This morning, January 21, 2013, is the "most depressing day of the year" says Steve Doocey of Fox and Friends. Why? Because of "drab weather, holiday bills, and resolutions we have not met."
This should go well. Wednesday afternoon, Fox News announced they'd hired Dennis Kucinich as their newest contributor. Kucinich is a two-time presidential candidate and former Democratic congressman from Ohio best known for his strong anti-war views. He's also known as the guy who sued the congressional cafeteria over an olive.
Republicans are crawling out of the woodwork to attack President Obama's gun control package, announced today. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has accused Obama of abusing his executive powers. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) accused the President of "disdain" for the Second Amendment. But the best criticism yet comes from Rep. Steve Stockman (R- (where else?) TX).
Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to address the nation this afternoon about his meeting with NRA officials to discuss new gun control policies in this country—an initiative that President Obama asked him to oversee after last month's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. But before anyone could react, news broke of yet another school shooting. Fox News was practically mid-"Guns don't kill people; people kill people" when they cut away to break the news that a gunman at Taft High School in Kern County, California shot 2 people.
Tired of beating around the Holiday Bush, Fox and Friends went straight to Santa for "evidence" that the War on Christmas is a real thing.
Fox News, casting about for answers in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, earlier blamed "online activity" and "gaming." This afternoon, former Arkansas governor and frequent Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee had a different idea: the shooting happened because we "removed God from our schools":
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and analyst Keith Ablow got together on the network today to chat about some of the factors in today's tragic shooting in Connecticut. "You mentioned earlier how people lose themselves in online activities, gaming and what have you," Kelly remarks. "Reality TV is no friend of preventing such things," Ablow responds. "Facebook is no friend of preventing such things." What fantastic, nuanced analysis.
This week's worthless, petty political controversy has taken an entirely predictable turn. As you may recall, conservative "comedian" and Fox News contributor Steven Crowder released video earlier this week that showed him getting punched in the face by a union activist during right-to-work protests in Michigan. Well, it turns out that Crowder's video was misleadingly edited to show him being punched, but not what happened immediately prior to the union member taking a swing at him. Even more hilariously, it was Sean Hannity's producers that slipped up and gave it away, as the NYT's the Lede blog points out.
Though it might not look it, Fox News has learned a lesson or two from last month's presidential election.
It appears as though the Petraeus affair isn't quite over, after all. In today's Washington Post, Bob Woodward broke the news that in spring of 2011, Fox News head Roger Ailes attempted to persuade David Petraeus to run for president if Obama didn't appoint him Joint Chief of Staff, telling the then-general that News Corp head Rupert Murdoch would "bankroll" the campaign.
As the violence between Israel and Palestine headed into its fifth day last night, owner of various awful news properties Rupert Murdoch asked a very thought-provoking and interesting question about the media's coverage of the conflict.
Fat asshole Roger Ailes granted a surprise interview to TVNewer's Chris Ariens this week. Ailes, the president of Fox News, is generally reticent with the press, choosing to emerge only occasionally from his gay-proofed News Corp bunker and defend the ideological histrionics of the news team he has assiduously assembled over his 16 years at Fox when a controversy emerges. Here's what he told Ariens, by way of criticizing what he perceives to be a pro-Obama sentiment among his competitors: "The press is supposed to watch the powerful. And not throw in with them."
At the end of October, disgraced former Clinton adviser turned Fox News contributor Dick Morris predicted Mitt Romney was going to win in a landslide. "Pollster John McLaughlin and I went through the actual results of the last four elections and on average, the Republicans had 1 percent more than the Democrats," Morris said in an interview with Bill O'Reilly about the New York Times' poll. "So that poll is off by a factor of 8. So instead of Obama winning by 1, Romney would win Florida by 7."
As with most art, each iteration of an image reflects less and less of what the original work was trying to convey, but then at some point it reaches a level of saturation and becomes something else entirely. A statement on the statement, if you will. Fox's attempt at the flowchart guide to the Petraeus Affair is perhaps the most telling: don't even try to understand this thing.
