Month: April 2023

Rupert and the boys must be wondering if they’re worth it

This discussion at Puck about the Fox settlement suggests that the B list may be on the way out. Or maybe not. But whatever changes we might anticipate at the network probably aren’t going to be earth shattering. The “stars” are safe which means nothing will change.

Dylan Byers: …This settlement changes exactly one thing behind the scenes: Fox News as an institution will take greater steps to ensure that it doesn’t leave itself vulnerable to further defamation claims. But that doesn’t mean they need to change their editorial strategy. If you look at the primetime trifecta—Tucker, Ingraham and Hannity—they are really masters in the dark art of floating conspiracies without running the risk of libel. Tucker doesn’t say “votes were stolen,” he says, “we don’t know how many votes were stolen.” He raises the specter of scandal, of a liberal plot against America, etcetera, but he stays within the bounds of free speech. It’s terrifying, it’s contemptuous, but it’s quite disciplined. 

If you look at Dominion’s lawsuit, 18 of their 20 defamation claims were made against three B-level talents: Lou Dobbs—who has already been ousted from the network—Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro. (The other two claims targeted Tucker and Hannity, respectively, but they weren’t nearly so convincing.) Now, right up until the settlement, Fox’s lawyers were getting ready to argue that Dobbs, Bartiromo and Pirro couldn’t be held liable for defamation because they actually believed that Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell’s batshit voter fraud claims might be true. If you’re trying to avoid future libel lawsuits, that’s not exactly the kind of person you want on camera.

So I anticipate one of two things will happen here, or has perhaps already happened: The first possibility is that Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott sits down with Bartiromo and Pirro and anyone else who came up to the line of libel and says, be careful. Alternatively, Rupert and Suzanne have already decided to elegantly and eventually show Bartiromo and/or Pirro the door. Remember, when Rupert was asked during deposition if he believed Fox had endorsed the voter fraud claims, he said, “Not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria as commentators… Some of our commentators were endorsing it.” If I’m Maria, that feels like the kiss of death. The last thing on earth that Murdoch wants is to leave himself vulnerable to another $787-million headache.

Speaking of which, Eriq, what do you think happens next, particularly with Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit?

Eriq Gardner: First of all, if the Smartmatic case doesn’t settle—and settle soon—I’ll be surprised. Fox News will again be facing a jury pool in a liberal state (New York) that, like Delaware, doesn’t cap punitive damages. Also, this next trial would be taking place in the media capital of the world. For reporters, that means there’s no need to get on an Amtrak and book a hotel for six weeks to cover it. What’s more, thanks to the Trump indictment, New York lawmakers are now considering passing legislation that would allow TV cameras in the courtroom. So, the world might see Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, etcetera, getting on the witness stand. It’ll be an even greater spectacle! Fox could get more favorable pretrial treatment from a judge, but I think the Dominion deal sets a framework for Smartmatic and Fox to resolve their differences too.

As for the long term, I think Fox has got a problem on its hands. I agree with you, Dylan, that their editorial strategy is unlikely to change, at least immediately. Some of this will be chalked up to the cost of doing right-wing business. On the other hand, as the public record about the inner thinking at the network expands, it becomes easier and easier to show actual malice—and more enticing for opponents to take a shot. I sense a vulnerability here that I didn’t a few years ago, and I wonder whether Trump has cursed them. Some reflection is necessary. I’m not sure that an extra week of libel training or even some blood sacrifices of a few B-list hosts is going to be enough. But, of course, all bets are off until we know more about who controls this company after Rupert.

DeSantis formally raised the age of his “Don’t Say Gay” bill to the 12th grade. Apparently, he and the rest of his right wing hate squad think they can keep LGBTQ out of high schools. Lol. This is going to be quite the battle: not between the teachers and the government, between the kids and the government.

As you’ve probably heard by now, Ron DeSantis is currently on a quest to inflict his antigay, antitrans, antidrag, antiabortion, antidiversity, antifacts, anti-free-speech, anti-anything-that-Ron-disagrees-with agenda on the people of Florida, which he seemingly believes will win him the presidency. To that end, it apparently wasn’t enough to sign the bigoted “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law last year, which banned classroom instruction in kindergarten through third grade. No, Ron had to do one worse.

On Wednesday, the Florida Board of Education expanded that ban through grade 12, at the request of the Florida governor. According to The Washington Post, the new rule states that Florida teachers in grades four through 12 “shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction…on sexual orientation or gender identity” unless the instruction is required by state standards—which it’s obviously not—or “part of a reproductive health course” that a student’s parent can choose for them to opt out of. (No worry there, since Paul Burns, Florida’s chancellor for K-12 public schools, said Wednesday that “abstinence is the required expectation of what we teach in our schools” in health classes.) The rule will go into effect approximately one month from now, a Florida Education Department spokeswoman told the Post, which noted that teachers who violate it could have their licenses suspended or revoked.

Florida education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. claimed Wednesday that the move is simply about helping teachers better do their jobs—a ridiculous bit of gaslighting that’s hard to imagine Diaz actually believes—i.e. totally not about muzzling educators or pretending that LGBTQ+ people don’t exist. “We’re not removing anything here,” Diaz said, per the Associated Press. “All we are doing is we are setting the expectations so our teachers are clear: that they are to teach to the standards.” In a statement, Education Department spokesman Alex Lanfranconi was more blunt about the (bigoted) reasoning behind the ban, saying, “the topics of gender identity and sexual orientation have no place in the classroom” and that “today’s state board action reaffirms Florida’s commitment to uphold parental rights and keep indoctrination out of our schools.”

Of course, as reasonable people know, merely teaching about people who are not straight or don’t identify with their sex at birth is not “indoctrination” or part of the alleged woke agenda that DeSantis insists children must be protected from. “Let’s put it plainly: This is part of the governor’s assault on freedom,” Joe Saunders, senior political director of Equality Florida, said in a statement. The new rule, he added, will “further stigmatize and isolate a population of young people who need our support now more than ever.”

According to the Post, prior to the board vote, Saunders had asked members if the new rule would prohibit teaching an 11th-grade course about Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court case that gave same-sex couples the right to marry. “Under the vague new rules, a teacher who taught this would be fired and their career would end,” Saunders said. “This rule is by design a tool for curating fear, anxiety, and the erasure of our LGBTQ community.”

It’s worth remembering that DeSantis is also currently in a feud with Disney, one of Florida’s largest employers, for having the audacity to criticize “Don’t Say Gay” last year. On Monday, he suggested that the state might build a prison complex next to the theme park as part of his campaign of retribution.

Between this, abortion, guns and democracy, the Republicans have created this generation’s Vietnam. They’re going to regret it.

Paranoid men with guns. What could go wrong?

The old man who shot the 16 year old kid who rang his doorbell is described by his grandson as a right wing crank:

Ludwig said he and his grandfather, who goes by the first name Dan, used to be very close. “But in the last five or six years or so, I feel like we’ve lost touch,” he said. “I’ve gotten older and gained my own political views, and he’s become staunchly right-wing, further down the right-wing rabbit hole as far as doing the election-denying conspiracy stuff and COVID conspiracies and disinformation, fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line. I feel like it’s really further radicalized him in a lot of ways.”

Ludwig said his grandfather had been immersed in “a 24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia.” “And then the NRA pushing the ‘stand your ground’ stuff and that you have to defend your home,” he said. “When I heard what happened, I was appalled and shocked that it transpired, but I didn’t disbelieve that it was true. The second I heard it, I was like, ‘Yeah, I could see him doing that.’” Does he consider his grandfather a racist? “I believe that there have been some positions that he’s held that have been bigoted or sort of disparaging,” Ludwig said. “But it’s stock Fox News, conservative American stuff. It’s ‘anybody who gets an abortion is a murderer.’ And ‘fatherless Black families are the reason why crime exists in this country.’ It’s stuff everybody’s heard at the Thanksgiving table every year.” Ludwig said his grandfather’s paranoia had accelerated in the past couple of years.

I heard a report that his ex-wife says he was subject to rages and violence but It should be noted that two of the shooters other relatives defended him. I assume that we’ll find out more. But this is consistent with what we know about the right wing fever swamp.

Trump claims that he is “the most honest and honorable man anywhere in the world.” pic.twitter.com/GPGjvvxdZY

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 20, 2023

The fact that he has been the subject of one scandal after another and is being pursued in numerous legal challenges at every level of government in various parts of the nation, means that he is the most honest and honorable man in the history of the world. And tens of millions of our fellow Americans believe this must be true.

Philip Bump takes a look at the Ukraine claims coming from Tucker Carlson based upon Jack Texeira’s leaked documents. They are based upon altered documents as illustrated by independent analysis by Bellingcat:

It is unusual for a newly announced Democratic candidate to make Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on one of his first stops on his media tour. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-shot bid to wrench the party’s nomination from President Biden is more usefully seen as a conduit for undermining Biden’s political strength than as a viable pathway for Kennedy himself. And if you are engaged in undermining Biden even unwittingly, Carlson is happy to give you some airtime.

Given each man’s track record, it was inevitable that the resulting interview would include some misinformation. Carlson’s history of false claims about the Biden administration and Kennedy’s about vaccination gave them a lot of possible jumping off points. But instead the most interesting baseless claim to emerge during the conversation instead centered on Russia.

“Nobody talks about this. There’s 14,000 Ukrainian civilians who have died but 300,000 troops. Russians are killing Ukrainians at a 7-to-1 to 8-to-1 ratio,” Kennedy claimed. “They cannot sustain this. What we’re being told about this war is just not true.”

Where did Kennedy get those astonishing figures? Well, the source for the ratios was likely the person to whom Kennedy was talking: Tucker Carlson.

Last week, Carlson made almost exactly the same point on his show.

“The second thing we learned from these slides is that … Ukraine is, in fact, losing the war,” Carlson said on April 13. “Seven Ukrainians are being killed for every Russian.” The Biden administration, he asserted, is “panicked” about this state of affairs.

But the leaked documents don’t actually assert what Carlson said they did.

As it turns out, there was more than one version of the documents floating around before they gained international attention. Aric Toler of the open-source investigation group Bellingcat was among the first to notice and analyze the documents and, on April 6, he posted a side-by-side comparison of documents made public at different times.

Original vs. edited versions of KIA counts pic.twitter.com/ywtZW4BIv0

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) April 7, 2023

The earlier document included an assessment that up to 43,500 Russians had been killed in action compared to up to 17,500 Ukrainians. The later document flipped that: 17,500 Russians and up to 71,500 Ukrainians.

How can we be confident the second document was altered? The timeline for one thing; the former document appeared earlier. But there are also indicators on the second document that illustrate how it was changed.

First, notice that the new figures for Russia appear in exactly the same orientation as the original document, suggesting that they were cut and pasted over the original values. Second, notice that the “6″ in “61k” and the “7″ in “71.5k” appear to be lower than the baseline for the other values. It appears that whoever doctored the image simply swapped the “6″ and the “1″ and the “7″ and the “1.” (That’s also likely why the kerning — the space between — the “1″ and the “. 5” in “71.5” is too wide. Compare it to other similar figures.)

Toler confirmed to The Washington Post that the altered document had appeared in a Telegram channel moderated by an American woman now reportedly under investigation by the FBI. That makes sense, given that the channel was a center for pro-Russia propaganda: The alterations to the original figures do in fact make it look like Ukraine is faring far worse than Russia.

Notice, though, that even the ratios in the altered document don’t line up with Carlson’s presentation. Using just the most extreme (forged) values, it pits 71,500 deaths against 16,000 deaths, a 4.5 to 1 ratio. So where do you get 7 to 1 from? Well, imagine that you were either not particularly good at math or not particularly interested in accuracy and you wanted to, for some reason, simply round both values down to the nearest 10,000. Now you have 70,000 (invented) Ukrainian deaths compared to 10,000 Russian ones — and, voila, 7 to 1.

How Kennedy then jumps to 8 to 1 isn’t clear. We can identify a likely source for his “300,000 killed” claim, something that wildly surpasses even the invented figures above. That appears to come from a former government official named Scott Ritter — who himself has a checkered past — who made the claim in a podcast. The claim soon made it to TASS, Russia’s state media.

Carlson’s own championing of pro-Russia rhetoric has made him a staple on Russian state television. Beyond his past endorsement of Russia’s geopolitical position, Carlson sees Russia as an ally in his efforts to cast doubt on the U.S. government, efforts that Carlson centers regularly on his program. Kennedy is playing the same game: Increase doubt about the government and other institutions and you bolster your ability to build an audience with overblown concerns about vaccines.

It’s not clear who first altered the document that appears to have been the basis of the “7 to 1 ratio” claim. It’s likely that it was not someone working directly with the Russian government but, instead, a sympathizer. But the situation reinforces the very real danger of misinformation, a danger that Carlson and others on the right have downplayed as they (again) seek to disparage efforts to combat online falsehoods. Increase doubt about the spread of misinformation and you can more easily wave away criticisms you yourself face on the subject.

All of this is a case study in the modern media environment. Documents leaked by a guy apparently motivated by building online clout. Those documents being tweaked (however sloppily) to change their meaning and win political points. A right-wing media host happy to take the tweaked document at face value. A challenger to the president eager to reiterate the host’s claims back to him.

All followed by an explanation of the error that most of the host’s audience will never see.

I’m a little bit confused about why Steve Bannon is pushing RFK Jr so hard. The most likely constituency for him is Tucker Carlson’s audience who don’t like Trump because he’s anti-vax. And I’m not sure there are many Democrats who believe this propaganda about Ukraine. Tucker’s people don’t vote in Democratic primaries.

Here’s the segment. Kennedy is an interesting mix of legitimate critique of the American power structure, deluded conspiracy thinking and straight-up disinformation. It’s quite odd. The evil troll Tucker Carlson, who doesn’t have a sincere bone in his body, is using him for his own nefarious purposes as usual.

It could be a doozy

From Bloomberg:

The New York author who claims Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s said she found out he intends to submit evidence at trial regarding her “sexual predisposition” in violation of court rules, while the former president signaled he won’t be there in person.

E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers learned last week that Trump’s legal team plans to show the jury excerpts of her deposition that would “squarely” break rules against introducing evidence that’s intended to “prove that a victim engaged in other sexual behavior” or to show their “sexual predisposition,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said in a filing Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.

Kaplan filed details of the disputed evidence separately under seal. The federal rules of evidence are intended to prevent “embarrassment for victims of sexual assault or otherwise publicly reinforce offensive sexual stereotypes about them,” Kaplan wrote.

Both Carroll and Trump are making last-minute preparations for a rare trial that’s set to start April 25. The former president sent a letter to the judge earlier Wednesday asking the court to give the jury a special instruction that Trump was “excused” from attending in order to avoid disruption, so the jury won’t think negatively of his absence. Trump wants to attend, his lawyer said, but the “logistical and financial burdens on New York” would be significant.

In a separate letter, Kaplan blasted Trump’s request, saying he managed to speak at a recent National Rifle Association meeting, attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Miami, was deposed in Lower Manhattan in a separate lawsuit and is scheduled to speak in New Hampshire next week.

“If Mr. Trump decides not to appear at his own trial for sexual assault and defamation, the jury may draw whatever inferences it chooses — and Mr. Trump has no right to a judicial endorsement of his (flimsy) excuse,” Kaplan wrote.

I don’t know if he should appear or not. I suspect it would just be another opportunity for him to raise money. And if he is unable to defame her as a whore in the courtroom I’m sure there will be tens of millions of others who will do it for him, with or without evidence. Whether that gets to a jury is another story.

There’s a lot of hand wringing over these first trials being over paying hush money to a porn star he slept with and this rape charge from the 90s. They aren’t considered “serious” enough. We’ll have to see how they go. (I suspect that if these cases came later everyone would be handwringing over how they make it look like piling on.) But I feel there’s justice in Trump finally having to answer for his piggish behavior toward women over many years and I’m glad to see it one way or the other.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota paints a stark contrast

In his State of the State Address Wednesday night, Gov. Tim Waltz (DFL) contrasts Minnesota with red states.

“It’s not up to me how folks in those places, folks like Florida, go about their business. But I got to tell you, I’m pretty glad we do it our way here and not that way,” Walz said.

“If you need any examples to maybe change your mind on this one. They’re banning books in their schools. We’re banishing hunger from ours.”

The 2024 elections will be about choice. That’s just one.

States like Florida are banning books from their schools.

We're banishing hunger from ours. #mnsots pic.twitter.com/56olltkAqG

— Minnesota DFL Party (@MinnesotaDFL) April 20, 2023

Fox fell into the hole it helped dig

The right wing, Fox News included, trained their audience to trust no one. Except them. It was the culmination of a decades-long effort by the right to discredit anyone not from their tribe and to dissolve external reality. Government, academia, science, and the media are the enemy. Cannot be trusted. Tens of millions of Americans, says MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, were trained to believe no one outside the conservative bubble. Until someone more demagogic than themselves came along. That someone was Donald Trump. The conservative base trusted him more.

The right had killed off any other source of reality-checking authority except the purveyors of blustery nonsense. Trust (or “anonymous trust“) has been destroyed.

See Hayes’ monologue from last night:

.@chrislhayes: Disconnecting their audience from other sources of authority left Fox vulnerable to an even more grandiose liar coming along and winning over their audience's trust. This is precisely what happened with the phenomenon of Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/HgSGpmJpPP

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) April 20, 2023

Some time back, I suggested that the trend began with the Reformation:

Say what you will about the excesses of Rome and the papacy (and not to ignore Constantinople), prior to the Reformation there was some central authority to define Christianity for much of the West, to set standards and protocols, if you will. The Reformation may have decentralized the faith and brought it closer to the people, but it also meant by the late 20th century that any American huckster with a flashy suit, an expensive coif, a sonorous voice, and a black, Morocco-bound, gilt-edged, King James red-letter edition could define Christianity pretty much any damned way he pleased. And did. Who was to say he was wrong?

That do-it-yourself spirit extends as well to Americans’ understanding of their founding documents. Every born-again, T-party convert carries a pocket Constitution and becomes an instant expert and his own defining authority on what is and isn’t the true American faith. It’s the American Dream: every man his own Supreme Court; no priestly judicial caste interposed between a man and his God.

Charlie Sykes said in 2016 that years of right-wing talk radio had essentially destroyed the truth function of facts:

“We’ve basically eliminated any of the referees, the gatekeepers. There’s nobody. Let’s say that Donald Trump basically makes whatever you want to say, whatever claim he wants to make. And everybody knows it’s a falsehood,” he explained. “The big question of my audience, it is impossible for me to say that. ‘By the way, you know it’s false.’ And they’ll say, ‘Why? I saw it on Allen B. West.’ Or they’ll say, ‘I saw it on a Facebook page.’ And I’ll say, ‘The New York Times did a fact check.’ And they’ll say, Oh, that’s The New York Times. That’s bullshit.'”

The dissolution of external reality is not new. Just more visible and more consequential.

Look at what they’re doing now:

Soon after Tyre Nichols’s brutal killing by Memphis police officers in January, the chairman of the city’s civilian review board, James Kirkwood, appealed to the city council to strengthen its oversight of police. “If you slap someone on the wrist for something they’ve done wrong, then covered it up and left it alone, they’re going to do it again,” Kirkwood, a pastor and former police officer, told the council, requesting more money, more staff, and more power to conduct independent investigations. 

Instead, what little power the board did have may soon vanish, as the Tennessee legislature draws closer to gutting civilian oversight over police in Memphis and other cities in the state.

Introduced in late January by GOP lawmakers, just weeks after Nichols’s death, Senate Bill 591 and House Bill 764 would dissolve community-led oversight boards in Memphis and Nashville, ending their ongoing investigations by the close of July and precluding the possibility of other cities establishing boards with similar powers. 

“This bill essentially strips away police accountability in our state, at the height of a police killing that was so tragic and brutal,” said Jill Fitcheard, the director of Nashville’s Civilian Oversight Board. “These state legislators want to cut away oversight and police accountability and dwindle it down until it’s nothing.”

The Republican legislature’s latest assault on Memphis and Nashville, the state’s two most populous cities, comes just weeks after its headline-grabbing expulsion of two young Black lawmakers, Memphis’s Justin Pearson and Nashville’s Justin Jones, for leading a gun control protest on the House floor. The state government has engaged in a series of other maneuvers in recent months to interfere with self-governance in Tennessee’s bluer and more diverse cities. 

The new bills would still allow local governments to set up what they call “police advisory review committees,” but local advocates and the Memphis and Nashville boards’ leaders—both former law enforcement officials—denounce these replacements as impotent. They would not be able to conduct independent investigations or take quick action on misconduct, and their members would no longer be appointed by community groups. 

“The new law takes away robust investigative power from the committee and sends it back to internal affairs and the respective local governments,” said Sekou Franklin, a professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University. “So the police would basically investigate themselves.”

The timing of this legislation stings particularly in Memphis, where advocates had hoped that the national spotlight after Nichols’s killing would spur long-needed changes to the way the city polices and prosecutes its residents, including to the city’s decades-old civilian review process. And it threatens to erase hard-won gains in Nashville, where years of struggle and coalition building led to a successful 2018 voter referendum establishing a board made up primarily of community-nominated members with the ability to issue policy recommendations. 

“This is what the people want,” said Sheila Clemmons Lee, the mother of Jocques Clemmons, whose killing at the hands of a Nashville officer sparked the movement for community oversight there. “If you go back and look, see how many people came out to vote on this, plus the signatures that we had gathered for it—[this new legislation] is just saying that our voices don’t matter.”

Read on at Bolts Magazine for the details. This is just outrageous. Like all right wingers these days, they are shameless so nothing that happens makes any difference. They were revealed as what they are for the whole world to see. But they just picked right back up where they left off. They want to make Tennessee a free fire zone.

That’s what Trump is sharing with his followers today. Seriously. Here’s more:

Trump issues this 15 second edict to the cult: “When you see RINOs Karl Rove, Bill Barr or Paul Ryan on your television screen, just turn to a different station or turn it off. Turn off that set as fast as you can!” pic.twitter.com/EUrQvG86Bs

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 19, 2023

And then he whined:

“80% of the public thinks that Donald J. Trump, me, is getting treated very unfairly.” pic.twitter.com/wYyD7muoPh

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 19, 2023

His cult swallows it all. Does it concern you that these people are allowed to have driver’s licenses and own assault weapons? There are millions of them. It sure concerns me.