Newsmax Ratings Climb After Tucker Carlson’s Exit at Fox

I tried watching Newsmax last summer and I was bored out of my mind. I doubt they'll ever be a peer-competitor network to Fox, but if the latter keeps imploding, you never know. 

At the New York Times, "The niche conservative news channel is still small compared with Fox News, but its viewership has doubled and in some time slots even tripled since Tucker Carlson was dismissed":

Newsmax, the niche conservative news channel that has long played David to Fox News’s Goliath, has seized on Tucker Carlson’s shock dismissal from its rival network and declared itself the true TV home for right-wing Americans.

So far, the strategy is showing some promise.

Viewership of Newsmax remains far below that of Fox News. But its audience at certain hours has doubled, and in some time slots tripled, in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Carlson’s exit — an abrupt spike that has turned heads in conservative circles and the cable news industry.

On Monday evening, Eric Bolling’s 8 p.m. Newsmax program drew 531,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. One week earlier, it had 146,000. On Tuesday, Mr. Bolling’s audience grew to 562,000 viewers, equal to about 80 percent of Anderson Cooper’s CNN viewership that evening. Newsmax’s other prime-time shows also experienced big jumps.

The sharp rise in viewership can be timed almost to the minute of Fox News’s announcement on Monday that it was parting ways with Mr. Carlson, in part because of private messages sent by the anchor that included offensive and crude remarks.

Executives at Newsmax quickly sensed an opportunity.

Starting on Monday, Newsmax programming has aggressively pushed a narrative that Mr. Carlson’s dismissal was a capitulation to the left by Fox News and the Murdoch family.

One pundit mused on the air that Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman of the Fox Corporation, was “much more liberal” than his father, Rupert. Andrew Napolitano, a Newsmax pundit who was fired by Fox News in 2021 over a harassment allegation, said Fox News dismissing its top-rated anchor “is like the 1927 Yankees firing Babe Ruth for his table manners — I don’t get it.”

Anchors and guests harped on a recent appearance by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, in which she called for Mr. Tucker’s firing. “A.O.C. speaks, and now Fox listens,” grumbled the Newsmax anchor Chris Salcedo. “These really are end times.”

By Thursday morning, the network was inviting viewers to vote in a poll: “Is it right for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson?”

“Fox has been moving to embrace more of an establishment position,” Newsmax’s chief executive, Christopher Ruddy, said in an interview on Thursday. “They want to renounce some of the Trumpisms and populist MAGA stuff that Tucker was echoing.” Mr. Ruddy said he preferred to “embrace all sides of the Republican Party.”

Over all, Newsmax remains a ratings minnow. On Tuesday evening, “Hannity” on Fox News drew 2.1 million viewers; “The Ingraham Angle” attracted 1.6 million. Fox News has pointed to Nielsen data showing that in the first three months of the year, it was the highest-rated network across all of cable TV. And the network has bounced back from losing stars like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.

But the absence of Mr. Carlson, its biggest prime-time star, has been felt.

On Tuesday, Fox News lost to both CNN and MSNBC in the 8 p.m. hour among adults ages 25 to 54, an exceedingly rare defeat for the network in the key demographic for cable news advertisers. The “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade, sitting in for Mr. Carlson, fell short to Mr. Cooper on CNN and Chris Hayes on MSNBC in that coveted demographic, although he was first in total viewership.

Newsmax is surging shortly after Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology firm. Evidence in that case showed that Fox News executives were deeply concerned by Newsmax’s growth after the 2020 election, when President Donald J. Trump denounced the Murdoch-owned network for its projection that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would win Arizona.

At the time, Newsmax saw a burst in viewership, even recording higher ratings than the Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum one evening in December 2020. (Ms. MacCallum was switched to a different time slot not long afterward.) But its audience eventually shrank. And despite Mr. Trump’s complaints, Fox News continued as the undisputed ratings king of cable news, powered in part by Mr. Carlson’s increasingly provocative program.

So would Mr. Ruddy consider hiring the now-former Fox anchor for Newsmax? ...

Still more.

 

'But There Are Lawsuits Coming in the Wake of Dominion Voting...' (VIDEO)

Here's Bill O'Reilly on Tucker Carlson's termination. The old dog is showing his age.

Thoughts on Tucker Carlson's Firing

At the Last Refuge, "First, Carlson was being paid about $20 million a year by Murdoch. He had about 3 years left on his contract and will be paid the full contract amount. Carlson found out about 10 minutes before Fox Corp made the announcement. They did not “part ways,” Tucker Carlson was fired..."

Tucker Carlson Out at Fox News (VIDEO)

Blockbuster! Absolutely blockbuster!

I was teaching when I happened to see that Carlson was fired --- and I stopped for a minute to mention to my class how big a piece of news this is. I'm just now back home and able to surf around for some news.

He's out not just because of Dominion, apparently. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Carlson’s exit is related to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, the producer fired by the network last month, the sources said."

And at CBS News:

Tucker Carlson: 'Our Elections Are Not Working' (VIDEO)

Tucker's opening commentary tonight:

Eliza Fletcher Murder: Memphis Kidnapping Suspect Cleotha Abston Held Without Bond (VIDEO)

This is a must-watched segment with Tucker Carson below.

An at Fox News, "Eliza Fletcher was jogging in the early morning when she was abducted. Memphis police announce they have located and positively identified Eliza Fletcher's body."

Tucker Carlson on the Buffalo Massacre (VIDEO)

My previous Buffalo coverage is here.

Payton Gendron's Descent Into Racial Extremism (VIDEO)

I did not read the guy's manifesto. 

When Norway's Anders Breivik murdered 77 people back in 2011, I read his manifesto, which was easily available online. Lots of anti-jihad bloggers were cited at the document, although Breivik wasn't easily pinned down as a white supremacist. Frankly, he could have been the William Foster of Oslo, murdering scores of people while having a bad day in an urban multicultural dystopia. 

I looked for Gendron's statement, to no avail. Folks on the left think they've got this guy nailed down like he's James Earl Ray or something. Who know? He's a kid who knew he'd be throwing his life away if he went through with his plans. What a fucking waste.

At WSJ, "Buffalo Shooter’s 673-Page Diary Reveals Descent Into Racist Extremism":

A lone actor, socially isolated and mentally troubled, found inspiration online: ‘I just don’t have the time to wait any longer’."

CONKLIN, N.Y.—Days before carrying out one of the deadliest racially motivated attacks in recent U.S. history, Payton Gendron wrote that he’d finally made up his mind.

“I just don’t have the time to wait any longer,” he posted online. “I was supposed to do this 2 months ago. But now I finally feel actually ready.”

The entry was from a nearly 700-page online diary that Mr. Gendron, an 18-year-old white man, kept for the past several months. Writing under the online pseudonym “Jimboboiii,” he detailed his preparations for the massacre and his embrace of racist conspiracy theories that he said drove him to kill. A link to the diary was posted on a public web forum shortly before Mr. Gendron opened fire at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo last Saturday.

The attack left 10 people dead and three more wounded. All but two of his 13 victims were Black. They included an 86-year-old grandmother, a retired Buffalo police lieutenant and a church deacon.

Mr. Gendron, who is being held without bail after surrendering to police, pleaded not guilty to a single charge of first degree murder. Federal prosecutors said they are contemplating charging him with hate crimes. Mr. Gendron’s diary entries, which appear to date from November 2021 to the night before the shooting, along with an accompanying 180-page document, chronicle his descent into a shadowy, isolated world of swirling conspiracies, paranoia and violence.

Investigators are working to fill in missing pieces of Mr. Gendron’s background. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and police continue to pore over evidence from Conklin to Buffalo.

But Mr. Gendron’s extensive posts—a dark and paranoid monologue—present a portrait of a mass shooter that has become familiar in recent years: a lone actor, socially isolated and mentally troubled, who finds inspiration to commit mass violence in the recesses of the Internet.

Mr. Gendron seemed to live an unremarkable childhood. He played soccer as a youth, was a Boy Scout and made his high school’s honor roll. He planned on going to college to become an engineer.

In the months leading up to the massacre, Mr. Gendron spent hours glued to a computer in his family’s home in this quiet, predominantly white town in upstate New York. He posted dozens of hateful memes about Black people and Jews, discussed past racially motivated mass shootings and planned his own attack in painstaking detail. In March, he drove hundreds of miles to scout the Buffalo supermarket he later attacked.

He disdained mainstream political parties and the media, writing that he believed they were controlled by Jews. He described himself as a fascist.

Though there were harbingers of trouble—including a 2021 incident in which he was hospitalized after threatening violence at school—Mr. Gendron by his own account had seemed to keep his plotting and extreme views largely hidden.

His tone flippant in some entries and rageful in others, Mr. Gendron posted his plans to a private channel on the messaging platform Discord. A few people had access to view the content, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“We took action against the server as soon as we became aware of it and removed all related content and the server in accordance with our policies against violent extremism,” said a spokeswoman for Discord.

Mr. Gendron found his way to extreme online forums on the anonymous social platform 4chan when he felt bored during the pandemic, he wrote. He started on pages devoted to the outdoors, migrated to ones focused on guns and ultimately landed on a page that allows nearly unfettered discussion of white supremacy. 4chan didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.

In Mr. Gendron’s Discord entries, which started last November, he recounted his childhood in this town of 5,000, saying he didn’t have many friends, wasn’t close to his family and felt isolated.

“I would like to say I had quite a normal childhood ([less-than] 8) but that is not the case,” he wrote, signifying his life up to 18.

Mr. Gendron is the oldest of three boys, according to neighbors. His parents, Paul and Pamela, are civil engineers who work for the New York State Department of Transportation, an agency spokesman said.

The boys played basketball in their driveway, and had a trampoline in the backyard, neighbors said. Mrs. Gendron would walk around the neighborhood for exercise, and Mr. Gendron would wave while tending to his property. By the front door there is a round cement tile bearing a boy’s hand print, a heart, the year 2008 and the name Payton.

The parents didn’t answer phone calls seeking comment and weren’t at their home when a reporter visited Monday. One of Mr. Gendron’s lawyers, Daniel Dubois, declined to comment on Tuesday. In one diary entry, dated May 5 of this year, Mr. Gendron wrote that he competed on school swimming and soccer teams and, until Covid-19, volunteered as a firefighter. But he said over and over that he never fit in. In a separate entry, dated May 9, he wrote that serving as a youth leader in his Boy Scout troop was “the peak of my life,” but “everything went bad after.”

“It’s not that I actually dislike other people, it’s just that they make me feel so uncomfortable I’ve probably spent actual years of my life just being online,” he wrote in the May 5 entry. “And to be honest I regret it. I didn’t go to friend’s houses often or go to any parties or whatever. Every day after school I would just go home and play games and watch youtube, mostly by my self [sic].”

While neighbors and those who interacted with him said Mr. Gendron seemed quiet and responsible, his behavior grew erratic in recent years. On the first day of his senior year at Susquehanna Valley High School in 2020, he came to school wearing what appeared to be a full-body medical protective suit complete with gloves and gas mask. In his online journal, Mr. Gendron posted a photo of himself in class wearing the outfit. Later, he posted memes calling Covid a Jewish conspiracy.

He credited 4chan, where extremist views are expressed with few restrictions, with influencing him. In particular, he spent time on the platform’s “politically incorrect” page that is known among analysts as a hub for spreading far-right ideology, including white supremacy.

“I only really turned racist when 4chan started giving me facts that they were intellectually and emotionally inferior,” he wrote on May 5, referring to Black people.

Last spring, a teacher reported to school administrators that Mr. Gendron had written about wanting to carry out a shooting, a law-enforcement official said. The state police were called, and he was taken to a hospital for a mental-health evaluation before being released a day and a half later, according to Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.

Mr. Gramaglia said state and federal law enforcement didn’t detect any further warning signs involving Mr. Gendron until Saturday’s shooting.

“I spent 20 hours in a hospital’s emergency room on 5/28/2021,” Mr. Gendron wrote, in a post dated Dec. 9. “This was because I answered murder/suicide to the question ‘what do you want to do when you retire?’ on an online assignment in my Economics class.”

Mr. Gendron wrote in his Discord logs that his time in the hospital was “one of my worst nights of my life” and called it a turning point.

“I got out of it because I stuck with the story that I was getting out of class and I just stupidly wrote that down,” he wrote. “That is the reason I believe I am still able to purchase guns. It was not a joke, I wrote that down because that’s what I was planning to do.”

In a public letter, Superintendent Roland Doig said the local school district was “shocked and unspeakably saddened by the tragic, racially motivated hate crime that took place in Buffalo, New York on Saturday.” Mr. Doig said the district is cooperating with law enforcement and wouldn’t comment further.

By the time he was hospitalized, Mr. Gendron had already discovered racist theories online, and his hospital stay pushed him further toward action, he wrote.

He exhaustively discussed in his diary the “Great Replacement Theory,” a white racist belief espoused by previous mass shooters and promoted on extremist online forums. It claims Jewish conspirators use Black people, immigrants and others to undermine whites. He also cited as a key motivation the 2019 attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 51 dead. That lone gunman, who promoted the replacement theory, had live-streamed his attack on Facebook.

The Gendrons didn’t show outward signs of trouble at home, erecting a tent and inviting neighbors and friends to a party last June when Payton Gendron graduated from school. Neighbors recalled Mr. Gendron saying he would follow in his parents’ footsteps to become a civil engineer.

A photo posted on his high school’s Flickr account shows Mr. Gendron and another individual driving in a black Toyota convertible festooned with balloons and a banner adorned with his name in a senior class parade. After graduating, he briefly attended SUNY Broome community college during the fall semester of 2021 and spring semester this year, according to the school.

Mr. Gendron also worked for about four months this winter at the Conklin Reliable Market along the town’s main road, but left around three months ago, according to store owner John Gage.

“He was a real quiet kid,” Mr. Gage said. “Gave me two weeks’ notice when he left. Never had any problems with him.”

During this period, Mr. Gendron ruminated on Discord over his evolving plans for the coming attack. He wrote about browsing extreme corners of 4chan and Reddit every day. By early February, he wrote that he was skipping his college physics class to work on documents he planned to publish about his beliefs...

 

Renaud Camus' 'Le Grand Replacement'

Following-up from yesterday, "Great Replacement Theory."

The New York Times is very interested in this, as noted last night on Twitter.

Here's the newspaper's story from 2019, which bears a lot of similarity with its reporting yesterday on the Buffalo shooter, Payton Gendron (perhaps for political purposes). See, "The Man Behind a Toxic Slogan Promoting White Supremacy":

Here it is: 🫤 #Buffalo #BuffaloNY #BuffaloNewYork #BuffaloStrong #PaytonGendron https://t.co/7qs6KKH5f2

— Donald Douglas 📘 (@AmPowerBlog) May 16, 2022

PLIEUX, France — Though the writer had already lived in his castle for a quarter of a century, it was only three years ago that he finally restored it to its original purpose as a fortress.

The writer, Renaud Camus, rebuilt the top 10 feet of the 14th-century tower, giving him an even more commanding view of his surroundings: the village of 40 souls below; the Pyrenees, faintly visible some 100 miles south despite the midsummer haze; and, in every direction, the peaceful, rolling hills of the “eternal France” that he describes as under assault from what he calls hordes of immigrants.

Up in his castle, the France that Mr. Camus imagines has made him one of the most influential thinkers on the far right in his own country and elsewhere. In his writings, he describes an ongoing “invasion” of France by immigrants bent on “conquest” of its white, European population. To him, the immigrants are “colonizing” France by giving birth to more children and making its cities, towns — and even villages — unlivable.

Others have espoused similar ideas. But Mr. Camus’s portrayal of demographic change — le “grand remplacement,” or the supposed “great replacement” of France’s original population by newer arrivals, mostly from Africa — has become an extremist talking point, cited by mass killers in distant parts of the world.

“It’s a slogan that dramatizes the situation, talking of great replacement the same way we speak of the great barbarian invasions,” said Rudy Reichstadt, an expert on political extremism at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute in Paris. “Now, if you go to a horse race betting bar and talk politics, and you mention the great replacement, people will understand what you mean.”

The idea of the great replacement has directly influenced French politicians and thinkers. Interpreted and repackaged across the internet, it has resonated widely beyond France, including in white supremacist circles.

The men held in two recent mass shootings — at a Walmart in El Paso and at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand — both referred to the “great replacement” and the need to defend white populations against invading outsiders.

While decrying the killings, Mr. Camus said he had no regrets about coming up with the term.

“The great replacement has become a household word,” he said. “I take responsibility for it. I believe in its relevance.”

Stroking his white beard, Mr. Camus, who is not related to the 20th-century writer Albert Camus, sat in his expansive study — half the top floor of his castle filled with books and a handful of African masks. In contrast to the harsh words he chooses to describe France’s immigrants, he spoke softly, and sometimes with the mannerisms of another era. He and his partner of two decades, Pierre, addressed each other as “vous,” though they said they sometimes slipped into the informal “tu.”

Ensconced in his castle in southern France, in a village an hour’s drive across country roads from the nearest train station, Mr. Camus, 73, is perhaps an unlikely source of inspiration for the world’s far right and white supremacists. Until a few years ago, Mr. Camus was known, mainly by other French writers, as a novelist and a pioneering writer of gay literature. An early book about his sexual experiences, called “Tricks,” remains his most translated work.

Growing up in a conservative rural town in central France, Mr. Camus went to Paris in the 1960s and found a niche in the capital’s literary and artistic scene. He befriended Roland Barthes, who wrote the preface for “Tricks.” As a member of the Socialist Party, he became active in politics on the left.

Still, Mr. Camus longed to return to the countryside. He sold his Paris apartment and, in 1992, used the money to buy and restore the castle in Plieux, fulfilling a lifelong fantasy.

A few years after moving to Plieux, he had what he calls an epiphan that would shape his political views. While visiting a 1,000-year-old village in southern France, he said he saw a group of veiled women milling around a fountain.

“And in the ancient windows — beautiful, paired gothic windows — veiled women would appear all of a sudden,” he said. “It was really the population of eternal France that was changing.”

That led to the formation in 2002 of his own political party, l’In-nocence, which calls for an end to all immigration and promotes sending immigrants and their children back to their countries of origin.

But it was a decade later, when he publicly began using the term “great replacement” and wrote a book with the same title, that his influence in France began to be felt.

The great replacement, he wrote, indicates the “replacement of a people, the indigenous French people, by one or others; of its culture by the loss of its cultural identity through multiculturalism.”

He says he sees no contradiction between his earlier life as a gay writer on the left and his current role as an ideological beacon for the right, including violent extremists. He contends he has always told “the hard truths.”

Previous generations of European immigrants had been drawn by “love” for France, he wrote. But the newer arrivals since the 1970s — mostly from France’s former colonies in the Maghreb and in sub-Saharan Africa — didn’t come “as friends.” Instead, he declared, they came as conquerors and colonizers, filled with hatred and a desire to punish France. He singled out Muslims for “not wanting to integrate” into French society...

 

Great Replacement Theory

You'll be hearing more of this "great replacement theory" in the days ahead. It's not a conspiracy as much as a real theory that can be tested against evidence. Cathy Young, for example, debunks it, here: "The Replacement Theory -- And Terrorist Practice" (Via Memeorandum). 

The American Mind, the popular "national conservatism" website, defends the theory here: "Replace the Ruling Class," and "Shaping the Perfect Subjects: The managerial class wants to replace America’s core demographic with one it can more easily control."

Fox News --- and Trucker Carlson in particular --- have come under heavy fire since the killings. I quit watching his show, but obviously the Democrat Party's open borders policies are predicated on the supply a steady stream of illegal alien public welfare supplicants to build a permanent leftist-socialist-immigrant voting coalition. 

I did catch this segment at the time, last year, featuring Mark Styen (with video snippets of Tucker). Good times, heh:

Tucker Carlson: What is a Woman? (VIDEO)

This was the $64,000 question yesterday during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson tesitimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I covered this a bit yesterday, here: "Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn's Tenacious Interrogation of Supreme Court Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson (VIDEO)."

Background at the New York Times, "Ketanji Brown Jackson Asked to Define 'Woman' at Hearing."

And here's Tucker:

How Russia and Right-Wing Americans Converged on War in Ukraine (VIDEO)

Following-up from yesterday, "Putin's Challenge to the American Right (VIDEO)."

At NYT, "Some conservatives have echoed the Kremlin’s misleading claims about the war and vice versa, giving each other’s assertions a sheen of credibility":

Candace Owens @RealCandaceO reacts to the New York Times asking her why she spread the idea that Ukraine is a corrupt country, even though she got the information from their publication. pic.twitter.com/kjj6k5zMRf

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 23, 2022

After President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia claimed that action against Ukraine was taken in self-defense, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the conservative commentator Candace Owens repeated the assertion. When Mr. Putin insisted he was trying to “denazify” Ukraine, Joe Oltmann, a far-right podcaster, and Lara Logan, another right-wing commentator, mirrored the idea.

The echoing went the other way, too. Some far-right American news sites, like Infowars, stoked a longtime, unfounded Russian claim that the United States funded biological weapons labs in Ukraine. Russian officials seized on the chatter, with the Kremlin contending it had documentation of bioweapons programs that justified its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

As war has raged, the Kremlin’s talking points and some right-wing discourse in the United States — fueled by those on the far right — have coalesced. On social media, podcasts and television, falsehoods about the invasion of Ukraine have flowed both ways, with Americans amplifying lies from Russians and the Kremlin spreading fabrications that festered in American forums online.

By reinforcing and feeding each other’s messaging, some right-wing Americans have given credibility to Russia’s assertions and vice versa. Together, they have created an alternate reality, recasting the Western bloc of allies as provokers, blunderers and liars, which has bolstered Mr. Putin.

The war initially threw some conservatives — who had insisted no invasion would happen — for a loop. Many criticized Mr. Putin and Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Some have since gone on to urge more support for Ukraine.

But in recent days, several far-right commentators have again gravitated to narratives favorable to Mr. Putin’s cause. The main one has been the bioweapons conspiracy theory, which has provided a way to talk about the war while focusing criticism on President Biden and the U.S. government instead of Mr. Putin and the Kremlin.

“People are asking if the far right in the U.S. is influencing Russia or if Russia is influencing the far right, but the truth is they are influencing each other,” said Thomas Rid, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies Russian information warfare. “They are pushing the same narratives.”

Their intersecting comments could have far-reaching implications, potentially exacerbating polarization in the United States and influencing the midterm elections in November. They could also create a wedge among the right, with those who are pro-Russia at odds with the Republicans who have become vocal champions for the United States to ramp up its military response in Ukraine.

“The question is how much the far-right figures are going to impact the broader media discussion, or push their party,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington nonprofit. “It serves them, and Russia, to muddy the waters and confuse Americans.”

Many of their misleading war narratives, which are sometimes indirect and contradictory, have reached millions. While Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other platforms limited the reach of Russian state media online after the war began, a variety of far-right Telegram channels, blogs and podcasts took up the task of spreading the Kremlin’s claims. Inside Russia, state media has in turn reflected what some far-right Americans have said.

Mentions of bioweapons labs related to war in Ukraine, for example, have more than doubled — to more than 1,000 a day — since early March on both Russian- and English-language social media, cable TV, and print and online outlets, according to the media tracking company Zignal Labs.

The unsubstantiated idea began trending in English-language media late last month, according to Zignal’s analysis. Interest faded by early March as images of injured Ukrainians and bombed cities spread across the internet.

 

Tucker Carlson: 'What We're Watching is the Beginning of a War Between the United States and Russia' (VIDEO)

I quit watching Tucker last year, after he started getting so freakin' conspiratorial. He was great in 2020 when the pandemic just got going, but after Trump lost the election, it was crazy times at 6:00pm at Fox.

Make what you will of it:

Author Michael Wolff Roasts Brian Stelter Live, on His Own Show (VIDEO)

This was from a few days back, and lots of folks were tweeting the segment at the time.

From Tucker Carlson, at Fox News:

Plus, Wolff had an essay up at the New York Times yesterday, "Why I’m Sure Trump Will Run for President in 2024."

Tucker Slams Extreme Leftists on Mandatory Indoctrination in Our Schools (VIDEO)

A great, great opening segment.

Watch:

Cameras in the Classroom

Tucker Carlson from tonight's show:

Tucker Carlson and Mark Steyn (VIDEO)

I'm going to be busy and tired today, as I'm swamped with grading. 

On most days, at least at this point in the semester, and given what's happening at home, I don't get to watch much news. I am watching "Outnumbered" right now, though, which is really the only other Fox News show that I can watch, or well at least for now, as the network's changed a lot of its programming, and I need to sample more of it, so I'll know more about that later. 

In any case, I did get to watch Tucker last night, but it took me until after 7:00pm pacific time to finish it, due to all the home stuff mentioned above (though I did take a nap in the mid-afternoon, and that's because I've been getting little sleep due to all the things mentioned here, and that's not good for my health, but no worries, because I have a good doctor, and I have anxiety meds I can take as needed; and I haven't needed them much, because I have a plan and schedule that I'm [pretty much] able to keep, so that keeps me busy and my mind off all the things that make me want to take my meds in the first place.)

Jonathan Turley's been on Tucker's this week already, but he was on some Fox show yesterday, and that video's here, "Evidence was overwhelming in Derek Chauvin case, jury got it right: Turley."

Here's Tucker and Steyn, the later of whom is even more hilarious than Tucker, and hopefully he gets his own show too, as he not only deserves, but we do, sheesh. *Eye-roll.*

Tucker's full opening segment from last night is here, "Tucker: Political leaders took advantage of George Floyd's death."

And here's some Amazon shopping links, "Best Selling Products" and more here.

Have a good day! 

Corporations Get Political With 'Cancelling' Georgia After State Passes New Voting Rights Legislation (VIDEO)

At the video, Tucker Carlson shreds "woke" corporations who have, really, no business getting involved with "racial" politics in Georgia (or for any other state, frankly), and the only bummer about the video is it doesn't include the Turcker's interview with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who sounds like a stand-up guy, and pledged not to back down to our wannabe corporate dictators (and it ain't just Coca Cola and Delta Airlines, to say nothing, sadly, of Major League Baseball).

Of course, there's "mainstream" news coverage at the Los Angeles Times, "‘There is no middle ground’: Corporate America feels the pressure on voting rights."

And, naturally, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, "Companies, facing new expectations, struggle with pressure to take stand on Georgia voting bill":

Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to stay on the sidelines of the nation’s social and political debates after a year of intense protests that led many firms to declare their support for racial justice and opposition to attempts to overturn the presidential election.

On Friday, executives from more than 170 companies -- including Dow, HP and Estee Lauder -- joined the corporate push to protect voting access not only in Georgia but in states across the country, writing in a statement that “our elections are not improved when lawmakers impose barriers that result in longer lines at the polls or that reduce access to secure ballot dropboxes.”

“There are hundreds of bills threatening to make voting more difficult in dozens of states nationwide,” the companies said in the statement, which also included signatures from the CEOs of Target, Salesforce and ViacomCBS. “We call on elected leaders in every state capitol and in Congress to work across the aisle and ensure that every eligible American has the freedom to easily cast their ballot and participate fully in our democracy.”

But as major corporations speaking out about Georgia’s controversial voting law discovered earlier this week, deciding when to step in, how far to go and whether to follow up with actions, can be fraught.

On Fox News Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) compared early-voting rules in Georgia to other states and defended the measure. “They’re not going to get back on board because they’ve been pressured by their board of directors, who have been pressured by these activists. And there’s nothing I can do about that.”

He also said: “They’ll have to answer to their shareholders. There’s a lot of people that work for them and have done business with them who are very upset,” and said that “We are not going to back down when we have a bill that expands the opportunity for people to vote on the weekends in Georgia.”

After initially mild criticism of the measure, which was signed into law last week, companies scrambled to issue more forceful statements. James Quincey, the CEO of Coca-Cola, described the bill as “wrong” and “a step backward.” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian offered up an abrupt change in tone, calling the legislation “unacceptable” and contrary to the company’s values.

Those statements won guarded praise from activists — as well as calls for more concrete action. “Delta’s statement finally tells the truth — even if it’s late,” Nsé Ufot, head of the activist group New Georgia Project Action Fund, said in a statement.

But companies have struggled with growing expectations from the public and employees that they take stands on important social issues, forcing corporate leaders into positions on issues they’d probably prefer to avoid, from Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem to the “bathroom bills” that targeted transgender people to President Donald Trump’s statements about voter fraud in the 2020 elections.

Last summer, it was the Black Lives Matter protests, when many companies made clear their support for racial justice.

And now: voting rights.

At a time when public faith in a number of institutions — the presidency, Congress, the electoral process and the media — is faltering, many Americans continue to look at big companies and entrepreneurs with admiration.

“The whole idea of companies getting involved in political issues, it’s all pretty new. They prefer to stay above the fray,” said Bruce Barry, a management professor who teaches business ethics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “But now they are getting religion on these issues, including voting rights.”

For weeks, activists and civil liberties groups had been complaining about the proposed changes to Georgia’s voting laws — long before companies took serious notice. At first, the corporate reaction was mostly muted. The Georgia U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a statement expressing “concern and opposition.”

But on Wednesday, an open letter from 72 Black executives seemed to open the floodgates. The letter said the new Georgia voting bill would make it “unquestionably” harder for Black voters in particular to vote. The letter also said, “The stakes for our democracy are too high to remain on the sidelines.”

Executives from the companies that made Friday’s statement acknowledged these leaders, saying they “stand in solidarity with voters 一 and with the Black executives and leaders at the helm of this movement.”

“What we have heard from corporations is general statements about their support for voting rights and against voter suppression. But now we’re asking, put those words into action,” Kenneth Chenault, managing director and chairman of venture capital firm General Catalyst and the former CEO of American Express, who helped organize the letter from the Black executives, said in a CNBC interview... 

 

Wow! Tucker's Complete Opening Segment from Last Night's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight'! (VIDEO)

Well, I shouldn't be surprised. 

Fox News has been promoting Tucker as if he's the new reigning king of the American mass media, which, well, he most definitely is (at least in television news programming, as previously noted here). 

So, while I am surprised to see Fox News indeed upload his entire opening segment to YouTube, it's pretty logical, after all, considering that Tucker's doing the real news reporting --- including traveling the Central America to interview Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele --- that the idiot lying leftist "mainstream" networks refuse to touch (for all the regular reasons), for doing so would just totally f*ck up their stupid ideological lies and memes with all things related to illegal immigration, Trump's very laudable (yet also flawed and imperfect) policies on border security, and the Biden regime's epically dishonest and incompetent handling of the crisis (which these White Hose ghouls constantly refuse to identify as such). 

I'm not watching any news this morning, as I'm trying to get caught up on grading, but I did want to post some content here to the blog, as blogging's going to be light for a couple of days, as I travel out of town with my wife and young son to visit relatives in Fresno/Clovis. I should have an update on that perhaps later today, or early tomorrow morning, and I'll post some Amazon links for reader shopping opportunities, and of whose reader purchases are greatly appreciated.

Watch and enjoy:

Tucker Rips Bumbling and Stumbling 'China Joe's' Press Conference Debacle (VIDEO)

Following-up from last night, "Trey Gowdy Has the Clear Lead in Viewership for Fox News' 'Rotating' Fox News Primetime, Which Airs Daily, at 4:00pm Pacific Time (VIDEO)."

I will very pleased if Mr. Gowdy scores the 4:00pm broadcast, because then I might be able to have two straight hours of news programming that I actually would enjoy watching, and I won't get all the "woke" bullcrap from CNN, and, of course, I rarely, if ever, flip over to the clowns at MSNBC.

So, fingers crossed, because Tucker's "Da Man!"