Today's Tweet(s)

DumFux News does its best to keep the rubes from seeing and hearing their boy get shitty with people.

The rubes still don't care, but the GOP knows that the core support for the Clown Prince is shrinking, so they do everything possible to prop him up.

Watch Fox News' coverage: they cut away quickly before he can get the second dig in while the anchor laughs nervously and calls it "ho, ho a little insult for somebody..." pic.twitter.com/uIJb12JPO1

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) August 16, 2019

Dumb Dumber And DumFux news

WaPo:

This is a story about how the lowest common denominator of popular media paved the way for the lowest common denominator of populist politics. And it’s got data.

It begins with the opening of Italy’s airwaves, long the dominion of the highly regarded public broadcaster RAI. In the 1980s, an aggressive and unabashedly unsophisticated channel called Mediaset elbowed its way into the market and spread across the country, buying up small local channels and countering RAI’s educational mission with a heavy dose of cartoons, sports, soap operas, movies and other light entertainment.

By 1990, 49 out of 50 Italians could watch Mediaset — half of the country had gained access in just five years. These unusual events allowed a team of Italian economists to compare towns that initially had Mediaset with otherwise equivalent towns that didn’t get reception until later, and thus calculate how a few extra years of lowbrow TV can shape a society’s politics.

The results are bleak. In the American Economic Review, Ruben Durante of Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Paolo Pinotti of Bocconi University in Milan and Andrea Tesei of Queen Mary University of London analyze detailed broadcast-transmitter data to show that more exposure to Mediaset’s vapid programming was followed by an enduring boost in support for populist candidates peddling simple messages and easy answers.

You may think this relationship has an obvious explanation, presumably because you’re aware that Mediaset’s founder and controlling owner is noted populist politician and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. But the researchers go to great lengths to prove this isn’t just a Berlusconi effect. For starters, the bump extends to his populist competitors, particularly the Five Star Movement. Founded on a comedian’s blog a decade ago, the anti-establishment movement became the biggest single party in Italy’s Parliament after last year’s election.

And before we just shrug it off as "Gee that's wacky - Life Imitating Art", let's remind ourselves that the "art" here is political artifice, and that we tend to do what we're taught to do.

Propaganda works.

Mayor Pete

One part of the exchange between Pete Buttigieg and Chris Wallace on DumFux News:

Buttigieg: I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up on where you draw the line that we’ve gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line and I trust women to draw the line when it’s their own health.

Wallace: So just to be clear, you’re saying you would be okay with a woman, well into the third trimester deciding to abort her pregnancy.

Buttigieg: Look, these hypotheticals are usually set up in order to provoke a strong emotional --

Wallace: It’s not hypothetical, there are 6,000 women a year who get abortions in the third trimester.

Buttigieg: That’s right, representing less than 1 percent of cases. So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation. If it’s that late in your pregnancy, then almost by definition, you’ve been expecting to carry it to term. We’re talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name. Women who have purchased a crib, families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother or viability of the pregnancy that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice. And the bottom line is as horrible as that choice is, that woman, that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but that decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made."

To reiterate:

Brrr

WaPo:

Even Hell, Mich., froze over: The community outside of Ann Arbor was expected to see temperatures drop to minus-26 overnight into Thursday. The nearby University of Michigan took the rare step of canceling classes through Thursday.

But, according to DumFux News, we can't stop using fossil fuel now, even though the use of fossil fuel has fucked it all up for us, because fossil fuel is the only thing we have that's really reliable - and let's be sure to conveniently ignore the fact that the fossil fuel industry's efforts to make their fuel the only one we can rely on is what got us into this fuckin' mess in the first fuckin' place.

The only real defense against Winter Storm Jayden is fossil fuels—the source of the vast majority of electricity that Americans will need to stay warm. Pie-in-the-sky talk about renewable energy won’t warm hearths and hearts during this storm, because the sun isn’t shining all the time and the wind capacity simply isn’t there.

Sorry not sorry but - goddammit, I hate these assholes.

Overheard on the intertoobz yesterday:

"I think I just keyed that guy's car with my nipples."

Score Card

It's good to know Shep Smith is trying to keep it 100, even though we can't really be sure this isn't just ass-covering.  

But I think get it - DumFux News needs some kind of beard; they need plausible deniability; something that muddies up the water a little; something that lets them maintain the illusion that their "coverage" during the day is real news while their prime time programming is all about opinion and blah blah blah.

Anyway, Media Matters For America does some good work once in a while by making these mashups so we can keep track of some of the epic volume of bullshit that flies out of Cult45 at record speed.

Try This

#OutFoxTheHolidays

hat tip = Bob Cesca's podcast

Another Year - Another Nuthin'

As of yesterday, DumFux News has been a thing for 22 years. 

Here's a list of all the journalism awards they've garnered since their inception in 1996:

I'm sure their moms are very proud.

Come At Me, Bro

If you're still on board with Cult45, you have no way to troll me effectively, because it's all but certain there's nothing in your opinion that can be identified as factual, or logic-based - which makes it impossible to respect the intellect behind that opinion.

Your MAGA hat, and your big red Xs, and your 4Chan QAnon baloney, and your DumFux News bullet points all demonstrate that you and I are simply not morally compatible.

Say your worst - it's meaningless - it's nothing - it's balloon juice and sail boat fuel.

hat tip = @JohnPavlovitz

Today's Tweet

DumFux News is one big lie.

Fox News tried coming after Denmark's social safety net. This Danish politician's retort was legendary. pic.twitter.com/mBJjzgD48I

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) August 16, 2018

 

Today's Tweet

Here's a very thinly-veiled version of The 14 Words:

#ICYMI Check out the segment from tonight about the changing demographics in America pic.twitter.com/eM1VJkN8OG

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 20, 2018

Can you say "Ethnic Cleansing"? Slobodan Carlson wants you to be his friend.

In The Marketplace Of Ideas

Media Matters For America:

We now have further confirmation that Fox News’ role as a mouthpiece for Donald Trump is affecting the network’s bottom line.

According to a report by Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair, the network is struggling to sell ad space on their 9 and 10 PM respective programs.

While Fox News dominated the ratings in May—a fact Trump bragged about on Saturday—the network is having new difficulties monetizing its most pro-Trump programming. According to three sources briefed on the numbers, advertising revenues for Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are down in recent months. “The pro-Trump thing isn’t working. We can’t monetize DACA and the wall and that right-wing shit,” one staffer said. “Despite all the hype on Hannity, they can’t sell it,” another insider told me. (Tucker Carlson’s show is faring better, sources said).

But until some management imposes real standards and consequences at Fox News, it’s up to activists and advertisers to shoulder the burden. As Media Matters president Angelo Carusone wrote in October:

Mostly driven by concerns around digital advertising, companies are becoming increasingly mindful about brand safety and intentionality in that advertising. And that mindfulness is starting to influence other advertising decisions as well, like television sponsorships.

Companies do not want their advertising to be associated with rank partisanship, bigotry, or deceit. They recognize that it’s bad for business. But Fox News continues to offer all three in spades, and as a result, I suspect it is beginning to have a downward effect on the network’s commercial viability as a whole.

Bottom line is this: Fox News’ ad revenue plummeted. It’s likely largely attributable to Hannity’s growing advertiser losses. And it also appears to reflect a deeper vulnerability in Fox News’ business model of bigotry, deceit, and partisanship.

Before vs After

45* had another public "meltdown" on DumFux News yesterday. I put the word 'meltdown' in quotes because I think at this point we have to consider the probability that 'meltdown' is this clown's default mode.

About 40 seconds in

Starting about 4 minutes in - with 25 minutes to go

The really intriguing part was that 45* ranted and raved for almost 30 minutes about things the DumFux News audience never hears on WingNut Media.

So the gang at Good Morning Couch Tumors, realizing they had no chance to get him on topic, were left scrambling to get 45* off their air, so they could go to a nice long commercial break in order to figure out how to spin it back to the shit they're always pimping.

But apparently they couldn't do it, because they spent the rest of the show alternating between pretending nobody had heard what they had just heard, and changing what 45* had actually said.

The Real Story

Crooks & Liars has unearthed the truth - straight from Hannity's own mouth, and in his own words.

Reshuffle

Chris Smith, Vanity Fair's Hive:

Representing President Donald Trump is not exactly a lawyer’s dream job. True, there are high stakes and lots of media attention. The downsides, though, include a slippery client who barely listens to your advice and who might not pay your bill. That combination has forced Don McGahn, Ty Cobb, and John Dowd to make some unusual strategic choices in trying to fend off Robert Mueller. The most recent was sending the special counsel a written summary of the White House version of key events in the Russia saga. The gambit is intended to get Mueller to narrow the range of a possible Trump interview. And it’s almost certainly doomed.

“I think it’s the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard,” says Solomon Wisenberg, the former federal prosecutor who elicited the damning “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” answer from President Bill Clinton during grand-jury testimony for the Monica Lewinsky investigation. “I’ve never heard of defense attorneys doing that. If you’re Mueller, it’s highly unlikely you accept what somebody’s lawyer said, when that somebody is a subject, at the least, of your investigation. It’s just so weird. It’s one thing to limit the amount of time, or the location. But when people are interviewed in a criminal investigation, they don’t get to narrow the topic.”

Enter Joe diGenova.

The assertion is that even though the slam on Andy McCabe has nothing to do with an "anti-Trump bias", diGenova says that's what he should be held responsible for.

So again, "never mind the facts - listen to what I'm telling you"

This isn't even within the parameters of Spin. This is fairly typical of DumFux News Myth-Making which allows them to take whatever license they want to take in order to fit the facts to a favorable narrative.

"McCabe is guilty of this thing here, and even though he's not guilty of the thing I need him to be guilty of, I'm going to say he's guilty of this other thing so I can pin something on him that serves my purpose. After all, what's the difference? Guilty is guilty."

DumFux News Logic String:
If, A = B
and B = Flapjacks
and Flapjacks = Q
and J = Unicorns
Then,  Deep State!

DiGenova's been all over DumFux News, and so when 45* thought he needed another lawyer, of course he picked a TV personality.

Vox On Fox

They could just be hedging their bets, but when DumFux News almost directly countervails their own prime time commentators, I have to think there's something more to it than that. Like maybe they understand how wacky they've made some of their viewers, and how dangerous it is to throw just a few too many signals out to the Lone Wolf cray-zoids - like the freak who threatened CNN.

.@DonLemon: There's "nothing random" about the arrest of a Michigan man who threatened to kill CNN employees. "This is what happens when the President of the United States repeatedly attacks members of the press simply for reporting facts he does not like" https://t.co/b7oXT900iO

— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) January 24, 2018

Vox:

Fox News just published a story that directly cuts against a conspiracy theory being pushed by the network’s television hosts, congressional Republicans, and the president himself.

Yes, that Fox News.

For the past few days, Fox News has been featuring wall-to-wall coverage of an unknown number of text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page that had disappeared from FBI server records. Previous Strzok and Page messages had included a number of vitriolic comments about President Trump — even a reference to an “insurance policy” against his election.

So the missing texts were taken by the White House, pro-Trump Republicans in Congress, and many in the conservative media as proof that the FBI was covering up a vast anti-Trump conspiracy at the bureau.

“This is like Watergate but far worse,” Sean Hannity said on his Monday night Fox show. “This reeks of law-breaking, it reeks of conspiracy, and it reeks of obstruction of justice.”

Yet on Wednesday afternoon, Fox published an article on its website by reporter Jake Gibson, saying this theory was flatly wrong. Gibson writes, citing “federal law enforcement officials,” that the messages were deleted by a technical error, not malice — one that had affected not just Strzok and Page’s phones, but “thousands” of Bureau-issued devices between the dates of December 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017.

“The gap in records covered a crucial period, raising suspicion among GOP lawmakers as to how those messages disappeared,” Gibson writes. “But Fox News is told that the glitch affected the phones of ‘nearly’ 10 percent of the FBI’s 35,000 employees.”

So either one of two things is happening here: Fox News has gotten a huge story wrong in a way that deeply undercuts the president, or its big-name talk show hosts like Hannity have been peddling a narrative that has absolutely zero basis in fact — but dovetails directly with a broader attack on the FBI aimed at undercutting special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

We report, you decide.
Or maybe we could call it Fox-on-Fox Violence(?) 

Anyway, it's another very strong indication that we've got some serious Daddy State bullshit goin' on - and maybe the Press Poodles in legitimate media are finally wising up and taking it to heart.

But also too, 45* still approaches this like it's all part of the show. He phonies up a villain; he stages a confrontation; he waits to see how the audience reacts; then he adjusts the script (which includes changing facts and flat-out making shit up) to maintain the tension - and to tease whatever cliff-hanger he's ginned up this time around - so the hero (him, of course) always comes out on top.

It's axiomatic that if you stay in it long enough, show biz will make you crazy - fingers in your mouth, jumping up and down crazy.

45*'s trick is that he's using everything at his disposal to make us think we're the crazy ones (standard gaslighting tactics) - and more than that - he's convinced his "base" that they're the only sane ones, and that they can only stay sane by going along with whatever weird shit he comes up with next.

Cult45 - and that kinda explains why the Evangelicals feel so much at home with his malarkey, don't it.

Stay focused

Stay busy

Stay mad

Stay together

Get shit done

Today's Tweet

We've got some pretty low standards here in USAmerica Inc.

Someone at @FoxNews reported the truth and it's making headlines all across America. #MorningJoe

— LisaMarie (@indianaoldsoul) November 15, 2017

 

Today's driftglass

Asking for several gazillion friends - whatever happened to that Greenwald guy?

You know, that guy who I used to write about from time to time and point out that he lied kind of a lot about really big, important issues? Bit of a thin-skinned asshole and monumental hypocrite whose automatic response to any criticism from anyone was all-out, knives-out attack? Who divided the world neatly into "People who agree completely with Glenn Greenwald" and "Drooling, jackbooted Obot servants of tyranny?"

Yeah, last I saw him he was stooging over on Fox News with his BFF, Tucker Carlson:

.@ggreenwald on media: I think what it is, more than dishonesty, is really warped incentive scheme bolstered by this very severe groupthink pic.twitter.com/CXIl2On7CY

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 18, 2017

Today's Tweet

Need some fake news? Look no further than your nearest Self-servative Media outlet.

BTW - what this jagoff has done is illegal. And it's a federal rap. (Stolen Valor Act 2013)

And wouldn't it be nice if somebody charged DumFux News with being an accessory? Yeah but - you know - 1st Amendment. Dammit.

Fox anchor on 'Navy Seal' extolling Trump: "God bless John Garofalo"
Fox correction: “All Garofalo’s claims untrue" https://t.co/uoJDvu9lUn

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 20, 2017

Keith

Channeling a former (and so Etch-A-Sketched) commentator.

Used to be, anything that backfired this badly would be news in itself. But not now. 

It doesn't matter to DumFux News, because they're busy laying the groundwork for the time they'll need to wipe 45* out of everybody's memory.

And the rubes are already figuring out how they can pretend Ms Pirro had to have said that on CNN or MSNBC because now that she's gone, she must've been fired for being a Lame Stream Media spy who was paid by George Soros to degrade the noble purity of the freedom-lovers andt blah blah blah.

(I know that didn't fucking make any sense - none of it makes any fucking sense)

I get really sick of hear myself say that - when will the rubes get sick of hearing what makes me say it?

Today's Political Fuckery

Straight out of the Daddy State Playbook:

If everyone is guilty, then no one can be held to account.

Dallas Morning News, Ruth May:

Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.

During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonid "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.

The shit is apparently wider than I thought, and it runs way deeper. 

Some probables:

• It'll take a good long time to get it sorted out and squared up
• we won't ever know but maybe half of the real story
• the loudest voices will belong to the dirtiest culprits

And don't forget there's a (continuing) concerted effort coming out of the Wingnut Dis-Infotainment Complex to gloss it over.

Fox Politics:

WOULD YOU EVEN CARE IF HE WAS GUILTY?

The stock market is up, unemployment is down and the economy seems to be picking up some steam. The streets are mostly safe, the nation is mostly secure and the world is mostly at peace.

So does it matter to you whether or not the president is a crook? The answer for a lot of Americans may be no.

With the revelation that a grand jury is looking at evidence against members of President Trump’s 2016 campaign team, we move closer still to the possibility that someone could be in very big trouble.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his squad are moving fast, and the likelihood that some charges will be brought can no longer be ignored. It is not hard to imagine a moment in the very near future where some associate of the president is in the dock, charged with misdeeds relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But, again, we ask: Would it matter to you?