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Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and other Right-Wing Media: Fake News, Lies, Alternative Facts, Propaganda and Conspiracy Theories - Page 7
Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and other Right-Wing Media use fake news, lies, disinformation, fear, hate, racism, propaganda, alternative facts, conspiracy theories and Russian propaganda to divide America and promote the rabbit right and the Russian agendas.
The Russian government has pressed outlets to highlight the Fox host’s Putin-helping broadcasts.
David Corn Washington, DC, Bureau ChiefBio | Follow

On March 3, as Russian military forces bombed Ukrainian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of his neighbor, the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: Use more Tucker Carlson. “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” advises the 12-page document written in Russian. It sums up Carlson’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.” The memo includes a quote from Carlson: “And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighboring Mexico or Canada?” more...
Russian government document instructed outlets to show Fox News host ‘as much as possible’, Mother Jones says
Martin Pengelly

The Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson has been widely accused of echoing Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. According to a report on Sunday, earlier this month the Putin regime in Moscow sent out an instruction to friendly media outlets: use more clips of Carlson. Joe Biden in the Roosevelt Room of the White House earlier this week. ‘Republicans just seem to operate in a purely craven political dynamic,’ Kurt Bardella said. Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, said it had obtained memos produced by the Russian department of information and telecommunications support. One document, it said, was entitled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”, or 3 March. The magazine published pictures of the memo, which it said it was given by “a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified”. more...
Rasha Ali, USA TODAY

After paying a solemn tribute to the people of Ukraine last week during its normally raucous cold open, "Saturday Night Live" returned to its boisterous roots Mar. 5, mocking Fox News, Donald Trump and Russia. The cold open featured a Fox News special titled "Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular" with hosts Laura Ingraham (Kate McKinnon) and Tucker Carlson (Alex Moffat). The Fox News anchors kicked off the show by attempting to apologize for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "pathetic" and reducing Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a "border dispute," respectively, by hosting a fundraiser for the real victims: the Russian oligarchs. more...
Stephen Proctor

Following a segment Wednesday on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson, who is Fox News's most popular opinion host, came under fire for questioning the credentials of President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson. This came just days after he attacked her nomination, saying it would humiliate the Supreme Court, and make the U.S. look like Rwanda. Taking a different approach than he did for any of former President Trump’s three nominees, all of whom are white, Carlson demanded to know what Brown got on her Law School Admission Test, otherwise known as LSAT. more...
USEFUL IDIOTS
Liz Wahl, who quit a Kremlin-funded network in disgust in 2014, writes that right-wing media stars like Tucker Carlson are at times indistinguishable from Russia’s own propaganda.
Liz Wahl

Working in a Russian newsroom nearly a decade ago prepared me for modern day America. In both environments, conspiracy theories, false equivalencies, and half-truths infect the discourse and deform reality. In this current environment, truth and fact struggle to break through the paranoid and misinformed noise. One thing that is clear to me: Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson, along with other right-wing media figures, are at times indistinguishable from the propaganda on my former network, RT, a Kremlin-funded cable news channel that eagerly uses American voices to push a pro-Russia agenda. more...
Fox News anchor accused of presenting ‘perfect distillation of white supremacy’ in rant against Biden supreme court nominee
Martin Pengelly

The nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson is an attempt to “defile” the supreme court and “humiliate and degrade” the US, the Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson claimed on Friday night. Ketanji Brown Jackson is shown smiling as she raises her right hand to take an oath. She has a microlocked hair style that flows just past her shoulders and is wearing glases, a black suit and a black, white and yellow patterned blouse. If confirmed, Jackson, whose nomination was announced by Joe Biden earlier on Friday, will be the first Black woman on the court. Carlson said Jackson was nominated “because of how she looks”. He said: “Do you want to live in that country? Most people don’t, of all colors. They think you should be elevated in America based on what you do, on the choices not on how you were born, not on your DNA, because that’s Rwanda.” more...
Tom Tapp

This week, amid overwhelming evidence that Russia would soon invade Ukraine, state-controlled Russian television network RT published an article on and aired a segment from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight in which the show’s host pushed back on the idea that Vladimir Putin is someone Americans should dislike. What’s more, RT took the trouble of translating the clip into Russian, ostensibly for its domestic market. more...
By Jonathan Edwards

As Russian forces closed in on Ukraine, Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday downplayed the conflict that was about to explode half a world away. The host of the network’s top-rated show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” called the situation between the two nations “a border dispute.” He asked his viewers to question why they should hate Russian President Vladimir Putin. A day later, as a guest on another Fox News show, “The Ingraham Angle,” he echoed a Kremlin talking point about Ukraine being a puppet of the West, saying that Ukraine wasn’t a democracy but “essentially managed by the [U.S.] State Department.” more...
By Lorraine Ali

The conflict in Ukraine and backpedaling were the main themes of Tucker Carlson’s show Thursday after the Fox News host was slammed for defending Russian President Vladimir Putin, and dragging U.S. President Joe Biden, in the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of the Eastern European nation. “I don’t think anybody approves of what Putin did yesterday,” he said. “I certainly don’t.” That wasn’t the note he sounded 24 hours earlier, just before tanks rolled over the border between Ukraine and Belarus, bombs detonated over the capital, Kyiv, and families sought shelter in underground subway stations. As on-scene reporters stressed the gravity of the situation, and American media outlets reacted with equal solemnity, one notable exception emerged: Fox News. more...
The network has pushed over-the-top and misleading claims about Durham’s motion, falsely declaring it to show the Clinton campaign spied on the Trump White House.
Justin Baragona

Fox News and the conservative media ecosystem have been absolutely on fire this week over Special Counsel John Durham’s latest court filing, claiming his Friday night pretrial motion explicitly shows that former President Donald Trump was right all along that he was spied upon by Democrats. “I was proven right about the spying, and I will be proven right about 2020,” Trump seethed in a Monday morning statement from his Save America PAC. Since Fox News published a widely misleading article about the Durham filing, which suggests the special counsel’s filing says that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign “infiltrated” Trump’s White House servers, the network has run wall-to-wall coverage declaring the “bombshell” story “bigger than Watergate” while chastising other media outlets for ignoring it. Needless to say, Fox News’ own coverage of what it describes as a “massive scandal” has not only been largely exaggerated but has run the gamut from disingenuous to entirely false. more...
Joe Biden isn’t first to prioritize race, gender in picking SCOTUS nominee, as Sean Hannity claimed
By Bill McCarthy

After President Joe Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer’s Supreme Court seat, Sean Hannity said on his radio show that “there’s never been a president that has made race and gender the defining factor.” President Donald Trump vowed to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court before appointing Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020. Ronald Reagan made a similar promise as a candidate to nominate the first woman, then followed through as president. Other presidents have clearly indicated preferences for candidates of specific ethnicities or religions. more...
Former Fox News anchor explains how network's viewers have been brainwashed
Meaghan Ellis, AlterNet

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson offered a damning assessment of the network as she explained just how bad its spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation has become. During an appearance on the CNN segment, "Democracy in Peril," Carlson discussed many aspects of Fox News' critical role in the spread of misinformation and falsehoods. Since former President Donald Trump took office, conspiracy theories have been on the rise and Fox News has become a driving force for it. Conservative primetime news anchor Tucker Carlson has been at the center of misinformation and the power of his opinion has begun to influence Republican members of Congress. “This is the result of fake news,” Carlson said. “You know, we're seeing not only the fallout from fake news during the Trump era, but what happened with the insurrection on January 6th. Now it's moving into other areas. Not just news, now it’s hitting science with vaccines, and now it’s into Cold War politics.” more...
John Haltiwanger

Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a new interview with Axios said he hopes Republicans vote out any lawmaker "who believes Ukraine's borders are more important than our borders." As Russia has gathered tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine's border in recent months, Carlson has defended Moscow amid fears the Kremlin is planning an invasion. The Fox News host, for example, recently said the Russian military buildup on Ukraine's border is just Putin trying "to keep his western borders secure." This rhetoric is near-identical to Kremlin propaganda. But Carlson told Axios he isn't bothered by allegations that he's acting as a "pawn" for Russian President Vladimir Putin. more...
Tom Porter

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has denied being a Kremlin agent amid controversy over his support for Russia as it menaces Ukraine with a military build-up on its border. The host in recent weeks has questioned the US policy of supporting Ukraine, suggesting it would be just as reasonable to back Russia. "Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?" Carlson asked Monday. "They're both foreign countries that don't care anything about the United States. Kind of strange." His contribution ignored the common arguments that Ukraine is a weaker state and a fledgling democracy, opposed by the more powerful and authoritarian Russia which, per US intelligence assessments, is considering starting a war of aggression. more...

CNN's Jim Acosta calls out Fox host Tucker Carlson for his pro-Russia remarks and how those, among other misinforming comments, are putting the US democracy in peril. video...
Axios - Jonathan Swan, Andrew Solender

Republicans running in high-profile primary races aren't racing to defend Ukraine against a possible Russian invasion. They're settling on a different line of attack: Blame Biden, not Putin.

What's happening: Leery of the base, they are avoiding — and in some cases, rejecting — the tough-on-Russia rhetoric that once defined the Republican Party. GOP operatives working in 2022 primary races tell Axios they worry they'll alienate the base if they push to commit American resources to Ukraine or deploy U.S. troops to eastern Europe.

Why it matters: Any assistance President Biden provides to Ukraine could grow instantly into an ideological war back home. more...
The satellite TV provider notified One America News Network that it would not be renewing its distribution agreement.
By Jody Serrano

Former president Donald Trump, known for his gluttonous diet of TV news, is going to have trouble finding one of his favorite far-right channels, One America News Network, in a few months. Satellite TV provider DirecTV, OAN’s largest distributor, said it was dumping the news network on Friday, Bloomberg reported. DirecTV’s decision is a huge blow to OAN, which is not available on any other major U.S. TV provider, but it’s not exactly a shock. OAN basically sued its way onto DirecTV in 2017 and has come under increased scrutiny since then for spewing lies, promoting conspiracy theories, and fomenting violence. more...
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

George Conway, the well-known legal expert who successfully argued and won a unanimous verdict at the Supreme Court, is tossing cold water on Sean Hannity‘s attorney’s claim that the January 6 Committee requesting his voluntary cooperation “would raise serious constitutional issues, including First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of the press.” Sean Hannity is the Fox News host who at times has claimed he is a journalist while often saying he is not. Fox News itself has refused to call him a journalist when pressed. On Tuesday the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack made public a letter it sent him, detailing his stunning texts to then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. The Committee wrote: “At this time, we are specifically focused on a series of your communications with President Trump, White House staff and President Trump’s legal team between December 31, 2020, and January 20, 2021.” Hannity has no right to complain about his First Amendment freedoms being violated. more...
Was Fox News running the Trump White House?

Trump reportedly let hosts Hannity and Lou Dobbs join in Oval Office staff meetings by phone
Peter Wade

Fox News hosts were more influential in the White House than previously known, often acting as shadow advisors to the president in private phone calls. According to a Washington Post report, former President Donald Trump would frequently speak with Fox anchors like Sean Hannity or Judge Jeanine Pirro, who had a direct phone number to reach him in the White House residence, and then pass their recommendations on to his staff. “There were times the president would come down the next morning and say, ‘Well, Sean thinks we should do this,’ or, ‘Judge Jeanine thinks we should do this,’ ” Grisham, who resigned after the Jan. 6 insurrection, told the paper. These suggestions from Fox personalities, she said, would often frustrate staff as the hosts shared their thoughts on topics ranging from White House personnel to how to frame the president’s message. Trump would even dial Hannity and former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs into Oval Office staff meetings, a former administration official told The Post. Grisham also recently revealed that on Jan. 6, Trump was “gleefully” watching the violence unfold on television. more...
By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) — For years, Sean Hannity has skirted ethical boundaries with his role on a television network with “news” in its name. Yet it’s never been as stark as now, with the committee investigating last year’s Capitol insurrection seeking his testimony. The Jan. 6 select committee has revealed a series of texts where Hannity privately advised former President Donald Trump before, during and after the assault, and is seeking his insight about what happened in those days. The popular Fox News Channel prime-time host hasn’t said what he will do, but he’s slammed the congressional probe as a partisan witch hunt. His lawyer has raised First Amendment concerns about the request. It’s not unheard of for journalists to offer advice to politicians — history records Ben Bradlee’s friendship with former President John F. Kennedy — but such actions raise questions about their independence and allegiance to the public interest, said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota. more...
Tucker Carlson’s talking points often sound identical to those pushed by the Kremlin’s propagandists—or by Putin himself

As Putin and Biden talk, Kremlin mouthpieces are rushing to explain the motivations behind Russia’s surge in aggression. Fox News is helping them do their work.
Julia Davis

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to speak on Thursday, in preparation for Jan. 10 talks, convened to address Putin’s demand for “security guarantees” that aims to stymie NATO’s ability to carry out its functions in Europe. Moscow’s elite diplomats and talking heads are openly discussing Russia’s goals and strategies. Arguing for America’s total capitulation, with the Kremlin allegedly planning to offer no concessions or guarantees, Russian experts propose a plan to make such an outcome acceptable to the general public in the U.S. by waging an aggressive international info-campaign. Russia’s state TV propagandists express their delight in seemingly having the likes of Tucker Carlson in their corner, praising his coverage as the prime example of Russia’s successful influence operations abroad. Carlson’s talking points often sound identical to those pushed by the Kremlin’s propagandists—or by Putin himself. more...
Don Moynihan, Wisconsin Examiner

‘Tis the holiday season and the heroes of Fox News are valiantly arraying their forces in the War On Christmas, even as ICU beds are filling up and a new strain of COVID has arrived. In the spirit of the season I am making a special plea to Rupert Murdoch to deliver a Christmas miracle: stop killing us. That’s it, that’s the tweet. Wait, this is an article? I have to write more. OK then.

The partisan COVID gap has gotten worse

Republicans have been more reluctant to get vaccinated and more likely to die as a result. This trend was obfuscated initially because COVID emerged in blue states on the coasts, and because conservatives had at least some stake in dampening the pandemic when Trump was still president. As those conditions have disappeared, the partisan divide has become undeniable. more...
Brad Reed

During his speech on his administration's plan for handling the coming winter surge in COVID-19 cases, President Joe Biden gave credit to former President Donald Trump's administration for its initiative in developing COVID-19 vaccines. video...
Jesse Watters encouraged attendees at a conservative conference to rhetorically “ambush” the president’s chief medical adviser.
By QUINT FORGEY

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, on Tuesday called on Fox News to fire host Jesse Watters for targeting him with violent rhetoric at a conservative conference earlier this week. “That’s awful that he said that. And he’s going to go, very likely, unaccountable,” Fauci told CNN of Watters’ remarks. “I mean, whatever network he’s on is not going to do anything for him. I mean, that’s crazy. The guy should be fired on the spot.” Speaking on Monday at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference, Watters encouraged attendees to rhetorically “ambush” Fauci with dubious questions about the National Institutes of Health allegedly funding “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn’t see it coming,” Watters said. more...
A judge says that a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems can go forward
By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A judge Thursday rejected a motion by Fox News to dismiss a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against the cable news giant by Dominion Voting Systems over claims about the 2020 presidential election. In the 52-page ruling Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said that the voting machine company had shown that “At this stage, it is reasonably conceivable that Dominion has a claim for defamation per se.” Denver-based Dominion filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the media organization alleging that some Fox News employees elevated false charges that Dominion had changed votes in the 2020 election through algorithms in its voting machines that had been created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late dictator Hugo Chavez. On-air personalities brought on Trump allies who spread the claims, and then amplified those claims on Fox News' social media platforms. more...
Analysis by Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham — finally — on Tuesday night addressed the now-public texts that they sent Mark Meadows during the insurrection in which they implored the former White House chief of staff to get then-President Trump to take action to curtail the violence occurring at the US Capitol.
For most of the day, Fox News had largely ignored the texts, which were made public the night before. Which is to say, it took Fox News more than 24 hours to muster up a real response. So how did Hannity and Ingraham react after having all that time to carefully prepare? Well, predictably.

What they said
First, both Hannity and Ingraham went on the offense and assailed the press. Hannity complained that "nobody" in the media reached out to him, even though plenty of reporters did reach out to Fox News' public relations department and were given no comment. Ingraham asserted that the "regime media" had "twisted" the meaning of her text message to advance a dishonest narrative. more...
Late-night hosts discuss a trove of frantic texts from Fox News hosts to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the Capitol insurrection
Adrian Horton

Trevor Noah: ‘This is like finding out the flight attendant who’s been telling you it’s just a little turbulence is actually going back into the cockpit like, ‘doesn’t anybody know how to fly this thing?!’ On Tuesday’s Daily Show, Trevor Noah marveled at a remarkable data dump from the House select committee into the events of 6 January: a collection of frantic text messages from Fox News hosts to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the attack, urging him to urge Donald Trump to stop the rioters. “Mark, the President needs to tell the people in the Capitol to go home,” Fox host Laura Ingraham wrote to Meadows. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” Sean Hannity wrote to Meadows that Trump should “make a statement” to “ask people to leave the Capitol”. more...
The “Late Show” host contrasted the Fox stars’ “honest reaction” off camera to the way they downplayed the insurrection on TV.
Matt Wilstein

Stephen Colbert could not wait to dive into the latest bombshell from the Jan. 6 investigation on Tuesday night’s Late Show, spending the bulk of his monologue on the recently revealed text messages that were sent to Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the insurrection. The host began with the messages from Donald Trump Jr., who begged Meadows to get his father to deliver an Oval Office address, writing, “He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP.” more...
Amanda Marcotte, Salon

After a full day of silence, the hosts of Fox News finally quit ignoring their bombshell text message scandal and came out swinging. It's unclear, however, why they needed an entire day to draft their responses as what they finally offered was both lazy and incoherent. The text messages sent to Donald Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 6 indisputably prove that Fox News hosts deliberately lie to their audiences. Privately, the network's biggest stars were freaked out by the Capitol insurrection. They clearly, and correctly, saw it as something Donald Trump purposefully instigated. Publicly, however, they were willing to deflect blame from Trump, defend the rioters and minimize the violence. But rather than apologize to their viewers for spending 11 months lying to them, the hydra-headed Fox News monster just threw out a bunch of contradictory and not even remotely persuasive excuses. more...
By Ewan Palmer

Geraldo Rivera launched an on-air attack against Sean Hannity on Tuesday after it was revealed that he and other Fox News personalities messaged Donald Trump 's former chief of staff Mark Meadows during the January 6 insurrection, urging the then-president to put an end to the riot. Rivera appeared on Hannity's show after the House Select Committee investigating the attack at the Capitol revealed that Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade all texted Meadows as the mob was storming the building, citing concerns about the violence taking place and how negatively it would affect Trump. "Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol," Hannity texted Meadows on January 6, revealed Republican Rep. Liz Cheney , vice chair of the congressional committee investigating the riot. more...
Fox News' cared more about a Christmas tree fire than they did about the Capitol riot and Trump coup attempt.

Don Lemon Tonight

CNN's Brianna Keilar compares Fox News' outrage over the Christmas tree arson that took place outside of the network's headquarters during the holiday season and the armed attack on the Capitol on January 6th. video...
Fox News anchors caught lying, again.

CNN

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot is moving forward with criminal contempt proceedings against former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after he halted cooperation with the panel. CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin react. video...
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

(CNN) They knew. They all knew. The release of texts on Monday night sent to former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on January 6 amount to a smoking gun when it comes to whether those in and around the President were aware of the rising insurrection of that day and the role then-President Donald Trump himself needed to play. There was Donald Trump Jr.: "He's got to condemn this sh*t ASAP." And Sean Hannity: "Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol?" And Laura Ingraham: "Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy." And Brian Kilmeade: "Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished." There can be no doubt that, in the moment, those who had Trump's ear -- from his eldest son to his enablers on Fox News -- were not only aware of what was happening at the US Capitol, but also were pressuring Meadows (and presumably Trump) to do something about it. more...
By Melissa Quinn

Washington — As a mob of former President Donald Trump's supporters violently breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, three hosts from Fox News and the president's eldest son privately implored then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to push the president to call for an end to the mayhem, according to text messages revealed by the House select committee probing the Capitol assault. The messages, read aloud by Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming on Monday night, were among the roughly 9,000 pages of emails and text messages Meadows turned over to the House panel before he stopped cooperating with investigators. After Cheney revealed the new evidence, the committee unanimously voted to recommend Meadows be charged with criminal contempt of Congress for failing to comply with its subpoena. The full House is expected to vote on whether to hold Meadows in contempt later Tuesday. more...
Fox News, right wing media and the GOP blamed Antifa and BLM even though they knew it was Trump supporters who attacked the capitol.

House investigators held Mark Meadows in criminal contempt after releasing a trove of messages aimed at getting President Trump to take stronger action amid the Capitol riot.
By NICHOLAS WU and KYLE CHENEY

As rioters swarmed the Capitol, President Donald Trump’s eldest son pleaded with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to get his father to do more to end the violence. “He’s got to condemn this [shit] Asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Donald Trump Jr. texted, one of a series of messages Meadows provided to the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the former president’s effort to overturn the election. The text message was one of a handful described and released by the committee on Monday from the trove shared by Meadows that showed lawmakers, aides and even Fox News hosts pleading with Meadows to press Trump to take stronger action. After they described the messages, the panel held Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to investigators. The matter now goes to the full House, which is expected to refer Meadows to the Justice Department on Tuesday. more...
Fox news caught misleading the public on the January 6 coup attempt and attack on our government.

Tom Porter

Text messages released by the January 6 committee on Monday showed that Fox News hosts were among those urging the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows of to get Trump to call off his supporters as they swarmed the Capitol. Their efforts then are in stark contrast with the message they gave to their viewers on the day of the riot. Sean Hannity, a longtime friend and confidante to Trump, texted Meadows in a bid to get Trump to call off his supporters. "Can he make a statement. Ask people to leave the Capitol," read Hannity's message. more...
Fox news caught down playing Hannity and Ingraham's Jan. 6 hypocrisy.

By Brian Stelter, CNN Business

Fox News did not bother to air Monday night's meeting of the House committee investigating the 1/6 attack. Neither did Newsmax or One America News. So right-wing TV audiences did not hear when Rep. Liz Cheney revealed that some of Fox's biggest stars pressed Mark Meadows for help during the siege of the Capitol. "Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home," Laura Ingraham texted Meadows. "This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy." She knew. They all knew. They all knew the truth right away. But by the night of 1/6, Ingraham was spouting conspiracy theories about "ANTIFA" and excusing the peaceful "patriots" who, let's be clear, paraded into DC based on a lie she pushed over and over again. Fox's pro-Trump programming was partly to blame for the Big Lie, so when that lie led to violence, of course some of the hosts panicked and tried to put out the fire. more...
Don Lemon Tonight

CNN's Don Lemon weighs in on text messages from lawmakers, Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr. to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the January 6 Capitol Hill riot. video...
Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade expressed alarm, concern, according to messages shared during House select committee hearing
By Jeremy Barr

Three Fox News hosts who have been among Donald Trump’s most ardent media boosters were so horrified by the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that they begged the then-president’s chief of staff to convince him to intercede, according to newly aired messages from that day. “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” Fox News prime-time star Laura Ingraham texted Mark Meadows. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” The text messages were read aloud by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) during a Monday night hearing of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, which voted to hold Meadows in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena to appear before the committee. more...
Is Tucker Carlson for or against America? Why does Tucker Carlson always side with Russia against America?

Peter Suciu

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) took to Twitter late Tuesday to joke that he was going to start a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to send Fox News Channel's Tucker Carlson to Russia. "Thinking about starting a @gofundme to send @TuckerCarlson to Russia. RT if we should send him," Rep. Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) tweeted. Swalwell was hardly the only person on social media to respond to Carlson's Tuesday night broadcast, in which the host suggested that Russia's build-up of forces on its border with Ukraine was a defensive move. Carlson said that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin "just wants to keep his western borders secure." more...
‘At this point, Nato exists primarily to torment Vladimir Putin who, whatever his many faults, has no intention of invading Western Europe,’ claims Fox News host
Maroosha Muzaffar

Fox News host Tucker Carlson slammed president Joe Biden over his remarks about Russia’s troop build-up near its border with Ukraine, saying Vladimir Putin was just trying to “secure” his nation’s borders. Mr Biden warned Russia on Tuesday that the US was preparing “strong economic and other measures” over fears of invasion of Ukraine. more...
“Who’s the potential counterbalance against China, which is the actual threat? Why would we take Ukraine’s side, why aren’t we on Russia’s side?” Carlson exclaimed on Wednesday.
Justin Baragona

Fox News host Tucker Carlson grilled a GOP congressman on Wednesday night for urging American military support to Ukraine amid increased Russian aggression. And at one point, Carlson wondered “why we would take Ukraine’s side and not Russia’s side” in the conflict. In recent days, Russia has greatly increased its military presence at the Ukraine border, raising alarms in Washington and Kyiv over the troop buildup. The White House has told Moscow reigniting the conflict with the U.S. ally would be a “serious mistake,” and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) has further called on the Biden administration “to immediately provide support to the Ukrainians to help de-escalate this dangerous situation.” more...
Jake Lahut and John Haltiwanger

Back in his bowtie days, the idea of young columnist and TV pundit Tucker Carlson arguing in favor of a Russian military invasion and against the position of the US and its NATO allies would have seemed far-fetched. Yet on Tuesday night, Carlson opened his primetime Fox News show with a segment depicting the US as "weak," siding instead with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the strong and rational actor in the debate over what President Joe Biden should do if Russia invades Ukraine. Carlson deployed one of his most common tactics, reframing the issue on his terms by starting out with an assumption. more...
The idea that anti-racist is a code word for “anti-white” is the claim of avowed extremists.
By Ibram X. Kendi

Below a Democratic donkey, the Fox News graphic read ANTI-WHITE MANIA. It flanked Tucker Carlson’s face and overtook it in size. It was unmistakable. Which was the point. The segment aired on June 25—the height of the manic attack on, and redefinition of, critical race theory, which Carlson has repeatedly cast as “anti-white.” It was one of his most incendiary segments of the year. “The question is, and this is the question we should be meditating on, day in and day out, is how do we get out of this vortex, the cycle, before it’s too late?” Carlson asked. “How do we save this country before we become Rwanda?” Some white Americans have been led to fear that they could be massacred like the Tutsis of Rwanda. CRT=Marxism, Marxism→Genocide Every time, read a sign at a June 23 Proud Boys demonstration in Miami. Other white Americans have been led to fear America’s teachers—79 percent of whom are white—instructing “kids to identify in racial terms,” as Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, said in May. more...
David Folkenflik

Two longtime conservative Fox News commentators have resigned in protest of what they call a pattern of incendiary and fabricated claims by the network's opinion hosts in support of former President Donald Trump. In separate interviews with NPR, Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg pointed to a breaking point earlier this month: network star Tucker Carlson's three-part series on the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol that relied on fabrications and conspiracy theories to exonerate the Trump supporters who participated in the attack. "It's basically saying that the Biden regime is coming after half the country and this is the War on Terror 2.0," Goldberg tells NPR. "It traffics in all manner of innuendo and conspiracy theories that I think legitimately could lead to violence. That for me, and for Steve, was the last straw." more...
Colby Hall

Do the producers of Fox & Friends have no shame? Or are they so wedded to criticizing President Joe Biden that they are willing to do anything — including airing a deceptive edit of comments he made — to portray him in the least favorable light? During a news break, former Real World star Rachel Campos-Duffy reported on “President Biden facing backlash for a comment during his Veterans Day address.” A clip of Biden’s speech then aired, showing the president saying “I have adopted the attitude of the great Negro at the time pitcher, name was Satchel Paige.” Following the clip, Campos-Duffy added “Biden’s choice of words, while referencing Satchel Paige, landing him in hot water. The remark came while Biden was wishing Secretary of State Blinken’s dad a happy birthday.” The clip that Fox & Friends aired, however, was deceptively edited to remove context from Biden’s comments. What he actually said was: more...
When one pulls back and looks at Fox’s broader situation, letting Carlson engage in conspiracy-mongering makes a lot of sense.
By Brian Rosenwald, author of "Talk Radio’s America: How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States"

Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s new three-part documentary on the Jan. 6 insurrection began airing last week on Fox Nation, Fox’s subscription streaming service. The documentary has generated condemnation from across the political spectrum for its untruths. NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, to pick just one example, labeled it “pretty dark and often fact-free.” Its critics have blasted the documentary’s false claim that the insurrection was a “false flag” or “honeypot” staged by former President Donald Trump's foes in national security agencies and the left-wing group antifa to smear Trump backers. more...
Newsroom

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said that he has "never figured out" what Critical Race Theory actually is, despite talking about it for months. video...
Tucker Carlson's "Patriot Purge" miniseries uses deceptive tactics and false statements to rewrite history.
Dan Evon

At the start of November 2021, Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired the first episode of his new miniseries, “Patriot Purge,” on the network’s online streaming service Fox Nation. The three-episode series makes a number of false claims regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and misleads viewers with the conspiratorial idea that the attack was staged by the federal government. Below are some of the most misleading aspects of the “Patriot Purge.”

Are Millions of Trump-Supporters Being Stripped of Their Rights? No.
One of the main arguments in “Patriot Purge” is that the Biden administration views the millions of American citizens who supported former U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 election as domestic terrorists. In the first episode of this miniseries, Carlson claims that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is being used a “pretense to strip millions of Americans” of their constitutional rights and “frame them as domestic terrorists.” more...
By Bill McCarthy

In his controversial and conspiratorial documentary series attempting to rewrite the events of Jan. 6, Fox News host Tucker Carlson described the attack on the U.S. Capitol as a false-flag operation contrived to frame, trap and "purge" Trump voters in a "new war on terror." The series started airing Nov. 1 on Fox Nation, Fox News’ subscription streaming service. It was produced as part of a multiyear deal Carlson signed to make specials for Fox Nation, and it was co-written by Scooter Downey, who previously directed films for far-right figures. On Fox News’ flagship morning show, "Fox & Friends," Carlson defended it as "rock-solid factually." more...
CNN’s “New Day” hit the network, other media outlets and GOP lawmakers with a stinging supercut that pointed out the same statistic again and again.
By Lee Moran

CNN “New Day” anchors Brianna Keilar and John Berman hammered home the same point over and over on Wednesday — that 99% of people who are now dying from COVID-19 in the United States are unvaccinated. They also called out Fox News personalities including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, other conservative media outlets and GOP lawmakers who have sown doubt about the COVID-19 vaccines that have been declared by scientists worldwide to safely slow the spread of the coronavirus. more...
Fox News host can be heard describing huge amounts of opioids he allegedly took after a surgery
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

A day after Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s monologue on opioid painkillers was leaked, conservative political commentator Jesse Watters replaced him on his talk show. Watters appeared as a guest host on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Thursday night, where he discussed how an alleged Russian claim “changed the course of United States politics.” Carlson reportedly underwent an emergency back surgery on Wednesday morning and then went to the studio to host his show at night, Fox News said. more...
Brett Bachman

When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and ex-New York City Police Chief Bernie Kerik found themselves out thousands of dollars on hotel rooms and travel costs for their efforts to overturn Donald Trump's election loss, one person came to their rescue: Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. The longtime cable news staple arranged for the Trump campaign to reimburse Kerik and Giuliani, payments that may jeopardize the former president's claim to executive privilege, according to a new report in the Washington Post. more...
By Brian Stelter, CNN Business

The distance between Trump America's perception of January 6 and the rest of America's understanding of the attack is growing so wide, it cannot be bridged. To see what I mean, watch Tucker Carlson's "false flag" conspiracy-theorizing -- coming to Fox's streaming service on Monday -- and compare it to the Washington Post's prize-worthy reconstruction of the "red flags" before Jan. 6, the bloodshed during the attack, and the "contagion" after. For conservative news consumers, history is being erased. For everyone else, history is still being written. New facts are still emerging. The Post's new three-part series was assembled by a team of 75 journalists. This project began "in late spring, after efforts in Congress to create a bipartisan panel to examine the Jan. 6 attack collapsed," exec editor Sally Buzbee explained in this editor's note on Sunday. more...
By Jason Lemon

Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, condemned Fox News host Tucker Carlson and blasted the Murdoch family behind the right-wing cable network for "cashing in" at the expense of American democracy. Carlson, who is no stranger to stirring controversy, released a trailer last week for an upcoming special titled Patriot Purge that purports to tell the "true story behind" the January 6 attack against the U.S. Capitol carried out by former President Donald Trump's supporters. more...
by Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

Fox News is not officially commenting on the record, but it seems the right-wing talk network is quietly trying to distance itself from Tucker Carlson's 1/6 trutherism. That's the takeaway from this story by Daily Dot's David Covucci. He wrote on Friday that after his outlet published a story on Carlson's 1/6 special series, titled "Patriot Purge," the Fox News PR department reached out.

Fox PR intended its request to be off the record, but Covucci correctly noted that *both* parties must agree to go off the record before it is binding. "The Daily Dot did not agree to Fox's demand when it was sent this quote, and thus is not bound by the request," Covucci explained to readers. "Plus, you should know that even Fox News wants to distance itself from Carlson's documentary." more...
Justin Baragona

Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s upcoming “documentary” series that suggests the Jan. 6 insurrection was a “false flag” operation drew escalating bipartisan criticism on Thursday evening. In a letter to Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt “strongly” urged Fox to “reconsider airing this program,” which is set to premiere next week on Fox Nation, Fox News’ online subscription streaming service. more...
Ed Mazza

Jimmy Kimmel ripped Fox News host Tucker Carlson for freaking out over video of President Joe Biden coughing or clearing his throat before shaking hands. Then Kimmel offered a way to immortalize Carlson. “You know how they call women ‘Karens,'" he said. “Can we call a male Karen ‘Carlsons’ from now on?” more...
Kieran Press-Reynolds

Former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader David Duke said Tucker Carlson has "finally" started promoting the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which is associated with white supremacy. The "great replacement" theory alleges that white people are being systematically and intentionally replaced by people of other races through mass immigration, according to Media Matters for America, a left-leaning non-profit organization that tracks right-wing media. more...
Carlson has shown no qualms spouting off against any and all vaccine rules. But ask him about Fox News policy, and he goes silent.
Justin Baragona

Fox News star Tucker Carlson has no problem bashing the Biden administration on a nightly basis for imposing vaccine requirements for large companies, likening the policy to tyranny. But when it comes to his own employer’s strict vaccine policy—one that goes even further than the Biden rules by requiring daily COVID testing for unvaccinated staffers—Carlson’s attitude is that he’s “not qualified to speak for the company on this.” Appearing this week on the Vince & Jason Save the Nation podcast (part of The Daily Caller website founded by Carlson), the primetime star was confronted by liberal commentator Jason Nichols over Carlson’s recent assertion that Fox News doesn’t have a vaccine mandate. more...
Fox news lies, more lies, misinformation, alternative facts, propaganda and sometimes Russian propaganda.

By Bill McCarthy

Fox News host Will Cain falsely claimed the COVID-19 vaccines are more dangerous for children than COVID-19, citing an open-system database that is frequently misused to promote anti-vaccine misinformation. "We know from VAERS reporting — Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting — and although it's imperfect, we know from that, the risk to children from the vaccine outweighs the risk to COVID," Cain said on "Fox News Primetime" Oct. 1. "This comes in the form of hospitalizations." "You are more likely, as a child, to end up in the hospital because of the vaccine than you are because of COVID," Cain continued. "That's data from the CDC and from VAERS." more...
MSNBC host calls Tucker Carlson a coward for refusing to attack Fox News over their vaccine and mask policies
Sarah K. Burris

As part of an epic takedown of Fox News host Tucker Carlson for his COVID conspiracy theories, MSNBC host Chris Hayes nailed the host for being a coward because he won't go after his own company for the mask and vaccine mandates. Carlson, along with Laura Ingraham, have raged against the vaccine, but refuse to say whether or not they are personally vaccinated. It is likely because Fox News has one of the strictest vaccine mandates and if people aren't vaccinated, they require people to be tested daily. When Fox and other networks were in lockdown for safety, their hosts were doing shows from their own homes to protect themselves. "The calls are coming from inside the house," said Hayes. "Tucker Carlson, who works in news, doesn't seem to care one way or the other," if a report is true, said Hayes. "Do not underestimate how many lies are being pumped into people watching these shows." more...
Host dismisses Anti-Defamation League after organization urges network to drop him
Martin Pengelly

After the Anti-Defamation League renewed its call for Tucker Carlson to be fired from Fox News for voicing the racist “great replacement” theory about immigration, the primetime host had a pithy response: “Fuck them.”

Carlson was speaking to the former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly on Sirius XM. He made the comments in question on his show on Wednesday, which averages more than 3 million viewers a night. more...
More than 90% of Fox Corporation staff inoculated, according to memo announcing daily testing for unvaccinated employees
Samira Sadeque

The vast majority of employees at Fox Corporation, the umbrella company for the conservative Fox News channel, are vaccinated against coronavirus and those who are not will be required to do daily testing, according to a memo sent out from bosses – despite some of its biggest screen stars questioning the vaccine. A daily test is stricter than the Biden administration’s firm mandate that businesses with more than 100 employees must require either vaccination or weekly testing. more...
The cable news personality also defended people who buy fake proof of vaccination against Covid-19
Martin Pengelly

In an interview, Tucker Carlson admitted: “I lie.” The Fox News host was speaking to Dave Rubin. The YouTube host and conservative author asked how Carlson felt about CNN hosts Brian Stelter, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, who Rubin called “clown people”. Carlson said: “I guess I would ask myself, like, I mean I lie if I’m really cornered or something. I lie. I really try not to. I try never to lie on TV. I just don’t – I don’t like lying. I certainly do it, you know, out of weakness or whatever. more...
The Fox News host also ludicrously insisted he does not use his massive platform to “punch down.”
Justin Baragon

Fox News host Tucker Carlson confessed over the weekend that he will “lie” whenever he’s “really cornered or something.” During a Sunday appearance on right-wing provocateur Dave Rubin’s podcast, Carlson took aim at his rivals on CNN over what he claimed was their habit of telling falsehoods on the air. (The segment was first flagged by Media Matters, a liberal watchdog and Carlson nemesis.) more...
Does Tucker Carlson want you or a family member or a friend to die, or maybe all of you?

Ross A. Lincoln

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has amplified a lot of anti-vax and functionally pro-COVID sentiments on his show for months, even if, as Fox News always notes when asked, he has very carefully insisted he is not anti-vaccines and is simply asking questions about this particular vaccine. But whether you believe that or not, on Thursday’s episode of his show Carlson fully endorsed people who buy and use fake vaccine cards to avoid getting vaccinated themselves. He also said that efforts to control the spread of COVID-19, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and rendered hundreds of thousands more seriously ill, are “serious” crimes committed by “tyrants” who Tucker said he hopes will be “punished for it.” more...
Posted by Jude Terror

Former WWE wrestler turned Hollywood megastar Dave Bautista lashed out at Fox News over what The Animal believes are repeated examples of hypocrisy. Bautista, who has expanded his long-running feud with fellow WWE Hall-of-Famer Donald Trump after Trump was pinned clean by Joe Biden in the main event of the 2020 Election PPV and also lost his rematch during the failed coup attempt on January 6th, has particular disdain for Fox News personalities such as Tucker Carlson, who he has called a "pussy-grabbin' racist" and "lying human squeaky toy," and whom he has recently promised to put through a table. more...
Bob Brigham

CNN's Jim Acosta lectured Fox News on Saturday about patriotism. "All week long, former President Trump and his team have been spiking the football on President Biden's chaotic exit from Afghanistan," Acosta began. "It's worth reminding everyone just who moved the ball to the goal line. Some key Trump officials have conveniently forgotten that." more...
Nothing to see here.
By Aaron Rupar

A Thursday night news brief on Fox News contained a remarkable claim — that the network doesn’t have enough information to determine what motivated a man spouting right-wing conspiracy theories to shut down a significant portion of Washington, DC, around the Library of Congress by claiming to have a bomb earlier in the day. “So far, no word on a possible motive,” said anchor Jackie Ibanez at the conclusion of a 15-second brief that amounted to the entirety of Fox News’s Thursday night coverage of the incident. more...
The lies and alternative facts from Fox News are killing its own viewers.

Don Lemon Tonight

CNN's Harry Enten analyzes data from the Axios/Ipsos tracking poll comparing vaccination rates of the Fox News audience to people who get their news from other sources. video...
By Brian Stelter, CNN Business

"Get vaccinated," Senator Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. And, he added, just as importantly, "ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice." McConnell's words were newsworthy because of the "other voices" he mentioned -- the anti-vaccination talking heads that have overwhelmed common sense in GOP circles this year. For every knowledgeable right-wing leader who has pointed to the vaccines as the only way out of the pandemic, louder know-nothings have instilled doubt and denial via radio, TV and the web. The result has been measurable through maps of deaths and disease. more...
Tom Porter

The Biden administration has confronted Fox News over the bid by some of its top-rated hosts to erode trust in the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. White House Press secretary Jen Psaki at a press briefing on Tuesday confirmed that officials had held talks with the right-wing Fox News network and other media outlets about their coverage of the vaccine rollout strategy. "We've been in touch with every network and many, many media outlets about coverage of COVID-19 to make sure people have accurate information, to voice concerns when we have them," Psaki said. more...
The Fox News host sounds a lot like America’s most notorious conspiracy theorist.
By Ed Mazza

Fox News host Tucker Carlson is starting to sound a lot like right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. CNN on Sunday played a supercut of Carlson’s rhetoric matching that of the Infowars host — Both think the government is spying on them, both have pushed conspiracy theories about the coronavirus vaccines, and both have claimed the FBI was behind the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was carried out by pro-Trump insurrectionists. video...
By Ben Mathis-Lilley

The House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol held its first meeting Tuesday, hearing testimony from four police officers who, in their telling, were assaulted and taunted by the mob of Donald Trump supporters and white supremacist militia members who broke into the building that day in a deluded attempt to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president. more...
David Folkenflik

Fox News Media has agreed to pay a record $1 million fine as part of a broader settlement following an investigation by the New York City Commission on Human Rights into patterns of sexual harassment and retribution at the cable news channel. For Fox News, the financial penalty is symbolic, as it is believed to make more than $2 billion a year in profits. Yet the figure marks the maximum the commission could levy in the case. The settlement was first reported by the Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove. The conditions of the settlement are more consequential: along with specifying training programs and ways for employees to report harassment, Fox News agreed not to issue any new or extended contracts that compel people to resolve disputes in binding and confidential arbitration for the next four years. more...
Martin Pengelly

Tucker Carlson of Fox News is a “go-to source” for the US political media he claims to “hate” and has called “cowards” and “cringing animals not worthy of respect” – according to a columnist for the New York Times. Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, outed Carlson as “the go-to guy for sometimes-unflattering stories about Donald J Trump and for coverage of the internal politics of Fox News (not to mention stories about Mr Carlson himself)”. Carlson has become a star of the pro-Trump right – even figuring in polls regarding the next Republican presidential nomination, although he told a podcast last week he will not run – and a hate figure on the US left. Referring to Carlson’s role stoking culture wars over Covid-19, Smith wrote that he dodged the question of whether he has been vaccinated himself. more...
By Brian Stelter, CNN Business

This article is adapted from the new edition of "Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth," which was published in paperback on Tuesday. When Donald Trump lost the presidency last November, Fox News lost too. But unlike Trump, Fox was never in denial about its loss. The network's executives and multi-million-dollar stars stared the ratings in the face every day and saw that their pro-Trump audience was reacting to the prospect of President Biden by switching channels or turning off the TV. "We're bleeding eyeballs," a Fox producer remarked in December. "And we're scared." To fix the problem, Fox ran even further to the right. And here's the thing: It worked. It was toxic for the American political system, but it was profitable for Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch. "Fox is a really different place than it was pre-election," a commentator said to me, with regret, after Biden took office. more...
One has to ask the question is the right wing media with or working for the Russians.

The network has a fraught relationship with the truth and the 2020 election.
Eric Levai

When One American News Network (OAN) aired the My Pillow Guy’s 2020 election fraud documentary, the company put up a massive disclaimer before it ran, noting that it was an independently produced film by Mike Lindell and the news network had nothing to do with it. That came as OAN was facing a possibly lawsuit over its constant inaccurate claims of election fraud in 2020. Perhaps it should have been similarly rigorous with the films it aired before the election as well. U.S. intelligence officials concluded that The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder, a film which aired on OAN in January 2020, was produced by Russian intelligence agents Konstantin Kilimnik and Andrii Derkach, according to a report released yesterday by the Director of National Intelligence. more...
One has to ask the question is the right wing media with or working for the Russians.

By John R. Schindler

A few days ago, I addressed the troubling issue of Sean Hannity, the Fox News star, and his hidden ties to the Trump administration. With the revelation that Hannity shares an attorney with the president—namely the disgraced Michael Cohen, who’s now a key player in the Department of Justice’s investigation of the White House and its secret Kremlin links—it’s high time to ask exactly what sort of “journalism” Hannity is pushing at Fox News. Moreover, when coupled with my previous revelations of Hannity’s “reporting” of rancid disinformation scripted by Russian intelligence as “news,” plus his clandestine relationship with WikiLeaks—said by President Donald Trump’s own CIA director to be a Kremlin front—Fox News is making itself a player not just in the Trump administration, but a target of any fair and balanced investigation of it. As I stated: more...
Carlson, who has repeatedly downplayed the Capitol insurrection, claimed that U.S. Capitol Police members were politically threatening Republicans in Congress.
Justin Baragona

Fox News host Tucker Carlson lashed out at members of the U.S. Capitol Police who blasted Republican opposition to an independent commission to investigate the violent Jan. 6 insurrection, calling their letter nothing more than a “ransom note” from an “armed political action committee.” Just ahead of Wednesday’s House vote on the establishment of the inquiry into the Capitol riots, a letter signed by the “Proud Members of the United States Capitol Police” condemned Republicans who didn’t want to establish the independent commission. No names were attached to the statement. more...
By Ashley Collman

Tucker Carlson's old editor had some choice words to say about the Fox News host's recent anti-mask rant. On Monday, Carlson went on a diatribe against parents who make their children wear face masks outdoors, saying it "should be illegal" and amounts to "child abuse." Carlson even told viewers to call the police if they saw it happening. "Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart - call the police immediately," Carlson said. more...
Arwa Mahdawi

According to a lawyer for an alleged Capitol rioter, his client was brainwashed by Fox News into participating in the 6 January attack

Fighting Foxitis
For decades a debilitating disease has been spreading across America. Risk factors include being over 65, Republican and white. Symptoms include unhinged muttering, delusional thinking and an irresistible urge to storm the Capitol. The disease is called “Foxitis” and a lawyer called Joseph Hurley, who is representing alleged US Capitol rioter Anthony Antonio, wants us to believe his client is suffering from it.

Antonio lost his job at the beginning of the pandemic and spent the next six months sitting at home watching Fox, Hurley told a DC court on Thursday. “He became hooked with what I call ‘Foxitis’ or ‘Foxmania’ and … started believing what was being fed to him.” According to Hurley, Fox brainwashed Antonio into believing Trump wanted him to march on Washington as part of a patriotic movement.” Now Antonio is facing five charges over his role in the January riot. more...
CNN's Jim Acosta and CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner discuss the blowback that Fox News host Tucker Carlson has received over his anti-vaccine rhetoric. video...
Anthony Antonio, who faces five charges over role in January riot, ‘started believing what was being fed to him’, lawyer says
Luke O'Neil

The lawyer for a Delaware man charged over the Capitol attack in January is floating a unique defense: Fox News made him do it. Anthony Antonio, who is facing five charges including violent entry, disorderly conduct and impeding law enforcement during civil disorder, fell prey to the persistent lies about the so-called “stolen election” being spread daily by Donald Trump and the rightwing network that served him, his attorney Joseph Hurley said during a video hearing on Thursday. Antonio spent the six months before the riots mainlining Fox News while unemployed, Hurley said, likening the side effects of such a steady diet of misinformation to a mental health syndrome. “Fox television played constantly,” he said. “He became hooked with what I call ‘Foxitis’ or ‘Foxmania’, and became interested in the political aspect and started believing what was being fed to him.” more...
Tucker Carlson is the dumbest person on earth or he wants you and children your to die from the corona virus.

"As for forcing children to wear masks outside, that should be illegal," Carlson declared
By Zachary Petrizzo

Fox News host Tucker Carlson dramatically escalated his incendiary anti-mask message with a Monday night diatribe directing his audience to call the police on people using the proper personal protective equipment while the nation still grapples with a pandemic. "Call the police immediately," Carlson instructed his Fox News audience if they see a child wearing a mask outside. "As for forcing children to wear masks outside, that should be illegal. Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives," Carlson declared. "What you're looking at is abuse, it's child abuse, and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it." "If it's your own children being abused, then act accordingly," Carlson continued on his anti-mask tirade. more...
By Bill McCarthy

One day after President Joe Biden pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half, Fox News and Fox Business Network personalities repeatedly and baselessly claimed that the move would also force Americans to say goodbye to hamburgers and steaks. "To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to, get this, America has to stop eating meat," said Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, a former economic adviser to President Donald Trump, on April 23. "No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue." Biden’s climate plans do not include restrictions on red meat consumption, a White House official confirmed to PolitiFact. Biden never mentioned red meat when he announced his plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030, a move that would double the U.S.’s commitment under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. more...
Newsbreak

Earlier this week, Carlson denounced Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a Washington Post reporter for apparently planning to expose his old yearbook. That prompted a Twitter user to unearth the 1991 Trinity College Yearbook, which lists Carlson as being a member of the "Jesse Helms Foundation" and "Dan White Society." more...
The former White House press secretary to Trump was called out on Twitter.
By Ed Mazza

Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany was called out for hypocrisy on Tuesday for her latest attack on President Joe Biden, which completely ignored the behavior of her previous employer, former President Donald Trump. “I think it’s the role of the president of the United States to stay back, to not inflame the tensions,” McEnany said on the air after Biden offered an opinion on Derek Chauvin’s trial. Speaking after the jury was sequestered, Biden described the evidence against the former police officer as “overwhelming” and said he was praying for the “right verdict.”  Chauvin was found guilty on Tuesday in the murder of George Floyd. more...
Opinion by Michael Gerson

Some in the Republican Party hope that it can eventually maintain the Trump coalition without the toxic excesses of Donald Trump’s disordered personality. Already, a variety of talented and calculating figures — Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) come to mind — are trying to model populism minus the psychopathy. They are clearly imagining a day when a working-class and fundamentalist cultural revolt can be channeled into constructive public purposes. As one Republican congressional staffer has said: “Trump has changed the party forever, but that doesn’t mean he will control the party forever.” It is a rational instinct. It also strikes me as a nearly impossible task. And Tucker Carlson illustrates why. more...
Jonah E. Bromwich

The election technology company Smartmatic pushed back Monday against Fox News’ argument that it had covered the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election responsibly, stating that Fox anchors had played along as guests pushed election-related conspiracy theories. “The First Amendment does not provide the Fox defendants a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Smartmatic’s lawyer, J. Erik Connolly, wrote in a brief filed in New York state Supreme Court. “The Fox defendants do not get a do-over with their reporting now that they have been sued.” The brief came in response to motions filed by Fox Corporation and three current and former Fox hosts — Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs — to dismiss a Smartmatic lawsuit accusing them of defamation. more...
David R. Lurie

After letting its hosts make wildly false claims about how Donald Trump’s political opponents supposedly “stole” the election from him, Fox News is facing potentially catastrophic lawsuits seeking billions in damages from election systems companies Dominion and Smartmatic. That’s why the former president’s personal propaganda network is now trying to raise the shield of legal protections for the press that Trump has spent years smashing. more..
John Oliver is taking aim at Tucker Carlson after the Fox News host’s rant about women in the military. The Last Week Tonight host says he doesn’t want to give Carlson oxygen, but due to his influence, it needs to be addressed. video...
By Dominick Mastrangelo

A guest on Fox News called prime-time host Tucker Carlson a "conspiracy theorist" and ripped into other conservative thought leaders for questioning coronavirus vaccines and proposed systems that would track who has been vaccinated in the country. "People need to get vaccinated and it is the private sector who wants to make sure that people coming into their venues are vaccinated so that their patrons can be safe from COVID-19," said Chris Hahn, a liberal firebrand who often appears on the network and spars with more conservative guests. "It is time for conservatives in this country to acknowledge that we have a crisis in this country and start joining the fight to end it." Hahn said leading voices in the conservative movement should "stop spreading lies about what's going on in this country." more...
By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

New York (CNN Business) Dominion Voting Systems, a voting technology company that was the target of baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the right-wing channel Fox News on Friday. The company alleged that the network "recklessly disregarded the truth" and participated in a disinformation campaign against it because "the lies were good for Fox's business." In the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump falsely asserted that the election had been rigged against him. His allies promoted outlandish conspiracy theories about Dominion to support Trump's false claims. "Fox took a small flame" of disinformation and "turned it into a forest fire," Dominion said in its lawsuit. more...
CNN's Brianna Keilar rolls the tape on Fox News host Pete Hegseth's hypocrisy after he derided "esoteric" ivy league conversations at CPAC, despite having multiple ivy league degrees, and how Trump's talking points mirror what's on the network. video...
By Matthew Chapman

On MSNBC Tuesday, anchor Nicolle Wallace tore into Fox News, and particularly Tucker Carlson, for sowing fear and anger about COVID-19 vaccination. "A lesson in leadership from Dr. Fauci this morning, emphasizing the need to tell the truth, even if it's not what people want to hear," said Wallace. "It's a lesson seemingly lost on Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who is peddling false anti-vaxxer talking points to an audience of millions at a time when polls suggest that nearly half of Trump's supporters will not get the COVID vaccine." She then played the clip of Carlson's show trying to say people can't celebrate American independence without the vaccine, a twisted and distorted lie about what Biden said in his speech. more...
By Emma Nolan

Tucker Carlson is claiming that the Left invented QAnon as the Fox News host amits he couldn't find "a website" for the well-documented conspiracy theory movement. The Fox News host made headlines on Tuesday when he said that he and his team struggled to find a website for the pro-Trump movement that the FBI has called a domestic terrorism threat. The conspiracy theory has also been linked to several murders and death threats against politicians. The movement was also heavily involved with the Capitol riot on January 6 in Washington D.C. more...
By Philip Bump

One of the mysteries that lingers around President Donald Trump’s final days in office is why he chose to downplay the deployment of the coronavirus vaccine. Granted, his last days took place in the shadow of the insurrection on Jan. 6 that followed his constant insistences that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. But at some point that month, Trump himself quietly got the vaccine and, despite having nearly nothing else on his schedule, he never undertook any substantial effort to promote vaccination. No events focused on it. There was little mention of the vaccine publicly, in part because he was so focused on injecting his election-fraud nonsense into his followers. more...
Fox News’s absurd reaction to Biden’s primetime coronavirus speech, explained.
By Aaron Rupar

Fox News reacted to President Joe Biden’s primetime announcement that all American adults would be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by May 1 and the country’s aim is to return to a semblance of normalcy by July 4 by insisting that former President Donald Trump actually deserves the credit. But that claim can’t withstand scrutiny. While Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program provided incentives for private companies to speed vaccine development and did directly help Moderna develop an effective vaccine, it’s not necessarily the case that vaccines wouldn’t be available today had it not been for Trump. The first FDA-approved coronavirus vaccine was developed by Pfizer last year without any direct help from the federal government. To be clear — Trump deserves some credit for the fact that multiple vaccines were developed so quickly. As my colleague Dylan Scott reported last October, the federal government’s multibillion-dollar investment in helping companies like Moderna and Johnson & Johnson develop vaccines no doubt helped the country get to a point where there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel. Biden has acknowledged this, saying in December that “I think that the [Trump] administration deserves some credit, getting this [vaccine effort] off the ground, Operation Warp Speed.” more...
By Oliver Darcy and Barbara Starr, CNN

New York (CNN Business) In an extraordinary rebuke, the Pentagon and several senior members of the US military called out Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday for a sexist segment in which he mocked women serving in the armed forces. Carlson, who is effectively the face of Fox and hosts the top show on the right-wing channel, ridiculed President Joe Biden Tuesday for saying that the US military had created uniforms to fit women properly, created maternity flight suits for those who are pregnant, and updated requirements for hairstyles. "So we've got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits," Carlson snarked. "Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It's a mockery of the US military." Carlson's comments have prompted severe backlash from some of the most senior members of the US military who took to Twitter on Wednesday and Thursday to call Carlson out for what they described as harmful and divisive rhetoric. more...
“What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host,” said the Pentagon’s top spokesperson.
By QUINT FORGEY

Senior military officials are condemning Fox News host Tucker Carlson for saying this week that President Joe Biden is making a “mockery” of the armed forces through efforts to recruit and keep women in the service. On Tuesday, Carlson complained during his prime-time program that while “China’s military becomes more masculine … our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine.” Carlson was referring to remarks Biden made at a White House ceremony on Monday, during which he announced the nominations of two female generals to become combatant commanders — putting them on track to potentially become only the second and third women to serve in those positions in U.S. history. At that event, Biden said the military was undertaking “relatively straightforward work” to better reflect gender diversity within its ranks and retain female recruits, including “designing body armor that fits women properly, tailoring combat uniforms for women, creating maternity flight suits [and] updating requirements for their hairstyles.” more...
By Teo Armus

Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted a lengthy portion of his show Tuesday night to attacking New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz over her accounts of facing online harassment, claiming that in fact she has “one of the best lives in the country.” After both she and the newspaper spoke out, with the Times calling his segment “calculated and cruel,” he returned to the airwaves Wednesday to continue lambasting Lorenz. He labeled her a “deeply unhappy narcissist,” denied that she faces online abuse and allowed a guest to baselessly accuse her of “harassing kids and teenagers.” His segment is the latest instance of Carlson singling out a reporter — a tactic that his targets like Lorenz say has unleashed waves of new online abuse. “I hope people see this and recognize it for what it is,” Lorenz said on Twitter late Wednesday, “an attempt to mobilize an army of followers to memorize my name and instigate harassment.” more...
Tackling the most powerful social media accounts – such as Donald Trump’s – could be key to halting false narratives, researchers say
Kari Paul in San Francisco

A handful of rightwing “super-spreaders” on social media were responsible for the bulk of election misinformation in the run-up to the Capitol attack, according to a new study that also sheds light on the staggering reach of falsehoods pushed by Donald Trump. A report from the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a group that includes Stanford and the University of Washington, analyzed social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok during several months before and after the 2020 elections. It found that “super-spreaders” – responsible for the most frequent and most impactful misinformation campaigns – included Trump and his two elder sons, as well as other members of the Trump administration and the rightwing media. The study’s authors and other researchers say the findings underscore the need to disable such accounts to stop the spread of misinformation. “If there is a limit to how much content moderators can tackle, have them focus on reducing harm by eliminating the most effective spreaders of misinformation,” said said Lisa Fazio, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who studies the psychology of fake news but was not involved EIP report. “Rather than trying to enforce the rules equally across all users, focus enforcement on the most powerful accounts.” more...
*** Fox News is upset over Dr. Seuss but they do not care that Trump’s supporters sacked the US capitol in an attempt to overthrow the election results. ***

Twitter users mocked the right-wing network’s newest obsession.
By Ed Mazza

Fox News went into full freakout mode on Tuesday after Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would stop publishing six books over “hurtful and wrong” stereotypes and racist imagery. “Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ catalog represents and supports all communities and families,” the organization said. Fox News spent much of the day deriding “cancel culture” despite the fact that the company made the decision on its own and most of the beloved author’s books will remain in circulation. The progressive watchdog group Media Matters counted 85 mentions of Seuss on Fox News by 4 p.m.: more...
*** No matter how hard Republicans, Fox news and right wing media try to place the blame on Anifa the facts and the videos prove it was not Antifa but Trump supporters, white supremacist and Qanon that sacked the capitol of the Untied States of America. ***

The FBI has not seen "any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to antifa in connection with the 6th," he said at a Senate hearing.
By Rebecca Shabad

WASHINGTON — FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday repeatedly shot down claims by Republican allies of former President Donald Trump and others that antifa activists participated in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. “We have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to antifa in connection with the 6th," Wray said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing to address concerns about the intelligence leading up to the riot and the domestic terrorism threat more broadly. "That doesn't mean we're not looking, and we'll continue to look, but at the moment we have not seen that.”

Wray explained that those who participated in the breach of the Capitol fell into two main groups of violent extremists — those associated with militia groups, such as Oath Keepers, and those who advocate white supremacy. Wray's comments came after Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the committee, spent much of his opening remarks focused not on the right-wing extremists who attacked the Capitol in January, but on left-wing extremists, such as the anti-fascist, or antifa, movement. Grassley referred to how far-left protesters vandalized a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, in the summer and the state Democratic Party headquarters during President Joe Biden's inauguration. more...
On social media, on cable networks and even in the halls of Congress, supporters of Donald J. Trump tried to rewrite history in real time, pushing the fiction that left-wing agitators were to blame for the violence on Jan. 6.
By Michael M. Grynbaum, Davey Alba and Reid J. Epstein

At 1:51 p.m. on Jan. 6, a right-wing radio host named Michael D. Brown wrote on Twitter that rioters had breached the United States Capitol — and immediately speculated about who was really to blame. “Antifa or BLM or other insurgents could be doing it disguised as Trump supporters,” Mr. Brown wrote, using shorthand for Black Lives Matter. “Come on, man, have you never heard of psyops?” Only 13,000 people follow Mr. Brown on Twitter, but his tweet caught the attention of another conservative pundit: Todd Herman, who was guest-hosting Rush Limbaugh’s national radio program. Minutes later, he repeated Mr. Brown’s baseless claim to Mr. Limbaugh’s throngs of listeners: “It’s probably not Trump supporters who would do that. Antifa, BLM, that’s what they do. Right?” What happened over the next 12 hours illustrated the speed and the scale of a right-wing disinformation machine primed to seize on a lie that served its political interests and quickly spread it as truth to a receptive audience. The weekslong fiction about a stolen election that President Donald J. Trump pushed to his millions of supporters had set the stage for a new and equally false iteration: that left-wing agitators were responsible for the attack on the Capitol. more...
By Bill McCarthy

Tucker Carlson’s false claim downplaying role of white supremacists at Capitol riot. Several people charged in connection with the U.S. Capitol riot have ties to right-wing extremist groups. Some of those groups are explicitly white supremacist. Others, like the Proud Boys, have members who have expressed white supremacist views. Video and photos from the event show that white supremacist symbols were prominently displayed on shirts and flags. Asked during a Senate hearing on Feb. 23 whether white supremacists and extremist groups were involved in the riot, top Capitol security officials said, “yes.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson downplayed the involvement of racially motivated extremist groups in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, falsely suggesting that the mob of pro-Trump rioters who violently stormed the building did not include white supremacists. "There's no evidence that white supremacists were responsible for what happened on Jan. 6. That's a lie," Carlson said Feb. 22 on his TV show. "And contrary to what you've been hearing, there's also no evidence this was a, quote, 'armed insurrection.'" During the segment, Carlson, whose primetime show is among the most-watched cable news programs, interviewed the author of a blog post that argued the riot did not amount to an armed insurrection. PolitiFact previously rated that claim Pants on Fire. more...
The Fox News personality’s comment has not aged well.
By Lee Moran

What a difference a year makes. On Saturday, “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” hit Fox News personality Sean Hannity with a musical reminder of what he said while downplaying the threat of the coronavirus on the same day ― Feb. 27 ― in 2020. “Zero people in the United States of America have died from the coronavirus,” Hannity told his millions of viewers. One year on, the U.S. death toll now stands upward of 500,000. “The Daily Show” remixed Hannity’s statement into a club anthem: more...
By Philip Bump

The clip that quickly traveled across social media was bizarre, as is often the case with clips that travel quickly across social media. Here was Tucker Carlson, the brightest star in Fox News’s prime-time opinion lineup, seemingly denying that QAnon exists. “So it’s worth finding out where the public is getting all this false information — this ‘disinformation,’ as we’ll call it,” Carlson says in the clip from his show on Tuesday night. “So we checked. We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there, we could not find it.” Stripped of context, it’s a nonsensical claim. There is probably not any actual individual who is “Q,” the anonymous source of various random allegations and cryptic comments that serve as the basis of the quasi-religious conspiracy theory QAnon. But there’s no question that the QAnon movement exists, that those edicts exist and that the effect has been poisonous to the American political conversation. “QAnon” isn’t a website, but the conspiracy theory is centered around online content and online communities. more...
Carlson declared on Monday night that white supremacists were not involved in the deadly Capitol riot and that there was no evidence that it was an insurrection.
Justin Baragona

CNN anchor John Berman on Tuesday morning blasted Tucker Carlson for attempting to “suppress the memory” of what happened during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, mockingly calling the far-right Fox News host’s show “Fantasy Island.” Carlson, who has long played down the seditious riot as nothing more than “political protest that got out of hand,” took his revisionism a step further on Monday: He claimed that “it’s a lie” that white supremacists were at all involved in the violence and said there was “no evidence” of an “armed insurrection” at the Capitol. With the Senate holding hearings on the security breakdown during the deadly riot, Berman brought on Punchbowl News founder Anna Palmer and columnist Errol Louis to discuss the latest push by Republicans to memory-hole the events of Jan. 6. “I don’t think this could come at a more important time because you are seeing a wave of revisionism among some Republican senators like Ron Johnson, who says it wasn’t an armed insurrection,” the New Day co-host noted, referencing Johnson’s recent downplaying of the riot. more...
Carlson attacked other media networks accusing them of running disinformation campaigns
Mayank Aggarwal

Fox News host Tucker Carlson was mocked for claiming on his show on Tuesday that he can’t find any evidence of QAnon. "We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there, we could not find it,” said Mr Carlson on his show while stating that the media coverage about it is actually part of a left-wing disinformation campaign. He also attacked other media networks for coverage related to the radicalisation of people in the US. QAnon is a vast conspiracy theory believed by some on the right, and has even been classified as a domestic terrorism threat by the FBI. QAnon followers and Trump supporters were among those who were part of the 6 January Capitol riots. more...
Seth takes a closer look at the Republican Party lying about the Green New Deal and the 2020 election as the U.S. passes a grim coronavirus milestone and Texas experiences an unprecedented power crisis. video...
By Rebecca Klar

House Democrats are pressing cable and streaming services over their decisions to host channels that the lawmakers accuse of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories that lead to “real world harm.” Reps. Anna Eshoo (Calif.) and Jerry McNerney (Calif.), senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, sent letters to the companies on Monday questioning their “ethical principles” involved in deciding which channels to carry and when to take action against a channel. “Some purported news outlets have long been misinformation rumor mills and conspiracy theory hotbeds that produce content that leads to real harm,” they wrote. “Misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalizes individuals to commit seditious acts and rejects public health best practices, among other issues in our public discourse.” The letter specifically calls out Newsmax, One America Network (OANN) and Fox News. more...
Jake Lahut

In an effort to provide some cover for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity delivered a more flattering yet false account of Cruz's much-derided trip to Mexico. "Now Senator Ted Cruz tonight is facing the ire of the mob — the media — for travelling to Cancun, Mexico, with his daughters, to drop them off and come home — as Texas is still addressing the fallout and damage from severe weather," Hannity said on Thursday night. The widespread outcry began on Wednesday when photos emerged of Cruz travelling to Cancun with his family first at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and subsequently on a plane. Several hours after the trip became national news, Cruz issued his original statement, which Hannity tried sticking to. "With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends," Cruz said initially. "Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon." more...
*** Another day another lie from Republicans, Fox News and right wing media. ***

Peter Weber

As Texas on Tuesday entered its third night with sub-freezing temperatures and 3.3 million customers without electricity, the operator of the state's unique power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), urged Texans who still have electricity to turn off lights, unplug appliances, and turn down the thermostat. People without power took shelter elsewhere, if they could, or resorted to sometimes deadly means of generating heat. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and state legislators called for investigations — and Abbott and other prominent GOP politicians wrongly blamed frozen wind turbines and other renewable energy sources for the failures of the Texas energy grid. more...
Defamation cases have made waves across an uneasy right-wing media landscape, from Fox to Newsmax.
By Michael M. Grynbaum

In just a few weeks, lawsuits and legal threats from a pair of obscure election technology companies have achieved what years of advertising boycotts, public pressure campaigns and liberal outrage could not: curbing the flow of misinformation in right-wing media. Fox Business canceled its highest rated show, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” on Friday after its host was sued as part of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit. On Tuesday, the pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax cut off a guest’s rant about rigged voting machines. Fox News, which seldom bows to critics, has run fact-checking segments to debunk its own anchors’ false claims about electoral fraud. This is not the typical playbook for right-wing media, which prides itself on pugilism and delights in ignoring the liberals who have long complained about its content. But conservative outlets have rarely faced this level of direct assault on their economic lifeblood. more...
“You don’t want to deal with the news!” Williams shouted after “The Five” segment devolved into a yelling match.
By Josephine Harvey

Fox News co-host Juan Williams set off a firestorm Wednesday on “The Five” when he accused his colleagues of ignoring the damning evidence presented at the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. “I want you guys to come back, come and join the conversation, pay attention to the news!” Williams said. “Clearly, what’s going on on Capitol Hill today is an attempt to hold democracy and the Constitution up. To celebrate that as the basis that we are a country of laws.” At Wednesday’s Senate trial, Democratic impeachment managers presented chilling videos of the Jan. 6 insurrection, showing rioters assaulting police and smashing their way into the U.S. Capitol. One security video shows Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated from the Senate chamber, fleeing the mob that was hunting for him. Others show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) running to safety. more...
By Jeremy Barr

Lou Dobbs is not taking his cancellation by Fox lying down. On Friday night, Fox News Media management canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” the most-watched show on Fox Business Network. No reason was given, though the network repeated a statement from October that it “regularly considers programming changes” and had been planning to “launch new formats as appropriate post-election.” But Dobbs, 75, who is one of the network’s most outspoken allies of former president Donald Trump, has been on something of a tear ever since, retweeting dozens of tweets supporting him, including many that criticize Fox. He even boosted a tweet from a supporter suggesting that Fox News viewers “ditch Fox for @OANN,” the far-right network and would-be competitor to Fox News. more...
The suit names Fox News, network personalities Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, and Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
By Kevin Collier

Smartmatic, an international elections equipment company, has sued Fox News for more than $2.7 billion over false reports it was part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election. “Fox is responsible for this disinformation campaign, which has damaged democracy worldwide and irreparably harmed Smartmatic and other stakeholders who contribute to modern elections,” Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica said in a statement on the company’s website posted Tuesday. The suit names Fox News; network personalities Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro; and Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, the legal associates of former President Donald Trump, as defendants. It lays out 13 separate instances in which a Fox News personality or guest claimed that Smartmatic was used to rig the 2020 election. “FOX News Media is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion. We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court,” a Fox spokesperson said in an emailed statement. more...
By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

New York (CNN) A voting technology company swept up in baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election filed a monster $2.7 billion lawsuit on Thursday against Fox News, some of the network's star hosts, and pro-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, alleging the parties worked in concert to wage a "disinformation campaign" that has jeopardized its very survival. "We have no choice," Antonio Mugica, the chief executive and founder of Smartmatic, told CNN Business in an interview about the company's decision to file the lawsuit. "The disinformation campaign that was launched against us is an obliterating one. For us, this is existential, and we have to take action." The lawsuit, filed in New York state court, accused Fox, Giuliani, Powell and hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro of intentionally lying about Smartmatic in an effort to mislead the public into the false belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. "They needed a villain," the lawsuit said. "They needed someone to blame. They needed someone whom they could get others to hate. A story of good versus evil, the type that would incite an angry mob, only works if the storyteller provides the audience with someone who personifies evil." more...
*** More lies, BS and alternative facts from Tucker Carlson and Fox News. Free speech is one thing, but what the MAGA supporters and the rabbit right did was not free speech. Sacking the capitol of the United States of America in and attempt to overturn the election was not only sedition and insurrection, it was a coup attempt and that is not protected by the first amendment. Hunting down our congressinal repesentives to kill them is also not protected by the first admendment. ***


'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host explains what's behind Joe Biden's wave of changes to our basic institutions. video...
In the post-Trump era, Fox News is taking a hard-right turn in a bid to win back an audience that it's losing. CNN's Brian Stelter reports. video...
By Alexis Benveniste, CNN Business

New York (CNN Business) Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump-backed QAnon supporter, is a fountain of misinformation, conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric, and most mainstream media outlets are covering the controversy. But Fox News is still wrapped up in attacking Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney, a Wyoming congresswoman and the No. 3 House Republican, has been the target of both Republican and right-wing media backlash since she voted to impeach Former President Donald Trump following the Jauary 6 Capitol siege. "It's all about punishing Cheney; it's about punishing dissenters who dare — who dare — to impeach the former president," CNN's Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter said on "Reliable Sources" Sunday. "And the idea of a Senate trial — it's crazy! To even think about trying Trump is crazy in right-wing media." Although right-wing outlets refuse to take their eyes off of the Cheney ball, Greene continues to spread misinformation. On January 17, Twitter took note of Greene's rhetoric, temporarily suspending her from the social media platform after she tweeted a conspiracy-laden thread about the Georgia Senate elections. more...
Bill Bostock

A Fox News editor who was part of the network's decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in November said he became the "focus" of attacks and felt "murderous rage" from conservative viewers. Chris Stirewalt, who was fired as a Fox News political editor on January 19, was part of Fox News' decision desk, which uses data to project the winners in states. Before getting laid off, Stirewalt was barred from appearing on the air, Mediaite reported. Fox News was the first major news organization to call Arizona for Biden, which it did at 11:20 p.m. ET on November 3. The Associated Press called Arizona for Biden within hours, but outlets including Insider, ABC, CBS, and NBC did not do so until November 12. more...
Brian Stelter discusses Fox's ratings slump and CNN's surge with Nicole Hemmer and David Folkenflik. Hemmer says Fox's recent schedule changes are "a pretty clear sign that Fox News sees Newsmax as its big problem right now." Folkenflik also reacts to James Murdoch's recent warning about disinformation. And Eugene Daniels discusses his role in relaunching the Politico Playbook newsletter franchise. more...
President Joe Biden emphasized the need to bridge the political divide plaguing the country in his inaugural address. CNN's Brian Stelter argues that with divisive right-wing media, unity is a difficult goal. video...
The Fox News host pandered to the violently unhinged conspiracists who believe that Trump is battling a deep state cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles.
Justin Baragona

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night pandered to and seemingly defended QAnon, the violently unhinged conspiracy theory whose adherents believe that a deep state cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiliac cannibals is plotting against former President Donald Trump. After an insurrectionist mob incited by Trump stormed the Capitol in order to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory, social media companies cracked down and purged thousands of QAnon accounts and pages from their platforms. In a statement, Twitter said the accounts violated its rules on “coordinated harmful activity.” “We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content,” Twitter added. more...
Sarah K. Burris

Fox News settled a lawsuit with Seth Rich's family in the fall that was large enough that they weren't required to apologize publicly for lying about the family's son for years. But one provision that New York Times reporter Ben Smith discovered, was that they asked that the settlement news not be announced until after the November election. "Why did Fox care about keeping the Rich settlement secret for the final month of the Trump re-election campaign?" Smith asked. "Why was it important to the company, which calls itself a news organization, that one of the biggest lies of the Trump era remains unresolved for that period? Was Fox afraid that admitting it was wrong would incite the president's wrath? Did network executives fear backlash from their increasingly radicalized audience, which has been gravitating to other conservative outlets?" It proved just how integrated Fox News became with the Trump campaign, he explained. more...
Why did the network insist an agreement with the family of a murdered young man remain undisclosed until after the election?
By Ben Smith

On Oct. 12, 2020, Fox News agreed to pay millions of dollars to the family of a murdered Democratic National Committee staff member, implicitly acknowledging what saner minds knew long ago: that the network had repeatedly hyped a false claim that the young staff member, Seth Rich, was involved in leaking D.N.C. emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Russian intelligence officers, in fact, had hacked and leaked the emails.) Fox’s decision to settle with the Rich family came just before its marquee hosts, Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, were set to be questioned under oath in the case, a potentially embarrassing moment. And Fox paid so much that the network didn’t have to apologize for the May 2017 story on FoxNews.com.

But there was one curious provision that Fox insisted on: The settlement had to be kept secret for a month — until after the Nov. 3 election. The exhausted plaintiffs agreed. Why did Fox care about keeping the Rich settlement secret for the final month of the Trump re-election campaign? Why was it important to the company, which calls itself a news organization, that one of the biggest lies of the Trump era remain unresolved for that period? Was Fox afraid that admitting it was wrong would incite the president’s wrath? Did network executives fear backlash from their increasingly radicalized audience, which has been gravitating to other conservative outlets? more...
A news network that, instead of providing actual news, gives white, conservative viewers the news they want to hear
By Klaus Marre

A little over 20 years ago, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes concocted a profitable way to tap into the white supremacist ideology still bubbling below America’s surface. They started a “news” network that, instead of providing actual news, gave white, conservative viewers the news they wanted to hear: that they, their families, and their values were under attack by minorities, gays, women, liberals, socialists, Muslims, atheists, the media, etc. — and therefore their biases were justified. It’s been a lucrative strategy. However, just making a buck wasn’t enough for them. They also wanted to shape the fortunes of the country they were dividing. Here, too, they had tremendous success. And that is what is getting lost amid the outcry over Donald Trump’s latest round of racist tweets: The US president is often just parroting what he sees on Fox News.* His racism and distorted view of reality are a direct reflection of what this conservative network decides to put on the air. While regimes throughout history have used propaganda outlets to get the word out and spread their ideology, in the US it is now very much a two-way street. Fox News is both a tool and a puppeteer, manipulating events directly and indirectly. In many cases, the network drives the conservative agenda with its programming. Then, when Trump and his allies pick up on it, Fox News gives them a platform to broadcast that agenda with no fear of criticism or being fact-checked. Then, with the message already amplified, Trump tweets clips from the network —primarily clips of its many conservative commentators — or tweets promotions for its shows. The president’s recent racist rants are a perfect illustration of how this works: Trump’s tweets directed at four Democratic Congresswomen in July followed an attack from Fox News host Tucker Carlson on one of them, US Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN). Last week, the target of another racist Trump tirade was Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD). Again, the tweets seemed to have been triggered by a Fox News segment on the lawmaker’s district in Baltimore. This symbiotic relationship between the president and his favorite TV channel is also reflected in the revolving door between Fox News and the Trump administration.
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