Eric ShawnOne of the more startling assertions about the Clinton Foundation made in “Clinton Cash,” the controversial book by former Sarah Palin adviser Peter Schweizer, is that just 10 percent of the billions donated to the foundation goes to charitable activities. The rest, Schweizer has suggested, is pocketed by the Clintons.
Not surprisingly, Schweizer’s assertion has been proved to false. In fact, the 10 percent figure is such a flagrant lie that it couldn’t even pass muster on Fox. On May 6, Fox viewers were exposed to a rare glimpse of the truth, when Eric Shawn, one of the fake news channel’s “real” reporters, appeared on the network’s flagship broadcast, “The O’Reilly Factor”:
I flip to MSNBC occasionally to make sure their blind pig didn’t find an acorn. But they never have once. I tell you who I do like at MSNBC — I like Joe and Mika. I don’t watch much CNN, they got out of the news business in primetime. But I look to see if they have a good documentary or movie. If they do, I’ll watch that.
Of Republicans only trust Fox News as opposed to 25% who don’t, according to Public Policy Polling. “Fewer than 25% of Republicans trust ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, MSNBC, CNN and NBC. They’re closely divided on PBS with 37% trusting it and 39% distrusting it. … It’s almost the opposite story when it comes to Democrats. Majorities of them trust ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News and PBS. And more of them than not (44/30) trust Comedy Central as well. The only outlet they don’t trust is Fox News, although 33% who do trust it is still more than the share of Republicans who trust any of the major networks.”
Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.
— President Barack Obama, at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, which was attended by the Dalai Lama. Christianists were quick to retaliate: “Rush Limbaugh devoted a segment of his show to what he said were the president’s insults to the “whole gamut of Christians” and Twitter’s right wing piled on. Guests on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show spent 15 minutes airing objections to the president’s comments,” the New York Times reports.
If you missed it in the post-game coverage of the recent State of the Union speech, Pres. Obama broke new ground beyond perfecting presidential ad libs. He also agreed to one-on-one interviews with three YouTube stars, and one of them, Hank Green, isn’t happy with the way the “legacy” press corps treated the endeavor. Green’s article, posted on Medium, is titled “Holy Shit, I Interviewed the President.” It might have been better named, “Holy Shit, the Mainstream Media is Killing Democracy.”
Green: How does a democracy function with no credible system for informing its citizens?
CNN intro’d and outro’d every segment with Glozell [Green] in a bathtub full of cereal, as did ABC’s morning show…Even new media companies like Vice were dismissive:
“Think of it as a teeny-bopper AMA…The interviewers will be GloZell Green, who’s perhaps best known for sitting in a tub full of cereal; a 19-year-old who gives beauty advice named Bethany Mota; and Hank Green, a notorious YouTube ranter whose brother wrote The Fault in Our Stars.”
Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, billionaire investor in Fox News’ parent company
Fox News apologized not once but twice Saturday night for false statements about European Muslims made repeatedly during the network’s broadcasts last week. Because Fox disseminates lies and misinformation so regularly and apologizes so rarely, the fact that it issued two “wea culpas” on the same night — albeit during the weekend while no one was watching — appears to be significant. Of course, Fox is not revealing why it issued the apologies, nor whether it did so under pressure and, if so, from whom.
Don’t expect FOX News to cover this story since it doesn’t contain sexy words like, “Solyndra” and “Obama.”
But Gov. Rick Scott (R/Tea) shot himself in the foot and might have to bite the bullet over the wasted $1.6 million paid to gun manufacturer Colt to bring jobs to Central Florida. The skilled manufacturing jobs, touted to earn an average $45,000 each, were promised and paid for in 2011. As of 2015, there are no jobs.
The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome. We’ve closed the book on torture, and we’ve stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.
— Fox News co-host Andrea Tantaros, quoted by Gawker.
Number of total viewers of Fox News Channel in the 10 pm hour Tuesday night, exceeding both CNN’s 1,936,000 and MSNBC’s 1,594,000 average total viewers combined by more than 3 million. FNC also beat out CBS, NBC and ABC in total viewers during that hour, with the highest of the three – CBS – garnering 5,408,000 average total viewers, reports FishBowl DC.
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”