As we know from last week’s filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News, that network’s hosts knew Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims were bullshit but allowed mendacious kooks like Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani to lie on air because it was good for business.
The network has never been a legitimate news organization, but the court filing, which includes texts from Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others, removes all doubt about its motivations.* The Fox bigwigs knew the election fraud claims were bullshit, but they demanded that the network air them anyway because they were terrified of losing audience share: (NY Mag)
The most distraught figure was Carlson. “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” he texted his producer. “We’re playing with fire, for real … an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us…”
Carlson pointed Hannity to a tweet by Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich, which fact-checked a tweet by Trump that mentioned Dominion voting conspiracy theories. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” she wrote.
“Please get her fired,” Carlson texted Hannity and Ingraham. “Seriously … What the fuck? I’m actually shocked. It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
I’ve been saying for years that I don’t think any Democrat should go on that network, ever, no matter how fun it is to watch Pete Buttigieg pants the hapless Fox News hosts. I also believe the White House should remove the Murdoch propaganda outlet’s press credentials, even if it’s amusing to see press secretaries flummox the Doocy nepo baby.
The clips we see look satisfying, but that’s not what Fox News viewers are seeing. Also, treating Fox News like a legitimate outlet allows it to sell ads while it actively works to undermine democracy, not just here but worldwide. This latest GOP-Fox News project should be the last fucking straw: (WaPo)
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has exclusively provided a massive trove of U.S. Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has downplayed the deadly violence that occurred that day and claimed it was a “false flag” operation.
McCarthy has declined to comment on the unprecedented move, but Carlson said Monday night on his program that his producers have been granted “unfettered” access to security video when hundreds of pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win. Five people died as a result of the attack, and 140 members of law enforcement were injured as the mob used flagpoles, bear spray, baseball bats and other weapons to bludgeon police.
“So there’s about 44,000 hours, and we have — you may have read today — been granted access to that. … We believe we have secured the right to see whatever we want to see. We’ve been there about a week. Our producers, some of our smartest producers, have been looking at this stuff and trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts or not the story we’ve been told for more than two years. We think already in some ways that it does contradict that story.”
Carlson lies to his viewers’ faces and is a Putin enthusiast, and yet he gets exclusive access to footage? Fuck that noise; this is intolerable and possibly a national security risk since the footage may contain images of non-public areas of the Capitol Building. I’m not sure who technically owns that footage, but I doubt it’s Kevin McCarthy, and it’s beyond outrageous that Tucker Carlson’s goons should get “exclusive” access to it.
Maybe these two news items — the Dominion filing with Fox News figures’ texts and McCarthy’s cooperation with Carlson — make this a good time for the Democratic Party and the White House to tell Americans the truth about Fox News with one voice. Would Fox News cry and scream about it? Yes. Would moronic MSM figures treat this as a breach of decorum? Probably. It doesn’t matter.
We need to stop playing along with the fiction that Fox News is a legitimate network or that its propagandists have a legitimate role to play in our democratic processes. It isn’t, and they don’t — in fact, they actively degrade those processes. Enough.
*From what I understand, this ironclad proof doesn’t mean Dominion will prevail in its lawsuit because sometimes the law is an ass. But it’s all there in plain English.
dlwchico
I don’t understand how McCarthy can release all that footage just to Fox.
eclare
@dlwchico: I don’t understand how he “owns” it. Seems like the Capitol Police would and any release would be up to them.
Scott
I disagree. I think the Administration and Democrats should flood the network. And when they don’t get on, scream how Fox is censoring them and keeping their audience in the dark. And if the audience hates Fox News because they are hearing different opinions, all the better.
bbleh
Atrios routinely asks why legitimate news organizations continue to defend Fox and treat them as if they too were legitimate, and it’s a good question. About all I can think of is, they’re afraid Republicans will turn on them, which is a mistake for at least two reasons: (1) if you base your actions on fear of a bully, you’ll never not be a victim of the bully, and (2) if Republicans want to do that (which I doubt; they want the attention) they’ll just do it, regardless of whether Dems have done it before (see, eg, under McConnell, Mitch, Filibuster and).
Josie
I guess the question is who owns the footage. If it is the House, then maybe McCarthy has the right to release it. I don’t see how he could keep it from other news outlets, however, if he releases it to Fox. I hope someone with more expertise than I have is working on this.
Scott
@dlwchico: I don’t either. This is government property handed over to a private, for-profit business. They better hand it over, if asked, to every other news organization. Otherwise there will be lawsuits galore.
Benw
FFS they all sound like TFG
Qrop Non Sequitur
Which are those?
Doug R
Hopefully the NSA is keeping an eye on who Tucker is sharing this footage with, especially when links cross Telegram to Russian channels.
cain
How come the other news orgs are not complaining about not having access? I would think that everyone would be a bit disturbed that the Speaker is giving access to footage only to one news organization?
Butch
I actually am somewhat surprised there hasn’t been much of a reaction from the other news outlets about the release of the tapes to Carlson. They should be screaming.
rikyrah
@dlwchico:
See…THIS!
If he released it to FOX, then he needs to release it to the other ‘News Organizations’. And, they should take it upon themselves for when Fox begins to lie, to release the accurate footage.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as Armando of DKos tweeted, Schumer should give the same access to Rachel Maddow
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It was a House investigation. Does Schumer even have access?
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
A genuinely liberal outfit (maybe a cooperative venture between TPM and Mother Jones) should sue to get its hands on these materials, then try to beat Fox to the punch, so that their read on it gets out first, and Fox gets to be the one trying to change the narrative after it’s been set.
trollhattan
I couldn’t summarize three seasons of “Succession” any better if I tried.
bbleh
@Qrop Non Sequitur: okay MORE legitimate news organizations.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@bbleh: I’ll accept that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The Obama bros did a bonus pod last Friday, and they too say no D should go on Fox. They agree that it grants Fox a legitimacy that it doesn’t deserve. They are also annoyed at the MSM that claims Fox is one of them and should not be banned
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: just to clear this up — it is NOT the J6 committee footage, it is the Capitol building footage, run and stored by the Capitol Police, but owned by Congress (not the House alone). Some was turned over to the J6 Cmmt, but Rep. Raskin and the Capitol Police say that it is not “owned” by the House, but by all of Congress.
A Ghost to Most
Murdoch saw an existing market of gullible rubes, and exploited it.
Many of these people were bugfuck long before Fox.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
If owned by CONGRESS, then yes, Schumer should give it all to Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: Re-reading (okay, re-skimming) The Washington Post article, it seems like the footage is controlled by the Capitol Police, and McCarthy is ordering them to turn it over?
I’m assuming the Majority Leader has the same/similar authority wrt to the Capitol Police, or at least standing to stop McCarthy, but I don’t know for certain
bbleh
@A Ghost to Most: and the US wasn’t the first, only the largest.
There is certainly a positive-feedback effect: their beliefs and grievances drive Fox, and Fox in turn drives their beliefs and grievances. But I agree the market was there to begin with. (I feel the same way about TFG too, btw.)
bbleh
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @rikyrah: thing is, what would Maddow or O’Donnell do with it that the J6 committee hasn’t done already? I suppose they could put Fox stories in context, but then they’re just engaging in a back-and-forth with Fox, which seems like a waste of time.
Make it public; let ANYONE have it, let the Internet can do the legwork. Let a thousand flowers bloom!
WV Blondie
My husband and I are inching closer to cord-cutting on our satellite TV service. I think that when we do, I’m going to tell the company it’s because I want to just get Faux Noise off my TV once and for all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: Thanks.
piratedan
This IS a national security threat…..
1) we KNOW that MOC were texting and communicating with people involved in the J6 events.
2) we KNOW that Fox was in constant communication with WH principals during J6
3) We SUSPECT that FOX and the GOP have been thoroughly compromised by Russia
4) They’ve now handed them all of the security access information they would need to successfully try again or even open up MOC for assassination, because they now know time frames of arrival, points of entry and security assignments and levels of staffing.
5) If you don’t think that they’ll try again, only foot soldiers have been jailed and no one of importance in regards to the planning and execution of the Coup has been charged, none of the current MOC, none of the WH insiders, DJT or the people who financed this.
McCarthy essentially just got embraced back into the crime family with this move.
geg6
@bbleh:
This. If Fucker Carlson can have this footage, then I certainly should be able to access it. Fuck this shit. FOX is not a congressional committee and the Capitol Police should not have released it to them, regardless of what Qevin says.
eclare
@geg6: Yep. Put the Democratic hive mind on that shit.
Betty Cracker
@bbleh: Good point about giving the footage to Maddow and O’Donnell — they might find tidbits to air, but the J6 committee already proved that the attack was a violent attempt to overthrow the government by Trump supporters to anyone who isn’t a brainwashed QAnon loon.
I also sort of object to that idea on the grounds that it creates a false equivalency between people like Maddow and O’Donnell and Carlson and Hannity. That’s one myth that needs to be exploded and could best be vaporized, IMO, by no longer treating Fox News as a legitimate news outlet.
As for releasing all the footage online, that might be a good idea as long as it wouldn’t result in increasing security risks. Maybe it wouldn’t, but I don’t assume that.
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: Of course Garland and Smith aren’t finished, but that’s not important, is it?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I think the plan was for the House to hand everything over to the senate intelligence committee while the House was still in the hands of the democrats. I would guess that “everything” would include all the footage, but no specifics were stated.
Mike in NC
Wife gets tons of junk mail, usually asking for money. Today there was a free copy of some rag called The Epoch Times, which we’d never heard of before. A cursory glance proved it to be filled with right-wing vomit, with lots of China bashing, Biden bashing, and anti-vaccine hysteria. Kisses for wonderful Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis, of course. It also came with recommendations from ‘Doctor’ Sebastian Gorka and ‘Doctor’ Peter Navarro, two of Fat Bastard’s notorious henchmen.
Frankensteinbeck
@piratedan:
Hard to fight a war without foot soldiers.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC: Have received an unwanted issue a couple times, out of the blue. IIUC it’s a Falun Gang product and perhaps the only thing I agree with the CCP about: Falun Gang is nucking futs.
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Meanwhile, tick tock muther fuckers:
Brachiator
Fox pundits and commentators are liars and shills, but Fox tries to run a legitimate, if biased news operation. I hate Fox, but the press is guaranteed freedom of speech, not just freedom of truthful speech.
In following BREXIT in the UK, I have seen that not only is the press biased, but people willingly sort themselves by which biased newspaper they prefer. They find comfort and satisfaction in reading lies.
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: clock is ticking, it’s not as if there isn’t a buffet of crime to choose from…
Perjury
Sedition
Tax Fraud
Extortion
Secure Documents Handling
Rape
Campaign Finance Violations
pick one, it’s not as if we get any benefit from bundling do we?
I’m less sanguine than you are about thinking that we have time to let matters unfold. Seems to me that if we can get 200+ Democrats in Congress to get their shit together and craft radical climate change, infrastructure and health care modifications passed, then a bunch of lawyers working in the DOJ should be able to do the same, considering the SOB has made public statements to the effect of “fuck the law, I’m the President” on multiple occasions.
piratedan
@Frankensteinbeck: granted, you think that they’re short on troops?
Motivated Seller
Democrats should push for legislation that prevents the “bundling” of Fox News in ANY cable package. I should not be compelled to pay any “carrier” fees that support Fox News, just because Murdoch’s sweetheart deal with the nation’s most powerful cable providers.
Full disclosure, I got the idea from the Media Matters campaign: #UNFOXMYCABLEBOX
(updated for clarity)
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
Manifestly not. Read the Dominion filing.
Also, freedom of speech isn’t harmed by removing a propaganda outlet’s White House press credentials — there’s no right to those, nor to a political party’s elected officials, who show up voluntarily and can choose not to.
bbleh
@Brachiator: this IIRC is historically the norm for large-scale media. For example, most US cities used to have multiple newspapers, each catering to particular demographics, which very much included political outlook as well as taste for degree of sensationalism. And of course it’s generally true for other media, eg this fine blog, and even for “well-respected news organizations” such as, say, the WSJ news division. The notion of “objective” journalism seems to me to be, and always to have been, a chimera (although certainly there are degrees of bias).
eclare
@Brachiator: When I lived in London in 1996 The Telegraph was called The Torygraph. Nothing new. Social media/Murdoch just put it on steroids.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
If it’s owned by Congress, they should make it available to anyone who wants to view it. Upload it to YouTube, put it available for download on the Congressional web site, or whatever.
Gunga Dean
Every single cable company makes us pay for Fox News, and from what I understand, much more than what we pay for MSNBC & CNN. This must stop, too!
Cameron
I’m curious about the indictment recommendations coming from the Georgia grand jury. Hope we get to see them soon.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@WaterGirl: Hello. I was considering a nym change (I was using this as a palate cleanser). Wanted to forewarn you before updating.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
The Epoch Times is associated with Falun Gong. It’s been available here in Southern California since the early 2000s, probably because of the big Chinese-American community. They’ve always been anti-Communist and especially anti-CCP, but they really went around the bend when Trump ran for president. They seem to have confused Trump’s anti-Chinese stances with being just anti-CCP, and they treat him with an almost messiah-like reverence.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Roger Moore: My dad started subscribing to the Epoch Times. Fox can’t scratch the itch alone anymore.
NotMax
All in the family, don’tcha know
The man for whom the original company was named served time in prison during the 1940s on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice and defraud the United States.
Irony never sleeps.
frosty
@Gunga Dean:
Streaming services have Fox News too. Fubo, for instance. It’s very hard to avoid paying them your money.
bbleh
@Betty Cracker: as to a security problem, I can see where the CP might want to withhold the footage from certain cameras, and if so (1) do that and (2) send some twitchy security types to Cucker’s office and ask him politely to return those so that there is no possible issue of Fox deliberately harming national security.
HumboldtBlue
I NEVER turn on the heat during the day, but it’s fucking cold, windy and cold.
And now it’s hailing again.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: I hope you have some of that shepherd’s pie left to reheat, that sounded wonderful.
delphinium
There was a lawsuit a couple years back whereby US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s opinion (basically agreeing with Fox’s lawyers) was that the ‘general tenor’ of Carlson’s show should inform a viewer that these are not statements of actual facts about the topics discussed but rather an engagement in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’ Which pretty much boils down to ‘you’d have to be a complete idiot to believe anything Carlson says’. That Carlson and Fox both agree he is a proven liar should be stated over and over again.
UncleEbeneezer
The Moar You Know
@Mike in NC: Bankrolled and produced by the Falun Gong folks. They are pretty interesting, in a “look at the horrific car accident” sort of way.
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
There is plenty left, and it’s good. Gonna make some biscuits and put some chicken buillion in them this time, I think that’s gonna work. I usually use chili powder.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: and the case from way back in 1999 involving Fox News and a story of rBGH additives to milk, in which Fox’s own lawyers stated that they were an entertainment outlet and not in any way a news outlet.
Same argument was used again in a recent lawsuit against Fox and Fucker Carlson, where Fox’s lawyers said that the incident in question could not be libel because no reasonable person would credit anything Tuckums said as being true.
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: The Feds are starting to convict middle managers like Stewart Rhodes as well. The question is whether they can get to the next layer up, people like Roger Stone.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@geg6: True. Sadly, access for the rest of us won’t undo the damage done to security
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: I cook greens in chicken broth, not water. Gives the greens a little more depth. Should be good in biscuits.
ETA of course then I slather them with Tobasco.
eclare
@The Moar You Know: Didn’t Sidney Powell also argue that in some court for something?
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: The publishers have a big distribution budget, and they put the Epoch Times into a lot of people’s hands for free. One of my landscaping customers got sucked in during the pandemic and is now a subscriber.
They also must have a good production budget. The newspaper mimics the Wall Street Journal, but without the detailed financial reporting.
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
I’ll do that next time, although I almost always cook greens with hocks, so it’s the hocks that provide the flavor for the broth. I haven’t done green in a while.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
RE: Fox tries to run a legitimate, if biased news operation.
Fox deserves to be sued into oblivion. They tried to be cute but overstepped their own line. But Hannity, Carlson, etc are pundits, not journalists. Even though Fox is biased, they let pundits go further than news anchors.
I have a cynical view of the political press. The press and politicians use one another. But people are convinced that Fox is legitimate. Banning Fox would hurt the White House, apart from issues of respecting a free press.
RaflW
It would be a shit show, but DoD should crack down on Fox being the ‘news’ channel of choice on many military base TVs.
Hardly comparable, but I gently but firmly reamed a front desk person at a Hampton Inn that had Fox on at breakfast. We should all do similar when confronted by that seditious bullshit factory in commercial common spaces.
delphinium
@RaflW: Yeah, Fox should not be the channel of choice in any government entity including military bases. Especially after the 2022 election and insurrection.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Again, if you read the Dominion filing, you’ll see that the “pundits” controlled the so-called straight news content because reporting the truth was harming the network’s bottom line.
One of the reasons “people are convinced that Fox is legitimate” is because both political parties treat them as if they are. It’s not an immutable law of the universe that they must, and the party that is being harmed has a golden opportunity to get out of this abusive relationship. They should take it.
Mike in NC
@RaflW: When he ran for US Senator from Iowa in 2022, retired Admiral Mike Franken noted in emails that when he was in charge of Africa Command, he limited the FOX News propaganda that his service members were exposed to during mealtimes.
I always changed the channel if I was coming on watch in a Navy or Joint Forces command center. My fuse was too short to put up with that crap.
delphinium
@Betty Cracker:
I think with the previous lawsuits and this Dominion one, that it is easier to claim Fox’s illegitimacy. Especially given, that even the Fox lawyers have stated (as least where Carlson is concerned) that he is a liar. Simple enough to note that “even Fox and their lawyers have stated in court that they do not tell the truth”.
Anonymous At Work
Bill Arnold
@cain:
The Speaker is not giving access to footage to any news organization.
Has he claimed to? Tucker C is purely a propaganda operator and he is not a member of a news organization.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
sounds like they may need a ketchup clean-up down in Mar-A-Loco
trnc
No, they do a bit of hard news to lend a sheen of credibility, but the known liars are allowed to operate under the same brand with no apparent consequences whatsoever.
The government can’t prosecute them for anti-government speech, but I think the public has a right to know when they are being serially and willfully misinformed. The White House should yank credentials immediately and explain why. Happy for Jean-Pierre to answer questions every day from any media outlet that doesn’t understand the impact of those lies.
prostratedragon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Tick of the Clock,” the Chromatics
StringOnAStick
I’ve seen comments about how dangerous it was to give all the video footage to FOX because it allows identification of safe rooms, the locations of each camera can be determined, how security moved people around, etc., and all this information will be incredibly helpful in the next coup attempt. That’s what we should be freaking out about.
Chief Oshkosh
@Motivated Seller: I agree. Of course, the entire cable industry needs to be picked up by the throat and thrown against the wall — figuratively — but I see no stomach for it.
Jackie
Apparently the NYT is reporting a grand juror from Georgia’s Special Grand jury hinted there they have recommended around 12 indictments. Ari Melber is excited.
Should we be?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jackie: she just gave an interview on CNN, twitter is telling me
apparently she’s not breaking any laws, I still think it’s really weird she’s talking to the media.
Jeffro
I’m furious about McCarthy releasing the footage and will just add it to the long list of things that I’ll never forgive Republicans (especially their utterly craven leaders) for.
puppet, puppet, MTG puppet
In Jeffro’s almost-perfect world, this kind of shit gets McCarthy a week-long roasting from all news outlets, public figures, and random people on the street: “You sold your WHOLE soul, just to be Speaker for a couple months? Weren’t you the guy who called trumpov in a panic on January 6th, asking him to call his mob off before they killed you and your fellow Congressmen?”
Fucking SCUM
Jeffro
THIS
And…AND…he earned himself yet another distraction from MTG’s crazy-ass antics (and his obvious support for them, no matter what they entail)
“Mr. Speaker, could you please comment on MTG’s calls for secession, “divorce” from blue states, Democrats not being able to vote if they move to red states?”
“Um…hey…Tucker? Here’s some tapes!”
WaterGirl
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Just seeing this now.
I’ll be in the Wisconsin election thread once it goes up at 8:15, if you change your nym for a comment there I’ll be sure to see it.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: co-sign
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jackie
Geminid
@Jeffro: It’s kind of like McCarthy is paying tribute to T. Carlson, a protection payment to keep Carlson off his back. This seems like a limited and short term solution to just one of McCarthy’s many problems. Carlson will likely demand more before too long.
It’s potentially a counterproductive move as well; McCarthy would do better to let the January 6 Insurrection fade as an issue, but instead Carlson will amplify it.
Roger Moore
@StringOnAStick:
I’m not going to freak out about that. The Speaker has access to all the information about safe rooms, camera locations, etc. and could just provide coup plotters with maps and tours. I’m sure this is about hoping Fox can cook up some kind of propaganda by selectively editing the video.
Paul in KY
@Qrop Non Sequitur: He’s got it bad, man!