argument from Carlson:

“Peter Strzok exonerated Hillary Clinton in the middle of a presidential campaign. But then he kept going. Strzok went on to sign the document, the official document that opened an investigation into Russian meddling in an election,” he riffed on Dec. 4, after the news broke.

One night later, Carlson feasted on the messages. “Last summer Strzok was abruptly pulled off Robert Mueller’s team of investigators. It just didn’t become public for months. But it happened,” said Carlson. “The FBI won’t explain why it happened even when asked directly by the Congress. Now we know it happened because Strzok was sending highly political texts … messages praising Hillary Clinton and denigrating Donald Trump.”

And given Carlson’s absolute horror over governmental privacy encroachments, there’s simply no way that he would stoop to republishing text messages that other, bottom-feeding media outlets pushed into the public realm. Right? On Dec. 13, he said, “Yesterday Fox News obtained copies of the famous text messages that Strzok sent.” Then this:

In one exchange, from August of 2016, Page told Strzok, quote, “Maybe you are meant to stay where you are,” the FBI, “because you are meant to protect the country from that menace.” What menace would that be? Well, just days before, Strzok signed off on the start of the FBI’s investigation [into] ties between Russia and Donald Trump. Later that month, Strzok texted this to Page: Quote, “I want to believe the path you throw out consideration in Andy’s office that there is no way Trump gets elected, but I am afraid we can’t take that risk.” It’s like an insurance policy in the likely event you die before you are 40.

Also on that program, Carlson appeared to approve of the way that Strzok’s texts reached the public. “[It] took a leak to get Peter Strzok’s text messages, which we now have,” he said. There’s more, too: Guest and famous lawyer Alan Dershowitz bashed the government for not coughing up information. “I think transparency trumps privacy when you’re a government official,” said Dershowitz on the Dec. 14 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” 

Carlson responded, “That is right.” Except when you’re Michael Flynn, of course. Months after Carlson painted Flynn as a victim, the fired official painted himself as something quite different: In November, he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak. Weeks after his departure from the White House, he filed papers indicating that he’d worked for Turkish interests during the presidential campaign. A whistleblower has alleged that Flynn mixed public and private business in other ways as well.

Maybe Carlson should revisit his pleas to respect Flynn’s privacy.

Deplore leaks when they embarrass your ideological brethren; embrace leaks when they embarrass your ideological adversaries. That’s what is happening at Fox News. And it’s happening at a critical time, when opinion-mongers like Carlson, host Sean Hannity and the morning program “Fox & Friends” are all seeking to discredit the Mueller probe. As CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, these attacks feed into a cycle that could facilitate a White House dismissal of Mueller, a move that could have disastrous consequences for U.S. democracy.

While Hannity is clearly the most vocal and dedicated of the Mueller doubters, Carlson is perhaps the most clever. Look at the utter determination with which he stuck up for Flynn’s privacy back in February:

... < video >

Now observe the way he looks past privacy matters in the Strzok saga in a Dec. 4 interview with Joe DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney for D.C.:

... < video >

Worry not, Tucker Carlson. Your viewers care not that you contradict yourself. They’ll keep tuning in.

 

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

Kimberly needs to dye her hair blond and join the ranks of women who will die alone. Actually she may die alone. This had to sting.

Yeah, that bit about them taking vacations and looking at houses, and then Mooch says "Oopsie!" and goes back to his wife was pretty damn cold. Then again, didn't Kimberly start seeing him after that really vulgar interview where he talked about Bannon fellating himself?  I mean, there were some big red flags with flames shooting out of them, and Vegas-era Elvis out front dancing a jig and saying "Nope, you don't want any of that!", and she still ignored all of it.

Mooch is no prize, and these women are both fools for wanting to be in a relationship with him.

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

Yeah, that bit about them taking vacations and looking at houses, and then Mooch says "Oopsie!" and goes back to his wife was pretty damn cold. Then again, didn't Kimberly start seeing him after that really vulgar interview where he talked about Bannon fellating himself?  I mean, there were some big red flags with flames shooting out of them, and Vegas-era Elvis out front dancing a jig and saying "Nope, you don't want any of that!", and she still ignored all of it.

Mooch is no prize, and these women are both fools for wanting to be in a relationship with him.

They both should have seen it coming. He's a scam artist like everyone else in that administration. Wifey thinks that now that he's out of the Dumpy administration, he'll come back to NYC and be happy with obscurity. Not likely, he's a member of the Fame First club. But so is Miss Kimberly so I guess she got what she deserved too.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump gets conflicting advice about firing Mueller from Sean Hannity and ‘Fox & Friends’"

Spoiler

If you watch Fox News, it is impossible not to notice the intensifying criticism of Russia special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The New York Times editorial board marked the trend last week, lamenting that President Trump's “TV diet consists overwhelmingly of Fox's sycophants, who have now gathered around one insistent message aimed at their No. 1 fan: Fire Robert Mueller now.”

That was before Fox News host Jesse Watters said it is possible that “we have a coup on our hands in America.”

While the president is hearing from the likes of Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro that Mueller needs to go, he got different advice on Monday from “Fox & Friends.” The hosts of Trump's favorite morning show characterized the notion that he might terminate Mueller as nothing more than a Democratic rumor planted in the media to make the president appear suspiciously worried about the probe.

“We've heard for months that President Trump was going to fire Robert Mueller,” Steve Doocy said dismissively.

“You know what happened: The investigation is turning on its head,” Brian Kilmeade added a moment later, citing recent news that Mueller removed from his team an FBI agent who expressed anti-Trump sentiments in text messages to a bureau attorney. “All of a sudden, things are about to change — unless you throw out a story that says the president's going to fire Mueller. That becomes the No. 1 story. Everything else gets pushed aside on all the national shows. So they successfully changed the conversation — for a non-story.”

Trump said, again, on Sunday that he does not plan to fire Mueller. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said on “Fox & Friends” that the president is “certainly not going to fire Mueller.”

“I just think he's too smart to do something like that,” Scaramucci said. “He doesn't need another distraction on top of that distraction.”

Fox News commentators generally agree that Mueller is hunting for nonexistent collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election and that the integrity of his work is compromised. But there is no consensus about the president's best course of action.

Here is Hannity's case for firing Mueller, in its most succinct form: “This is a massive waste of money, and you, the American people, are paying for all of this, which is an attempted political takedown of your duly elected president.”

The guidance to Trump from “Fox & Friends” is to discredit the investigation but allow it to play out. If Mueller ultimately clears the president of wrongdoing, then Trump will be able to say that he cooperated and that even a “witch hunt” couldn't incriminate him. If Mueller's findings are less favorable, Trump's supporters won't recognize the conclusion as legitimate, anyway.

Laura Ingraham, the newest addition to Fox News's prime-time lineup, said two weeks ago that Mueller should resign. But she tweeted during “Fox & Friends” on Monday that liberals are actually the ones who want Trump to fire the special counsel.

... < dumbass tweet from Ingraham about the "sputtering Mueller investigation. I wonder what she's smoking? >

The apparent thinking is that Trump has little to fear, because even if Mueller does report evidence of collusion, the president and his backers can argue that the investigation was tainted. Trump can only make himself look guilty by firing Mueller.

I can't understand how anyone believes their shit.

[fraurosena]

Well this is news that put a smile on my face this morning...

 

[GrumpyGran]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump gets conflicting advice about firing Mueller from Sean Hannity and ‘Fox & Friends’"

  Reveal hidden contents

If you watch Fox News, it is impossible not to notice the intensifying criticism of Russia special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The New York Times editorial board marked the trend last week, lamenting that President Trump's “TV diet consists overwhelmingly of Fox's sycophants, who have now gathered around one insistent message aimed at their No. 1 fan: Fire Robert Mueller now.”

That was before Fox News host Jesse Watters said it is possible that “we have a coup on our hands in America.”

While the president is hearing from the likes of Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro that Mueller needs to go, he got different advice on Monday from “Fox & Friends.” The hosts of Trump's favorite morning show characterized the notion that he might terminate Mueller as nothing more than a Democratic rumor planted in the media to make the president appear suspiciously worried about the probe.

“We've heard for months that President Trump was going to fire Robert Mueller,” Steve Doocy said dismissively.

“You know what happened: The investigation is turning on its head,” Brian Kilmeade added a moment later, citing recent news that Mueller removed from his team an FBI agent who expressed anti-Trump sentiments in text messages to a bureau attorney. “All of a sudden, things are about to change — unless you throw out a story that says the president's going to fire Mueller. That becomes the No. 1 story. Everything else gets pushed aside on all the national shows. So they successfully changed the conversation — for a non-story.”

Trump said, again, on Sunday that he does not plan to fire Mueller. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said on “Fox & Friends” that the president is “certainly not going to fire Mueller.”

“I just think he's too smart to do something like that,” Scaramucci said. “He doesn't need another distraction on top of that distraction.”

Fox News commentators generally agree that Mueller is hunting for nonexistent collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election and that the integrity of his work is compromised. But there is no consensus about the president's best course of action.

Here is Hannity's case for firing Mueller, in its most succinct form: “This is a massive waste of money, and you, the American people, are paying for all of this, which is an attempted political takedown of your duly elected president.”

The guidance to Trump from “Fox & Friends” is to discredit the investigation but allow it to play out. If Mueller ultimately clears the president of wrongdoing, then Trump will be able to say that he cooperated and that even a “witch hunt” couldn't incriminate him. If Mueller's findings are less favorable, Trump's supporters won't recognize the conclusion as legitimate, anyway.

Laura Ingraham, the newest addition to Fox News's prime-time lineup, said two weeks ago that Mueller should resign. But she tweeted during “Fox & Friends” on Monday that liberals are actually the ones who want Trump to fire the special counsel.

... < dumbass tweet from Ingraham about the "sputtering Mueller investigation. I wonder what she's smoking? >

The apparent thinking is that Trump has little to fear, because even if Mueller does report evidence of collusion, the president and his backers can argue that the investigation was tainted. Trump can only make himself look guilty by firing Mueller.

I can't understand how anyone believes their shit.

It's telling that even Faux can't figure out how to spin this effectively. They need to protect Dumpy but can't figure out the best way to do it. They are trying to walk a line here. Discrediting the whole thing is a winner because they know that all they have to do is plant that small grain of doubt in the humpers' minds. But they also have to control Dumpy. I wonder if the Faux and Friends group is a little jealous of how Hannity seems to have more clout.

[Cartmann99]

17 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump gets conflicting advice about firing Mueller from Sean Hannity and ‘Fox & Friends’"

  Hide contents

If you watch Fox News, it is impossible not to notice the intensifying criticism of Russia special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The New York Times editorial board marked the trend last week, lamenting that President Trump's “TV diet consists overwhelmingly of Fox's sycophants, who have now gathered around one insistent message aimed at their No. 1 fan: Fire Robert Mueller now.”

That was before Fox News host Jesse Watters said it is possible that “we have a coup on our hands in America.”

While the president is hearing from the likes of Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro that Mueller needs to go, he got different advice on Monday from “Fox & Friends.” The hosts of Trump's favorite morning show characterized the notion that he might terminate Mueller as nothing more than a Democratic rumor planted in the media to make the president appear suspiciously worried about the probe.

“We've heard for months that President Trump was going to fire Robert Mueller,” Steve Doocy said dismissively.

“You know what happened: The investigation is turning on its head,” Brian Kilmeade added a moment later, citing recent news that Mueller removed from his team an FBI agent who expressed anti-Trump sentiments in text messages to a bureau attorney. “All of a sudden, things are about to change — unless you throw out a story that says the president's going to fire Mueller. That becomes the No. 1 story. Everything else gets pushed aside on all the national shows. So they successfully changed the conversation — for a non-story.”

Trump said, again, on Sunday that he does not plan to fire Mueller. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said on “Fox & Friends” that the president is “certainly not going to fire Mueller.”

“I just think he's too smart to do something like that,” Scaramucci said. “He doesn't need another distraction on top of that distraction.”

Fox News commentators generally agree that Mueller is hunting for nonexistent collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election and that the integrity of his work is compromised. But there is no consensus about the president's best course of action.

Here is Hannity's case for firing Mueller, in its most succinct form: “This is a massive waste of money, and you, the American people, are paying for all of this, which is an attempted political takedown of your duly elected president.”

The guidance to Trump from “Fox & Friends” is to discredit the investigation but allow it to play out. If Mueller ultimately clears the president of wrongdoing, then Trump will be able to say that he cooperated and that even a “witch hunt” couldn't incriminate him. If Mueller's findings are less favorable, Trump's supporters won't recognize the conclusion as legitimate, anyway.

Laura Ingraham, the newest addition to Fox News's prime-time lineup, said two weeks ago that Mueller should resign. But she tweeted during “Fox & Friends” on Monday that liberals are actually the ones who want Trump to fire the special counsel.

... < dumbass tweet from Ingraham about the "sputtering Mueller investigation. I wonder what she's smoking? >

The apparent thinking is that Trump has little to fear, because even if Mueller does report evidence of collusion, the president and his backers can argue that the investigation was tainted. Trump can only make himself look guilty by firing Mueller.

I can't understand how anyone believes their shit.

At this point, I don't care if their stupid narrative includes chemtrails, Jimmy Hoffa, and Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes, I just want them to pick one and stay with it.

[GreyhoundFan]

Awww, poor Billy-O: "Poor Bill O’Reilly: His accusers are teaming up against him"

Spoiler

Bill O’Reilly’s pools of cash get him only so far. As reported by the New York Times, women who had accused O’Reilly of mistreatment or sexual harassment received settlements over the course of his career at Fox News. There were at least six cases, including a $32 million settlement paid by O’Reilly himself to former Fox News analyst Lis Wiehl. O’Reilly was fired from the network in April.

Throughout the ordeal, O’Reilly has professed his innocence, declared that he’s a target for such claims, insisted that he paid out settlements to protect his family and argued that he never caught an HR complaint over his two-decade career at Fox News. At one point, O’Reilly vented to the New York Times, “I’ve been in the business for 43 years, and I’ve never had a complaint filed by anyone at 12 different companies.”

And that’s where the troubles have continued. Earlier this month, Rachel Witlieb Bernstein, a former Fox News staffer who’d reached a 2002 settlement over mistreatment (not sexual harassment), sued O’Reilly for breach of contract and defamation — alleging that O’Reilly had violated settlement terms with all his suggestions that the claims against him were folly. Far from being a “target” of extortion, claimed the Bernstein suit, O’Reilly “is a serial abuser and Ms. Bernstein’s complaints against him were far from extortionate.”

Now two other O’Reilly accusers are joining the suit against O’Reilly: Andrea Mackris in 2004 settled with O’Reilly for $9 million over sexual harassment claims, and Rebecca Gomez Diamond in 2011 settled for an unknown amount with the host, also for sexual harassment. In both cases, the women made recordings of conversations with O’Reilly. The suit, written by Neil Mullin and Nancy Erika Smith of Smith Mullin, P.C., claims that all three women did, in fact, bring their complaints to the Fox News hierarchy. Bernstein went to HR and “other Fox executives” to complain about O’Reilly; Mackris complained through her lawyer to Fox News vice president of legal Dianne Brandi; and Diamond did likewise, according to the suit.

Oh, and another thing — O’Reilly has said this about his predicament: “It’s politically and financially motivated, and we can prove it with shocking information.” For seasoned O’Reilly watchers, that’s a classic. Whenever O’Reilly got busted for saying stupid and baseless and offensive things on his ratings-winning program, he’d blame lefty crackpots for the backlash. The suit takes umbrage at O’Reilly’s full-on effort to discredit these women: “These false statements portrayed plaintiffs in a false light and disparaged their character, in fact calling them liars, political opportunists and extortionists.”

The irony of all this post-settlement litigation is that O’Reilly — as well is his former (and late) boss Roger Ailes — expertly used non-disclosure/non-disparagement clauses plus stacks of money to enable and excuse his workplace behavior. This was a sophisticated hush operation. Yet O’Reilly lacks the sophistication — which is to say, he won’t shut up — necessary to keep the whole putrid operation glued together.

Knocked off his nightly 8 p.m. show on cable news’s No. 1 network, O’Reilly’s opinions and analyses aren’t worth considering these days. They were always insincere and opportunistic in any case; his strong audience numbers came through two avenues: the automatic audience that you get on Fox News, and a mix of polemical combativeness and an ultra-smooth delivery from the anchor’s chair.

Now he has a website and Twitter, where he recently commented on clothing sizes. People mocked him. This is a fitting denouement for an awful, awful man.

I certainly didn't bother reading his comments on clothing sizes, but I would wager that he can't wear any sort of pullover, since he has such a big head, nothing would fit over it.

[onekidanddone]

On 12/19/2017 at 5:03 PM, Cartmann99 said:

At this point, I don't care if their stupid narrative includes chemtrails, Jimmy Hoffa, and Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes, I just want them to pick one and stay with it.

I saw Jimmy Hoffa at the Giant the other day. Don't believe the ebil MSM!  Jimmy is alive and well.  Oh and the moon landing is fake.

[GreyhoundFan]

8 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I saw Jimmy Hoffa at the Giant the other day. Don't believe the ebil MSM!  Jimmy is alive and well.  Oh and the moon landing is fake.

Was Elvis with him?