FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2025
CEO's imitation of life: Imitations of (human) life are frequent among us humans. In yesterday morning's report, we treated you to an example.
The CEO of the Fox News Channel had truly sent in the clowns! In this case, the "clowns" to whom we refer included three relatively undistinguished comedians, one of whom is known to us as the nicest guy in the world.
A comedian certainly could know something about climate science, but none of these stumblebums seemed to. As you may recall, that left the star of the show, the seemingly disordered Greg Gutfeld, to propagandize a failing nation in the following way:
GUTFELD (10/2/25): We all love the pope. Why is he weighing in on climate change when all of the data is so corrupted? No one believes in this crap any more—except him!
GUTFELD: You know, Rich, the fact is that all of the data is found to be fraudulent. You can't accurately measure the earth's temperature—you'd need a huge thermometer for one.
GUTFELD: The pope isn't expected to be up to date on this kind of stuff. And he should know that. He should know that, "Maybe I don't follow the climate science, so maybe I should stay out of it." Trump knows more about this than the pope does. I hate to tell you, Pope!
We know of no reason to believe that this man had any idea concerning what he was talking about. That said, the CEO had sent in the clowns, and millions of people across the nation were propagandized through that trio of sound bites.
Tribal pleasure was layered in through a succession of ugly insults delivered in the form of alleged jokes.
These presentations represent an imitation of human life. So does the silence which is maintained by Blue America's journalistic and academic elites, where everyone from French and Kristof and Lawrence on down seems to know the rules of the game:
What happens on Fox stays right there on Fox. You don't want to tangle with Fox!
That imitation occurred on the primetime "cable news" program, Gutfeld! Almost surely, Gutfeld! is the most fraudulent example of "broadcast news" ever presented on American cable or air.
Equally stupid is the professional courtesy extended to this imitation of life. And as we've told you, the moral and intellectual squalor which pervades this 10 p.m. show (that's 7 p.m. out on the coast) is slowly being transition to the nation's most-watched cable news program, the Fox News Channel gong show known as The Five.
How fake do "discussions" get on The Five? This Wednesday afternoon's program provided a good example.
Uh-oh! James Comey had pleaded "not guilty" to a criminal charge. But in a news report in Thursday's print editions of the New York Times, readers were exposed to some of the highly unusual elements of the case:
Comey Pleads Not Guilty and Will Seek to Dismiss Charges as Vindictive
James Comey, the former F.B.I. director targeted by President Trump, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges he lied to Congress. His lawyer said he would move to quickly dismiss the case, calling it a “vindictive” and “selective” prosecution.
[...]
If the hearing offered a guide to the defense’s strategy, it revealed little new about a case deemed so weak by career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia that they refused to have anything to do with it. That reluctance forced the White House to quickly insert a stand-in U.S. attorney to file the indictment.
Mr. Comey’s lead lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, vented his exasperation in the hearing, saying that his “first substantive contact” with prosecutors came Tuesday night. He said he still had not received specific details of the charges, including the identities of witnesses, beyond the two-page indictment approved by a split grand jury on Sept. 25.
[...]
On the left, at the prosecutors table, sat Lindsey Halligan, who was making her second-ever appearance as a prosecutor after she was hastily installed by Mr. Trump as the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia last month. She was picked after her predecessor was ousted after finding insufficient evidence to indict Mr. Comey.
Ms. Halligan, a former insurance lawyer, did not speak in court. Instead, she spent the hearing rocking and nodding in her chair as a junior federal prosecutor brought in from North Carolina spoke for the Justice Department.
The long list of peculiarities proceeded from there. None of these oddities were ever mentioned as the corporate tools sent in by the CEO pretended to evaluate the case.
(The relatively agreeable Harold Ford sat in the anti-MAGA chair that day. Had Jessica Tarlov been in his place, she almost surely would have started mentioning these problems. At that point, the interruptions would have begun.)
None of the problem with this case were ever mentioned this day. "You know what? I'm happy they went after this guy," the former VJ Kennedy eventually said.
"I hope they go after Clapper [next]," she said as the imitation of a discussion mercifully came to an end.
Viewers of the Fox News Channel heard nothing about the long list of apparent irregularities involved in this prosecution. This kind of sifting typifies the pseudo-discussions engineered by the CEO on this most watched of all such programs.
As Gutfeld transfers his moral and intellectual squalor to this most-watched "cable news" show, how dumb—how embarrassingly childish—does it routinely get on The Five?
For that, we take you to last Friday's program. The CEO, on her yacht, had sent in this collection of clowns:
The Five: Friday, October 3, 2025
Kennedy: Fox News contributor
Jessica Tarlov: alternate co-host, The Five
Jesse Watters: co-host, The Five
Kayleigh McEnany: co-host, Outnumbered
Greg Gutfeld: co-host, The Five
Uh-oh! On this day, Tarlov was there. In the program's opening segment, the players pretended to discuss the issues concerning government funding of health care which lie at the heart of the ongoing government shutdown.
After some silly blather from Watters, McEnany—she's a graduate of Harvard Law School—turned to Tarlov, positioned two seats to her right. At 5:05 p.m., McEnany—she also studied at Oxford—went where the rubber should be meeting the road:
MCENANY (10/3/25): Why does your party want to shut down the government for taxpayer funded health care for illegal immigrants?
That was the question she asked. But are the Democrats doing that? Is that why the Democrats are pursuing their current course?
Major news orgs have largely abandoned the task of trying to fact-check the various claims which lie at the heart of the current messaging war. But of one thing you can feel quite certain:
No citizen watching The Five will ever see a serious attempt to straighten such questions out.
To her credit, McEnany had directly posed a direct question. Here is a bit of what followed:
MCENANY (10/3/25): Why does your party want to shut down the government for taxpayer funded health care for illegal immigrants?
TARLOV: It's just not what's going on...Mike Johnson, and to his credit, he does a ton of interviews. But everybody is pushing back on him about that, showing the actual text, which says—we're talking about people who are lawfully here.
[...]
If you want to pull [that document] out—if you want to go to the part that's below the GOP account, you'll see that it's for people that are here lawfully—protected status, domestic violence survivors, etcetera.
At this point, the complexity had already strained the patience of Gutfeld and Watters past the breaking point. The pair now launched their mandated interruptions of Tarlov, and any semblance of a serious discussion came to an end.
Claims and counter claims flew. The incoherence was general.
McEnany was in the Perino chair this day—the chair reserved for the pro-MAGA panelist who is supposed to give the impression that she isn't completely out of her mind. That said, little attempt at clarification came from her.
At one point, the pseudo-discussion turned on a conceptual question which has seemed to puzzle the players on this dimwitted entertainment / propaganda / messaging vehicle. That conceptual puzzle goes like this:
Can a person who is "lawfully present" be said to be "an illegal?"
It can get extremely dumb on this imitation news show. With apologies to the gods, Master Gutfeld was soon able to take no more—and with apologies to the gods for what we find ourselves forced to report, here's what he now said and did:
GUTFELD: This is a process that was gamed by illegals, OK? First of all, I looked back and I found out—
Do you know what has more views that [the Democratic Party's health care] livestream? Rosie O'Donnell's colonoscopy!
PANELISTS: [Laughter]
WATTERS: No!
GUTFELD: And it wasn't—it wasn't even recorded!
WATTERS: Ha ha ha!
GUTFELD: That was four hundred real person views [of the Democratic livestream].
By now, it was 5:09; to appearances, he just couldn't take the tedium any more. And so, he turned to a favorite target. We apologize to the gods, and of course to O'Donnell herself.
In fact, there was no colonoscopy for other players to view. There were no images on his phone. But this is the clown car the corporate CEO has chosen, and soon the Harvard Law School grad was also enjoying the fun:
It was now 5:11. The play-acting had all broken down. The Harvard Law grad said this:
MCENANY: I can't stop thinking about Rosie's colonoscopy. I'm trying to get that image out of my mind
GUTFELD: Here, you want to see some stuff on my phone?
[Leans over, shows phone to McEnany]
Looks like the Holland Tunnel.
MCENANY [Delighted laughter]: Greg downloaded it!
There were no images on the phone. There was no colonoscopy there to explore.
We apologize to the gods—and to O'Donnell. As we noted on Monday, we were stunned by O'Donnell's clean, clear voice when we watched her recent podcast with Nicolle Wallace.
We were stunned by the clarity of what we saw and heard. We're still affected by what we saw. We plan to discuss that next week.
We plan to discuss the many things we saw and heard next week. But this is what now passes for the American public discourse when a CEO pries the lid off the can and her messenger children decide to come slithering out.
We have a word for Brother Gutfeld. We regard him as "unrecognizable."
We've never seen anyone anywhere as strange on an American "news" program. Yesterday, we said that he deserves some help. Tomorrow, we'll explain that.
McEnany seemed delighted by the chance to become a clown. Moment later, the pathetic Kennedy was complaining about "the hot turd of overspending" performed by the Democratic Party.
In the end, this seems to be the only way these children know how to talk. Judging from appearances, this is pretty much all they have.
We apologize to the gods—sand to O'Donnell herself—for the necessity of showing you what Blue America's pampered elites have been enabling all these years. That said no modern society can expect to survive a reign of inanity matching this. One observer has even described this tribal inanity as "a revolt from below"—as "The Revenge of the D-Minus Students."
Some of the circus clowns who gets sent in probably were D-minus students. McEnany's situation is different. Her testimony goes like this:
I was never a D-minus student. But I play one on cable TV!
Tomorrow: We visit the CEO's conversion of Gutfeld. Also, who in the world is Kat Timpf?
"Imitations of (human) life are frequent among us humans."
ReplyDeleteWay to dehumanize, Somerby! There was a day when he would have objected to this kind of statement. People are not fake humans just because you disagree with them.
People are fake humans when they act like they are not really human. That happens to be the situation that Bob describes in regards to Gutfeld's show.
DeleteYou don’t dehumanize people using language because it makes it easier to commit atrocities with impunity. Gutfeld tells bad jokes, that’s all.
DeleteYou're stretching it. Let me flip it this way: Bob is not dehumanizing Gutfeld; he uses this language to describe the character that Gutfeld plays. And, no, Gutfeld is not doing a stand-up comedy act where he tells unfunny insults; he pretends to conduct a political show where there is humor. Compare it to Jon Stewart, which is funny, poignant at times, and factually accurate.
Delete“Imitation of Life” comes from a film about a black woman passing for white. It was a drama. Do you think that applies to Gutfeld?
DeleteNo, Gufeld is not a black woman passing for white. However, it's possible to adapt this description to different circumstances, e.g. Gutfeld. Do I think that it's a particularly apt description? I am not sure, but it's Somerby's blog. I get what he's saying.
DeleteLastly, Gutfeld "dehumanizes" himself with his act. When the essence of your commentary is to sling mindless insults and act like an asshole, then prepare to be accurately called a subhuman asshole.
DeleteSomerby says one of the three clowns is the nicest guy in the world. He doesn't go on and tell us which one. But I find myself wondering how "nice" someone can be when they deliberately go on TV to spread propaganda.
ReplyDeleteSomerby blames blue media for not contesting things said on Fox. First, it isn't true that nothing on Fox ever gets debunked. I've seen it happen, but Gutfeld's "jokes" aren't the kind of thing that gets fact-checked. We all know that the ladies on The View are not whales. Second, debunking Fox is like debating anything with David in Cal here in comments. You find the facts and present and he comes back the next day saying exactly the same trash. So it is too on Fox. Nothing stays debunked. It is like trying to stop the ocean waves on the beach. It all just keeps coming.
So why would Somerby urge us (blue media and blue voters) to waste our time with Fox. First watching it, then trying to find a platform to dispute it, then rinse-repeat when it is all said again over and over and over? Flooding the zone isn't just a saying. It refers to an actual flood that sweeps away truth and leaves those caught soaked and shivering in its wake.
And it isn't as if Somerby exhorting us blues to do something about Fox. He is blaming us for the appearance of crap on Fox, as if we put it there, as if we want it there, as if we are blind and deaf to what is being said there. Meanwhile, there are better ways to resist autocracy and most of us blues are doing those things instead of banging our heads against the wall of Fox, the way Somerby wants us to.
But then Somerby repeats the right wing talking point of the day and we catch a glimpse of why he is actually here every day. He wants us blues to be tarnished by criticism, yes, but he also wants to repeat right wing crap himself as if it were also coming from the left (as Somerby pretends to be) and not just the sodden right.
Somerby says: "We apologize to the gods—and to O'Donnell herself—for the necessity of showing you what Blue America's pampered elites have been enabling all these years. "
ReplyDeleteThere was no need for Somerby to repeat Gutfeld's joke about O'Donnell's colonoscopy. And no "blue elites" have enabled Fox. It is the First Ammendment that enables them. They have free speech just like the rest of us. There is no law against what they do, which is engage in protected speech. The Constitution enables them. Is it being a "blue elite" to recognize that we have a Constitution? Maybe so, given that Trump and the right are now wanting to set aside so many of our protections. But we on the left DO believe that we cannot protect our own speech without allowing the right free speech too. That understanding of our rights is why the public as a whole objected to the suppression of Jimmy Kimmel's show. Gutfeld has that same protection and those of us who believe in freedom are not going to clamor for his removal any more than we wanted to see Colbert cancelled (a thin pretext for CBS appeasing Trump).
Somerby is an ass. When he talks about D- students, I am fairly sure he is including himself in that category. He has mentioned the philosophy courses he had to retake during the summer in order to graduate. When someone fails classes in their chosen major, something is wrong. They are either in the wrong major or they are not focused on school, or both. Somerby was at Harvard because his mother threatened to disinherit him and because he didn't want to be drafted during the Vietnam war. It is the same reason he became a teacher (by his own admission). He apparently never did the reading and didn't go to class. That isn't a crime, but he has seemingly blamed Harvard for the rest of his life (and his mother). And he now hates blue elites (anyone who passed a test in college) and female journalists and anyone suggesting that black kids can actually learn. He has a lot of targets in his bitterness, much like Trump (who is around the same age as Somerby). Both have wandered a long way from any truth anyone might want to be told. And yet they both have followers. The right will believe anything.
Realize Somerby won't read this, but for the love of God, try changing the fucking station.
Delete"Dow drops 500 points as sell-off intensifies after Trump's critical comments about China."
ReplyDeleteEvery day it is something with the fucking mad king lunatic.
Trump's net worth grew by multiple billions $$$$ since election. How's everyone else doing?
And it's going to grow even more with the Trump family medicine scam and its eventual participation in the privatization and resort/residential of Palestine development.
DeleteYeah, there is a reason Kushner is in the middle of things again.
DeleteI have to say: discussing Gutfeld's show hits the law of diminishing returns pretty quickly. He is watched by what -- 3 million people? -- less than 1% of the population. The people who watch him and find him funny -- or even palatable -- are not the people who are likely to be receptive to any sort of a rational discussion. Let's just focus on the other 99% and make sure that they are bombarded with the news of Trump's worsening mental state and his egregious violation of the law.
ReplyDeleteHow many years has Somerby been ringing the Gutfeld bell?, and still, nobody cares about the clanging.
DeleteIt is literally not possible to mock Greg Gutfeld enough.
DeleteAntifa is real
ReplyDeleteA man threatened conservative influencer Benny Johnson as part of an 'Antifa' plot to emulate Charlie Kirk's assassination, Pam Bondi said at a fiery press conference Friday.
The Attorney General announced charges against a suspect named as George Isbell Jr. as part of a White House crackdown on political violence.
Isbell will be prosecuted in connection to threatening communications mailed to Johnson and his wife Kate, which talked about wanting to orphan their children and strangling Johnson 'with an American flag'.
Johnson commands a following of over four million on X and is one of the most outspoken conservative commentators on social media
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15181429/Benny-Johnson-threats-Pam-Bondi-letter-Trump-Kirk.html
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNonsense. Much more egregious unlawful behavior is perpetuated by ICE. The real DOJ would focus on those violations of human rights.
Delete"Antifa is real"
DeleteSays Pam Blondi.
Being a "Sanctuary State" appears insane. Can anyone explain this? How does it make sense for California to prevent this illegal immigrant criminal from being deported?
ReplyDeleteCalifornia Ignores Detainer and Releases Serial Criminal Illegal Alien; He Kills 6 people
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/10/10/murderer-of-6-was-illegal-alien-criminal-released-by-newsom-n4944702
"Can anyone explain this?"
DeleteNot to you. No one can penetrate that thick wall of wingnut muscle encapsulating your brain.
How can you ignore that the golden calf with the keys to the nukes that will destroy all of humanity is in serious mental decline from the syphilis he contracted raping little girls?
DeleteIce has "lost" thousands of children. Ice has "lost" thousands of adults. We have watched Ice recently murder two people in cold blood. How does this make sense?
DeleteExplanation is simple: Democrats are a severely retarded bunch. Don't you know that?
DeleteThe language of the DHS press release is suspiciously cagey and vague on the timeline. The release notes that the accused man has been removed from the country seven times. The release doesn't give any dates. It says the ICE detainer request was ignored, but doesn't say the man (charged with six counts of murder) was actually released following the crash, nor does it say clearly when that detainer was issued.
DeleteIt's really a terrible thing when we have to read official statements from our federal agencies so carefully and skeptically, but we learn from past experience.
How does it make sense for Dogey to squander billions and kill millions?
DeleteI come here to fling cognizant poo back at idiocracy poo. How dare QiB to keep providing reasoned analysis!
DeleteI see this in the press release: "Following Cerillo-Bialva's third arrest for driving under the influence in 2024, ICE lodged an arrest detainer that was ignored by California authorities." I missed that before. Still a lot of questions raised and unanswered in the press release.
DeleteWhen was the last time he was deported? Why does the press release imply that he was released after the crash?
Further, the PJ Media story embellishes the vagaries of the press release, including convicting the accused of charges that are still pending.
Garbage.
Immigrants have a much lower crime rate than native born citizens, so when right wing loons cherry pick cases of immigrant criminals, it exposes their hypocrisy and their complicity in ignoring the majority of crimes, most of which are perpetrated by White males.
DeleteThese whiners do not care about law and order, for them it is worth having White male criminals run around wreaking havoc in order to get the satisfaction of feeling like they owned the libs, although in the end they just embarrass themselves with their goofy self-owns.
This doesn't have anything to with immigrants. Criminal border-crossers aren't immigrants.
DeleteOver 90% of those being detained and deported have no criminal record, even up to 98%. (heck Biden was deporting more criminals than Trump)
DeleteA significant number of those being detained are in fact citizens or legal residents.
Illegally crossing the border is a misdemeanor on the level of a traffic ticket, and accounts for a minor percentage of undocumented immigrants.
Most crossing the border claim asylum, as they are escaping bad conditions in their native country, conditions for which the US is largely responsible; therefore they are not "illegal".
The plurality of "illegal" immigrants came here legally and then overstayed their visa.
All immigrants, and even more so for undocumented immigrants, have a much lower crime rate than native born citizens.
Focusing on the outlier of immigrants that commit crimes ignores that the vast majority of crimes which are committed by native born people, specifically White males.
Losers like 3:44 do not care about crime or law and order, they just need to feed the emotional void they have and immigrants are low hanging fruit and easy scapegoats.
Some scenes from the war-ravaged Portland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVpaaTCAetw&t=32s
ReplyDeletePS: I am beginning to think that non-stop helicopter circling is there to punish the residents. Well, it does sound like Trump: a vindictive asshole.
Have you all called and written your Congress critters to impeach this ignorant asshole?
ReplyDelete"Let’s call it the RFK Jr. effect. With everything from cancer research being cancelled, to measles outbreaks and the president shouting from the podium in the White House “don’t take Tylenol!,” it’s very hard to have any confidence that this country has a functional health care system at all"
Trump is out to lunch, between his dementia and dilapidated physical condition he does not know what the fuck he is doing, but god willing he will make it to the end of his term, at which point Vance et al, all lacking any scintilla of charisma or reasonable views, will go down in flames. If Humpty Dumpty Trump goes sooner, then those right wing lunatics could gain a foothold that would make it much harder to remove them.
ReplyDeleteIt is odd how all these loons engaging in political violence are all right wingers, but it makes some sense when you consider the end game of keeping MAGA in power since Trump has limited viability.
Somerby seems determined to have his blog lose all relevancy before it finally shutters.
ReplyDeleteFine by me.