2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[N.E. Brigand]

The admissions under oath from Fox News president Rupert Murdoch that his on-air employees knew that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden even as they continued to claim otherwise for months are indeed alarming, but I still feel uneasy about government officials -- in this case Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffrieds -- demanding that Murdoch order his staff to tell the truth on the air. Murdoch absolutely should do so, but I don't want the government compelling speech.

[RoseMorninStar]

What would seem to make sense would be that there were standards for anything called 'News'. I believe there are journalistic standards, but FOX 'news' (and some others) have played fast & loose with this. I believe other countries, such as Canada, have such standards and I believe FOX news is not broadcast there because it doesn't meet their standards for 'News'.

[Sunsilver]

Rose, my Rogers TV package includes Fox. Occasionally it has programs worth watching (movies, etc.) Is the 'news' channel separate from its other channel? Most Canadian channels have a news broadcast 2 or 3 times a day, and the rest of the day is mostly network entertainment programs.

[RoseMorninStar]

There are different FOX channels, but I rarely watch TV so I really don't know. We have a local FOX channel with local news and regular TV programming and then there is the FOX News cable channel which (I think?) is all 'news'. I just looked it up on Snopes and Fox has been aired in Canada since 2004 via cable channels.

[Sunsilver]

I checked out the Fox channel I get. They have news twice a day, and the rest is mostly network programming, like Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Bob's Burgers, etc.

I've often wished there was some way to shut down Fox news for the lies it tells.

[RoseMorninStar]

The regular Fox channel is not the problem, it's the 24 hour cable 'Fox News' channel with the 'personalities' /commentators like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is an important step towards holding Trump accountable for January 6.

[N.E. Brigand]

The New York Times has more reporting about Fox News in 2020: "'If we hadn’t called Arizona,' said Suzanne Scott, the network’s chief executive, according to a recording [of a Nov. 2020 staff meeting] reviewed by The New York Times, 'our ratings would have been bigger.'" Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha McCallum complained that the network should have known better than to simply rely on their Decision Desk's statistical forecasting (which Fox had then spent millions upgrading) before publicly and correctly declaring that Joe Biden had won that state: the network should have considered "the implications" that such a call would have for a "loud faction of our viewership."

You see, the viewers' feelings don't care about the forecasters' facts.

[N.E. Brigand]

More from the new Times article:

Arizona had never been in Mr. Trump’s column, and the Decision Desk overseen by Bill Sammon, the managing editor for Washington, resisted giving it “back” to a candidate who was losing just to satisfy critics.

But on Friday night, Nov. 6, when Mr. Sammon’s team was ready to call Nevada for Mr. Biden, sealing his victory, [Fox anchor Chris] Wallace refused to air it. “I’m not there yet since it’s for all the marbles — just a heavier burden than an individual state call,” Mr. Wallace wrote in a text message obtained by The Times.

Rather than be the first to call the election winner, Fox became the last. CNN declared Mr. Biden the victor the next day at 11:24 a.m., followed by the other networks. Fox did not concur until 11:40 a.m., some 14 hours after Mr. Sammon’s election team internally concluded the race was over.

At the subsequent staff meeting that the Times obtained a recording of, Wallace said that maybe Fox's cutting-edge forecasting system was "too good." Two months later, Fox fired Sammon, even though he "had called every election correctly over 12 years at Fox and had just been offered a new three-year contract."

[RoseMorninStar]

Theater, not news. I would have thought better of Chris Wallace.

[N.E. Brigand]

And today, as a number of people pointed out, Fox News broadcast live a speech by former president Donald Trump in which he claimed that the 2020 election was stolen.

[N.E. Brigand]

NBC: "FBI arrests man dubbed 'Sedition Panda' for allegedly storming Capitol wearing bear head."



At some point in the next month or two, I expect the total number of people charged for their actions on Jan. 6th will surpass 1,000.

Faster than I expected: the District Attorney's office in D.C. says that "more than 999 defendants have been arrested" in January 6th cases, of whom 518 people have pleaded guilty, 53 people were convicted "at contested trials," and 16 people "have been convicted following an agreed-upon set of facts." I don't know know what that last description means.

[N.E. Brigand]

So apparently it's a race against the clock in Georgia, where the two chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature now have each passed a version of a bill, which the state's governor says he will sign into law once the versions are reconciled, that would create a panel that could remove prosecutors deemed to be acting improperly. And it's widely believed that a prime target of this forthcoming law is Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, who is overseeing an investigation into 2020 wrongdoing by Donald Trump and others. Trump himself is certainly cheering on the lawmakers who have passed these bills.

[N.E. Brigand]

You will be shocked, shocked to learn that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is using the Capitol security footage provided to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to push a false narrative about January 6th.

(Edited to add this compilation of notes on Carlson's conspiracy theory techniques, including analysis of conspiracy theories in general: "If you deny the plot, the conspiracist accuses you of a cover-up, of trying to suppress the truth or free speech. If you deny the facts, the conspiracist says 'they won't tell you the truth.' There is no fact or truth that can puncture the conspiracy theory, the logic of conspiracy covers it up.")

[N.E. Brigand]

Per CNN, the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police chief wrote last night to staff that Tucker Carlson was lying about January 6th: "The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments."

Another CNN reporter interviewed some Republican senators who agree that Carlson's program misleadingly tried to portray the day's events as generally peaceful.

Edited to note how one Capitol Police officer has offered a personal rebuttal to Carlson's propaganda:



I enjoyed Bradley Moss's response to Carlson's program:

Next with Tucker:
All the people the Donner Party didn’t eat.

Then:
All the people who weren’t shot watching Our American Cousin.

And last:
All the naval bases not attacked by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has called for all the insurrectionists to be released and for the January 6th Committee members to be prosecuted for treason.

[N.E. Brigand]

So apparently it's a race against the clock in Georgia, where the two chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature now have each passed a version of a bill, which the state's governor says he will sign into law once the versions are reconciled, that would create a panel that could remove prosecutors deemed to be acting improperly. And it's widely believed that a prime target of this forthcoming law is Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, who is overseeing an investigation into 2020 wrongdoing by Donald Trump and others. Trump himself is certainly cheering on the lawmakers who have passed these bills.

Esquire has more about this story here.

[N.E. Brigand]

Two days before January 6th, Tucker Carlson texted someone that soon Fox News would be able to "ignore Trump," adding "I truly can't wait" and "I want nothing more." Carlson also called Donald Trump's notions about overturning the 2020 election "ridiculous," and he said this about Trump himself:

"I hate him passionately."

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Edited to add more from the Dominion lawsuit filings: Fox News president Rupert Murdoch said in a deposition that it would be "not wrong to charge" Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Rudy Giuliani with inciting a riot for their actions on January 6th.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here's another important admission in a text from Tucker Carlson that's only come to light because of the Dominion lawsuit. In response to someone complaining that Democrats have competent lawyers while Republicans only have Syndey Powell and Lin Wood, Carlson wrote this (my emphhasis) about Trump's presidency:

"That's the last four years. We're all pretending we've got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn't really an upside to Trump."

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Carlson also said that it was "destructive" for Trump not to attend Joe Biden's inauguration.

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And Carlson said about Trump's various businesses: "All of them fail. What he's good at is destroying things."

[Sunsilver]

And Carlson said about Trump's various businesses: "All of them fail. What he's good at is destroying things."

Yep. I've been in contact with a lady whose husband runs a large real estate trust company. Trump approached him about getting into the business, and showed him a business plan he'd written. It was 4 or 5 scribbled sentences that looked like a child had written them, and the plan made no sense. Her husband told him not to go into it. Of course, Trump didn't listen. The company went bankrupt after only a short time.

[N.E. Brigand]

Next week, a man named Douglass Mackey will go on trial for his efforts to undermine the U.S. presidential election in *2016.* He was charged in January 2021. Mackey was apparently a prominent troll on social media using the nickname "Ricky Vaughan"; his true identity became public in 2018. Mackey is alleged, along with four unnamed co-conspirators, with having spread disinformation to Democratic voters in 2016 about how to vote. Today the judge in this case unsealed an order approving a request by prosecutors to keep the identify of one of Mackey's co-conspirators, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating, secret from Mackey. Apparently Mackey only knew this person by his internet alias.

I'm noting this here because (1) I don't want to unearth the 2016 thread so and (2) journalists previously identified another of Mackey's alleged accomplices as Anthime Gionet, aka "Baked Alaska," who is "a pro-Trump white nationalist who was arrested on Jan. 16 [2021] for his involvement in storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. Gionet also participated in the deadly white nationalist 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017." (emphasis added)

It took four years to charge Mackey for what he did in 2016. That tells me that three more years may pass before the final charges are brought for actions on January 6th.