What a surprise, top talent at Fox News fired for sexual misconduct. Again. Read the rest

• POTUS says federal government will resubmit papers on DACA

• 'FOX IS TERRIBLE!'

• He's feeling weak and vulnerable, and he's lashing out against Fox News.

In a series of crazy-ass tweets on Friday morning, impeached and obviously unfit U.S. president Donald J. Trump says he will renew his effort to end legal protections for young immigrants, after the Supreme Court blocked his first try just yesterday in an historic ruling. Read the rest

“What we’re talking about here, it’s not the front page of the New York Times. It’s 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' which is a commentary show,” Fox News lawyer argued, defending lawsuit from Karen McDougal

To be fair, it would not be wholly inaccurate to describe the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone as an autonomous anarcho-syndicalist collective. But sadly, strange women in lakes and handing out swords might in fact be a better system of government than the one we tend to see promoted on Fox News. Read the rest

This was on Fox News, as reported by a number of reporters and viewers: a chart showing upticks in the S&P 500 stock index after killings of black people and the acquittal of the police offers filmed beating Rodney King. The defense is that it's a fact. Facts can't be racist, can they? There's no element of choice in how facts are identified, put in context and presented, is there? Maybe Fox News is actually critiquing capitalism!

I have revised the old joke from The Simpsons to bring it up to date. ↓

2. Here’s the video of the graphic as it aired on Fox News this evening. pic.twitter.com/Iww2DnzkkI

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 5, 2020

Someone pitched this.

Someone dug up these data.

Someone made this graphic.

Someone approved this. @SusanLiTV fronted it. pic.twitter.com/ltmbEMPDf5

— David Gura (@davidgura) June 6, 2020

Read the rest

• Fox News personality who once proudly boasted on TV of not having washed hands in 10 years tells Americans to go out and get coronavirus on purpose

In this clip, Fox News' Pete Hegseth calls for people to go out and get infected by coronavirus. Read the rest

Very cool and normal.

'The virus just isn't nearly as deadly as we thought it was'

Remember the Senators who cashed out after private briefings held before the market collapse began? Similar games are afoot in conservative media: before Fox News called coronavirus a hoax and a Dem plot to destroy trump, they were disinfecting offices, installing hand sanitizer stations throughout the building, and canceling meetings and sales events.

This exercise in contrasts is brought to you by Lachlan Murdoch, the media princeling who runs the place.

... as the crisis took hold, there were more than two weeks of statements like Laura Ingraham’s assertion on Feb. 27 that Democratic criticism was “more unsettling” than the virus and Mr. Hannity’s allegation on March 9 that political opponents were trying to “bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.” Finally, after an obscure Fox Business host, Trish Regan, ranted that the coronavirus issue was “another attempt to impeach the president,” the network pivoted.

The damage Fox did appears likely to extend beyond the typical media hits and misses. I asked Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Public Health Institute, who appeared on Fox News recently, whether he believes people will die because of Fox’s coverage.

“Yes,” he said. “Some commentators in the right-wing media spread a very specific type of misinformation that I think has been very harmful.”

Read the rest

What a damning indictment of Fox News from the Post video team here. pic.twitter.com/r8Fz8vo5KV

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) March 18, 2020

In this video, assembled by the Washington Post's media team, Fox News hosts and their rhetoric is contrasted just a few days apart. Then, they were claiming coronavirus was either nothing to worry about or an outright hoax; now they are solemnly telling people to look out for themselves as the virus rages.

How Fox News has shifted its coronavirus rhetoric

Over the past month, many Fox News anchors and personalities have gone from doubting the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic to calling it a public health crisis.

One of the funny things about the Nuremberg Trials is that, for all their flaws, they replaced grimmer plans. The British wanted to summarily execute high-ranking Nazis after the war; perhaps thousands of people.

“The guilt of such individuals is so black that they fall outside … any judicial process,” said Anthony Eden, reflecting Winston Churchill's intent to mass-murder even the talkers and bullshitters of the German right.

The Soviets talked us out of it. Julius Streicher got his trial. Read the rest

Brit Hume, a right-wing talking head on Fox, today tweeted a screenshot of betting markets' odds on presidential candidates. One of his other tabs, however, had the title "Sexy Vixen Vinyl" and this is what everyone wants to know about.

Search results for the term were immediately polluted with references to the tweet itself, but the only viable candidate is this product page at Yandy.com for a "Sexy Vixen Vinyl Set" comprising a sexy vixen vinyl bra, a sexy vixen booty shorts and other sexy vixen vinyl accessories.

Look like a total goddess in this vinyl halter bra featuring underwire cups, square nail head stud accents, and a back zipper closure. (Gloves not included.)

Everyone is assuming it's for his wife. Not how it works, kids. Read the rest

[Update 2/10/2020 1:13pm PT - this story has been updated to include Fox News's statement.]

The Daily Beast recently obtained a leaked internal memo from the Fox News' research and data division, the ironically named the Brainroom:

An internal Fox News research briefing book obtained by The Daily Beast openly questions Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an “indispensable role” in a Ukrainian “disinformation campaign.”

The document also accuses frequent Fox News guest Rudy Giuliani of amplifying disinformation, as part of an effort to oust former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and blasts Fox News guests Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova—both ardent Trump boosters—for “spreading disinformation.”

John Solomon, of course, is the former Washington Times Executive Editor and Hill contributor who pretty much single-handedly started the rumors that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind the 2016 DNC hack election interference, in an article that is frequently cited as evidence by Trump and his GOP cronies despite the fact that the claims contained within it are both unsourced and unverified.

The 162-page internal Fox News document, titled “Ukraine, Disinformation, & the Trump Administration,” was last updated on December 9, 2019, though it's not clear when it was first created or when the network necessarily became aware of their active role in spreading propaganda.

Here's the front page of the internal Fox News Trump-Ukraine timeline. I'll start tweeting some of the highlights shortly. pic.twitter.com/HWGX5sZUh8

— Marcus J. DiPaola (@marcusdipaola) February 6, 2020

The document specifically rips into Sean Hannity — the beloved Fox News talking head who enjoys a close personal relationship with President Trump, and even secretly employed Trump's criminal fixer-lawyer, Michael Cohen. Read the rest

“I still can't talk about what happened to me because of a non-disclosure agreement,” says Gretchen Carlson. Read the rest

Rupert Murdoch has never met an irrational fear of the Boomer set that he couldn't exploit for cash. Which is why Fox News filed a trademark for "OK Boomer" earlier this month, just weeks after the current media meme trend of the term took off.

FOX has filed a trademark application for "OK BOOMER."

The media giant filed the application on November 11th.

According to the filing, FOX intends to launch a reality, comedy and/or game show called OK BOOMER.

My full breakdown ?#OkBoomer#FoxNews pic.twitter.com/tmEDHC3QgM

— Josh Gerben (@JoshGerben) November 18, 2019

There's nothing unique about Fox's move here. In all honesty, it's probably a rational money-making decision for a lecherous media conglomerate that feeds on the souls of Baby Boomers to make a profit. They're not the first ones to try it, either. On Halloween—twelve days before Fox filed their paperwork—Kevin Yen of Little Neck, NY filed an "OK Boomer" merchandise trademark. Rustbelt Creations joined the party on November 12, in hopes of making some stickers, decals, and temporary tattoos; this application even includes the trademark "…," which Boomers love to use in place of all other punctuation, particularly when discussing the insidious machinations of George Soros. On November 13, William Grundfest of Los Angeles filed a trademark for "OK BOOMER!" with an exclamation point, which is obviously going to be a ticketed evening of live entertainment including plays, concerts, and lectures.

There's a good chance that none of these trademarks will be approved—like Lebron James's "Taco Tuesday" trademark attempt, the office might deem the phrase to be too ubiquitous. Read the rest

Sure has been one heck of a news week. And it ain't over yet. Read the rest

The white power hour on Fox will be in other hands for a short while: host Tucker Carlson is headed off on an improptu "vacation" the day after claiming America didn't have a white supremacy problem and that concerns it did were a "hoax".

There is, of course, a long history of Fox hosts heading out on vacation as they become engulfed in controversy for inflammatory comments. -- Laura Ingraham announced she was going on vacation in March 2018 after mocking Parkland survivor and gun control activist David Hogg... -- Sean Hannity went on vacation in May 2017 after losing advertisers for promoting the Seth Rich conspiracy theory... -- Jesse Watters headed out on vacation in April 2017 after making a comment widely criticized as lewd about Ivanka Trump... -- Bill O'Reilly went -- and never returned from -- a vacation in April 2017 after NYT reported he had settled five sexual harassment allegations for millions of dollars...

The backlash is intense even by these standards, what with memories of the latest white supremacist mass shooting as fresh as the corpses. But Carlson has been here before, is indispensible to the movement, and will not likely be going anywhere. Read the rest

Sometimes, even a malicious idiot like Bill O'Reilly says something pure and true and correct. Read the rest