Faux 4: A News Channel That Shows No News

[GreyhoundFan]

Judge Box O'Whine sounds like she's hit the sauce early:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting monologue:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

16 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

As if Faux News was ever a news network.  

[Xan]

It appears that Fox News is covering the hearing today.  Wonder why?  Is it because it's laudatory regarding Pence?  Maybe they think people won't watch their channel in the middle of the day?

[Xan]

Fox News still hasn't cut away from the hearings.  I wonder what the usual Fox Viewer thinks about this?  I'm sure they're lapping up the talk about Bible readings and prayers.  Will they finally turn on Trump when they realize he must have wanted Pence killed?

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

24 minutes ago, Xan said:

Fox News still hasn't cut away from the hearings.  I wonder what the usual Fox Viewer thinks about this?  I'm sure they're lapping up the talk about Bible readings and prayers.  Will they finally turn on Trump when they realize he must have wanted Pence killed?

Oh, to be the hamsters running on the hamster wheels that power the brains of Fox News viewers right now.......

[Xan]

For what it's worth, they followed the hearing with some talking heads.  Jonathan Turley was one of them and he kept talking about how much more legitimate it would have been if there had been more Republican voices amongst the committee.  That's about all they've got.  The evidence speaks for itself.  They just have to smear the committee as partisan to discount everything.  It's tricky because Pence comes out smelling like a rose and they might need Pence later.  And I imagine they're not sure about what to do about all these Republican staffers testifying as to what Crooked Donny was doing.

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

As usual, Faux is right on top of the most important news of the day:

[GreyhoundFan]

My eyes hurt from rolling:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

My eyes hurt from rolling:

 

I’ve seen better dance moves on funeral home commercials. 

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

I’ve seen better dance moves on funeral home commercials. 

But none as good as these:

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

2 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

But none as good as these:

 

Trump and Faux WISH he could bust a move like Elaine! At least she can do more than a side to side motion that could easily be mistaken for “I am having a medical emergency.” Faux News slobbering over it really is so gross. I don’t know who the guy who was forced to spew those words but I hope for his sake he gets paid gigantic figures to embarrass himself because it would take a lot of zeroes at the end of my check to convince me to play head assclown in the Trump circus. Frankly, I don’t think there is enough money in the world to get me to actually compliment the guy who was cut from the pre-screenings for the local tryouts for the Laurence Welk dancers. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Judge: Fox Corp. can’t wiggle out of Dominion’s ‘big lie’ lawsuit"

Quote

The most famous hosts at Fox News have long boasted that Rupert Murdoch, the company patriarch, endorses their commentary, or at least their right to blast it over his airwaves. “I’m 100 percent his bitch,” Tucker Carlson said in a 2010 radio appearance. “Whatever Mr. Murdoch says, I do.”

That dynamic — the role of Fox Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch and his son, Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch, in the programming of Fox News — is at the center of a closely watched lawsuit in Delaware. In 2021, Dominion Voting Systems filed a suit against Fox News, several of its anchors and pro-Trump guests, and an additional action against its corporate parent, Fox Corp., and Fox Broadcasting. Both actions stemmed from claims on the network that Dominion had participated in a nationwide voter-fraud scheme that deprived then-President Donald Trump of victory in the 2020 presidential election. Those claims were baseless.

Delaware Judge Eric M. Davis on Tuesday rejected Fox Corp.’s motion to dismiss, concluding that Dominion had “adequately pleaded proximate causation based on its ‘factual allegations of wrongdoing attributable to the corporate parent’ — i.e., Fox Corporation.” The ruling follows similar court defeats for the conglomerate: In December, Davis rejected a dismissal motion in Dominion’s case against Fox News, and in March a New York judge did likewise in a defamation suit brought against Fox News, Fox Corp. and others by voting firm Smartmatic.

These developments turn up the heat on Fox News and its corporate parent for what stands out as the most irresponsible and destructive strain of coverage at a network that specializes in such material. And Tuesday’s ruling by Davis is particularly important because it invigorates a proceeding focused on Fox Corp. management — the folks poised to stop it all.

Rarely has defamation law been invoked for more righteous ends.

In its initial complaint in the Fox Corp. case, Dominion’s attorneys mined a trove of reporting on the Murdochs’ hands-on management of Fox News. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter cited in the complaint, for instance, current Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott noted that Rupert Murdoch “methodically got himself fully entrenched in our day-to-day operation” following the 2016 ouster of then-Fox News chief Roger Ailes.

Another crisis emerged after the 2020 presidential election, according to the Dominion suit. Fact-based coverage by Fox News’s Decision Desk — which called Arizona early for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, triggering a MAGA backlash against the network — pushed core viewers toward other right-wing cable networks, including Newsmax and One America News (OAN), as the suit notes. Fox News’s two-decade ride atop the cable-news ratings appeared just a touch wobbly. Rupert Murdoch, accordingly, “reengaged” in Fox News’s decision-making.

Although Murdoch allowed Fox News to repeat the “big lie” conspiracy theories about Dominion and Smartmatic, the Dominion complaint notes that the Murdoch-controlled New York Post took a different tack. It editorialized that Trump should halt his “‘stolen election’ rhetoric” and knock off the “baseless conspiracies.” The Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch-controlled property, carried a similar message: “Mr. Trump’s legacy will be diminished greatly if his final act is a bitter refusal to accept a legitimate defeat,” the Journal editorialized on Nov. 7, 2020.

Dominion alleges that these contradictions — stolen election claims on Fox News; refutations of those claims in the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal — were proof of the Murdochs’ state of mind. “Given the concerns about rivals such as Newsmax and OAN, it is not surprising that although Rupert Murdoch did not believe President Trump’s election fraud claims, he nevertheless encouraged on-air personalities to perpetuate these claims,” reads the complaint.

In its motion to dismiss, Fox Corp. argued that the voting-tech company had failed to establish any “direct claims” against the defendant, among other rebuttals concerning the liability of a parent company for the actions of a subsidiary. “No individual at Fox Corporation is alleged to be a defamatory speaker, nor a producer, researcher, or editor of any of the challenged statements at issue,” reads the motion.

That defense didn’t impress Davis, who laid out why he allowed the Dominion suit to move forward:

Dominion alleges that: (1) Rupert Murdoch “controls everything” within Fox News; (2) when viewership of Fox News declined after the election, Rupert Murdoch stepped in “to call the shots directly;” (3) Rupert Murdoch “encouraged on-air personalities to perpetuate [] baseless claims” about Dominion after he and Lachlan Murdoch made a “‘business calculation’ to spread lies;” and (4) Fox Corporation “rewarded” those at Fox News who complied and “punished” those who did not.

What’s more, Davis found Dominion’s arguments about the discrepancies between Fox News and Murdoch newspapers on the “big lie” sufficient to overcome Fox Corp.’s motion to dismiss. The disconnect, writes Davis, drives at the “actual malice” standard required in some defamation cases. The allegations presented in the complaint, Davis writes, “support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion.”

The ruling finds that Dominion has “pleaded facts” sufficient to mount a legal claim in Delaware; at this point, the suit has not prevailed. Also: Davis granted a motion to dismiss Dominion’s claim against Fox Broadcasting, another part of the Fox conglomerate named as a defendant.

Fox declined to comment on the ruling.

Now comes a painful period for Fox Corp., which will have to deal with discovery requests from Dominion. (Fox Corp. argued in a court filing that the entire Dominion case against it represented Dominion’s “latest gambit in a series of discovery disputes” in its other case against Fox News.) That process could add meat and seasoning to the bare-bones depictions of Fox Corp. editorial interventions cited in the Dominion complaint.

It’s past time for such an excavation: Rupert Murdoch has presided over madness at Fox News. For too long he has let employees — Fox News hosts and PR types — provide the specious and disingenuous responses to network outrages.

He needs to be heard. And a deposition would be a dandy setting for such an imperative.

 

[Audrey2]

Oh tucker, you should just shut up now. Every time you open your mouth part of your brain leaks out and you don't have any brain to spare.

Tucker Carlson says corporations are helping their employees get an out-of-state abortion because those 'without families are much cheaper for the company'

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tucker-carlson-says-corporations-helping-151955813.html

Spoiler

Tucker Carlson on Friday said corporations that help their employees secure abortions are "against families."

Several US companies offered to pay travel costs for employees seeking an abortion out of state.

"Well, of course, employees without families are much cheaper for the company," Carlson said.

Tucker Carlson on Friday said companies that help their employees get abortions are "against families."

The Fox News host on an episode of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" played a clip of President Joe Biden denouncing the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right nationwide.

"Notice that it's abortion that is the red line for them," Carlson said. "Abortion? Of all the issues, why is that so important to them?"

It's obvious why it's so important to America's corporations, almost all of whom immediately weighed in to say, 'We'll fly you to get an abortion at the state of your choice,'" Carlson continued. "Well, of course, employees without families are much cheaper for the company."

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision Friday, various companies such as Disney, Netflix, and Meta have vowed to provide their employees with financial assistance to help them travel out of state to receive an abortion.

It's much cheaper to pay for an abortion than it is to pay for maternity leave, or an extra name on the insurance policy," Carlson said. "So, it's all about the money for corporate America. It always is. Families are bad for big corporations. Therefore, they're against families."

 

Maybe these companies actually like having women employees instead of broodmares. Maybe these companies value the contribution of women and understand that if they have really large families or serious pregnancy complications that they would not be able to continue working. Or maybe these companies just aren't neanderthals and feel like women should have bodily autonomy.

[front hugs > duggs]

I work for Disney, one of the companies who vowed to help employees if needed. They also offer a lifetime max of $75k for fertility/surrogacy/adoption fees, and are especially promoting that for LGBTQ+ families during pride month. Pretty sure they are just supporting their cast…

[GreyhoundFan]

More stupidity on Faux:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Tucker Carlson’s bizarro-Jan. 6 hearings aim to indict the government"

Quote

What Tucker Carlson hopes to do is not complicated.

Since Joe Biden was inaugurated as president, the Fox News host has cast his administration as actively hostile to the political right in broad, often racially focused terms. On Jan. 20, 2021, the day of the inauguration, Carlson chose to focus on Biden’s denunciation of white nationalist and domestic extremism, casting it as a condemnation of any Republican.

“There’s a new regime in power, and they seem to be planning to accelerate things dramatically,” Carlson warned. “They’re getting the FBI and the Pentagon involved in this hunt for people who may criticize them. That’s a very big change, and you should understand what it’s really about.”

Biden was responding in large part to the riot at the Capitol two weeks before, of course — and Carlson was reacting in response, identifying the dangerous element in the country as the government. He has continued to do so over the course of Biden’s term in office, and particularly as it pertains to the riot itself. Carlson has consistently woven a conspiratorial narrative about government officials leveraging state power against innocent Americans. It’s easy to lose sight of how often Carlson makes false or debunked claims; when I cobbled together a cursory list in January, it included 13 items just in the past few years largely centered on the idea that the government or the elites who control it are the enemy.

But, again: it’s when the subject is that Capitol riot that Carlson really flies free. Since the House select committee investigating the day’s violence began holding public hearings to detail its evidence, Carlson has created a sort of bizarro-world alternative, giving airtime to conspiracy theorists focused on casting doubt on the government and interviewing individuals who have been a target of the committee’s probe.

On the day of the first such hearing earlier this month, one scheduled for prime time, Fox News chose not to air the committee’s work. Instead, Carlson hosted his show as normal. And by “as normal,” I mean in terms of content, as well. While viewers on the major broadcast networks and Fox’s competitors were hearing the first articulation of how the riot unfolded and how President Donald Trump contributed to the day’s violence, Carlson’s viewers were hearing broad diminishments of the committee’s work. Worse, they were hearing long-debunked and unfounded conspiracy theories about the involvement of federal agents in stoking the day’s violence, including from a former Trump administration official whose ties to white nationalists led to his leaving his position.

Carlson wasn’t simply ignoring the hearing. He was holding a hearing of his own, in which he presented unsubstantiated allegations about how the real danger from the riot was the government response.

In a hearing last week, the House committee focused on the role of a former Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark in attempting to upend the leadership of the department to aid Trump’s election-fraud snipe hunt. It aired footage of Clark’s refusal to answer questions and included testimonial and documentary evidence showing how Clark went behind his superiors’ backs as Trump contemplated making him acting attorney general.

So, of course, Carlson’s bizarro hearing during his show that evening featured an interview with none other than Jeffrey Clark. The focus of the conversation was not the allegations made by the committee, something neither Carlson or Clark had any interest in adjudicating. Instead it was how Clark had been targeted by federal investigators, his home searched by law enforcement officers armed with a warrant. These, Clark said, were “Stasi-like” tactics — though Carlson preferred to describe them as “Stalinist,” since that shifted the blame to political leaders, not simply the police.

Clark was no doubt happy to find an ally willing to let him complain about being a focus of the government’s investigation, but that may have obscured that Carlson was using him. Carlson isn’t interested in Clark’s situation. He’s interested in having his viewers see Clark as just another White male Republican whom the Biden regime is trying to silence and punish — a view that demands treating Clark’s actual transgressions as incidental or unimportant.

On Monday night, it was John Eastman’s turn. The former Trump attorney appeared on Carlson’s show in the wake of news reports that his cellphone had been seized by federal investigators. Eastman’s role in Trump’s effort to seize a second term in office is well-established, involving promotion of a strategy to have Vice President Mike Pence simply dismiss submitted electoral votes and having state legislators bolster Trump slates on flimsy pretexts. Eastman worked hard to help Trump reject the will of the electorate and encouraged a focus on Pence that led directly to the threat the vice president faced on that day.

Or, as Carlson’s bizarro-hearing posited Monday night, Eastman is the real victim of all of this.

“They’re forcing those of us that, you know, don’t bow the knee to the Biden administration,” Eastman breathlessly asserted, “to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to protect our constitutional rights and those of our clients!” He offered a URL for people to contribute to his legal costs.

Carlson, of course, made this about his viewers, saying at one point that “it’s just another reminder to anyone who didn’t vote for Joe Biden to erase your texts and emails every single day. And that is a sincere piece of advice I hope everyone follows.” After all, this isn’t about Eastman very obviously trying to challenge the pattern of transferring power after a democratic election. It’s about how Biden wants to lock up a guy in Kansas who’s watching Fox News in prime time and sharing “Let’s go, Brandon” memes on Facebook. This Carlson again described as “Stalinist.”

(As for Eastman’s actual legal claims, allow law professor Orin Kerr to evaluate them.)

This is how it goes. Carlson’s goal is to offer a counterweight to the House committee’s work, to present testimony that casts that investigation as the real threat to America and to Americans. He doesn’t need to offer much to accomplish that goal, of course; his audience is already primed to believe his thesis and needs little evidence for it to be reinforced. Carlson’s bizarro version of adjudicating the Capitol riot has far lower evidentiary standards, which suits his needs just fine.

Incidentally, Carlson is taping his show from Brazil this week. He’ll interview the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, someone whose indifference to liberal democracy will seem very familiar to longtime Carlson viewers.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I have several cousins who live in AZ. None of them told me there were drag shows in the schools there like this nut job is alleging.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief:

 

[Howl]

Erma Gerd, y'all, that moment right after today's hearing ends and the Fox blathering heads are too gobsmacked to generate any disinfo or spin. The may be one of the best things in TV ever in the history of ever: 

From Mark Follman in the next tweet: "the takeaway here: in the absence of Jim Jordan gaslighting, they literally don’t know what to say"

[GreyhoundFan]

Just when you think she couldn't get worse, Laura hits a new level of stupidity. So Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath because she needed hugs? Good grief.