WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024
...Fox & Friends swung into action: Ainsley Earhardt wasn't present on the Fox & Friends couch today. For that reason, the four friends this morning were these:
Fox & Friends co-hosts, October 23, 2024
Steve Doocy
Brian Kilmeade
Lawrence Jones
Kayleigh McEnany (substitute friend)
We think it's important to start saying their names. With the Internet Archive down again—the victim of a cyberattack—we'll be working from this post by Colby Hall over at Mediaite.
This morning, at 7:15 Eastern, the four friends swung into action. At issue was a pair of unflattering reports about Candidate Donald J. Trump.
Under current arrangements, the friends are paid, by their corporate owners, to propagandize on behalf of Candidate Trump. The goal is to wash the brains of viewers of any concerns about Candidate Trump. As we've previously noted, this practice is modeled on the 2004 Hollywood film of this name:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This morning, a certain circumstance needed to be addressed. Two (2) unflattering reports had appeared about Candidate Trump. One report was in The Atlantic, the other was in the New York Times.
With the Internet Archive down again, we can't conduct a full check of the way these two reports were handled in the course of the program's three hours. As part of his report for Mediaite, Hall offers videotape of one four-minute segment—a segment which helps the discerning observer see the nature of corporate "cable news" propaganda and the role it now plays in our lives.
For starters, sad! Hall doesn't call attention to this fact, but the friends only mention the report about Trump which appears in The Atlantic. The lengthy interview with General John Kelly which appears in the New York Times goes unmentioned by the friends as they complete their corporate rounds in the segment for which Hall has provided videotape.
Hall does cite an obvious problem with the service provided by the four friends. We offer a quick bit of background:
It fell to the friends to assure Fox viewers that the unflattering accounts of Trump's behavior in The Atlantic can't possibly be right. That said, it seems to us that the unflattering report in the New York Times is far more striking than the corresponding piece in The Atlantic.
The Atlantic piece is largely recap of prior reporting. The report in the Times includes extensive audiotape of General Kelly talking about the endless array of peculiar things Trump said to him during the eighteen months he spent as President Trump's second chief of staff.
(As president, Trump had four chiefs of staff in all.)
At any rate, the friends were required to give the impression that any such unflattering claims simply couldn't be right. At one point, Hall spies an apparent implausibility in the path the four friends trod:
HALL (10/23/24): McEnany has consistently claimed that John Kelly’s retelling of a private conversation he had with Trump in Normandy, in which the 45th president allegedly labeled US soldiers buried in a cemetery as “suckers and losers” has been debunked—though there is no way that she could disprove Kelly’s account.
[..]
It’s not clear how she can reasonably conclude how a private conversation “never happened,” but if she believes that to be true, then she is clearly saying that John Kelly is lying about what he says the former president told him personally.
Is General Kelly lying about that alleged statement by Trump? In the New York Times report, Kelly recounts a wide array of strange remarks President Trump allegedly made. He also says that Trump made remarks of the "suckers and losers" type on an array of occasions.
Skillfully, the four friends simply disappear the detailed Times report. Along the way, Jones, the dumbest and most self-assured of the four regular friends, claims to blast the whole kerfuffle to smithereens by offering an account of the circumstance in which the "suckers and losers" comment was supposedly made.
The circumstance described by Jones doesn't seem to jibe with The Atlantic's reporting, or with Kelly's statements to the Times.
Is Donald J. Trump "a fascist?" You can hear General Kelly state that view as part of the extensive New York Times videotape.
Perhaps for that reason, the friends fail to mention the existence of the Times report. Instead, they pick out a statement from The Atlantic and allege that they've shot it down.
The friends are hired by the corporation to convey such impressions—to keep pro-Trump minds "spotless." Morning Joe performs a similar function for Blue America's cable news viewers, though to a substantially lesser extent and in a less stupid manner.
Under current arrangements, our nation's journalistic discourse lies in ruins. The Internet Archive is still down, the victim of a cyberattack.
Under the direction of Suzanne Scott, the Fox News Channel conducts a fraud against the American people on a round-the-clock basis. Sadly, it's hard to report the way this scam has worked in this current instance with the Internet Archive still down.
Pray for Rosemary's baby, the deep state once said. At this site, we pray for the Archive!
Not to worry regarding Kelly's pronouncement backed by his conversations with Der Trump, Maggie Haberman says that it's not surprising, it's been previously and exhaustively reported by her and fellow hack Steve Schmidt, and that it's no big deal. Of note is Kelly's follow up to his dire warning. Being a man of conviction, he's decided not to vote at all.
ReplyDeleteInternet Archive got hacked:
ReplyDeletehttps://mashable.com/article/internet-archive-still-being-hacked-support?test_uuid=01iI2GpryXngy77uIpA3Y4B&test_variant=a
At this point I don't think the election will be affected by bizarre things Trump said five years ago. Supporters and opponents are well aware that Trump says bizarre things.
ReplyDeleteDiC - But how about you? Nine months ago, you were telling us about how high inflation was the thing that made you support Trump. But now inflation has been tamed. And you admit that Trump routinely says extremely bizarre things, such as ow great Hitler's generals were. Would you hire Trump, found by unanimous juries as liable for rape and guilty of multiple crimes, to teach at a grade school? to be a teller in a bank? or hell, even to work at the counter at McDonald's?
DeleteTrump still believes and repeats those bizarre things.
DeleteDG - MK was arrested 29 times. That was corruption by the jurisdiction. Trump's so-called crimes are also corruption Democrats. Those trumped-up prosecutions are a strong reason to vote against the Democrats.
DeleteI hope inflation has been tamed, but it has never come below 2%, so I'm not totally confident.
Trump's liability for rape was a sick joke. A woman said Trump raped her many years ago. Trump said he didn't. There's no other proof one way or the other. The jury levied a preposterous amount against Trump for the supposed tort of saying he wasn't guilty.
I wish Trump didn't say bizarre things, but that's a relatively small sin. IMO Biden-Harris's foreign and military policies led to a million preventable deaths in Ukraine.
DeleteTrump says things that aren't just bizarre, they're out of synch with American political traditions, the Constitution, and the whole concept of democratic self-governance.
DeleteBut so what! Look at the price of eggs!
DiC - You and I are done: Equating Trump’s fraud with MLK’s civil disobedience is beyond the pale.
DeleteIf there was any question lingering about whether DIC is a racist he answered it succinctly with his MLK:Donald Trump analogy.
DeleteAccumulating roughly 40,000 lies since coming into the political sphere is a major accomplishment as opposed to a "relatively small sin". Example: spreading dangerous misinformation that was refuted by Republican governors and mayors about the hurricane response was the kind of despicable trash that rubes like DIC consider a minor offense.
DeleteSpeaking of unnecessary deaths, the Trump administration has been judged accountable for a large number of such during the Covid pandemic, in two studies. Kaiser published one indicating that roughly 250,000 unnecessary US deaths occurred during the Trump administration, and another, the Lancet study , likewise calculated that 40% of the death count under Trump was excessive. Compared to the Obama administration's response an leadership in controlling the Liberian Ebola outbreak, the Trump response to Covid was criminally inadequate, starting with the defunding of pandemic monitoring scientific outposts in China. Republicans in Congress called for Obama to step down after a single death from Ebola in the US. There has never been a proper judgement of the Trump administration's role in the large number of unnecessary US deaths by the same lawmakers.
DeleteTrump's so-called crimes are also corruption Democrats. Those trumped-up prosecutions are a strong reason to vote against the Democrats.
DeleteThe next good faith argument DiC makes will be his first.
The Right's trumped-up charges that they are suffering from high inflation is not supported at all by economic statistics.
DeleteWhy do you buy their lies without any pushback at all, David in Cal?
If Trump wins the election, you better believe I'll be pushing David in Cal, and the other Jews who voted for Trump into the cattle cars on Day One.
DeleteTrump's liability for rape was a sick joke.
DeleteTrump was sued for defamation, you ignorant clod.
You know what is a sick joke, Dickhead? You supporting a man who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. You supporting an ignorant shameless fucking corrupt lying sack of shit who bragged about the size of his cock during a nationally televised Republican presidential primary debate.
They're now "leaking" that Trump praised Hitler. Two weeks to go, and the GOP is going all in to get out the vote.
ReplyDeleteHow important is a Joe Rogan interview? Rogan's podcast has 14.5 million listeners. Rogan is not a Republican. His interviews can last several hours.
ReplyDeleteTrump will record an appearance on Rogan's podcast Friday. Apparently Harris is skipping Rogan. How many votes does Trump gain (or lose) by being the only candidate interviews by Rogan?
Rogan has an audience full of bros who are Trump's prime demographic. The question is how stupid they are.
DeleteIt may be great for Harris.
DeleteRogan's fans think he's "open-minded", when the reality is he's "too stupid to know when he's being lied to".
DeleteOn Rogan's podcast, Trump will be asking a new group of people using a different medium to vote for him. There's a possibility that he appeal to a bunch of new voters, if he does well.
DeleteOTOH Harris will appear on NBC facing the usual group with the usual message. I'm sure she'll do well in the interview, but I think she'll be mostly preaching to the choir.
Rogan's audience is trump's cult of boy bros.
DeleteHarris went on Fox News.
DeleteBiden may have dropped out because he felt he couldn't have made it through the election without having to address why Hunter was making so many millions with such shady international players, in the same countries he was visiting diplomatically while he was VP. Maybe he and his people felt the story that it was all innocent couldn't hold.
ReplyDeleteOr because he's too busy finding a cure for cancer.
DeleteAnything is possible.
Oops You're never gong to find a Republican voter who cares about something other than bigotry and white supremacy, so let's say almost anything is possible.
Are the Republicans aware that Hunter is not running for president?
DeleteYes, of course they are.
Delete@7:33 Hunter's scandal is Joe's scandal. Hunter's alleged influence peddling was based on his father adjusting government policy depending on how much money foreign entities paid to Hunter
Delete"...based on his father adjusting government policy depending on how much money foreign entities paid to Hunter..."
DeleteAs Trump's good pal Rudy used to say, "We have lots of theories, but no evidence."
9:33 And that is exactly why the Republicans chose to bring up Biden for impeachment. What's that, they didn't? In an election year and having spent millions of taxpayer dollars not to mention all that time investigating the "Biden crime family" instead of producing legislation benefiting the American people? The Republicans forgot to impeach Biden? How's that, having built their airtight case against the corrupt old geezer? Why that was quite the oversight. Otherwise we would have to logically conclude that given their complete failure to provide a scintilla of evidence that Biden was linked to his son's activities , the Republicans had nothing except perhaps the account of their star witness, a Russian asset. Enough evidence, however, to allow a rube like DIC to spout off about a fiction concocted by the same clowns that brought us 8 failed Benghazi investigations. Yeah that blueprint.
DeleteIt seems unreasonable for Somerby to expect Fox News to debunk itself by including the NY Times interview.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone believes these debunked allegations 13 days out from the election. They stink of desperation.
ReplyDeleteThe accusation from an ex girlfriend of Epstein was too. much and convinced me to vote early tomorrow. For Trump.
Yeah I too was on the fence until Trump brought up Arnold Palmer's dick size, and not being an idiot who would vote for a demented old man who engages in such talk at rallies, or for that matter repeatedly curses at a dinner organized by Catholics, I think I'll go with Harris. It was close though.
DeleteSarcasm is an excellent tool when debating with people who refuse to make god faith arguments.
Delete"Hitler did some good things." ---Trump
ReplyDelete"If I don't win this election - and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that..."---Trump again
The word of a decorated military man against the word of a compulsive liar. Who to believe?
ReplyDeleteThe Republican party's disdain for the military is part of a larger problem they have with reality and the expertise in science and elsewhere that does not support their backwards doctrine. For example:
ReplyDeletehttps://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/nobel-prize-economists-harris-economic-plan/index.html
Kamala and due diligence and Emhoff the male feminist
ReplyDelete'I put my hand on the valet's shoulder and tell him, with my $100, could you please get me a car as soon as possible.
'As I'm talking to him, Doug got out of the line, comes up, turns me around by my right shoulder. I'm completely caught off guard, I'm not bracing, I'm in four inch heels, wearing a full-length gown and it's between 2-3am.
'He slaps me so hard I spin around, and I'm in utter shock.
'There had been no fight, no argument. It had been a completely fantastic event. I am so furious. The only thing I could think to do was slap him back. I slapped him on one side, and on the other cheek with the other hand.
'In that moment, his mask had dropped and I saw his dark side,' she added.
'All of a sudden the car is there, the valet is ushering me in.
'I intended to go back to the hotel without him. So I was shutting the car door, but he forced his way into the car, which I did not want.
'It's dark. I don't speak French, my friends we're with are off having an amazing time. I'm embarrassed and humiliated that, this amazing experience turned into this violent spectacle.
'I can't believe he just slapped me. I think I said to him in the car, 'What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you do that?' And the only thing I could get out of him was he thought I was hitting on the valet.'
Jane said she called a businessman friend in New York from the cab to tell him what just happened. The friend confirmed the call to DailyMail.com.
'This was the first time I saw Doug's ugly side,' Jane said. 'I was in shock. I wanted somebody to know where I was, and what happened. I was freaked out because I thought I knew this person. But I don't, and he's in the car with me.
'I also wanted Doug to see me on the phone telling somebody.'
'I had never really wanted to talk about Doug slapping me, to be honest with you, because I was with him for a few months, it was this one moment. And it was enough to wake me up and leave.
'In retrospect, it was the best thing that could possibly have happened, because his mask dropped, and I realized I shouldn't waste another moment with him.'
The two never spoke after the French trip, Jane said, save for two texts where she requested he paid her money he owed, and he requested a suit he left behind - which she promptly threw in the trash.
But when she read Emhoff was dating then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris in 2014, it all came flooding back.
'I just got this sinking feeling, like, oh my god, she's engaged to this guy. My first thought was she clearly has not done due diligence on him. And I thought, he's putting the hard sell on her, like he did with me.
'I was wondering, does she know?'
1;39,
DeleteThese stories about Harris marrying a women beater, are an attempt to get Republican voters to cross over and vote for her.
Don't fall for it, unless you are a Republican voter, in which case, please do.
David in Ca, the ultimate travesty: a Jew soft on Hitler.
ReplyDelete