On Thursday evening, as he was returning to the White House from a town hall in Cincinnati, President Joe Biden was approached by a reporter from the right-wing media outlet the Daily Caller, which was founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The reporter, Shelby Talcott, asked the president:
“Mr. President, can you clarify what you said about no — that there’s no — no one in the Democratic Party is anti-police.”
Biden responded:
“I didn’t say that. I said that that — that is not the Democratic Party’s position. I’m the Democratic Party; I am President. So is the Speaker of the House and so is the –- the Majority Leader. We are not defunding the police.”
Talcott asked the same question again, even though Biden had already answered here:
“Okay. And are there people who — in the Democratic Party, who want to defund the police?”
That’s when the president shut Talcott down, leaving her dumbfounded when he asked:
“Are there people in the Republican Party who think we’re sucking the blood out of kids?”
Clearly, Biden was referencing the infamous QAnon conspiracy theory that’s so popular with right-wingers who support failed, one-term former President Donald Trump.
But perhaps the best part of the exchange is how outraged conservatives were that President Biden dared to raise the specter of QAnon as a way of proving just how absurd Republicans have become in recent years:
There was a time just a few months ago when Fox News was one of the most powerful forces in the media world. They had nearly unlimited access to the then-president, Donald Trump, and were able to set the media agenda and constantly see their ratings skyrocket.
Now, however, according to an eye-opening report from The Daily Beast, it’s clear that Fox is hemorrhaging viewers and in serious financial trouble, with reporter Justin Baragona noting that to distract from their own trouble, the network is trying to suggest that channels such as CNN and MSNBC are also doing poorly, which isn’t exactly true.
Baragona explains how Fox has been using smokescreens in a desperate attempt to cover up the collapse of their own pathetic ratings:
“If you’ve been on Fox News’ digital news site or bouncing around the right-wing media ecosphere in recent weeks, you’ve no doubt come across an article or three about the recent collapse in viewership at CNN and MSNBC. And the tanking ratings have largely been tied to the ‘credibility’ issues the two networks supposedly have in covering President Joe Biden’s administration following Donald Trump’s exit from the White House. Lost in all this coverage, however, is one stubborn fact: Fox News has also suffered a precipitous drop in its viewership.”
But while the ratings dip in cable news is largely a result of Trump no longer keeping the airwaves full of anger, divisive language, and heartless policies, Fox’s problems when it comes to attracting eyeballs go back even further, which suggests the once-mighty conservative network is becoming irrelevant:
“One noticeable thing, however, about the large audiences that CNN and MSNBC pulled in during that month is the massive growth it experienced from the same time the previous year. Fox News, on the other hand, actually suffered a year-to-year drop in viewership, despite the historic news cycle. The shocking third-place finish by Fox News in January and the erosion of its audience was largely chalked up to disgruntled Trump supporters who not only felt Fox News wasn’t sufficiently loyal to the soon-to-be ex-president but also blamed the conservative network for Trump’s electoral loss.”
Fox has become the enemy to many conservatives and right-wingers. And that could be the kiss of death for a network that has built its business model around one political figure who’s now irrelevant and up to his eyebrows in legal trouble.
Since Fox cannot possibly admit their own anemic ratings without looking vulnerable, they’ve tried to change the subject:
“It’s a given that Fox News would push a negative narrative about its competitors, and of course the broader media context is lost on the right-wing outlets that boost it. But the reality is that all of cable news is slumping—and ultimately Fox may want to avoid talking about anyone else’s ‘credibility gap.'”
Fox News is learning the hard way what political strategist and author Rick Wilson has been saying for years:
Ever since President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, conservative media has been repeating the Big Lie that began with failed, one-term former President Donald Trump and his supporters that there had been massive voter fraud which allowed Biden to win.
However, there is absolutely zero evidence that the 2020 election was anything but the “most secure” in American history, as the agency working for the Trump administration called it, and yet the lies, conspiracy theories, and complete bullshit continue to circulate all over right-wing airwaves.
One America News — aka OAN — (which is slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun politically), has reached a new low among the far right nutbags, with one of their hosts calling for everyone who helped Biden win to be executed en masse.
OAN commentator Pearson Sharp rhetorically asked in his “commentary” on the last presidential race how many people it would take to undermine an election:
“Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many people does it take to carry out a coup against the presidency?”
Having laid down that paranoid marker, Sharp continued, getting darker and more sinister by the second:
“And when all the dust settles from the audit in Arizona and the potential audits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin, what happens to all these people who were responsible for overthrowing the election?
“What are the consequences for traitors who meddled with our sacred democratic process and tried to steal power by taking away the voices of the American people? What happens to them? Well in the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors. Execution.”
Even that wasn’t enough for Sharp and OAN, as he rattled on and no doubt delighted all of the Trump faithful in the viewing audience:
“Treason is considered the highest of all crimes and is the only crime defined in the U.S. Constitution, which states that anyone is guilty of treason if they support America’s enemies.
“So far, there have been numerous indications that foreign governments including China and Pakistan, meddled in our election to install Joe Biden as president. Any Americans involved in these efforts from those who ran the voting machines to the very highest government officials — is guilty of treason under US code 2381, which carries with the penalty of death.”
OAN calls for the execution of “tens of thousands” of Americans who “stole” the 2020 election from Trump. pic.twitter.com/N2ylNFK8FH
There isn’t a scintilla of evidence to back what Pearson Sharp is saying, but that’s not the point. The point is that millions of Americans believe each and every syllable of what he said.
This is the kind of dreck that’s being fed to conservatives across the country. It’s insidious, dangerous, and downright evil. And it’s getting louder by the second.
Much like the failed, one-term loser POTUS they fervently supported and lauded over the course of four years, Fox News is also fond of attacking strong black women or any woman who dares to speak her mind, especially if that woman holds a position of political power.
Two days ago, Fox proved just how much they despise Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) by publishing a story alleging that she had demanded protection from federal air marshals on a flight she took from Washington, D.C. to Minneapolis to attend the trial of Derek Chauvin, who was later convicted in the death of George Floyd.
Sonya Hightower LoBasco, executive director of the Air Marshal National Council, told Fox that Waters “was already accompanied by two armed Capitol Police and two U.S. Secret Service agents when she allegedly requested two air marshals and two more marshals on touchdown to escort her in the airport.”
However, officials with the U.S. Secret Service and Capitol Police denied that allegation, leading Waters to aim her fire at the right-wing network, telling the Grio:
“Fox News is an organization that charades as a news outlet while manufacturing lies, claiming them as truths, and using their platform that reaches millions of Americans as a vessel to spread misinformation. It is no surprise that the targets of Fox’s misinformation campaigns include women of color like me, other people of color, and anyone who dares to speak the truth.”
Waters added that she’s considering filing a lawsuit against Fox, and she slam dunked them perfectly with this tweet:
The latest Fox "News" campaign against me falsely claiming that I requested police, secret service, & air marshals on an April 17 flight is an absolute lie. I have never requested law enforcement protection on my flights. Deceitful, lying Fox "News" must be stopped.
The report from Fox News has also led to death threats against Waters, she revealed, Yahoo News notes:
“The caller who claimed to be from Louisiana referred to her as the n-word and said she deserved to be ‘hung by a rope for treason.’
“‘I pray for your death every day just like you prayed for the fucking conviction of an officer who is not guilty,’ the caller said. ‘So, go fuck yourself and go shove your face into some dough, in the kitchen, and make some gorilla cookies, bitch… Fuck you Maxine Waters…'”
Despite the threats, Waters says she won’t be silenced:
“My life is constantly threatened by racists, haters, and ill-informed people under the influence of the likes of Fox News. If in fact I lose my life because of these scurrilous attacks in the fight against injustice and racism, my life will not have been lost in vain.”
Fox News is a cancer on this country. Their lies are partially responsible for the insurrection we saw at the U.S. Capitol earlier this year. Here’s hoping Maxine Waters does indeed file suit against them.
Though it’s hard to believe, there are right-wing media outlets that are even more extreme and moronic than Fox News. They don’t have nearly the audience of Fox, but they are seen by hundreds of thousands, especially online.
One of those other outlets that you may have heard of is Newsmax, which is owned by a good friend of failed, one-term former President Donald Trump, Christopher Ruddy.
John Bachman is a host on Newsmax, and he wants us all to know that the Biden administration’s plan to combat climate change will result in trees being unable to breathe.
Bachman played a video clip of climate czar John Kerry was discussing technology that could potentially remove excess greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. And he seemed startled by the idea of what Kerry had just said, apparently believing that it would involve removing all of the carbon dioxide from the planet, making it impossible for trees to breathe:
“If we take all the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, what’re the trees going to turn into oxygen?”
Of course, anyone with a fifth-grade education knows there’s far too much CO2 in the atmosphere and that no one is suggesting we remove all of it. That wouldn’t make any sense. And clearly John Bachman has zero in the way of sense. Sounds like he’s been huffing way too much carbon dioxide and not getting enough oxygen to his already stunted brain.