Faux News Spews; I Need Booze

[GreyhoundFan]

Maybe Ms. Kelly should have stayed on Faux:

 

[JMarie]

Hannity didn't talk about his real estate debacle tonight (maybe he thinks we've forgotten about it?).  He also didn't mention Diamond and Silk Go To Congress.  He did talk about Kanye West, and introduced us to Candace Owens, another clueless young conservative.  He also played three clips of Trump's phone call to this morning's Fox and Friends, but instead of showing the unconfortableness exhibited by the FandF "journalists" there was just a picture of Trump polluting my TV screen.

 

fun fact:  both Diamond and Silk and Candace Owens became famous via Youtube videos

[AmazonGrace]

 

[JMarie]

It's raining here, and, like Karen Carpenter, rainy days always get me down.  What better way to celebrate than to take in a little extra Fox News?  I zipped through Fox and Friends to see if Trump would call in again today (but he didn't, so I think someone hid his cell phone).  On a brighter note, Diamond and Silk stopped by!  They tried to sound smart by using phrases like "salacious gossip news sites" and "I thought (Congress) works for the American people, so why are you questioning me about an FEC report, how much money did Mark Zuckerberg allegedly pay you off?  That's what you shoulda been asking."  Then some rambling about how they didn't get enough time, even though they were born here, but a "DACA person" would have been given an entire day.  They're thankful that the "white Republicans" invited them to the hearing, but not the "black men".  "...but it was the black man who was concerned with how much Diamond and Silk was making and was appalled about us making money legally" but hold the phone!  They weren't making money!  They were reimbursed!  Or were they?

There was a particularly distressing (at least for me) segment on Alfie Evans, the British toddler whose life support was ordered disconnected by the British government.  Of course the phrase "death panel" was thrown in, as well as "evils of socialized medicine".

A good amount of the three hours was spent with Ainsley Earnhardt, as she toured the campus of her alma mater, the University of South Carolina.  She stopped by her sorority house (lots of similarly blond women), and chatted with Lindsey Graham, who just happened to be there.  There was also a lot of time spent on the Koreas reuniting.  So I guess that'll be Trump's signature accomplishment, "ending" the Korean War.  I can almost hear my Korean War vet father screaming from heaven about this.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Misogyny much? Or is he just as concerned about men reporting on male candidates?

Fox host upset that women are allowed to report on women candidates

Quote

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who is employed by one of the most blatantly biased TV networks in America, decided this week that he should start caring about bias in political news coverage.

Of course, he’s not concerned about the bias at his own network — he’s concerned that there are just too many darn women reporters out there doing things like reporting on women candidates.

Carlson expressed his feelings on the matter during Friday evening’s edition of Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Speaking to New York Times reporter Amy Chozick, who recently authored a book about her time covering Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Carlson noted that many of the beat reporters assigned to cover Clinton were women.

That’s a problem, according to Carlson, who complained that assigning women to report on other women is “stacking the deck.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Carlson said to Chozick.

“If Orrin Hatch was running for president and 15 out of 17 reporters covering him were faithful mormons, you would say, ‘maybe that’s — that’s stacking the deck a little bit.’ Do you see a problem with that arrangement?” 

[video]

Carlson never said who he thinks the decks are stacked against when women reporters are assigned to cover women candidates, but presumably he was referring to men. (Of course, he never questioned the idea of men covering male candidates, as they’ve always done).

His diatribe couldn’t be further from the truth.

According to the 2017 “Status of Women in U.S. Media” report by the Women’s Media Center, women report just 25 percent of broadcast news and 38 percent of print news. Since 2015, work by women anchors, field reporters, and correspondents has actually declined, falling from 32 percent of reports to 25 percent.

Far from being biased in favor of women, political news coverage tends to be heavily biased against women — and no one knows that better than Hillary Clinton.

Much of the coverage of Clinton was entrusted to men, and much of it was negative, antagonistic, and at times blatantly sexist. However, complaints about the sexist nature of Clinton coverage were often minimized or written off entirely, despite a well-documented pattern of such coverage by mainstream news outlets.

As we have since found out, those complaints were entirely justified. In the past year, at least seven of the male journalists who were at the forefront of covering Clinton have lost their jobs because they sexually harassed and/or assaulted women in the workplace.

But according to Carlson — who once told Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca she should stay away from political writing and “stick to the thigh-high boots” — the real victims here are men like him.

It boggles my mind that these men are so afraid of women. 

[JMarie]

"This New York Times thing (the list of questions that Mueller wants to ask Trump), put it in your fireplace and burn it, because we have sources that say half of these questions are dumb anyway.  'You know, what was in your mind at the time?'  You don't punish people or charge people, not that you can charge a sitting president, and the president has every right to fire anyone he wants, ah, for the thoughts they have in their heads."

That's all you need to know about tonight's Hannity, That, and Candace Owens stopped by to gush about the awesomeness that is Kanye West.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[JMarie]

Wow, I'm feeling extra awesome today!!!

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Destiny]

 

Why is this so shocking? I cried on the regular in college, and my bff who is currently in grad school does the same. What’s the big deal? I hate this omg trigger warnings and safe spaces shit the right spews.

[AmazonGrace]

1 hour ago, Destiny said:

Why is this so shocking? I cried on the regular in college, and my bff who is currently in grad school does the same. What’s the big deal? I hate this omg trigger warnings and safe spaces shit the right spews.

And the funny thing is it's the same people who are up in arms because Michelle Wolf attacked all the women by pointing out Shuckabee wears make up while she lies.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Fox News’s Sean Hannity busted again by Fox News"

Spoiler

Were the Erik Wemple Blog anointed the chief scheduler for U.S. Journalism, we’d direct that all major scoops regarding President Trump hit the Internet between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on weeknights. Why? The better to uproot Sean Hannity’s nightly program, of course.

Because when news intrudes, the Fox News host exudes irritation. “I am told by my sources tonight that the New York Times is full of crap, that those are not — a lot of those questions are not the questions that the special counsel is asking,” said Hannity on Monday night after the newspaper published its scoop of 49 questions that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has formulated for Trump.

People might just remember another moment this past when Hannity dissed a breaking scoop from the New York Times, this time about how Trump in June 2017 had ordered Mueller’s firing. “At this hour, the New York Times is trying to distract you. They have a story that Trump wanted Mueller fired sometime last June, and our sources, and I’ve checked in with many of them, they’re not confirming that tonight.”

Later that night, Hannity was forced to confirm the news. “All right, so we have sources tonight just confirming to Ed Henry that, yeah, maybe Donald Trump wanted to fire the special counsel for conflict,” said the host on his Jan. 25 show. “Does he not have the right to raise those questions? You know, we’ll deal with this tomorrow night.”

Well. At noon on Tuesday, Fox News host Melissa Francis told viewers of the show “Outnumbered,” “President Trump is reacting to the leak of dozens of questions special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly wants to ask him. Fox News has now obtained those questions after the New York Times first reported on them. … The questions were reportedly read to the president’s lawyer by Mueller’s team in March,” said Francis.

So: That makes two instances in which Hannity relied on his own sources to debunk the reporting of the New York Times, only to watch as his colleagues confirmed the paper’s findings. One more and we have a full-blown trend.

Whatever the source, Hannity didn’t like the leaked questions anyhow. “This New York Times thing — put it in your fireplace and burn it, because we have sources that say — half of these questions are dumb anyway. You know, what was in your mind at the time? You don’t punish people or charge people, not that you can charge a sitting president, and the president has every right to fire anybody he wants, for the thoughts they have in their head.”

Everyone has a distinct notion of what constitutes a dumb question. Have a look at the list and reach your own conclusions. There’s material relating to fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Russian meddling and so on.

But who is Hannity to cast judgment on the inquiries of the special counsel? Is this a fellow who should be rating the questions of other people? To measure the prime-time opinionator’s credentials on this front, we grabbed a sampling of Hannity’s utterances from his January 2017 and October 2017 interviews with the president — some of which are actual questions and some of which are comments, usually very supportive ones. Please note that the Hannity utterances aren’t sequential, but they should yield an idea of whether he’s a more skilled questioner than, say, a career law enforcement official who has served as director of the FBI and has won bipartisan respect in Washington. (There was a live audience at the October 2017 interview, which accounts for the parenthetical notes about “cheers”.)

Forty-nine of Sean Hannity’s questions for President Trump

October 2017:

1) “You don’t get a lot of good news in the media.”

2) “The market is up 25 percent since you won.”

3) “You tweeted this out that nobody in the media brings it up so I said, you know, what, I am going to bring it up tonight. $5.2 trillion in wealth created. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 16 years. We have the best labor participation rate in seven years and the best — the lowest number of people on food stamps in seven years.”

4 “You are trying to incentivize those trillions to come back here with a low repatriation rate. How low will that be and how much do you think you can bring back into the United States and what does it mean?”

5) “Now, the rate for some people goes down but if you live in a state like New York or Illinois and New Jersey or California, you won’t be able to deduct your local or state income tax. In other words, if you elect politicians that want to raise taxes, you will going to pay the penalty. So, that is not really true that this is a tax cut for the wealthy as you are portraying it. What is your answer to that?”

6) “But you’re also, a big part of it, you’ve already done. And that is, you’ve ended a lot of the Obama era regulations. Especially in industries like energy and coal.”

7) “There seems to be, you have a very strong commitment, you just recently went forward with ANWR, you put in place opportunities for the coal mining industry.”

8) “Fracking. We do have an opportunity to be energy independent. And there seems to be millions of high paying career jobs for people available if that decision is made. How big a part is that for the economic recovery?”

9) “You also won Pennsylvania. Right? Is he going to win Pennsylvania in 2020, too?” (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

10) “The biggest obstacle before you arrived here, I had an opportunity to interview a lot of people in this great crowd. And I asked them basically three different questions. What they thought of you. Overwhelmingly, there is a lot of support for you here. Congress –” (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

11) “We saw what happened with health care in John McCain. This economic plan sounds a lot to me like what Reagan did and that created 20 million new jobs and revenues doubled. This is important for your agenda.”

12) “Do you agree with that? Fake news?”

13) “Right. Barack Obama was the first president in history that never hit three percent GDP growth in a single year of his presidency which I think speaks volumes.”

14) “Yes.”

15) “When you look at the Obama years, Chicago, one city, his adopted home town, 3,900 people were murdered.”

16) “And his economic policies hurt black Americans and Hispanic Americans more. How will your policies help minorities that are still struggling?”

17) “We watched a lot of high-profile incidents during the Obama years. Ferguson, Trayvon Martin down in Florida. Freddie Gray. He said the Cambridge police acted stupidly. It seems every two or four years, and I’ve been now 30 years in radio. I just started my 23rd year at Fox. That every two or four years, the Democrats will play the race card. And I resent it as a conservative. Because they will say, oh, the policies, they are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic. And meanwhile, their policies have not helped the minority communities in America. Is there a way from the federal government’s perspective that you can bring economic opportunity and safety?”

18) “Is it fair to say if he keeps firing missiles, that is going to end?”

19) “Why not, right?”

20) “It has to be built.”

21) “No amnesty. No chain migration.”

22) “No DACA, until you fund the wall.”

23) “Dana Rohrabacher met with [Julian Assange] him and he said he had proved positive evidence that would show the Trump campaign never colluded with Russia. It’s in the best interest of the country that if he has that information, he should give it? It seems he wants and returned to be left alone. Should the country — that the country deserve to know the truth?”

24) “I’m glad to have you.”

January 2017

25) ”What a week this has been.”

26) “Well, that’s what I wanted — first, I got some time to talk with you earlier in the week…”

27) “The thing that really stood out to me is you seem to be enjoying yourself and very focused on all the promises you made in the campaign. Is it your intention to keep every promise?”

28) “Would it be gambling if … at some point, when there is a procedure in place, if you can ascertain whether or not somebody’s been radicalized or not, or if radical groups actually trained some of their soldiers to say the right things to get in, but if you can’t positively ascertain they’re safe and find out what’s in their heart, does that mean no go? Does that mean you won’t gamble?”

29) “You’re talking about a real wall, impenetrable.”

30) “Let me talk about a big decision you’re going to make next week. You’ve announced on Thursday, you will make your Supreme Court choice … announcement. Two questions on that. One, will it be from the list that you gave out during the campaign?”

31) “Will it be an originalist?”

32) “You mean they’re leaking in Washington? That’s a shock.”

33) “Right.”

34) “Let me ask you — I don’t remember you saying this in the campaign, and I was on the road with you quite a bit. We did a lot of the town halls together. But you’re now talking about a 10 percent reduction in spending — in other words, eliminating baseline budgeting — a 20 percent reduction in the government workforce. How important is a balanced budget to you? And were you surprised Republicans before you got here raised the debt ceiling $9.7 trillion?”

35) “I heard you got the price down quite a bit already.”

36) “One of the worst ways, it seems, to spend money is going through the Washington bureaucracy. Every congressman has their pet project. There’s been talk about infrastructure, anywhere the Democrats want a trillion dollars…”

37) “Right.”

38) “Yes. By the way, I hear your helicopter out there in the background.”

39) “You took great pride in meeting with Carrier, saving jobs, meeting with Ford, savings jobs. You’ve met with union people…$7 billion by the way.”

40) “But you want to get rid of 75 percent of regulation.”

41) “Or more.”

42) “Right. The media — a little bit of a contentious start, if you will, with them. They want to — I’ve seen now the New York Times, CNN, NBC — they’ve used the word “liar” to describe you as it relates if you’re talking about crowd size or the border…”

43) “I said journalism’s dead, so we agree.”

44) “So then, here’s my question. Between Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, I think you reach 50 million people. … But if — we know now through WikiLeaks, some of these networks were colluding … with Hillary’s campaign to defeat you.”

45) “I’ve seen major newspapers, two cable networks that used the word liar. And my question to you is, does that make you want to rethink entirely how this administration will deal with the media?”

46) “But I don’t remember them treating Barack Obama this way.”

47) “When you saw the Women’s March this week and then you hear Madonna say ‘I thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.’ Imagine if I said that when Barack Obama was here.”

48) “Last question, and then we’re going to — you will take us to the Oval Office, which is nice. You were very passionate last night about Chicago and about the violence. In the course of Barack Obama’s presidency, 4,000 people died, murdered, and another however-many-thousand more shot. You might go in and help fix it if they can’t fix it.”

49) “It’s inauguration night. You gave your speech. … You go to the balls, you come back and you’re in the White House, in the residence with Melania. And by the way, that’s Marine One right there. … And so my question is, what’d you say? What are you thinking?“

 

[JMarie]

9 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Like he could conduct a "fair and balanced" interview with the president.  He really just wants a weekend invitation to Mar-a-Lago, and figures that an interview would be the easiest way to score an invitation.

[AmazonGrace]

Well gosh darn, no one knows huh. 

Even Fox pundits are finding it harder and harder to defend a different lie each week

[AmazonGrace]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/cant-pay-off-porn-star-isnt-america-fox-news-outnumbered-tries-make-sense-giuliani-bombshell/

If you can't pay off a porn star it's not America anymore.

[Destiny]

Holy shit you guys. If he loses Faux News, what is left for him? That Cavuto rant was epic, and he's a darling of the right.

[Cartmann99]

28 minutes ago, Destiny said:

Holy shit you guys. If he loses Faux News, what is left for him? That Cavuto rant was epic, and he's a darling of the right.

The rant @Destiny is talking about:

 

[JMarie]

Remember how, a few weeks ago, Tucker Carlson ended his show with a story on sex-crazed pandas?  Well, tonight he ended the show with this, because this is fair and balanced, hardhitting, relevant news.   http://www.tribstar.com/cnhi_network/mystery-serial-pooper-on-high-school-s-property-turns-out/article_664fdded-4b28-5be5-9ecd-f7865f09847f.html

Kinda sets the tone for shifting into Hannity's hour.

Hannity had a forty minute interview with Guiliani last night, but the "abusively biased news media in this country, they only cared about one thirty-second clip."  NBC incorrectly reported the FBI wiretapped Michael Cohen, but of course it's fake. (this is actually kind of true: http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/03/media/nbc-news-michael-cohen-correction/index.html)

Many clips from the interview follow.  Guiliani's lisp reminds me of mean girl Amanda from Bunsen Is A Beast.

Again with calling the MSM "abusively biased" and "lazy, abusively biased echo chamber people in the fake news overpaid media," says the pseudojournalist who earns $36 million a year.  The MSM's analysis of the thirty second clip is "all wrong" and that Trump really didn't know anything about the payment until long after the payment was made.

Multiple clips from MSM shows.  Hannity claims that all the hysteria is "almost funny, except it's too serious."  More clips follow.  Hannity claims that journalism in America is dead -- good thing he's not a journalist, right??  The other networks are featuring Hannity more than their own hosts, he claims, and he thinks he should start getting paid by the other networks, because he's "providing the real news that they rarely make on their own."

It's only twelve minutes into the show, and already I'm exhausted.

Starts talking about three Americans being held hostage in North Korea, who might be released because of Trump's efforts, but the MSM is too focused on those pesky thirty seconds of interview.  Much rambling about record low employment and other stuff, but the MSM doesn't care about that!  The MSM is "one big huge massive echo chamber with a bunch of overpaid spoiled brat anchors that don't do their job."  Wow!  Thank goodness Fox News isn't an echo chamber with a staff of spoiled brat anchors!!!!!!!

Joe DeGenova (rejected Trump legal team appointee) thinks today is a  "sad, sad day."  He also thinks Trump should refuse to be interviewed, and agrees with everything Hannity says.  Fast forwarding until someone else pops up on my TV screen....

What in God's name is a Teen Mom commercial doing on Fox News?  Hannity's viewers aren't interested in frisky unmarried minors!

Bashing of Joy Behar from today's episode of The View.  Sebastian Gorka and Dan Bongino say stuff, but I don't care.  I already know they're going to agree with Hannity, that Guiliani was right and the MSM is wrong.

"The Great One" Mark Levin, in a clip from last June, claims that a sitting president cannot be indicted (but the NY Times says otherwise:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/indict-president-trial.html), and again said it in a more recent clip.  I'm thinking that Hannity uses so many clips in an effort to fill out the hour, so he doesn't have to introduce scary new topics that his viewers might not understand (like actual current news).  Mark Levin stops by to break down what he said in those clips, so viewers will be crystal clear on what's happening.  "Second-tier, slip and fall lawyers, all over TV, spewing things they don't know, they don't understand the constitution, they haven't studied the cases.  I have."  Much technical talk follows, and I can't follow it.  How dare a few Republicans vote to protect Mueller!  They're obviously confused, and they're "ignoramuses", while others "are dressed up like lawyers."

Sara Carter and Gregg Jarrett (he has a new book out!) stop by.  Jarrett thinks if Mueller will not accept answers to a limited number of written questions, Mueller should subpoena the president in front of a grand jury, the president should ignore the subpoena, because then Mueller would have to hold the president in contempt, but that would be unconstitutional, so it can't happen.  Sara Carter probably agrees with everything Hannity says, but my finger is on the fast forward button, so I'll never know.

He ends the show by bashing Hillary Clinton, and shows a clip of her from yesterday's Shared Value Initiative conference.  He then converses with Laura Ingraham for a minute, pretending to throw a Nerf football from his studio, over the airwaves, and into her studio.  How many FJers are thinking Nerf footballs are manufactured in China?

[CTRLZero]

12 hours ago, Destiny said:

That Cavuto rant was epic, and he's a darling of the right.

"That's your stink.  Mr. President, that's your swamp."

Since I occasionally* feel a bit crazed with the current administration, I thought I'd share my calming fantasy about the Trump post-impeachment memorial museum:

Visitors would walk through gilted doors and immediately detect a certain swampy aroma wafting through the air.  Kanye would be playing softly in the background.  Muted orange walls give the atmosphere a certain glow. 

Placards of all his presidential Tweets would be Displayed.  But wait, there's more!  When contradictory tweets would appear, visitors would be directed (perhaps by wax Melanias) back and forth between the two.  My vision is morphing the museum into a sort of pinball machine architecture.

For the kids, scavenger hunt for Obama's Kenyan birth certificate, Hillary's butter emails, Pence alone with a woman who is not Mother, non-corrupt personnel, etc.

Closed on weekends because golf.

I have all sorts of ideas and am just waiting for the commission to call on me. 

*always

[JMarie]

The entrance hallway could have the White House's creepy Nightmare Before Christmas-themed Christmas decor.  Sinatra's "My Way", the song Trump and Melania danced to at the inauguration, is piped in.  Either McDonalds or KFC in the cafeteria.  No pets allowed, not even service animals (forget that darn Americans with Disabilities Act!).  Republicans get a discount on admission, Democrats pay full price, Socialists and Communists pay extra.  Ivanka's entire line is available in the gift shop, along with the resurgence of all of Trump's failed offerings (steaks, board game, bottled water, ect).

Okay, it's someone else's turn.

[CTRLZero]

To further elaborate on the theme, I would offer excursions.  One would be a bus ride reenacting all those New Yorkers who were bused into New Hampshire to vote illegally.  The bus driver would look suspiciously like Stephen Miller. 

I might also have a small movie theatre - pee tape screenings, anyone?  Your host, Alec Baldwin.

There would also be a wing dedicated to all who were booted or fled the administration.  This might actually be the biggest part of the museum.

I forgot to mention, the museum would have limited weekly hours because "executive time."

[fraurosena]

After you think you have seen everything there is to see, and have done everything there is to do, you are making your way back out. An eery atmosphere hangs in the last hallway. Smog and soot hang in the air, garbage is strewn all about. The face of Scott Pruitt looms overhead. Uneasy now, your pace quickens as you pass the effigy of a Keebler Elf in a grand wizard outfit that mumbles "I do not recall".  You begin to hear the bombastic tones of the Russian national anthem swelling in the distance, accompanied by the sound of heavily marching boots, and you start to run towards the exit. Suddenly a trap-door in the floor lifts up to show the likeness of Robert Swan Mueller III. You scream with fright, but before you can catch your breath a blue tidal wave surges from the left and drenches you to the bone. It lifts you up and carries you splashing and spluttering through the exit.  In the parking lot, you stand cold and shivering. You look at your companions and whisper "Let's never go there again."