THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2024
Along with its normalization: The Fox News Channel's Greg Gutfeld is 59 years old. That would be 59 years of age going on ten or eleven.
We often wonder how he got to be the way he currently is. We're also struck by the fact that he performs his moral squalor in prime time each weekday night, and no one in the wider blue world seems to notice, comment or care.
Last night, he began his opening monologue with a mandated Fox News bro-insider joke. From there, he moved to a trio of favorite plays dressed in Valentine's raiment.
He started with the bogus claim that Rep. Ilhan Omar is married to her brother. From there, he moved to this transcription on an imagined card for Valentine's Day:
Happy Valentine's! I'd kiss you if my face could move.
Love, Nancy Pelosi
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Links regarding the Omar factual groaner are available below.
From there, Gutfeld moved to a standard soul-destroying joke about President Biden's Valentine's card. Please don't make us attempt to describe it.
This is who and what and all this overgrown child will ever be until he somehow finds a way to improve himself. From there, it was on to more typical Biden fare, including such groaners as this:
GUTFELD (2/14/24): So on this Valentine's Day, I'm afraid I have to break some bad news about our president.
America, he's just not that into you! Because as Joe continues to neglect this relationship of ours, we're seeing the results of his terrible presidency:
Unchecked illegal migration. Crime running rampant. Inflation off the hook. The chances of World War III are growing faster than a stain on Joe's pants.
(TINY HINTS OF AUDIENCE LAUGHTER)
We'd call that one a typical twofer, as it mixes a vastly misleading factual claim with a squalid (and humor-free) naughty personal insult.
Regarding the fellow's factual claim, is crime actually "running rampant?" It seems to be on the Fox News Channel, whose tabloid-adjacent TV stars air cellphone videotape of every criminal act they can get their hands on.
Meanwhile, in the real world, official crime rates have been falling. There's always a way to claim that such statistics are wrong, but just for the record, here's the start of Ken Dilanian's recent report for NBC News:
Most people think the U.S. crime rate is rising. They're wrong.
Crime in the United States has declined significantly over the last year, according to new FBI data that contradicts a widespread national perception that law-breaking and violence are on the rise.
A Gallup poll released this month found that 77% of Americans believe crime rates are worsening, but they are mistaken, the new FBI data and other statistics show.
The FBI data, which compares crime rates in the third quarter of 2023 to the same period last year, found that violent crime dropped 8%, while property crime fell 6.3% to what would be its lowest level since 1961, according to criminologist Jeff Asher, who analyzed the FBI numbers.
Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023 at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded, Asher found, and every category of major crime except auto theft declined.
In short, crime is running rampant on Fox, but it seems to be on the decline in most other locales. Compared to peer nations, our crime rates tend to be very high, but Fox viewers will never be asked to hear that our crime rates been dropping under the current chief executive.
On Fox, such things aren't done! More crime tape at 11!
Regarding the stain the wonderful Gutfeld pictured on the president's pants, this is one of this stunted fellow's evergreen allusions. Below, you see the next bit of comedic wizardry from last evening's opening log:
GUTFELD: The House voted to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the migrant crisis...It's the first time they've impeached a cabinet secretary since 1876.
That was back when Joe was in diapers. Or rather, when he started wearing diapers.
The broken boy produces this sort of "President Poopy Pants" commentary pretty much every night of the week. Diapers are a favorite.
Gutfeld is also frequently reminded of Hunter Biden's penis, and he seems to love kicking down at every demographic group which ever put him here.
(Which ever complained, in whatever way, about any sort of mistreatment.)
The moral squalor of this idiot's show is compounded by the blinding stupidity of the program's pseudo-discussions. And yet, the broadcast goes out in prime time each and every weekday night, normalized by the fact that no one in the upper-end press corps seems to notice or comment or care about any part of this.
To watch last evening's monologue, you can start by clicking here. This brings us to the recent show during which Gutfeld was mightily pleased,
"I pity the poor immigrant when his gladness comes to pass?" So it was when Gutfeld discussed a recent soul-draining post by Elon Musk, a brilliant industrialist on the one hand and the possessor of soul-draining, astoundingly childish sexual politics on the other.
Musk may be the dumbest person on earth. That's why Gutfeld loves him!
Eventually, we'll probably show you the uber-childishness which pleased Gutfeld so. But that would require us to traffic in a word we've never used before—a word we very much don't want to start typing now.
"I pity the poor immigrant when his gladness comes to pass?" That was Bob Dylan in 1968, penning an uncanny description of a future American president.
We have only ever said that Donald J. Trump seems to fit the portrait Dylan (metaphorically) painted at that time. We don't think Gutfeld is quite that far gone, but he's angrily trying, very hard, to make the J.V. team.
Adult women—think Dana Perino—sit and stare as Gutfeld drops his smutty misogynist insults on a regular basis. People are willing to do and say anything for the money and fame this life brings.
That said, our journalists also sit and stare all through the upper-end press corps. No one wants to tangle with Fox, and so our blue tribe journalist stars are once again resorting to the familiar old culture of silence.
In fairness, it's hard to find the words for moral squalor of this type. We hope Greg Gutfeld gets better.
Regarding the mandated Omar howler: For a debunking by Business Insider, you can just click this. For an earlier report by the New York Times, you can click right here.
Please note what we've told you in the past. Squalid jokes are an excellent medium for the messaging of preferred tribal propaganda:
Crime is rampant under Biden! Cellphone clips to follow!
Greg Gutfeld is a good decent person.
ReplyDeleteSomerby just said he isn't.
Delete
ReplyDelete"We often wonder how he got to be the way he currently is."
By learning from the best: your tribe's moonbat "comedians". Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, etc. How else?
Somerby likes to attribute personality problems and other deficits to childhood trauma. The problem is that psychology doesn't support that idea. It is leftover from Freudian theory to say that childhood messes us up, when it is more likely to be things like brain functioning, personality, and temperament.
DeleteSomerby attributes Tucker Carlson's dysfunction to his father's divorce from his mother when Tucker was 8 years old. His father quickly remarried and Tucker thereafter had all of the advantages of a privileged life. The vast majority of boys who go through that experience do not become anything like Tucker Carlson, but Somerby will not let go of that explanation, which has no support from any mental health practitioner.
Now Somerby wants to generalize that to Gutfeld, without supplying any backstory that would have warped him. Attending Catholic school in an upscale neighborhood doesn't tend to traumatize children, but that is all Somerby has suggested about Gutfeld. It seems more likely that Gutfeld is a true believer MAGA supporter and is doing this to make money and because he believes it is how politics are played. (That may be true on the right.)
Colbert and Kimmel, on their worst days, didn't resort to calling the president Poopypants. That has only started after associates of Trump noted that he has a chronic peculiar smell. No one has ever said that about Biden, except goofs like Gutfeld. But laughing at mean things is what Republicans seem to find funny. Even Cecelia does it. So he seems to know his business, humor-wise.
If Trump wins, it won't be because of Gutfeld. It will be because people like Somerby said they were going to vote for Biden and then never stood behind him during the election.
Think about it. Would a man who wore a diaper full of poop ride a bike? Of course not. But Republicans will apparently believe anything.
4:14: does Gutfeld ever lampoon Trump? Cause I remember all those late night “blue tribe” comics/talk show hosts making endless jokes about Bill Clinton’s libido.
DeleteJon Stewart is being criticized for feeling he had to bothsides his rant on his opening show. Media failure to acknowledge Trump's deficiencies is how he got elected the first time.
DeleteYou're not supposed to defend rapists like Clinton or Trump. That's why they're called rapists.
DeleteClinton was not a rapist. Trump is.
DeleteNeither Clinton nor Trump were convicted of rape. In a civil action, Trump was found liable for sexual assault. That's all we really know.
DeleteElon Musk is a good decent person.
ReplyDeleteSomerby just said he isn't.
DeleteTaibbi doesn't think so.
Delete
ReplyDelete"In short, crime is running rampant on Fox, but it seems to be on the decline in most other locales."
No, it probably isn't on the decline, if 77% of Americans believe crime rates are worsening. After all the Russiagate shit, why would anyone believe anything coming from the feds?
My gun is bigger than your gun.
DeleteMurders are up this year and last year in Kansas City, not counting yesterday's mass shooting at the Superbowl parade (11 children were shot). Kansas is a red state, like most of the states leading in the number of murders nationwide.
DeleteLaw enforcement is primarily local. My impression is that Democratic cities gave more crime than Republican cities.
DeleteRural areas have the worst crime. They are largely red/Republican.
DeleteI liv in Kansas City. There was a shooting at the Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade on Wednesday.
DeleteYou may not have heard about it because "Jackassses bring guns out in public and ruin everything" isn't "news" anymore. That would be like reporting "the day before Thursday was a Wednesday, this week."
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist, wrote this:
ReplyDelete""Trump is not the colossus that many in the media suggest," Rubin concluded.
"His iron grip on core followers does not diminish the significance of a rebellion in the ranks regarding Ukraine, his devastating blunders on that issue and the border, a parade of fed-up Republicans exiting the House and, crucially, the progress of serious felony trials. If Biden gets to face that guy, it will be the equivalent of drawing an inside straight."
Somerby would discuss more interesting aspects of the upcoming election if he watched something besides Gutfeld all the time.
Talk about elitist! Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has a Ph.D. in bullshit! How will she get a job with such a bogus degree? Oh, wait, she has one.
ReplyDelete"Adult women—think Dana Perino—sit and stare as Gutfeld drops his smutty misogynist insults on a regular basis."
ReplyDeleteThe main point of feminism is that women are not required to go around curbing and shaping men's behavior, especially when it comes to smutty misogynist insults. MEN are supposed to curb their own impulses and behave like human beings instead of assholes. So it isn't Perino's job to do anything to stop Gutfeld from being a sexist. Gutfeld needs to do that.
This is along the same lines as Somerby's contention that if a woman doesn't want to be raped at a frat party, she shouldn't drink. He puts the onus on the woman to be less of a target for rapists. I'll bet Somerby would say that E. Jean Carroll deserved what happened to her because she flirted with Trump. Why shouldn't he rape her if she isn't going to act like a nun?
I know there are men who think this stuff, like Somerby, but it always surprises me when their sense of entitlement puts the blame on a woman for not objecting to their bad behavior. As Dana Perino was supposed to do. If she had leapt to her feet shouting "Gutfeld, sir! Cease this smutty behavior!" does anyone think he would have stopped his preplanned misogynist routine? Of course not. Rape and other misogynist behavior is intended to keep women in line by asserting male superiority and control. It is a power move, as is Gutfeld's routine. Blaming women for not stopping men from doing this shit shows a lack of understanding of the dynamic.
But I have been suggeting that Somerby stop being a sexist jerk for some time now, and it doesn't seem to have stopped him the tinyest bit. That's why we now have laws that are being applied to Trump's behavior even though he was president and a billionaire. Men need to take this seriously, including Somerby and Gutfeld, and no one thinks Dana Perino is the sexism-police except Somerby.
Or to put it a little more simply : Gutfeld is responsible for his behavior, along with the people who pay him to act like an asshole.Dems are no more responsible for his behavior than Bob.
DeleteNotice Putin declared his preference for Biden over Trump. Crickets from Somerby,
Delete10:10 You would like Somerby to acknowledge the comment of a lying sack of shit like Putin? Why would that be?
Delete10:10 Because it sheds light on the bullshit Russiagate narrative that has been proven beyond a doubt was invented by the DNC mid-2016.
Delete6:51, get back to us when Donald J Chickenshit testifies under oath about it. LOL
Delete7:15 -why do you think that's important? Do you think Mueller's plan was to interview Trump and then Trump would somehow plead guilty in the interview?
DeleteIs this interview that is so important to you somehow going to negate Mueller's finding that he couldn't establish any coordination at all between the Trump campaign and Russia? How? Why? Trump's interview is going to change that? Why do you think that interview is relevant or important?
You haven't thought about how little sense your ignorant and trite talking point makes.
You mean because Donald J Chickenshit obstructed the investigation in multiple ways, tampered with witnesses and then chickened out of answering questions under oath, then fired the AG and has his coverup specialist take over? Yeah, sorry, we certainly cannot draw any conclusions.
DeleteThe idea that it would take a powerful foreign actor to get Republican voters amped-up about electing a bigot, like Trump, is too stupid to waste time thinking about.
Delete
DeleteDid he also obstruct your colon, idiot-moonbat? You sound awfully constipated.
Obviously Tucker Carlson is a secret Democrat and he's turning people to Biden.
DeleteFire Tucker Carlson!
6:51,
DeleteOnce the media made the collective decision to disappear the open bigotry of Republican voters as the reason Trump was elected President in 2016, stories like Russiagate were inevitable.
Playing the race card kinda falls flat now that Trump is about to get more black votes than any Republican in history. But you only do it because you can't engage in substance.
DeleteThen you ought to stop trying to suppress their votes, magat troll boy.
Delete5:21- According to Somerby, it’s dangerous for a young woman to get blackout drunk at a frat party. This statement by Somerby is not equivalent to saying “If a woman doesn’t want to be raped at a frat party, she shouldn’t drink.”
DeleteYou’ve made this rank misstatement several times. Please stop.
I'd feel even more confident in Biden's re-election, if Fox News ran this statement on their crawl from now until election day:
Delete"Trump is about to get more black votes than any Republican in history."
“ We often wonder how he got to be the way he currently is.”
ReplyDeleteCan’t be his $24,000,000 salary, can it? Nah.
Why is Somerby so obsessed with Gutfeld's age?
ReplyDeleteIronically, the same age Trump partook in “Locker Room Talk.”
Delete“ We hope Greg Gutfeld gets better.”
ReplyDeleteWhy not demand he be fired, the way he endlessly did with Maddow?
A GOP state legislator is proposing that the 10 Commandments be taught in Utah history classes:
ReplyDelete“I’m anticipating that teachers wouldn’t teach this as a Sunday school class,” Petersen said. “This is a document that helps [students] understand what were the founders thinking about when they founded the country.”
He might be surprised to learn that some of our founders were atheists, some non-religious, some Quaker, Catholic, or Congregationalists of Puritan stock. For example, Thomas Paine was a deist, not Christian. Religion was explicitly NOT the basis for our constitution, as is stated in the establishment clause that this guy is clearly trying to evade.
The Founders were knowledgeable about a lot of classical literature. IMO today's students would benefit from reading this great literature.
DeleteThe 10 Commandments are jot literature. If they were, they’d teach them in English class.
Deletenot
DeleteGood news, David. Your copy of 200 Mules is no longer worthless.
Delete6:50 And they would find it in the fiction section.
DeleteOf course, based upon this so- called classical literature, David in Cal can lay claim to being one of the chosen ones. Too funny.
Delete"Regarding the mandated Omar howler: For a debunking by Business Insider, you can just click this. For an earlier report by the New York Times, you can click right here."
ReplyDeleteThis is an improvement in Somerby's standard essay. For once he is debunking a Gutfeld lie and providing a link to a nasty piece of disinformation about Ilhan Omar, who doesn't deserve to have such things said about her. But then, neither does Biden deserve what Gutfeld has been saying about him. So more such links would be welcome here.
""I pity the poor immigrant when his gladness comes to pass?" That was Bob Dylan in 1968, penning an uncanny description of a future American president."
ReplyDeleteWhatever was in Dylan's mind when he wrote that song, it was not about ANY future American president.
I don't find the line particularly uncanny as a description of Trump. I do not pity him. He is not an immigrant of any kind, although his father and mother were. He is certainly not poor in any monetary sense. There are so many other plausible meanings for Dylan's words that this attempt to cram Trump into lyrics that just do not fit seems gratuitous. I have no idea why Somerby does this. It is kind of odd behavior, superimposing meanings that just don't fit.
Anonymouse 5:47pm, what could Somerby possibly mean in using these lyrics in this context? Any ideas at all?
Delete“I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass”
This has nothing to do with Trump or Biden.
DeleteIt has nothing to do with immigrants emigrating. .
DeleteTrump isn’t an immigrant.
DeleteTell us, Cecelia, what Bob Dylan meant, since you seem to suggest you understand it.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:11pm, he pities the predator, the stalker, the usurper, the user, the unfeeling, the uncaring, the determined stranger. He pities the poor immigrant most acutely when all his plots and passions are fulfilled.
DeleteWhy call all those horrible people an immigrant. That makes no sense.
DeleteDylan is … often cryptic.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:39pm, tThey are passing through humanity, but they aren’t native to it. They’re unattached, detached. They are a culture unto themselves. They are kindred to no one.
DeleteNone of that sounds like Trump.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:49pm, you may have a higher opinion of Trump than Bob has.
DeleteSomerby has been quoting that song since before Trump ran.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:07pm, because its a theme of his. it’s representative of them self-serving culture that sparked a Pres. Trump.
DeleteWe’re so lucky to have a conservative Somerby whisperer to explain what Somerby really means when he’s being opaque. More evidence that Somerby must really be liberal, as he keeps insisting.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:29pm, why would you think you could interpret Somerby better than I can? You make accusations that are generally ill-willed interpretations of his actions and when I offer up a view that is not pejorative of him, I’m over-reaching.
DeleteYou think he likes some red tribe grunt taking up for him? I do it for me, because anonymices are so unfair towards someone of his ability, simply because he isn’t a rabid partisan.
I would do that for anyone in those circumstances.
His ability?
DeleteYou’re lucky he’s in your tribe.
DeleteYou’re a moron.
DeleteYou’re a master debater and a cunning linguist.
DeleteToo bad you didn’t make that up. You’re still a moron who has to use other people’s insults.
Delete"Whatever was in Dylan's mind when he wrote that song, it was not about ANY future American president."
DeleteActually, he noted in a 2004 Songwriter magazine interview, "When I wrote that song, my thoughts were on future American presidents, leaders, and visionaries."
Anonymouse 8:35pm, it doesn’t have the originality of “moron” for sure, but it absolutely fits.
DeleteI don’t think cunning linguist is insulting at all. I’m glad to do that for girls. It has such a wonderful effect on them.
DeleteToo much information, Corby.
DeleteAlthough I am Corby, I no longer comment under that name. But Cecelia, if you haven’t had good cunning linguistics, you don’t know what you’re missing.
DeleteGenuine.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI’m just munching on the popcorn and trying not to choke while I’m giggling.
DeleteGood word 'squalid'.
ReplyDeleteAlexander Smirnov, central to the Republican accusations of Biden family corruption, has been indicted for lying.
ReplyDeleteCentral? Central how exactly?
DeleteCentral because his testimony was the most referenced by the Republicans in their caterwauling about impeaching Biden. Their point men on cable were scrambling last night over this, not even arguing that the accusations about him have not been adjudicated, as if already conceding that he is a liar. They don't want to drag their embarrassment out.
DeleteHe's is not central or even significant to the investigation into the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.
DeleteLet me rewrite it for you:
"Alexander Smirnov, who I wish was central to the Republican accusations of Biden family corruption, has been indicted for lying."
"Not central or even significant" is your wishful thinking on the matter. When announcing the investigation into a Biden impeachment, McCarthy made the statement that "A trusted FBI informant has alleged a bribe to the Biden family." What was a big deal and specifically referenced as reason for considering impeachment is no big deal anymore. Comer is the political version of Emily Litella at this point. What a joke.
DeleteBoy oh boy, Boris is twisting now. I think Senator Grassley needs to hang it up right about now.
Delete"In short, the Defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against [Joe Biden], the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressing bias against [Joe Biden] and his candidacy," the indictment alleges.
How is he central? You think this guy is more central than all the cancelled checks and actual email transcripts between the Biden's themselves? He' s not central. I get that you want him to be. Good luck with that. ;)
DeleteLOL!!! 6:46, thanks for the laughs
DeleteDid Queen write the song "Another One Bites the Dust" about Right-wing charges of Joe Biden's corruption falling apart under oath?
DeleteMaybe the central guy was the one they said they couldn’t find, then said maybe he wasn’t so legit, the said “never mind”. That was fun to watch. Matt Gaetz even called it what it is: a political stunt, meant “to drag on forever”.
DeleteI am a soothsayer and can tell you the exact day that your Republican congressman will lose all interest in impeaching Joe Biden.
DeleteHannity’s program served as the primary vehicle for driving the narrative to the GOP base. On his Fox News program alone, the claims formed the basis for a staggering 85 segments in 2023 alone, according to data from the progressive watchdog Media Matters. Hannity indicated to his millions of nightly viewers that Biden had been “compromised,” using the informant claims to declare the president was “very credibly accused of public corruption on a scale this country has never seen before.”
DeleteMeanwhile on Capitol Hill, Comer, who chairs the powerful House Oversight Committee, used the claims being extolled in right-wing media to accuse the FBI of engaging in a coverup and attempted to construct a corruption case against Biden. Those actions were then celebrated in right-wing media. And on and on the feedback loop went.
The problem? The informant, Alexander Smirnov, made the whole story up, federal authorities said Thursday, arresting the 43-year-old at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
Special counsel David Weiss, who served as a Donald Trump -appointed U.S. attorney before assuming his current role, charged Smirnov with lying to the FBI and falsifying records. Smirnov, an indictment said, provided “false derogatory information” about Biden to the law enforcement agency. His “story to the FBI was a fabrication, an amalgam of otherwise unremarkable business meetings,” it said.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/16/media/sean-hannity-right-wing-media-biden-bribes/index.html
Dick in Cal's timing was impecable yesterday.
The # of times the indictment was mentioned by Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity last night: ZERO
DeleteBwahahaha,
I wonder if Dick in Cal heard about it then.
Trump, Fox and Hannity are involved in a perpetual circle jerk, that Melania is thankful takes her off the hook. The smell was getting to her.
DeleteCapitalism needs a baseline of crime for people to be held in check and not organize for their freedom. If it doesn't go up fast enough they'll just loosen the human rights protections until the concentration camps fill up.
ReplyDeleteAre there any human plumbers here?
ReplyDeleteI need my back door pipe plunged, most urgently!
Click on my name link to better see my situation.
Anyone paying attention knows Gutfield's joke are the smartest, most well-thought-out economic idea the Right has ever had.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWow, a whistleblower testifying against the sitting president is indicted. Imagine this was 2019.
Indicted by the special counsel investigating the president.
DeleteRidiculous. It would be much easier to have him fall out a 12th floor open window, or maybe just throw him in your Gulag after poisoning him. Oh wait, that's how your daddy operates, trollboy.
DeleteJoe Biden, the best president in history, is my daddy, idiot-moonbat. He is the daddy of all of us.
DeleteBiden is the current stand-in as "Daddy Government", which free-market Libertarians beg to save them, whenever everything doesn't go their way.
Delete8:14. They don’t pay attention to the details that don’t fit their narrative.
Delete
DeleteWeiss's final report: Brandon is God, his accusers are demons.
But he's Putin's puppet.
DeleteEveryone is.
DeleteGood stuff.
ReplyDeleteOn the day that Bill Barr aggressively intervened in the parallel impeachment inquiry and Hunter Biden prosecutions last summer, David Weiss’ office sent out a final deal that would resolve Hunter’s case with no jail time and no further investigation. Within days, amid an uproar about claims in an FD-1023 that David Weiss now says were false, Weiss reneged on that deal. With the indictment yesterday of Alexander Smirnov, the source of those false claims, Weiss confesses he is a direct witness in an attempt to frame Joe Biden, even as he attempts to bury it.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/02/16/david-weiss-is-a-direct-witness-to-the-crimes-on-which-he-indicted-alexander-smirnov/
Thanks for the link. Dense with information. Who woulda thought Bill Barr would continue to lie after January 2020?
ReplyDelete