The Irony Board: The 'Silenced' on FNC

I can't help laughing at all of the folks on the right who are up in arms about social media companies restricting their 'free speech' and complaining that they are being 'silenced' by Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and others. 

Why laugh, you ask? I only know they're complaining about being silenced because they're going on Fox News and telling everyone about it. 

For example, here's California farmer and Medal of Freedom recipient Rep. Devin Nunes, speaking on Sunday Morning Futures, hosted by Maria Bartiromo on Fox News (emphasis added).

But it's more than the just the financial aspect of that. Republicans have no way to communicate. It doesn't even matter if you're Republican or conservative, if you don't want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, where you get shadow-banned and nobody gets to see you and they get to decide what's violent or not violent, it's preposterous.

Yep - this is Devin 'frivolous lawsuit-filer' Nunes, the guy who sued Twitter because a parody account said mean things about him. But censorship is bad... and he gets to decide what's mean or not... Got it. 

And, the part about having no way to communicate? Saying that on a Fox News Channel (FNC) show, on not just the most-watched conservative network, but on the network that "crushed records and delivered the largest total day and primetime audience among total viewers in cable news history" in 2020, according to the Nielsen folks? Some irony there, right? 

And now, we've got this guy, Rep. Tom Kading, a state legislator from North Dakota, who is following in Nunes' footsteps. Speaking on Fox and Friends earlier today, Kading said he had drafted a bill back in December stating that

social media sites would be liable in a civil lawsuit for damages to a North Dakota resident "whose speech is restricted, censored, or suppressed," as long as it is not "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable."

And, since he introduced the bill, "things have only gotten worse," he said.

I'm frankly shocked at what's happening to our country and censoring does not create unity, it does not help the situation of division in our country, and it does not de-escalate the situation. All it really does is make those who have been silenced dig in deeper and be more suspicious of what's going on.

He's right: censoring doesn't create unity, or de-escalate the situation. Neither does tweeting relentlessly and untruthfully about a stolen election, or that the media are the enemy of the people and everything they report that is not to your liking is fake news, or that everything is beautiful and perfect when the entire universe knows it's not, or that the pandemic is under control, or that those who disagree with you is not a real American, or that people who don't do your bidding deserve to be driven out of office, and so on.  

I'd suggest that suing social media companies also doesn't create unity, or de-escalate things -and, Kading notably doesn't offer anything that does do those things. Not only that, but are social media companies or traditional media companies, including FNC in the unity-creating business anyway

Kading also talked about some other risks.

If a website comes out and selectively publishes information or manipulates true information in order to create a certain desired narrative, this restrictive action can essentially amount to defamation.

And, there's the real irony - the selective publishing, the manipulation of the truth, the defamation he mentions. 

Kading, remember, was talking on Sunday Morning Futures, just one of the FNC shows that had to run a tasty disclaimer - excuse me, a 'fact checking story,' correcting each show's lies.

In a three-minute segment aired on three shows that previously played host to some of the more zany election fraud claims coming from Trump’s advocates—Fox Business’ “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” and Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures” and Jeanine Pirro’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine”—Fox News appeared to retract allegations made against Smartmatic.

Dominion Voting Systems is not done yet, either; the company also warned Fox and others back in December that legal action is coming. 

Dominion Voting Systems, one of the targets of President Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the election that he lost, has warned Fox News, major Fox personalities, other conservative media outlets, radio host Rush Limbaugh and conservative lawyers that defamation litigation against them is “imminent.”

The voting machine company this week has sent 21 letters to the White House, Fox News, its hosts Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, the news outlets Newsmax, One America News Network, Epoch Times and others demanding they stop making defamatory claims about Dominion and that they preserve any documents they have relating to the firm.

Want even more irony? How about a settlement with the family of someone who was disparaged on the network ?

The Fox News Channel has reached a private settlement with the parents of the slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. The network had baselessly reported in May 2017 that Rich leaked thousands of Democratic party emails to Wikileaks during the height of the 2016 presidential campaign. 

The story, reported by Fox News' Malia Zimmerman and retracted seven days later, also suggested without any evidence that Democrats might have been linked to the killing of the 27-year-old Rich, a crime that has not been solved to this day. In response to NPR's questions, a Fox News spokesperson tells NPR that Zimmerman is no longer with the network. 

"The settlement with Fox News closes another chapter in our efforts to mourn the murder of our beloved Seth, whom we miss every single day," Joel and Mary Rich wrote in their statement. "We are pleased with the settlement of this and sincerely hope that the media will take genuine caution in the future."

I don't know about you, but if I was worried about censorship and divisiveness and a lack of unity, I'd probably find a different network to help share my story than the original - and still the best - home of division and loose facts.  

Sunday School 10/22/17

I took a stroll over to the middle school complex today, to check in with Maria Bartiromo, who had an exclusive sit down with president Trump which was broadcast today on Sunday Morning Futures. Here are some highlights.

First, they chatted about the chances of getting tax reform; here's Trump's take on things:

We’re doing very well, we had a fantastic vote as you know and with the budget, is, indirectly passed, it’s going to go through a little bit of an iteration but I think it’s going to end up I think again doing very well and I think we’re going to get our taxes, I think it’s going to be well, hopefully, before the end of the year but maybe much sooner than that.

You know there’s a great spirit for it, people want to see it, and I call it tax cuts it is tax reform also but I call it tax cuts, it’ll be the biggest cuts ever in the history of this country and I think that this tremendous appetite, this tremendous spirit for it not only by the people we’re dealing with in Congress but for the people out there that want to see something $5000, it can be $5000 average per individual, per group, and so I’m really looking forward to it, let’s see what happens.

Bartiromo noted that today is the 31st anniversary of the Reagan tax reforms, which as we've been told was the last time we had anything of this magnitude coming forward. And, she wondered if Trump had the votes.

I think we have the votes, I think that Rand Paul actually is going to vote for the tax cuts. I think that other people – you know, we had tremendous enthusiasm this time, you know health care I was told was tougher, but it was close. I mean so far I would say it’s not even a contest and I will tell you, speaking of health care, I believe we’re going to get that also. It’ll be in the form of block grants to the different states and it’ll be a wonderful healthcare, it’ll be a tremendous health care managed properly in smaller doses where you can really do it much more individually so I think we’re going to get that also in a little bit later probably in three or four months from now but I do believe we’ll have that long before the election in ’18. As far as taxes are concerned you see what’s happening it’s really doing well, great enthusiasm. 

Recognizing that Trump had favored, then opposed, then favored and finally opposed again the Alexander/Murray bipartisan effort on healthcare, Bartiromo asked him about his 'souring' on that.

Well, I’ve looked at it very very strongly and pretty much we can do almost what they’re getting. I think he’s a tremendous person, I don’t know Senator Murray, I hear very very good things but I know that Lamar Alexander is a fine man and he is really indebted to do good for the people. We can do pretty much what we have to do without, you know, the secretary has tremendous leeway in the, under the Obama plans, that’s one of the things that they did because it was so messed up they had no choice but to give the secretary leeway because they knew it had to be he or she would have to be changing all the time and we can pretty much do whatever we have to do just the way it is so, uh, this was going to be temporary prior to repeal and replace, we’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare and I think we actually have the votes.People are criticizing me for saying that I think we actually have the votes for that, you know we were basically one short and I think we’re gonna have the votes for that also Maria.

As to his petty squabbles with everyone, noting that his supporters feel the "bickering and the feuding" get in the way. She asked if she thought that was the case.

Here's what the Arguer-in-Chief had to say about that.

No and sometimes it helps to be honest with you so we’ll see what happens in the end but I think that actually sometimes it helps, sometimes it gets people to do what they’re supposed to be doing and, you know, that’s the way it is. I just want what’s right and for the most part they want what’s right too so we’ll see what happens but I do believe we have the votes for healthcare at the appropriate time and I think that we’re going to have the votes for taxes and I will say the fact that healthcare is so difficult makes the taxes easier and the Republicans want to get it done and it’s a tremendous tax cut I mean especially for the middle class and especially for business. We have, you know we’re losing our companies we have companies leaving and I have to say since I’ve been elected that’s really stopped that’s really slowed down. There’s a tremendous enthusiasm for business in this country so a lot of things have changed.

Bartiromo came dangerously close to declaring a war on Christmas - she nearly did.

She asked Trump whether, if Congress doesn't get the tax thing done, "should they forgo Thanksgiving and Christmas, should they be here if they don't have a bill on your desk by Thanksgiving?"

Well I think they should have and I think they will, I think a lot of things are happening unless you know it’s going to be right after that but I don’t even like them leaving but I will say this, I want to get it by the end of the year but I would be very disappointed if it took that long. It could be substantially less than that depending on what happens when we send the bill back to the House, you know they’ll send it back and people are gonna go and make 200 suggestions as opposed to maybe no suggestions because it’s a great bill, it’s going to be a great bill and we’re adjusting, we’re adjusting so that there’s no way that the middle class doesn’t greatly benefit. Every once in a while there’s a method under which, you know it could be that there are some people in the middle class won’t benefit as much as we want them to benefit and we’re making certain adjustments but I think we’re going to have it sooner rather than later.

After talking about a Paul Ryan interview in which Ryan said Trump was looking for a "fourth bracket" Trump pointed out there are already four brackets, it's just that no one will talk about it.

Well he really said that on the basis that I wanted it or was thinking about it because I wanted to make sure that the middle class gets taken care of so in that way yes, but actually we do have four brackets because we have a zero bracket and people aren’t including that so actually it would make it a fifth bracket as opposed to an eighth bracket on the - on the other side, on the other way I call it our competition which is the competition of the past No I think that, I think that when Paul says that we may not have that but I would rather do that than do anything to hurt the middle class.

The last question in this part of the interview had to do with Trump's fear of cutting taxes for the rich. She asked, "If the top earners pay 80% of the taxes, why are you so afraid to cut taxes on the top earners?" Trump's answer was, well, classic Trump.

I think this, look, you know I’m very happy with the way I’ve done prior to this in my civilian life, other people... look, it’s about me and representing rich people, let’s say, you know, representing, being representative of rich people. It’s very interesting to me, you know Bob Kraft was down, he was very nice, you know, he owns the Patriots, he gave me a Super Bowl ring a month ago which was very nice…he left this beautiful ring and I immediately give it to the White House and they put it someplace and that’s the way this, but he said to me, he’s a good man, he said to me, 'you have to do us all a favor, give the tax decrease to the middle class, we don’t need it, we don’t need it, we don’t want it, give it to the middle class'. And I’ve had many people, very wealthy people tell me the same thing. I’ve had very few people say “I want more, I want more” they really want to, see, you know the middle class has really not done very well over the last long period of time and so when Paul mentions maybe one more category which I’d rather not have, it may not happen but the only reason I would have and he does say this he’s very plain nobody said, if for any reason I feel the middle class is not being properly taken care of. 

The interview continued, but I'll be honest, I haven't finished watching it. It was challenging enough to transcribe the part I did. But I promise, I will give it a shot, and will let you know what he said about corporate taxes, if nothing else.

See you around campus.