Earlier today a Fox Business Network yapper dared point out that there is absolutely no way you will ever win the lottery, because you won’t, you dunce. But this position is for some reason intolerable at Fox, which demands that you waste your money on Powerball tickets, and so the dissenter was yelled at on TV.

When FBN’s Gerri Willis exhorted her viewing audience to avoid the doomed game of infinitesimal chance, Media Matters reports, she was immediately cut off by host Charles Payne:

“Gerri! A buck! You can’t put a buck on this thing? A buck? You can’t put two bucks on this? ... You can’t put two bucks? 1.5 billion? ... You can’t take a shot?”

This is strange behavior from a television news network that has at least some obligation to make what appears on the screen correspond with reality. It’s even more bizarre that this is Fox’s second (at least) attempt to persuade its viewers to throw their money away in a lottery contest absolutely none of them will ever win. Sure, making poor dummies act against their best interests, whether by buying gold or voting, is part of the Fox News M.O. But Fox makes money from gold ads. Why the insistence on playing lotto? Just pure contempt for their viewers?

How much more can Fox hate the people who watch Fox?

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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