Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Bark louder, little dog.

How stupid are these people?

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The revolution will be supervised.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Tucker Carlson, Fisher of Trout

Late Night Open Thread: Tucker Carlson, Fisher of Trout

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Some of you may have seen that Tucker Carlson’s head writer got busted last week for posting approximately the same stuff he writes for Tucker Carlson (and also the Daily Caller), but without the all-important reputation-protective asterisks.

Since Faux News advertisers have been abandoning Carlson’s show in droves, the immediate outcome was predictable:

“Shock twist!”

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    Since Faux News advertisers have been abandoning Carlson’s show in droves, the immediate outcome was predictable

    Actually this is not an accurate assessment. Fox News makes its money off of the carriage fees it charges the cable and satellite providers. They are significantly higher than those charged by their competitors. As a result they are largely immune to to advertiser defections via boycotts.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SiubhanDuinne: I will probably make a spite-purchase, let us know if it’s worth opening.

    Though she’s getting good reviews. in that piece Matt F linked to earlier, I think she used the phrase “crisp and witty writer.”.

  12. 12.

    Emma

    Grant Imahara (Mythbusters, whatever he was doing on Netflix) has died of a brain aneurysm at age 49 ;_;  I liked all the Mythbusters, but Grant was my favorite (obvious AAPI bias, but still).

  13. 13.

    Sebastian

    I mean you gotta give it to them, they are amazingly good at creating BJ Lexicon entries.

    Trout fishing is an instant classic.

  17. 17.

    HumboldtBlue

    What the fuck am I being punished for now?

    On a lighter note, meet Adebayo Akinfenwa. He’s a professional football player for Wycombe Wanderers and a wonderfully entertaining man.

    He’s a big man and a big personality who has helped his team move up a division in English football. He’s also a massive supporter of Liverpool and it’s noted by the Reds’ manager (Klopp).

    So have a smile.

  18. 18.

    Achrachno

    @Adam L Silverman: To be scrupulously fair, the writer does seem to have a chin.

    Edit:   Too slow!  Anne beat be — I blame the laundry that needed moving to the dryer.

  21. 21.

    Mary G

    Volunteer opportunity for upcoming primaries in Alabama, Michigan, Texas, and Tennessee. Jennifer Cohn writes a lot about shenanigans with voting machines and other Republican fuckery, and she has started a group called “Protect Our Votes.” They are looking for volunteers to take photos of poll tapes posted at voting sites after they close, to make sure that the totals don’t get changed somehow. By accident. Always in Republicans’ favor, oddly enough.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    If this is the fund I think it is– they were collecting pledges to paid once the Maine Dems had a candidate– my credit card is about to get hit for a couple hundred bucks. I was mad.

    Ady Barkan @AdyBarkan
    In 2018, after @SenatorCollins voted for Kavanaugh, Mainers raised $4 million for her future opponent. Now, they’re days away from handing that check over. Are you ready? The fight to unseat Susan Collins is about to heat up.

  24. 24.

    Mary G

    My county, ladies and germs:

    Orange County votes to reopen schools without masks or increased social distancing. Why? In part, to “model courage and persistence” for kids, according to a county document. https://t.co/H6BZlCHPLr— John Myers (@johnmyers) July 14, 2020

  27. 27.

    Mary G

    @Mary G: Update: this is a bunch of conservative nutjobs who don’t have actual power, thank Dog. OC Register:

     

    On the same day that Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified district administrators announced their schools would start online only in the fall, the Orange County Board of Education went a different way.

    The conservative-leaning board voted Monday night on its own guidelines: for students to return to campus, without social distancing or face masks.

    The lone dissenting vote was Trustee Beckie Gomez, also the only board member to wear a mask during the meeting.

    The board has no power to direct any of Orange County’s 27 school districts to follow its guidelines, which are in direct opposition to those issued by the Orange County Department of Education, state public health officials and others.

    Three guesses what the complexion is of the members who voted in favor is. Sane people are weighing in:

    Meanwhile, thousands of people followed the meeting online. And by 8 p.m., a petition urging the board to follow California guidelines for reopening schools had more than 35,000 signatures and continued to gain momentum. The board, petitioners said, has “a moral imperative and a social duty to prioritize the safety of our schools,” including the use of mandatory masks and social distancing.

  28. 28.

    scav

    @Mary G: No doubt they’ll be arranging their own live-fire classroom exercises to still further develop ‘courage!’ in their students.  As an added benefit, all the running will count as PE!

  30. 30.

    West of the Rockies

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Why the hell would any self-respecting person so identify themselves?  Kind of like touting membership in the Damn, I’m Homely Club.

  31. 31.

    Martin

    @Adam L Silverman: Sorta.

    I understand they are getting about $1.50/mo per sub,  which is pretty decent. ESPN has been the anchor for cable at about $8. HSN is negative – they pay the carrier. Fox gets less in local ad revenue, though, relative to other networks.

    But, Fox News also gets national ads that run independently of the cable network, and that revenue is worth a lot – that’s where they’re getting hurt. You’re correct that the carriage fees guarantee a certain income, that can’t be disrupted apart from cancelling subs or boycotting  your cable provider. But those national advertisers can be gone after.

  34. 34.

    West of the Rockies

    I pray (figuratively speaking) for the public ruin and humiliation of Carlson, Hannity, Dobbs, and Ingrahm.

  37. 37.

    patrick II

    Will the returning school kids be riding in school buses? Do you think they can hold their breath until they get off?

  38. 38.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    pirate mascots are racists. I mean look at pirates, they are are wild eyed, armed thugs who dress like extras from a low budget musical who go around robbing, raping or enslaving other people and think they are at risk of sailing off the edge of the earth. Clearly pirate mascots is appropriation of white culture.

  39. 39.

    Martin

    @Mary G: So, the county cannot compel districts to reopen, so I think this only affects schools in unincorporated areas.

  42. 42.

    Jay

    Just a reminder: Josephine Baker, who was 11 during the KKK/cops-fueled massacre of Black people in East St. Louis, incorporated French Jews into her touring entourage in order to protect them from deportation to concentration camps. She also spied for the Resistance. pic.twitter.com/DLXErbhKhG— Sara Benincasa (@SaraJBenincasa) July 11, 2020

  49. 49.

    mrmoshpotato

    Good night to be away.  When can we throw all these Trump trash bitchwaffles next to Osama?

    Time for more recipe videos.

  50. 50.

    Anne Laurie

    @West of the Rockies: Why the hell would any self-respecting person so identify themselves? Kind of like touting membership in the Damn, I’m Homely Club.

    I knew guys like this back in the 1970s/80s, when being an sf fan was still a social demerit.  Some of them I even considered friends, though not good friends.  Thing is, they could have partners who were approximately equivalent to them on the looks level… but these guys didn’t want ‘ugly’ girls, they wanted to date the sort of women they saw in pr0n mags.  Even then, at least some of them could’ve dated ‘better looking’ women then their own personal attractiveness would warrant, *but* they’d have to have something else to offer — success (at least in fannish terms), wit, emotional support, money — which, according to them, would’ve been ‘selling out’.

    They preferred to marinate in their own self pity to the ‘work’ of changing any part of their mindset.  ‘Woe is me, I’ll never be in a relationship.  But I won’t accept just *any* relationship — I want a woman who’s at least an 8 on a scale of 1-10, and she shouldn’t be taller than me, or so short as to be risible to bystanders.  She should be obviously desirable, but not so much so that I’ll have to compete with a bunch of other guys for her attention.  Also, she better have all the correct opinions about my favorite sf authors / Star Wars movies / comix… but she shouldn’t know enough about any topic to challenge my superior expertise…’

    Hand to Murphy the Trickster God, I had some version of that conversation at way too many room parties.  (I suspect some of it was an unheard demand that I immediately fix them up with someone, when all I ever did was argue.)

    They didn’t have the internet, in those days, to provide them with an ID  and a bunch of online enablers.  Frankly, it doesn’t seem to have helped either the self-identified incels or the rest of us!

  51. 51.

    sgrAstar

    @Villago Delenda Est: He was very recently featured in the Post’s DateLab. Irony is indisputably dead. In that writeup, he came across exactly as you’d expect. Incellus maximus.

     

    ?

  55. 55.

    TS (the original)

    @Mary G:

    They are looking for volunteers to take photos of poll tapes posted at voting sites after they close, to make sure that the totals don’t get changed somehow. By accident. Always in Republicans’ favor, oddly enough.

    I’m having trouble believing this needs to be done. Your GOP democracy at work.

  59. 59.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Jay: She also adopted 12 children of different ethnic backgrounds and brought them up.

    Of course her fuck ups were as large as her achievements. A truly larger than life lady!

  61. 61.

    Barney

    Carlson: “We don’t endorse those words. They have no connection to this show. It is wrong to attack people for qualities they cannot control.”

    [“Qualities they cannot control”? He was attacking them for their skin color, gender or sexuality, not “qualities”. “Qualities” sound like he thinks others are inferior, but they were born like that, so they can’t help it. But notice Tucker is claiming it’s nothing to do with him.]

    “We will continue to defend that principle, often alone among national news programs”

    [Hah!]

    “But we should also point out, to the ghouls now beating their chests in triumph at the destruction of a young man, that self-righteousness also has its costs.”

    [What, self-righteousness like a ridiculous claim that you are the best national news program at not judging someone on what they are?]

    “When we pretend we are holy, we are lying.  When we pose as blameless in order to hurt other people, we are committing the gravest sin of all. And we will be punished for it. There’s no question.”

    [Ahh, yes, you do mean like your incredible boast from a moment ago, and your simultaneous denial of any responsiblity with an implication that the groups your writer attacked have poor “qualities” that they just can’t help, which you just said to hurt them. If only I had any hope that you’ll get punished for this.]

    It’s not even a notpology.

  63. 63.

    Anya

    @Barney: That was not an apology by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing of what he said resembled an apology or an acknowledgement of his top writer’s actions or as Fox News called it “horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior.” In addition to his awful bigotry he also repeatedly demeaned an alleged friend. He posted details about her dating life and mocked her. Yet, preppy racist couldn’t bring himself to say anything stronger than the comments were wrong and “have no connection to the show”. He can’t denounce racism and misogyny because his whole show is built on that.

  65. 65.

    trnc

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve always liked the first part of that toon, but I find the chin comment gratuitous. Is it a reference to something specific? If not, I feel like it undermines the message.

  66. 66.

    trnc

    @patrick II: Will the returning school kids be riding in school buses? Do you think they can hold their breath until they get off?

    If the classroom is no less crowded than the bus, it doesn’t really matter.

  67. 67.

    RSA

    @trnc:

    I’ve always liked the first part of that toon, but I find the chin comment gratuitous.

    Ditto. I’ve also thought, “Lionel Richie as comic book hero?”

  68. 68.

    JAFD

    @Mary G: Close of Election Day, working for Board of Elections, we always printed up extra copy of ‘results tape’, stuck it up outside of polling place. In last few years, we’ve occasionally had political ‘operative’ come in, take photo of tape, phone it to candidate’s HQ.
    Now, of course… I remember tv report, after ’15 (?) British election, how folks in Sunderland had streamlined paper ballot counting, were first in UK to report results, several successive elections.

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