The Frankish Reich

And so now we know what Tucker really thinks about Trump. And about the fools who worship him: https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/03/07/fox-news-lawsuit/ Two months after the election and just days before Jan. 6, Fox host Tucker Carlson texted with an unknown Fox employee about how badly he wanted to stop covering Trump. “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson texted Jan. 4, 2021. “I truly can’t wait.” “I hate him passionately,” Carlson added. He continues to play you suckers like the suckers you are. And you lap it up.

Does he still have “slow eyes?” Trouble adjusting to which camera took look into?

You may choose to ignore it. But I just quoted the emails. Fox News had built the best election night projection model in the business. Bill Samman looked at his Arizona model and was confident that they could call the state for Biden. He was right. Trumpies didn’t like it, and the Fox commentariat really didn’t like it. So Tucker and others rebelled. Samman got fired. Over being right. Over ratings, not over bad journalism. And your Tucker has never paid any price for his clear dishonesty with his own viewers. I am a subscriber, even though I think Murdoch is slime. Like I said, he leaves his precious WSJ alone for business reasons.

Rupert Murdoch's own Wall St. Journal tells it like it was: https://www.wsj.com/articles/inner-workings-of-fox-news-on-display-in-defamation-case-bd0e4939?mod=hp_lista_pos3 Mr. Carlson emailed Ms. Scott criticizing Washington bureau executive Bill Sammon’s decision to call Arizona for Mr. Biden before the state’s vote count was completed, saying, “I’ve never seen a reaction like this, to any media company,” according to a Dominion filing. She forwarded his note to Lachlan Murdoch. Ms. Scott and Lachlan Murdoch exchanged texts about the plan: “Viewers going through the 5 stages of grief,” she said, adding that the network would let “viewers know we hear them and respect them.” Mr. Murdoch replied, “Yes. But needs constant rebuilding without any missteps,” according to the filing. The elder Mr. Murdoch weighed in, saying, “maybe best to let Bill go right away” because it would “be a big message with Trump people.” Mr. Sammon announced he was retiring two months later. The filings also give a sense of how Rupert Murdoch communicates with the world outside Fox, including political figures such as Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. At one point he gave Mr. Kushner confidential information about Mr. Biden’s campaign ads and debate strategy, according to a Dominion filing. At another point, Mr. Murdoch urged then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not to endorse Mr. Trump’s stolen-election claims. Mr. Kushner didn’t respond to requests for comment. Murdoch generally leaves the WSJ news staff alone. Not because of some high-minded "journalistic integrity." No. Just because its high-wealth subscriber base would run away if he turned it into Fox News, The Newspaper. Fox News? It's all about the business model, baby. Tucker has been exposed as a fraud, so he is apparently now distracting you with drag queens and Jan 6 again ...

Yossi: verb/subject agreement is a beautiful thing. Try it!

MESSAGE TO INCUMBENT DEMOCRATS: Crime is the number one issue for all big cities. Enough with the kinder/gentler sentencing and letting so-called minor property crimes go unpunished.

I'm just about old enough to remember the following: - Gerry Cheevers as the Bruins goalie, wearing an old style "Jason" facemask that he illustrated with a sharpie to show the stitches he avoided by wearing this new invention - Red Sox catcher Bob Montgomery going up to the plate wearing a ball cap instead of a helmet - the last of the old players grandfathered in when MLB started requiring helmets. And later a few players like John Olerud (who'd been hit in the head) wearing a helmet with a chin flap and everyone saying it looked stupid. And now every MLB player wearing one. - Charlie Krueger, Niners DL wearing the old style Johnny Unitas single bar facemask instead of the new "birdcage" mask that all the young linemen who wanted to keep their teeth (those wusses!) were now wearing - tons of NHL players refusing to wear helmets, saying the league could never ever require them, and then after helmets were required Don Cherry saying that players who wore visors were soft And yet all those crazy, stupid-looking, uncool safety innovations took hold, often far faster than anyone thought was possible. So will this.

Is that really "doubling down?" Sounds more like the dreaded Vote of Confidence in a baseball manager.

I was going to post the LOL emoji. But then I thought: hey, this kind of makes sense. McD wins (at least makes the SB) without Frazier, he doesn't need him. McD fails to get to the SB again, he's good as gone, and Leslie is part of the package deal for his next stop.

Tyrod was more successful.

Hmm, just as the Broncos passed on Rex Ryan.

Exactly.

I think he's talking about the new board some of the defectors (Q. if you're kicked out, can you be called a "defector?") from this board started. And he definitely has a point .... ... maybe we should let some football conversations break out here and see if the mods move them to the main board.

John Gianelli would prefer the term "meatball"

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3868031-bomb-threat-at-virginia-school-days-after-satan-club-begins/ I gotta admit, I kind of love these guys. They troll, but they really know how to troll. HAIL SATAN CLUB!

I don’t think non-Jets fans realize how awful their QB play has been. The progress from awful to mediocre is probably even greater than that from mediocre to elite. Think Bills 1997 (Todd Collins/Alex Van Pelt) to 1998 (Flutie/Rob Johnson).

Where’s the Buffalo Braves/San Diego-LA Clippers option?

I was hoping to see him activated this year, if only for a game and a couple targets. There’s a baseball tradition of giving long-time loyal minor leaguers the proverbial September “cup of coffee” - a couple pitching appearances or a few position starts. Example: this long time 31 year old minor leaguer and Niagara grad for the Rockies. He got a few starts last Sept and even stole 3 bags. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynton_Bernard Something to show for all those long bus rides. Maybe that would’ve happened for Gentry if we’d had a game that didn’t count for anything in the standings this year. Unfortunately for Gentry, this was not that year.

Good guy, smart/Duke pedigree (say what you will but they’re not admitting any dummies), my classic definition of what constitutes “replacement level” as a QB — the guy who was signed off the street a couple times, pushed into a starting job, and able to win 1/3 of those games without embarrassing himself or the team. The anti-Peterman. Good luck, Thad!

I miss Yolo - always better than a Twitter feed to find out what just happened in the NFL. Please come back! I also miss Hapless. We’re missing some good analytical posts now. I sometimes try to do my own but it takes too much time …

He was in Kiev. Word is that Russia was provided notice that he was going, and they apparently held off on firing missiles at Kiev while he was there so as not to precipitate World War III. But Kiev is being bombed all the time. Was London a war zone in World War II? Hmm, I think they refer to it as the Battle of Britain …

How would you know this? An 80 year old man just traveled for about 16 hours into a war zone, then back to give a speech in Poland that was (the parts I heard) delivered just fine. No, I don’t think he’s as mentally or physically sharp as he was in his prime. But he’s not some Rudy Giuliani, contradicting himself in the course of ten seconds during an interview, or some Dianne Feinstein needing to be reminded of what she just said 10 minutes ago. He is what he is: a relatively fit, high-functioning elderly man. Would I prefer someone else? Of course. But that doesn’t mean he’s senile. Oh, I’m all for the videotaped competency test that Nikki Haley proposed. I’d probably set the bar at 70, not 75.

Biden is “fine” for an 80 year old man. I personally don’t believe an 80 year old man should be running for President, particularly when he’d be 86 by the end of the term. I have parents in their mid-80s so I’m pretty familiar with how they (and others their age) function. There’s nothing clinically wrong with them or anything that would be called dementia. Just normal old age slippage. That’s what I see in Biden. In other words, it’s obvious that he’s an old man, and if people want to vote for him despite the obvious, I can’t see any law (or indeed reason) why they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.

Well that’s persuasive! The same former Trump buttkisser who pronounced a 73 year old fat man to be the picture of good health and fitness.

True. No need to rehash all of it but we all know about Bush 43 (“I looked into Putin’s eyes and saw a man I can trust”) and Obama to Medvedev (“I’ll have more flexibility with Russia after the election”). Many politicians on both sides completely miscalculated. Trump was just the latest. My comment is more about how Romney got it right.