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For Pete’s Sake
Please feel free to substitute any word that comes to mind for the word ‘Pete’s’. Here goes. Donald Trump and 20 inmates, who were jailed for their participation in the January 6 insurrection, released a song last night. I kid you not.
Trump, a few weeks back, recorded the Pledge of Allegiance. The inmates, calling themselves the J6 Prison Choir, accompanied Trump’s recording by singing the Star Spangled Banner. The title of the song, which runs a bit over two minutes, is called ‘Justice for All’.
The proceeds are supposed to go to the families of those imprisoned due to their January 6 actions. Supposed to. With Trump, you never know. Collaborators on this song are former Trump official Kash Patel and former Fox newsman, Ed Henry Henry was fired from Fox, following accusations of rape. Henry has set up a community page, carrying the song, where Trumpkins can join for the low price of only $10. I apologize for inflicting this information on you.
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Sacrificial Lamb?
From Guardian news site – Source Fox News
This is Suzanne Scott. She is currently the CEO of Fox News. Stressing the word ‘currently’. Fox News is the crown jewel of Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation empire. Fox News is currently facing a $1.6 Billion law suit from Dominion Voting Systems. Recent court filings shows that profit and greed took precedence over accurately reporting Trump’s big lie. Simpler terms, Fox News entertainers lied to their audience knowing full well they were lying.
Murdoch, to protect his disintegrating legacy will, likely, fire Scott. Murdoch biographer, David Folkenflik states that,
“They’re leading a trail of crumbs that lead back to her office,”
Murdoch is already distancing himself from Scott by saying,
“I appointed Ms. Scott to the job … and I delegate everything to her”.
Murdoch has sacrificed Fox News staff before including then CEO, Roger Ailes, and former Fox entertainer, Bill O’Reilly, both embroiled in sex scandals. Ironically, Scott, who replaced Ailes, was credited with restoring Fox News’ credibility.
Folkenflik adds,
“If he threw [Scott] over, he would only do it because he thought he needed to cauterize the wound before it goes higher. That’s his record. That’s what he does. It can be editors. It can be executives. It can be stars. He’s not throwing himself over the side.”
The thing is, this wound may be too big to cauterize.
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News A Fox Casualty
Attribution to David Shankbone – Own work
CNN had a news show called “Reliable Sources” It ran from 1992 to 2022. It was a Sunday morning show and it was a news show that reported on the news being reported, for the week. Kurtz hosted the show for 15 years, before going to Fox Propaganda in 2013, to host “MediaBuzz”. “MediaBuzz” was on at the same time slot as “Reliable Sources” and had a similar theme, reporting on the news being reported, only with a Fox reporting perception.
The $1.6 Billion lawsuit by Dominion, against Fox, and the ensuing scandal is, currently, big news. Kurtz wanted to cover this scandal on his show, last Sunday He couldn’t. He was told he couldn’t.
“Some of you have been asking why I’m not covering the Dominion voting machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020, and it’s absolutely a fair question, I believe I should be covering it. It’s a major media story, given my role here at Fox. But the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now.”
What does Kurtz think about being muzzled?
“I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it. And if that changes, I’ll let you know.”
Fox, for the last few weeks, has been ignoring the whole thing. When the January 6 hearings were carried on prime time Every network carried the hearings, except for Fox News. Fox Business, which has a total audience of about 7, did carry it. But not the mother news ship.
Sooner or later, Fox will have to address the 800 pound gorilla in the news room. Pervereting a line from the movie “A Few Good Men”, Fox is telling its audience.
“You don’t want the truth, we can’t handle giving you the truth”
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Bleed Them Dry!
New court filings released in the $1.6 Billion lawsuit by Dominion against Fox Propaganda, also known as Fox News. Revelations include a Rupert Murdoch email acknowledging that what Trump was pushing was “bullshit and dangerous”. Murdock knew it was wrong for Tucker Carlson to keep having MyPillow guy Mike Lindell on his show. Murdoch explained that this was business decision “it is not red or blue, it is green”. Murdoch emailed Paul Ryan, former House Speaker and then Fox board member that Sean Hannity had
“been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.”
Bottom line, Rupert Murdoch, under oath, admitted that Trump’s Big Lie was garbage. The only reason he allowed the entertainers on Fox to keep pushing the Big Lie was because Fox did not want to lose viewers to extreme right networks like Newsmax and OAN. Murdoch knew but he kept allowing it to happen.
The actual trial begins in mid-April. I would not be surprised if Fox offers Dominion an out of court settlement, with the stipulation that the settlement be held confidential. I would also not be surprised if Dominion refuses.
Alex Jones has been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by the Sandy Hook families for the grief he put them through. The families of those who died or were injured during the January 6 insurrection should be lining up, behind Dominion, to sue Fox. Fox, in endorsing and selling Trump’s Big Lie, to its audience, should be seen as a major contributor to the insurrection. Right after the election, Rupert Murdoch had considered getting entertainers Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson on tv to say that the election was fair. It never happened If it had happened, Ashli Babbit, a pro Trumper, might never have gone to the Capitol and died. Even her family should be suing Fox.
Fox and the Rupert Murdoch empire should be sued for everything they have for the damage they have done.
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Sticky Wicket
Attribution to Monoceros Prudentis – Own work
This is Christine Anderson. She is a member of the European Parliament. She is a member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). She is a radical right extremist – anti -Moslem, anti-immigrant, Pro-Putin. During the Freedom Convoy situation Anderson called out Prime Minister Trudeau. Amongst other things such as saying Trudeau loved dictatorships, Anderson stated,
“Mr. Trudeau, you are a disgrace for any democracy please spare us your presence,”
\Anderson visited Canada, last week, and created quite a stir. Three Conservative MP’s met with her and had a photo taken with her. This resulted in cries of protest from Jewish groups and others concerned with her political leanings. Later, the three MP’s claimed that they did not know about her political beliefs and associations.
During her time in Canada, Anderson claimed to have previously met with Pierre Poilievre and said the following of him,
“I have spoken to him a couple of times. He seems to be a decent guy,”
Poililievre, sensing trouble, denied that he had ever met with Anderson. Furthermore, to distance himself from her, Poilievre denounced Anderson.
“Frankly, it would be better if Anderson never visited Canada in the first place. She and her racist, hateful views are not welcome here,”\
That was the right thing to say. However, his denunciation did not sit well with some of his supporters. There are Twitter videos circulation where Poilievre supporters, or, rather, former supporters, voiced their anger. They called Poilievre a sell out, that he was showing his true colours and that he was just like every other politician. Be careful of the company you keep Mt. Poilievre. It has and will keep burning you.
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Wow!
Attribution to Art of Charm – Scott Adams
So, I am Twitter yesterday and I see a YouTube retweet of this person above. This guy is going on a rant about Black people, like wow! Who is this person? Then I see that it is Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert. I will admit, I did read Dilbert for years. A couple of years ago I stopped, for no real reason. I moved on to more serious comics such as, my favorite, Pearls Before Swine, Luann, Zits and Doonesbury repeats. We all have our choices.
Rather than describe to you what Adams ranted about, I will give you direct quotes.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the f**k away … because there is no fixing this.
“I’m going to back off from being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off, I get called a racist. That’s the only outcome. It makes no sense to help Black Americans if you’re white. It’s over. Don’t even think it’s worth trying.”
Like, blow me freaking away! If me finding this rant repugnant, makes me “Woke”, then I am freaking woke I am substituting freaking for another word but I am sorely tempted to use it it express my shock and pissoffedness (last word did not pass spell check).
The reaction has been immediate. Hundreds of newspapers have dropped Dilbert. I am sure the right wing media will have a field day complaining about another example of wokeness. If I had the tolerance, I would watch Tucker Carlson expand on this tomorrow night. I don’t have the tolerance though. What the hell is wrong with some of these people?
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She Said Too
Attribution to Georges Biard
Harvey Weinstein is 70 years old. He was sentenced to 23 years in New York State, after being found guilty of sexual assault, forced oral copulation and rape. He faced a further trial in Los Angeles. He was found guilty of rape and sentenced to 16 years. The lawyer, representing Weinstein, requested a sentence of three years, to be served, concurrently, with the sentence already handed to Weinstein. The judge denied the request and stipulated that the 16 year sentence be added on to the 23 years. This ensures that Weinstein will die in prison.
The trial related to alleged assaults by Weinstein on four women. The jury was deadlocked on the alleged charges on three of those women, but did find Weinstein guilty on the assault on the fourth woman. The fourth woman, identified during the trial as Jane Doe 1, cried during her testimony at the sentencing hearing. She stated that,
“There is no prison sentence long enough to erase the damage. … He deserves to experience the same shame, humiliation and fear as I did,”
Weinstein, belligerent to the end, claimed not to know the woman and said that 2013 rape that occurred in a hotel room did not happen.
Following the trial, the woman identified herself. She is a 43 year old former model and actress, Evgenia Chernyshova. She has described in vivid detail what Weinstein did to her that night, and, how her life has been affected since then. She decided to come out, as follows,
‘I’m tired of hiding. I want my life back. I’m Evgeniya, I’ve been raped. This is my story.
Her marriage fell apart and she hated herself, for years.
“I was hating myself. I was thinking all the time, “There were a lot of beautiful women and stars there, and he chose you. So it’s you who did something. I was depressed, I was mentally not stable. I was out of my mind.”
Evgenia told no one until 2017 when her then 16 year old daughter told her that her that she had been sexually assaulted by a boy at school. Evgenia begged her daughter to go to the police. Her daughter recounted the conversation they had.
“I told her that she would never really be able to understand me. And she told me that she does understand, because she has been raped,” .
They made a pact, that day, they would both report their abusers
I will close this chirp, quoting from Evgenia about her regret on not reporting the rape earlier.
“I did it because I was ashamed and humiliated. I thought it was a good decision to protect my kids. But it was a horrible decision for myself because I’ve been cut off from everyone. It isn’t right to go through this hell alone,”
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One Year Later
One year ago, on this date, Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin thought this would be a cakewalk. After all, Russia had invaded Georgia and Crimea, and the only consequences were bleatings from the West. Thanks to Putin’s friend, Donald Trump, NATO, and the West, were in disarray. Trump had done everything possible to diminish, even dismantle, NATO. There was distrust amongst western allies. Right wing populism was growing in Europe. Tucker Carlson was questioning why America should even bother with this. In early days, Trump was praising the genius of Putin. I still vividly remember the convoy of Russian tanks pouring down a main road, in Ukraine, with seeming impunity. Putin in fact said ‘what war”, instead calling the invasion a ‘special military operation’. Any protests in Russia were severely cracked down upon.
One year later, the vaunted Russian military machine is no longer feared. There are still constant air raid sirens in Kyiv, but the population, there, are treating the sirens as an annoyance. The West and NATO got together to impose harsh sanctions on Russia, Russian allies, and individuals/entities that are supporting Russia. In fact, the US imposed more sanctions, just today. What Trump almost tore down, Biden has put back together and made even stronger. The West is united against Putin. More countries are lining up to join NATO. Arms from the West are flowing to the Ukraine. Russia is pulling prisoners from Russian jails to get slaughtered on the front lines. Protests, within Russia are being conducted openly now. Putin is facing criticism, at home. The latest put down is the picture of a Russian MP with noodles hanging from his ear while watching a Putin speech. In Russia, that symbolizes that the person with the noodles believes that the speaker is lying.
At the same time, there have been over 650 documented incidents of war crimes committed by Russian military forces. Also, there are over 8.5 million refugees. An unknown number of Ukrainian lives have been lost in the greatest European land battle since WW2. Many, in the West, are saying that Russia has already lost. Russia says otherwise and the war and the tragedy of it continues. China has submitted a peace proposal which would favour Russia completely. It has already been dismissed out of hand. Meanwhile, Trump is saying that if he was President, there be would be peace in Ukraine. But his version of peace would be the same as Putin’s, with Ukraine being under Russian occupation.
This is a tragedy where there are no real winners. But, it would have been far worse, for democracy, if the West and the brave people of Ukraine had not stood up to the tyrant, Putin.
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Tarnished Sweetheart
Attribution to David W. Carmichael
This is a picture of Jamie Sale with dance partner Theo Fleury in the made for tv “Battle of the Blade” competition in 2010. Many will remember her from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Sale and future husband David Pelletier skated a flawless performance in the figure skating pairs long program. Many thought that the performance was enough for them to win the Gold Medal. However, the Gold was given to a Russian pair who had a minor error in their performace. This resulted in Sale and Pelletier getting the Silver Medal. It then came out that the French judge had been pressured into giving a first place vote to the Russian pair in exchange for a first place vote given to a French figure skating pair. The scandal rocked the figure skating world. A result was that Sale and Pelletier ended up sharing the Gold Medal with the Russian pair. Sale and Pelletier were Canada’s sweethearts. They married in 2004 and subsequently divorced in 2010. Sale subsequently married former NHL star Craig Simpson and they subsequently divorced.
Sale’s sweetheart status has, of late, become tarnished for many Canadians. She now hosts, along with Theo Fleury, the “Theo and Jamie Show: Fire and Ice” an online show with the conservative media outlet “Canadians for Truth” This outlet is vehemently opposed to vaccines and masks with Sale stating that children wearing masks is a form of child abuse. She has labelled vaccine mandates as ‘medical rape’. She has appeared on the Fox News propaganda channel in the US. She states that,
“We’ve been led by a bunch of criminals, basically, our whole life. We have been lied to since the minute we were born. And we’ve been enslaved since the minute we were born.”
Her twitter feed is full of conspiracy claims. She posted a false article claiming that the vaccine efficiency is only at 12%. She has compared Prime Minister Trudeau to Hitler and posted a false article stating that Trudeau blamed climate change for the anger against politicians.
Sale recently retweeted to tweet with the tweet stating “Public executions I would watch on PPV”. The people identified included Fauci, Biden and Trudeau. Sale, in her retweet commented “this looks good”.
Where she was called Canada’s sweetheart, at one time, she is now being called a lunatic and a bigot. Things have changed.
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Shush!
Attribution to Von.grzanka – Own work
This is a picture of a cat. I wanted to show you a picture of Emily Kohrs, the forewoman of the Fulton County Grand Jury that was established to make recommendations as to whether charges should be laid stemming from Donald Trump’s ‘perfect call’ asking for 11,870 votes. The reason I did not is because I did not want to violate any copyright laws. There is a connection to the cat though, so please bear with.
There was some initial paragraphs relating to the Grand Jury findings last week, indicating that some of the 75 witnesses called to the stand committed perjury by lying to the Grand Jury. There was also a paragraph that the Grand Jury unanimously found that there was no election fraud in the Georgia election. Donald Trump, after the release of these paragraphs, tweeted on his Truth Social that the Grand Jury had totally exonerated him. Huh?
Emily Kohrs, the 30 year old forewoman, supposedly between jobs, went on a media blitz tour yesterday. Without revealing the findings of the Grand Jury, she came out with a number of teasers. She might not have crossed the line, as to what she should or should not have revealed, but she pretty well went up to the line and stomped that poor line to death.
Kohrs hinted that it would be recommended that a number of people would be indicted, including well known names. She indicated that there would be no surprises. She pretty well hinted that Trump is in trouble. When asked about Trump’s exoneration tweet, Kohrs pretty well said that she had no idea where Trump got that from.
One guest, on CNN, said that she had never seen a foreperson on a Grand Jury ever do something like this. Many guests said that this was a gift to the Trump defense team stating that Kohrs media blitz would prejudice any jury against Trump. But one guest put it best. This is where the cat picture comes in. The guest said that Trump is like three cats with 27 lives. Every time you think you have him, Trump gets away. Kohrs 15 minutes of fame may very well have given Trump another life.
Bird's Chirps
So I don't have to put it on Facebook anymore….