I have noted before that I enjoy THE VANGUARD on YOUTUBE.
I did not enjoy last night, not the segment on Sam Seder.
The boys were picking on a caller. That really bothers me since they do beg for money. They beg on their show for money. So if I did a pledge of money, is that what they think of me?
The disgusting way they treated the caller to Mr. Seder's show.
Sam Seder. Ay-yi-yi. Boys of THE VANGUARD you are fools when it comes to Sam Seder. You think you know him but you do not. You think he is someone to be trusted and that is because, as usual, you arrived forty minutes late to the movie but think you saw the whole thing.
I know of Mr. Seder much more than you boys do. I have participated in roundtables with people who have worked with him. He is not a nice man and he is not an honest man. He is a bloodsucking leech. That you play footsie with him is disturbing.
But that you refused to support a caller who asked valid questions and made valid points -- in those rare moments when Mr. Seder allowed him to speak? That says some things about you two that do not thrill me. I got half way through your segment before I had to turn it off.
I think that segment could haunt you and could run people off. You really need to grasp that Mr. Seder does not need a fan club (or deserve one) and that you should try to support the person who does not have a platform and who is seriously concerned that, yet again, TYT gets away with something.
I hate to find happiness in the misfortune of others… oh, screw that.
The news that Fox fired racist misognyist authoritarian Tucker Carlson,
its top-rated host, makes me very happy indeed. I know they’ll replace
him with someone comparably monstrous. But Carlson is a uniquely awful
monster, and his departure is good news for truth, democracy—and women.
The immediate reaction to the news: This must be another shoe falling
in the wake of the network’s massive $787 million settlement of the
lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. Pretrial discovery featured a ton of
incriminating, embarrassing texts from Tucker, which swung wildly
between trashing Donald Trump—“I hate him passionately”—and trying to
get Fox colleagues fired for telling the truth about Trump’s
stolen-election lies. The Washington Post reported that his
texts included harsh criticism of Fox management. Probably in his favor,
at least to Rupert Murdoch, were texts showing that he was worried
about the fall in the company’s stock price after it declared Biden the
legitimate election winner and (occasionally) debunked Trump lies.
The
discovery process of the Dominion case revealed numerous texts from
Carlson—whose entire persona at Fox News rests on the wave of the Make
America Great Again movement—showing his intense dislike of Donald Trump
(New York Times, 3/8/23).
“What [Trump is] good at is destroying things” was among one of the key
texts, but everyone’s favorite, of course, is Carlson saying of Trump,
“I hate him passionately.”
No, Carlson’s on-air racism (Independent, 4/13/21; ADL, 4/22/21), transphobia (New York Post, 12/28/22), xenophobia (Washington Post, 12/15/18), admiration for authoritarians (FAIR.org, 8/3/21, 10/20/21) and flirtations with antisemitism (Daily Beast, 10/11/22, 12/23/22) were never the problem for Fox News. If the Washington Post’s
report that the Dominion texts were definitive is true, it’s poetic
justice: The texts exposed Carlson for who he is, a pompous, rich media
elitist who gives not one single damn about MAGA voters and hates their
king, only cynically using Trump’s political popularity for his own
media grift. That lifting of the veil, the end of the conceit for a
corporation whose entire modus operandi is disguising its ruling-class politics to sell faux populism to its viewers, is a major outcome of the Dominion settlement.
Ava and I covered it last night in "TV: The media circus" and we'd covered it before. Which is why I laugh at Brian Selter using a ton of words to say nothing at VANITY FAIR.
Say nothing, because he knows nothing. It wasn't a difficult decision
for Rupert Murdoch. They were paying Tucker a ton of money and he
wasn't delivering. It became our story because no one wanted to do the
work on FOX NATION -- a streamer in serious trouble. Tucker was
supposed to boost it and he didn't. B-b-b-but he gets good ratings!
He's not paid for what he did, he's paid for what he will do. And the
ratings weren't that great when they got better ratings -- and better
demographics -- for less money -- see THE FIVE which has a real return
on the dollars FOX "NEWS" invests into the program. Tucker is a
crater. They keep throwing money down there. Yes, he was number one
but advertisers didn't want him. And he wasn't the future. While no
one was paying attention, FOX "NEWS" was trying to branch out into
streaming and convinced this would be a huge success. People who pay
for streamers weren't impressed with Tucker. His content was only
streamed if it was Roseanne Barr. Otherwise, they ignored him and they
loathed him. Some people thought he was cruel and mean, yes. But he
even lost the right wingers many of whom referred to him as a "vicious
queen" and a "closet case" which makes me laugh to this day to think
that he preached so much homophobia but to some on the right that was
just an indicator that he himself was gay.
Those
surveys -- and I'm sure the press can get them -- probably without
paying for them -- I paid for them -- made clear that FOX "NEWS" had to
rethink because it's not the 20th century anymore and they're being left
behind.
Due to advertising, Tucker didn't generate a
return on the investment. It was a business decision. If you can't
grasp it, he was KNOTS LANDING. KNOTS LANDING ran for years and when it
got the axe it was a still a top-rated program. But it was now to
expensive to make. People were being paid too much to continue the
show. Tucker Carlson was paid a huge amount of money but he couldn't
deliver on it. He couldn't bring in big money in advertising and his
ratings that seemed so huge didn't justify the amount of money being
spent.
Has no one noticed how the audience for THE
FIVE has grown? I feel like I'm pitching the show here, and I'm not.
But FOX "NEWS" invests far less money in that show. It turns a better
profit and they're hopeful that shows like that -- built around groups
of people -- are the future for FOX "NEWS."
As for Tucker? He's "a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot."
Some videos on his departure (and that of Don Lemon).
Not a comedy video but Glenn
Greenwald went on Megyn Kelly's show as they wept over Tucker. I'd post
but Megyn's been 'freshened up' again and looks even less like a human
being while the left side of Glenneth's face continues to dip like he
had a stroke or, more likely, bad botox. First the bad hair dye out of a
box to save a few pennies and now Glenneth's going to third-rate
dermatologists for cheap botox?
And then there's Max Blumenthal. It's just like when MSNBC fired Phil Donahue!!!!
Except
. . . it's not. Phil was fired as the US was moving to war on Iraq.
And, more importantly, idiot, Tucker Carlson cheerleaded the Iraq War. I
guess you were too busy inspecting your newly sprouted hairs to grasp
that, Junior. I really don't have time for idiots, Max, try growing the
hell up. It takes a lot of nerve, with the Iraqi blood on Tucker's
hands, to compare him to Phil Donahue -- that's so insulting to Phil.
People
are dead in Iraq because of Tucker Carlson. That's the reality you and
Glenneth and Aaron will never cop to. You pretend you're honest, but
you're not. You're honest about A but dishonest about B and then turn
around and whine about others without ever grasping how much you are
part of the problem.
I'm looking at idiotic Tweets (including Jimmy Dore's) and I'm just not in the mood to write something new, Ava and I already covered it:
Mildly
amused is how Tucker Carlson always came across -- mildly amused and
slightly off. The boy with the bowl cut grew up to be the man with no
clue. After failing on CNN's THE SPIN ROOM, he got a job on CNN's
CROSSFIRE where he degraded the nation's intelligence and when Jon
Stewart pointed out what a mockery of news the garbage was, the Mother
Tucker was out of a job. He tried to spin it, insisting that he had
resigned from CROSSFIRE in April of 2004 -- guess he just forgot his
resignation as, week after week, he continued to do the show until
January of 2005. TUCKER CARLSON UNFILTERED lasted a year at PBS. Onto
MSNBC at a time when it was already featuring garbage like Michael
Savage and had plenty of room in the toilet for Tucker. TUCKER lasted a
little less than 3 years on MSNBC.
Not
being a journalist, talk show host Tucker took time to do what many did
in recent years, take a spin around the floor on DANCING WITH THE
STARS. That he was the first celebrity eliminated should have told him
something about how beloved he wasn't.
When
Melissa Gates gave then-husband Bill the ultimatum, all the hate
merchants were kicked off MSNBC and Tucker landed eventually at FOX
"NEWS." He was a panelist, kind of the 21st century version of Kitty
Carlisle Hart. By toadying and creating many mini-'controversies'
passed off as news, Mother Tucker eventually worked himself up to a
weekend co-host on FOX & FRIENDS Finally, he was ready, he
thought, once again for prime time. TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT debuted in
2016 and got cancelled last week.
Tucker is homeless yet again.
It's greatly upset his friends -- racists and transphobes like the Great Glenneth Greenwald:
One reason there's so much hatred among left-liberal media types toward Tucker is petty jealously: that goes without saying. They always hate most those who succeed in journalism.
But he's also hated by that crowd because he holds up a mirror to the failures of their heroes.
The mirror Tucker held up was to his own ass. Is that what Glenneth found interesting?
Glenneth
and Tara wanted you to know that Tucker hosted plenty of lefties.
Tucker brought on lefties who played his game or served up the red meat
his deluded audience wolfed down. The same way Bill O'Reilly had done a
decade prior with, for example, Susara Taylor. Mother Tucker didn't
invent anything, he was just the new Bill O'Reilly.
And now he's fired.
And Glenneth tries to spin this as a good thing:
A major irony is that Tucker's separation from Fox may be the best thing that could happen to him in terms of his influence and impact.
The sector of media growing most explosively are independent platforms. Joe Rogan is vastly more influential than every MSNBC and CNN host.
Yeah,
but Joe Rogan has charisma. Tucker doesn't. Tucker is not Joe Rogan
who makes people laugh intentionally. Tucker is an uptight prig.
That's not going to play well in 'new media.' It didn't play well for
Bill O'Reilly when he tried to survive being fired from FOX "NEWS." And
Tucker already failed as a podcaster.
And
there are the internals. As the ones -- and only ones -- who have
reported the realities about FOX "NEWS" finances, we can tell you he was
not worth his salary. His podcast for FOX was a failure and then came FOX NATION and TUCKER
CARLSON TODAY.
And since some of them are whining about AOC, let's include this section too:
FOX "NEWS" has to
do more than tighten its belt. There are no friends on Wall Street
willing to bail it out -- NEWS MAX and other similar outlets can
continue even if FOX "NEWS" falters. And they're sinking in debt.
Tucker Carlson became an ugly face for the network -- an admitted liar
(in texts, he not only admitted to hating Donald, he also admitted that
despite making 'stolen election' claims on air, he didn't actually
believe them). This is a problem because AOC rightly noted the FTC when
she was on Jen Psaki's talk show over the weekend.
Glenneth and others didn't understand what AOC was talking about because they're not real smart. Oh, censorship! - they cried.
No.
She
mentioned the FTC which handles issues like fraud and consumer
protection. Viewers are consumers. A TV host telling them that an
election was stolen when the host admits privately that he didn't
believe it was stolen? That's fraud. And eliminating that type of
fraud is why the FTC exists. This had nothing to do with The First
Amendment.
I
would think even the idiots on Twitter could grasp that. Not the FCC,
the FTC. Remember, that's what did in Pat Boone -- the sanctimonious
liar who sold a pimple 'cure' that wasn't. The FTC came down on his
ass. And it could have come down on FOX "NEWS" because, as the texts
revealed, this wasn't an opinion that Tucker held, he was just lying to
viewers. That's fraud, it's not a free speech issue. Again, FTC, not
FCC.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 21, 2023 CONTACT: press@iava.org
Washington, DC- Following
is a statement from the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America, Allison Jaslow, on the current proposal to address the need to
raise the debt limit and cut spending before the House of
Representatives:
“Earlier this week, in a speech at the New York Stock Exchange,
America was assured that our veterans would be taken care of as
Washington politicians prepared to address the upcoming need to raise
our country’s debt ceiling. Then veterans saw what was in their proposal
and whether the words spoken on a stage also translated to the words on
the pages of the bill that was unveiled on Capitol Hill.”
“There are zero guarantees that veterans care is protected in the bill
that will soon be before the House of Representatives to raise the debt
limit in exchange for spending cuts. And worse, it specifically targets
unspent COVID aid that news reports indicate is currently planned to be spent to support veterans’ medical care.”
“This is unacceptable. The Limit, Save Grow Act of 2023
should explicitly protect benefits and care for veterans. As this
debate continues, America needs to also know that veterans and their
families get support from programs like SNAP and Medicaid, so efforts to target those areas of the federal budget could also have an adverse effect on members of our community.”
“Politicians
can say they support our veterans, troops, and their families until
they’re blue in the face, but what matters is what happens when they
take action. Thankfully, the action to introduce a bill is only one step
in the process. The next step is a vote. IAVA urges any member that is
thinking of supporting the Limit, Save and Grow Act of 2023 to ask for a
written guarantee that veterans will be protected. We should prioritize
the needs of our nation’s veterans as spending cuts are considered in
this plan. No Congressmember should give their blessing to the bill
otherwise.”
IAVA
is the voice for the post-9/11 veteran generation. With over 425,000
veterans and allies nationwide, IAVA is the leader in non-partisan veteran advocacy and public awareness. We drive historic impacts
for veterans and IAVA’s programs are second to none. Any veteran or
family member in need can reach out to IAVA’s Quick Reaction Force at quickreactionforce.org or 855-91RAPID (855-917-2743) to be connected promptly with a veteran care manager who will assist. IAVA’s The Vote Hub is a free tool to register to vote and find polling information. IAVA’s membership is always growing. Join the movement at iava.org/membership.
