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Have we done this?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/27/rupert-murdoch-deposition-dominion-lawsuit-fox-news
Fox, and Rupert Murdoch, admitting under oath that they lied about the election.
I'm not surprised to learn that they lied, but I am surprised that they've been caught pretty much red-handed.
They’re attempting to use first amendment freedom of speech as their justification for their lies, it was just presenters expressing their rights to question rather than than just spewing outright untruths…
In other headlines, bears shit in woods....
The "source" that Sidney Powell was using, and which Fox knowingly repeated, is astonishing.
Decapitated time traveller. Yes, really.
The problem with their business model is that their audience just want more and more extreme BS. If Fox don't give it to them, the audience will move somewhere that will tell them what they want to hear.
https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1630350768329961480
iirc fox have previously successfully defended themselves saying they are not a news organisation, could that now work against them as spreading malicious rumors for "entertainment" would not be protected as a news organisation questioning results would.
iirc fox have previously successfully defended themselves saying they are not a news organisation
I thought that was just one particular show or host, not the entire network. Not sure though. Thing is, their audience don't care. There's a lot of money in telling people what they want to hear so Fox don't care what other people think, only that their audience sticks with them.
The tangerine shitgibbon unhappy that Fox News not willing to commit perjury to maintain his fantasies.
https://twitter.com/SykesCharlie/status/1630566147190923266
It's the fundamental difference between journalists & newsreaders presenting the news, compared to (often big-name) presenters of shows about current affairs.
No worse than the BBC. Can't get any lower than that lot. Look at how they actively protected paedophile's like Savile for decades and probably still do to this day.
Is throwing someone 'under the table' a things? Is there no room left under the bus?
I'm so glad that there is some sort of justice happening, it was all getting a bit mental for a while there
Fox was started by Roger Ailes, an aide to Nixon (and sex criminal) who concluded that had just one News Network held the Republican line during Watergate then Nixon would have survived, Fox was created from the very start as an unofficial wing of the GOP and to be that network ready for the next Watergate.
Any suggestion that they are in any way acting on good faith has to take that origin on board, it's a feature, not a bug.
Of course whether or not the executives at Fox still have full control over the monster they've created now that the cynical and manipulative Fox is being outflanked by swivel-eyed true believers at OAN and Newsmax is another matter.
thols2
The problem with their business model is that their audience just want more and more extreme BS. If Fox don’t give it to them, the audience will move somewhere that will tell them what they want to hear.
It's hardly limited to Fox though...
Thing is, their audience don’t care. There’s a lot of money in telling people what they want to hear so Fox don’t care what other people think, only that their audience sticks with them.
Fox have the GOP agenda .. almost refreshing knowing they have an agenda compared to say the first amendment apologists with "history channel" etc.
Is there no room left under the bus?
They cancelled all the busses, tables are all we have left.
thols2
Full MemberThe problem with their business model is that their audience just want more and more extreme BS. If Fox don’t give it to them, the audience will move somewhere that will tell them what they want to hear.
Yep, there were some weird moments like Tucker Carlson gettign accused of being part of the leftwing elitist media cabal, when he momentarily stopped moving rightwards... He pretty quickly realised he's painted himself into a corner, he has to keep going constantly madder and more vicious just to stand still. Couldn't happen to a nicer ****.
Tucker can't be sued for expressing opinions. As long as he stays away from reporting news, he's an entertainer, not a reporter. The Fox News journalists are in trouble because they are supposed to be news reporters, not entertainers.
https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1630738401786839040
The Fox audience is, let's be honest, unsophisticated. They're addicted to "hot women with great hair, big tits and degrees from cheap J-schools" (as Roger used to say) and ragey bros telling them that their hatred of immigrants, blacks, gays, readin' and ideas is logical.
Always worth checking who you are quoting. Along with 'the Fox audience' Rick Wilson appears to have a low opinion of women, who he has blamed for being behind Trump's popularity. He might not approve of hatred of immigrants, blacks, and gays, but he is more relaxed about women.
Rick Wilson, ironically like Trump, appears to be a quite obnoxious individual :
On the same day Howe parted ways with the Lincoln Project over what its spokesman called his “unacceptable and offensive posts,” Wilson said during a segment on CBS’s Tooning Out the News, an animated satire show produced by Stephen Colbert, that Trump is a “whining bitch addicted to Twitter.”
“Yes, he is a bitch. That is the biggest insult, comparing someone to a woman—I hate us,” responds cartoon anchor Sarah Sabo, voiced by Maureen Monahan.
Monahan points out in the same segment that Wilson previously called attendees of the liberal Netroots Nation conference “Barack Obama’s bitch” and “pathetic little whores satisfied with crumbs and head pats.” Ahead of the 2016 election, Wilson asked conservative commentator Ann Coulter on Twitter if Trump paid her “more for anal,” insinuating she was prostitute as an insult.
https://www.glamour.com/story/lincoln-project-masculine-ads-women-voters
Rick Wilson, ironically like Trump, appears to be a quite obnoxious individual :
Rick Wilson and the other people behind the Lincoln Project are people I disagree with strongly about policy. However, they are right about one thing - the Republican Party has become unmoored from any principles and is now fully anti-democracy. They at least had enough principles to say "Never Trump" and stick with it. They are right about that and they deserve credit for being honest enough to say it.
Lincoln Project is basically a bunch of disaffected Republicans, just with the proviso that they are against MAGA and Trump. So it's unsurprising that they still have many of the same 'qualities'.
I'm not sure they fall under the definition of 'necessary evil' given how close the last election was. But once Trump is done, I'm sure they will reintegrate into whatever version of the Republican Party still exists at that point.
Lincoln Project is basically a bunch of disaffected Republicans, just with the proviso that they are against MAGA and Trump. So it’s unsurprising that they still have many of the same ‘qualities’.
No, they are quite different to the MAGA crew in important ways. They accept reality, for a start. They know that Joe Biden won the last election fair and square and that Trump is utterly dishonest. They used to be Republicans, but the Republican party went all in on lies and conspiracies and they left because it's no longer a party that has any basic principles.
They are not going to just rejoin if Trump leaves. Their concern is that the Republican Party no longer has any principles, it's not just Trump, it's the entire party. People like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio went to elite universities and they know exactly what Trump is, but they are happy to just go along with it because they like being in Washington. The point of the Never Trumpers is that the Republican Party has to get back to having some basic principles (like accepting the results of elections) before they can be trusted to run the government.
Disagreeing with them on policy is fine. I disagree with them on most of their policy ideas. However, they are right about Trump and the Republican party, so acknowledging that they are right about that is the honest thing to do.
but the Republican party went all in on lies and conspiracies and they left because it’s no longer a party that has any basic principles.
A lot of them were happy participants pushing the republican party further and further towards the populist approach and were happy smearing opponents.
Its just once Trump managed to jump in and take control of the party that they seem to have found some principles and even then I wouldnt be convinced how long they would remain.
Do you think they are right when they say that Trump and MAGA cannot be trusted to run the government? If you do, you should say that you agree with them about that, but you disagree with them about other things. If you're not willing to accept that you sometimes agree with people you don't like, you're going to struggle in life.
However, they are right about Trump and the Republican party, so acknowledging that they are right about that is the honest thing to do.
Sure, but I doubt that most people know who Rick Wilson is, I think pointing out his unhealthy attitude to women, for example, is important.
The only reason I know Rick Wilson's background is because I decided to check. The late Malcolm Wicks MP, despite being very much on the right of the Labour Party, was a friend of mine.
He once strongly emphasised the importance of checking out the background, if you don't know it, of someone who makes a political comment. Because it can tell you so much about what their motives are - every political person has an axe to grind.
Despite the glaring self-evidence it was sage advice which has stood me in good stead for a long time, and I would strongly recommend it. It is certainly a strategy which I constantly use.
A lot of them were happy participants pushing the republican party further and further towards the populist approach and were happy smearing opponents.
This really. I'm all for 'the enemy of my enemy' stuff, but these guys - Stuart Stevens, Steve Schmidt etc - were there running aggressive elections during the Bush era. Schmidt may say he regrets launching Tea Party politics into a general election by pushing Sarah Palin as a VP candidate (which was an important step in the move towards MAGA), but he still did it.
While it's hard to see how the GOP can recover from its lurch into insanity, politics can have a short memory span and I see no reason why these guys won't be running a 2028 election with a 'moderate' candidate.
This really. I’m all for ‘the enemy of my enemy’ stuff, but these guys – Stuart Stevens, Steve Schmidt etc – were there running aggressive elections during the Bush era.
It's not a case of "the enemy of my enemy," it's a case of sharing a belief that democracy is worth preserving, even if we disagree about many things. I disagree with the policies that the Lincoln Project people believe in, but they believe that preserving democracy and respecting the results of elections is more important than beating your opponent any way you can. Stuart Stevens was the idiot who introduced Sarah Palin to national politics in a desperate attempt to revive John McCain's campaign. However, once that election was lost, McCain and Stevens acknowledged that and accepted Obama as the rightful winner. The same goes with the Romney campaign, they thought the polls showed they would win and were crushed when they lost, but they acknowledged that Obama won and moved on.
What Trump and the MAGA crew have done is simply refused to acknowledge that their opponents have any legitimacy and reflexively claim that any election loss was fraud. You cannot have a democracy when that happens. Whether or not you like the Lincoln Project people personally or agree with their policies, they are very different from the MAGA crowd in that they believe in democracy and are willing to acknowledge losing. That's what I agree with them about, it's not a case of "the enemy of my enemy" at all.
Can't argue with much of that, except to say that lifelong Republican activists don't get a pass simply for reaching the minimum standard (ie accepting the results of elections).
No-one is claiming that fighting MAGA and QAnon Republicans isn't a highly worthy cause, and they certainly deserve our backing for that, particularly as they are historically very good at reaching bits of the voter base that Democrat activists can't touch.
It's possible the GOP will implode entirely and become the QAnon party, but I'm not sure the LP is packed with people who have undergone a Damascene conversion, and these guys at some point will be back jockeying for 'mainstream' Republican voters with at least some of the usual dog-whistles.
Stuart Stevens was the idiot who introduced Sarah Palin to national politics in a desperate attempt to revive John McCain’s campaign.
*yes, Stuart Stevens not Schmidt, my mistake.
yes, Stuart Stevens not Schmidt, my mistake.
Actually, I think I got it wrong. I think it was Schmidt. Definitely one of those two. Spectacular misfire, whoever it was.
It’s possible the GOP will implode entirely and become the QAnon party,
I think the best outcome we could hope for is that the moderate Republicans and more conservative Democrats get together to form a new center-right party, the MAGA crowd inherit the rotting hulk of the GOP, and the left-wing of the Democrats consolidate as a center-left party. The center-right party will not be able to attract MAGA voters so they will only be able to win elections by appealing to the centrist voters that voted for Biden and Obama. That will pull the center of mass quite a long way leftwards, so the Democrats won't be under so much pressure to balance between centrists and the left. Unlikely to happen, but I think it would be a much healthier situation. You need two functioning parties to have healthy elections, currently only the Democrats can be considered to be a functional party.
I don't think a true centre-left party can win an election in the US, such is the state of their politics (and probably ours too, sadly). Ideally for the medium term you want the GOP to persist in such a form that it hooks die-hard MAGA voters but is sufficiently repellent to anyone in the centre-ground to ensure that at least the US cannot be governed by them.
I don’t think a true centre-left party can win an election in the US
I beg to differ. There is plenty of evidence that Americans are desperate for change. Despite coordinated sabotage by the Democrat establishment (where have we seen that sort of tactic used before?) a man who for decades has called himself a socialist is hugely popular :
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Bernie_Sanders
Why? Because the man talks a lot of commonsense.
I won't deny that change is difficult whilst reactionaries do everything in their power to maintain the status quo, but it doesn't have to be like that. IMO it is not the people that are the primary problem but the political establishment.
Strong support for Bernie Saunders shows there is a base upon which to build a left-wing alternative narrative.
Edit : Despite the 404 error my second link works fine.
If you’re not willing to accept that you sometimes agree with people you don’t like, you’re going to struggle in life.
Your reading skills are the exact opposite of your ability to condescend.
Their objection to Trump isnt his dislike of democracy its how he goes about it and that he seized the party from their hands.
The republicans have been actively engaged in antidemocractic practices such as voter suppression and gerrymandering without a word from those fine upstanding heroes. Some of their members, such as Horn, also actively engaged in accusing democrats of voting fraud prior to Trump.
They happily engaged in poisoning the well but only whinged once Trump took it one step further. That is not a position worthy of any praise.
There's no doubt he's a popular figure, but my concern is whether that would translate to an electoral college win during what is likely to be a vicious campaign. The current state of the Republican Party means that just beating them is the priority, as a GOP presidency now would have serious implications for future elections. But the cupboard is pretty bare on both sides in terms of viable candidates. That's why they settled on Biden in the first place.
Also, I note from that survey that even someone as unelectable as Pence has a rating in the 40s, somehow.
Obviously this coming election seems to be Sanders' final chance, he would be in his mid-80s by the next one.
There’s no doubt he’s a popular figure
The critical issue here is why. It's not because he has the same appeal as young handsome Democrat politicians such as Clinton or Obama had, or that he shares their presentation skills.
It is solely down to one thing - the arguments which he puts forward and the solutions which he suggests. There is undoubtedly an attentive audience for anyone who offers, or purports to offer, real change - as Trump proved.
Arguing in favour of the status quo is not the guaranteed vote winner many believe it to be.
If Saunders message, which is clearly popular with many people, was also echoed by other senior figures in the Democrat establishment, instead of being sabotaged, then support would undoubtedly grow.
Saunders representing just one voice in an otherwise sterile political environment has limited chances of success.
I agree with the premise that a left-wing candidate would struggle to win the presidency, but it doesn't have to be like that.
I agree with the premise that a left-wing candidate would struggle to win the presidency, but it doesn’t have to be like that.
Absolutely.
This kind of candidate is exceptionally good at galvanising a fresh voter base, but are vulnerable in a media campaigning environment that has a pre-trained the audience which treats anyone slightly left of centre as the bogeyman. As we know all too well.
It's a gift to a party which currently needs to be kept away from the levers of government at all costs just to keep democracy up and running.
Over here, the Tories are currently working to disenfranchise the very voters that respond most strongly to centre-left messaging. In the states, the Republicans are flirting strongly with fascism and trying to tear down the checks and balances which prevent it.