THURSDAY: Fox & Friends follies, but also The Five!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2025

The demise of American discourse: Late yesterday afternoon, we didn't know who "Lawrence" was. 

During yesterday's cabinet meeting, the commander had repeated his gloomy tale about the way American kids were now the dumbest kids in the world.  As he'd done on a recent Hannity program, he referred to a devastating international testing program which doesn't quite seem to exist. 

Needless to say, no one asked him what he was talking about. Instead, as you can see at the CNN transcript, the next question went like this:

PRESIDENT TRUMP (2/26/25): They [test] the 40 certain nations that they have done for a long time. It seems to be 40, for whatever reason. And we were ranked number 40. A year ago, we were 38. Then we were 39. We hit 40. And so we're last in that. 

And we're first in cost per pupil. So I would say that's unacceptable.

Lawrence, you have something? Go ahead.

QUESTION: So, Mr. President, I know you like competition. And I know it's early. So which department are you most impressed with?

(LAUGHTER)

Sad! For the record, a silly softball question like that helps explain why the White House is currently changing the list of players who get to be in the press pool.

When we post yesterday's report, we didn't know who the questioner was. This morning, watching Fox & Friends, we were allowed to find out. 

In fact, the questioner was Lawrence Jones, fourth among equals in the Fox & Friends friendship circle! Yesterday, he wanted to know which department President Trump thought was best so far.

The commander gave a long, rambling answer. To peruse it, you can click to the CNN transcript.

Meanwhile, how bad does it get on the Fox News Channel? Yesterday afternoon, the first segment on The Five was about as bad as modern pseudo-journalism gets.

For starters, let's start by saying their names. These were the five co-hosts:

Co-hosts, The Five: Wednesday, 2/26/25
Judge Jeanine
Harold Ford
Jesse Watters
Dana Perino
Greg Gutfeld

Those were the regular four Red American co-hosts, with the wholly defeated Ford strapped in the Blue American chair. 

Inevitably, the subject of the day's first segment was the moral and intellectual greatness of the morally and intellectually great American president, President Donald J. Trump. 

Judge Jeanine was moderating the segment. The segment started like this:

JUDGE JEANINE (2/26/25): President Trump holding a blockbuster first cabinet meeting of his second term as he once again proves that he is the most transparent president in history.

A new analysis shows "47" is absolutely smoking his predecessors when it comes to talking to the media. In just his first month, Trump took a staggering one thousand questions compared to Sleepy Joe's sad, measly one hundred and forty. And that number was before today's hour-long juggernaut session, where he answered more than thirty additional questions.

As Judge Jeanine spoke, the chyron beneath her said this:

TRUMP HOLDS BLOCKBUSTER FIRST CABINET MEETING

The chyron agreed with the jurist! Needless to say, so would each of the other co-hosts as the segment proceeded. 

The most transparent president has been smoking Sleepy Joe! With that, Judge Jeanine had stated the premise for the segment, and the Stepfords would take it from there. 

At 5:05, Perino updated the question count. She said the president has now "answered 1,039 questions, which by the time I say these words might be 1,050." 

It didn't seem to have occurred to Perino that just because you've taken a question, that doesn't mean that you've answered it. And it certainly doesn't mean that you've answered the question in an accurate manner. 

As an example of what we mean, consider what Judge Jeanine said at 5:06 when she threw to the hapless Watters:

JUDGE JEANINE: You know, Jesse, I thought it was fascinating when the president started talking about Zelensky and the mineral deal. And when he talked about the fact that $300 billion that we gave to Ukraine and Zelensky, whereas Europe only gave $100 billion--but the money that Europe gave to Ukraine they gave as a loan! Which meant Ukraine had to pay them back!

The money, the $300 billion that Biden gave, was not a loan! He just gave them the money, like a fool! And now what we've got is a president who says we're gonna get our money back. And from now on, we're not gonna be footing the bill for a country that is paying other people back but not us.

We were struck by the judge's example. Just two days earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had contradicted President Trump, on live TV, concerning those very points. 

The claims which Judge Jeanine found fascinating had been fact-checked about a million times as of yesterday afternoon at 5. For example, here's the beginning and the end of Tuesday's report by ABC News:

Macron warns Trump to 'be careful' on Ukraine, fact-checks him at the White House

French President Emmanuel Macron used his visit to the U.S. to publicly push back on President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on Ukraine, fact-checking his American counterpart in real-time and urging caution in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

During their joint Oval Office appearance on Monday, Macron interrupted Trump when the latter said that Europe was being paid back 60% of the aid it contributed to Kyiv over the last three years of war.

Touching Trump's arm to interject, Macron said, "No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort: it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantees, grants," Macron said. "And we provided real money, to be clear."

After Macron's comments, Trump smiled and replied, "If you believe that, it's okay with me."

[...]

The president continued to focus on what he considers Ukraine's unfair approach to U.S. and American aid during Russia's war.

Trump again falsely claimed the U.S. has given Ukraine $350 billion during this period—a figure publicly disputed by Zelenskyy. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the U.S. has committed about $119 billion. The majority—$67 billion—was in the form of military equipment.

The institute says that European nations—meaning the European Union, the U.K., Iceland, Norway and Switzerland—have collectively contributed around $138 billion to Ukraine, $65 billion of which was military equipment.

The commander's claims about these matters have been unfavorably fact-checked about a million times. Yesterday, on The Five, no one seemed to have heard about any of these contradictions. Instead, the stooges took turns swooning over the greatness of the commander's vast transparency regarding this set of claims.

The fact-checks of these claims have been general over the wider free world. Here at home, at the Fox News Channel, the five co-hosts of our most-watched "cable news" show didn't quite seem to have heard.

At 5:14, Judge Jeanine teased the program's second segment. This is the way she played it:

JUDGE JEANINE: I think he is doing a great job so far. Up next, Greasy goes the Joe Rogan route. Gavin Newsom is launching a podcast.

Among this collection of broken toys. President Biden is known as "Sleepy Joe." Governor Newsom is known as "Greasy." 

This type of behavior seems to make sense to these corporate play toys. Can a nation expect to survive such a childish assault? 

In our view, the night assault is underway; it isn't clear that this "revolt from below" hasn't already been lost. We Blues may have managed to earn our way out in a way which can't quite be repaired. 


42 comments:

  1. No one except Somerby has ever called Fox and Friends or the Five "American discourse." These are entertainment shows.

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  2. "Can a nation expect to survive such a childish assault?"

    Gavin Newsom certainly can.

    Once again, Somerby describes childish behavior on the right and then concludes: "We Blues may have managed to earn our way out in a way which can't quite be repaired." Why does Somerby not use actual Blue behavior to illustrate this? Judge Jeanine is certainly not Blue, and I never heard any Californian call Gov Newsom "greasy" during the entire time I lived in that state. So, why are We Blues being blamed for Republican misbehavior and nonsense?

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    1. Time and again Somerby has told you that the "actual Blue behavior" includes ignoring rather than combatting the clowning propaganda emanating from Fox.

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    2. I've been asking begging Fox to tell me where the people who voted for Trump, and died from COVID, are buried so wed can laugh while dancing on their graves.
      How is that ignoring Fox?

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  3. Somerby has obviously run out of things to talk about. That is odd, given that these are such troubled times. Here is something I found interesting, talking about Musk, who chaired the first Cabinet Meeting:

    "by the way, where was Elon’s kid, Crown Prince Snotwiper? he’s rarely not by Elon’s side these days, so what happened? did Donny banish him? did you know that after the kid went knuckles-deep into his own nose and smeared the results on Donny’s desk, Donny had the whole desk shipped out to be refinished? overreaction much?"

    These extravagances are also bizarre in the face of supposed cost cutting by firing people from their govt jobs. Trump spends money on going to the superbowl and a car race, with his entourage, which cost millionaires with security costs and use of his govt jets. But people have to lose their jobs to pay for this stuff.

    Tiedrich suggests that Trump is shown sleeping through Elon's presentation, but I think he is more likely playing on his phone. That said, I doubt Trump cares what he sleeps through, and these naps (like the one at Jimmy Carter's funeral) are not only disrespectful but suggest senility as much as the bruise on his hand.

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    1. typo correction: millionaires should be millions in security costs and use of his govt jets.

      Melania has her own private jet too. She used it to come visit Trump for a night, before jetting off again somewhere else, far far away from her husband.

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  4. How can the right call Newsom "Greasy" while Trump douses himself in spray tan and won't appear in public without it? And what was that makeup on his hand all about?

    Why do we have to have such a physically repulsive man as president?

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  5. "FDA Cancels Meeting to Update Next Season's Flu Vaccines"

    “We’re all left trying to understand what is going on. Why was this meeting canceled? It's an important meeting. What’s the plan for flu vaccines this year,” Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA advisory committee and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CBS News.

    sure, let’s stop developing new vaccines. what could possibly go wrong?" [Tiedrich]

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  6. A real liberal blogger might have mentioned this, as many already have (from Robert Reich):

    "A grassroots movement is calling on all Americans to abstain from shopping with major retailers — including Amazon — tomorrow, February 28, as part of an “economic blackout.”

    The purpose is to send a clear message: We have the power. We don’t have to accept corporate monopolies. We don’t have to live with corporate money corrupting our politics.

    We don’t have to accept more tax cuts for billionaires. We don’t have to pay more of our hard-earned cash to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or the other billionaire oligarchs.

    We don’t have to reward corporations that have abandoned their DEI policies to align themselves with Trump’s racist, homophobic, misogynistic agenda.

    We have choices."

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  7. "We Blues may have managed to earn our way out in a way which can't quite be repaired. "

    We definition: "used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself and one or more other people considered together"

    We know who Somerby is, but who are the other people "considered together" lumped in the term Blues? Well, Blue is the name for Democrats (usually liberals or progressives). Democrats are a big tent, but to be a Democrat, someone needs to (1) share Democratic values, (2) support some of the Democratic Party platform items, (3) vote for some Democratic Party candidates, especially the presidential nominee, (4) support the goals of the Democratic party in the USA, (5) refrain from supporting the goals, candidates, platform or the opposing party to a greater extent than Democratic aims, and so on. This is obvious from political practice, especially among We Blues.

    For example, Donald Trump once called himself a Democrat, but he stopped being one around the time he began receiving money from Russian oligarchs, before he decided to run for president (ca 2012). Since then, he has not particularly supported Republican values, programs, platform, candidates, etc. (preferring to tout and support his own interests and those of Russia), but neither has he supported anything Democratic. His main goal has seemed to be to undo everything Obama did (which may be more related to racism than politics).

    Somerby, like Trump, has not support anything Democratic, but he has supporting a number of Republican candidates (e.g., Roy Moore), culture war issues such as book banning, anti-immigration issues, and has been on the wrong side of everything related to race and sexism, including anti-BLM, pro-George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse, anti-desegregation and pro keeping black students out of academically challening situations including open entry colleges, and he has supported Trump and objected to anything that would hold Trump accountable, from impeachment to criminal trials. He has a particular dislike for Stormy Daniels, which is somewhat anti-liberal given that sex-positive attitudes are liberal. And Somerby did what he could to undermine Harris and to push Biden off the Democratic ticket.

    So, on what basis does Somerby include himself in "We Blues"? None. And I, for one, don't want him in our group. I would propose voting him out of the group, if there were a mechanism for doing it.

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    1. A minority party that strives to excommunicate members will always remain a minority party.

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    2. The Democratic Party needs something that turns on their voters as much as bigotry turns on Republican voters. Tough break for the Democratic Party that there is nothing in the world that turns on anyone as much as bigotry turns on Republican voters.

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    3. Time and again Somerby has told us that one way of earning our way out is by persistently calling the others "bigots."

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    4. Democrats haven’t done that, 7:19.

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    5. Why would anyone call people who tried to overthrow an election because black people's votes were counted in it, "bigots"?

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  8. We Blues didn't earn out way out of anything that any sane person would want to be a part of.

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    1. Anonymouse 4:32pm, I think anonymices “earned their way out” by arguing that it’s media “censorship” to demand that Fox News clarify its decision to allow Jill Biden to be called a whore on their network.

      Cuz…Bob….

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    2. Bob would never demand anyone be silenced, except those years he demanded Maddow be taken off the air.

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    3. Anonymouse 5:45pm, I’ve been here for years and have never seen Bob demand that Maddow be taken off the air. He’s called her performative. coy, overpaid, other critiques. That was back in the days when you were howling that Bob should be talking about Fox News.

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    4. I've been here for decades, and been told there certainly is a Republican voter who isn't a bigot.
      Alas, no one has been able to identify one in those decades.

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    5. Anonymouse 6:43pm, your sock puppet needs to tell you to get some new material. And some clean underwear.

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    6. It was the first thing that came up in the search:

      “ Rachel Maddow should have been pulled off the air a long time ago.”

      http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2014/04/world-without-facts-amen-maddow-should.html?m=1

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    7. Anonymouse 7:40pm, I said that I hadn’t seen that. I stand corrected, evidently Maddow pissed him off pretty thoroughly. I understand that’s tantamount to toppling the temple of Athena in your book. We’ll add it to the list outrages.

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    8. Just to show you that he isn’t above calling for the removal of journalists, in case you thought he took a principled stance against it.

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    9. Anonymouse 8:10pm, first of all I don’t think journos are gods who should be exempt from harsh criticism. Secondly, I’m a normal regular person. I totally understand the typical human reaction of engaging in the rhetorical version of Elvis shooting out his tv screen.

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    10. Cecelia,
      Did you really believe Haitian immigrants were eating the nation's pets, or are you a standard issue bigot who votes Republican whether true or not?

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  9. Woohoo. Tate brothers allowed in the us by Trump. Make sex trafficking great again.

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  10. Right-wingers don't call the Left "pedophiles" for nothing.
    They call the Left pedophiles, because every Right-wing accusation is really a confession.

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  11. Trump was asked today about his calling Zelenskyy a dictator.

    "Did I say that?" Trump replied. "I can't believe I said that. Next question."

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    Replies
    1. Trump exaggerates. Trump uses words as weapons. He isn't committed to the truth. Calling him out on these practices is super easy. There are innumerable examples. But, what's the point? Except to embarrass Trump.

      Perhaps Trump insulted Zelinskyy in order to pressure him into a deal. Perhaps it was just an exaggeration. Either way, Trump isn't going to revisit it.

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    2. It’s astonishing to watch right wingers like David tolerate and even praise a man who lies every time he opens his mouth. One’s word was supposed to be one’s bond, but not anymore, apparently. It degrades everything about our society to reward this behavior.

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    3. David is a degenerate.

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    4. Anonymouse 7:46pm, it’s interesting that Zelensky and Trump are in the slow dance version of a geopolitical joust, but calling Zelensky a dictator is beyond the pale. However, on any day of the week, you’d join a crowd on the street yelling that appellation at Trump, and you’d fervently hope that it played on every big screen on the planet.

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    5. ...even praise a man who lies every time he opens his mouth.

      It's even worse than that. Not only does he praise the man who lies to the American people every time he opens his mouth, but DiC calls people who are appalled at tRump's total lack of morality and integrity stupid. We just don't get it he repeats over and over.

      Listen, Dickhead in Cal. It is impossible to embarrass tRump. He is shameless, just as you are shameless. That is not some great talent, you fucking fascist.

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    6. “ you’d join a crowd on the street yelling that appellation at Trump”

      Hopefully without being arrested or shot. Meanwhile, a president maybe should be held to higher standards than crowds in the street.

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    7. "Trump exaggerates."

      Sometimes. Mostly, he lies, though you're never quite able to summon up the courage to say this.

      "Trump uses words as weapons."

      Every politician can be said to use words as weapons. This is a banal observation.

      "But, what's the point?"

      Well, what's the alternative? If everyone was like you, he'd just lie with more and more impunity.

      Decent, honest people have an obligation to point out his lies. Every one of them.

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    8. Anonymouse 9:05pm, but it’s you who is arguing that there’s no difference between the play of tough political negotiations and the PR involved, with someone yelling “tyrant!” on the street.

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    9. David in Cal,
      Big deal. Everyone exaggerates. I heard someone exaggerate about how there was a whole Republican voter who isn't a bigot.

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  12. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he’d be a MAGA Republican.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymouse 9:35pm, Jesus is alive today, but the best analogy would be Jesus as the replacement to Bernie Sanders. Every four years the Dems would crucify Him.

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    2. Even Jesus couldn't make a Republican voter who isn't a bigot.

      #miracleshavelimits

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