The First Lawsuit Against Fox For Misleading The Public On COVID-19 Has Been Filed In Seattle

Early into the pandemic-- with Trump endangering peoples' lives daily with his lies and misinformation-- I asked a few of the legal scholars I know if he could be sued by the the families of people who followed his false information and died. The answer was the same from each: nope. Fox News, on the other hand, is another story.

There has been a great deal of chatter online about class action law suits against Fox for broadcasting a steady stream of coronavirus misinformation-- and not all of it from Trump. Last week, the Seattle Times published a piece by Sara Green about a Seattle nonprofit suing Fox in the King County Superior Court. The Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) is claiming Fox and the Murdochs "violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act and acted in bad faith by disseminating false information about the novel coronavirus through its television news broadcasts and minimized the danger posed by the virus as COVID-19 began to explode into a pandemic."

They claim that "Fox New Fox News engaged in unfair or deceptive acts by representing the coronavirus as a hoax in broadcasts that aired in February and March. Those broadcasts caused viewers to fail to adequately protect themselves or mitigate the virus’ spread, and therefore contributed to the public-health crisis and preventable mass death, the lawsuit says.

Yakima attorney Liz Hallock, who is running for governor as a Green Party candidate, is representing WASHLITE in the lawsuit against Fox News.

“We are not trying to chill free speech here. But we believe the public was endangered by false and deceptive communications in the stream of commerce,” Hallock said in phone interview Friday. “There are a lot of people who listen to Fox News, and they’re not taking the recommendations of public-health officials seriously. This is not about money; it’s about making sure the public gets the message this is not a hoax.”

According to Hallock, several members of WASHLITE live in King County and one of them has COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus.

...Though the lawsuit does not fully enumerate instances when Fox News personnel characterized the virus as a hoax during the two-month period, it points to March 9 broadcasts by Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Trish Regan as examples.

On that day, Hannity said, “They’re scaring the living hell out of people and I see it as, like, ‘Oh, let’s bludgeon Trump again with this new hoax.'”

Late Night host Seth Meyers on Wednesday lampooned Hannity over his comments, playing the March 9 clip alongside one from nine days later in which Hannity said his program has always taken the coronavirus seriously “and we’ve never called the virus a hoax.”

Regan’s March 9 broadcast prompted her dismissal from Fox Business News. A video posted on The Daily Beast’s website shows Regan delivering a monologue next to a graphic that reads, “Coronavirus Impeachment Scam.” Regan accused the left of creating mass hysteria over the virus and shutting down the economy, saying COVID-19 wasn’t as significant as other recent disease outbreaks such as SARS and Ebola.

“So why the melodrama on such an agitated scale right now? Why are the markets acting like this? I’ll give you two words: Donald Trump,” Regan said in the video.

Hallock said her clients are seeking only nominal damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. Ideally, she would like a judge to find Fox News violated the Consumer Protection Act and to tell the media organization to stop disseminating false information about the virus. She’d also like to see Fox News issue a clear retraction and an apology to viewers.

She said the classic example to demonstrate the limits of free speech is someone yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no danger. In contrast, Hallock said of Fox News: “They’re yelling, ‘There is no fire!’ when there is a fire.”

The Daily Beast reported that "Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are girding for a pandemic of public-interest lawsuits over misinformation and conspiracy theories dispensed by certain Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network personalities... According to a top Murdoch executive, the father-and-son media moguls are ready to go to war with potential plaintiffs such as the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics." Fox is screaming "frivolous lawsuit" every time it comes up. Besides, Fox isn't the worst media outlet. There's a genuine fascist one, OAN, Trump's favorite. Watch John Oliver explain what OAN is:

Not Yummy-- Republican Stew

Recall when Lev and Igor were caught laundering Russian money into the Trump campaign and the campaign of dozens of Republicans in Congress? Yesterday, Christian Berthelson reported that Lev-- one of the Giuliani criminal associates was handed a million bucks from Putin in September "a month before he was charged with conspiring to funnel foreign money into U.S. political campaigns. The DOJ-- though obviously not William Barr-- is asking the courts to withdraw his bail and throw Lev in the clink, technically for understating his income and assets. Their filing with the court: "Parnas failed to disclose, in describing his income to the government and pretrial services, the fact that in September 2019, he received $1 million from a bank account in Russia into Account-1. The payment raises provocative new questions about the nature of the work Parnas and his associate Igor Fruman were doing and who they were doing it for. Much about the nature of their work remains unclear."

Greg Olear reminds us that the House has already found William Barr in contempt of Congress. Now he is urging Congress to "take him into custody until he 1) releases the full Mueller documents to the House Intelligence Committee and 2) allows all the president’s accomplices to honor their subpoenas... Trump, with Barr as his first mate, has steered the country into uncharted territory. It’s time for the good guys to take back the helm." From Prevail, Olear's blog, this morning: "He seems so nice. Unlike Paul Manafort, who presents as the mobbed-up asshole he is, or Roger Stone, who arrayed himself like a comic-book villain, or Corey Lewandowski, who comes across as the drunken lout rooting for the other team behind you at the game, Bill Barr doesn’t look like a bad guy. He has a kind face, gentle eyes, a full head of hella-good hair, bookish glasses, and an avuncular manner. His pleasing plumpness is more Kris Kringle than Jabba the Hutt. In a word, he’s cuddly. But make no mistake: the once and current Attorney General is the most dangerous man in America. He may well be the Devil himself."

The third and most effective of Trump’s Attorneys General follows the same pattern. The man who leads the Department of Justice does not believe in justice—at least, not the American version of it. Indeed, Barr does not seem to believe in democracy at all. “Might makes right” is his credo. And he has made it his mission to ensure that the president’s might rivals that of a Saudi king, medieval Pope, or Roman emperor. He is, at best, a monarchist, and at worst, a raging Fascist. He is not just a traitor. He is an apostate, rejecting completely the prevailing faith of his countrymen—our American faith in democracy.

Donald Trump is a monarchist, too, in that he sees himself as some sort of king. But that is a function of his own narcissism and insecurity, not a coherent worldview. Barr is different. In a nation founded by revolutionaries, by patriots, he is a Tory-- a redcoat. It is not difficult to imagine him dolled up in white wig and fancy get-up, grovelling before George III.

His treachery is so obvious as to be indisputable. But Barr is unique among the Trump loyalists for two reasons: First, he’s competent. Second, his motives are more opaque.

OK, now I want you to add something else to a brew you can probably already tell is going to be very toxic. Wednesday deranged Texas Trumpist, Louie Gohmert publicly named the whistleblower during a Judiciary impeachment hearing, illegally endangering his life.

Three faces of today's Republican Party

Next ingredient: As of Friday since his defeat, outgoing-- as in defeated-- Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin granted 428 pardons and commutations to typical Republicans, like one convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents. But the big news was how Bevin pardoned Republican Patrick Baker who was convicted of reckless homicide, robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with evidence-- whose family threw a fundraiser for Bevin and raised him $21,500 towards retiring his campaign debt. Commonwealth’s Attorney Jackie Steele, who prosecuted Baker and other defendants for the 2014 death of Donald Mills, noted that "two of Baker’s co-defendants are still in prison. 'What makes Mr. Baker any different than the other two?' he asked. Answering that question, he said he believes Baker was pardoned while the others remain locked up because Baker’s family has given generously to Bevin. State records show that Victoria Baker, who lives at the same Corbin address where the fundraiser was held, donated $1,000 in 2015 and that Kathryn Baker gave another $500 to Bevin’s reelection in March"... Bevin commuted his sentence to time served and gave him a pardon."





Yes, I'm concocting a recipe for today's GOP. And it would be a big mistake to not include Fox in that recipe-- a more than key ingredient. In an e-mail to his supporters, Florida garden variety Democrat Lois Frankel wrote that 47% of residents in her D+9 South Florida district watch Fox News, "more than in any other congressional district in the entire country." She whined that "wth Fox News ramping up their propaganda efforts in our district, we need your help" to reelect her. "Republicans are raising big money to defeat Democrats in Florida, and with the Fox News propaganda machine on their side, it’s going to take a real grassroots effort to fight back."

Wired went much further, noting that Fox News is now a threat to national security. Garrett Graff reported that "the network’s furthering of lies from foreign adversaries and flagrant disregard for the truth have gotten downright dangerous."

Sean Hannity, who had long trumpeted the forthcoming inspector general report and expected a thorough indictment of the behavior of former FBI director James Comey and other members of the “deep state,” had a simple message for his viewers during Fox’s Monday night prime time: “Everything we said, everything we reported, everything we told you was dead-on-center accurate,” he said. “It is all there in black and white, it’s all there.”

Except they weren’t right and it wasn’t there. But Fox News’ viewers evidently were not to be told those hard truths-- they were to be kept thinking that everything in their self-selected filter bubble was just peachy keen.

Over on Fox Business, Lou Dobbs said the mere fact that the IG found no political bias in the FBI’s investigation of Trump and Russia in 2016 was de facto proof of the power of the deep state.

John Harwood, long one of Washington’s most respected conservative voices in journalism, summed up Fox’s approach Monday night simply: “Lunacy.”

It’s worse than lunacy, though. Fox’s bubble reality creates a situation where it’s impossible to have the conversations and debate necessary to function as a democracy. Facts that are inconvenient to President Trump simply disappear down Fox News’ “memory hole,” as thoroughly as George Orwell could have imagined in 1984.

The idea that Fox News represents a literal threat to our national security, on par with Russia’s Internet Research Agency or China’s Ministry of State Security, may seem like a dramatic overstatement of its own-- and I, a paid contributor to its competitor CNN, may appear a biased voice anyway-- but this week has made clear that, as we get deeper into the impeachment process and as the 2020 election approaches, Fox News is prepared to destroy America’s democratic traditions if it will help its most important and most dedicated daily viewer.

The threat posed to our democracy by Fox News is multifaceted: First and most simply, it’s clearly advancing and giving voice to narratives and smears backed and imagined by our foreign adversaries. Second, its overheated and bombastic rhetoric is undermining America’s foundational ideals and the sense of fair play in politics. Third, its unique combination of lies and half-truths has built a virtual reality so complete that it leaves its viewers too misinformed to fulfill their most basic responsibilities as citizens to make informed choices about the direction of the country.

In the impeachment hearings, former National Security Council official Fiona Hill and other witnesses made clear how those who, like Fox News hosts and the president, advance the false narrative that Ukraine meddled in the US election are serving the Kremlin’s interests. Russia is playing a weak hand geopolitically-- its economy is sputtering along and its population shrinking-- and so its greatest hope is to stoke internal discord in the West. Robert Mueller warned of this; James Clapper has warned of it; and now Fiona Hill has done the same. “Our nation is being torn apart,” she said. “Truth is questioned.” Yet Fox, and the GOP more broadly, has warmly embraced almost every twist of Kremlin propaganda, up to and including the idea that Russia never meddled in the 2016 election to begin with.

Fox’s clear willingness to parry the wingnuttiest ideas in service of the president, long-term implications to the United States be damned, should worry all concerned about the state of the United States. The Ukraine myth is hardly the only example; for years, it has repeated false conspiracies about the murder of Democratic staffer Seth Rich, a conspiracy literally cooked up by Russian intelligence and fed into the US media. (To say nothing of Fox’s long-term commitment to undermining and questioning climate science, leaving the US both behind in mitigating the worst effects of climate change and also ill-equipped to face the myriad security consequences of a warming planet.)

...[A]s the year has unfolded, Fox’s evening talk shows and its presidentially endorsed morning show have proven to be a particularly egregious and odious swamp of fetid, metastasizing lies and bad faith feedback loops that leave its viewers-- and, notably, its Presidential Audience of One-- foaming at the mouth with outrage and bile.

It’s hard not to think that the increasingly odd behavior and untethered-to-reality pronouncements of the president’s two top lawyers-- Attorney General Bill Barr and personal defender Rudy Giuliani-- have not been deeply influenced by the filter bubble on the right created, fostered, and fertilized by Fox News. As Lawfare’s Susan Hennessey tweeted after Barr set out on his Quixotic quest to prove the deep state was behind the FBI’s 2016 investigation, “The Attorney General is a fully-committed Fox News conspiracy theorist.”

The network’s pantheon of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, and the rotating couch-cast of Fox & Friends’ morning show dunces-by-choice together represent a level of ill-informed demagoguery that would make Father Coughlin and Huey Long wince.

More than simply embarrassing themselves by spouting obvious falsehoods, though, Fox News’ incendiary, fanatical rants serve to delegitimize to its viewers the very idea of a political opposition. Every Democrat is evil. Every person who disagrees with President Trump is an enemy of the state. Every career federal employee is a member of a deep state opposition.

As writer Gabe Sherman, who authored a history of Fox News, tweeted over the weekend, “Been thinking a lot about why Trump will survive impeachment when Nixon didn’t. For 20+ years Fox News (and rightwing talk radio) has told GOP voters that Democrats are evil. As lawless as Trump is, Republicans believe Dems are worse. That’s the power of propaganda.”

These pronouncements-- uttered around the clock on weekdays and doubled down on weekends by hosts like the president’s favorite, Jeanine Pirro-- are an attack on the very ideals and foundations of the American experiment.

The founders settled on political parties as a mechanism to institutionalize channels for ongoing debate. As historian Joseph Ellis wrote in American Creation, political parties “eventually permitted dissent to be regarded not as a treasonable act, but as a legitimate voice in an endless argument.” It is that willingness to view opponents as legitimate that has long allowed America to hold together even under trying political times and to deal with political disagreements in the political arena, rather than resorting to violence against national leaders. For all of Fox News and President Trump’s daily declaration of coups and attempted coups against the administration, American history has actually been shockingly free of actual coups.

...That tradition and idea of American politics as an ongoing conversation, an endless argument, is key to preserving our democratic experiment. The idea that you will be in power sometimes, and out of power other times, is what preserves norms and traditions, and curbs the worst abuses and impulses; politicians traditionally understand that actions taken in the majority could serve to bite them if and when they return to the minority.

Donald Trump, who rose to prominence trumpeting the very “birther” falsehood that McCain once batted away, seems bent on undermining that tradition; he has proven he’s perfectly willing to burn down political norms for short-term gain. Fox News seems intent on helping him-- and on a daily basis, they’re telling their viewers he’s right and anyone who disagrees with him is less than human. Trump’s lies are the one constant and consistent position of his presidency (13,000 and counting!), and Fox News has gone all in.

We, as a democratic society, cannot survive such consequences-be-damned, winner-take-all, facts-don’t-matter politics. Fox News has upended Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous proclamation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Its daily programming seems driven by the idea that everyone might be entitled to their own facts, but that there is only one correct opinion: President Trump’s.

In 1984, George Orwell wrote his imagined dystopian regime “told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” but Fox News has actually figured out a tactic even more pernicious: Fox News’ own masters of Orwellian doublespeak, its Hannitys, Carlsons, and Doocys, the ones who smugly declare down up and up down, aren’t even bothering to tell their viewers to ignore their eyes and ears, because the truth never even approaches their airtime.

Let’s hope that Fox News today, unlike in Orwell’s world, doesn’t manage to succeed in transforming our country from a functional democracy into an authoritarian cult.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

FOX News: Caught lying in real time. Did they really think it wasn't already obvious (to normal people) that they lie 24 hours a day? Trump is their inspiration and "dear leader" after all! His bigly steaming pile o' lies is a lot to live up to, but, what else should we expect? In order to be successful, a Manchurian President needs a Manchurian Television network, and vice versa.

Why It's A Complete Waste Of Money For Democrats To Advertise On Fox News

I started my university career studying history, a topic that fascinated me for my whole life. But maybe I'm wrong about Trump, who I'm absolutely certain in the very worst president-- if he even is a legitimate president-- in U.S. history. Yes, he's worse than Nixon or George W. Bush or Reagan and worse than Warren G. Harding, worse than Tyler, Pierce or William Henry Harrison, worse than Buchanan and worse than Andrew Johnson. Fox viewers disagree. A poll shows that 78% of the Republican Fox viewers say Trump is the best president ever-- not just better than Obama, better than FDR, George Washington and Abe Lincoln! Is it an alternative reality or have I been too poisoned with Trump-phobia to see clearly? I asked Twitter. The immediate response (from my followers): they think he sucks too:

The poll of Fox viewers exposes "the deep ideological divide between Fox News viewers and everyone else." It appears hopeless to try to dissuade these people, doesn't it? "The survey’s authors argue that the network presents an 'alternate reality' in American politics, and plays an 'outsized role in the way many experience and form opinions on the most important issues facing the country.' The data show numerous ways in which Fox News-watching Republicans have radically different beliefs from non-Republicans and even Republicans who do not watch Fox News.

In many cases, Fox News-viewing Republicans are vastly different from other Americans, even from other Republicans. So when it comes to Republicans inside the FoxHole, the prospects for making progressive arguments credibly are slim. Consider the following:

• 12% of those in the FoxHole believe climate change is mostly caused by humans, compared to 62% of all other Americans
• 77% are very concerned about the Democratic Party moving in too socialist a direction, compared to 20% of all others
• 89% express support for the Republican tax law, compared to 22% of all others
• 84% support President Trump declaring a national emergency to start building a border wall, compared to 21% of all others
• 20% support the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, compared to 67% of all others
• 78% believe the Trump administration has accomplished more than any administration in history, compared to 17% of all others

How does all that crazy manifest itself? The pollsters also discovered that 95% of Republican Fox viewers voted for a Republican in the midterms last year. Only 88% of Republicans who do not watch Fox did. (About 15% of Fox viewers do not identify themselves as Republicans.) And among Fox viewers who are not Republicans, just 18% voted for a Republican. Among normal people-- those who are neither Republicans, nor Fox viewers, just 8% voted for a Republican running for Congress in 2018.

One of the most telling differences between those inside the FoxHole and the rest of the country isn’t even about opinion, but instead awareness of certain issues. Americans in the FoxHole are fed a steady media diet of content focused on opposing progressive policies and ideas, and as a consequence, they are highly aware of these ideas – sometimes even more than progressives themselves – resulting in a much faster calcification of opinion among conservatives that drives overall ratings for the policies in a negative direction.

For example, this edition of Navigator asked Americans how much they had heard about the “Green New Deal,” a proposal to address climate change. Americans in the FoxHole are more than twice as likely than all other groups to be hearing “some” or “a lot” about the proposal (69% in the FoxHole versus 32% among everyone else, including just 33% among all Democrats). When evaluating national polling about progressive items like the Green New Deal, it should be acknowledged that opinion can often be driven by this highly aware, but relatively narrow slice of Fox News-watching Republicans.

One crucial difference between the two more persuadable groups, or the two halves of the “Media Middle,” is how each one can be reached through non-Fox media. Fox News viewers who are not Republicans tend to also watch other cable news sources, such as CNN or MSNBC, with some regularity, giving progressives an opportunity to reach them with their message. Republicans who are not Fox News viewers, on the other hand, tend to be divorced not just from the Fox News echo chamber, but divorced from all cable news, largely getting their news from national broadcast, local TV, or online news sources instead. In other words: the non-Republicans can still be reached via other cable channels, but Republicans outside the FoxHole require a different approach.

I Wonder If Anyone Noticed... Jeanine Pirro's Weekly Fox Hate Rally Didn't Air Last Night

I would never have known, but this morning Variety reported that Fox News replaced Justice With Judge Jeanine with a repeat episode of its documentary series Scandalous, just days after the network said it condemned provocative and bigoted remarks their hate talk psychopath made about Congresswoman Ihan Omar (D-MN). "Think about it-- Omar wears a hijab. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?" Last night, Variety reported:

The change in Fox News’s schedule was evident in an on-screen cable guide. But a Pirro broadcast had been placed in newspaper TV listings for this evening.

When reached for comment, a Fox News spokesperson said, “We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters” and declined to elaborate.

During her broadcast last Saturday, Pirro, a former New York prosecutor, suggested Omar, a Democractic representative, did not respect the law set down by the Constitution of the United States. “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?” Pirro asked.

A handful of advertisers have in recent days expressed their unease. Personal-finance marketer NerdWallet, pharmaceutical advertiser Novo Nordis and online marketplace Letgo have indicated in press statements they will at stop running ads in Pirro’s program.

On Sunday, Fox News issued a statement rebuking Pirro’s words. “We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro’s comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar,” the network said in a prepared statement. “They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.” Fox News made a similar statement in November when Pirro and fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity, two favorites of President Donald Trump, appeared at a campaign rally Trump held in Missouri.

Rep. Omar responded to the controversy on Monday. “Thank you, @FoxNews. No one’s commitment to our constitution should be questioned because of their faith or country of birth,” she said via Twitter.

Pirro sought to tamp down reaction to her comments [while not apologizing] with a statement “I’ve seen a lot of comments about my opening statement from Saturday night’s show and I did not call Rep. Omar un-American,” she said. “My intention was to ask a question and start a debate, but of course because one is Muslim does not mean you don’t support the Constitution. I invite Rep. Omar to come on my show any time to discuss all of the important issues facing America today.”

Has she been suspended by Fox? Will she be back? No one is saying. Would anyone care... other than Trump? I guess Bret Baier producer, UK-born Tennessean Hufsa Kamal would.

And right on cue: the Judge Jeanine fan-club-of-one came riding to the rescue this morning, demanding Fox News bend to his will:

If Fox Business News Has A License, It Should Be Revoked

Actually Fox should lose its ability to use the public airwaves entirely, unless it forces its cable division to stop creating and disseminating fake news that has become a danger to American social cohesiveness. Fox News does this all day, everyday, but Lou Dobb’s racist little Trump-pleaser on Thursday is a good example of what they’re up to. Remember Lou Dobbs? The 73 year old far right racist broadcaster was fired by CNN for one of his racist outbursts… and then happily welcomed by Fox Business News.

On Thursday Dobbs just asserted one of his bullshit, incendiary tales about “millions of illegal immigrants” crossing our borders and voting in the midterms. Proof? Maybe he could shit it out of his fat ass but he sure couldn’t shit it out of his fat mouth. No proof-- just some baseless claims by a notorious neo-Nazi extremist, David Bossie. And no accountability from Fox for him spreading the lies.

Dobbs, happy to undermine democracy for the authoritarian in the Oval Office whose oval balls he licks on TV everyday, claimed that illegal voters are “having an immense impact” and asked “Are we just sitting here, helpless against anyone who wants to cross that border, and to have their way with the American way?”

Trump asserted the same unsubstantiatable bullshit in his interview this week with Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, a radical right website. The interview was filled with lies and nonsense like, for example, “The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes.”

UPDATE: Lou Dobbs Loses His Mind

That was part of a Daily Beast headline a few hours ago, emphasizing that Dobbs was at odds with his bosses at Fox, who supported CNN’s lawsuit that successfully forced Trumpanzee to give Jim Acosta White House access again.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, granted the network’s request to temporarily restore Acosta’s White House press badge after it was revoked last week following a public spat with the president during a press conference.

Dobbs, one of the network’s most feverishly pro-Trump hosts, railed against the “absurd ruling,” ending the rant with Trump’s favorite slogan as a reminder of where his loyalties lie.

…The rant came two days after Dobb’s bosses at Fox News publicly backed CNN’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, filing a supportive amicus brief with other major news networks.

But Lou Dobbs apparently didn’t get the company memo— or if he did, he didn’t care for it.

On Thursday night, the Fox host began his show by railing against the CNN lawsuit, suggesting the real reason CNN sued the White House was to get attention and free publicity.

In a segment with Trump’s former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, Dobbs started the conversation by asking about Acosta, whom he called an “embarrassment to any news organization covering the president of the United States.”

“He is an embarrassment and that is one of the reasons that the president decided to take the swift action that he did,” Bossie agreed. “Jim Acosta made that press conference a travesty. And he made it  about himself. It was his ego-driven speech to the president that, not a question, not a question but a speech.”

Dobbs, of course, agreed, claiming that Acosta’s actions during the contentious presser was simply an attempt to become Trump’s “peer” even though he’s “a lowly journalist,” adding that the “frivolous” lawsuit should not be “taken very seriously.”

This was after his bosses publicly backed the lawsuit.

And yet, Dobbs continued: “This is a publicity stunt on the part of CNN and they are getting all of this airtime. Most especially when I am talking about it.”

In a statement supporting CNN on Wednesday, Fox News president Jay Wallace said: “Fox News supports CNN in its legal effort to regain its White House reporter’s press credential. We intend to file an amicus brief with the U.S. District Court. Secret Service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized.”

The Fox brass added: “While we don’t condone the growing antagonistic tone by both the President and the press at recent media avails, we do support a free press, access and open exchanges for the American people.”

But Dobbs often openly contradicts his network’s management, typically siding with the president or baseless right-wing conspiracy theories instead of the facts.

Last month, as news emerged of pipe bombs mailed to prominent Trump critics-- including CNN-- many far-right public figures declared the threats as a “hoax” aimed at garnering sympathy votes for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.

Alongside right-wing media allies and later Trump himself, Lou Dobbs became the highest-profile media star to embrace the conspiracy theory, summing it up in a slogan: “Fake news, fake bombs,” before adding in a now-deleted tweet: “Who could possibly benefit from such fakery?”

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

This is indeed your brain on FOX News! Remember that van Trump's pipe bomber fan had? Check this out! In the republican mind, this is a great ride! Think of the generations of inbreeding and meth use that goes into things like this. How much you wanna bet that it also serves as a home school for the kids! You know, the kids with fetal alcohol brain damage.

Seriously, though, in Germany in the 1920 and 1930s, it was a common practice for Nazi Party and Hitler supporters to decorate their vehicles in this exact way, and look where that went. Now that the midterm elections are done, the 2020 campaign season has begun. Can we expect to see more and more of these? As Sarah Palin (remember her?) would say, "You betcha!"

In looking at a blow up of this photo very closely, I think I can make out Sarah Huckabee Sanders behind the wheel. I could be wrong. It might be her dad.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Body language! Just look at this creep. Ready to lunge, tiny paws forward, ready to grab. "When you're a star, they let you do it." You know that's exactly what Senor Trumpanzee was thinking as he was being interviewed by Ainsley "We defeated communist Japan" Earhardt of FOX & Fiends at the White House last week. Earhardt is a protege of Sean Insanity. He saw something in her. She hails from South Carolina, the state best known for firing the first shot of the Civil War and still fighting to keep it going, a bipedal pestilence named Lindsey Graham, and the "and, uh the Iraq, and everywhere such as" Miss Teen U.S.A. contestant who wouldn't be able to find Earth on a world map.

You look at Ainsley Earhardt and you have to wonder if even such a dim bulb as her, somewhere in the recesses of her relatively unused brain, was thinking to herself that it's just not worth it. Nah, she thinks she's a genius reporter, that she's made the big time, and that she slogged through weeks, even several months being a mindless local S.C. happy-face news twit to get where she is, talking to the biggest con artist in the universe in the rose garden. They're made for each other; as even the roses scream quietly to make it stop!

This isn't Edward R. Morrow and Dwight David Eisenhower. This isn't even Walter Cronkite and JFK. This is a two bit reptilian don of a crime family and a dumb-dumb walking blonde joke of a wannabe moll with a note pad that makes whatever Sarah Palin wrote on her hands look like a Shakespearean sonnet by comparison. This is America's horrific state of affairs in 2018.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

So how has the American branch of Pravda reacted to Tuesday's news about Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort? Really, do you have to ask? Like all of Trump's Republican co-conspirators, FOX "News" is doing their usual whistling past the graveyard approach to bad news on the Trump front. In the wake of the news, it was Cover-up Central. It was all "Nothing to see here folks. Nothing to see here." When they mentioned what happened at all, they were sure to stress that the verdicts against Cohen and Manafort showed no Trump collusion with Russia whatsoever. Of course, they didn't mention that collusion with Russia was not the direct issue of either trial, so, so what? They were betting on their brainwashed and dumbass audience not to know that. Talk about making the safest bet in the world!

Saying there's nothing to see here and trying to cover-up crimes that are hurting America is also the biggest load of contempt FOX could show all of us, including the FOX "News" audience. As seen above, Sean Hannity spoke before a big flashing Orwellian "No Russia Collusion" sign and also managed to go back to the roots of his early radio days and flash double White Power hand gestures. It was a near complete meltdown. All of this was going on while the man of his dreams was off in West Virginia regaling a rally of his fools with lies and delusions.

The rest of FOX? Well, they've pathetically trotted out a couple of their greatest hits, "Her Emails!" and, wait for it... "Benghazi!" I guess they left Obama Was Born In Kenya" for next time. Batcrap Crazy Jeanine Pirro has even been telling her viewers that Robert Mueller was somehow involved in a Benghazi cover-up, comparing him to a mob "cleaner" brought in by "Deep State" Democrats. To date, she's offered no evidence to back up her ravings and I'm wondering what color straitjacket her producers keep her in when she's not on the air. Broadcasting Trump's rally live, Tucker Carlson continued in his extended fantasy of being a middle school cheerleader for Trump while his guest, Tammy Bruce, tried desperately to out-whore him in her glowing review of Trump's rally performance. 45 minutes into the show, his next guest, Ed Henry, talked about Cohen and Manafort in strict "Witch Hunt" and "No Collusion" terms. He then offered a statement by whacked out Rudy Giuliani before Tucker brought in the 144-year-old Alan Dershowitz who had the basic job of explaining to the FOX audience that the crimes of Trump and his minions aren't really crimes just as truth isn't truth. It's nice to know that if Rudy Giuliani croaks his last, Dershowitz will be able to step in as a perfect replacement.

You get the picture. Like I've said for years, peeping in on FOX "News" is like peeping through the window of an insane asylum. The problem is that there are so many gullible crazies out there that tune in to FOX because they feel comfortable with people that are as gone in their delusion and dementia as they are. That seems to include every damn republican in Congress. It's only going to get more bizarre as the story of the Trumpanzee presidency continues to unfold. The minds of those who support Trumpanzee will continue to unravel right along at the same pace as that of their dear leader.

Will The Economy Keep Trump From Being Impeached? It Shouldn't

Yesterday, the NY Times reported that senior Republican Party leaders are now urging their most imperiled incumbents to speak out about the wrongdoing surrounding Señor Trumpanzee. Tom Cole (R-OK) offered an example of what some sinking GOP congressmembers in swing districts-- like Bruce Poliquin in Maine, Mimi Walters in California, Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Washington or Don Bacon in Nebraska could say: "Where there’s smoke, and there’s a lot of smoke, there may well be fire." The Times noted that "By urging some candidates to speak out or at least stay silent, Republican leaders who gravely fear losing control of the House risked opening the first significant rift between the Trump White House and the Republican-controlled Capitol."

Jared Golden, the progressive Democrat running for the Maine seat currently held by the Poliquin GOP leaders are so worried about told us that he believes "all leaders should be held accountable and no one is above the law. Voters are concerned about the culture of corruption in Washington, from the indictment of members of Congress for insider trading, the misuse of campaign funds for personal vacations, or possible campaign finance violations by the Trump campaign, voters are losing faith in our democracy. Restoring that faith in our government must be a top priority."

Señor T, of course is trying to turn the narrative in his favor. He seems to have asked Fox to have the blankest of their blank slates interview him-- and they found her yesterday.

EARHARDT: What grade do you give yourself so far?

TRUMP: So I give myself an A+.

...I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job. If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor. Because without this thinking [points to head] you would see, you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.

Jared Bernstein may have been glad he asked-- because Joe Biden's chief economic advisor and the Obama administration's most progressive economist had just answered that question in a Washington Post piece. Like Trumpanzee, one of the regime's top economic advisors, TV reality show economist (and drug addict) Larry Kudlow, had claimed in a cabinet meeting last Thursday that the economy is "crushing it," thanks to the leadership of the great Señor T (giving him "credit for trends that were largely ongoing before he took office"). Bernstein decided to drill down into the evidence for this “crushing it” claim. "Who’s actually getting ahead in the Trump economy" is what Bernstein wanted to get to. And he did-- much better than a clown like Kudlow, let alone his boss, ever could.

To telegraph our punchline, while the tight labor market is highly welcomed, real hourly pay for most workers remains flat. In contrast, corporate profits and equity markets truly are crushing it, both on a pre- and especially, given the large business tax cuts, a post-tax basis. There’s also no evidence of an investment boom, suggesting the recent, above-trend growth in GDP is Keynes, not Laffer-- meaning the deficit spending is providing a temporary boost but will not have lasting, positive impacts for long-term economic growth.

Starting with wages, since Trump took office, the real hourly wage for the 82 percent of the workforce that’s blue collar in factories and non-managers in services is up half-a-percent, an extra 11 cents per hour. In nominal terms-- before accounting for inflation-- the growth of mid-level pay has picked up a bit, as we’d expect with such low unemployment. But inflation, largely driven by higher energy costs, has also sped up, cancelling out any real gains.

If energy prices come down and unemployment continues to fall, real wage growth for mid-wage workers will improve. But the magnitude of their gains will likely be nothing close to the administration’s claim that the tax cut would add at least $4,000 to annual earnings within a few years of the legislation.

Remember, its promise was for $4,000 above whatever baseline gains in wages would be expected without the tax cut. In President Barack Obama’s second term, real annual wage growth for mid-wage workers was about 1 percent, so call that the baseline. Meeting the administration’s goal requires another 2 percent real growth on top of that, or 3 percent per year. They are not even in the ballpark to achieve that.

Sticking with the tax cut, its proponents main claim was that the big corporate cuts would generate more business investment, which would lead to faster productivity growth, which would position us for higher paying jobs. So far, every link in that chain is broken.

Business investment is growing, as we’d expect in an economy operating close to full capacity. But its growth rate is not faster now than at various points earlier in the expansion. There’s been a modest uptick in investment in structures (such as plants, offices, wells, mine shafts, warehouses) in the first half of 2018, but, as economist Dean Baker has shown, the growth in such investment was due to higher energy prices generating increased investment in mining for oil and natural gas. While mining investment has increased by 36.7 percent over the last year, it rose by 47.3 percent from the second quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2010, when the Obama administration was still enforcing environmental laws. In both cases ,the key factor was rising world oil prices.

It takes time to plan investments, so it’s too soon to conclude the tax cuts haven’t made a difference. But none of the surveys of companies’ investment plans show any plans to ratchet up capital spending, including the Commerce Department’s monthly data on orders for capital equipment, the National Federation of Independent Businesses’ survey on plans for capital expenditures, and investment surveys by regional Federal Reserve Banks.

What is clear is that firms are using their tax windfalls to boost share prices through buybacks, which, along with strong corporate profits, are fueling a historical bull market for stocks. But equity markets are decidedly not a source of trickle-down: 80 percent of the value of the stock market is held by the wealthiest 10 percent of households. The bottom half own no stock at all, including retirement plans.

In other words, it’s clear who’s crushing it and who isn’t. What is sad is that instead of borrowing $2 trillion to finance the regressive tax cut, Congress could have put more money in the pockets of working Americans and made investments for our economic future. Here is what we should have done-- and should still do-- to crush it for all Americans.

First, we should have expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit to compensate for decades of stagnant wage growth. The Brown-Khanna plan, calling for a $1.4 trillion EITC expansion, would have provided working families making up to $75,000 with up to $8,000 more in take home pay. As we often say, the best way to raise pay for ordinary Americans is to do so directly as opposed to pretending it will come through the largess of executives and shareholders.

Second, we should have put billions to expand the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program, linking employers to technical schools to develop credentials that respond to the needs of our cutting-edge industries. This is one of the most successful programs in the federal government, and we could have made sure that every American, whether rural or urban, would have access to credentialing for the jobs of the future. This program could be the land grant of the 21st century.

Third, we should have provided hiring incentives for anchor companies to create jobs in places left behind such as Paintsville, Ky. or Flint, Michigan. If a company is willing to hire in places where people don’t have enough access to high-wage jobs, then they should get support for doing so.

Fourth, we should have invested in bringing high speed Internet to every corner of America. Providing fiber broadband to every corner of the United States is the modern equivalent of rural electrification. Ask the mayors of places like Huntington, W.Va., or Akron, Ohio what would help them grow business in their cities. They will undoubtedly ask for investments in broadband instead of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Larry Kudlow’s right: The Trump administration is crushing it for its donor base, which is in turn handsomely rewarding them. But it has done nothing for the forgotten Americans and nothing to make sure America is a winner in the 21st century. We don’t need more sugar highs for those already doing well. We need to give lasting pay raises to those struggling to pay the bills and then focus on the forward-looking investments that will finally reconnect GDP growth to broadly shared prosperity.

Katie Porter is running for the Orange County district currently held by Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters. Hillary won this district in 2016 and all the current polls show a neck-and-neck race that is too close too call-- but moving in Katie's direction. Two of Katie's earliest endorsers were Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna, most focussed on making the economy more equitable for working families-- which is Katie's goal as well. "No ad or statement can hide the fact that Mimi Walters votes with Trump 99% of the time," she told us yesterday, "but she will continue to try to distract from her own record. The truth is, Walters, supported Donald Trump's healthcare plan that would have gutted protections for pre-existing conditions and caused premiums to spike, and voted to give the largest corporations a tax break at the expense of her constituents."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Today's meme is a "special" gem. It's total FOX "News" Channel bullcrap. I was in elementary school in the 1950s. We never had one iota of "firearms safety" instruction. No one I've talked to since FOX "News" spewed out this insane lie 4 years ago ever experienced such instruction in the classroom, regardless of what part of the country they were from. In my little conservative Republican town, we didn't even receive such instruction after a local 7-year-old tragically got his dad's gun out of a safe and shot and killed a 6-year-old playmate in the family living room, right in front of his other playmates, including the victim's sister. We did get the old "duck and cover" to protect us from atomic bombs though. Brilliant. The only firearms instruction I ever personally received was as a teen at summer camp and on weekends when I competed in target shooting, as an NRA member by the way. Maybe in a very few places around the country kids got proper instruction in their schools but such a thing was in no way, not even close, "standard curriculum" as FOX "News" would have us believe. But, that's GOP-TV for you.

That FOX "News" has always existed to warp perceptions of reality is a known despicable fact of this nation's history. After all, it's creator, Roger Ailes called it GOP-TV when he first presented the idea of FOX "News" to Richard Nixon. It was designed to mimic TASS and Pravda, the old Soviet state news operations (propaganda operations) that would tell the world, with a straight face, gems like Russia invented baseball and that those living in East Germany were much happier than those living in West Germany due to the glorious successes that communism had brought to East Germany. In fact, they often said, things were so good in East Germany that they had to build a wall to keep the rest of the world out. I was reminded of this in 2012 when, during his campaign, republican Mitt Romney visited a Chinese factory and stated that conditions for the all but completely enslaved workers were so good that the wall around the factory was to keep the onslaught of people who wanted to also work there, under the same miserable conditions, out. FOX "News" reported Romney's statement as truth. Why wouldn't they? -GOP-TV.

So now we have Rudy Giuliani literally spitting and drooling out his nightly lunatic ravings to the applause of brainwashed lunatics across America, cheered on, in fact, employed by the biggest raving lunatic of all, the big orange freak who wants to be president for life, all with the support of seemingly his entirely subversive Republican Party who, to a man and woman alike, run to the FOX "News" microphones at every opportunity that presents itself. Gotta reach those lunatic voters! -GOP-TV.

"Truth Isn't Real." That's the motto of GOP-TV. It's the opposite of "The Truth Will Set You Free" aka the motto of the CIA, adapted from the words of Jesus as stated in the Bible (Book of John) when he spoke of the power of learning, understanding and knowledge. So, it's no wonder that FOX "News" attacks the intelligence community in the service of Russia and any other enemy of America 24 hours a day. Hell, why not, FOX "News" attacks the very concept of intelligence period. And to think that Republicans will throw their own twisted version of the Bible at you at the drop of a hat, just like any Muslim terrorist would do with the Koran, such irony! FOX "News" will even attack the science that brings the airwaves of their bullshit into American homes. -GOP-TV.

"What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." "Alternative facts." -GOP-TV.

Remember your George Orwell: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." -GOP-TV.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

What scrapheap of failed mannequin news bimbos did Rupert Murdoch pull Ainsley Earhardt from? Or, maybe one some tech person at FOX "News" who moonlights as a mad scientist at home and has a pile of defective robots with missing parts in his basement and this is the best he could do. It's not just her, of course. I mean the entire combined IQ of the three buttheads of FOX & Friends can't possibly amount to much over 100. Where the hell do they get these people?

Keep in mind that this happened within hours of the Faux News Channel posting a picture of Patti Labelle with Aretha Franklin's name under it. But, hey, when you're a Republican, that's a mistake that's easily made. They probably can't tell Michael Jordan from LeBron James and, no doubt when Willie Mays dies, they'll post a picture of Hank Aaron. And let's not forget how they keep mistaking Barack Obama for some guy born in Kenya. It's the way of Republicans. This is the alternate universe of GOP-TV. This is the same channel that puts demented old Rudy Giuliani in front of a camera every night to spew his "Tales of Robert Mueller" false history. This is the channel where both Trump and his BFF Putin are great leaders and George W. Bush kept us safe from terrorism. Rudy said so. It must be true. This is also the channel where climate change isn't real and school shootings are played by crisis actors, like it's just some new version of "High School Musical" or something.

But, I digress. Back to Ainsley "Do you think I'm pretty" Earhardt. In reality, she's a walking, talking blonde joke, just like FOX's Tomi Lahren or whatever her name is, not that it makes a difference. Ainsley reminds me, more than a little, of this bozo who probably struck herself in the head with her baton too many times.

Ann Kirkpatrick Sucks-- And She Has Always Sucked... Which Is Why Fox News Loves Her

We've been writing about Arizona New Dem Ann Kirkpatrick for years-- here are some of the most recent. She's awful and always has been. So while everyone has been talking about how Fox and Friends accidentally put a real Democrat on the air, Barbara L'Italien by accident, I want to make sure people know why Fox and Friends recognized Kirkpatrick as a friend and how eager they were to get her on the air to bash Democratic values.

First as couple off words about Massachusetts state Senator Barbara L'Italien, a candidate for Congress in the open-- and very crowded-- Niki Tsongas seat, which stretches along the northern border of the state from Haverhill, Lawrence, Andover and Lowell through Groten Acton and Concord out to Fitchburg and Winchendon. The PVI is D+9 andTrump only took 35% of the vote there. Of the 14 Democrats vying to replace Tsongas, 3 have significantly outraised L'Italien ($701,881)-- Dan Koh ($2,989,826), Rufus Gifford ($1,343,897) and Lori Trahan ($1,133,585). Whichever Democrat wins the September 4 primary might as well start packing for Congress September 5.

Monday morning Fox and Friends called the L'Italien campaign by accident, looking for the cruddy conservative Democrat who always agrees with the Fox perspective. A L'Italien staffer, Joe Katz, saw his opportunity to get his candidate on the air and grabbed it resulting in the awesome video at the top of the page. Knowing that Fox and Friends is Trumpanzee's favorite early morning viewing, L'Italian ignored the hosts' inane question (for Kirkpatrick) and looked into the camera and said "I'm actually here to speak directly to Donald Trump. I feel that what's happening at the border is wrong. I believe that separating kids from their parents is illegal and inhumane." She said who she is and continued: "We have to stop abducting children and ripping them from their parents’ arms, stop putting kids in cages, and stop making 3-year-olds defend themselves in court," very much not the messaging Fox hosts Jillian Mele and Rob Schmitt wanted on the air, nor the message Ann Kirkpatrick is interested in being put out either. She admits she would have voted with the handful of right-wing and racist Democrats who went along with the GOP last week in backing ICE. That's always been Kirkpatrick-- and always will be... a Republican with a "D" next to her name. The DCCC backs her all the way and has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure she-- and not progressives Matt Heinz or Mary Matiella-- wins the August 28 primary.



AZ-02 is the Tucson-based southern Arizona district Ann Kirkpatrick is trying to win. She's from northern Arizona and represented a district up there. She doesn't live in southern Arizona but visits her grandchildren in Tucson from time to time. She was the poster child for the NRA, who has always graded her an "A" and it doesn't surprise anyone that she backs ICE. She's always been at the very heart of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.



This morning, I spoke with Heinz just as he was getting off his night shift at the hospital he works at. "I was flabbergasted," he told me, "to see Ann raise her hand to support ICE with no additional reform or changes in oversight. But I was in no way surprised to see her once again change her answer the second it wasn't convenient for her. This has become a pattern of hers; she'll say one thing and then immediately try to say the opposite just to further her political agenda. I strongly believe in the need for a massive overhaul of ICE and a change of leadership that starts at the very top with electing a new president. To allow the status-quo to continue is simply unacceptable to me and to the voters of Southern Arizona. The people don't have faith in our political system because politicians flip-flop between answers to whichever is most convenient in the moment. This is exactly why national entities, and the DCCC in particular, need to let the voters decide who can best represent their community before coming in to back a particular candidate. DC insiders just don't understand Southern Arizona and it's becoming increasing clear to anyone paying attention that neither does Ann."