Media, Politics, Uncategorized

Covering Or Campaigning? Fox News Anchors Appear With Trump At Missouri Rally [Updated]

440px-The_Yellow_Press_by_L.M._GlackensI have been highly critical of what I view as the erosion of the line between journalism and advocacy in cable news, including a column this week criticizing CNN for its unrelenting anti-Trump coverage.  MSNBC has previously been criticized for its host, Al Sharpton, appearing at campaign rallies.  Now Fox is facing an equally serious incident after Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro.  Both are known to be close confidants of Trump, but they also work for a news organization that is covering Trump and this election.  While many view the journalistic rule of separation as artificial in the age of partisan cable programming, it represents the most glaring breach in the rule that we have seen.  The incident raises an increasing conflict with journalistic values and programming.  All of the networks now have anchors who are openly partisan but maintain facial neutrality by not contributing or campaigning for parties.  The fear is that a departure from that technical rule will lead to a race to the bottom of networks working as an extension of political parties and a return to the age of “Yellow Journalism.” Update: Fox News has rebuked both Hannity and Pirro for their participation.

Cable networks now increasingly maintain fairly homogeneous viewerships composed of people who seek “echo programming” that take a consistent liberal or conservative perspective. It is part of the deepening divisions in our country where people only hear on viewpoint and news that confirm their political preferences.  In that environment, the separation of actual campaigning can seem precious. However, the erosion of the line between reporting and campaigning among media figures.

Hannity was billed as one of the people to appear with Trump at the rally with Rush Limbaugh. He later said that he would be simply having a show at the event and emphasized that “to be clear, I will not be on stage campaigning.”

Sean Hannity

✔@seanhannity

In spite of reports, I will be doing a live show from Cape Girardeau and interviewing President Trump before the rally. To be clear, I will not be on stage campaigning with the President. I am covering final rally for my show. Something I have done in every election in the past.

However, the President called up Hannity and Pirro to the stage and made things worst for Fox News by saying “I have a few people that are right out here, and they’re very special. They’ve done an incredible job for us. They’ve been with us from the beginning, also.” Referring to Fox anchors as his people who are doing “an incredible job for us” is a serious problem for network.
Hannity then declared (likely in jest), in pointing at reporters at the rally, “By the way, all those people in the back are fake news.”
Pirro declared  “If you like the American that [Trump] is making now, you’ve got to make sure you get out there tomorrow if you haven’t voted yet.”
The incident raises the question of the status of cable hosts who on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox leave no doubt about their allegiances.  The media appears to be moving toward a new status of commentator hosts who openly align themselves with campaigns.  That would mean changing network rules on staff remaining apolitical by classifying certain hosts as non-journalists.
It would represent a return to an earlier era in media where papers openly advocated for politicians or political parties or causes.  Yet, the allegiance of hosts is obvious every night in programming and the question is now whether there show be a new status of a commentator host who is no longer subject to journalistic standard. The problem is that these networks continue to define themselves as journalistic organizations and rely on that status.
Should networks abandon the rules of apolitical status for employees and allow some hosts to be openly partisan?

189 thoughts on “Covering Or Campaigning? Fox News Anchors Appear With Trump At Missouri Rally [Updated]”

  3. Fox cable programming is unabashedly pro Republican, pro conservative, MSNBC is unabashedly pro Dem, pro liberal ( progressive) CNN used to be more of a middle ground, but since Trumps election any pretense of being unaffiliated has been exposed.

    For worldwide developing news I still go to CNN, who has better coverage and personnel stationed around the world.

  4. o.k. then….Just like 9/11 when Bldg. 7’s collapse was announced 20 mins before it happened:

    “MSNBC “Mistakenly” Shows Results Of Florida Governor Race One Day Early” find a Zero Hedge

    Trust the Media! They’re in on it so they should know!!!!

    2. Typically, sometime before a building is going to collapse there are visual and audible signs that the structure is under strain. And such signs lead to the notification that Building 7 was going to collapse. That’s all that happened with regards to early reports that bldg 7 had already collapsed.

      1. yes whatever you bring up don’t bring up that. there’s no point. people see it or they dont

        this is an orange

        2. I’m not calling anyone a lunatic…just wrong, respectfully.

          The reason for this type of collapse comes down to the new structural design used in buildings WTC 1, 2, and 7. In order to have large open floor plans and in order to minimize the amount of structural steel used(by 50%), a tube-frame was used wherein the supporting columns are both pushed to edges and in toward the center with floor trusses (rather than floor columns) used to provide the entire structure the needed rigidity. If the floors start falling because the trusses fail, then the entire structure falls exactly as you see in all three WTC buildings. Trusses are notorious for their failure rate during a fire…never trust the truss.

          I don’t insult those who think we haven’t been told the truth about 9/11…I’m certain the truth is hidden. For me, it’s clear that Alec station deliberately withheld it’s knowledge that top Al-Qaeda terrorists-who they knew were about to conduct a major strike in the US- from those who would have stopped them(FBI, Richard Clarke, other CIA stations, etc). We know the names of those almost certainly involved: Richard Blee, Tom Wilshire, Dina Corsi, etc. But these names and their story remain unknown to the masses.

          1. maybe so I am no expert on engineering or demolition but i have seen quite a few say that buildings dont just collapse like that without simultaneous cutting charges. it matters very little to what is at hand today, perhaps

            just as it matters very little the ther very perplexing things about 9/11 which remains unexplained like why were all the israeli art students suddenly thrown out of the country or why did israeli software company odigo get last minute warnings to evacuate the building shortly before the hijacks and what exactly is in the classified part of the 9/11 about the Saudis.

            observe that the Saudis and the Israelis have benefitted strategically alike from our interventions in afghanistan, libya, iraq, and syria and it kind of makes you wonder

            Trump alluded to these things in the election but once the Deep State had him by the short hairs you can see that he followed the same tired old playbook all the others have since whomever took over after Nixon and Kissinger. I think those two were geniuses of foreign policy and Trump was headed in their direction but seems stalled for now. Maybe things turn out ok today in the election and with a stronger hand, he will finish in NKorea and deliver a peace with the Taliban too. those twin victories would raise him to a level of success he currently has not in my viewpoint

            it’s way above my pay grade, anyways

            1. Kurtz, Was the Odigo building in hit by the attack? No. Was it the Odigo corporation that received the message? No. Was the information shared with the FBI. Yes. Do you know what the message said? Do you know who received the message?

      2. Especially as the firefighters stopped attempting to put out the fire, due to lack of water pressure, and pulled back at least 7 blocks.

  5. I’ll go you one better: Pirro bills her Trump vainglory show as “JUSTICE with JUDGE Janine”. “Justice” from a “JUDGE”? I wonder whether the non college educated resentful white men who constitute the majority of Faux News’s viewers understand how inappropriate it is for a former judicial officer to peddle their opinions under the rubric of “Justice”. I don’t know whether this woman still has a law license, but she sure isn’t a practicing judge. She spews some of the most toxic and deceitful rhetoric on Faux News, which is saying a lot, all of which makes her trading on a former judicial title all the worse. Then, to top it off, she calls her hateful, slanted rhetoric “JUSTICE”. This conduct has to constitute a disciplinary violation, so if she still has a law license, someone should report her.

    1. I wonder whether the non college educated resentful white men

      Natacha fancies she’d educated and something other than resentful.

        1. Well, Natacha, we often don’t see ourselves as others do.

          You’re exceptionally clueless, however.

  6. Journalistic values? I don’t see reporting values? Ditched TV 19 years ago and newspapers 21 years ago. They have no value. That goes for the advertising triple. False there is as simple as saying. we already ran out of that offer. You value for the dollar there are three places. Amazon,* Walmart, and The dollar stores including Grocery Outlet.

    *The asterik is for Bezos selling manuals on how to build explosive and incendiary devices. I also don’t like their on line catalog which leaves out key pertinent information. But compared to the other stores? The US Government Printing Office alone oif the specific and accurate manual I’m referring too. Thanks to President Carer lifting the classification without check to see what he was doing.

  7. Neither are close confidants of Trump and both are opinion journalists. Pirro, by the way, was a Republican elected official in New York. What George Will said a generation ago: “Anyone who thinks I claim to be objective hasn’t been reading the column”.

    In fact, (bar Fox) every element of the media which trades in public affairs is part of the nexus of interests around the Democratic Party, as is much of the entertainment media. This is true of PBS and NPR as well, which are publicly funded. (Democrats have a charming habit of assuming public institutions are theirs by right see Peter Shill’s remarks). Making a point of issuing a delict to Fox every time you take the egregious CNN to task is just smarmy.

  8. Liberal, Progressive, Socialist, Communist, Democrat “Journalists” is an oxymoronic contradiction in terms. Their industry is one of propaganda and indoctrination. Fundamentally, the central planning, control of the means of production (i.e. “regulation”), redistribution of wealth and social engineering they promote, covertly and overly, is absolutely and irrefutably unconstitutional.

    Understanding that Americans enjoy freedom of the press, why is there no swift and easily accessible civil resolution for falsehood, fabrication, fraud and defamation by CNN, PMSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR ET AL.?

    Thankfully the liberal wackjob in the case below was fired immediately.
    ___________________________________________________________________________________

    Michigan Reporter Fired After Accidentally Leaving John James Vulgar Voicemail
    By Peter D’Abrosca

    A local reporter from Michigan has been fired from her post after she accidentally left U.S. Senate candidate John James a vulgar voicemail, according to several reports.

    “Hi, my name is Brenda Battel, I’m a reporter with the Huron Daily Tribune in Bad Axe, Michigan,” Battel said in the voicemail.

    “I’m looking to set up an appointment with Mr. James for some time on Wednesday for a phone interview regarding the election results,” Battel continued. “I’m probably going to send an email over to the info@johnjamesforsenate.com with some details. Um, if you’d like to call me back, my number is … [redacted] … Thank you.”

    Battel, thinking she hung up the phone, proceeded to curse James out to a colleague.

    “Man, if he beats her… Jesus! F****** John James. That would suck! Whew I don’t think it’s going to happen though,” she said.

    The publication had no excuse for Battel’s impropriety.

    “I have listened to the voicemail left by Brenda Battel to Mr. James’ campaign, and find no reason to defend this behavior,” Huron Daily Tribune editor Kate Hessling said in a statement posted to the publication’s site. “Brenda Battel’s employment has been immediately terminated.”

    Hessling apologized to James on behalf of the publication.

    “The Huron Daily Tribune sincerely apologizes to Mr. James and to the public,” she said. “These statements do not represent the views of the Tribune as a whole, nor do they reflect the actions of a responsible journalist.”

    James’ campaign manager blasted the media for its obvious liberal bias.

    “It shows you that some media will do anything to keep the status quo and career politicians in power,” campaign manager Tori Sachs said, according to Daily Caller. “The liberal media can’t stand the idea of a job creator and combat veteran coming to Washington to shake up the system. This happened as we closed in within the margin of error.”

  9. First of all, these are opinion NOT NEWS anchors for Fox. Language is important in these discussions- ie: legal immigrants vs illegal immigrants; news vs opinion commentators. Secondly, with 90% of the media (inlcuding NEWS commentators) voting Democrat and supporting Democrats for the last 30 years, it’s about time some of the news was biased towards conservatives. It’s been a long time coming.

    1. Assuming for the purposes of this post that your outlandish claim is even remotely accurate, you might want to consider why such a large percentage of people who are demonstrably smarter than you vote for a party which you apparently don’t support. So sorry to break the news to you.

      this is to “those smarty-pants make me so mad!” simple sheree

  10. Neither Fox person claims status as a journalist. They are both opinion hosts. Perhaps the totally unbiased, fair “journalists” could gather in a room to be certified. A minute room will do.

    1. exactly, well said

      NPR the national radio show sounds like bunch of gender studies lunatics, day after day, fire them first

    2. Maybe since last night’s performance by Hannity and Pirro makes clear that the pretense of journalism is now gone, Faux should be required to air equal time to Democratic candidates. Oh, wait, I forgot. Trump is in control of the FCC, and its laws and regulations will not be enforced when it comes to anyone he opposes.

      Here’s the bottom line: Faux News is an outlier, just like Trump is an outlier. There is no way for so-called “mainstream media” to report about what Trump says and does and the effects thereof in any positive light. This is not slanted journalism. It is not appropriate for a POTUS to constantly lie, to call South Americans “animals”, “criminals”, “murderers” and “rapists”, or to incarcerate children as a disincentive to people seeking asylum in the U.S., which they have every right to do. It is not appropriate for a POTUS to praise White Supremacists in the wake of a protester getting run over and killed. It is not appropriate for a POTUS to claim that a sitting member of Congress has a low IQ, or that a gubernatorial candidate, who is a Yale Law graduate is “unqualified”. Both happen to be black women. It is not appropriate for a POTUS to brag about grabbing womens’ genitalia. Faux News ignores all of this aberrant behavior and attacks mainstream media as “fake news” because they do report it. The other media do report on positive economic and job growth, but also on the historic growing budget deficit due to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, plus the fact that the package was sold as providing so much economic stimulus that there would be no increase in the deficit. That wasn’t true then, and time proves isn’t true now. Positive economic and job growths aren’t the whole story. Tax cuts aren’t the whole story. They will be paid for by cuts to entitlement programs, which most Americans oppose. There’s a bigger picture here, and the growing deficit is worrisome. Trump’s lack of personal integrity is worrisome. His clear ties to a hostile foreign government is worrisome. Trump, with his serious emotional problems, only wants the positive reported, not the negative, but no person worthy of the title “journalist” could ignore the reality of Trump and his lack of fitness for office. There is no equivalence here between Faux News and other media outlets.

      1. blah blah blah is there a coherent single point in there or just ranting?
        hope you’re feeling better!

        2. Read the last sentence, and cite me facts that prove this conclusion isn’t warranted.

          1. “There is no equivalence here between Faux News and other media outlets”

            ADMIT. fox is better than the other garbage. Still not that great but better and thus not equal.

            1. Actually, the “last” sentence I saw was “She recycles the same rant over and over”.
              I would not even attempt to “prove that this conclusion isn’t warranted”.

              1. And, like the true Trump disciple you are, you avoid discussing facts, especially the inconvenient ones, and attack the person who disagrees with you.

              2. I don’t spend much time replying to trolls.
                Or troll groupies like the L.T. Anonymous.
                I can’t help it if the troll groupie does not understand, or even read, discussions of issues and facts.
                That fool would not have to look very far to find those exchanges that I’ve participated in.
                LT Anonymous seems to prefer the pure “issues-based” rants of people like Natacha.
                The policy/ issue/ fact oriented contributions from “Anonymous” to exchanges here is virtually nil.
                But there’s always room here troll groupies with nothing substantial to say.
                I take the petty, baseless, stupid complaints of LTA to heart❤; when LTA bitched about my use of emojis😧, I did my best😇 to take Anonymous’ emojiphobia into consideration in future exchanges.
                So I’ll continue to try to take Anonymous’ complaints and sensitivities into consideration😏 tin all comments about LTA.

          2. Read the last sentence, and cite me facts that prove this conclusion isn’t warranted.

            There is no equivalence here between Faux News and other media outlets.

            FACT: There is no such media outlet as Faux News.

      2. The truth as recounted here shall improve the lives of the gullible rubes, dupes, klan wanabees, pocket-traitors and grifters on the make who are now aware that the jig is up.

        1. The above is of course in reference to anon’s dead hit amidship regarding the day glo bozo’s failure as a human and a president.

        2. Marky Mark Mark – the NPC runs the klan wannabee for the second time tonight.

          1. he likes to call people racists. i think the real racists are the four eyed punks among the CJA rank and file who habitually talk young black men into taking rotten pleas because they are afraid to face federal prosecutors in court. Tell us all about it Mark M. are you a big trial lawyer or are you a plea-pusher? you know the public gets what they pay for at $140 an hour.

            1. Mr Kurtz – supposedly, and I am not sure how much I believe, Marky Mark Mark does federal appellate work and bankruptcy work. With his writing samples on here, you know what kind of representation his “clients” are getting.

              1. personal bk is a paper shuffling practice in which the lawyer spends as little time with the client as possible and puts in on the staff to do it all, cutting down the lawyer’s wasted time to fit the miniscule fees

                CJA work as a federal criminal defender, at trial level, is honorable work, unless you’re one of the punks who just gets everyone to plead to whatever the scary prosecutors want in exchange for a half off at sentencing. that’s 90% of it from what I hear

                CJA appeals I don’t know if that means writing habeas appeals accusing other lawyers of doing a crappy job or what. that’s not wheelhouse. maybe he’s a bright shining star who knows. maybe he’s a big wheel like F Lee Bailey in our time just typing on here for fun and relaxation but I doubt it.

                what i do know is that he’s a slanderer of myself and many others and that he comes on here and insults people on a daily basis and repeats this schtick about klan wannabees or whatever his idiotic formulation is and generally contributes little or nothing to conversation

                by contrast you can see that there are various other Democratic party fans here who have interesting things to say on a daily basis. i applaud them for having something useful to contribute,. Mark M is a zero just venting his spleen and calling names like a punk kid. a troll, in short.

                I’m just a workaday lawyer in flyover with nothing to brag about. My interest here is authentically representing my concerns as an American white guy in flyover and talking to people about them with sincerity and evoking seriousness. I take the name Mr Kurtz to identify both with the figure of Joseph Conrad’s heart of darkness and also the Marlin Brando Kurtz from Apoc Now, who is a rogue to his own side, and one who has gone native in his transcendence of phony moralisms and tropes of liberal society, and to invite others to the same mood of seriousness and forward looking anticipation of whatever comes next….

                ….my methods are considered unsound so I have to use a fake name and fly under the radar or they will terminate my command of my own little A team in the bush… LOL

  11. Glenn Greenwald has a better understanding of “journalistic values”:

    Everyone knows Hannity (& “Judge Jeanine”) is a GOP servant, worships Trump & is devoted to their empowerment. Why force them to pretend otherwise? Let journalists & media figures be honest about who they are. Ending journalistic pretenses & costumes will help rebuild confidence. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1059875522677751809

      1. Trump’s a stud. he’s dated a lot of hotties and very highest quality,

        but, he scraped the bottom of the barrel when he went with “Stormy”

        1. Mr Kurtz……….True abt Stormy…His body must be incredibly penicillin-tolerant.
          I wouldn’t sit on the same park bench as she.

  12. If a politician makes a false representation, deliberately so, in other words, a lie, an honest reporter would be violating her journalistic ethics simply to repeat without qualification any statement which she knows to be untrue in spite of the fact that she will be branded as “fake news” by the politician’s supporters for informing her audience of the falsity of his statement. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

  13. While the optics are certainly not good, one must also differentiate between Hannity and Pirro (and Sharpton) as the commentary/editorial/pundit roles that each play versus the “hard news” journalists that are supposed to be the objective reporters of news: for Fox, this would be a much bigger issue if this were Bret Baier or Shepherd Smith. This is the major difference between Fox, where the news people are objective, and the the other major and cable networks: at ABC, Stephanopolous is purportedly doing hard news, but was a close Clinton confidant and Democrat; likewise when Cuomo or Stelter or Martha Raddatz (who broke down when Trump was elected), these are supposed to be hard journalists who allow their personal views to seep through to their reporting, which is why John Q Public holds a low opinion of most media: because it is not generally objective as it applies to the news side, as opposed to the editorial/punditry. There is the real tragedy of the American news media: they, by and large, have picked a side and the “hard news” reporting shows it.

  14. It would make for a rather interesting case if eventually a major news network’s support of a candidate is labeled a Like-Kind contribution in violation of campaign finance laws.

  15. Thanks, Professor, for calling this to our attention. Yeah, now it does look like some FOX people are for Trump. I never would have thought it.

    1. Ben…..There weren’t a ton of “Fox on-airs” who were for Trump at the beginning. Many of them, now, have been impressed with his work ethic and ability to cut through BS to get a project done.
      There have been never-Trumpers to spare at Fox, like Dana Perino. Greg Gutfeld really didn’t care for him either, initially, and several more.
      I dare say Bret Baier and Chris W. do not care for him still. And don’t forget there’s a real Kennedy still on the Fox payroll as a journalist….one of Ethel’s kids, Douglas.
      One interesting connection most of the Fox people have that I noticed several years ago: almost all were Catholic. And I would say at least 75% of the “attractive” women had law degrees, back when hubby and I fled MSNBC-ya with nothing but the clothes on our backs, a bag of Ruffles and a liter of diet coke.

      1. Cindy Bragg – when I first read that, I read it as “a litter of diet coke.” Had to reread it because I could not figure out what that was. Thought maybe it was a Southern thing. 😉

        1. Paul C…LOL! Believe me, we have some Bubba’s down here that would love to buy sodas by the litter!

            1. . LOL Paul!……..How many sodas in a litter? As many as you can get in the bed of an F150…..lol🤣

  16. “Should networks abandon the rules of apolitical status for employees and allow some hosts to be openly partisan?”

    Dear Professor……..If PBS is a network, then they eroded the line between journalism and advocacy before it was cool.
    Gwen Ifill, anyone? Moderating the 2008 Vice Presidential debates as a PBS journalist while writing and advertising her book, “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama” ( released on Inauguration Day, 2009) ??
    That seemed perfectly fine to the Dems at the time.
    Also, I believe Hannity and Pirro are considered opinion journalists, and not news anchors like Bret Baier and Chris Wallace.

    1. Left…Right…does anyone have a clue where the middle is? We are living in very strange times; some very dangerous times. Reality itself doesn’t seem to have any basis in objective truth. For example, we use to rely (for the most part) on science being the one source of objectivity. Perhaps I’ve been naive, but when chromosomes are no longer the recognized standard for identifying males and females, then where are we to go for objective truth? It’s as though we’ve now embraced Rod Serling’s following quote as our new reality:

      There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.

      1. Olly,…
        – It’s easy….I am in the middle, the mainstream, The Moderate One.
        Anyone to the right or left of me is evil and a fool.😉😂

        1. 🙂 Exactly. Now multiply that *ahem* objective truth by 320 million and we’ll discover the middle is in there somewhere.

    2. mespo…..or Stormy jumping on a pole?? (the stage prop, not someone from Poland)

    3. Fact is, there is no “left vs. right” here at all. It’s Trump/Fox vs. the world media.

  18. Trying again–using Frank’s name, this is Jill

    I am actually glad this is being done openly.

    As we saw in the Clinton e-mails from Wikileaks whose publisher is right now under threat of kidnap/kill from the US, (see consortium news for that information), we know that many newz organizations including the very top of the MSM, served as an arm of her campaign. They wrote stories given to them by her campaign, gave debate questions to her and cleared stories w/her. They functioned as her press release and propaganda arm. Most of us would not have the proof of this had wikileaks not revealed the information to all of us.

    In the case of Trump, the press is acting exactly in the same way. Sometimes they are completely open about that fact as shown in the instances sited in this article by JT. Other times, they function on his behalf clandestinely, as they did for Hillary.

    There is no going back on distrusting the press to give unbiased, insightful coverage. It’s not their brief. It’s much better to understand this. It makes more people aware that we should question what we hear from newz sources.

    The most important people in the nation are its citizens. We are the ones who must stop accepting lies, start seeking truth and stop falling for propaganda. It’s our job and we should do it. The press long ago ceased to function as anything other than a transmission belt for the powerful. We need to stop helping them in that task.

  19. ‘WHAT’ DID HANNITY DO’..??

    “Hannity then declared, in pointing at reporters at the rally, ‘By the way, all those people in the back are fake news'”.

    Even if Hannity uttered this in a jovial spirit, it reinforces our very worst fears regarding Fox News. Fox not only functions as the official mouthpiece of Republicans, but now one of Fox’s best known personalities is calling the rest of media ‘fake news’. One can’t possibly get more partisan than that.

    I believe that cable news networks were the most negative development in the history of American politics. Our hyper-polarized political climate began in the early 1990’s when cable news first appeared. The Culture Wars are essentially the business of cable news. CNN, FOX and MSNBC depend on Culture Wars to fill their programming schedules.

    The Culture Wars have fractured America into different realities. And common sense should tell us all this can’t go on much longer. America can’t survives as a nation of split realities. If we can’t ever agree on facts, this country is doomed!

    1. the only thing I like about hannity is how he pisses you guys off.
      I never watch him, he’s a dork.
      but i like how he (t)rolls

      1. My only familiarity with Hannity is what I read about in mainstream media. I don’t have cable and don’t intend on getting it.

        1. i have one hour a week and it’s reserved for zombies not hannity

          but Mark M slanders me here and said, intentionally, maliciously, and falsely, that I “watch hannity and bag his balls”

          now i see in comments here, again, he has explanded the scope of his defamation, and he’s calling all Trump supporters “hannity ball baggers” which refers to the practice of oral stimulation of the scrotum and is obscene and hateful example of how leftist Democrats like Mark M are in the habit of speaking

          the obscene and defamatory mark m should be banned if he can’t stop committing torts against other users

          1. Mr Kurtz – are you personally prepared for the zombie apocalypse? I am. 😉

            1. i was prepared for the nuclear war in the 80s, and every potential collapse ever since. from TSHTF to TEOTWAKI i am ready. semper paratus!

              i’m even prepared to live in the world if it just goes sideways; something that separates me from a lot of the looney tunes out there. cheers!

            2. Our daughter said they’ve been filming the zombie tv show near their ranch. (Walking Dead?) It would give me the creeps, but they think it’s fun.

              2. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/the-racist-history-of-zombies/7259304

                there is a lot of writing about zombies as a metaphor for the fears of white americans vis a vis the racial other. i have no problem with that hypothesis. zombies to the extent they are real actually come from haiti by use of puffer fish poison. see movie and book of botanist “the serpent and the rainbow.” haiti is a scary place for white people since Touissant L’Overture took over the island with voodoo and the sword and slaughtered all the white people.
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre

                walking dead is a tv program that gets around the notion by casting a lot of black heroes. which is ok too.

                these things are all very interesting when you lose your fear of being called names

        1. just reminds me of a lot of other Irish Cat dorks I went to school with over the years. I see him and I have flashbacks to keggers. I am a misanthropist, sorry, I am like dirty harry i hate everyone somedays

          but i am pleased that he supports trump and he must be doing something right!

          1. Kurtz, I was more interested in your use of the word “dork” in relationship to Hannity and now the other “Irish Catdorks”. Does it have anything to do with their strong focus on relatively narrow issues? It’s the meaning you suggest that I am curious about since Hannity certainly isn’t slow-witted.

            1. no, just stylistic dislike of hannity. i have nothing against hannity on substance. granted i don’t know much about him but i heard his radio program a few times. he just annoys me, his tone of voice. he always sounds like he’s annoyed. that gets tiresome. maybe he’s hurting for a beer.

              1. Does the word “dork” match what you don’t like? I don’t care I was just trying to figure out how you meant the word “dork”. I do understand what you say above.

                1. just a word we used to use for a certain kind of guy.

                  look at the poll coverage. the often predicted blue wave is waning. maybe by morning it will be a net republican win. and we will say: pollsters are the least objective fakersaround!

    2. It adds to our certainty that the rest are propagandists and yellow journalists. If you can’t stand the heat of being called out fix your problem.; The answer is simple I don’t use anything left of James Carville nor anything that I can’t verify and check against the Constitution in any direction but especially over the horizon to the left in socialist land. Any of the three main branches. International, Progressive or National in order of occurance.

    3. PH,…
      Don’t sweat the small stuff.
      According to Diane/ L4B, your ” very worst fears” should be about all the nukes in North Dakota aimed right at you.😧

  20. I am actually glad this is being done openly.

    As we saw in the Clinton e-mails from Wikileaks whose publisher is right now under threat of kidnap/kill from the US, (see consortium news for that information), we know that many newz organizations including the very top of the MSM, served as an arm of her campaign. They wrote stories given to them by her campaign, gave debate questions to her and cleared stories w/her. They functioned as her press release and propaganda arm. Most of us would not have the proof of this had wikileaks not revealed the information to all of us.

    In the case of Trump, the press is acting exactly in the same way. Sometimes they are completely open about that fact as shown in the instances sited in this article by JT. Other times, they function on his behalf clandestinely, as they did for Hillary.

    There is no going back on distrusting the press to give unbiased, insightful coverage. It’s not their brief. It’s much better to understand this. It makes more people aware that we should question what we hear from newz sources.

    The most important people in the nation are its citizens. We are the ones who must stop accepting lies, start seeking truth and stop falling for propaganda. It’s our job and we should do it. The press long ago ceased to function as anything other than a transmission belt for the powerful. We need to stop helping them in that task.

    1. Jill, I like what you say, but the most important people in any society,
      are invariably,
      ‘
      the bankers

      now, as electronic communications media, computers and software, and finance all become more intertwined, one might take broader view of that and say, anyways,

      the bankers

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