Tag Archives: Fox News

No thanks on propaganda

There once was a time when I would watch the Fox channel. Yes, it’s true. Even this so-called progressive American patriot would watch certain programs on the admittedly conservative media outlet.

I am going to declare here that I no longer watch Fox. It’s been a good while since I have dialed the network up on my TV. Why? Because I have known for a good while what has become clear now in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Machines against the network.

The network once billed itself as a “news” outlet. It is nothing of the sort. It is now a propaganda organization. Thus, I have declared my intention to refer to Fox as the Fox Propaganda Network.

I would no more collect my information from the Fox network than I would listen to, say, Josef Goebbels, tell me about what the Nazis were doing to “preserve racial integrity” in Europe during World War II. Or the Kremlin seeking to “explain” how it is “winning the war” against Ukraine, which it says began at the Ukrainians’ provocation.

The Fox Propaganda Channel lied to its viewers about who won the 2020 presidential election, despite its TV personalities admitting privately that Joe Biden won the election and that the guy who lost it is nuttier than a Snickers bar.

They didn’t bother to tell their viewers the truth. They were more worried about Fox’s TV ratings than they were committed to doing the right thing … which was to tell the truth.

Sickening.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Keeping up with violence

That insurrection thing keeps growing wings and legs and it is beginning to take off in directions that few of us saw coming.

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave the Fox Propaganda Channel about 40,000 hours of video showing the 1/6 assault develop in real time. Then the network’s chief propagandist, Tucker Carlson, shows carefully edited versions of the video and proclaims the assault on our government that day was no biggie.

Fox ought to fire Carlson for lying to his viewers. McCarthy ought to be impeached for giving Fox grist to further the lie about the assault. The attorney general and local prosecutors ought to indict a former POTUS for inciting the assault, for seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election result and for obstructing justice in the wake of the pilfering of classified documents from the White House.

I concede that the first two things won’t happen. The third one likely will occur.

The crowd that stormed the Capitol on 1/6 intended to do serious harm to our system of government. Some of them wanted to kill the vice president, Mike Pence. Others of them sh** on the floor of the Capitol. Many others beat cops nearly to death.

Yet Carlson called it a peaceful protest? That they were “sightseers”? And McCarthy said he didn’t see Carlson’s broadcast the other evening?

I can’t stand this.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘News’ becomes propaganda

When does news become propaganda? It happens when an organization that purports to be “fair and balanced” in its reporting of the news allegedly hides the truth and foments The Big Lie.

A company that manufactures voting machines has alleged that Fox News — the aforementioned “fair and balanced” organization — knew that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election but rather than tell the truth it promoted the Big Lie offered by the moron who lost the election, Donald J. Trump.

The Fox propagandists continued to suggest that the voting machines had rigged the election by wiping out Trump votes and adding mythical votes to Biden’s total.

Dominion Voting sued Fox for a couple of billion bucks and is coming out on top in the preliminary court rulings.

To be clear, I do not watch Fox largely because the network is allegedly doing what I have suspected all along. The networks’ premier hosts — Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo — all have been heard furthering The Big Lie about the 2020 election.

What’s more, they all have said quite the opposite in private, according to court records. They have referred to the fraud allegations as so much bullsh**, that they were “seriously offended” by suggestions that fraud existed. With all those personal feelings being expressed in private, they still went on the air to promote the specious notion of “widespread election fraud” where none existed.

Indeed, investigators have determined that there was no election fraud in 2020, as the Fox propagandists have suggested. The lawsuit seeks to put an end to The Big Lie.

All of this gives credence to my belief that the right-wing mainstream media comprise liars and frauds masquerading as journalists.

Shameful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Of course they clapped … Tucker

Tucker Carlson, the right-wing blowhard who — to the best of my knowledge has zero foreign policy experience — cannot understand why Congress stood in virtual unison and applauded the remarks delivered by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Why, it’s as if Congress has blinders on, said the Fox News gasbag.

Well, as an old guy with whom I once worked, would say, “Well hell, fire and save matches.” 

Of course Congress would stand virtually as one — a couple of right-wing soreheads notwithstanding — to applaud the heroic head of state who is facing the Russian invaders’ onslaught with courage and grit.

And … so damn what if he showed up in his customary olive-drab military wear? Carlson called it a demonstration of “maximum disrespect.” Bullsh**, Tucker! Did you bellow your disgust when independent U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema presided over the Senate wearing a sleeveless denim blouse? Of course not, you nimrod!

Congress wants to help defend a democratic state against an onslaught initiated by a war criminal presiding over the Kremlin. Is it expensive? Well … yeah! It is! No one doubts that the United States is paying a hefty price in sending defensive weapons to Ukraine to help fight the Russian invaders.

Tucker Carlson: Congress Disagrees On Everything Bitterly, But When Zelensky Comes They All Applaud | Video | RealClearPolitics

Moreover, the Ukrainians are putting that expense to good use as they have seized the initiative on the battlefield and have pushed the Russians out of territory they seized.

As for Congress “clapping like seals” at Zelenskyy’s appearance before the joint legislative body, let ’em applaud. The Ukrainian president has earned our admiration.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Fox News = propaganda arm

First, I must make an admission, which is that I do not watch Fox News to get my “news” from a supposedly legitimate media outlet.

Now, though, comes the gut punch. The idea that Fox News executives would refuse to cover the House 1/6 select committee hearing simply galls me to the max.

I suppose I should take credit for being ahead of the curve by recognizing that Fox News isn’t the credible news agency it proclaims itself to be.

Do you remember how it hailed itself as the “fair and balanced” network, how the channel said, “We report, you decide”? I have said for the past decade or longer that it never has been “fair and balanced.” I long have suspected its “reporting” is of questionable value.

Now we have these reports of commentators such as Tucker Carlson pitching The Big Lie promoted by The Donald; moreover, Carlson has reportedly been standing with Russia in its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.

Fellow right-wing zealot Sean Hannity is no better. He has been joined at the hip with Donald Trump since prior to the 2020 election. However, he sank to new lows by appearing as a guest promoter at Trump’s campaign rallies during the 2020 campaign.

Now we have the House select panel sending its evidence of wrongdoing into our living rooms via TV. All the other major networks are broadcasting the hearings live to those of us who want to watch them; I am one American patriot who wants to learn the truth behind what happened during the 1/6 insurrection.

Were I a Fox News devotee, I wouldn’t get that chance. As a method of deterring viewers from sneaking a peak on the hearing being shown on, say, CNN or MSNBC, Fox is airing programs without commercial interruptions. Clever eh? Sure, it’s also quite costly.

Fox News’s decision to forgo covering one of the biggest stories in U.S. history in truth doesn’t affect me in the least, given that I don’t watch the network. It does, though, have an impact on our nation’s political structure.

It feeds the gullibility exhibited by the cultists who still adhere to The Big Lie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Yep, Putin’s a killer

Bill O’Reilly, the one-time Fox News commentator, once famously asked Donald J. Trump whether Vladimir Putin is a “killer.” The Donald offered a typically stupid response.

He said the world is “full of killers,” and then said the United States has killed people, too.

The Donald couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the obvious, that his pal Vladimir Putin is a killer and that he deserved worldwide recrimination for his history of mass mayhem and misery.

Now comes the news we see pouring out of Ukraine. The armed forces that Putin commands are killing innocent people every hour of every day. Children are dying from bombs and artillery blasts. So are women, including pregnant women. Russian propagandists deny that Russian troops are targeting hospitals, except the videos being broadcast from the field of battle tell they are doing exactly that.

Hey, we all know we’re dealing with a killer. Never mind the brainless responses of The Donald to a perfectly succinct and cogent question.

We know the nature of the individual with whom we must deal. It gives me some hope — fragile though it feels at this moment — that the global knowledge of this man’s past and now his present will condemn him to a future of scorn and condemnation.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Laura shows her crassness

Laura Ingraham long has been considered part of the right-wing, nut-job cabal of talking heads who rose to infamy during the Donald Trump administration. Still, I didn’t actually realize she was capable of the kind of crassness she exhibited the other day when revealing that the nation’s top military leader had contracted the COVID-19 virus.

But she did.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley has tested positive for the virus. The highly decorated, battle-tested Army general is exhibiting mild symptoms. He’ll be OK. Ingraham, though, applauded while telling her Fox News viewers of Gen. Milley’s condition.

Can you comprehend why someone such as Ingraham would do such a thing? When in the name of non-partisan defense policy did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff become a political punching bag?

Oh, I guess it’s because Milley expressed regret for taking part in that hideous photo op with Donald Trump the day Trump traipsed in front of the church to hold up a Bible. Or perhaps it was when Milley questioned Trump’s response to the 1/6 riot.

There was Ingraham, a COVID-19 denier and blowhard right-winger, cheering the notion that the Joint Chiefs chair is now afflicted with a disease that has the potential of inflicting some serious harm to the man’s heath.

Disgraceful. Then again, this is what I have learned to expect from the right-wing media corps of Trumpkins.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Cruz needs to grow a spine

(Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images)

A most interesting thread has appeared in many of the critical comments about Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

It’s that he doesn’t have a spine. He is gutless. A coward, even.

He most recently blurted out a fundamental truth, which was that the 1/6 insurrection was the act of domestic terrorists. Then the GOP base loyal to Donald Trump — the insurrectionist who incited the riot — got all fired up; it blamed Cruz for abandoning the MAGA mantra, whatever the hell it is.

Cruz then ventured onto the Fox News program hosted by Tucker Carlson to walk it back. Cruz said he misspoke. Carlson wasn’t buying it. Cruz stumbled over his clumsy feet. He looked and sounded predictably pitiful.

The other time that rivaled Cruz’s latest exhibition of spinelessness was when he jetted off to Cancun while Texans were freezing to death in February. He came back when the crap hit the fan and then he sought to blame his decision to flee the state on his daughter, who wanted to get away with Mom and Dad. Ridiculous!

The guy is one of two men who represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. It’s no surprise to regular readers of High Plains Blogger that I detest him. He serves his own interests over all else. He doesn’t give a sh** about me, my family or my friends.

He wants to be president. My question is this: Do we really want someone without an ounce of integrity or courage to represent us on the world stage? Hell no!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘Fair and balanced’ now becomes ‘false and deceitful’

The hits just keep coming as they regard the Fox News Channel and the lies that continue to flow from a network that used to proclaim itself to be the “fair and balanced” presenter of news.

Wow! We hear now that Fox News personalities implored Donald J. Trump to stop the 1/6 insurrection. They emailed him, asked Don Jr. to tell Dad to make ’em stop rioting at Capitol Hill, urged White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to get Trump to intervene.

Trump did nothing. He didn’t heed the pleas of his own son, his own chief of staff or those of his favorite network talking heads.

A more serious aspect of this, though, are the lies that kept flowing from the pie holes of those same personalities. They told their viewers that the riot was not a big deal. That Trump was being vilified unfairly. That he didn’t incite anyone to “take back the government.”

The credibility — if you want to call it such — of the likes of Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro et al has been shattered into millions of pieces.

Unbelievable!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Fauci is no Mengele

Unbelievable.

That’s how I’ll start with this brief post about something I heard on — where else? — Fox News.

Lara Logan, a supposed journalist, compared Dr. Anthony Fauci to the notorious Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, who during World War II conducted hideous experiments on Jews. Mengele’s aim was to perfect ghastly treatments and he used Jews as experimental patients. Many of those patients died from the experiments.

Logan somehow, in some fashion, conflated the mask and vaccine mandates enacted to fight to COVID-19 pandemic with what Mengele did during the Second World War.

What makes this idiocy even worse is that the Fox News anchors allowed her to continue that trash rant of hers without challenging what in the name of human decency she was alleging.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/12/02/fauci_im_astounded_fox_news_has_not_disciplined_lara_logan_for_comparing_me_to_mengele.html

You can see it on the link I just attached to this post.

Good Almighty God in heaven! What in the world is it going to take to shut down these hate mongers who do nothing but slander and defame the reputations of learned professionals who are trying to help this nation get through a medical crisis?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com