Faux News: Who Says the USA Doesn't Have State TV?

[fraurosena]

Don't care for your fellow human beings. Only care for the rich. That's what Jesus preached after all. Oh, wait...

[AmazonGrace]

If communism means I get $52k per year, I'm down with communism.

[AmazonGrace]

I got nothing.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Audrey2]

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Oh Donnie, don't worry your pretty little head about economics. just sit back and let the experts at FOX dictate economic policy. Actually, you can tweet, retreat, and play golf, and just let FOX run the country.

Yep! That's scary to type!

[GreyhoundFan]

"Fox News host boosts Mar-a-Lago"

Spoiler

By all accounts, Jeanine Pirro veered little from her Fox News script when she addressed a party full of Trump supporters at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday. “Really? A Russian agent?” Pirro asked in jest, prompting laughter from the assembled partygoers, according to an account by BuzzFeed’s Tarini Parti.

On her weekend program, Pirro says a lot of similarly boosterish things about President Trump, whether she’s echoing his talking points about the Robert S. Mueller III investigation, his talking points about his detractors or his talking points about his unfathomable presidential feats. To get the flavor of Pirro-style propaganda, sample her January phone interview of Trump:

Key Pirro-to-Trump moment: “I mean, you’ve got such fight in you, it is unbelievable."

In light of such comments, it’s no wonder that Pirro has been a star at events of the Trumpettes USA, a group with a mission of “making people, particularly women, aware of what a great President and savior of our country, Donald J. Trump will be.” In January 2018, Pirro served as keynote speaker for the first-ever Trumpette party at Mar-a-Lago, telling the assembled Trump fans: “This man is a genius. He’s not unstable. He’s a damn genius.”

She was back again on Saturday night, for the Trumpettes’ second to-do at Mar-a-Lago. “We were filled to capacity,” said Toni Holt Kramer, who founded the Trumpettes along with three friends in September 2015. There were more than 700 people in attendance at the Feb. 23 soiree, she said, and the group upped its base ticket price from $300 to $550, though there were VIP tickets available at $1,000. “We sold more VIPs than the $550s,” Kramer told the Erik Wemple Blog. The theme: “Country Comes to Mar-a-Lago,"

There were other headliners aside from Pirro: Actor Jon Voight, ubiquitous MyPillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell and Grammy winner Lee Greenwood were all-in for the festivities. “We have people inundating us asking how to get tickets for next year,” said Kramer, who said that her party is becoming not only a big deal for Mar-a-Lago, but also for Palm Beach, Fla. “I think we do a lot for hotels and restaurants and shopping and everything else.”

Mar-a-Lago has to be appreciative. As The Post’s David A. Fahrenthold wrote in January 2018, the Trumpettes’s first event at the club came just after many charities had pulled out of Mar-a-Lago in the aftermath of Trump’s horrific remarks about the August 2017 protests in Charlottesville. “I have people flying in from just about every state of the union,” said Kramer, adding that her work has spread internationally as well. “I’m on the morning show in Australia every few months. Australia’s like a second home to us,” she said.

Fan clubs, political participation, tunes and food — the Erik Wemple Blog supports it all.

Except the part where a Fox News host helps to drop money into the pocket of the president of the United States. As Kramer noted, Trumpettes USA is not a 501(c)(3) or anything like it. As Fahrenthold wrote of the 2018 event, “Kramer was clear that the money would all go to the president’s club.”

The galas demonstrate that Trump supporters, at the direction of some creative and motivated organizers, will travel and pay premium ticket prices to celebrate the president, who delivered a video statement to the fete. And they also demonstrate that Fox News has little compunction about its transactional relationship with Trump, which goes back years. Starting in 2011, the network pulled in Trump for Monday morning exclusives on “Fox & Friends,” which padded the ratings and helped the longtime real estate mogul test his political ideas with little resistance from the hosts. Though there were bumpy moments in the presidential primaries — Trump bashed the network and then-host Megyn Kelly, for instance — the candidate bonded with hosts/buddies Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly (who was forced out in April 2017) and others. At one point, Hannity recorded a video promotion for Trump and, at another, he flew a vice presidential prospect to meet with Trump. It was later revealed that Hannity used the services of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who last year pleaded guilty to various federal offenses.

All of which is to say that the race to the bottom at Fox News has hit the homestretch. So long as Hannity has set the standard for ethical corruption with direct support to Trump World, how can the network even consider stopping someone like Pirro from speaking at an event from which the president profits?

Fox News didn’t respond to inquiries about these matters.

 

[AmazonGrace]

The world needs more white supremacist voices

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[onekidanddone]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Is it me or has he aged a ton in just a year?  Treason will do that to ya. Or so I hear some people are saying. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

If you want a subpoena to testify this is how you get a subpoena to testify. 

(It's not a crime to lie to Hannity)

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Oh this is golden. A crook attempting to be another crook’s alibi. The ‘he said-he said’ will not work here. Cohen has evidence. And I don’t believe it’s merely that check he showed during testimony either. You can bet that he gave Mueller/SDNY more than that for them to believe him.

Hannity trying to cover for the presidunce isn’t from any altruistic or loyalistic reasons though. He’s attempting to add to the ‘he’s a liar’ defense, because he’s terrified of what Cohen may have told the feds about him. Remember Cohen was his ‘lawyer’ as well, and if Cohen taped the presidunce, you can bet he taped Hannity too.

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[onekidanddone]

10 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

 

Covered in grass? What kind Sativa or Indica?

[JMarie]

9 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

Covered in grass? What kind Sativa or Indica?

Indica, to relieve the headache I got listening to that answer.

[AmazonGrace]

 

She wasn't hired for her brain. Wouldn't it be easier for AOC to find black staffers if no one else was hiring them?

[Howl]

As Joe Kenda (Homicide Hunter on Investigation Discovery) says, "Well my, my, my."

A Fox news reporter had confirmed the Stormy Daniels' payoff story in October 2016,  a FULL YEAR before the WSJ broke the story. 

Report: Fox News Had Stormy Daniels Story Before Election, Killed It To Protect Trump  

<snip>

Spoiler

A Fox News reporter had doggedly reported on President Donald Trump’s hush money payment to Stormy Daniels only to see it killed because Fox News co-chairman Rupert Murdoch wanted Trump to win, according to a New Yorker report.

The reporter, Diana Falzone, had the bulk of the story together and confirmed by October 2016, per the New Yorker. She had confirmation from Daniels, emails between Michael Cohen and Daniels’ attorney and even the contract Daniels signed. Fox editors punted it around the newsroom until the head of FoxNews.com, Ken LaCorte, allegedly told Falzon they wouldn’t publish the story.

“Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go,” LaCorte reportedly said. 

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Howl

[Howl]

Oooops and there's this: 

 

[AmazonGrace]

EVERYTHING that Trump blamed other people for he did himself.

[Howl]

And, BOOM!, just like that, Dr. Seb "The Dragon of Budapest" Gorka, the manifestation of peak pomposity with the world's nastiest goatee, got a boot in the bum from Fox. 

ETA: Had to edit to add "Dr." in honor of Seb's suspect Ph.D.. 

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Howl

[AmazonGrace]

He seems nice.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Report: Trump has a loyalty scale for Fox News hosts"

Spoiler

Steve Doocy has earned his mark of distinction from President Trump.

The longtime co-host of the rotten morning program “Fox & Friends” is among the network anchors who have been graded by Trump on loyalty. The news comes from a fresh story by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer:

Trump has told confidants that he has ranked the loyalty of many reporters, on a scale of 1 to 10. Bret Baier, Fox News’ chief political anchor, is a 6; Hannity a solid 10. Steve Doocy, the co-host of “Fox & Friends,” is so adoring that Trump gives him a 12.

How does a “Fox & Friends” star secure such extra credit? Well, by surrendering all independent thinking for years and years and years. To take an example that we’ve discussed previously in this space: Back in October 2010, “Fox & Friends” was talking with Donald Trump about international affairs. Trump trotted out a tired talking point: "We don’t have our talented people. ... I do a lot of business with China. ... You try doing business in China — it’s impossible. Yet they come here and make everything. Problem is, we don’t make anything anymore. We make it in China and other countries,” said the real estate mogul. Two months later, Trump sat on the “Fox & Friends” couch and again railed against China: “When I look at the jobs numbers and I see what’s going on in China, where it’s booming — you know why it’s booming? Because they’re making all our products.”

Doocy had a thought: “We don’t make anything anymore.” Trump agreed with Doocy’s repetition of his own talking point: “We don’t make anything," said the future president.

Consider that this moment of supreme sycophancy occurred months before Trump secured his weekly call-in gig to provide commentary for “Fox & Friends" and years before Trump kicked off his 2016 presidential campaign. The “12” ranking for Doocy is spot-on, a reflection of a deep knowledge of Fox News won through hours upon hours of watching. We know through Mark Leibovich of the New York Times that Trump — a fan of TiVo — isn’t above wasting his hours watching a recorded version of “Fox & Friends.” Hour after hour after hour, Doocy has proved extraordinarily willing to repeat White House spin and extraordinarily unwilling to challenge the president, while longtime colleague Brian Kilmeade has occasionally shown evidence of journalistic familiarity.

On one level, Trump’s loyalty scale advances a well-rehearsed Fox News defense — namely, that there’s a divide between the network’s straight-news and opinion brokers. Whenever people like Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson or Doocy say something ridiculous, that is, the response from the network’s PR shop is that these fellows work on the opinion side of the operation — as if the rules bearing on opinionators allow for racism, misogyny and political activism. It’s a cynical spin on the traditional newspaper’s news-editorial separation. (And there’s some cross-pollination, too. Just last year, Fox News moved Porter Berry, former executive producer of “Hannity,” to a position overseeing all digital content, including news.)

Make no mistake, however: The Shepard Smiths and Bret Baiers can’t redeem the work of the Sean Hannitys. When the Fox News audience surges, so does the misinformation.

 

[Drala]

Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda? 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house

 

[Drala]

Fox News spins desperately to shield lawless president from accountability

WAPO, By Greg Sargent, March 5

Spoiler

Now that President Trump is heading into a new period of intensified scrutiny from congressional Democrats, even as the special counsel’s investigation approaches its climax, Trump’s political health — and, possibly, his survival as well — depends more than ever on the massive propaganda apparatus that is busily toiling away on his behalf.

Central to this effort is Fox News. Fox personalities are now responding to the new Democratic investigative push, and the true dimensions of their efforts are coming into clearer focus: Precisely because Trump has committed extremely serious misconduct and wrongdoing on so many fronts, some of Fox’s leading voices are resorting to portraying any and all oversight directed at the president as fundamentally illegitimate.

Another way of putting this is that Fox personalities are arguing that Trump should be above accountability — that is, above the law. They don’t put it this way, but this is what they’re really saying.

This is going to get quite hairy in coming days. Watch this segment that Trump tweeted out hours ago:

The sheer Orwellian up-is-downism here is remarkable. Lou Dobbs claimed Democrats are engaged in a “search for a crime” and are “following the lead of Robert Mueller and the radical Dem corruption of both the FBI and the Department of Justice.” One guest scoffed that Mueller had been empowered to investigate crimes he came across “in the process of investigating whatever the heck it was he was authorized to investigate.”

Let me help here: Mueller was authorized to investigate a hostile foreign power’s massive and deliberate subversion of U.S. democracy, which it undertook to get Trump elected president. In service of that end, Mueller has already created a remarkably detailed portrait of the scope and reach of this sabotage effort. In addition to this, Mueller was authorized to investigate whether the Trump campaign colluded with that subversion effort, and other matters that arose in the process.

What these folks are really saying, then, is that investigating this attack on our democracy — regardless of whether conspiracy happened — is itself corrupt and illegitimate. That Trump benefited from illicit help in getting elected — whether or not he would have won without it is irrelevant — must not be acknowledged. Needless to say, nor can the fact that Trump’s top campaign officials eagerly tried to conspire in that effort (which Trump subsequently tried to conceal from the American people).

No congressional investigations of Trump are legitimate

a “The other argument Trump’s allies are making is essentially that no congressional investigations of any kind directed at the president are legitimate. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch claims in the above clip that it is a “remarkable abuse of power” that Democrats launched investigations without knowing beforehand whether there will be evidence of me warranting impeachment.”

Trump approvingly quoted Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Fox making a similar point. And Matthew Gertz notes that on “Fox & Friends,” there was even discussion that witnesses should decline to cooperate with Democrats for this same reason.

Behold the circular logic: No investigations that might lead to impeachment hearings later are legitimate because Democrats haven’t gathered sufficient evidence of impeachable offenses before launching their investigations, which conveniently rules out any investigations. In reality, not only is Congress supposed to exercise oversight; gathering facts before determining whether impeachment hearings are warranted is the correct order in which to do things.

Similarly, Trump also quoted Fox’s Sean Hannity claiming that due to Democratic investigations, “we the people will now be subjected” to “modern-day McCarthyism.” The “we the people” is interesting, since in 2018 a sizable popular majority elected Democrats to control the House and thus exercise oversight on Trump.

But making that fact disappear is central to Trumpian propaganda: Trump also quoted the buffoonish Ari Fleischer literally describing the 2016 campaign as the “last election," the verdict of which Democrats should heed by … not launching investigations.

What Fox personalities don’t want investigated:

The materials released by Judiciary Committee Democrats detail the documents they are seeking, as well as listing out the people in Trump’s orbit who are being asked to provide them. Thus, these materials provide a guide to what Fox’s personalities do not want investigated (that is, in addition to sabotage of our democracy, as noted above). A partial list:

Materials relating to any foreign government payments to Trump’s businesses, which might constitute violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

Materials that might shed light on Trump’s negotiations over the duration of a real estate project in Moscow, which Trump concealed from the voters even as the GOP primaries were underway.

Materials that might show whether Trump’s lawyers had a hand in rewriting former lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress falsifying the timeline of those negotiations.

Materials that might illuminate more detail about Trump’s numerous efforts to obstruct the FBI/Mueller investigation.

Materials that would shed more light on the criminal hush-money scheme that Cohen carried out, allegedly at Trump’s direction, and on Trump’s reimbursement of those payments.

To sum up: Fox personalities don’t think it’s legitimate to examine whether Trump corruptly enriched himself in violation of the Constitution; deceived Republican primary voters about the financial motives behind his foreign policy agenda; directed his personal lawyer to lie to Congress to cover that up; obstructed an investigation into a foreign attack on our democracy that his own top advisers eagerly tried to conspire with; or participated in a criminal scheme that concealed from voters massive campaign finance expenditures designed to cover up alleged affairs, while lying to the American people about it.

Trump’s long-term political prospects depend upon keeping millions and millions of his voters in thrall to the idea that investigations into all of these matters are at their core illegitimate efforts to overturn the 2016 election. But precisely because of the immense amount of wrongdoing, misconduct and lawlessness that has already been documented on Trump’s part, this in effect requires arguing that the president should be immune from accountability entirely.

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Drala