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

[onekidanddone]

36 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Fox contributor wants a medal for not owning slaves

 

Excuse me I'll be right back.  Please listen to this enjoyable hold music while I'm gone?

(Meanwhile OneKId runs out side to scream and windows shatter all up and down the block)

ETA: Did I say how much I hate that hair?

Edited March 19, 2019 by onekidanddone

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan joins board of Fox Corporation"

  Reveal hidden contents

New York (CNN Business)Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is joining the board of the newly slimmed-down Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News.

Ryan and three other board of directors were appointed on Tuesday. Appointing these directors was a necessary step as the Murdoch family wraps up the Disney-Fox deal.

Disney is acquiring most of 21st Century Fox, including its movie studio and entertainment cable channels. The deal will officially close at 12:02 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

The parts of Fox that aren't being acquired by Disney are forming a new company, simply called Fox, that will be run by Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan Murdoch.

Rupert will be co-chairman of the company -- a sign that he will remain right in the center of the fray.

Tuesday is the new Fox's first day as a standalone company, trading on the NASDAQ as FOXA and FOX.

The other new board members are Formula 1 chief Chase Carey, who has been a trusted Murdoch world insider for years; Annie Dias; and Roland Hernandez.

Jacques Nasser was previously named to the board, along with both Murdochs.

The Ryan appointment is the most noteworthy, given his history near the top of Republican politics. Ryan and Rupert Murdoch have been friendly for many years. In 2014, he named Ryan as a presidential contender he had "particular admiration for."

 

Ah, another example of the interchangeability between jobs with the Trump propaganda machine, the Trump Administration and as a Trump ass-licking Congress critter.

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

Excuse me I'll be right back.  Please listen to this enjoyable hold music while I'm gone?

(Meanwhile OneKId runs out side to scream and windows shatter all up and down the block)

ETA: Did I say how much I hate that hair?

I haven't killed or maimed anybody today, so Katie's gonna bring me a prize for behaving myself, right?

[smittykins]

And these are the people who bitch about participation trophies.

[front hugs > duggs]

There's a new Ricky Gervais scripted show on Netflix called After Life. There were only about 6 22-minute-ish episodes, so really easy to get through. Anyway, there was an exchange in the show between skeptic-Gervais and his co-worker, who is always trying to make the argument for Christianity/God/the Bible/organized religion. She asks, "if you don't believe in God, then how will you not rape and murder?" . Ricky replies that he rapes and murders all he wants, she looks horrified, and then he clarifies, "which isn't at all". 

Kind of off topic, but goes along with medals for decent behavior, even if it is fictional.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[JMarie]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Dana: "they should feel ashamed." Oh Dana, there is a very special place waiting for you....

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘I am pissed off’: Hannity and other Fox News hosts rage at Democrats, media over Mueller report"

Spoiler

Sean Hannity was in no mood to celebrate the news that the special counsel did not find coordination between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election. Instead, he was infuriated. There was no collusion, no obstruction, no conspiracy, he said, just as he had been telling his audience all along.

“You should be angry at what has happened here,” Hannity said. “All of America — I am pissed off and so should the rest of the country be over what has happened.”

While Monday was occasion for a victory lap for some Republican lawmakers and Trump allies, Hannity and the prime time hosts on Fox News approached the end of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s 22-month investigation with anger and vitriol toward Democratic lawmakers, intelligence officials, liberals and the media. Their message echoed President Trump’s own plan to seek “vengeance and accountability” from critics, as The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey reported, even as Democrats push for a full release of Mueller’s report and insist the president is far from vindicated by its findings.

"This must be a day of reckoning for the media, for the deep state, for people who abuse power, and they did it so blatantly in this country,” Hannity said. “If we do not get this right, if we do not hold these people accountable, I promise you, with all the love I can muster for this country and our future for our kids and grandkids, we will lose the greatest country God has ever given man. We will lose it.”

During the course of his 25-plus-minute monologue, Hannity, in a blue suit and red-and-white tie and wearing an FBI flag pin he said was given to him by an agent, accused Democrats and Trump’s adversaries, specifically former FBI director James B. Comey and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), of lying to the public.

“We will hold every liar, every propagandist, every conspiracy theorist accountable,” Hannity promised.

The same went for the media, he said, pointing out headlines from The Washington Post, the Atlantic and Vox that he claimed were false or unfair. He did the same for cable-news competitors CNN and MSNBC, playing past clips of hosts and pundits talking about potential Russian collusion. Labeling these outlets the “hate-Trump media mob,” Hannity also called out MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who, he said, “sold one conspiracy theory night after night after night.”

“Journalism, I told you in 2007, it’s dead, it’s buried and it’s not something I said lightly,” Hannity said. “They have earned their horrible reputations.”

As The Post’s Paul Farhi noted, Attorney General William P. Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings was a thunderclap for the mainstream media outlets that have emphasized the narrative that Trump may have colluded with Russia. This is especially so for the cable news networks, namely CNN and MSNBC, that have dedicated hundreds of hours of coverage on the topic. Despite the blowback from those siding with the president, national outlets are largely standing by their coverage.

In a dizzying display, Hannity then rattled off a number of stories in recent years in which, he said, the media was too quick to judge, with subjects ranging from the police-related deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Freddie Gray in Baltimore to accusations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and Jussie Smollett’s claims of a hate crime in Chicago. The host later welcomed Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer who was fresh off arguing with CNN’s Chris Cuomo that the network should apologize for having “tortured” Trump for the last two years.

Hannity also took time to praise many in conservative-leaning or right-wing media — talk-radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin and the crew at “Fox & Friends,” to name a few — for being “brave, logical, independent thinkers standing alone.”

“There would have been no one out there advocating for the truth, discovering the biggest abuse of power, scandal in our history,” Hannity said.

Leading into Hannity was Tucker Carlson, who, in addition to piling on about Kavanaugh and other stories the media was allegedly too quick to judge, questioned why liberals were supposedly not relieved that the president wasn’t “an agent of a foreign country.” The notion left Carlson not just befuddled but also disgusted.

“They are not celebrating for their country. They are not grateful,” Carlson said. “They are angrier than ever.”

Carlson, who equated those who believed Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia with people who said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, welcomed on Donald Trump Jr., a crucial player in the special counsel’s investigation. A key part of the case was Trump Jr.'s meeting in June 2016 with a Russian attorney who had promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. Calling the accusations of Russian collusion leveled against him, his father and associates “a stain on our Constitution,” the president’s eldest child said he was optimistic of what his father could accomplish now that the special counsel’s investigation is over.

“My father did amazing things with all of this stuff going on, with this cloud over his head,” Trump Jr. said. “Imagine what he could do if you could let him do his thing?” He then advised those still opposing his father to “sit this one out” and “jump on the Trump train.”

On Fox Business Network, Lou Dobbs called Monday “a great day, a grand day in America,” all while, featuring a graphic that read, “Vindicated & Exonerated.” The graphic was consistent with the president’s description of the report’s findings being “a complete and total exoneration.” In fact, in his summary Barr noted, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Democrats are pushing for Barr to testify and demanding a full accounting of the evidence in the special counsel’s investigation be made public. Though the president is not facing charges of Russian collusion, nearly every aspect of Trump’s business career remains under investigation by state or federal authorities, The Washington Post has reported.

Nevertheless, Dobbs took joy, he said, in those opponents of the president “seemingly writhing in pain today in the bright light of truth.”

“The president has prevailed against the evil forces that for a time challenged the republic itself,” Dobbs said.

At the start of Laura Ingraham’s show, the grinning host pondered to Hannity what “the meaning of life post-Mueller report” might look like for a network that has relentlessly echoed Trump’s claims that the entire case was a “witch hunt.”

“What will we do with all the time on our hands, Hannity?” she asked her Fox News colleague.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Hannity replied.

Though Ingraham echoed the “reckoning” theme of the night’s programming, she also took time to play the role of on-air adviser for the president. “He should take this moment as an opportunity to reset and relaunch his presidency,” she said. The graphics accompanying her talking points for taking things “into high-gear” included “secure border,” “find and deport illegals with removal orders” and “win over America.”

She concluded the segment reminding Trump, as if she were speaking directly to him, that he was charming and how he needed to show his heart to the American people. Then, she offered a piece of 2020 advice to Trump in what remains a new and unclear post-Mueller landscape.

“Now, gloating won’t get you reelected and neither will the Mueller report,” she advised, “but your record of success, properly framed and explained, that will. Which may be the best reckoning of all.”

 

[Howl]

The Trump Campaign, because Democrats have been going on TV saying stuff, has issued some journalistic guidelines they hope everybody will follow, BECAUSE IT'S NOW SETTLED THAT NOBODY COLLUDED EVER and it's all good. 

Anybody saying outlandish stuff to the contrary--it's just crazy talk.  Waiting for the first slander/libel lawsuits against journalists,  based on the claim that the contents of Barr's letter exonerate just everybody and anything else is slander/libel against Trump's good name, because 1st Amendment, scmirst amendment. 

They identify by name the following very naughty Trump critics: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Adam Shiff,  Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Eric Swalwell and DNC Chair Tom Perez. 

It's ingenious really; it conveniently ignores Congressional investigations, and implies that the Barr letter "trumps" all other forms of information from the intelligence community and others who testify. 

My Irony Meter doesn't go past 11, sadly. 

You'll have to read it on Scrib'd at this link

March 25, 2019 Memo from Trump 2020 Campaign Comms Director Tim Murtaugh to TV producers urging them not to book certain Democrats on their shows following the Mueller findings.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Howl

[mamallama]

This from the man who said on Fox news that he sent investigators to Hawaii who turned up proof that Obama was not born there.  

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Sean Hannity comes face to face with his own corruption"

Spoiler

Sean Hannity is a study in certainty. The mainstream media is corrupt. President Trump is a patriot and a fabulous president who has followed through on his campaign promises, despite a deep state dead set on his undoing. Democrats are awful. Absolutism, meet your designated television-news emissary.

A touch of hesitancy, though, crept into the unequivocal voice of Hannity on his Fox News program Wednesday night. It happened during an “interview” — actually the verbal equivalent of native advertising — with Trump, who’s fresh off the news that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III didn’t establish conspiracy between his presidential campaign and Russia. The two discussed the usual issues, including the media, supportive Fox News hosts, Trump’s greatness and so on.

As the wide-ranging discussion progressed, Hannity wanted to hear the president’s view on the Mueller team, a group that he accused of conducting a “witch hunt” at least 183 times on Twitter alone. “Hannity” frequently repeated the slam on his program. So he asked the president:

Let me ask you now, I was very critical of the team that Robert Mueller put together. You mentioned Andrew Weissmann — I’ve gone through his record — was at Hillary Clinton’s victory party. Only Democratic donors, no Republicans at all, no Republican donors, and also Jeannie Rhee who worked for the Clinton Foundation as a lawyer, was appointed. How do you feel about Mueller today? And were you surprised at all, considering the team that he picked in this particular case? It seemed pretty partisan Democrat. And I thought it was extraordinarily unfair to pick that biased a team.

So there’s the transcript. Now see the video:

It’s a watershed cable news moment, considering that Hannity is on videotape appearing to think.

Trump’s initial response was this: “Yeah, it didn’t seem to be biased. It was biased.”

At that point, Hannity could have jumped in and explored the very real issue that he had broached. But nah — he lapsed back into his role as a presidential workout coach: “That’s a good point,” he responded to the president. Then Trump talked a bit more about the Mueller team, his profound innocence and why all these investigators didn’t “look at all of these acts on the other side?”

“Hannity” was back on track.

As a matter of background, Hannity was understating things when he said he was “very critical” of the Mueller team. As the fossil record reflects, Hannity declared them unfit to fulfill their duties. On Dec. 5, 2017, just a half-year after Mueller was appointed, Hannity riffed on his show, “Tonight right here we have new and more smoking-gun evidence that Mueller’s handpicked minions or bunch of Trump-hating, Hillary-loving partisan hacks … are carrying out what I described as a witch hunt,” he said.

Upon the first anniversary of Mueller’s appointment, Hannity said, “Now, the special counsel has been so abusive, so corrupt, they are so conflicted that the president and his legal team they’re now rightly going on offense to combat the illicit deep state scheme.”

This was the line on “Hannity” for almost two years.

And so Hannity found himself in a pickle this week, after William P. Barr’s summary delivered the good news about Mueller’s findings about collusion. How could this group of biased hacks reach this righteous conclusion? If they were such partisan “minions” and were conflicted by their own allegiances, how in the world could they have produced a report that, to judge from the Barr summary, did not “establish” coordination and conspiracy?

Instead of belaboring those points, Hannity chose celebration. “We, on this program, have been right all along because, unlike the mainstream media, we have been telling the truth with evidence to back it up,” said the host Monday night.

In his exchange with Trump, though, he cracked the door for introspection. Had he opened it, he might have examined the difference between bias and opinion. As people often note through the use of a crude cliche, everyone has opinions. Just check out Facebook or Twitter. Bias is another question. As Michael Kinsley wrote for Slate magazine in 2000, bias is a different beast — “a failure to suppress your opinions.” In slamming Mueller’s team, Hannity was furthering the noxious “fallacy that having an opinion is the same as having a bias,” as Kinsley put it.

The context in which Kinsley discussed opinions and bias was journalism, a profession in which the topic commonly arises. But it applies to other professions where people judge the actions of politicians, such as prosecutors working a charged case in Washington. That Hannity has no appreciation for the central component of their professionalism spilled out of his talk with Trump on Wednesday night. To repeat the end of Hannity’s question to the president: “Were you surprised at all, considering the team that he picked in this particular case? It seemed pretty partisan Democrat. And I thought it was extraordinarily unfair to pick that biased a team.”

With elisions such as that one, Hannity not only slimed Mueller’s team; he also slimed the very idea that people with political leanings — everyone, that is — could capably set them aside and participate in an investigation of a sitting president. As it turns out, they could.

“In the end,” said Hannity on his show, “we now know the truth.” Right — thanks to the people and institutions that Hannity slandered and weakened with his nightly rubbish.

 

[fraurosena]

On 3/29/2019 at 1:06 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

"Sean Hannity comes face to face with his own corruption"

  Hide contents

Sean Hannity is a study in certainty. The mainstream media is corrupt. President Trump is a patriot and a fabulous president who has followed through on his campaign promises, despite a deep state dead set on his undoing. Democrats are awful. Absolutism, meet your designated television-news emissary.

A touch of hesitancy, though, crept into the unequivocal voice of Hannity on his Fox News program Wednesday night. It happened during an “interview” — actually the verbal equivalent of native advertising — with Trump, who’s fresh off the news that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III didn’t establish conspiracy between his presidential campaign and Russia. The two discussed the usual issues, including the media, supportive Fox News hosts, Trump’s greatness and so on.

As the wide-ranging discussion progressed, Hannity wanted to hear the president’s view on the Mueller team, a group that he accused of conducting a “witch hunt” at least 183 times on Twitter alone. “Hannity” frequently repeated the slam on his program. So he asked the president:

Let me ask you now, I was very critical of the team that Robert Mueller put together. You mentioned Andrew Weissmann — I’ve gone through his record — was at Hillary Clinton’s victory party. Only Democratic donors, no Republicans at all, no Republican donors, and also Jeannie Rhee who worked for the Clinton Foundation as a lawyer, was appointed. How do you feel about Mueller today? And were you surprised at all, considering the team that he picked in this particular case? It seemed pretty partisan Democrat. And I thought it was extraordinarily unfair to pick that biased a team.

So there’s the transcript. Now see the video:

It’s a watershed cable news moment, considering that Hannity is on videotape appearing to think.

Trump’s initial response was this: “Yeah, it didn’t seem to be biased. It was biased.”

At that point, Hannity could have jumped in and explored the very real issue that he had broached. But nah — he lapsed back into his role as a presidential workout coach: “That’s a good point,” he responded to the president. Then Trump talked a bit more about the Mueller team, his profound innocence and why all these investigators didn’t “look at all of these acts on the other side?”

“Hannity” was back on track.

As a matter of background, Hannity was understating things when he said he was “very critical” of the Mueller team. As the fossil record reflects, Hannity declared them unfit to fulfill their duties. On Dec. 5, 2017, just a half-year after Mueller was appointed, Hannity riffed on his show, “Tonight right here we have new and more smoking-gun evidence that Mueller’s handpicked minions or bunch of Trump-hating, Hillary-loving partisan hacks … are carrying out what I described as a witch hunt,” he said.

Upon the first anniversary of Mueller’s appointment, Hannity said, “Now, the special counsel has been so abusive, so corrupt, they are so conflicted that the president and his legal team they’re now rightly going on offense to combat the illicit deep state scheme.”

This was the line on “Hannity” for almost two years.

And so Hannity found himself in a pickle this week, after William P. Barr’s summary delivered the good news about Mueller’s findings about collusion. How could this group of biased hacks reach this righteous conclusion? If they were such partisan “minions” and were conflicted by their own allegiances, how in the world could they have produced a report that, to judge from the Barr summary, did not “establish” coordination and conspiracy?

Instead of belaboring those points, Hannity chose celebration. “We, on this program, have been right all along because, unlike the mainstream media, we have been telling the truth with evidence to back it up,” said the host Monday night.

In his exchange with Trump, though, he cracked the door for introspection. Had he opened it, he might have examined the difference between bias and opinion. As people often note through the use of a crude cliche, everyone has opinions. Just check out Facebook or Twitter. Bias is another question. As Michael Kinsley wrote for Slate magazine in 2000, bias is a different beast — “a failure to suppress your opinions.” In slamming Mueller’s team, Hannity was furthering the noxious “fallacy that having an opinion is the same as having a bias,” as Kinsley put it.

The context in which Kinsley discussed opinions and bias was journalism, a profession in which the topic commonly arises. But it applies to other professions where people judge the actions of politicians, such as prosecutors working a charged case in Washington. That Hannity has no appreciation for the central component of their professionalism spilled out of his talk with Trump on Wednesday night. To repeat the end of Hannity’s question to the president: “Were you surprised at all, considering the team that he picked in this particular case? It seemed pretty partisan Democrat. And I thought it was extraordinarily unfair to pick that biased a team.”

With elisions such as that one, Hannity not only slimed Mueller’s team; he also slimed the very idea that people with political leanings — everyone, that is — could capably set them aside and participate in an investigation of a sitting president. As it turns out, they could.

“In the end,” said Hannity on his show, “we now know the truth.” Right — thanks to the people and institutions that Hannity slandered and weakened with his nightly rubbish.

 

Isn't it remarkable that while establishing the so-called bias of Mueller's team, Hannity and the presidunce are still praising the (supposed) outcome of Mueller's -- miraculously unbiased -- report? 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

So, several talking heads on MSNBC and elsewhere have made various points about Trump's base, and a few have noted that Trump's base seems to be shrinking.  What that's based on, I don't know.  Polls, maybe? If indeed Trump's base is shrinking, wouldn't that be reflected in lower viewer numbers for shows like Hannity's daily screeching screed and general fawning about Trump's greatness and overall magnificence?  If Hannity's viewer ship were dropping, Fox would almost certainly try to cover that up.  But I don't think it is.  I think the base is just as rabid and nuts as ever and there are few defectors. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Cecily Strong does such an awesome job as Judge Jeanine Pirro:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Now we know why Tucker Carlson won’t apologize"

Spoiler

Fox News host Tucker Carlson was forced in March to look in the mirror. A batch of decade-old radio recordings unearthed by Media Matters for America exposed Carlson’s awful thoughts on women, race and other topics. In these talks with shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, Carlson called Iraqis “semiliterate primitive monkeys” and proposed this conversational tack: “If you’re talking to a feminist, and she’s given you, ‘Well, men really need to be more sensitive,’ [say] no, actually, men don’t need to be more sensitive. You just need to be quiet and kind of do what you’re told.”

Ignoring all the offensive remarks wasn’t an option, so Carlson opted for intransigence:

“Usual ritual contrition” is commonly known as “an apology” — which is an expression that something you’ve done in the past is wrong or misguided. Considering that Carlson refused to issue one, it’s fair to conclude that everything he said in those radio sessions remains his profound conviction.

On Carlson’s Fox News program Monday night, he disclosed another reason he might just resist apologizing for something: It’s for sissies. The revelation came as Carlson was attacking Chris Hayes, the prime-time host over at MSNBC. His gripe was that Hayes last Friday hosted an event at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). The topic was the Green New Deal.

Carlson didn’t approve. “This apparently seemed like a wise idea to executives over at NBC,” he said on his program. “The very same news outlet that spent two years lying to you about Russia brings you a 29-year-old former bartender to teach you about science.”

Then Carlson personalized his media criticism: “Chris Hayes is what every man would be if feminists ever achieve absolute power in this country. Apologetic, bespectacled and deeply, deeply concerned about global warming and the patriarchal systems that cause it.”

Bolding added for a reason: Men who express regrets for their mistakes are acting in the spirit of feminists. We can’t have that, much less a man who doesn’t wear glasses.

There’s a through line between Carlson’s view of apologies and Fox News’s prime-time lineup. Many of the folks who appointment-watch Carlson and Sean Hannity also support Trump, for whom not apologizing is a foundational ethic. Think of the Mexican-rapists comments, the insults against John McCain, and the offensive remarks about Haiti and about the Charlottesville protesters, not to mention many other outrages.

If the president won’t say he’s sorry, why should Carlson? Just leave that to the feminist men over at MSNBC.

 

[JMarie]

This chyron on The Ingraham Angle: "Second airport bans Chick-Fil-A and its' glorious fried chicken"

I can't even.

 

Edited April 4, 2019 by JMarie
extra angst

[47of74]

Went to the gym today. Guess what the tv by the machine I decided to work out on had on. That’s right, blowhole central.

Got up and changed it right away and was fully prepared to whip out my leg felt like someone dropped a piano on it if anyone complained so I was gonna change it to what I goddamn well wanted.

I fornicating HATE when blowhole central is on tvs at the gym. Even if the sound is off it makes it hard to focus on exercise.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Tucker Carlson floats a theory: What if Trump is secretly trying to sink his own reelection bid?"

Spoiler

Between an argument for cultural assimilation and gibes at freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked his viewers on Thursday night to consider a hypothetical situation.

What if President Trump were sick of being president, he mused, and wanted to doom his own chances of reelection?

“It wouldn’t be a crazy conclusion,” said Carlson, who did not apologize last month after the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America surfaced old recordings of him making racist and sexist remarks. “How would you like to spend your 70s locked in the White House?”

But what would the commander in chief need to do, practically speaking, to arrange his escape?

Carlson offered some ideas, in what amounted to a thinly veiled broadside against the president. The segment stood out at a network — the most watched on American cable — that has been extraordinarily friendly with the White House.

Its hosts ape Trump’s rhetoric about the border and the special counsel’s Russia probe. And he rewards them in turn, defending Jeanine Pirro when she was sidelined after suggesting that a Democratic congresswoman was disloyal to the Constitution because she wore a hijab. Sean Hannity appeared onstage with the president at a rally before the midterm election last fall.

But Carlson, who also on Thursday professed not to know what a “white nationalist” was, strives to cut a different figure. He has not shied away from disparaging the president. Asked in a December interview with the Swiss weekly “Die Weltwoche" whether Trump has “achieved nothing,” the Fox host answered bluntly: “Not much. Not much."

It was a winter of some discontent at Fox News, where several of its most visible personalities denounced the compromise that Trump was forced to accept to keep the government open. Hannity called the deal “garbage.”

But Carlson’s suggestion that Trump may be actively seeking to avoid a second term, and, if not, that his administration is so severely off the rails that self-sabotage is a reasonable interpretation of his approach to governing, marked an escalation of his criticism.

It all began much more subtly. What if the president were trying to lose?

First, he would cut Medicare.

“That’s something that nobody outside the libertarian symposia circuit wants to see,” Carlson said.

Second, he would slash funding for the federal E-Verify database, an electronic system that enables employers to check documents provided by new hires against government records.

“That would allow companies to keep hiring illegal alien labor, in violation of a key campaign promise,” Carlson observed.

In further engineering his own defeat, Carlson said, Trump might allow more low-skilled workers into the country, reduce the prison sentences of people convicted of drug crimes and “continue our pointless military intervention in Syria, which in no way benefits the United States.”

“If the president did all that, the message would be very clear,” the Fox host said. “He has no idea what he ran on in 2016. He just wants out.”

But if voters still didn’t get the message — perhaps they were “too distracted by the Russia hoax to notice,” Carlson said — one final move could really drive the message home.

“You’d raise gas taxes,” he said.

The punchline was that the Trump administration has done — or is reportedly thinking about doing — each of these things.

Notably, among the policies that Carlson identified as misguided, several have been championed by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has aligned himself against Trump’s more nationalist and economically populist impulses and influences.

These policies include the First Step Act, signed into law in December, which eases sentencing requirements for nonviolent drug offenders. More recently, Kushner has been working on a plan that would bring more low- and high-skilled workers to the United States legally, according to Politico.

Some of the other changes denounced by Carlson reflect priorities in Trump’s 2020 budget proposal, unveiled last month. The blueprint, which is subject to considerable congressional revision, includes $845 billion less in Medicare spending over the next 10 years. It also cuts funding for E-Verify.

In February, Trump decided to leave 400 U.S. troops in Syria, after declaring in December that he was bringing all American forces home “now.”

Finally, the administration is reportedly open to raising gas taxes, an idea that could put Trump on common ground with some congressional Democrats.

To Carlson, that possibility was most troubling of all. Increasing levies on gas, he said, is "so mindless and counterproductive there’s literally no way you could get reelected after doing it."

“And, in fact, the administration is proposing just that,” he said incredulously.

He said the policy is popular in the capital because political heavyweights are “too rich to care what gas costs.”

“But if you live outside the coastal cities, and you’re not rich, higher gas prices are a disaster,” Carlson said.

In fact, Carlson’s view is in line with the consensus on the Hill about the political hazards of asking more of people at the pump, even though numerous presidents, including Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton, increased levies on fuel in their first terms and won reelection. Still, in a case study of how vexed the issue can be, France recently backed down from a plan to raise diesel prices after violent demonstrations by yellow-vested protesters.

The Fox host called the idea “nuts,” adding, “If you’re really sick of the job, go with the gas tax.”

The possible playbook for political suicide featured as an interlude Thursday in a show otherwise focused on Ocasio-Cortez, whom Carlson called an “idiot."

He pilloried the 29-year-old for her comments about immigration, accusing her of shutting down debate.

According to Carlson, it is impossible to have a “serious” conversation about the border because “you are met with either accusations that you’re a racist or a white nationalist — whatever that is; you’re a bad person." Or, he sad, "you’re met with these, again, platitudes.” He chided his interlocutor, Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo, “Please don’t quote the poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty to me.”

The aside by the Fox host, who has been accused of both parroting white nationalists and inspiring them, sounded similar notes that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) struck when he inquired, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

Carlson also ridiculed concerns about climate change.

“How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science?” he asked, mocking a study that addresses the relationship between gender norms and environmental consciousness.

Ocasio-Cortez, ever the eager combatant, fired back, writing on Twitter, “Democracy and civil rights is how we got a country where ‘feminists do science.’”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Tucker Carlson floats a theory: What if Trump is secretly trying to sink his own reelection bid?"

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Between an argument for cultural assimilation and gibes at freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked his viewers on Thursday night to consider a hypothetical situation.

What if President Trump were sick of being president, he mused, and wanted to doom his own chances of reelection?

“It wouldn’t be a crazy conclusion,” said Carlson, who did not apologize last month after the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America surfaced old recordings of him making racist and sexist remarks. “How would you like to spend your 70s locked in the White House?”

But what would the commander in chief need to do, practically speaking, to arrange his escape?

Carlson offered some ideas, in what amounted to a thinly veiled broadside against the president. The segment stood out at a network — the most watched on American cable — that has been extraordinarily friendly with the White House.

Its hosts ape Trump’s rhetoric about the border and the special counsel’s Russia probe. And he rewards them in turn, defending Jeanine Pirro when she was sidelined after suggesting that a Democratic congresswoman was disloyal to the Constitution because she wore a hijab. Sean Hannity appeared onstage with the president at a rally before the midterm election last fall.

But Carlson, who also on Thursday professed not to know what a “white nationalist” was, strives to cut a different figure. He has not shied away from disparaging the president. Asked in a December interview with the Swiss weekly “Die Weltwoche" whether Trump has “achieved nothing,” the Fox host answered bluntly: “Not much. Not much."

It was a winter of some discontent at Fox News, where several of its most visible personalities denounced the compromise that Trump was forced to accept to keep the government open. Hannity called the deal “garbage.”

But Carlson’s suggestion that Trump may be actively seeking to avoid a second term, and, if not, that his administration is so severely off the rails that self-sabotage is a reasonable interpretation of his approach to governing, marked an escalation of his criticism.

It all began much more subtly. What if the president were trying to lose?

First, he would cut Medicare.

“That’s something that nobody outside the libertarian symposia circuit wants to see,” Carlson said.

Second, he would slash funding for the federal E-Verify database, an electronic system that enables employers to check documents provided by new hires against government records.

“That would allow companies to keep hiring illegal alien labor, in violation of a key campaign promise,” Carlson observed.

In further engineering his own defeat, Carlson said, Trump might allow more low-skilled workers into the country, reduce the prison sentences of people convicted of drug crimes and “continue our pointless military intervention in Syria, which in no way benefits the United States.”

“If the president did all that, the message would be very clear,” the Fox host said. “He has no idea what he ran on in 2016. He just wants out.”

But if voters still didn’t get the message — perhaps they were “too distracted by the Russia hoax to notice,” Carlson said — one final move could really drive the message home.

“You’d raise gas taxes,” he said.

The punchline was that the Trump administration has done — or is reportedly thinking about doing — each of these things.

Notably, among the policies that Carlson identified as misguided, several have been championed by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has aligned himself against Trump’s more nationalist and economically populist impulses and influences.

These policies include the First Step Act, signed into law in December, which eases sentencing requirements for nonviolent drug offenders. More recently, Kushner has been working on a plan that would bring more low- and high-skilled workers to the United States legally, according to Politico.

Some of the other changes denounced by Carlson reflect priorities in Trump’s 2020 budget proposal, unveiled last month. The blueprint, which is subject to considerable congressional revision, includes $845 billion less in Medicare spending over the next 10 years. It also cuts funding for E-Verify.

In February, Trump decided to leave 400 U.S. troops in Syria, after declaring in December that he was bringing all American forces home “now.”

Finally, the administration is reportedly open to raising gas taxes, an idea that could put Trump on common ground with some congressional Democrats.

To Carlson, that possibility was most troubling of all. Increasing levies on gas, he said, is "so mindless and counterproductive there’s literally no way you could get reelected after doing it."

“And, in fact, the administration is proposing just that,” he said incredulously.

He said the policy is popular in the capital because political heavyweights are “too rich to care what gas costs.”

“But if you live outside the coastal cities, and you’re not rich, higher gas prices are a disaster,” Carlson said.

In fact, Carlson’s view is in line with the consensus on the Hill about the political hazards of asking more of people at the pump, even though numerous presidents, including Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton, increased levies on fuel in their first terms and won reelection. Still, in a case study of how vexed the issue can be, France recently backed down from a plan to raise diesel prices after violent demonstrations by yellow-vested protesters.

The Fox host called the idea “nuts,” adding, “If you’re really sick of the job, go with the gas tax.”

The possible playbook for political suicide featured as an interlude Thursday in a show otherwise focused on Ocasio-Cortez, whom Carlson called an “idiot."

He pilloried the 29-year-old for her comments about immigration, accusing her of shutting down debate.

According to Carlson, it is impossible to have a “serious” conversation about the border because “you are met with either accusations that you’re a racist or a white nationalist — whatever that is; you’re a bad person." Or, he sad, "you’re met with these, again, platitudes.” He chided his interlocutor, Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo, “Please don’t quote the poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty to me.”

The aside by the Fox host, who has been accused of both parroting white nationalists and inspiring them, sounded similar notes that Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) struck when he inquired, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

Carlson also ridiculed concerns about climate change.

“How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science?” he asked, mocking a study that addresses the relationship between gender norms and environmental consciousness.

Ocasio-Cortez, ever the eager combatant, fired back, writing on Twitter, “Democracy and civil rights is how we got a country where ‘feminists do science.’”

 

Is Carlson preparing the Faux viewership for a presiduncial loss in the 2020 elections? If so, what does Tucker really know? Is he aware of the mental decline? Or does he have knowledge of certain repugliklan donor's diminished enthusiasm for a second term? Or does he know the base is in decline? Or a combination of all three? 

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Is Carlson preparing the Faux viewership for a presiduncial loss in the 2020 elections? If so, what does Tucker really know? Is he aware of the mental decline? Or does he have knowledge of certain repugliklan donor's diminished enthusiasm for a second term? Or does he know the base is in decline? Or a combination of all three? 

All such good questions.  This article on Tucker Carlson is one of the more mind-blowing I've read (and my mind is constantly exploding during this administration).   I'm ever hopeful that people are waking up to how horrible and harmful this president has been, so I'll grasp at any straws that indicate a change in the political wind (not caused by those cancer-causing windmills, ha ha). 

I wonder who looks most promising on a replacement candidate.  Steve King?  Mike Pence?  Sean Hannity?  (I'm kidding, I hope!)  In the meantime, I'll be watching for other indications that Faux is starting to distance itself from Trump and sidekicks.

[fraurosena]

He came to this realization a bit late, don't you think? Better late than never though.