maccallum, martha strait

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pow on school lunch

oops see the story, but this is main

no merri

see fox "straight news"

punked by ny post?

shillenberger

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NOTE STRAIGHT NEWS SLING BS

MMA

Right-wing media want you to think stopping infectious diseases and feeding the poor is woke

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Research contributions from Jack Wheatley

Published 02/11/25 MMA

Right-wing media are focused on culture war battles as the Trump administration suspends lifesaving work from the U.S. Agency for International Development, cherry-picking USAID programs to dismiss the agency as “woke,” “radical,” and “overwhelmingly hard left.” In reality, USAID is responsible for providing health care and nutritional aid to thousands of the world’s vulnerable people, many living in war-torn regions.

The Trump administration has sought to put a halt to USAID’s operations

• • On February 4, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID was now under the direct authority of the State Department, and the administration froze U.S. foreign aid.Rubio placed Pete Marocco in charge of USAID; he served in the agency during Trump’s first term and has been accused of attempting to dismantle it during his tenure. CNN, [2/3/25]

• • Following Rubio’s takeover, 10,000 USAID employees were placed on administrative leave, and a couple days later the Trump administration announced plans to leave fewer than 300 workers in place to carry out the organization’s work. A judge put a temporary pause on some of the Trump administration’s job cutting, resulting in 2,200 employees being reinstated but with uncertain futures at the agency. USA Today,[2/4/25; The Associated Press, 2/6/25; NBC News, 2/7/25]

• • USAID workers in high-risk locations have reported being cut off from communication and were left unsure of how to access evacuation protocols. Employees of USAID are also facing interruptions to medical care and housing insecurity. Bluesky, [2/7/25]

• • Rubio claimed he had issued a blanket waiver for lifesaving programs, but workers on the ground have said that operations have come to a halt. While some programs have been granted a waiver to continue under Rubio, many have lost access to supplies, and payments to contractors that are covered by the waiver have not come through. That has affected emergency food aid in Ethiopia, a refugee camp in Syria, a resettlement program for victims of the Islamic State group, and more. One USAID worker told CNN, “That work is grounded to a halt because there’s no staff to manage it, and there’s no staff in DC to answer questions from partners.” The Washington Post, [2/10/25; CNN, 2/8/25]

• ## The Trump administration’s antics have prevented USAID from providing critical aid to some of the world’s most vulnerable people

• • The freeze impacted the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives and reducing AIDS-related deaths by 68% since 2004.Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, told The Associated Press that even short interruptions in care could have negative outcomes, as “HIV viral loads rebound in about three weeks if you go off antiretrovirals.” The initial freeze to USAID has already sparked confusion among PEPFAR workers and local partners as appointments are canceled. The Associated Press, [2/3/25; AVAC, 2/8/23; The New York Times, 1/27/25]

• • As a result of the USAID freeze, thousands of people in medical trials for dealing with HIV and other illnesses have been left adrift, with their treatments suddenly stopped or with medical equipment in their bodies. The New York Times, [2/6/25]

• • The freeze will also impact millions of dollars in aid that is being used to help those in war zones dealing with infectious diseases.The Associated Press reported that 1.2 million people in Congo could lose lifesaving support and 600,000 people in Sudan will be at risk of catching and spreading cholera, malaria, and measles. The Associated Press, [2/3/25]

• • Defunding USAID also hurts American farms that sell products to the organization for disbursement via its nutrition programs.According to The Washington Post, “Purchases and shipments of U.S. food aid worth over $340 million — including rice, wheat and soybeans — have been paused during Trump’s foreign-aid freeze.” The Post also reports that the aid freeze “disrupted more than 507,000 metric tons of American food aid.” The Washington Post, [2/6/25]

• • The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a USAID program that helps aid programs determine where to send resources, has also been shut down. An analyst specializing in food insecurity told Reuters, “Famine was disappearing from the world in the 2000s, and now its return will likely accelerate as we become increasingly blind to it, even as it becomes a more common tool of politics and war.” Reuters, [2/6/25]

• ## Right-wing media have dismissed USAID as a “woke” left-wing “slush fund”

• • Fox & Friends Weekendco-host Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed USAID is “not aid like you would imagine,” like “setting up soup kitchens in Africa.”She claimed it’s a “slush fund for Democrat donors, the Clinton Foundation, George Soros, all of the NGOs who have been doing stuff that American people never voted for them to do.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends’ Weekend*, [2/9/25]

• • Fox News contributor Ben Domenech claimed USAID has “not been acting in the interests of the American people or the United States for a very long time” and is instead enacting a “woke agenda.” Fox News, *Sunday Night in America*, [2/9/25]

• • Podcast host Megyn Kelly dismissed USAID as an organization that seems to give money to “woke” projects like “LGBTQ and that kind of promotional stuff.” Kelly also said it “appears” that USAID employees are “overwhelmingly hard left.” iHeartRadio, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [2/5/25]

• • On Fox, former podcast host Vivek Ramaswamy claimed USAID funds are “not even going to help starving children in Africa,” adding that it was a “smokescreen.” He claimed that instead foreign aid is being used to push “progressive ideas, LGBTQ+ agendas, woke and DEI agendas, onto foreign countries.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/5/25]

• • Newsmax’sFinnertyran a chyron reading “USAID funded some ridiculous causes.”Guest and former Trump deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley criticized USAID’s operations, calling them “crazy, ridiculous programs.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [2/5/25]

• • Fox’s Sean Hannity said everything USAID does is “radical DEI, woke, transgender, you know, leftist, Green New Deal madness.”Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [2/4/25]

• • On Fox News’The Five, Jesse Watters claimed USAID is a “slush fund for social justice warriors and permanent Washington to bribe people, staff people at NGOs, and just create hell.”Fox News, *The Five*, [2/4/25]

• ## Others in right-wing media have bizarrely claimed USAID’s critical work will continue despite the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the agency

• • Jesse Watters claimed saving babies from getting AIDS in Africa is “still going to happen once they look at everything and get this thing streamlined.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/7/25]

• • Fox News anchor Bret Baier claimed that Marco Rubio is not against critical foreign aid, but he is going to “scrub what is real and what is not.”His guest, Republican strategist Matt Whitlock, agreed and said that “so much of what we have seen” is “exporting a social agenda.” Fox News, *Special Report with Bret Baier*, [2/7/25]

• • Fox News anchor John Roberts claimed that Marco Rubio will “continue with the good that USAID does.” Roberts: “The Democrats are literally losing their minds over all of this, saying that Elon Musk is gutting U.S. foreign policy. But Rubio is saying, ‘No no, we’re going to continue with the good stuff that USAID does. We’re just going to get rid of what we think is the wasteful spending that has been engaged in and the insubordination of the entire agency.’” Fox News, *America Reports*, [2/7/25]

• • Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner falsely claimed, “No one is talking about taking the food and taking the things for people who actually need those things away.”She added, “Who doesn't audit? It’s been years. We need to know where that money is going. And some of it is going to terrorist organizations.” Fox News, *The Faulkner Focus*, [2/6/25]

• • OutKick columnist Mary Katherine Ham claimed the frozen funds were just getting “audited.” Ham: “We're told that waste, fraud, and abuse is such a small percentage of the federal government's budget, and should be easy to deal with, given that. And yet we're also told that that small slice of the federal government is the end of democracy if you start auditing it.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [2/5/25]

//

1. ### The idiotic meltdown over Politico Pro subscriptions is a perfect case study for the right's broken information ecosystem

02/06/25 2:29 PM EST

2. ### As USAID is dismantled, right-wing media rejoice and spread baseless conspiracy theories about the agency’s work

02/07/25 4:38 PM EST

3. ### Fox host to federal workers: “Get a real job”

02/06/2

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4 26

1. ### Fox News' Martha MacCallum: “This district in Louisiana was carved out to create a Black district, which I think should be offensive to people”

04/30/26

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Fox News' Martha MacCallum claims only "dangerous criminals" are part of Trump's initial deportations. She's wrong. | Media Matters for America

Fox News' Martha MacCallum claims only “dangerous criminals” are part of Trump's initial deportations. She's wrong.

Written by Helena Hind

Published 01/28/25 MMA

As Trump’s mass deportation raids ramp up, Fox News falsely claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is initially targeting only violent undocumented immigrants for deportation, despite evidence to the contrary.

During the January 28 edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum, guest David Carlucci pointed out that a large portion of people arrested by ICE “are not dangerous criminals; they're just undocumented,” to which host Martha MacCallum interrupted, “That's not what we understood. This is the worst-first policy,” mentioning “child abusers” and “sex abusers.”

According to government data reviewed by NBC, nearly half of the 1,179 people ICE arrested and detained on January 26 “appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense other than crossing the border illegally.”

Data first obtained by NBC News shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a total of 1,179 people on Sunday, which is more than the 956 arrests that the agency posted on X on Sunday night. But just 613 of those total arrests — nearly 52% — were considered “criminal arrests.” The rest appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense other than crossing the border illegally.

When breaking down those arrests, eight were considered "Worst Criminals Arrested," including two gang members, according to the official.

Still, at least 566 people arrested Sunday had not committed any crimes and were only detained because they lacked legal authorization to remain in the United States.

Here's the Fox News segment:

Video

From the January 28, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

MARTHA MACCALLUM (ANCHOR): David Carlucci, I remember Alejandro Mayorkas testifying with a straight face to Congress that the border was not open, so I don't know how all these criminals got in here, but they are here and now they're being removed. Why did we never see the Homeland Security secretary participating in the removal of criminals and people who worked for the cartels?

DAVID CARLUCCI (GUEST): Well, a very simple reason, and many law enforcement officers are out there publicly saying that this is reckless to identify and announce when you're doing these raids and where for a few reasons, but most importantly it gives notice and the most dangerous among them will flee. And when you look at these arrests --

MACCALLUM: So that's why Alejandro Mayorkas never participated because he didn't want to give anyone a heads -- I mean, these people, these people, they didn't get a heads up.

CARLUCCI: No, he was participating, but it's not about just large numbers. It's about an actual policy, and when you look at the people that have been picked up -- thank goodness we're getting the most dangerous criminals out of here, but over half of them are not dangerous criminals; they're just undocumented. And yes, they should --

MACCALLUM: No, that's not -- that's not what we understood. This is the worst-first policy. I mean, we have put up on the board, you know, examples of the kind of people that are being taken out. Child abusers, sex abusers --

CARLUCCI: But that's not all of them.

MACCALLUM: -- and these are people who were already indicated as much.

[CROSSTALK]

MCCALLUM: They were already indicated that way under the Biden administration and they were not removed, David.

CARLUCCI: No. We had more deportations under Biden than we did in the first term of Donald Trump. And yes, did we do a good job publicizing it? No, but that's not the idea. It's not about a headline — it's about a policy.

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===11 25

1. ### Fox anchor Martha MacCallum on young women voting for Democrats: “I find that very frightening”

11/05/25 12:05

12 24 mma

• • ...OnThe Story with Martha MacCallum, author Michael Shellenberger claimed that Kennedy will not “ban vaccines or discourage vaccines,” adding that he will be “very constrained” and is “proposing some pretty reasonable measures.” Shellenberger: “I think he obviously made that commitment that he wasn't going to ban vaccines, he wasn’t going to discourage vaccines. I think if he gets through his nomination, I think he is going to be very constrained with what he can do, but he's basically proposing some pretty reasonable measures to have better regulation of all drugs including vaccines.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [11/15/24]

• ## Fox News has denied that Trump’s promised budget cuts will affect entitlements like Social Security and Medicare

• Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency promises massive rollbacks to government agencies and regulations including a target to eliminate $2 trillion of government spending, which would be achievable only if entitlements are cut. While Trump pledged on the campaign trail to protect Social Security and Medicare, he repeatedly tried to cut the programs during his first term. Trump’s 2021 budget included billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security, and during his campaign for reelection in 2024, Trump claimed that there are “tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do” to entitlements.

• • Martha MacCallum claimed that DOGE will not cut Social Security or Medicare and that saying he will is just a scare tactic.MacCallum: “That is the scare tactic that keeps us from ever cutting anything because as soon as you suggest it, as [former Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers says, ‘Oh, it’s such an idiotic idea, it could never happen,’ as soon as you start suggesting it, they go, ‘Oh no, it’s Social Security and Medicare, don't touch it,’ but it's not. There is so much more there.” Fox :{News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [11/14/24]}:

• • :{:{OnFox News Live, Trump adviser Steve Moore called for government cuts but specified, “We're not talking about cutting people’s Social Security benefits.”Moore: “We never get rid of things. We keep adding things but we never get rid of things. We're not talking about cutting people’s Social Security benefits, we’re not talking about imperiling our national defense. We’re saying there is so much fraud — we estimate there's $300-400 billion of fraudulent payments that go out every year and nobody does anything about it.” Fox News, *Fox News Live*, [11/16/24]}:

mma 11 24

November 12, 2024, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

MARTHA MACCALLUM (ANCHOR): Governor Hochul could also pardon President Trump on these charges because it is a state charge, right?

KERRI KUPEC URBAHN (FOX NEWS LEGAL EDITOR): Yeah that's right and look she needs to really be thinking through this because New York state needs federal money and they get a lot of it. And there is a lot that the federal government could do in terms of pulling funding from both the city and the state of New York. There's a bunch of ways to do it through the Justice Department and other places, and you know, at the end of the day it's all politics. And so I can't help but wonder if behind the scenes Governor Hochul and her team are thinking carefully about this, as they should, and because look, and the big picture, the lawfare campaign against Donald Trump majorly backfired. So do they want to be responsible for Republicans in power again in 2028? I think they need to think carefully about this.

an 11 24

Fox News host Martha MacCallum sparred with Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) Tuesday over the electoral impact of Donald Trump's overturning of Roe v. Wade on women voters in Arizona.

Voters across the battleground state have the opportunity to vote on Arizona's Proposition 139, which would enshrine "abortion rights in the state constitution," and "could bring to an end more than two years of uncertainty about abortion access," according to AZ Central.

Considering the fact thatRoe v. Wade was successfully overturned because of the MAGA leader's conservative Supreme Court justice appointees, Kelly argued that reproductive rights could still be in jeopardy under a second Trump presidency.

READ MORE: 'Look it up': Buttigieg busts 'agitated and aggressive' Fox News host in heated interview

When MacCallum claimed that "abortion's not banned in Arizona," Kelly noted there's "a 15-week ban with no exceptions for rape and incest."

He added, "The issue is if Donald Trump is back in the White House, he has previously said that given the opportunity, he will put in a nationwide abortion ban."

MacCallum shot back, "He didn't say that. Senator, I'm sorry. He has not said that. Do you want to start talking about what Kamala Harris previously said? Because she was against fracking."

"So now we're talking about fracking?" the senator replied. "I thought we were talking about the women vote in Arizona."

READ MORE:**Trump snaps at reporter to 'just stop talking about' key voter issue**

The Fox News host claimed that Trump "made it clear he will not ban abortion as president," asking the Grand Canyon State lawmaker, "Do you accept that?"

Kelly asserted, "He has said he will punish women, and doctors will go to jail. And women know that here in Arizona."

According to journalist Justin Baragona, MacCallum then had a "meltdown," declaring, "It doesn't have anything to do with Trump! It all went back to the states! It's not a federal issue!"

"It's gonna become a federal issue with the next president. Kamala Harris has said — made it very clear — that given the opportunity, she's gonna bring back the rights and protections that people had underRoe v. Wade," Kelly replied. "And Donald Trump has said, previously, that he would sign a nationwide abortion ban. Those are two very contrasted views. ... She's made it clear that she stands with women, and Donald Trump does not. I think the women of Arizona understand that, and that's why they're showing up at pretty high rates. They know this right was taken from them by Donald Trump. He appointed the justices."

READ MORE:**'Serious liability': Why Trump’s efforts to dodge key issue are doomed to fail**

After MacCallum argued again that Trump didn't say he will ban abortion, Kelly concluded, "Donald Trump has said he broke Roe v. Wade. He owns it. Women don't like it."

===

mma

Project 2025 seeks to fulfill the right-wing media dream of cutting vital food assistance

The extreme right-wing initiative proposes cuts to programs benefiting millions of Americans

Written by Casey Wexler & Reed McMaster

Published 10/29/24 mma

Right-wing media have spent over a decade attacking and calling for cuts to vital food assistance programs, with particular focus on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as “food stamps”) as well as free school lunch programs.

Now, Project 2025 — an extreme right-wing initiative organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and personnel to the next Republican presidential administration — proposes fulfilling their wish of cutting off hundreds of thousands of Americans from vital food assistance.

Project 2025 calls for sweeping cuts to the food stamp program, which would eliminate food assistance for some Americans and slash the purchasing power of families

• • Project 2025’s play book, Mandate for Leadership, calls for reimplementing work requirements for food stamps, which it estimates could put 688,000 adults at risk of losing food assistance. Project 2025 claims that these work requirements would be “fairly limited” but admits that the policy will deny some Americans food assistance. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis of Project 2025, “These requirements are premised on the false assumption that people who receive SNAP do not work and must be compelled to do so — an assumption rooted in a host of unfounded prejudices based on race, gender, disability status, and class. Rigorous studies have shown that the current work requirement policy is ineffective at increasing employment. Instead, it takes food assistance away from people with very low incomes and increases food insecurity and hardship.” Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/3/24]

• • Project 2025 seeks to remove automatic qualification for SNAP if an individual receives benefits from another government program or broad-based categorical eligibility.The authors of Mandate for Leadership are trying to end automatic eligibility for SNAP for those who receive other benefits because, they claim, “‘benefit’ is defined so broadly that it includes simply receiving distributed pamphlets and 1–800 numbers. This definition, with its low threshold to trigger a ‘benefit,’ allows individuals to bypass eligibility limits—particularly the asset requirement.”
  • But a major benefit of broad-based categorical eligibility, according to CBPP, is helping families through the “benefit cliff,” when a family’s income rises just above the SNAP limit. Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to ignore the threshold and phase out SNAP benefits gradually as income increases. It also lets families keep higher levels of allowed assets, which allows them to “avoid debt, weather unexpected financial disruptions, and better prepare to support themselves in retirement.” Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 7/30/19]

• • Project 2025 attacks recent increases to the Thrifty Food Plan, which estimates the cost of a healthy diet, saying the Biden administration “may have skirted regulations and congressional authority to increase the overall cost of the program.” The Biden administration raised the budget of SNAP when it found higher costs in maintaining a healthy diet, which Project 2025 called “a dramatic overreach.” Mandate says the Thrifty Food Plan has previously been based on just inflation, which was proposed in the latest federal farm bill. According to the Urban Institute, “In effect, the proposed changes would reduce SNAP benefits’ purchasing power over time, exacerbating the current SNAP benefits gap.” Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023; Newsweek, 4/23/24; Urban Institute, 3/18/24;]

• • Project 2025 seeks to close the “heat-and-eat loophole” that allows states to issue larger amounts of food stamp benefits. Food stamps are issued based on income minus certain deductions, and beneficiaries of the Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program receive a large deduction even if, according to Project 2025, their LIHEAP benefits are as low as $1 (in reality, as of 2014, LIHEAP benefits have to be $20 or more).
  • LIHEAP helps households pay utility costs, and beneficiaries of the program can maximize their SNAP benefits on top of receiving utility assistance. The program was created because low-income households have a tendency to go without food due to high energy costs. Therefore eliminating this “loophole” entirely will create the food insecurity it was implemented to prevent. Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023; Food Research and Action Center, 3/16/21; LIHEAP Clearinghouse, 2/21/24]

• ## Right-wing media have attacked SNAP and downplayed its importance for years

• • In 2012, Fox host Megyn Kelly claimed that food stamps created a culture of dependency. Kelly claimed there is an “emerging culture of dependency on taxpayer-funded money.”She and other Fox figures ignored the fact that most SNAP recipients stay on the program short term. Media Matters, [10/4/12]

• • Fox News' Andrea Tantaros claimed she would look “fabulous” if she were forced to live on a SNAP diet. In November 2012, on the eve of Thanksgiving, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros dismissed the plight of hungry Americans, claiming that she would look “fabulous” if she were forced to try to subsist for an extended period of time on $133 for food per month, the amount that SNAP participants in New Jersey received. Media Matters, [11/21/12]

• • In 2013, Fox's Charles Payne complained that there wasn’t enough “stigma” surrounding people on SNAP. According to Payne, “The good part about the stigma is it actually does serve as an impetus to get people off” food stamps. Media Matters, [3/28/13]

• • In 2013, right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh used his radio show to smear SNAP as “the buy-beer ... with-a-government-credit card program” even though people cannot buy alcohol with food stamps.Media Matters, [3/29/13]

• • Fox’s Brian Kilmeade repeated a baseless attack against SNAP in 2013, when the New York Post claimed with little evidence that low-income New Yorkers were using SNAP funds to purchase food to send overseas.Kilmeade said, “You're paying for food stamps for foreigners? The New York Post reports that welfare recipients in New York City are buying groceries and sending them in giant barrels to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.” Media Matters, [7/12/13]

• • In 2013, Fox aired a special attacking SNAP titled, “The Great Food Stamp Binge,” which centered on one person abusing the program, even though less than 2% of SNAP benefits at the time were issued to people who did not meet all of the program's eligibility requirements.Host Bret Baier asked in reference to people who use food stamps to feed themselves and their families, “Shouldn't there be at least some stigma?” Media Matters, [8/13/13]

• • In 2013, Kilmeade claimed that SNAP was rife with fraud when it had one of the lowest fraud rates of all federal programs. According to Kilmeade, “30 percent: That's how many more Americans, according to a new study, are selling food stamps for cash illegally. No, Steve, that's not legal. Nearly 48 million people receive food stamps.” Media Matters, [8/19/13]

• • Fox's Brad Blakeman claimed that the Obama administration was “like a drug dealer,” because it was making people dependent on food stamps and it should instead “get ‘em a job.” Blakeman also claimed of entitlement plans broadly: “Fraud, mismanagement, and abuse is rife in America.” Media Matters, [10/31/13]

• • Limbaugh falsely claimed that SNAP increases childhood obesity, referring to a misleading op-ed in The Washington Times. Limbaugh also said, “We got nearly 48-49 million Americans on food stamps and they can buy whatever they want with it. The Democrat party has made everybody they can think that they’re victims, which makes them entitled.” Media Matters, [12/3/13]

• • In 2014, Kilmeade falsely claimed SNAP benefits could be used to withdraw cash and purchase marijuana. He stated, “Can people collecting food stamps in Colorado add marijuana to their shopping list? Right now the answer is yes. Because there's nothing blocking government benefit cards from working in pot shop ATMs.” Media Matters, [1/21/14]

• • In 2014, then-Fox host Eric Bolling cited an interview with food stamp user and surfer Jason Greenslate to argue food stamps will later be used on “strip clubs” and “liquor stores.” He stated, “What's next? Strip clubs, liquor stores, pot dispensaries? Oh, that's already going on, folks. Welcome to Obama's America.” Media Matters, [2/25/14]

• • Fox's Stuart Varney accused the government of helping poor people in order to buy votes by expanding food stamps. He stated, “What's really going on here is the government is buying votes. They’re keeping churning out food stamps in return for votes. That's what's happening.” Media Matters, [3/11/14]

• • In 2014, when a report showed that the SNAP benefits program hit a historic low for waste in 2012, Kilmeade accused the program of being wasteful. He stated, “The government is overpaying on food stamps by about $2 billion.” Media Matters, [7/24/14]

• • In 2015, Varney continued to push his dubious theory that food stamps are designed to “buy votes” for Democrats.He told Fox anchor Martha MacCallum, “I said to you, this is a couple years ago, I think — I remember saying it to you — this is an attempt to buy votes right before an election.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [5/13/15]

• • In 2017, Fox guest and billionaire Ken Langone falsely claimed people were using food stamps to buy drugs. According to Langone, “Hell, people use food stamps to buy marijuana, that's illegal, or cocaine, or whatever the hell else people use to get high.” Fox News, *Your World with Neil Cavuto,* [5/24/17]

• • In 2017, Fox host Jesse Watters said that the “able-bodied” on food stamps could get work by building Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall. Watters said, “Maybe the able-bodied that are getting the food stamps could work for the food stamps by building the wall.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/12/17]

• • In 2018, Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway blamed SNAP for helping perpetuate obesity in America. Hemingway: “People on these programs tend to eat a lot of cookies, candies, sugary snacks.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [2/13/18]

• • In 2018, Fox's Jesse Watters praised the Trump administration's food stamp cuts and claimed that SNAP fraud was a major issue even though it had fallen consistently since 1993.Watters also said, “Food stamps skyrocketed under President Obama and under President Trump they’re coming down. That’s a good thing. You don’t want to be dependent on government, but you want to do it with heart.” Media Matters, [2/13/18; Time, 3/30/17]

• • In 2018, Fox’s Tucker Carlson attacked refugees for using food assistance and complained about having to pay taxes if migrants get assistance. He said, “If we're rewarding foreign nationals who break our laws, why should I have to pay my taxes? Why should I, as an American citizen, obey the laws? I mean, I guess that's a rhetorical question, but what's the message that we are sending? I have to obey every law or else I go to jail, but a foreign national can show up and give the finger to our justice system and get rewarded for it? How does that work exactly?” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight,* [8/14/18]

• • In 2019, Fox & Friends guest Star Parker celebrated Trump’s move kicking hundreds of thousands of people off SNAP: “This is fantastic news.” She added, “They are now acknowledging those that are sitting on their couch, they've gotten very comfortable on the couch, to say our national food stamp program is for those that are in need, desperate need.” Fox News,*Fox & Friends*, [12/5/19]

• • In 2021, Fox’s Sean Duffy claimed Black people who spend SNAP benefits on junk food are the cause of racial disparity in COVID statistics.He said, “We have to take personal responsibility for the choices that we make in our lives, and to say that it's all racism is a farce.” Fox News, *The Five*, [4/9/21]

Project 2025 also aims to cut free school lunch programs, cutting children off from vital nutrition

• • Some school districts are part of the USDA’s Community Eligibility Provision, which allows all students within a low-average-income school district to access free breakfast and lunch.U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, accessed[7/22/24]

• • Project 2025 wants CEP gone, ending universal free school lunch for low-income schools and districts.Mandate also criticizes efforts to allow schools to provide meals in the summer. Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023]

• • Not providing meals over the summer creates a three-month food insecurity gap. Nebraska Public Media, [7/18/24]

• • Project 2025 also wants to reduce school lunch programs to their “original intent” by feeding only “students who otherwise would not have food to eat while at school.” Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023]

• • Studies have shown that before CEP, students who were eligible for free school lunch while other students paid were stigmatized.CEP eliminates that stigma by providing free lunch schoolwide, which potentially helps students do better academically and receive fewer disciplinary infractions. American Educational Research Journal, [1/9/24; Economics of Education Review, August 2020]

• • Free school meal programs like CEP have also been shown to decrease obesity and lower school administrative burdens. Health Day, [3/18/24; No Kid Hungry Center for Best Practices, accessed on 7/22/24]

• ## Right-wing media have also been crusading against free school lunch for more than a decade

• • In 2010, Rush Limbaugh attacked school lunches and suggested hungry children should “dumpster dive.” Limbaugh provided a list of places kids could supposedly go to get meals such as their own kitchens, McDonald’s, and a dumpster, stating, “There are videos that have been produced to show you how to healthfully dine and how to dumpster dive and survive until school kicks back up in August.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Rush Limbaugh Show*, [6/16/10]

• • Limbaugh complained on his show that the Memphis school district provided dinner, arguing that it would lead to children living at school. He stated, “You know where this is heading? To hell with home — the kids live at school. You and your spouse, the sperm meets the egg, the kid’s born and, off to school he goes and you might see him on weekends.” He continued, “Going home is going to be the exception. Going home is going to be the odd thing about school.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Rush Limbaugh Show*, [11/9/11]

• • In 2013, Limbaugh compared students who receive free school lunches to family pets.He claimed, “When you get a new pet what’s the first thing you do to try to bond with it? You want to be the one to feed it, right? You don’t want anybody else feeding that new puppy or kitten. You are going to, because you know that that puppy or kitten will bond with you first and when that happens, everybody else is getting second or third dibs. That pet is always going to be yours if you’re the only one that feeds it. Well, same thing here.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Rush Limbaugh Show*, [9/6/13]

• • Fox guest Joy Pullman called school lunches a “collusion” between big business and government that deprives families of the joy of providing for their children. She stated, “So the federal school lunch program, the reason that it exists is actually a collusion between big agribusiness and big government, and what it ends up doing is raising food prices for the poor and middle class, it makes kids more fat, and it also has the effect of making families -- depriving them of their ability and the privilege and joy of providing for their own children.” Media Matters, [10/23/13]

• • Fox's Martha MacCallum attacked New Jersey’s free school lunch programs, arguing that it’ll cause kids to grow up thinking “school lunch is free.” She stated, “One of the things that kills me is that now that, you know, there’s a free lunch program in New Jersey, and it’s for everyone, even if you don't need help to send your child's lunch to school. So, now those kids are all going to grow up thinking, well, school lunch is free. Right? And then God help the person who comes along and tries to take that away.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [9/30/21]

• • As recently as 2021, Fox host Sean Hannity complained about free school lunches that were offered in summertime. He said, “They want free school lunches, even when school is out for the summer, they want lunches for welfare recipients, anybody and everything for illegal immigrants as well.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/1/21]

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an 8 24

fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov accused Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of turning a conversation with Black journalists into a "dumpster fire."

At the National Association of Black Journalists conference on Wednesday, Trump began by calling ABC News host Rachel Scott's questions "horrible" and "nasty."

Tarlov reacted to the Fox panel with shock.

"My reaction is that it was a complete, absolute dumpster fire for the former president," she told host Martha MacCallum. "I don't feel the need to give him any credit for showing up there because he came with a terrible attitude."

"He hit all of his regular hits, lying about his record for Black Americans," she continued. "The comparison saying he's done the most for the Black community since Abraham Lincoln is obviously ridiculous.

"I thought that he was rude and offensive to the questioners."

Tarlov noted that Trump hadargued with Scott over whether presumed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was a "DEI hire."

"And then his response, that she used to be Indian and is now somehow Black, was offensive no matter the color of your skin," the Fox News contributor said.

MacCallum quickly interrupted to defend Trump.

"She has an Indian mother and a Jamaican father," MacCallum said of Harris.

"Right, she's Black!" Tarlov exclaimed.

"But she has an Indian mother and a Black father," MacCallum repeated. "So those are two different backgrounds."

Watch the video below from Fox News.

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mma 1 24

in January 5, Fox host Jesse Watters attacked AP News’ climate coverage, seemingly in response to a story dispelling offshore wind misinformation. The segment repeated the false claim — debunked by several fact checks from a variety of sources — that offshore wind development is killing whales.

The same false claim appeared on Fox News at least as early as December 2022 and proliferated on the network throughout 2023, with at least 54 segments pushing the misinformation seemingly intended to hurt support for offshore wind.

In early 2023, Fox News helped propel the false narrative into a right-wing media story which has persisted even though no evidence supports the link between the slew of whale deaths along the East Coast and offshore wind development.

An analysis by Media Matters found that:

• Fox News aired at least 54 segments suggesting that offshore wind development is causing whale deaths. At least 15 programs on the network have reported on the false link between offshore wind and whale deaths, including the network’s so-called straight news program Special Report With Bret Baier.

• 12 of the 54 (22%) segments appeared on Fox & Friends (on its daily or weekend program), 11 of the 54 (20%) segments appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime, and 9 (17%) appeared on The Story with Martha MacCullum.

• 26 of 54 segments aired in the first two months of 2023. With 14 segments, coverage peaked in February 2023. At least one segment pushing the false claim appeared on Fox every month of 2023 except May and October.

A December report by the Center for American Progress illustrates how the fossil fuel industry is bankrolling offshore wind misinformation, “with money flowing through interest groups, think tanks, and astroturf groups to achieve its ultimate goal of slowing, if not stopping, the expansion of offshore wind in the United States.”

Fox News has played a key role in the proliferation of offshore wind misinformation by regularly airing false claims about the technology and providing a platform to some of the groups identified in the report, including Protect Our Coast NJ and people associated with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Environmental Progress, whose founder and president, Michael Shellenberger, has appeared frequently on Fox News to spread offshore wind misinformation.

Methodology...

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Fox News' Martha MacCallum criticizes Joe Biden for "scowling" during January 6 speech | Media Matters for America

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recycle for cred?

fox begged trump to go on?

https://www.mediamatters.org/bret-baier/fox-news-anchors-martha-maccallum-and-bret-baier-are-major-vectors-misinformation

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mma 5 23

:{:{}:

}:

right-wing media figures uncritically amplified a now-debunked New York Post story to demonize immigrants and attack Democratic lawmakers.

On May 13, the New York Post published a story alleging that a group of 20 homeless military veterans had been “evicted” from two upstate New York hotels to make room for immigrants who had settled in New York City. The Post claimed the supposed migrants were part of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ plans to secure temporary housing for immigrants entering the city. 

After the New York Post published its story, local outlet the Mid Hudson News spoke with hotel management and service providers the Post claimed were involved in the removals. On May 18, the paper reported that not only had no homeless veterans been removed, but they were never there to begin with — one hotel manager “had never heard of” the veteran's group supposedly involved, while another said it “had not put any veterans in the hotel for ‘a long time.’” The report also discredited a receipt presented by State Assemblyman Brian Maher as supposed evidence that the group representing the homeless veterans had paid for the rooms. The Post later reported that the group’s longtime advocate had lied to the newspaper about the entire situation, and today the Mid Hudson News uncovered that 15 homeless men were paid to pretend they were veterans who had been staying at the hotel.

[twt]

by the time the story fell apart, right-wing media had already latched onto the now-debunked narrative and immediately weaponized the shoddily reported story as part of their ongoingfear campaign over a so-called “invasion” of migrants coming across the southern border.

• Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt said it was “astonishing that some of these hotels are getting migrants” and having to cancel other reservations, adding, “There are two couples that booked rooms for their wedding … and 20 vets also were in that hotel, they all had to move out because these migrants moved in.”
• Later on Fox & Friends, guest co-host Will Cain claimed that a “flood of illegal immigrants” are taking up hotel rooms and other resources in New York. Cain went on to remind viewers “about homeless veterans booted from a hotel so that rooms could be given to illegal immigrants,” with Earhardt adding that “Eric Adams says they’re gonna stay there for four months, so 20 veterans had to move to another hotel.”
• Fox anchor Harris Faulkner claimed the story showed “the disgraceful treatment of our military veterans played out in Orange County, New York,” as the nonexistent group of “at least 20 homeless veterans, some reportedly suffering from PTSD, had to give up their hotel rooms for illegals.” Fox contributor Johnny “Joey” Jones added a jab at the Biden administration, stating, “A president that would leave Americans stranded in Afghanistan probably doesn't see the onus to take care of 20 veterans in a hotel. And I hate to say it, but that's just the absolute truth of it.”
• Outnumbered co-hosts Emily Compagno and Kayleigh McEnany expressed outrage over the New York Post story, with Compagno claiming “America's heroes are now paying the price” for the “Southern border crisis.” McEnany lamented, “I can't help but notice the contrast when you have a 24-year-old — a veteran, had been in Afghanistan — kicked out of his hotel room as an Afghan national on the terror watch list is crossing the border in San Diego.”
• Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum complained, “You’ve got the hotels in New York that are having to take folks in. You had one in Newburgh, New York, where they had to cancel a wedding and kick out some homeless veterans to make room for incoming migrants.”
• Conservative moving company owner John Rourke appeared on One America News and ranted, “It just drives me nuts when we have veterans sleeping on the streets of this country and committing suicide in record numbers … and here we are filling up hotel rooms with illegal aliens, giving them cell phones, giving them medical attention, giving them food and water, and then putting them on planes.”
• On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr. used the story to attack Democrats, stating, “Honestly, this is just infuriating! Homeless vets are being booted from New York hotels to make room for migrants. Fuck Democrats & their bullshit policies! America last isn’t hyperbole it’s their goal.”
• Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier tweeted, “Unacceptable. Nearly two dozen struggling homeless vets have been booted from NY hotels… So illegal immigrants can have space. WHAT?!”
• Conservative radio host Bo Snerdley tweeted, “This is about as ruthless, coldblooded, and incredibly heinous as anything Biden and Democrats have ever done. Kicking American veterans out of their lodging to make way for illegal immigrants? What country IS this?”
• Newsmax contributor Tony Shaffer later tweeted, “This tells you everything you need to understand about the progressive left cult - they are out to expand political power and a permanent underclass that will vote for them even if it means sacrificing veterans.”
• Fox News contributor and former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted, “What could be more backwards than putting illegal immigrants ahead of American veterans? An insult to American sovereignty.”
• 2024 Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley tweeted a link to the New York Post’s story, adding, “Liberal insanity at work.”

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mma 3 23

Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum argued in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election that the network should consider a “layer” beyond “statistics and numbers” when projecting the election results, and instead take into account how its conservative audience would react to the network’s calls.

The New York Times reviewed a recording of a Zoom meeting held on November 16, 2020, over a week after the network’s decision desk had projected Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. The article details discussions between Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and the two purported straight news anchors on the continued political fallout over the network’s correct projection on election night that Joe Biden had won the swing state of Arizona. (Fox News later fired two key news executives who had presided over the call, which was factually correct and never reversed by any real-life developments.)

Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the two main anchors, suggested it was not enough to call a state based on numerical calculations, the standard by which networks have made such determinations for generations, but that viewer reaction should be considered. “In a Trump environment,” Ms. MacCallum said, “the game is just very, very different.”

…

Ms. Scott invited Mr. Baier and Ms. MacCallum, “the face” of the network, as she called them, to describe the heat they were taking, according to the recording reviewed by The Times.

“We are still getting bombarded,” Mr. Baier said. “It became really hurtful.” He said projections were not enough to call a state when it would be so sensitive. “I know the statistics and the numbers, but there has to be, like, this other layer” so they could “think beyond, about the.”

Ms. MacCallum agreed: “There’s just obviously been a tremendous amount of backlash, which is, I think, more than any of us anticipated. And so there’s that layer between statistics and news judgment about timing that I think is a factor.” For “a loud faction of our viewership,” she said, the call was a blow.

Neither she nor Mr. Baier explained exactly what they meant by another “layer.” A person who was in the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions said on Saturday that Mr. Baier had been talking about process because he was upset the Decision Desk had made the Arizona call without letting the anchors know first.

New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and The New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser reported last year in their book The Divider that Baier had attempted to convince the network to retract its call of Arizona for Biden and to “put it back” as Trump winning, even though Trump trailed at the time by more than 10,000 votes.

“The Trump campaign was really pissed,” he wrote in an email to Jay Wallace, the president and executive editor at Fox. “This situation is getting uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I keep having to defend this on air.” He accused the Decision Desk of “holding on for pride” and added: “It’s hurting us. The sooner we pull it—even if it gives us major egg [on our faces]—and we put it back in his column the better we are in my opinion.

By the time of the Zoom meeting on November 16, there could not have been any remaining doubt over the fundamental accuracy of the Arizona call. Baier and MacCallum, however, were still arguing that it had been a political mistake for the network to be first on the air with this truthful story.

This newest reporting further reveals the extent to which Fox does not have a “straight news” side, but instead is just another cog in a right-wing propaganda machine. This story must also be considered in the context of revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ ongoing defamation lawsuit against Fox, which reveals that Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and other key executives knew that the Trump campaign’s conspiracy theories about massive electoral fraud were indeed false, but that the network continued to push them in the pursuit of profit.

In the two-week period after the Fox News decision desk had declared Joe Biden the president-elect, the network’s coverage undermined that projection by questioning the results of the election or pushing conspiracy theories at least 774 times.

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mma 1 23

Fox News' Martha MacCallum, one of the network’s main “news side” anchors, is scheduled to keynote a fundraiser for a Republican-aligned organization that helps train conservative leaders in Colorado. 

MacCallum is the anchor of The Story with Martha MacCallum and is a regular moderator for Fox News debates and town halls. She and Special Report’s Bret Baier co-anchored Fox News’ coverage of the 2022 midterms. MacCallum has a history of adopting and arguing for Republican positions in the network’s “straight news” coverage. 

She is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Leadership Program of the Rockies’ (LPR) Annual Retreat on February 17-18. Fox News host Pete Hegseth and network contributors Kimberley Strassel and Jonathan Turley will also speak at the high-priced event. The event will additionally feature Red Pilled America podcast co-hosts Patrick Courrielche and Adryana Cortez, who are described as telling “the stories Hollywood and the Globalists don’t want you to hear.”

LPR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that, as it wrote on Twitter, “trains leaders to push forward the conservative agenda.” The organization, which offers training sessions and events throughout the year, was previously called the Republican Leadership Program. Its chairman is former Colorado Republican Rep. Bob Schaffer and its president is Republican consultant Shari Williams. 

The Colorado Times Recorder recently profiled the organization and reported that “in recent years the already conservative LPR has veered further right, selecting a number of students and featuring speakers whose public positions include not only unwavering support of Donald Trump but openly conspiratorial and bigoted beliefs.” The piece by Erik Maulbetsch also noted that “approximately one-third of Colorado’s Republican state legislators are LPR graduates.” 

Fox’s Baier spoke at the event last year. In a clip of his speech online, Baier told the audience: “If more and more folks are like you and engaged, I think that, you know, there’s real hope.” Fox News anchor Dana Perino, Fox News anchor and Senior Vice President Neil Cavuto, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, and Fox News reporter Lawrence Jones have also spoken to the Republican-aligned organization. 

MacCallum’s speech is yet another example of how Fox News helps Republican-aligned organizations on and off the air. Fox News personalities have also frequently participated in events for Republican Party politicians and organizations. It’s additionally another indication of the decimation of the network’s “news side.”

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mma 10 22

after nearly five months of public testimony, the final hearing of the bipartisan House select committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol concluded on October 13 with a unanimous vote to subpoena former President Donald Trump, sending right-wing media’s campaign to discredit the panel and downplay the insurrection into overdrive.

The panel presented mountains of evidence that displayed a clear, coordinated, and deliberate effort by Trump and his supporters to infiltrate the Capitol and overturn the results of the 2020 election. Evidence presented during Thursday’s hearing illustrated that Trump sought to sow chaos in his final days as president by authorizing the withdrawal of troops overseas; provided further evidence that Secret Service and law enforcement were aware of the threats ahead of January 6 and sought to cover up their failures; and aired footage and testimony laying out the actions of political leaders including House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and former Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021.

Many right-wing figures, however, continued their longstanding campaign to brand the hearings as a politicized witch hunt andfalsely accuse the panel of failing to present evidence that directly connects the violence to Trump.

The conclusion of the October 13 hearing and the vote to subpoena Trump himself was followed by a new set of attacks from right-wing outlets which have consistently pushed lies about the insurrection and its investigation in order to downplay the panel’s findings and deflect from their own potential complicity, instead painting the hearings as a flashy distraction from “real” issues leading into the midterms.

Right-wing media outlets dismissed the hearings as “political theater” and downplayed the new evidence:

• Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum tried to minimize Trump’s role in the riot, claiming, “What they have not been able to do so far, although they have said that President Trump was at the center of this from the very beginning, is directly tie him to the break-in and the riot at the Capitol.”
• Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy told MacCallum, “This is show biz. This is not really a hearing.”
• Washington Examiner correspondent Byron York accused the committee of treating the hearings like a TV show, saying, “You know, the committee very famously hired a former president of ABC News to kind of craft their hearings into an exciting series. And each one had kind of a beginning, and a climax, and a tease for the next episode. They all did that. And this is — the subpoena of the president is entirely theatrical.”
• Right-wing radio host Erick Erickson took to Twitter, claiming that the committee’s move in “subpoenaing Trump at their last televised hearing is theater designed to affect an election, not procedure to seek the truth.”
• Newsmax congressional correspondent Kilmeny Duchardt claimed, “So far, what we have seen revealed in that room today has not been anything corroborating the support, or rather, claims by the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson that there was an altercation between Trump's security detail and the former president when he demanded to be taken to the Capitol on January 6,” adding, “We don't know if this is a season finale or a series finale.”
• Right-wing radio host Mark Levin tweeted, “The Jan 6 Committee hasn’t presented any evidence — NONE — linking Donald Trump to those who stormed the Capitol Building. Nothing. But there’s tons of evidence tying Joe Biden to foreign payoffs.”
• Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak tweeted, “Just in time for the midterms, the super-important January 6 show trial has resumed, touting new evidence that, once again, says nothing about anything except the desperation of Democrats to pervert justice and due process to prevent the opposition from competing fairly for power.”

Right-wing media pundits suggested Democrats are using the hearing to deflect attention from more important issues, namely, inflation:

• On Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum, network contributor Marc Thiessen said, “I don't think it's a coincidence that they scheduled — rescheduled this hearing for the day that the inflation numbers came out because, you know, we just found out that the record inflation continues and we got numbers on the consumer price index and they want everybody to be talking about January 6 instead of that. So I feel like it's not just political theater, it's political manipulation.”
• On Newsmax’s John Bachman Now, host John Bachman said, “Another January 6 hearing is about to get underway. So why is the committee even meeting today? Does it have anything to do with these horrible inflation numbers?”
• Curtis Houck, an editor for misinformation hub NewsBusters, tweeted, “The left and their so-called conservative allies don't care that you can't afford to pay rent, pay down debts, have been skipping grocery visits, and can't afford to go anywhere. They demand you care more about January 6 and Donald Trump than your livelihood.”
• Former Daily Caller contributor Greg Price [twt
• pundits critiqued the committee vote to subpoena Trump:

• On Twitter, HotAir editor Ed Morrissey called the committee vote to subpoena Trump “an election stunt.”
• Conservative nonprofit Citizens United tweeted, “Instead of doing something about Biden's 8.2 percent inflation crisis, Democrats in Congress are about to issue a subpoena for President Trump. This is a taxpayer funded political stunt designed to impact the midterm election that's coming in 26 days.”
• On Telegram, conspiracy theorist and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander posted that the subpoena was “a break from norms and separation of powers. … This was a psychological-operation by legislators who know the corporate media are too dumb to report this to the American people.”
• Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak tweeted, “Nothing says ‘apolitical’ like voting to subpoena the former president and likely future candidate less than four weeks before Election Day. Every member of this committee is a fraud.”
• In a Fox News opinion piece, author Victor Davis Hanson wrote, “Frightened Democratic candidates on script are resorting to strategies of diversion. They avoid mention of their prior lockstep support for Biden agendas that induced current high gas prices, spiraling inflation, deflated 401(k) retirement plans, out-of-control violent crime, 3 million illegal aliens pouring across the southern border, and the disaster in Afghanistan and its aftermath.

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an 7 22

Fox News hosts complained on Monday's edition of America Reports that gas prices are declining too quickly, despite having sung with the chorus of conservatives across the country that has been demanding that President Joe Biden do everything in his power to ease the pain at the pump.

Congressional Republicans in May unanimously voted against legislation that would have curtailed price gouging by fossil fuel producers.

But for Fox and its right-wing audience, all is still bad, even as consumers finally get a break.

READ MORE: [Robert Reich outlines three ways Democrats can lower gas prices

"I was at a lacrosse tournament up in Wilmington, Delaware over the weekend. In Delaware and Northern Maryland, regular gas is anywhere from about $4.55 to $4.80 a gallon, so the price is beginning to creep back down," host John Roberts said.

Anchor Martha MacCallum then chimed in, opining that lower costs of fuel are bad for "mom-and-pop" gas station owners.

"It is, it is, and the point was made over the weekend – I believe it wasThe Wall Street Journal–that gas prices are actually coming back down historically faster with the price of oil than usual, and it just goes to show you what an incredible risk/reward calculation has to happen on the part of those small, independently-owned, most of them, mom-and-pop gas stations. It's a struggle for all of them," said MacCallum.

"Yeah, still a long way from $3.55 a gallon, but maybe some movement in that direction," Roberts remarked.

READ MORE: 'The absolute worst excuse': Kevin McCarthy roasted for blaming gas prices on the January 6th investigation

Watch here via The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona.

In his report in The Daily Beast, Baragona noted that "according to both GasBuddy and the American Automobile Association, the price average national price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas has dropped nearly 40 cents since hitting its peak of $5.02."

Baragona also pointed out that "the WSJ article that Smith referencedreported that gasoline prices quickly falling is 'creating new headaches for the mom-and-pop entrepreneurs and other independent operators who run roughly half of U.S. gas stations,' adding that station owners risk 'losing money on every new fuel order' they place."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/fox-news-2657552945/

mccallum martha day 4 jan 6 hearing rusty bowers

stunning lack of evid big lie

no lnx

Fox News host admits 'stunning' lack of evidence supporting Trump’s election fraud claims

Image via Screengrab.blone

Daniel Villarreal and The New Civil Rights Movement June 23, 2022

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Fox News host Martha MacCallum has said that there’s a “stunning” lack of evidence supporting former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him by an unprecedented nationwide conspiracy of voter fraud.

MacCallum made her comments when discussing recent testimony by Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers to the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Bowers said that Trump’s campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani kept telling that the Trump campaign had a list of dead people who had voted and other irregularities that would prove fraud. Though Giuliani promised to give lists of names and irregularities to Bowers, the Trump campaign never provided them.

At one point, Bowers said that Giuliani commented, “We’ve got lots of theories (of election fraud), we just don’t have the evidence.” Indeed, over 60 court cases brought by Trump and Republicans alleging election fraud were dismissed due to lack of evidence.

MacCallum said, “It is very compelling and the lack of evidence is the huge, stunning, clear moment here where these people are saying, ‘Look I supported you, please give me something to work with,’ and it simply doesn’t materialize.”

MacCallum’s statement marks a distinct change from Fox News’ rhetoric casting doubt on President Joe Biden’s election victory leading up to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/humiliation-bret-baier-and-fox-news-side

thursday was a night of humiliation for Bret Baier and his “news side” colleagues. It was also a perfect encapsulation of the total lack of respect the Fox brass has for its “news” division, whose staff have endured waves of layoffs, reduced hours of programming, and constant signals from network leaders that they are imminently replaceable cogs with no influence compared to Fox’s right-wing propagandists. Fox is Tucker Carlson’s network, and now everyone at the network knows it.

Baier, per the bio on Fox News’ website, is his network’s “chief political anchor.” But at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday night, Baier wasn’t on Fox preempting its regular programming to introduce coverage of the first hearing of the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, unlike his theoretical peers with similarly lofty titles. Instead, he and fellow anchor Martha MacCallum had been relegated to Fox Business, its lightly watched sister channel. 

Meanwhile, Carlson was airing his Fox show in its usual prime-time timeslot. “This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live,” he said in an opening monologue. “They are lying and we are not going to help them do it. What we will do instead is try to tell you the truth.”

Carlson was using the royal “we,” laying down the network’s editorial line that its own right-wing agitprop was of greater value than honest coverage of the congressional investigation into the sacking of the U.S. Capitol by violent Trumpists bent on suborning the 2020 presidential election. Then he spent an hour regurgitating debunked lies about that coup attempt.

Baier reportedly protested to top network executives seven months ago when Carlson explored paranoid, “false flag” conspiracy theories about January 6 in Patriot Purge, a three-part special for Fox’s streaming service. He and Chris Wallace, another longtime “news side” stalwart, “shared their objections with Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and its president of news, Jay Wallace,” NPR reported, and “those objections rose to Lachlan Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of the network's parent company, Fox Corp.” At the time, those complaints had no apparent impact.

Thursday’s programming shows that Carlson's victory over Baier, Wallace, and their “news side” colleagues was total.

Fox provided Carlson a platform to endorse the motives of the rioters and push the same baseless and obscene conspiracy theories that had drawn criticism from Baier. The network aired his program and Sean Hannity’s during the following hour commercial-free, sacrificing advertising dollars in apparent effort to keep the audience from channel-surfing during breaks and discovering any of the chilling revelations the committee provided — even on Baier’s Fox Business coverage.

Baier, meanwhile, was relegated to Fox’s B-channel to cover the prime-time hearing. At 10 p.m. ET, while CNN and MSNBC were still providing analysis of the hearing, he signed off, and Fox Business aired a docudrama about Ben Franklin. Only at 11 p.m. ET, when it was time for viewers to nod off, did Baier get access to Fox’s airwaves.

The message about the relative positions of Carlson and Baier in the network hierarchy sent by these programming decisions was obvious to all. On Twitter, a Carlson guest with an accurate read on the situation dunked on Baier’s tweet promoting his hearing coverage.

[twt ned ryun]

baier was left impotently touting what little access the network was giving him to its airwaves.

[twt]

meanwhile, Chris Wallace was a fixture during live coverage of the hearing – but on CNN. He decamped to that network last year, ending his nearly two-decade career at Fox after Carlson’s Patriot Purge conspiracy theories reportedly proved the final straw. Wallace has since become the latest former Fox employee to criticize its programming as right-wing propaganda. “I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion,” he told The New York Times in March. “But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable.” 

Baier, to this point, apparently finds it eminently sustainable for Carlson and his cronies to question whether January 6 was an insurrection — in prime time, on the network where he putatively serves as “chief political anchor.”

The declining influence of Fox’s “news side” has been underway for some time. But on Thursday, it was on display in prime time, obvious for anyone interested in seeing it. Fox’s brass may occasionally tout the “news” division as a talking point for advertisers, but they will yield to Carlson and his conspiracy theories every time.

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11 21 mma va gov race

MARTHA MACCALLUM (ANCHOR): Absolutely.

STENGLER: I don't think people necessarily truly understand what critical race theory is. Younger children are not being taught critical race theory. They can't understand critical race theory. They're being taught history.

So when somebody here out in Loudoun County, I understand, was upset that his second grade child was taught that Christopher Columbus killed many indigenous people, that's part of history. That is what Christopher Columbus did.

So, I have a hard time -- I think kids have to learn history, the good, the bad, the ugly, so they can become critical thinkers.

MACCALLUM: I don't think anybody is against that. I think we have to do a fact check on the Christopher Columbus story as well.

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random grab 920 mma

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/tucker-carlson-claims-white-militia-guy-accused-of-ing-protesters-was-trying-to-maintain-order/

no lnx twt vid

twt

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Carlson has been circling the toilet bowl that is right wing culture for years now. The millimeter thin scum that is the entirety of the conservative intellectual movement in our country, has been able to float on top of the drain for an interminably long time now. No one has benefited from this failure more than Tucker Carlson, whose only intellectual claim to fame  was his anachronistic use of a bowtie in his 20s.

On Tucker’s Fox News show tonight, Carlson decided to take on the protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. You know that there is zero chance that Tucker is going to speak to the injustice against Jacob Blake, shot 7 times int he back by law enforcement, while his young children watched in horror. You might think that Tucker would try to speak to “virtue signaling” or one of his other wafer-thin buzzwords, by going after NBA players striking in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. But you might also think that Tucker would stay as far away from talking about right wing vigilante militia racist and Trump-supporting accused murderer Kyle Howard Rittenhouse. But you would be wrong.

Speaking about Rittenhouse, Tucker decided to conflate fear-mongering and civil disobedience with rioting and then posture that young Rittenhouse was just trying to bring law and order back to a county and state he doesn’t even live in. “So are you really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-yea-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?” Just. Man oh man.

Tucker has long been a hate-mongering spoiled bag of farts, but this crosses the line from simply being a mean and vapid prick, to being someone condoning vigilante violence against American citizens.

The fact that mass-shooter is someone that was brought in from out of town doesn’t even get mentioned by these ghouls on right wing media.

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While Andy Ngo and Ben Shapiro tip toe around the subject, Tucker Carlson just says it outright. The right is pushing a line that it’s ok to shoot protesters.

Brendan Karet

@bad_takes

Tucker Carlson: "How shocked are we that 17 year olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?"

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nikki mccann ramírez

@NikkiMcR

Tucker Carlson says that they don't have "more details" about the killings in Kenosha other than that the shooter was 17, killed two people, and possibly acted in self-defense, he then goes on to blame Kenosha leaders and protesters.

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Once again a Fox host, this time Martha MacCallum, frames the Kenosha shooters a someone "protecting their business" throughout the segment neither Martha nor The Daily Caller reporter has mentioned that the shooter was from out of state and involved with a militia.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-martha-maccallum-having-differences-opinion-science-surrounding-covid-19-something-we

wrongshow?

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/trumps-new-coronavirus-adviser-right-wing-media-talking-head-who-consistently

Donald Trump announced this week that Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, will serve as a new “adviser” to the president on COVID-19. Atlas, whose background is in diagnostic radiology, is not an expert in infectious disease but rather a pundit and frequent Fox guest who has been repeatedly wrong about the pandemic.

Atlas, who has appeared 20 times on Fox News since the end of April, predicted in March that there would only be 10,000 deaths from COVID in America, said in April that the pandemic “appears to be entering the containment phase,” and claimed in May that “the curves have been flattened.” More recently, he has taken to making unproven claims downplaying the risk of COVID-19 in considering whether to reopen schools for in-person learning.

But Fox News and other right-wing outlets have elevated his politically convenient though dubious commentary; and on August 12 he gave brief remarks during a White House press briefing after Trump asked him to come up to the podium.

Here is a noncomprehensive list of Atlas’ false claims, incorrect predictions, and pro-Trump sycophancy that preceded his new role at the White House.

• Atlas claimed in a March 16 tweet, “Virus infections typically have seasons. This is temporary.”
• In a March 26 op-ed in The Washington Times, Atlas wrote, “This virus could cause about 10,000 deaths in the United States overall.”
• In a March 26 “:{Hoover:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: Virtual Policy Briefing,” Atlas claimed, “All reasonable numbers point to the fact that our number of severe outcomes will be peaking around three weeks or so.”
• In an April 1:{ op-ed in The Hill:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, Atlas wrote that “Americans should not panic. The United States has the most advanced medical care in the world for situations like this.”
• As the national curve of daily deaths continued to rise, Atlas wrote in an April 13 op-ed in The Hill that “we now need to reenter normal life” and that “continuing full-population isolation and waiting for a vaccine would be doubling down and yielding to panic.”
• Atlas opened his April 22 op-ed in The Hill by declaring, “The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase.”
• In an April 26 appearance on Fox News' The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton, Atlas told the host, “Young people under 18 have virtually no risk of serious illness or death, so it's logical to open most schools. It's logical to open most businesses.”
• Atlas claimed on the :{April 27 edition of Fox News’ *Tucker Carlson Tonight*:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, “It’s actually good news that the virus spreads widely and without high risk to the vast majority of people … because that means we have a better chance of developing population immunity.” The Mayo clinic describes “major problems” with the idea that herd immunity can be achieved through natural infection as it is unknown to what extent an individual is immune to further infection after exposure. Also, according to the Mayo clinic, even if it was possible for herd immunity to be achieved this way, it “could also lead to serious complications and millions of deaths, especially among older people and those who have chronic conditions.”
• On the May 11 edition of Fox News' :{The Story with Martha MacCallum:(style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:#ff9900;"):}:, Atlas referenced the social distancing measures and claimed that “the cure is bigger than the disease at this point.” He also told the audience that “the curves have been flattened.”
• On the June 8 edition of:{ *The Story with Martha MacCallum*:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}:, Atlas falsely claimed “there is really no risk to young people” when it comes to COVID-19.
• On the June 22 edition of *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, host Martha MacCallum mentioned to Atlas former Food and Drug Adminstration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s claim that 25% of hospitalizations in Texas are among people aged 20 to 29. Atlas responded that he didn’t believe the number, saying, “I question if those people who are positive for COVID-19 and being hospitalized for something else are classified as COVID-19 hospitalizations. That's a big difference.”
• On the June 29 edition of Fox News' :{Tucker Carlson Tonight:(style="box-sizing:border-box;background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, Atlas falsely claimed young people “do not have a significant problem, they do not have the serious complications, they do not die” from COVID-19. (The data showed at the time of this appearance and continues to show that young people do in fact die or suffer serious complications from the virus.) He also said it’s “fantastic news that we have a lot of cases,” which common sense and real-time data show to be false.
• On the July 6 edition of *The Story with :{Martha MacCallum:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}:*, Atlas repeated the falsehood that “it doesn’t really matter how many cases, it only matters who gets the cases” because young people die at a lower rate than older people. But increased caseloads lead to an increased strain on the capacity of health systems and may spread the virus to people who are more vulnerable to serious complications from the disease, even if the vast majority of young people who make up the increased number of cases do not.
• Atlas downplayed the potential risks that COVID-19 poses to people under 70 on the July 7 edition of Fox News' *The Ingraham Angle*, claiming, “The risk of this has been grossly overblown.”
• On the July 15 edition of *America's Newsroom*, Atlas falsely claimed, “It doesn’t matter if children get the disease. ... The data shows that they do not significantly transmit to adults.”
• On the July 25 edition of Fox News’ *Watters World*, Atlas uncritically shilled for the Trump’s disastrous COVID-19 response, saying, “I think the president’s briefings that were done this week were excellent, and I think it’s obvious to everyone that there’s a focus on the data, that they’re closely monitoring the situation.” He also falsely claimed that it’s been “established” that “ children are not significant spreaders,” when in fact the science on this issue remains unsettled.

===

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7/19/20

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/fox-news-peddled-misinformation-about-the-coronavirus-253-times-in-five-days-study/

A new study finds that Fox News peddled misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic 253 times in only five days. The documented instances included claims which undermined science and faith in experts, as well as demands that schools and businesses reopen at the risk of public health.

Primetime host Laura Ingraham, who has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, led the pack with about a quarter of the claims — 63 total, or just more than 12 per show. Additionally, the network’s “straight news” programs contributed about 35% of the misinformation.

The study, published Thursday by media watchdog Media Matters for America, was conducted from July 6 to 10 — the week after a Yahoo News report proclaimed that Fox’s coronavirus coverage had taken a “remarkable turn” for the better:

However haltingly and incompletely, the president’s favorite news outlet has started to acknowledge, across various programs and its news site, that the coronavirus is a far graver threat than even [President Donald] Trump himself will acknowledge.

That report cited two articles on the network’s website and two instances of Fox News personalities Sean Hannity and Steve Doocy making remarks about masks that, while stopping short of endorsements, did not mock them outright.

The article also pointed out that Fox News requires its employees to wear masks at work most of the time. Additionally, the network appears to have canceled a Fox Nation show about the pandemic hosted by coronavirus conspiracy theorist Alex Berenson, though extant episodes remain available.

new study finds that Fox News peddled misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic 253 times in only five days. The documented instances included claims which undermined science and faith in experts, as well as demands that schools and businesses reopen at the risk of public health.

Primetime host Laura Ingraham, who has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, led the pack with about a quarter of the claims — 63 total, or just more than 12 per show. Additionally, the network’s “straight news” programs contributed about 35% of the misinformation.

The data in the Media Matters study flatly contradicts the isolated examples from the Yahoo report. Here is a quick breakdown:

• About half the incidents — 115 claims — challenged scientific consensus and undermined official government recommendations, such as social distancing and masking guidelines.
• “The Ingraham Angle” was the clear leader of the pack, pushing misinformation 63 times, more than half of which came from Ingraham herself, who undermined science a staggering 21 times in five days.
• “Fox & Friends” took second place with 45 instances; “Hannity” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight” finished in a dead heat for third, clocking 21 and 20 instances, respectively.
• Straight news programs delivered more than a third of the misinformation, led by Martha MacCallum’s “The Story” with 20 claims.
• Eight claims defended or endorsed unproven remedies such as hydroxychloroquine, days after the FDA told people not to take it outside of hospitals or clinical trials.
• The network politicized the pandemic 63 times, including 51 claims that regulations requiring masks and closing businesses were rooted in politics and 10 false claims linking recent racial justice protests to a surge in new infections.
• Hosts advocated 34 times to disregard public health concerns in favor of reopening the country’s more than 100,000 K-12 schools.

The misinformation and the seeming coordination with official White House talking points has raised alarm among experts.

For instance, in a “Hannity” interview July 10, the last day covered in the study, Trump responded to a question about the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, by saying “he’s made a lot of mistakes.”

That interview fed an ongoing White House effort to discredit Fauci, who pushed back by calling such efforts “bizarre.”

“Ultimately, it hurts the president,” he said.

Then there is the matter of schools. The network and the administration, including Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, for weeks trumpeted an American Academy of Pediatrics statement advising a measured reopening of schools.

The misinformation’s momentum eventually compelled the academy — together with with the two largest educators’ unions in the country and the School Superintendents Association — to clarify its statement. It now says that reopening “will clearly require substantial new investments in our schools and campuses,” and calls on Congress and the administration “to provide the federal resources needed” to safely educate and care for students.

In an earlier Media Matters audit of the cable network, Fox News posted a 20% decline in its coronavirus coverage between March and May.

But this unrelenting misinformation campaign comes amid a massive surge in COVID-19 infections, which has ravaged healthcare resources in Sun Belt states such as Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. In recent weeks, the U.S. has set seven records for daily new cases, topping 68,000 on July 10, the same day which Trump, who said on numerous occasions that the virus would “miraculously” disappear in April, told Hannity that Fauci had “made a lot of mistakes.”

Now, many states are walking back reopening measures. California closed restaurants, movie theaters and bars. Arizona also shuttered movie theaters and bars, plus gyms and water parks.

On July 13, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs wondered “what in hell is going on” as closures increased. Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox medical expert, criticized the policies as “not consistent,” “punitive” and “draconian.”

However, there are some fractures within the network. A study from April showed that viewers of Hannity were more likely to die of COVID-19 than Carlson’s viewers. Now, the two seem neck-and-neck in misinformation.

Carlson, who in June broke Hannity’s all-time ratings record, recently claimed there was “no evidence” that masks help constrain the pandemic, in contradiction of guidance from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hannity, meanwhile, took the opposite view.

“I went to my grocery store every week. Guess what?” the host recently asked. “They wore masks. Nobody at my grocery store, thank God, got coronavirus.”

“I think they work,” he added.

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mccallum?

https://www.mediamatters.org/martha-maccallum/foxs-news-anchor-pushes-debunked-smear-about-impeachment-witness-marie-yovanovitch

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mma 919

Fox's Geraldo Rivera: Trump is being “unfairly mugged by the media” for repeatedly lying about Alabama and Hurricane Dorian

09/05/19 9:14 AM EDT

During coverage of Hurricane Dorian, Fox “hard news” show hosts climate denier

09/03/19 5:14 PM EDT

https://www.mediamatters.org/martha-maccallum/during-coverage-hurricane-dorian-fox-hard-news-show-hosts-climate-denier

no lnx

During coverage of Hurricane Dorian, Fox “hard news” show hosts climate denier

Roy Spencer uses his Fox News appearance to deny the documented link between climate change and hurricanes

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY JOHN WHITEHOUSE

PUBLISHED 09/03/19 5:14 PM EDT

During coverage of Hurricane Dorian, Fox “hard news” anchor Martha MacCallum hosted climate denier Roy Spencer who denied the proven link between hurricanes and climate change. Spencer also laughably asserted that climate change was occurring slowly; MacCallum did not provide any substantive pushback to his statements.

Video file

CitationFrom September 2 edition of Fox News' coverage of Hurricane Dorian

MARTHA MACCALLUM (ANCHOR): Special breaking coverage tonight of Hurricane Dorian. Dorian is an extremely powerful storm, and we are sure to hear people blame its strength on global climate change. So, should we? Is that correct?Roy Spencer is a meteorologist, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and author of the book Inevitable Disaster: Why Hurricanes Can't Be Blamed on Global Warming. So we know where you're coming from on this, Roy. It's good to have you with us tonight. You know, a lot of people look at this and they say that global warming has heated the surface of the ocean and that over time, those trapped gases continue to make that hotter and that that warm water is what leads to the fact that we've had five [Category] 5s in just the last few years. What do you say to them?

ROY SPENCER (METEOROLOGIST): Well, there's all kinds of statistics, Martha, that you could look at. The ones I look at are the long-term, because that's climate. Climate is long-term. And since 1900, out of all of the major hurricanes that have hit Florida, there has been no long-term trend in either their intensity or in the number of major hurricanes -- that is Cat. 3 or stronger -- that have hit Florida. Even if Dorian were to hit Florida as a Category 4, which it looks like now is not going to happen, there still would be no long-term trend. Now yes, we do expect, theoretically, that warmer waters should lead to stronger hurricanes. And the waters out around the Bahamas, where Dorian really intensified, are unusually warm. But if you go back, again, through the last hundred or more years, and look at the sea surface temperatures in that area and the hurricanes that have hit Florida, it turns out that the seven hurricanes -- since 1871 -- the seven hurricanes that went over the most unusually warm water for that time of year, and then hit Florida -- all of them occurred before 1950.

MACCALLUM: That's very interesting. Another statistic out there, and you tell me what you think about it, is that since 1970, you've had a one-tenths of a percent celsius increase every decade. So it's this slow but steady climb, and according to those numbers, that show that over time, the oceans are warming up. What do you say about that?

SPENCER: That's right. The oceans are warming up.

MACCALLUM: What do you say about that?

SPENCER: The oceans are warming up. The atmosphere is warming up. I think, probably based on the theory, over 50% of that is due to humans. But the warming is very slow. And warm waters is only one part of hurricane formation, OK? In order to have a hurricane, most of the tropics -- most of the tropics all the time, during the summer, are capable of producing or supporting a major hurricane. What's usually missing is a preexisting disturbance. For instance, most of the hurricanes we get started out as African easterly waves that come off of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. That's where most of them come from, the disturbances. So you need that. But you -- even more important, you need low wind shear. So you've got these different ingredients you have to have. It's kind of like tornadoes. You have to have a special mixture of certain ingredients. It's not just sea surface temperature. Otherwise we'd be having major hurricanes all over the tropics, and we don't. They are a relatively rare phenomenon. So, yeah sea surface temperatures are important but statistically, like I said, if you look at the data going back over 100 years, you really can't support increasing hurricane activity with the increasing sea surface temperatures that we actually are seeing.

Contrary to Spencer’s assertions, the link between hurricanes and climate change is a well-known fact. The Union of Concerned Scientists broke the science down into three parts: Warmer water gives more fuel to hurricanes; rising seas worsen storm surges; and warmer air holds more water for rainfall.

The link between hurricanes and climate change

CitationThe Union of Concerned Scientists

Inside Climate News also points to a study linking slow-moving hurricanes like Dorian and Harvey to climate change.

Beyond that, Spencer’s assertion that climate change-driven “warming is very slow” is preposterous. Scientists are warning that the planet is reaching a tipping point beyond which the Earth could be pushed into “into a spiral of runaway climate change.”

Lastly, it’s ridiculous for Fox News to book Spencer at all. Spencer is a longtime climate-denying gadfly who is the “official climatologist” of Rush Limbaugh, someone else who frequently lies about climate change. Spencer has previously argued that climate activists “are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did.”

In 2011, an editor of the journal Remote Sensing resigned after concluding that it should never have published a study by Spencer denying climate change due to “fundamental methodological errors or false claims.” The editor also harshly criticized Fox News for running with and exaggerating the study. Spencer had also released a study in 2003 that used faulty calculations to purportedly show that temperatures in the troposphere had remained constant over the previous two decades.

Fox News anchor Shep Smith has acknowledged that climate change is real. MacCallum’s decision to host Spencer on her “news”-side program goes to show how little the facts actually matter at Fox.

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As Hurricane Dorian wreaks havoc, Fox casts doubt on climate change science

09/05/19 12:42 PM EDT

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week in dumb mma

• Fox "news" anchor Martha MacCallum absurdly claimed that Democrats are not really upset with Barr for lying to Congress, saying that they are really upset at Mueller. How ridiculous was this spin? It was word-for-wordthe same spin that Rush Limbaugh used. Nevertheless, MacCallum hosted the presidential town hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and is scheduled to host another this week with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

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Fox "straight news" anchor lets Limbaugh spew racism and conspiracy theories with no pushback

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If you want to force action on climate change, Fox News needs to be fought -- not engaged with. That's what Media Matters' Evlondo Cooperwrote about this week, pointing to years of its misinformation and bad faith attacks. Even now, the network is leading the charge to attack the Green New Deal. And while it's tempting to argue with them, as an institution it's not going to change unless forced -- and the way to force that change is through sustained pressure, not arguments. The Democratic tactic of engaging with Fox News has failed: Fox News is more vulnerable than it's ever been, but it's not going down without pressure. It's time to fight.

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ref

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/04/12/Candidates-who-care-about-climate-change-should-be-wary-of-partnering-with-Fox-News/223427

Fox News is trying to entice Democratic presidential candidates to participate in town halls on the network, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) is scheduled to do on April 15. Though Sanders has explained his reasoning for wanting to do a town hall on Fox, there are plenty of good reasons why other candidates should think carefullyabout whether they want to partner with the network. 

Fox is a pernicious propaganda machine for the Trump White House, and it has a long history of both denying and downplaying climate change and helping to block climate action. Fox is currently at the peak of its political influence, but it's also at a precarious point both financially and in the court of public opinion. Many advertisers have fled and others are considering following suit, not wanting to be associated with the network's bigoted and toxic commentary. Fox is now desperately courting advertisers by trying to paint itself as a legitimate news outlet ahead of May 13, when it will host an "upfront" event at which it aims to sell about 60 to 70 percent of its advertising space for 2020. Democratic candidates might want to keep their distance and not enable Fox's attempt at whitewashing its toxicity.

Fox consistently spreads right-wing misinformation, lies, and climate denial

The New Yorker recently exposed how Fox News has developed a symbiotic relationship with the Trump administration and has become a nexus of the right-wing disinformation network. And earlier in April, The New York Times Magazine detailed how Fox founder Rupert Murdoch’s media empire “helped elevate marginal demagogues, mainstream ethnonationalism and politicize the very notion of truth” in the U.S. and beyond, “destabiliz[ing] democracies around the world.”

After the New Yorker published its piece in March, the Democratic National Committee barred Fox News from hosting any of its upcoming presidential primary debates.

Fox News has been especially destructive on the climate change narrative, serving as an echo and amplification chamber for climate denial and environmental deregulation efforts. For years, Fox has played a critical role in undermining the public consensus around climate change by eroding trust in climate scientists and scientific institutions, according to a 2013 study. A separate study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that 72 percent of Fox News segments about climate science in 2013 "contained misleading statements." In the years since, the network has continued to parade a coterie of network personalities, fringe cranks, and conspiracy theorists to push misinformation about climate change and attack those working to confront the climate crisis.

During the Trump administration, Fox News has also provided a safe haven for disgraced officials like former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Not only did Pruitt and Zinke prefer Fox News over other news networks, they both used their appearances on Fox to question climate science and to advocate for harmful environmental rollbacks, often with little to no pushback from fawning hosts.

Fox's "straight news" anchors are not honest brokers on climate change and other critical issues

Fox News claims that Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, the Fox hosts who will anchor the town hall with Sanders, are straightforward newscasters. But a closer look at their past comments and reporting reveals that they cannot be trusted to foster good-faith discussions about key issues, including climate change.

MacCallum has denied basic climate science and made ridiculous claims about global warming. In 2014, on Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends, she said:

MARTHA MACCALLUM: I mean the climate has changed over the course of the thousands and thousands of years that the Earth has been in existence. It has changed, you know, by several degrees up and down over the course of it. I just don't think that there is convincing evidence that the presence of man has altered that more dramatically than say the earth being covered with volcanoes emitting, you know, naturally noxious gases.

That same year, MacCallum downplayed the importance of climate change and argued that Democrats in Congress should be concentrating on other issues instead. And in March 2015, after the Obama administration announced a voluntary emission-reduction pledge ahead of the U.N. climate talks in Paris, MacCallum was critical of the move and falsely said that the U.S. was going to the "upper end of the range" with its commitment and "nobody else has to do it." In fact, dozens of other countries had by that point announced targets to cut or curb their greenhouse gas emissions, including the European Union, whose target was more ambitious than the one the U.S. put forth.

Baier has a reputation for not being as bad as some of the more explicit climate deniers on his network, but according to a 2014 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, he has still aired "a number of segments containing inaccurate statements about climate science." He has given climate skeptics a platform to and climate action, often with very little pushback.

Fox is now desperately trying to convince advertisers that it's not toxic

In March, Fox News executives held an unprecedented meeting with its advertisers to persuade them not to abandon the network after more than 30 companies had dropped their ads since the initial push began in December of last year. Recent calls for companies to pull their ads from Tucker Carlson Tonightand Justice with Judge Jeanine came in response to Media Mattersreleasing audio of Fox host Tucker Carlson's racist and misogynistic rants on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show from 2006 to 2011, and to Fox personality Jeanine Pirro’s anti-Muslim tirade against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

For years, Fox News has let its prime-time hosts spew bigotry, propaganda, and dangerous conspiracy theories on a nightly basis, while using its so-called "news" programming to give the network a veneer of respectability. But the "news" side and the "opinion" side of Fox News are two sides of the same coin. Fox is dangerous and corrupt from top to bottom.

The Fox executive wooing Democratic candidates has actively hampered honest reporting on climate change

Bill Sammon, Fox's senior vice president and Washington managing editor, is courting Democratic candidates for town halls and trying to get the DNC to reconsider its decision not to let Fox host a debate.

Sammon has a notoriously terrible record on climate change. In 2009, he sent a memo to Fox journalists ordering them to curtail honest reporting on climate change:

We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.

He sent the memo out less than 15 minutes after a Fox correspondent accurately reported that U.N. scientists said the 2000-2009 period was "expected to turn out to be the warmest decade on record." When the correspondent returned to the air a few hours later, he added views from climate "skeptics" into his reporting. Sammon has also tilted Fox's coverage of other issues further to the right.

Four years ago, Sammon played a key role in crafting questions for a Republican presidential primary debate. Do Democratic candidates want to invite Sammon to craft questions for them now?

With Fox on the ropes with advertisers, Democratic candidates should consider if they want to throw Fox News a lifeline this spring.

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