Other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates took the bait.

Luke O'Neil put a call out for his readers' stories of their loved ones' capture by Fox News, being overtake by its paranoid, racist conspiracy mindset: he got back a heartbreaking collection of tales of "funny, compassionate" older relatives turning into someone who was "increasingly angry, bigoted, and paranoid" -- some people even found their older relatives dead in front of a TV playing Fox. Read the rest

A year ago, smarting over public criticism of its role in promoting division and stoking racism, Facebook announced a major shift in its newsfeed algorithm which would downrank posts from media organizations and uprank the things sent by your friends on the network, in the name of promotion a gentler form of "engagement" that would emphasize discourse over clickbait, which founder Mark Zuckerberg promised would be "time well spent." Read the rest

Chris Hayes put it best: “Luckily for Bill Shine there are lots of organizations desperate for someone whose core competency is covering up sexual harassment.”

On Fox News tonight, unofficial Trump spokesperson and noted racist Lou Dobbs went full fascist. Read the rest

Bill Shine was forced to resign as co-president of Fox News over his personal mishandling of the rampant culture of sexual abuse, in which he abetted the company's culture of harassment, fondling, and coerced sex by its executives and on-air personalities. Read the rest

Watching John Oliver bring the noise to Fox News is a great way to start the week. Read the rest

It really is UNBELIEVABLE.

Someone get grandpa an Ensure, he's gonna need sustenance to make it through this shocker. Are you sitting down? Okay. Please read on, but only if you are feeling strong enough. Read the rest

In New York today, a judge rejected a lawsuit brought against Fox News by the parents of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staff member who was killed in 2016. Read the rest

Fox News' Sean Hannity used to make a lot of noise about how President Barack Obama was responsible for a housing crisis that destroyed American families. All that while, through various shell companies, Hannity was cheaply buying foreclosed homes by the hundreds to profit handsomely from that selfsame crisis.

The records link Hannity to a group of shell companies that spent at least $90m on more than 870 homes in seven states over the past decade. The properties range from luxurious mansions to rentals for low-income families. Hannity is the hidden owner behind some of the shell companies and his attorney did not dispute that he owns all of them.

Dozens of the properties were bought at a discount in 2013, after banks foreclosed on their previous owners for defaulting on mortgages. Before and after then, Hannity sharply criticised Barack Obama for the US foreclosure rate. In January 2016, Hannity said there were “millions more Americans suffering under this president” partly because of foreclosures.

This news is fallout from last week's naked act of Hannitarian grotesquery in journalism: defending Trump legal advisor Michael Cohen at Fox News without disclosing that Cohen had also given him legal advice.

One of the oddities of Trump's GOP is how quickly those who resemble him in unseen ways are prevailing as its thought leaders. The griftarians on the right lack Trump's ability to hide specifics (what they do becomes more obvious in less time) but they all benefit from a new institutional conservatism that's tailored to their needs because it's tailored to his needs. Read the rest

danah boyd's SXSW Edu keynote, What Hath We Wrought? builds on her essay from 2017 about the relationship of media literacy education to the rise of conspiracy theories and the great epistemological rift in which significant numbers of people believe things that are clearly untrue, from climate denial to flat-earthing. Read the rest

After suggesting the New York Times cooked up its story about President Trump trying and failing to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity was forced into a humiliating on-air backpedal. But then something magical happened: Hannity vanished from Twitter. Usually a vigorous, if barely-literate presence on the social media platform, Hannity's account no longer existed, and was therefore unable to receive the ridicule being heaped upon it. It was gone only for an hour, though, back up at midnight with the bizarre tweet: "Form Submission 1649 | #Hannity"

Form Submission 1649 | #Hannity

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) January 27, 2018

Hypothesis: Fox News (or Hannity himself) has merely created a custom Twitter app or interface and it's a bag of crap.

(Or, as one Trump supporter writes: "Make no mistake, Sean Hannity’s Twitter is down because he is extremely close to blowing up the whole deep state") Read the rest

Fox News host Neil Cavuto had a strong message for Trump last night, ending with the line, "Last time I checked, you are the president of the United States. Why don’t you act like it?”

Cavuto was fed up with Trump after this week's twitter tantrums about LaVar Ball and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Cavuto says it's not about players or senators.

"This is about you and respect shown to you. Constant praise shown to you, and gratitude bordering on groveling shown to you. As president of the The United States, doesn't that already come with the territory?"

When Fox News starts to call Trump out for what he really is (or isn't), you know things aren't looking pretty for POTUS. Read the rest

Who among us can say they have the self-control to go an hour without serving their vices? Or that their vice is not holding an ersatz cigarette in the corner of their mouth in the style of Burgess Meredith as The Penguin in the 1960s TV show Batman? Or that this is the closest to convincingly human that anyone will ever see them act on screen?

Previously: Hannity does not gargle piss. Read the rest

What hell hath Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker wrought?

Bolling is using Trump's law firm to sue @yashar? https://t.co/JWOCOWeMt1

— Brad Thor (@BradThor) August 9, 2017

The Fox News host Eric Bolling is suing social media star and Huffington Post contributor Yashar, who last week reported Bolling sent grotesque sexual messages to female colleagues some years ago. Read the rest

Fox News founder Roger Ailes was forced out of the company last year by his bosses in the Murdoch family after being exposed. He died last week at the age of 77. Then his teenage son, Zachary Ailes, honored the old man's memory by threatening his accusers at his eulogy with a quote from Tombstone.

Zachary pledged to fight to clear his father’s name after a series of sexual harassment allegations led to his ultimate ouster from Fox News.

“I want all the people who betrayed my father to know that I’m coming after them,” Zachary Ailes said during a speech at the ceremony, “and hell is coming with me.”

Hey, at least he knows where dad is. Read the rest

Vox’s Carlos Maza breaks down the ways in which Fox News spins Trump scandals and misleads millions of Americans in the process. Read the rest