Trump Cards, Con't

Last night's GOP primary debate was essentially meaningless as the losers scrambled for who would be the biggest loser to Trump, and Trump was busy having a nice chat with Tucker Carlson and laying down markers for justifying spectacular violence against liberals in the months ahead.

In a rambling interview, speckled with discussion of conspiracy theories from whether the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in his jail cell to the role of federal agencies limiting the amount of water in washing machines, Trump took aim at critics on all sides in his traditional derisory fashion.

But the social media broadcast took a dark turn when, after discussion of the numerous criminal charges against Trump and divisions in the US, Carlson asked if he thinks the US is headed to “civil war” and “open conflict”.

Trump said he didn’t know but then added: “I can say this. There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen, there’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen, and that’s probably a bad combination.”

Carlson responded: “That is a bad combination.”

Earlier in the 46-minute interview broadcast on Twitter, Carlson asked Trump if he is concerned “the left”, after impeaching and then indicting him, would try to kill him.

“They’re savage animals. They are people that are sick, really sick,” Trump responded. “You have great people that are Democrats. Most of the people in our country are fantastic. And I’m representing everybody … But I’ve seen what they do.”

Carlson, who is engaged in a protracted dispute with his former network after being taken off air, launched the interview five minutes before the Republican debate aired on Fox. If that was an attempt to upstage both Trump’s rivals in the 2024 election and Carlson’s ex-employer, then it would appear to have been successful. The interview had more than 80m views on Twitter within two hours of being posted.

Carlson opened with a question about why Trump wasn’t at the Milwaukee debate.

“You see the polls that have come out and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points and some of them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying do I sit there for an hour or two hours or whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people who shouldn’t even be running for president?” he said.

“I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate.”

 

A casual conversation about the animals - not humans - on the left trying to have Trump killed, and what you, the loyal Trump cultist, should do about it.  Totally normal stuff in a totally healthy democratic country, right?

They are trying to terrify MAGA chuds into violence while we watch, while Trump's mug shot from his surrender to Fulton County Georgia officials happens today, and Trump absolutely planned it.

Meanwhile, Republicans in DC and Georgia are expected to mount a full-on assault on Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee is expected to open a congressional investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as soon as Thursday, a source tells CNN – the same day former President Donald Trump is slated to surrender at the county jail after being charged for participating in schemes to meddle with Georgia’s 2020 election results.

The committee is expected to ask Willis whether she was coordinating with the Justice Department, which has indicted Trump twice in two separate cases, or used federal dollars to complete her investigation that culminated in the fourth indictment of Trump, the source added. The anticipated questions from Republicans about whether Willis used federal funding in her state-level investigation mirrors the same line of inquiry that Republicans used to probe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who indicted Trump in New York for falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money scheme.

Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans could launch their own state-level investigation into Willis’ probe, according to GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has spoken to top officials in the state about a potential probe. She has also been pushing for a congressional-led inquiry into Willis, who has previously dismissed GOP accusations accusing her of being partisan and consistently defended her investigation.

“I’m going to be talking to (House Judiciary Chair) Jim Jordan, (House Oversight Chair) Jamie Comer, and I’d like to also ask (Speaker) Kevin McCarthy his thoughts on looking at doing an investigation if there is a collaboration or conspiracy of any kind between the Department of Justice and Jack Smith’s special counsel’s office with the state DA’s,” Greene told CNN. “So, I think that could be a place of oversight.”

It all amounts to a familiar playbook for House Republicans, who have been quick to try to use their congressional majority – which includes the ability to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and restrict funding – to defend the former president and offer up some counter programming amid his mounting legal battles. But they’ve also run into some resistance in their extraordinary efforts to intervene in ongoing criminal matters, while there are questions about what jurisdiction they have over state-level investigations.

 

All I have to say at this point is that whatever protective measures Willis has, she needs to triple them.

Trump Cards, Con't

Donald Trump continues to attack the journalists clamoring to cover his every move, and they've apparently learned nothing from the last eight years.

 

It was March and former president Donald Trump was aboard his plane with a gaggle of reporters following a campaign rally in Waco, Texas. He started off in good spirits. But then a line of questioning from NBC News reporter Vaughn Hillyard, who suggested that Trump had in recent days seemed “frustrated” by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s investigation, began irritating the former president. “Don’t ask me any more questions,” Trump said. About 10 minutes later, as Hillyard continued to ask about the investigation, Trump snapped, grabbing the reporter’s two phones and chucking them to the side, according to a source familiar with the matter. “Get him out of here,” Trump told his aides, according to a recording obtained by Vanity Fair.

The incident occurred a few days before Trump would be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels. Some of Trump’s comments on the plane have been previously reported, such as when he responded to reporters’ questions about Bragg’s probe by attacking it as a “fake case” that “they’ve already dropped.” The Guardian noted how Trump lashed out at Hillyard when the NBC News reporter asked whether he was frustrated by the investigation. Trump denied the notion, insisting, “We did nothing wrong,” and saying, “This is fake news, and NBC is one of the worst. Don’t ask me any more questions.” Hillyard himself said Trump avoided specifics and called the press “fake news.” But the full scope of Trump’s tirade, including his throwing the reporter’s phones, has not been previously reported. Hillyard declined to comment.

Axios reported that Trump’s 2024 team is running a more professional operation than that of his previous runs, with seasoned political operatives intending on running a “disciplined campaign.” Yet the incident demonstrates Trump's hostile relationship with the press remains unchanged. Trump was notorious for lashing out at reporters while in the White House. On the campaign trail, he regularly turned the ire of the crowd toward the press, famously coining “fake news” as a rallying cry.

Hillyard’s questions revolved around Trump’s posts on Truth Social at the time; the former president had warned that there could be “potential death and destruction” if he was indicted. When Hillyard again tried to clarify Trump’s “version of events” around the DA’s investigation, the ex-president said, “I don’t want to talk to you.” Hillyard tried to ask another question. “Do you hear me? You’re not a nice guy,” Trump said, turning to take a question from another reporter. When Hillyard tried a third time to get a response, Trump lost it. “Alright, let’s go, get him out of here,” Trump said. “Outta here. Outta here,” Trump said, as Hillyard kept trying: “The special counsel, sir.” A deeper voice, apparently belonging to a Trump campaign aide, can be heard saying, “Vaughn, we’re done.”

Trump then picked up one of the phones recording the gaggle and asked, “Whose is this?” Hillyard replied that it was his. Trump picked up another phone and asked the same question. “That one’s mine too,” Hillyard said. The former president tossed both phones out of his sight, onto the seat next to him; the thud of one of the phones hitting a surface can be heard in the recording. Someone then asked to talk about congressional support, but an aide said that the gaggle was over. Other members of the gaggle included Axios’s Sophia Cai, the Daily Mail’s Rob Crilly, RSBN’s Brian Glenn, and Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci. (At one point in the recording, Trump praised Vucci as “handsome,” telling the plane, “look at the arms on him.”) The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell had been expected to travel with the president for the Waco trip, but was bumped off the trip a day before due to a story he’d written about Truth Social being under a money-laundering investigation.

The Trump campaign appears to have reduced mainstream press access as a result of what happened on the plane back from Waco. The only reporters on Trump’s plane for last week’s trip to New Hampshire were from friendly conservative outlets: Henry Rodgers of The Daily Caller and Daniel Baldwin of OANN. Baldwin, in his write-up of the trip, wrote of the “warm” and “welcoming” former president, “It’s clear Trump values the opinions of everyone he surrounds himself with, whether he agrees or disagrees. He even turned to me and said, ‘You really know your sports.’” In a surprising turn, Trump is slated to participate in a town hall on CNN next week.

 

Nope, they haven't learned a single damn thing, and when Trump starts putting reporters in prison, they'll still be trying to get "access" to him to prove they are "one of the good ones".

Trump assaults a reporter and throws their phones around his plane like he's a kid mad at his video game and he's tossing a controller, and Trump is now getting rewarded with his own CNN town hall event later this month where he can be a racist and as awful as possible.

Who needs Tucker Carlson or FOX? Chris Licht at CNN seems more than happy to have his cable news channel fill the role. Look for more of this as the Village scrambles to fill Carlson's power vacuum...

Cruzin' For A Bruisin', Con't

It turns out one of the conversations that former FOX News producer Abby Grossberg has in her collection of evidence in her harassment suit against the network (and now former host Tucker Carlson) involves Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz advising the network on how Senate Republicans could help Trump steal the 2020 election.

Sen. Ted Cruz advocated the creation of a congressionally appointed electoral commission ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to make a credible assessment of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, according to a recording made by Abby Grossberg, a former producer at Fox News.

The Jan. 2, 2021, recording, provided to The Washington Post by Grossberg’s attorney, largely mirrors previous reports and public statements made by Cruz about efforts to overturn the election results. But the tape featuring a previously private conversation among Cruz, Grossberg and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on the push to deny the certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021, sheds new light on the scope of Cruz’s scheming to assist Donald Trump in overturning Biden’s victory.

Cruz says in the recorded conversation that he successfully organized 11 senators to object to the electoral certification as the mechanism to establish a commission. Cruz was the first senator to object to the electoral college results, joining Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) in challenging Arizona’s electoral certification. The Post has previously reported on Cruz’s proposal of delaying the certification of the electoral college results to spark a 10-day “audit” that could enable GOP state legislatures to overturn the election results.

“You need an adjudicatory body with fact-finding and investigative authority to consider the facts to examine the record and to make determinations — that’s how they did it in 1877,” Cruz told Grossberg and Bartiromo, referencing the commission created to investigate voter fraud in the 1876 Hayes-Tilden election.

Cruz added that he would have rather seen “these facts developed in a court of law” but goes on to cast doubt on the Supreme Court’s ultimate determination to reject the lawsuits filed to challenge the election Trump had lost. “Unfortunately the courts that heard these cases — we did not have a full and thorough consideration,” Cruz said.

Cruz tweeted on Tuesday night in response to the tape, first reported by MSNBC host Ari Melber: “This @msnbc [clown] is breathlessly reporting that I ‘secretly’ said in a phone call … the EXACT same thing I said on national television the next morning! And then said again on the Senate floor four days later.”

In the plan Cruz laid out to the Fox News host and her producer, if a majority of the House and the Senate objected to electoral certification on Jan. 6, 2021, then an electoral commission would be stood up immediately, commencing a 10-day review period to be completed before the inauguration.

If the commission found “credible evidence of fraud that undermines confidence in the electoral results in any given state,” then the state would then call a special session and recertify results, according to Cruz.

“Is there any chance you can overturn this?” Bartiromo asked Cruz.

“I hope so,” he responded.

 

Cruz's defense is that he publicly announced he was trying to help Trump steal the election through the creation of election fraud that didn't actually exist, so I'm not sure why everyone's so upset, other than reminding everyone that Ted Cruz should probably be in prison for seditious insurrection. That was true in January 2021, and it remains true now.

Tucker, Not Everlasting

Apparently the head that FOX News decided to roll in the wake of the network's $788M defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Services is none other than Tucker Carlson's cranium.

 

Tucker Carlson, the top-rated host at Fox News, is leaving the network.

The abrupt departure of the controversial prime time figure comes a week after Fox News reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of former President Donald Trump’s false 2020 election claims.

That bombshell settlement — the biggest media payout in history — prompted many to question if Rupert Murdoch would make major changes at the network.

Carlson found himself embroiled in serious controversy throughout his time at Fox News. In recent weeks, a lawsuit from a former booker at the network, Abby Grossberg, accused Carlson’s staff of making anti-Semitic jokes, liberal use of the word “cunt” in the office, and casual misogyny.

Read Fox’s statement below:

NEW YORK — April 24, 2023 — FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.

Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.

FOX News Media operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Digital, FOX News Audio, FOX News Books, the direct-to-consumer streaming services FOX Nation and FOX News International and the free ad-supported television service FOX Weather. Currently the number one network in all of cable, FNC has also been the most watched television news channel for more than 21 consecutive years, while FBN ranks among the top business channels on cable. Owned by Fox Corporation, FOX News Media reaches nearly 200 million people each month.

 

Holy. Crap.

 

Ahh, but it wasn't the trial Fox News just lost that was the final nail in his coffin.

 

It's the next trial they were going to lose. 

A source familiar with the situation told Axios that the firing was not part of the settlement agreement. A slew of material was uncovered during pre-trial discovery that implicated Carlson. More information could be out there that could be legally damaging for Fox as it stares down more defamation cases.

A former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who is suing the network for allegedly trying to manipulate her testimony during pre-trial discovery for the Dominion case, said in a legal filing just before the trial that there were Fox News tapes showing Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies admitting they had no evidence to support their claims about Dominion election fraud.

In private text messages with other Fox News hosts, Carlson pressed to get a fellow Fox News reporter fired for accurately fact-checking a tweet from Donald Trump that praised Fox News' coverage about the voting machines and referenced Dominion Voting Systems.

Carlson did not immediately respond to an Axios request for comment.

 

He's gone, he didn't even get his goodbye show.

Things just got seismic.

Last Call For Outfoxed And Outnumbered, Con't

Things are going tremendously badly for Fox News in the Domain Voting Services defamation case against the network, and the more the proceedings go on, the worse things are getting for Rupert Murdoch and friends.

 

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Wednesday sanctioned Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., for withholding evidence in the Dominion defamation suit, and said he's considering further investigation and censure.

According to a person present in the courtroom, lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems played recordings Fox News producer Abby Grossberg made during 2020, which were not handed over to Dominion's lawyers during discovery.

Grossberg, a former producer for Fox hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, has sued Fox News and said her deposition was coerced. In an amended filing Tuesday, she said she had recorded conversations with Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and others.

The sanction gives Dominion a chance to conduct another deposition, at Fox’s expense.

"As counsel explained to the Court, FOX produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it," Fox News said in a statement Wednesday.

The surprise evidence and sanction comes days before the trial is scheduled to begin in the $1.6 billion defamation case Dominion Voting Systems filed against Fox News and Fox Corp. Davis also said Wednesday he was considering appointing a special master to investigate the Fox legal teams' actions.

In a statement, Grossberg's attorneys said she would be willing to speak with a special master if one is appointed.

“We are pleased that the Court recognized the very serious apparent discovery-related and other gross misconduct perpetrated by Fox News and its team of high-powered attorneys in relation to the Dominion v. Fox lawsuit that our client, Abby Grossberg, has courageously and repeatedly revealed in her lawsuits against the Network," Parisis G. Filippatos and Tanvir H. Rahman said Wednesday.

"Ms. Grossberg remains committed to speaking the truth in all appropriate forums, including before a Special Master appointed by the Court, while our firm will continue to ensure that she obtains the justice she deserves,” they added.

On Tuesday, Davis expressed frustration at Fox News for not being straightforward about Rupert Murdoch's role as a leader at Fox News.

"This is a problem," Davis said, according to a court transcript. "I need to feel comfortable when you represent something to me that is the truth."

 

Fox News is going to get burned to the ground, and a better outcome for America couldn't be scripted. 

In all seriousness I expect this case to be tied up for years in appeals and courtroom drama, and in the end I expect a settlement that heavily favors Dominion.

But it does mean Fox News may have to apologies publicly, and denounce Trump's Big Lie as a result.

Insurrection Eradication

Having been given full access to thousands of hours of January 6th security footage, Tucker Carlson and the GOP propagandists at FOX have created a gaslighting masterpiece that even Goebbels would appreciate.

 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday released security video from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, using footage provided exclusively to him by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to portray the riot as a peaceful gathering.

Carlson acquired the tapes as part of a deal for McCarthy, R-Calif., to win the speaker’s gavel. When McCarthy was struggling to gather the votes to lead the House, Carlson used his program to list two “concessions” he could make to win over far-right Republicans.

“First, release the January 6 files. Not some of the January 6 files and video — all of it,” Carlson, the most-watched host on cable news, said after McCarthy faced three failed votes. “So that the rest of us can finally know what actually happened on January 6, 2021.”

In the two months since McCarthy won the gavel, he has granted both. Carlson announced in late February that McCarthy had given him exclusive access to 44,000 hours of security video from the deadly riot before he unveiled some clips of the video on his show Monday night.

Carlson focused Monday’s segment on promoting former President Donald Trump’s narrative by showing video of his supporters walking calmly around the U.S. Capitol. He asserted that other media accounts lied about the attack, proclaiming that while there were some bad apples, most of the rioters were peaceful and calling them "sightseers," not "insurrectionists."

“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” Carlson told his audience Monday. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building, including the now-infamous ‘QAnon Shaman.’”

He continued: "More than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public, and once you see the video, you’ll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that Jan. 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim."

Video that Carlson didn’t air shows police and rioters engaged in hours of violent combat that resulted in injuries to hundreds of police officers. Two pipe bombs were also planted nearby but were not detonated.

Nearly 1,000 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack. About 140 officers were assaulted that day, and about 326 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, including 106 assaults that happened with deadly or dangerous weapons. About 60 people pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement.

Carlson also said on his show Monday that Democrats lied about the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. He played video that he said showed Sicknick walking around inside the Capitol after the mob attacked him. “They knew he was not murdered by the mob, but they claimed it anyway,” he said.

Sicknick died of natural causes on Jan. 7, the day after he engaged with rioters outside the Capitol. An autopsy report determined that he died of a stroke at the base of the brain stem caused by a blood clot. Capitol Police have said Sicknick returned to his office after the riot and collapsed. Two men have been sentenced to prison for spraying him with a chemical irritant during the melee, and Sicknick’s family has contended that the fighting with rioters contributed directly to his stroke.

 

Tucker Carlson's job is to create a false narrative in order for Trump to run on pardoning all the insurrectionists, and he will if he ever gets back into office.  The're no doubt left that in the wake of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit, that FOX News is truly the propaganda arm of the GOP and they no longer care who knows.

Insurrection Investigation, FOX News Edition

Voting machine company Dominion Voting Services has made a massive amount of data public in their defamation case against Fox News, and Marcy Wheeler notes that Jack Smith and the DoJ have every reason to be poring over a copy.

 

As you read through Dominion’s motion for summary judgment against Fox News — and trust me, you should read it! — keep in mind not just how it proves Fox to be nothing but a propaganda platform aiming to help the Republican Party, but also the evidence it makes available to Jack Smith as he considers charges against those who used false claims about voting fraud to gin up a coup attempt.

Just as one example, Sean Hannity has played a role in every Trump legal scandal — serving as a back channel to Trump for Paul Manafort, participating in Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to gin up dirt on Hunter Biden as the first impeachment unfolded, and helping White House officials stave off the resignations of Trump’s White House Counsels in advance of January 6. But in each case, investigators only got his communications via other subjects of the investigation, as when DOJ found Manafort’s WhatsApp texts to Hannity saved in Manafort’s iCloud account or when the January 6 Committee got Signal texts Hannity exchanged with Mark Meadows from the former Chief of Staff’s production. Republicans chose not to call Hannity as a pro-Trump witness in the Ukraine impeachment.

With its filing, Dominion has given a snapshot of the ways and whys in which Fox News helped magnify false voter fraud claims, especially (though not exclusively) those of Sidney Powell.

It all takes place against the backdrop of a huge backlash against Fox after it called AZ for Joe Biden. When Fox presented the truth about the election, viewers started fleeing to Newsmax, with Trump’s encouragement. The filing describes the panic that ensued.

 

Fox News had to continually play up Trump's false voting machine fraud claims in Arizona, or the network was done.  They knew they had to lie to stay in business.

For over two years, the right wing has squealed about a media outlet prohibiting the dissemination of dodgy claims from a Murdoch outlet. It turns out that Murdoch was, in that same time period, “censoring” true facts about Trump’s dodgy claims.

I wait with bated breath for James Comer to scheduled a hearing on the “censorship.”

Tucker Carlson, especially, recognized Trump’s role in this. He warned that Trump “could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.

“What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

After January 6, Tucker called Trump,”a demonic force, a destroyer.”

Fox appears to have perceived that they had to play along with Trump’s false claims or risk permanent damage to their brand.

 

They lied and deliberately cast Dominion as fraudsters, criminals, and as dangers to democracy in a massive conspiracy to "steal" the election.  They lied for months about it, and it helped lead to the January 6th terrorist insurrection.

Jack Smith now has reams of texts and communications between Fox News talking heads like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and the Trump legal team, and it's only going to help his case.

We’ve long known that Fox was better understood as a wing of the Republican party than as a news organization (indeed, the filing describes Rupert Murdoch looking for ways to “help[] any way we can” in Georgia).

But this filing makes it clear that in a bid to cater to viewers who were fed false claims by Trump, Fox played right along with the false claims that would lead to insurrection. Jack Smith is already examining multiple parts of this effort. This filing makes evidence that would otherwise be unavailable accessible to prosecutors.

Fox News knew their platforming of Trump’s false claims was doing damage to the country. And they did it anyway.

 

Sure sounds like elements of a deliberate criminal conspiracy to overthrow the US government. That's sedition, kids. And Dominion just dropped a metric ton of evidence to help prove it.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

The vast majority of Trump voters believe in the wildly racist "Great Replacement" theory, that Democrats are deliberately helping Hispanic folk, Black folk, and Asian folk "replace" white Americans by giving those groups government resources geared towards Democratic political views.

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that more than 6 in 10 Donald Trump voters (61%) agree that “a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views” — a core tenet of the false conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement.”

Less than a quarter of Trump voters (22%) disagree with that statement.

So-called replacement theory has been covered extensively in the days following the May 14 murder spree carried out by a white supremacist at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store. The suspect, an adherent of the conspiracy theory, shot and killed 10 Black shoppers in the attack.

The survey of 1,573 U.S. adults — which was conducted from May 19 to 22 — found that relatively few Americans (just 34% overall) believe in the underlying idea behind replacement theory, and more than twice as many Americans strongly disagree (33%) than strongly agree (14%) with it. (An Associated Press-NORC poll conducted before the shooting delivered a similar result after posing similar questions to U.S. adults.)

Yet on the right — where media figures such as Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and politicians such as third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik have “borrowed and remixed [replacement theory] to attract audiences, retweets and small-dollar donations,” according to a recent New York Times report — variations of replacement theory now enjoy broad support.

“A Times investigation published this month showed that in more than 400 episodes of his show, Mr. Carlson has amplified the notion that Democratic politicians and other assorted elites want to force demographic change through immigration, and his producers sometimes scoured his show’s raw material from the same dark corners of the internet that the Buffalo suspect did,” the paper explained.

As a result, 54% of Republicans and 53% Fox News viewers now also agree that “a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views,” according to the Yahoo News/YouGov poll. In both cases, just a third disagree. The rest are unsure.

 

The problem isn't just that Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are racists. It's that the majority of Republican voters agree with that racism towards their fellow Americans. The "Great Replacement" theory is now mainstream Republican dogma.

 

The party's candidates are racist, the party's cable news cheerleaders are racists, the party's voters are racist.

 

Republicans are the party of racism, period.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Police and FBI agents have a suspect in custody in Saturday's terrorist attack at a grocery store Saturday afternoon in Buffalo, New York.  An avowed, radicalized white supremacist terrorist shot and killed at least 10 people in a Tops, a Black neighborhood grocery store, in a heavily-armed execution-style rampage by an 18-year-old white male.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said the supermarket shooting suspect was wearing tactical gear and livestreaming as he entered the store.

"At approximately 2:30 today, an individual who the mayor stated is not from this area and is from hours away, drove to Buffalo and went to ... the Tops market. He exited his vehicle, he was very heavily armed. He had tactical gear. He had a tactical helmet on. He had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing,"

The suspect is an 18-year-old White male, he said.

He shot four people in the parking lot, Gramaglia said, three of whom died.

The suspect went inside the store, where a security guard and former Buffalo police officer engaged him.

"Because he had heavily armored plating on, the bullet had no round. The suspect engaged our retired officer and he was shot and deceased at the scene. He continued to work his way through the store," Gramaglia said.

He made his way back to the front of the store, where patrol officers were able to talk him into dropping his gun after he "put the gun to his own neck."

Police arrested the suspect and transported him to Buffalo Police Headquarters.

 

The FBI is treating this as a hate crime.

Stephen Belongia, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Buffalo Field Office, said the FBI is assisting in the investigation as well during a news conference.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia called the shooting "pure evil" during the news conference.

"It was straight-up, racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community, outside of the city of good neighbors as the mayor said, coming into our community and trying to inflict that evil upon us," Garcia said.

Out of the 13 victims, 11 are Black while two are White, according to Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.

 

A heavily-armed white supremacist terrorist in tactical gear went to this store to kill Black people and did. And when he did it, he streamed it live on Twitch.

Officials said the gunman broadcast the attack live on Twitch, the live-streaming site owned by Amazon that is popular with gamers. Twitch said it had taken the channel offline. The channel’s page said only that it was “currently unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s community guidelines or terms of service.” In a statement, a Twitch spokeswoman said the site “has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents. The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content.”

And he had a racist, anti-Semitic manifesto ready to go after he did the deed. Repotedly, the manifesto is 100% "Great Replacement" theory bigotry, he specifically "chose" this Tops supermarket in order to kill as many Black people as he could, to stop them from "replacing" white Americans.

You know, Tucker Carlson's favorite subject.

The Fox News host has repeatedly fear-mongered about Democrats allegedly bringing in dark-skinned immigrants with the express purpose of “replacing” the American (read: white) electorate. On Wednesday night, he declared that the Biden administration is intentionally trying “to change the racial mix of the country” through immigration.

“In political terms, this policy is called ‘the great replacement,’ the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far-away countries,” Carlson exclaimed. “They brag about it all the time, but if you dare to say it's happening they will scream at you with maximum hysteria.”

The so-called “Great Replacement” theory is a white-supremacist belief in a conspiracy among liberals and wealthy elites to demographically and culturally replace the white population of majority-white countries with immigrants of non-European descent. In recent years, the theory has served as the inspiration for racist mass killings in El Paso, Pittsburgh and Christchurch, New Zealand.

Yet, despite its overtly racist and antisemitic roots, the conspiracy theory—thanks in large part to Carlson’s embrace of it—has become more acceptable and normalized within the Republican Party, with numerous GOP lawmakers and officials openly citing it.

On Thursday, in response to Carlson’s latest segment, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt renewed his calls for Fox News to dump its biggest star.

“It cannot be overstated enough,” Greenblatt said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “For Tucker Carlson, host of one of the most-watched news programs in the country, to use his platform as a megaphone to spread the toxic, antisemitic, and xenophobic ‘great replacement theory’ is a repugnant and dangerous abuse of his platform.”

Greenblatt added: “If it somehow wasn’t clear enough before to the executives at Fox News that Carlson was openly embracing white nationalist talking points, let last night’s episode be case and point. We reiterate our call to Fox News and Lachlan Murdoch: Tucker Carlson must go.”

 

That was April 2021 and again in September.

And guess what? The Great Replacement theory is accepted by half of Republican voters.  

 

Last December, the Associated Press and NORC conducted a large national poll examining conspiratorial ideas including this one. They found that nearly half of Republicans agree to at least some extent with the idea that there’s a deliberate intent to “replace” native-born Americans with immigrants.

The AP-NORC poll included several other questions related to the idea. They asked whether respondents were concerned about native-born Americans losing economic, political and cultural influence as the number of immigrants increased and whether they were concerned that the system under which elections are conducted discriminates against White Americans.

About 3 in 10 Americans overall agreed with the idea that intentional replacement was occurring or that native-born Americans were losing influence. About 1 in 5 agreed that the election system discriminated against Whites. In each case, though, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express agreement or concern.

The pollsters also asked respondents what cable news channel they preferred. As might be expected, those who preferred Fox News were more likely than Americans overall or than those who preferred CNN or MSNBC to agree with the replacement theory idea. Three in 10 of those who prefer Fox News held the agree/concerned positions on the first two questions above. Among those who watched cable news closer to the right-wing fringe — One America News and Newsmax — the figure was 45 percent.

 

We know exactly where the terrorist in Saturday's attack was radicalized. I've been saying for years now that this was going to breed more deadly violence and today, it did.  It's racism openly supported and repeated by several sitting GOP members of Congress and 2022 candidates.

And today ,at least ten people died directly because of it.

Black Lives Still Matter.

Sunday Long Read: Tucker Up, America

The NY Times gives us a multi-part long read this week, the subject being how FOX News carbuncle Tucker Carlson became America's Favorite TV Racist, and how he has been the voice of white supremacy for years now and has an audience of tens of millions, some of which or more than willing to conduct violence for the cause.

Tucker Carlson burst through the doors of Charlie Palmer Steak, enfolded in an entourage of producers and assistants, cellphone pressed to his ear. On the other end was Lachlan Murdoch, chairman of the Fox empire and his de facto boss.

Most of Fox’s Washington bureau, along with the cable network’s top executives, had gathered at the power-class steakhouse, a few blocks from the office, for their annual holiday party. Days earlier, Mr. Carlson had set off an uproar, claiming on air that mass immigration made America “poor and dirtier.” Blue-chip advertisers were fleeing. Within Fox, Mr. Carlson was widely viewed to have finally crossed some kind of line. Many wondered what price he might pay.

The answer became clear that night in December 2018: absolutely none.

When “Tucker Carlson Tonight” aired, Mr. Carlson doubled down, playing video of his earlier comments and citing a report from an Arizona government agency that said each illegal border crossing left up to eight pounds of litter in the desert. Afterward, on the way to the Christmas party, Mr. Carlson spoke directly with Mr. Murdoch, who praised his counterattack, according to a former Fox employee told of the exchange.

“We’re good,” Mr. Carlson said, grinning triumphantly, as he walked into the restaurant.

In the years since, Mr. Carlson has constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news — and also, by some measures, the most successful. Though he frequently declares himself an enemy of prejudice — “We don’t judge them by group, and we don’t judge them on their race,” Mr. Carlson explained to an interviewer a few weeks before accusing impoverished immigrants of making America dirty — his show teaches loathing and fear. Night after night, hour by hour, Mr. Carlson warns his viewers that they inhabit a civilization under siege — by violent Black Lives Matter protesters in American cities, by diseased migrants from south of the border, by refugees importing alien cultures, and by tech companies and cultural elites who will silence them, or label them racist, if they complain. When refugees from Africa, numbering in the hundreds, began crossing into Texas from Mexico during the Trump administration, he warned that the continent’s high birthrates meant the new arrivals might soon “overwhelm our country and change it completely and forever.” Amid nationwide outrage over George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, Mr. Carlson dismissed those protesting the killing as “criminal mobs.” Companies like Angie’s List and Papa John’s dropped their ads. The following month, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” became the highest-rated cable news show in history.

His encyclopedia of provocations has only expanded. Since the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Carlson has become the most visible and voluble defender of those who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol to keep Donald J. Trump in office, playing down the presence of white nationalists in the crowd and claiming the attack “barely rates as a footnote.” In February, as Western pundits and politicians lined up to condemn the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, for his impending invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Carlson invited his viewers to shift focus back to the true enemy at home. “Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist?” Mr. Carlson asked. “Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?” He was roundly labeled an apologist and Putin cheerleader, only to press ahead with segments that parroted Russian talking points and promoted Kremlin propaganda about purported Ukrainian bioweapons labs.

Alchemizing media power into political influence, Mr. Carlson stands in a nativist American tradition that runs from Father Coughlin to Patrick J. Buchanan. Now Mr. Carlson’s on-air technique — gleefully courting blowback, then fashioning himself as his aggrieved viewers’ partner in victimhood — has helped position him, as much as anyone, to inherit the populist movement that grew up around Mr. Trump. At a moment when white backlash is the jet fuel of a Republican Party striving to return to power in Washington, he has become the pre-eminent champion of Americans who feel most threatened by the rising power of Black and brown citizens. To channel their fear into ratings, Mr. Carlson has adopted the rhetorical tropes and exotic fixations of white nationalists, who have watched gleefully from the fringes of public life as he popularizes their ideas. Mr. Carlson sometimes refers to “legacy Americans,” a dog-whistle term that, before he began using it on his show last fall, appeared almost exclusively in white nationalist outlets like The Daily Stormer, The New York Times found. He takes up story lines otherwise relegated to far-right or nativist websites like VDare: “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has featured a string of segments about the gruesome murders of white farmers in South Africa, which Mr. Carlson suggested were part of a concerted campaign by that country’s Black-led government. Last April, Mr. Carlson set off yet another uproar, borrowing from a racist conspiracy theory known as “the great replacement” to argue that Democrats were deliberately importing “more obedient voters from the third world” to “replace” the current electorate and keep themselves in power. But a Times analysis of 1,150 episodes of his show found that it was far from the first time Mr. Carlson had done so.

“Tucker is ultimately on our side,” Scott Greer, a former deputy editor at the Carlson-founded Daily Caller, who cut ties with the publication in 2018 after his past writings for a white nationalist site were unearthed, said on his podcast last spring. “He can get millions and millions of boomers to nod along with talking points that would have only been seen on VDare or American Renaissance a few years ago.”

That pattern is no accident. To a degree not broadly appreciated outside Fox, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” is the apex of a programming and editorial strategy that transformed the network during the Trump era, according to interviews with dozens of current and former Fox executives, producers and journalists. Like the Republican Party itself, Fox has sought to wring rising returns out of a slowly declining audience: the older white conservatives who make up Mr. Trump’s base and much of Fox’s core viewership. To minimize content that might tempt them to change the channel, Fox News has sidelined Trump-averse or left-leaning contributors. It has lost some of its most respected news journalists, most recently Chris Wallace, the longtime host of Fox’s flagship Sunday show. During the same period, according to former employees and journalists there, Fox has leaned harder into stories of illegal immigrants or nonwhite Americans caught in acts of crime or violence, often plucked from local news sites and turbocharged by the channel’s vast digital news operation. Network executives ordered up such coverage so relentlessly during the Trump years that some employees referred to it by a grim nickname: “brown menace.”

 

I understand the argument, we've gone from "free speech is free speech" to "free speech has consequences" to "who decides those consequences, and why do they decide that my free speech specifically should have them, that's censorship" to where we are now, which is "If I suffer any consequences, it's proof that you don't believe in free speech, and I will stop you."

Which is, you know, actual fascism.

Factory Fresh Tuckerganda

FOX News polyp Tucker Carlson isn't just the most watched cable TV fish in America, he's apparently very popular in Russia these days, too, as Mother Jones reporter David Corn informs us, especially with Russia's psy-ops and disinformation mavens.

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?”

The document—titled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”—was produced, according to its metadata, at a Russian government agency called the Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, which is part of the Russian security apparatus. It was provided to Mother Jones by a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified. The source said memos like this one have been regularly sent by Putin’s administration to media organizations during the war. Independent media outlets in Russia have been forced to shut down since the start of the conflict.

The March 3 document opens with top-line themes the Kremlin wanted Russian media to spread: The Russian invasion is “preventing the possibility of nuclear strikes on its territory”; Ukraine has a history of nationalism (that presumably threatens Russia); the Russian military operation is proceeding as planned; Putin is protecting all Russians; the “losing” Ukrainian army is shelling residential areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia; foreign mercenaries are arriving in Ukraine; Europe “is facing more and more problems” because of its own sanctions; and there will be “danger and possible legal consequences” for those in Russia who protest the war. The document notes that it is “necessary to continue quoting” Putin. It claims that the “hysteria of the West had reached the inexplicable level” of people calling for killing dogs and cats from Russia and asks, “Today they call for the killing of animals from Russia. Tomorrow, will they call for killing people from Russia?”

A section headlined “Victory in Information War” tells Russian journalists to push these specific points: The Ukrainian military is beginning to collapse; the Kyiv government is guilty of “war crimes”; and Moscow is the target of a “massive Western anti-Russian propaganda” operation. It states that Russian media should raise questions about Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s state of mind and suggest he is not truly in charge of Ukraine. And it encourages these outlets to “broadcast messages” highlighting the law recently passed by the Russia Duma that makes it a crime to impede the war effort or disseminate what the government deems “false” information about the war, punishable for up to 15 years in prison. This portion instructs Russian journalists to emphasize that these penalties apply to anyone who promotes news about Ukrainian military victories or Russian attacks on civilian targets.

This is the section of the memo that calls on Russian media to make as much use as possible of Tucker Carlson’s broadcasts. No other Western journalist is referenced in the memo.

 

Now I'm betting this landed in the inbox of Carlson's bosses, and they told him to knock it off, explaining his recent shift from "Putin is great" to "Putin is terrible but so is Ukraine". 

Of course, it also explains him blaming everything on Joe Biden, too.

The Coup-Coup Birds Come Home To Roost, Con't

If you thought FOX News incendiary device and "he of the perpetually fish-slapped visage" Tucker Carlson wasn't already a white supremacist seditionist, that was before Joe Biden was sworn in, which has apparently pushed Carlson over yet another edge hurtling toward fomenting mass violence against the American government. His opening Biden hate rant Wednesday night was something else, even by his abysmal standards:

Rather than answer our questions or improve our lives, you're bringing in people with guns to remind us that you are in charge, and dissent is illegal. That's a big change. You may have thought you were a decent American in good standing.

Ten years ago, nobody in this country would have called your views extreme. They weren't extreme then. You don't think they're extreme now. You've always considered yourself a pretty moderate person. Live your life and get along with others. That's not possible now, because the rules have changed.

You are now a dangerous insurgent. You are no different from a bloodthirsty Pashtun in Helmand Province, or an ISIS terrorist in Erbil. You're part of a guerrilla insurgency.

 

And at this point, the next implied sentence, "So if they are going to treat you as a domestic terrorist, maybe you should use terrorist tactics, methods, and weapons", is loud enough for even the dead to hear. It's certainly loud enough for Republicans in the Senate to hear, blocking the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas as Homeland Security Secretary.

Senate Republicans plan to object to any efforts to quickly confirm Alejandro Mayorkas as secretary of Homeland Security, further delaying his confirmation as the department grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, national security concerns and President Joe Biden's ambitious immigration plans. 

In confirming the GOP's plans to filibuster, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill that "there's a number of problems" with Mayorkas' nomination. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pushed to have Mayorkas confirmed quickly, but Cornyn and other Senate Republicans argue that Mayorkas hasn't been properly vetted on immigration issues and are calling for an additional hearing into his nomination. The Senate has scheduled a procedural vote to break the filibuster at 1:45 p.m. ET Thursday. 

After the Senate breaks the filibuster -- which requires 51 votes -- the final confirmation vote will be Monday evening. 

The use of the filibuster -- to stall nominations or legislation -- has long been a favored tool of the minority party, something Schumer did often when trying to derail and delay the Republican agenda under then-President Donald Trump. In recent days, continued use of the filibuster on legislation became a central sticking point over a resolution that would allow the 50-50 Senate to officially organize, but the stall tactic is unlikely to be gutted further in this Congress because of resistance from some moderate Democrats. 

The Senate Homeland Security Committee held an extensive hearing into Mayorkas' qualifications to lead the department last week and voted Tuesday to move Mayorkas' nomination forward.

 

Republicans are really, really going out of their way to delay Mayorkas getting into his role as DHS Secretary, almost like they are trying to buy time to stop the truth from coming out about January 6th, and giving their followers additional time to possibly disrupt things further...

 

But that's just paranoia talking.

 

Right? 

Another #MeToo Moment, Con't

The #MeToo movement finally comes for Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and FOX News.

Fox News has been hit with a kitchen sink suit, replete with trigger warning, as a complaint was filed on Monday in New York federal court alleging sexual misconduct by some of its top hosts including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. 

Jennifer Eckhart, a former associate producer on Fox Business Network, is a co-plaintiff in the suit. The most serious claim pertains to Eckhart's allegation that she was raped by former White House chief correspondent Ed Henry, who earlier this month was fired by Fox News as a result of the charge. 

"On July 1, 2020, Fox News disclosed to the public that it had terminated Mr. Henry based on the findings of an internal investigation, and purported to take credit for acting appropriately," states the complaint. "However, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, Fox News knew that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexual misconduct as far back as early 2017. At that time, when Fox News was conducting a company-wide investigation into issues of sexual harassment, multiple women came forward to complain that Mr. Henry had engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct towards them." 

Fox News now faces a sex trafficking claim as a result of Eckhart's allegation. The rape allegedly happened in 2017 in a hotel room after the two had met for drinks. Two years earlier, according to the complaint, Henry had romantically pursued her, forced a kiss on her, convince her to have sex by holding her career over her head, and months later assaulted her in Fox News' New York offices. 

Catherine Foti, Henry's lawyer, responds by saying, "The evidence in this case will demonstrate that Ms. Eckhart initiated and completely encouraged a consensual relationship." 

Cathy Areu is the other co-plaintiff in this case, which also asserts Fox News subjected women to a hostile workplace.

Once an on-air regular on Fox News, Areu says she was victimized by Henry through a "slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images and messages." The complaint details the contents of these messages. 

Additionally, Areu targets several of Fox News' other stars. She alleges that Hannity once threw $100 on the desk of his set and called for the men around to take her on a date for drinks. She says that Carlson once probed to see whether she'd be interested in a sexual relationship. She accuses Howard Kurtz of inviting her to a hotel room. After allegedly spurning advances or enduring comments, Areu says she stopped being invited to appear on each of their respective programs. The three Fox News hosts are co-defendants in the suit and face claims of retaliation. 

Here's the full complaint.

It's utterly brutal, inexcusable, inhumane stuff.

Of course, FOX News is full of brutal, inexcusable, and inhumane bastards like Henry, Hannity, and Carlson.

I frankly hope this costs the three of them their careers and a healthy stint in prison, but we all know that won't happen.  Carlson will come back from his "vacation" just like Hannity has, and the two of them will continue to be hosts of America's most-watched cable TV news shows.  Carlson's White Power Hour is the most-watched cable TV show in American history right now, averaging almost 4.5 million viewers a night, and Hannity is right behind him.

Henry may have been fired, but Hannity and Carlson have so far been untouchable.

I expect a quick settlement, and soon.  FOX News has too many resources and too much invested in these two in order to give them up.

I don't think #MeToo can bring them down.  They are too powerful.

But we'll see if that's the case.