SEPARATION: Agamemnon, Achilles, Elon Musk!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Also though, Brian Kilmeade's $950: For today, we'll only briefly discuss Brian Kilmeade's play, last Saturday night, with that unexplained $950.

In yesterday's report, we posted the transcript of what Kilmeade said. He's been at this for twenty-five years at this point. There's no sign that he'll ever stop.

Viewers of Klmeade's shows on the Fox News Channel don't know that they're getting misled when he behaves in this manner. For the fuller transcript of his remarks, click here to return to yesterday's offering. 

Here's the shortened version of what Kilmeade said:

Thieves walk right out the front door and take whatever they want. And people like California governor Gavin Newsom think that's OK?

[...]

See, he slipped that in! He allows you to take $950, the tenth toughest. 

Kilmeade was talking about shoplifters at a Sacramento Target store. 

In a familiar if fuzzy statement, he explicitly said that Governor Newsom allows such people to walk away with $950 of merchandise! He seemed to say that Governor Newsom thinks that's A-OK!

The thrilling claim, and the dollar amount, are familiar to Fox News viewers. Tomorrow, we'll link you to a recent episode of The Five where the jugglers and clowns juggled and clowned with this specific topic and with that dollar amount.

For today, we'll only tell you this. Kilmeade was referring to the amount a shoplifter has to steal before he's likely to be charged with a felony in the state of California.

It sounds crazy when viewers are told that a shoplifter who steals less than that amount will only be charged with a misdemeanor. Because of Governor Newsom's role in the current Democratic Party hierarchy, Fox spear-checkers like Kilmeade have been chucking this spear of late. 

That dollar figure is constantly cited, as if it's the craziest thing in the world. Tomorrow, we'll visit The Five as that assembly of jugglers and clowns chucked this spear a few weeks back, deceiving viewers in the process. 

For today, we'll only show you this—this list of the threshold amount for a felony charge in a selected array of states:

Threshold amount for a felony charge:
Texas: $2500
South Carolina: $2000
Alabama: $1500
Georgia: $1500
California: $950 
Florida: $750

That's a selective listing of states. Let it be said that forty (40) of the fifty states require a higher threshold amount for a felony charge than California currently does, with Texas (and Wisconsin) topping the list. 

In fact, as Newsom said—and as Kilmeade glossed—California has one of the ten lowest cut-off points for a felony charge among the fifty states. The threshold amount is higher in forty states than in California!

Florida's threshold amount is $750. On the basis of that minor difference, Governor DeSantis was portrayed by Kilmeade last Saturday night as the great heroic avenger, while Newsom was spun as a clown.

So it goes as red tribe viewers get conned on the Fox News Channel by trusted spear-chuckers like Kilmeade. (For the record, the viewers in question don't know that they're getting conned.)

For the record, it's the great god known as Separation who makes such conduct possible. We'll offer more on the complexities of this ongoing matter tomorrow. 

For today, we thought we needed to show you the source of "The Rage of Achilles." That's the title which sits atop Book One in the Robert Fagles translation of the western world's first great poem of war, the war poem known as the Iliad.

In Tuesday's report, we showed you the way Agamemnon lord of men exploded in anger at the vaunted seer, Calchas.  In Book One of the great war poem, Calchas successfully reads the flight of birds—and Agamemnon explodes in a rage:  

So he declared and sat down. But among them rose
the fighting son of Atreus, lord of the far-flung kingdoms,
Agamemnon—furious, his dark heart filled to the brim,
blazing with anger now, his eyes like searing fire.
With a sudden, killing look he wheeled on Calchas first:
"Seer of misery! Never a word that works to my advantage!
Always misery warms your heart, your prophecies—
never a word of profit said or brought to pass."

Why is Agamemnon so angry? Because Calchas has correctly divined the cause of the plague afflicting the Achaeans' camp. The god Apollo is enraged because Agamemnon has stolen the daughter of a priest to serve as his sexual slave—and when the elderly priest came to offer a priceless ransom, the lord of men refused to give the young woman back.

The young woman's name was Chryseis. This is the ugly sexual politics which lies at the heart of this ancient poem. 

Today, no one would explicitly defend such conduct. In the pages of the Iliad, we know of no sign that anyone thinks that such behavior is, as a general matter, in any way morally wrong.

How different were the mores then? Here's Agamemnon's fuller speech, continued from above:

With a sudden, killing look he wheeled on Calchas first:
"Seer of misery! Never a word that works to my advantage!
Always misery warms your heart, your prophecies—
never a word of profit said or brought to pass.
Now, again, you divine god's will for the armies,
bruit it about, as fact, why the deadly Archer
multiplies our pains: because I, I refused
that glittering price for the young girl Chryseis. 
Indeed, I prefer her by far, the girl herself.
I want her mine in my own house! I rank her higher
than Clytemnestra, my wedded wife—she's nothing less
in build or breeding, in mind or works of hand.
But I am willing to give her back, even so,
if that is best for all. What I really want
is to keep my people safe, not see them dying.
But fetch me another prize, and straight off too,
else I alone of the Argives go without my honor.
That would be a disgrace."

Agamemnon says that he prefers "the young girl" even to Clytemnestra. Honor demands that he receive some other prize if Chryseis is taken away.

So it went in the days when the Achaeans fought on the plains outside Troy. Yesterday afternoon, we showed you the way this component of human nature survives today, in muted if deeply pitiful form, in one of the gruesome primetime programs aired on the Fox News Channel.

This conduct goes on and on and on, as we'll continue to show you. We still have to show you Greg Gutfeld's take on Elon Musk's wonderful sense of humor, though that will require us to go somewhere we don't want to go.

This garbage can conduct continues apace, in primetime, on the Fox News Channel. At our finer blue tribe organs, no one says a word.

Brian Kilmeade cons his red tribe viewers. Failla and Gutfeld bring in the misogyny-adjacent smut.

So it goes on this gruesome "news channel." Within our more refined blue camp, the great god Silence prevails.

Tomorrow: The wages of Separation