Fox, Tucker, Dominion, Smartmatic, Greenwald, Newsmax

Trust me. In my normal way with headers like this, I'll tie it all together.

First, the actual news: Cucker Tarlson, known to some as Tucker Carlson, has been kicked to the curb by Fox News. Reports say it was actually mutual, as in Mediate quoting from Fox's release, but let's be real. CNN Biz notes that there's no farewell show or nothing. What aired Friday is it.

So why?

Many people bemoaned that Dominion didn't get an actual on-air apology from Fox negotiated as part of settling its lawsuit. That said, Fox had apologized before, and admitted "falsehoods" in its statement related to the settlement.

Was shit-canning Tucker a backdoor deal? I doubt it.

Was this a pre-emptive move with Smartmatic's lawsuit now teed up on the first hole, and for half again as much as Dominion? Possible.

UPDATE: Rupert himself offed Tucker, related to the Abby Grossberg lawsuit.

Was it to head off possible lawsuits by the likes of Ray Epps? Possible, and more, per that UPDATE link. That's the NYT saying that it was due to Cucker going conspiracy theorist on Epps and that the lawsuit, being about coerced testimony allegations as well as harassment ones, "needed" to go.

With Cucker now on voluminous record about hating Trump, even as for 2024, Ron DeSatan's campaign implodes and the GOP seems to be searching for a credible alternative to the racist permatanner, could it be about sweetening up to him? Possible.

Replacement? Well, I speculated on Twitter when I saw the initial news:

You're shitting me on Fox and Tucker dumping each other. If Greenwald (or maybe Taibbi) is his replacement, remember, you heard it here first.

And, there, I'm not joking.

You'll note the "maybe" after Taibbi. Matt still seems to be trying to straddle multiple political stools to some degree, and he knows that Fox would be a bridge too far for many contrarian leftists who hate Democrats (I dislike a fair junk of national ones myself) but hate wingnuts even more.

Glennwald? Different story.

He's never been a leftist, contra some leftists like David Bruce Collins who once claimed he was. He has long been a libertarian or libertarian-conservative, despite him denying the l-tard label. He's been a general rectal irritant worse than Carlson.

And, people would watch him.

That said, given his "don't edit" me fallout with the Intercept, and people before that, in the print world, would Fox want someone who would possibly be an even bigger prima donna? Would Greenwald have other hangups?

And, adding one sector to the header that I didn't originally have?

Newsmax has been struggling for PR, and struggling to continue to get carried by various cable providers. Would it make a play for Tucker? That said, Newsmax has a big old boner for Trump, and given that Carlson's thoughts on that are now out in the open, that would be a tough issue. OTOH, Newsmax loves conspiracy theorists.

UPDATE 2: Newsmax, hell. Vivek Ramaswamy, supposedly running against Trump himself said Cucker should jump in the race! Given that Cucker does indeed have less than fond feelings for Trump IRL, THAT would be interesting.

UPDATE 3: Joy Ann Reid notes Cucker has the trifecta of cable news firings.

UPDATE 4: Rolling Stone reports that Irena Briganti, Fox's head honcho for bullshitting (ie, corporate communications) has a shit file on Cucker in case he trashes it post-exit.

UPDATE 5: Contra Jefferson Morley channeling David Talbot, JFK conspiracy theory mongering had nothing to do with Cucker getting fired. Also via there, contra Counterpunch, no, Cucker was not fired for talking about US troops possibly fighting in Ukraine (he's not the first to make that claim) or related. And, contra Jonathan Cook there channeling Glennwald, Tucker is only on a new path of populist pandering.

NBC: The new Fox uptown? Megyn Kelly, Greta Van Susteren and reality

First, it was Megyn Kelly moving to 30 Rock.

Now, Greta Van Susteren is headed to MSNBC.

A few notes, starting with some for the snowflake neoliberals out there.

First of all, don't think this is going to help the Peacock's enlightenment level. After all, both are lawyers, and both probably knew about sexual harassment issues of Gretchen Carlson (and others?) at Faux, and apparently said nothing, did nothing. Kelly even claimed Ailes sexually harassed HER, and ...

That was it. Crickets. Said nothing more. Did nothing more.

Second, neither is that close to liberal in general. Right-neoliberal might be the best to hope for. (That's even as the Old Gray Lady, at the first link, is already trying a bit of spinning.)

Third, don't think that Madcow Rachel Maddow will rub off that much on either. She's no more than a left-neoliberal, really.

Fourth, sorry, Megyn:

In an interview with Charlie Rose on “CBS Sunday Morning” last year, Ms. Kelly described the television show of her fantasies. “How about if we merge a little Charlie Rose, a little Oprah, and a little me all together,’’ she said. “And we serve that up as an hour? Wouldn’t you watch that?” 

But people aren't watching a daytime version of Charlie Rose. Not the high-dollar viewers that NBC wants. Nor are you a dash of Oprah. Maybe a more glam, kinder, gentler Phyllis Schlafly? Certainly not if an informed female guest on the daytime show brings up Kelly's past silence on sexual harassment.

Oh, and NBC and MSNBC? Don't expect some cascade of new viewers from this.

Farewell #Cosmos, for the #NBAFinals — 3.5 stars overall (updated)

Yep, that's what it was for me on Sunday night.

I flipped the channel halfway through the final episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's remake of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, to watch Game 2 of the NBA Finals. And, didn't regret it a second.

Telescopes similar to this, but without the Cosmos theme,
were available at 40 percent less than these at Space.com.

Now, I'm jumping head-on into controversy, per the photo at right of a Cosmos-themed telescope with a ripoff price, along with other similar items offered for outrageous overcharges at Space.com.

I've blogged several times about various issues with Cosmos. Let's start with the name of the host, and the huge commercialization of the program and said host. Yes, some of that happened in Sagan's version, but not as much.

Second, I don't know if I was alone or not in channel-flipping. I do know that ratings, after the opener, had a steady fall until the finale. So, despite the earnest and hardcore touting of the program, like this wrap-up by Donald Prothero, viewers largely disagreed. It's interesting, or "interesting," that Prothero never mentions this aspect. I tried commenting there, but it didn't post; I think I'm still on ban there.

As for the why of the ratings slump, I think that's in part because Tyson and the production team never settled on a core audience.

If it was adults, those cheesy cartoon graphics never should have been part of the program. If it were for children, even pre-teen to teen older "youth," it should have had a different educational and didactic focus.

Back to Prothero, who compares Cosmos, on Fox, to Neil Shubin's "Inner Fish" three-parter on PBS. Tis true that is might not have had the same ratings. But, as I noted, it was MUCH better produced, better organized, and threw down the gauntlet of evolutionary challenge to creationists in a much better way. And, that was without the commercial money Tyson et al had to blow, which makes the Cosmos reboot sadder yet.

Related to that, as I note here and here, Cosmos had some "framing" errors, too, like its display of Robert Hooke as a cartoonish villain. There was a bigger one than that, though.

Tis true that Sagan, in the original, got the Library of Alexandria destruction wrong. In general, though, Sagan, like Steve Gould, believed in the idea of NOMA, or non-overlapping magisteria, between science and religion.

And, I think with things like Giordano Bruno, and his finale talking about "faith in science," Tyson has a different take.

I am in the middle. First, evolution by natural selection talks only about the development of life. It's different, to be technical, than the origins of life, which on naturalistic views, are some sort of abiogenesis.

So, can the neo-Darwinian synthesis be compatible with religious viewpoints? Yes. Is it an easy compatibility? No. Is it a likely or probably compatibility? No.

That said, one can still recognize that science, tentatively, specifically shuts down some metaphysical issues. I've blogged myself about chimeric births undercutting the idea of a metaphysical soul.

But, one can state that without deliberately looking for opportunities to take shots, especially when, in the Bruno case, they're not just mildly wrong, but hugely wrong.

And, on Bruno ... isn't science supposed to be about empirical research? Neil, there was plenty of stuff to tell you that you and your staff had Bruno wrong. It's this "framing" attitude that almost led me to down-star this half a point.

And, if you're evangelizing for science, why would you risk pissing off part of your target audience, too? No, not fundamentalists.

But, I see as what should have been the target audience as being 35-54 adults, moderately conservative both politically and religiously, but not stuck in ruts. Republican-leaning self-identified independents politically. Living in a large town, small city or suburb in the Midwest or more advanced portions of the South. Members of a mainline Protestant denomination like the United Methodist Church,  that trends moderately liberal nationally, but leans moderately conservative, but not hardcase, in the geographic areas I mention. And the bitch-slap of religion via Bruno wouldn't help you reach them.

Back to the ratings issue, though. Prothero unfairly compares the two Cosmos. First, PBS wasn't part of Nielsen ratings back then. Second, Prothero elsewhere in the piece semi-disparagingly compares PBS to commercial TV, so it's almost like he's setting up a straw man. Third, we may not have Neilsens, but Cosmos was the most watched PBS series, Wiki says, before Ken Burns' "Civil War" set. As for "Inner Fish," it's almost impossible to find full top-to-bottom Nielsen ratings of previous weeks online, including at Nielsen's own website, so I don't know what audience it had, just that it was a damn site better than Cosmos.

And, those sliding ratings are why I think Fox bumped up the sale date of Cosmos DVDs by two weeks. It wanted to sell, sell, sell before people forgot, forgot, forgot.

Was Cosmos nice in a reboot? Yes, but also "nice."

Three and a half stars, or a B-minus. Production values, editing, coherence all dragged this baby down like a lead anchor versus what it could have been. And, I don't need to participate in a quasi-tribalist rah-rah for it out of Tyson being a "scientific skepticism" hero or whatever. And, yes, I think there are bits of tribalism behind some of the blinder touting of the Cosmos remake.

Tyson himself reinforces this idea, and my thoughts of the reboot being less than ideal, when he talks about science as a "trending" issue. Really? I had no idea that "science" was something we had to monitor for SEO keyword usage, Twitter hashtags, etc.

It's this type of thinking that's behind the dumbing down of Discover, Scientific American, etc.

Who will win this year's #USOpen?

Well, we know Tiger Woods won't.

And, I'll guesstimate that Phil Mickelson will find a new way to lose. Probably something involving one of the sandy "collection areas at Pinehurst No. 2.

Speaking of, I'm looking forward to this year's Open, and the set-up that's been compared a bit to a British Open.

And, per the first link, if Johnny Miller hates it, then it must be good. That said, I am pretty sure I'll miss him as part of NBC's coverage team, as this is the last hurrah at the Open for the Peacock. And, Joe Buck on golf? Well, let's see. Greg Norman as his analyst could be good. 

I do NOT want NFL yardage marker type yellow lines superimposed on holes, or any other high-tech crap, which, unfortunately, may be part of why a "new USGA cadre" chose Fox over NBC for a new contract.

Meanwhile, back to Pinehurst.

Frankly, I like the Mike Davis ideas of graduated rough, especially when combined with the risk-reward factor that multiple tee boxes offer. If you're Jim Furyk, you need to open, or focus, your mind a bit more for a potential 100-yard difference on a tee shot. 

And, maybe, since they're trying Pinehurst the "original way," and Chambers Bay is next year's venue, and Erin Hills in 2017 Whistling Straits might be considered for a US Open, after multiple PGA titles. In fact, the second course there, the Irish Course, might be an interesting alternative to the main course for such an event.

And, again, back to Pinehurst. 

My horse for the course is Rory McIlroy. My sleeper is Lee Westwood.

And, my wild hair.

Victor Dubuisson becomes the first Frenchman to win a golf major in modern times.

Conservative shilldom doesn't float Faux News stock

Over at Forbes, Peter Cohan has a great column about how it may be time for Fox News parent News Corporation, which is after all a publicly traded corporation, to go beyond dumping Rupert Murdoch flunkies, but to dump the Murdochs.

Why? Because they're bad for business, that's why:

Over the last decade, News Corp’s stock has been in the doldrums. It’s lost 15% of its value since July 14, 2001 while the Dow Jones Industrial average has gained 21%. And that’s not surprising when you consider that News Corp. has been earning way less than its cost of capital. For example, in 2009 its economic value added — after tax operating income compared to its weighted average cost of capital — was negative $9.5 billion. That “improved” to negative $1.1 billion in 2010.

If you are a shareholder, it’s hard to find a reason to celebrate Murdoch’s control over this company.

Cohan even throws out a potential new CEO name: Lou Gerstner, former IBM turnaround artist.

One could argue for media stocks in general to be struggling. But, News Corp. has cable channels, pay cable channels and other media ventures that are immune from the ad plunge of newspapers and network TV.

Its other assets include American Idol, a rugby league, a sports simulation website (fantasy sports to the next level), an Aussie equivalent of Monster or CareerBuilder and part ownership of Hulu. Let's not forget that his publishing side includes HarperCollins and Zondervan as well as all of his newspapers. And, he also has the apolitical FoxSports.

What that means is that Faux News and other ventures are a fucking lead weight.

That said, Cohan's colleague at Forbes, suggests that Murdoch could pre-empt that by taking News Corp. private. He's got a $5 billion buyback plan, apparently to do just that.

This strategy makes sense because Murdoch has clearly never had as his top priority creating value for other shareholders. Far from it . His priority has been the aggrandizement of media power the past 11 years, especially by vastly overpaying for the Wall Street Journal. A massive write-off of over $2 billion was the result. Never you mind; Murdoch controlled the Wall Street Journal.

So, if you're a News Corp. investor, and one who actually, even if a strong conservative, cares about making some money, are you elbowing others aside trying to get Uncle Rupert to buy you out rather than others? Afraid that you'll be stuck with albatross-like stock after it goes private? But, if you bought into it because you believed the myth of Rupert, we liberals are laughing at you, not with you.

A Lou Gerstner would see them for what they are: equivalents of the Washington Examiner.

The Examiner is different, of course, in that it's privately held by at least some of the Moonie family. So, if you're a News Corp. investor, do you really want to continue to fatten the ego and the wallet of a man and family as stupid and intransigent as Sun Myung Moon and offspring?

Murdoch spied on the Queen?

WTF? I was dumbfounded enough when I heard News of the World had snooped on then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

But, spying on Queen Elizabeth II? Murdoch, though now an American citizen, was born in a Commonwealth nation. He knows this crosses new lines.

His reporters were also accused of paying Queen Elizabeth II's bodyguards for secret information about the monarch, potentially jeopardizing her safety. ...

London's Evening Standard newspaper reported that corrupt royal protection officers sold personal details about Queen Elizabeth II — including phone numbers and tips about her movements and staff — to journalists working for the Murdoch tabloid News of the World, raising questions over a breach in national security.

And, raising new questions about just how low in the unethical gutter Murdoch will stoop. The story notes he's arrived in Britain to try to perform fire control. I'm surprised he didn't cut his staff off, stay in America, and let them sink or swiom on their own.

That said, there may be a silver lining here in the U.S.:

Legal experts said Monday it is possible Murdoch's U.S. companies might face legal actions because of the shady practices at the News of the World, his now defunct British tabloid. In the U.S., Murdoch owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, among other holdings.

They said Murdoch's News Corp. might be liable to criminal prosecution under the 1977 Corrupt Foreign Practices Act, a broad act designed to prosecute executives who bribe foreign officials in exchange for large contracts.

But, because Obama's a suck-up who's "looking forward," this is unlikely. And, should such case be appealed to the Supreme Court ... how many of its members who take money from people with ties to Murdoch would recuse themselves?

Still, we can dream, can't we?

Meanwhile, how much more balls-less will British Deputy Prime Minister/Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg be? How much more balls-less will the party be, rather than break coalition with the Conservatives and Murdoch toady David Cameron? If not over this, it will be over nothing.

Norm Ornstein said it

"Cable news is a joke."

Ornstein was talking about Faux News' decision to "suspend" Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, now that they've formed presidential exploratory committees. (On a side note, what keeps Ornstein at AEI, anyway?)

In the same "Room for Debate," I was surprised Fred Wertheimer didn't call for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

Faux News caves on GOP vs Tea Party

A few months back, I blogged wondering where Faux News would butter its bread if Tea Party stridency or craziness butted heads with what passes today for more mainstream GOP ideology. Well, as Frank Rich points out, through Faux shoving Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party response to President Obama's State of the Union address onto web feed only, we now know.

And, as Rich also points out, the other Rupert Murdoch organ, the Wall Street Journal, gave her little more than footnote status in print.

Why? Rich again:

What were they all afraid of? The answer cuts to the crux of the right’s plight less than three months after its supposed restoration. Having sold itself in 2010 as the uncompromising champion of Tea Party-fueled fiscal austerity, the enhanced G.O.P. caucus arrived in Washington in 2011 to discover that most Americans prefer compromise to confrontation and favor balanced budgets in name only.

But, crazy aunts can't always be trapped in cyberattics in the 21st century. Besides, as Rich adds, the GOP has many, many crazy aunts and uncles. And, like whack-a-mole, Faux and the WSJ can't keep them all batted down forever.

Neither can Speaker Permatan, John "Cry Me A" Boehner.

Realistically, this is a no duh, eh? The Tea Party's been used by the astroturfers, just like the Religious Right 30 years ago.  It's all about viability, power, money to burn, etc.

That said, the next 12-18 months will be fun to watch. What if Mama Bear Palin starts pushing publicly on Faux News for it to air the likes of Bachmann more? Will Rupert Murdoch have a meltdown? It would be fun to watch ... the immovable force of unfair meet the irresistible object of unbalanced.

Juan Williams, pots, kettles and Faux

Faux News commentator Juan Williams, commenting on the resignation of Ellen Weiss, the NPR exec who fired him after his anti-Muslim comments:

Williams told Fox News that the executive who fired him last year "represented a very ingrown, incestuous culture" at NPR that was not open to different perspectives.

Pots and kettles, Juan. In general, and especially given your new boss.

That also said, it shows cross-media incestuousness by NPR in search of some elusive balance. Hell, stop it. Get Mara Liasson off Faux, too, NPR.

The NPR internal review of Weiss's actions is here.

There's actually some good things in there about reporters' participation and interaction with today's political world, and reframing NPR standards.

As for Faux, it has no standards in the first place.

Wikipedia is NOT Faux News

In blogging earlier today about NASA’s breathless hyping of its arsenic-using bacterium, I cited this Wikipedia page as a source for the fact that other arsenic presences in “organic” compounds was already known. And, when I dropped this link on a couple of different ScienceBlog sites, like Greg Laden’s, people went ape-shit.

Folks, as the header says, Wikipedia is NOT Faux News.

As I said rhetorically to those people, I now say in general, re the specific NASA post:

For readers who criticize Wikipedia, before the NASA story broke, the three footnotes on the arsenic section prior came from the University of Minnesota, NIH, and New Scientist. Got problems with all of them, too? The first two footnotes for the page as a whole were to National Academy of Sciences publications. Beyond that, Pharyngula, in his post about the NASA story, also has information on how arsenic in organic compounds is nothing new.

So, let’s get over the false skepticism about Wikipedia.

Now, in cases of history, biography or political science involving living persons or ongoing events, Wikipedia has a well-earned reputation for needing a skeptical look, though it’s getting better with new controls installed earlier this year.

Natural sciences? Different story. I challenge readers to show me a Wikipedia post in the natural sciences that’s contains monkey-wrenched information. Is it college-level textbook quality? Maybe not, but maybe so. It depends on the individual page. It’s usually at least as good as a high-school science textbook.

And, Wikipedia normally does NOT succumb to wingnuts. Its article on vaccine conspiracy, for example, has no room for antivaxxers' claims getting scientific or medical acceptance. Ditto its article on thimerosal controversy.

In brief, random reading, Wikiepedia's cold fusion article was the only one I saw that even halfway approached giving credence to non-mainstream science.

And, on the plus side, Wiki even has an article (more a list of links to individual articles) about topics generally considered as pseudoscience.

For people who think they're being skeptical by dismissing all of Wikipedia, or at least all science articles, they're not.

Here's an analogy. Just because Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt gives every appearance of being a warmonger on anything associated with Iraq or Afghanistan, and otherwise willing to accept uncritically anything voiced by a presidential administration as long as it doesn't go left of center, do I dismiss every Post editorial, let alone every Post op-ed columnist? Of course not.

Anyway, back to the NASA story vs. Wikipedia. I still say NASA's motives behind fluffery of this story is what needs scrutiny more than a Wikipedia science page.

Beyond fluffery, there appears to have been a lot of rushing this story to print, which, ironically, has a direct connection to cold fusion. There, the University of Utah pushed Pons and Fleischmann forward on a fast track so that it could establish priority on some patents.

Mitt Romney in either great or horrible shape in 2012

Krugman notes that every major GOP 2012 presidential contender except Mitt Romney works for the Politburo, I mean, Fox News.

So, either he has no shot at the "anointing" from Fox that they all get, and therefor no chance at the GOP nomination.

Or, he can watch them all club each other, let Fox's anointing be seen as truly Faux, and win.

Or, he's going to run as Teapot Tommy (My Head is Flat) Friedman's Tea Kettle Party's candidate.

Hey, don't laugh at that last idea.

Mitt doesn't quite have Ross Perot money, but, he's got enough. Freed of pandering to Tea Partiers, and sounding saner than Perot, he could make quite the appeal.

Faux News hearts terrorists!

What other answer could there be for all of this, as Frank Rich expostulates:

What does Faux News accept $3 billion with a B from the obviously terrorism-supporting Saudi Arabia? C'mon, TPers, answer me about your top propaganda outlet? And, why is it undercutting Gen. Petraus' counterinsurgency work in A-stan? C'mon, TPers, answer me!

Ed Schultz:: Obama is afraid of Faux News

Read his specific criticisms; they're all right, not just of Obama but some Dem senators. Too bad they won't listen.

Fox News knows where its bread is buttered on Tea Party vs. GOP

I've always figured that when push came to shove between Tea Partiers and GOP inside baseball, Fox wouljavascript:void(0)d clearly come down on the side of inside baseball. And it has. In spades.

When did you think you would read this from Fox?

(T)he rallies have also attracted the kinds of mistruths, exaggerations and conspiracy theories that make Tea Party leaders cringe.

Then, followed by a full laundry list of actual nuttery.

That said, why now? What big issue is pushing Fox to feel that it has to issue a smackdown? Is it perhaps that some of the GOP primary battles are getting too heated?

Note to Faux News' latest global warming denialism

Note to Faux News and Faux News lovers who have become global warming deniers. Per Stephen Colbert, who observed on his show last night: "It is dark outside ... we can only assume the sun has been destroyed."

Folks, you can start by learning the difference between "weather" and "climate."

Second, they need to learn the difference between "local" and "global."

Fact of the matter is, with the stubborn Greenland high causing goofy East Coast and mid-South weather, much of the Arctic has had well above normal temps this winter.

Fox boo-hoos AP's Palin fact-checking

Fox calls it overkill and politically motivated for the Associated Press to have used 11 people to fine-tooth-comb "Going Rogue."

Well, she's told enough whoppers, the AP was simply being prepared.

NYT clueless about Fox

John Harwood claims that the audiences at other news channels have tilted as sharply as Fox. That is surely true, but, audiences aren’t producers or programming. The viewers are leaving Fox because there’s nothing there for them if they’re not wingers; it’s not that CNN or, with partial exception, MSNBC, has retooled its programming.

Obama dissing Fox to appear liberal?

Over at Newsweek, Jon Meacham has a very interesting thesis — the Obama Administration’s dust-up with Fox News is a way of appearing liberal without actually doing anything liberal.

And, if this is part of the strategy, it surprises me not one whit. I would not even be surprised if I found out Team Obama and Fox were coordinating this for the alleged benefit of both.

But, Meacham goes beyond that, to say we are past both FDR and Ronald Reagan in political alignments today.

Martyr Fox News can't even get martyrdom facts rigt

Miscommunication, not martyrdom.

Obama takes a pass on getting tough on Fox

After his advisors’ tough talk about how Barack Obama was going to talk back to Fox, after Bill Moyers’ sympathetic and in-depth interview of Rev. Jeremiah Wright gave Obama the perfect leverage for pushing back, he didn’t.

I don’t watch the Sunday news talks, so I don’t know exactly how mild he was, but it doesn’t sound good. It’s like he’s lost his Politics of Change™ soul in the last month, accepted the Politics of Timidity™ after attack ads, combined with the lack of depth behind the Politics of Change™ left him there, and hasn’t moved on.