Fox’s Lefty Shep Smith, Judge Napolitano Go Loony on Fascistics’ Ukraine Story

Tucker Mocks Shep Smith: I Prefer Honest Opinion To Opinion Masquerading As Objective “News”

by ALLAHPUNDIT  at HotAir:

I thought Carlson might use his show last night to briefly answer Shep’s criticism that it was “repugnant” of Tucker to let a Fox News guest call a Fox News contributor a “fool” unchallenged. I did not think he’d devote a seven-minute segment to it, replete with inviting back that guest, Joe diGenova, to double down on his attack on that contributor, Andrew Napolitano.

Granted, that’s what a good Trumpist should do in the era of Trump: Never let a slight pass without answer, especially a slight from a liberal. To do so would be redolent of cuckery. But I figured Fox executives would step in and either tell Tucker to drop it or to limit his response. Instead he all but accuses Shep in the clip below of being a left-wing hack. “It makes people cynical when you dress up news coverage, when you dress up partisanship as news coverage and pretend that your angry political opinions are news, you know, people tune out,” says Carlson near the end of the clip — never mentioning Smith by name, just as Shep never named him in his own segment yesterday. Even though he replayed the footage of Smith’s criticism during this same segment.

This Fox news/opinion civil war is going to be insane. Will Shep unload on Tucker on his own show today? I can sort of understand why management might be inclined to let them keep at it — I haven’t been this interested in Fox programming in years. Imagine the ratings.

A few points about the segment itself. At one point Tucker takes mild umbrage at Shep calling diGenova a partisan. I can see why — just because a lawyer takes a view of a legal matter that happens to align with his party’s interests doesn’t mean his view was distorted by partisanship. DiGenova, however, has been a sufficiently ardent and outspoken Trump defender in his Fox appearances that Trump tried to hire him as his attorney early last year. (Ultimately he declined due to potential conflicts of interest.) Accusing him of partisanship is a bit like accusing Laurence Tribe of Democratic partisanship because Tribe just so happens to take the anti-Trump position in all legal disputes involving the president. How unfair is it really?

Tucker also marvels at one point at how peeved Shep was at diGenova’s criticism of Napolitano considering that the underlying legal question, whether Trump committed a campaign finance violation in his chat with Zelensky, is a matter of debate among experts. But … that was Shep’s point exactly. It wasn’t Napolitano who implied that the matter was a slam dunk; it was diGenova in his first segment with Carlson, when he called Napolitano a “fool” for believing that Trump might be guilty of something. Tucker and Joe are the ones behaving as though there’s no good-faith position on the other side here, not Smith and Napolitano.

And really, nothing about this segment answers Shep’s most basic complaint: It’s fine to disagree with Napolitano — again, the legal issue is debatable — but there’s no need to disparage him on Fox’s own airwaves by dismissing him as a “fool.” DiGenova actually disparages him again in this clip, insisting that Napolitano’s criticism of Trump is a matter of personal pique at the president for not appointing him to the Supreme Court. It’s a petty grudge, nothing more thoughtful than that. It *has* been reported that Napolitano thought he might be in line for a SCOTUS seat, however surreal that might seem, but Napolitano is also a devout libertarian of longstanding who’s complained for years about the executive branch claiming powers that don’t belong to it under the Constitution. It’s possible that Napolitano has become a Trump critic because Trump’s behavior has irritated that libertarian sensibility, not because he’s mad at Trump for not giving him a job. If Tucker’s so indignant at Shep for assuming a petty motive (partisanship) to explain diGenova’s legal analysis, why would he let diGenova attribute a petty motive to Napolitano?

T-minus three hours and 40 minutes until Shep’s show as I write this. Can’t wait.

 

Tucker mocks Shep Smith: I prefer honest opinion to opinion masquerading as objective “news”

Cjack, Glenn Wish “HAPPY SHABBAT TO ALL”

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CJACK REPORTS:

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—President Donald J Trump: Our 21st Century Minuteman—

Joe Biden is on tape & video bragging about his blackmail of Ukraine’s President Poroshenko. And Biden has implicated Barack Obama!

This is a done deal; the corrupt, insane, dumb Biden has brought down the House of Jackass Cards! Yet, again, the corrupt Grandma Pelosi and her gang of Congressional misfits have been directed by Hillary and Obama to spring their “plan C” to again deceive the American people with this bogus “impeachment inquiry” to nullify Trump. But it’s all really to cover up the crimes of the Obama administration. The Biden/Obama blackmail of Ukraine’s President Poroshenko is one big DNC scandal the Democrats are trying to keep a lid on. Don’t let them!

President Trump’s telephone conversation with the new president of Ukraine does not in any way compromise Trump. The transcripts are there for the world to confirm the egregious conduct of the Democrats as well as their moral bankruptcy. The Democrats will not cease to fabricate tales to overthrow our duly elected President. Neither Obama nor Hillary will ever accept the win of the outsider Donald Trump.

Don’t forget George Soros in the background funding other enemies of the republic.

And the Ukraine government holds another key to the puzzle: The reason for the Russians $145,000,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation, following the Hillary/Obama sale (uranium one deal) of 20% of the US uranium deposits to Russia? The money was actually Putin’s purchase of access to, and favors from, the projected Hillary Clinton presidency. Bingo!

The seditious Hillary Clinton went to Moscow to ‘reset’ the button on US relations with Russia; of course, in favor of the Kremlin. Yes, she was there to bring good tidings to the Russians; she was there to seal the sale of American uranium to Moscow. She was to betray our country for a sum certain…$145,000,000!

And what about the $500,000 Bill Clinton received in Moscow from a group of Russian businessmen…for a speech…again after the Uranium One Deal?

We have to admire the fortitude, tenacity, courage, and patriotism of President Trump who has put country before anything else. President Donald Trump is nation’s 21st Century Minuteman!

Happy Shabbat to all. Do not despair; the God of Abraham is still on the watch.

Cjack…Weekend Commentary…September 27, 2019

Leftism at Des Moines Register Disturbed….What a Shock!!

Cancel Culture Snaps Back, Reporter Feels The Bite From Social Media

KAREN TOWNSEND  at  HotAir:

A Des Moines Register reporter is finding out the hard way that cancel culture works both ways. If someone is reporting about another’s ugly tweets on Twitter from many years ago, that someone better check his own social media posts first.

SEE ALSO: Comey: On second thought, maybe Trump should be impeached

You may have seen Carson King on Fox and Friends last weekend. He turned a silly stunt at a college football game into a jaw-dropping act of charity. The 24-year-old King held up a sign asking for money to buy more Busch Light beer. It was funny. His gesture went viral after he was captured on camera. The college football game was seen by a large audience because it was a part of ESPN’s “College GameDay”. In case you are curious, the game was between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones.

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The sign stunt happened on September 14. After it went viral, donations began pouring in. No one was more surprised than King. He got a lot of publicity and the story was told on FOX, which increased his donations. He told the audience that he was donating the money to the University of Iowa’s Stead Children’s Hospital. Venmo and Anheuser-Busch both pledged to match his donation. King appeared on Fox and Friends last weekend to announce he was almost at the $1 million mark. Busch Light cans were made with his picture on them. King was even promised a year’s supply of Busch Light from the company. Anheuser-Busch labeled King an Iowa Legend.

“Hey @CarsonKing2, we said we’d send you a year’s worth of Busch Light, but first we had to make sure the cans were fit for a King. Let us know where to send the truck. #IowaLegend,” Anheuser-Busch tweeted.

Carson King@CarsonKing2

Hey #cyclONEnation! I just wanted everyone to know I’m listening to @CycloneFB from NYC! We’re st over 873,000.00 total contributions after @BuschBeer and @venmo.

It’s a great story, right? The story brings together an imaginative young man playfully asking for beer money who then turns it around into a grand gesture for a children’s hospital. The corporate guys stepped up and matched his donation. Well, hold on. As my mom used to say, no good deed goes unpunished.

The Des Moines Register picked up the story and published a piece on Carson King. Included in the piece were two tweets from when King was 16 years old. The tweets were racial. The tweets were uncovered during a “routine background check”, according to the newspaper.

The newspaper report, however, included a “routine background check” of King’s social media history. Register reporter Aaron Calvin came across two racist jokes that dated back to 2012 when King was a 16-year-old high school student, “one comparing black mothers to gorillas and another making light of black people killed in the Holocaust.”

He was 16 then and now he’s 24. A lot of maturity happens in those years. King clearly has turned out to be a good guy who shares his good fortune with those in need. When asked about the two tweets, King immediately apologized and expressed both embarrassment and remorse.

King was asked about the tweets and immediately expressed remorse.

“That’s not something that I’m proud of at all,” King told the Register on Tuesday.

He appeared on local TV stations to apologize and said, “I am embarrassed and stunned to reflect on what I thought was funny when I was 16 years old.”

Anheuser-Busch severed ties with King, though the company said they will honor the commitment to match his donation.

Readers were not pleased with the newspaper’s trashing of King with the tweets so some did a little investigating of their own. Guess what? The reporter had some less than stellar tweets from younger days, too. The Register’s Executive Editor Carol Hunter issued a lengthy response.

Des Moines Register

✔@DMRegister

A statement from our editor:

Here’s the thing. This is where we are now as a culture. Reporters are eager to do a gotcha element even in the most feel-good kind of stories. Do we hold a 24 year old guy up for doing a good thing or do we trash him with mention of tweets from his years as a teenager. Teenagers say dumb things, that isn’t breaking news. There isn’t any indication that those two tweets represent his life now. The reporter and the newspaper went with the inclusion of the tweets as a gotcha, whether they admit it or not. Would the editor have issued such a tortured statement if readers hadn’t criticized the inclusion of the tweets? Of course not.

Justifiying the decision to include the tweets by saying the mention was way down deep into the article doesn’t matter. It was there. Readers read it. Also, stating the tweets weren’t the headline doesn’t make it right. The reporter points to the admission by King to the press before the piece was published as if it makes the paper’s decision ok.

“Should that material be included in the profile at all? The jokes were highly inappropriate and were public posts. Shouldn’t that be acknowledged to all the people who had donated money to King’s cause or were planning to do so?” Hunter wrote.

Hunter went on to defend the paper’s decision to include such information, noting that it was toward the bottom of the profile and not placed prominently at the top.

“The news conference was covered by local television stations, which first reported on the racist posts and King’s remorse. After those stories aired, Busch Light’s parent company announced it would honor its pledge to the children’s hospital but would sever future ties with King,” Hunter continued. “That happened before the Register published its profile of King, which was still in the editing process.”

King got out in front of it – he knows how this works. Cancel culture demands the person who offended someone be shunned, preferrably fired from a job. Also, the reporter’s timeline is in question. It looks as though Anheuser-Busch was told about the tweets before King went public.

Keith Murphy

✔@MurphyKeith

Carson tells me he knew at 2:16PM that @BuschBeer was severing ties after tweets brought to its attention.

Busch Light Carson King T-shirt links, with proceeds to @UIchildrens, down by 5 PM.

Press conference didn’t even start until 7 PM. It was not why Busch ended relationship. https://twitter.com/DMRegister/status/1176705031468457985 …

Des Moines Register

✔@DMRegister

A statement from our editor:

Turnabout is fair play. It looks as though the Des Moines Register didn’t do such a thorough “background check” on their reporter as the reporter did on his subject. Calvin isn’t innocent here, either, if past tweets are the measure of a man.

In now-deleted tweets from 2010-2013, Calvin repeatedly used the N-word, and wrote posts attacking law enforcement like “f— all cops,” and in reaction to the legalization of gay marriage said he’s “totally going to marry a horse.”

Before locking his Twitter account, Calvin issued an apology for his own tweets.

“Hey just wanted to say that I have deleted previous tweets that have been inappropriate or insensitive. I apologize for not holding myself to the same standards as the Register holds others,” Calvin wrote.

The newspaper is now investigating Calvin. King, meanwhile, has been nothing but gracious in his reaction to the newspaper. He is taking the high road.

“The Des Moines Register has been nothing but kind in all of their coverage, and I appreciate the reporter pointing out the post to me,” King tweeted. “I want everyone to understand that this was my decision to publicly address the posts and apologize. I believe that is the right thing to do.”

 

Cancel culture snaps back, reporter feels the bite from social media