Chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting completely distrusts print media which he believes "serves no real purpose."

David Smith, killing journalism one bullshit propaganda piece at a time.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, said he dislikes and fundamentally distrusts the print media, which he believes “serves no real purpose.” In emails to New York, Smith said that print — as in newspapers and magazines — is a reality-distorting tool of leftists. Print media, he said, has “no credibility” and no relevance. 

“I must tell that in all the 45 plus years I have been in the media business I have never seen a single article about us that is reflective of reality especially in today’s world with the shameful political environment and generally complete lack of integrity. Facts and truth have been lost for a long time and likely to never return,” Smith said. 

“The print media is so left wing as to be meaningless dribble which accounts for why the industry is and will fade away. Just no credibility.”

Yeah how can anybody trust the New York Times and the Washington Post with all their left leaning facts?

This statement is not one that a real newsman would ever make.

You might disagree with a story or two, but to discount ALL of print media as biased against your view of reality, really says more about your view of reality than on their reporting.

Keep in mind that Fox News was created by Roger Ailes as an alternative to the real journalism which he blamed for destroying the career of his former boss and hero Richard Nixon.

Right Wing new outlets are not about informing the public, they are about building mistrust for the media and pushing a conservative agenda that they realize is vulnerable to fact checking.

Here, let John Oliver explain it better than I can.

Oliver, as you might remember, was one of the very first to reveal to us just what Sinclair was up to way back in the summer of last year.

If this does not terrify you, well then you have lost the ability to be terrified.

Probably due to Right Wing brainwashing.

At least one political candidate is taking a stand against this obvious propaganda.

Courtesy of TPM:  

A Kentucky Democratic congressional candidate has pulled all of her campaign advertisements from her local, Sinclair Broadcasting-owned news channel after the controversy that exploded when anchors all over the country echoed the same script warning of fake news and biased reporting. 

Amy McGrath is challenging incumbent Republican Andy Barr in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. “Today, I have instructed my campaign team to cease and pull all campaign advertising on WDKY-TV (Channel 56), the Sinclair-owned television station in our congressional district, as soon as possible,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. “Sinclair’s corporate-mandated ‘must-read’ right-wing script on its nearly 200 television stations about ‘fake news’ is itself an extreme danger to our Democracy and eerily mimics the propaganda efforts that authoritarian regimes often use to control the media in their own country.”

Admirable. But let's face it she is a Democrat, so Sinclair Broadcasting would not even tap their brakes if they saw her laying unconscious in the middle of the street.

However if others join Amy McGrath, and not just politicians but businesses as well, that might be enough to force at least the semblance of fair and balanced reporting from this conservative propaganda machine.

Hey, maybe somebody can convince the Parkland students to tweet about them, that seems to work pretty good.

The cover of New York Magazine.

I always see Donald Trump as a pig so it took me a second to see that they added photoshop.

Republicans becoming increasingly worried about the "blue wave" predicted in the 2018 midterm elections.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

Republicans are growing more and more alarmed about the prospect of losing the House of Representatives in November, which would break the party’s stranglehold on unified power in Washington. (Senate control is more of a longshot for Democrats, but if the ball bounces the right way, it’s within grasp as well.)

A senior Republican on Capitol Hill told ABC News, “If the election were held today, the House would be gone. Fortunately, the election is not today.” 

These concerns have made their way to President Trump. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that “the concern has grown so acute that Trump received what one congressional aide described as a ‘sobering’ slide presentation about the difficult midterm landscape at Camp David last weekend, leading the president to pledge a robust schedule of fundraising and campaign travel in the coming months.” 

The problem with Trump’s plan is that, much as he may deny it, he is a primary, if not the primary, reason for the Republicans’ plight. The president’s approval rating continues to hover in the high 30s, a dismal number considering the country’s humming economy. And, as is his wont, Trump keeps making a spectacle out of himself and his party, as he did this week with his “shithole” comment and a series of other missteps you probably don’t even remember a few days after the fact.

I REALLY hope that Trump shows up all over the country to "help" GOP candidates, as that will insure Democratic victories in places that the Dems are struggling.  

I almost hesitate to share this information becasue I do not want the Democrats to become complacent.

Remember predictions of victory only come true if we actually show up to vote.

Democrats are notorious for skipping the midterms, but this year we need to show up by the truckloads, because if we take back both the House and the Senate, we essentially render Trump powerless.

And even if he gets impeached and replaced by Mike Pence, the destructive GOP agenda will still grind to a halt.

Best cover ever!

Bama bucks the perv! https://t.co/9ZaMFXw7aA

An early look at Wednesday's front... pic.twitter.com/HkiiBl4v0V

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 13, 2017

That is worthy of framing.

Donald Trump is circumventing attempts to control his behavior by the White House Chief of Staff, with the help of Melania.

I'm going to hold my breath until that mean old John Kelly gives me back my Twitter machine.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

White House chief of staff John Kelly’s celebrated efforts to corral his notoriously undisciplined boss may not be 100 percent effective, according to an unsurprising new report in The Wall Street Journal. Apparently, President Trump has been known to summon aides to his private quarters at night to give them assignments, which he then asks them to keep secret from Kelly. 

The Journal also reports that, according to several anonymous sources, Trump sometimes dodges his official call schedules so he can sneak in advice from friends outside the White House. That is, again, to avoid Kelly and Trump’s other minders’ attempts to control who the president talks to and what information he receives. From the other end, Trump’s friends have reportedly been getting around Kelly by passing messages to Trump through the First Lady, who has, according to the Journal, “taken on a more central role as a political adviser” since moving into the White House over the summer. 

The White House didn’t comment on the story, but staffers maintained that Trump and Kelly continue to get along and work well together. Melania Trump’s spokesperson, on the other hand, called the reports “more fake news.” But a more accurate categorization would probably be: “more leaked news that characterizes the president as a mischievous little boy treating the White House as his clubhouse and his advisers like substitute teachers.”

You know I thought people were half joking when they referred to Trump as the Toddler-in-Chief. 

But now that seems to be precisely the correct definition for who he is.

Sarah Palin gets called out again for using her website to post Right Wing articles as click-bait.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

A quick scroll through sarahpalin.com reveals that there are ads and there is a “U.S. Debt Clock” ($19 trillion and counting). At the bottom of every page, under the tab labeled “more,” there is an ad section labeled “you may also like.” It features all manner of shady clickbait: a guide to which celebrities “are jerks in real life,” photos of tacky jewelry, and a drawing of what appears to be diseased feet. You see this kind of thing in pop-up ads that look like fake websites, or at the bottom of real websites that are stuck in another era of the internet. There’s also an online store, where you can purchase Palin’s books and DVDs of Sarah Palin’s Alaska. And there is “Her Story,” a short biography complete with oddly stretched photos of the woman herself. 

Most prominent on the website, though, are short articles that are presented as news. 

Many of the posts are just bad aggregation, condensed and rewritten versions of reports from other publications — like the Daily Caller, Fox News, and Politico, as well as less well-known sites such as Weasel Zippers — that shape and distribute news so that it confirms a conservative worldview. You might call it fake news or propaganda, with headlines like, “YES! Trump Fulfills Campaign Promise to Help the Coal Industry” (approximately 70 jobs were created, by a private company, at a coal mine in Pennsylvania) or “EVIDENCE FOUND! Trump Was Right on Voter Fraud …” (12 people in Indiana were charged with submitting fraudulent voter-registration applications, while Trump claimed that “millions” of undocumented immigrants had voted illegally in the 2016 election). 

Others are just random write-ups of viral videos; one reads, “Two INCREDIBLE Performances Are Leaving Americans SPEECHLESS.” Once in a while, there will be a column or two.

The article goes on to list all of the ways that Palin desperately attempted to stay relevant, from her stint as Fox News contributor, her doomed reality shows, and her incredibly temporary foray into subscription based internet TV. (Interestingly they did not even bother to mention Palin's book writing endeavors. Probably snootily only want to give credit to book authors who actually write their books.)

The article goes on:

Palin doesn’t write much. Initially, she penned a few of the articles, with titles like “INSANE”; “Trig’s School of Life. We’re all learning!”; “Alpha Males … Hot Hot Hot”; and “You, Sir, Are Unfortunately Being Used by Democrats.” 

But now, her sole contribution is when, about once a day, she publishes something called “SWEET FREEDOM DAILY DEVOTIONAL.” Occasionally, perhaps owing to error, it’s referred to as “SWEET FREEDOM DAILY DEVOTION” or even just “DAILY DEVOTIONAL,” no “sweet freedom.” These begin with scripture and end with a word of advice. On Saturday, her instruction was, “Today, quit waiting until circumstances are just right before you praise the Lord. You already have so much to thank God for, so what are you waiting for?” The contact form for press inquiries on sarahpalin.com doesn’t work, and an interview request, forwarded to Palin through a friend and associate of hers, was not answered as of press time.

(I hate to break it to New York Magazine, but it is most likely that those contributions of Palin's were almost completely written, or rewritten, by others.)

New York Magazine also attempted to contact the people who actually produce the content for sarahpalin.com,  but none of them would consent to an interview, and the only response was from a woman who did not submit her work to the website, was not sure how it got there, and was never paid for her "contribution."

This is actually the third time that Palin has been called out for her shitposts and click bait heavy content.

The first was back on February 1st of this year, on The Daily Banter, and the second was only nine days later on the Huffington Post.

I think that the only reason more new outlets have not pointed out the obvious is because they have forgotten that Palin is still alive.

I used to look forward to the days when we could dance around the rotting corpse of Sarah Palin's career, but to be honest it is getting a little old.

Now I am looking forward to dancing around the rotting corpse of Donald Trump's career.

I wonder if THAT will ever get old?

Fox News drops "Fair and Balanced" slogan. Yeah, like anybody with half a brain cell bought that in the first place.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

As Fox News moves further into the post–Roger Ailes era, the network is shedding one of its most iconic elements. According to network executives, Fox News has abandoned the marketing slogan “Fair & Balanced.” The decision was made last August after Ailes’s ouster by Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy, because the phrase had “been mocked,” one insider said. Another executive explained that the tagline was “too closely associated with Roger.” Fox executives have been instructed by management to market the network by its other tagline: “Most Watched. Most Trusted.” 

It is hard to overstate the significance of what shedding “Fair & Balanced” means for Fox News. (It would be like the New York Times giving up “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”) Ailes invented the slogan when he launched the network in 1996, and over the years it became a quasi-religious doctrine among Fox’s anchors and viewers. The effectiveness of Fox News as a vehicle for conservative ideology depended on it. “If you come out and you try to do right-wing news, you’re gonna die. You can’t get away with it,” Ailes once told a reporter. 

Inside Fox, Ailes held “Fair & Balanced” seminars with staff members. “He would call a group of senior producers and make you watch the channel and he’d point out stuff, like a banner that’s slightly liberal,” a senior producer told me. “He would say, ‘The news is like a ship. If you take hands off the wheel, it pulls hard to the left.’” Ailes also used “Fair & Balanced” when making hiring decisions, such as saying a job candidate “wasn’t ‘fair & balanced,’” because the person went to a college he didn’t like.

Well it's about time that Fox stopped pretending they were in anyway fair and balanced, because as this article reports that has NEVER been the case.

Roger Ailes set out to report the conservative side of the news without any regard to he actual facts, and by gum that is EXACTLY what Fox News did.

As for that whole "Most Watched. Most Trusted" slogan, the first is only true because every TV, in every waiting room, in America seems to be tuned to Fox News, and the second is only true among the simplest simpletons in the country.

In fact I really only KNOW something is bullshit once Fox News or Sarah Palin report it as fact.

Fox News is not only being sued for sexual harassment, but also racial discrimination.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

Next week, according to sources, seven black Fox News employees plan to join a racial-discrimination suit filed last month by two colleagues. The original lawsuit alleged that Fox News’ longtime comptroller, Judy Slater, subjected members of Fox’s payroll staff to racial insults for years. (Fox News fired Slater in February after those employees began litigation against the network.) 

Lawyers representing the payroll employees are demanding that Fox’s accounting director, Tammy Efinger, also be removed from supervising an employee because she allegedly participated in Slater’s racist behavior. In a letter to the network’s lawyers obtained by New York, the attorneys state: “Not once did Ms. Efinger step in or attempt to interfere with Ms. Slater’s outrageous conduct.” The letter adds, instead, “Ms. Efinger chose to laugh or giggle following Ms. Slater’s vitriol.” 

The letter also includes new allegations of racism in Fox News’ accounting department. According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Slater demanded that black female employees hold “arm wrestling matches’” with white female employees in her office, just down the hall from Ailes’s office on the second floor of Fox headquarters. “Forcing a black woman employee to ‘fight’ for the amusement and pleasure of her white superiors is horrifying. This highly offensive and humiliating act is reminiscent of Jim Crow era battle royals,” the letter says, referring to the practice of paying black men to fight blindfolded at carnivals for white spectators’ entertainment. The lawyers argue that Efinger bragged about wanting to “fight” a black employee.

They made black employees arm wrestle?

They might as well have forced them to sing old plantation songs and call all of the white men "Massa."

You know I kind of scoffed at the idea that Fox News was going to be forced to close its doors, but now I am a little less sure they will survive.

George W. Bush's take on the Trump inauguration: “That was some weird shit.”

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

Following Trump’s short and dire speech, Bush departed the scene and never offered public comment on the ceremony. 

But, according to three people who were present, Bush gave a brief assessment of Trump’s inaugural after leaving the dais: “That was some weird shit.” All three heard him say it. 

A spokesman for Bush declined to comment.

"Declined to comment" is political speak for "Yep."

I still hate him of course, but that is still a pretty accurate summation.

Donald Trump sent his son-in-law to bitch at the parent company of CNN for him. Gee, how presidential.

 Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

Apparently the Trump administration is worried that despite the president calling CNN “fake news” at every opportunity, the network isn’t aware that he doesn’t care for their coverage. The Wall Street Journal reports that during a recent meeting with a top Time Warner Inc. executive Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, complained that the network’s coverage is biased against the president. 

Kushner is a longtime friend of Gary Ginsberg, who’s an executive vice-president of corporate marketing and communications at CNN’s parent company. During a wide-ranging discussion at the White House, Kushner reportedly complained about specific anti-Trump CNN contributors, including Van Jones, a Democrat who worked in the Obama administration, and Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist.

Of course both Van Jones and Navarro are non-whites so how dare they disrespect Herr Fuehrer.

Wonder when he will send Kushner to bitch about Fox's Shepherd Smith or CNN's Jake Tapper who both described his last press conference as "unhinged" and "crazy?"

These were the responses from Van Jones and Navarro to hearing they were singled out for criticism.

"Got a lotta people tryna drain me of this energy." :) But y'all know @CNN has our backs. Do you? RT if yes! (@jaredkushner, u can RT, 2!) https://t.co/DQzfY15f9m

— Van Jones (@VanJones68) February 17, 2017

Really, Little Jared complaining about me cuz I get under President Daddy-in-Law's skin? Oh, baby boy, I'm so sorry. https://t.co/4W8Sh9sHxy

— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) February 17, 2017

Does not sound like they are too terribly intimidated. Interestingly enough in the third paragraph of the New York Magazine article they reveal what Trump might be using to intimidate their bosses however:

They did not discuss Time Warner’s proposed $85.4 billion sale to AT&T, which is awaiting government approval. In an October speech, President Trump said his administration would not approve the merger “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Bloomberg reported that Trump’s opposition to the deal actually comes “partly from his frustration with CNN, which is owned by Time Warner.”

In other words Trump seems to be willing to use the power of his presidency to get back at the MSM, or as he labels them "America's enemies," by blocking business deals and damaging their ability to make a profit.

These are of course the techniques he used as an unscrupulous New York businessman, but they have no place in the White House.

The president is supposed make decisions based on what is, or is not, good for the country,

Not on his own personal vendettas. 

First they marched and now thousands and thousands of women are preparing to run for public office.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

On Inauguration Weekend, an estimated 3.2 million people in hundreds of cities across the country took to the streets to protest the incoming president. More than 400,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., similar numbers turned out in New York and Los Angeles, and even in Houston, Phoenix, New Orleans, Santa Fe, and Reno, marchers numbered in the tens of thousands. It was, as organizers promised it would be, the most massive coordinated demonstration an incoming president has ever faced. But its real power will be measured not in crowd size but in the lasting impact it has on the political process. And one of the clearest results of the march — and of the election as a whole — is the wave of political participation among women at local, state, and national levels that’s emerging in its wake. 

The day after Women’s Marches swept the country, 500 women gathered in an auditorium in Washington, D.C.’s Grand Hyatt Hotel. Each one had registered to complete EMILY’s List’s candidate training program, which would better equip them to run for public office. According to EMILY’s List, a week before the training was scheduled to take place it had already sold out, and 500 more women were on the waiting list. EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock said the organization holds these types of trainings often, but the “incredible energy” around this one is unique. “We spend a lot of time recruiting,” she said. “[Now] we’re seeing women calling us.” 

Like-minded organizations have reported similar spikes in interest. VoteRunLead reported that in the past two months, more than 2,300 women have signed up to take its online course, and the organization’s January 7 seminar registered 1,200 women in less than 48 hours. Since Election Day, EMILY’s List has had more than 4,000 people reach out to say they’re interested in running — 1,660 since Inauguration Day. And according to a She Should Run spokesperson, in a normal month the organization sees “at best, and with significant effort, anywhere between a few dozen to a few hundred women” sign up. But in the three months since the election, co-founder and CEO Erin Loos Cutraro said 8,100 women have indicated their interest in running for office by registering for She Should Run’s online incubator program, which teaches them how. What’s more, Cutraro said things show no sign of slowing. “We had a staff meeting, and we were going over numbers,” Cutraro said. “Our community manager said, ‘But hold on — we got 100 more last night.’”

I recently mentioned Elizabeth Warren as being our most likely candidate in 2020 and received quite a bit of blowback.

However if that wasn't from misogynist assholes terrified of a strong woman leading this country, and actually from progressives who simply don't see it, I would suggest to them that the face of the Democratic party moving forward is decidedly female, and that there is more than a fifty fifty chance that we are going to nominate a woman.

Sure it MIGHT not be Warren, but it then it will likely be someone like Kirsten Gillibrand, Claire McCaskill, or Kamala Harris.

Bottom line is that the women are taking over, and as a privileged white man I am totally cool with that. 

Women across the country are set to go on strike the day of the inauguration.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

Women across the country are set to strike the weekend of January 20, in protest of Donald Trump’s inauguration. The Women Strike will go down that Friday — the actual day of the inauguration — as well as the Saturday, which also happens to be the day of the Women’s March on Washington. 

Organizers of the strike are reportedly urging women to abstain from all labor that weekend to demand access to birth control and abortion, a $15 minimum wage, paid family leave and universal child care, according to Gothamist. And, given that the president-elect’s campaign was marked by bigotry and misogyny, the strike’s organizers are also calling for an end of harassment and degradation.

There is also of course a huge protest led by women planned for January 21st as well.

I think it is safe to say that there has never been an incoming president so universally reviled by women in this country.

You know except for the anti-women women like Sarah Palin of course.

Let's face it, the guy's a pig. 

Hillary and Bill Clinton to attend Trump inauguration.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

Bill and Hillary Clinton have decided to attend the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States, according to two sources with knowledge of their plans. The Clintons will join former Presidents George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who have also announced that they will attend. George and Laura Bush said today that they would be present “to witness the peaceful transfer of power.”

Well at least the person who the majority of the American people chose to be their leader will be at the inauguration she was cheated out of.

I think it is very classy for Hillary and Bill to show up. And you know if the roles were reversed that Trump would not be caught dead at her inauguration. 

Still not watching though.  

The Moral Majority is dead.

Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

A belief in the connection between personal morality and fitness for office used to be a bedrock of Republican politics. It undergirded the crusade to impeach Bill Clinton, and also supplied the primary theme for George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, which promised to restore “honor and dignity” to the presidency. Five years ago, white evangelical Protestants were the most heavily Republican voting bloc in the country, and also its most moralistic. Only 30 percent of them believed that “an elected official can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal life.” 

But Donald Trump has changed all that. Today, white evangelical Protestants are the least moralistic cohort of voters. According to a new PRRI/Brookings survey, a full 72 percent of them now believe elected officials can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal lives.

This is how the article ends:

Trump has cured what used to be called “the Moral Majority” of its moralism.

So the national Republican party is in tatters, Alaska might vote blue for the first time in forty years, and there is no longer any "moral majority" powerhouse voting block inflicting unqualified candidates on the American people?

What did I do right to deserve so many wonderful gifts?

And do I really owe all of this good fortune to Donald Trump?

Boy am I one confused Liberal.

Roger Ailes used part of the Fox News budget to fund a "black room" dedicated to digging up dirt on his enemies.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

According to one highly-placed source, Solivan worked out of what Fox insiders called “the Black Room,” an operation Ailes established around 2011 to conduct PR and surveillance campaigns against people he targeted both inside and outside the company. The “Black Room” was located on the 14th floor of the News Corp building at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, a quiet part of the office that housed Fox News Latino and some marketing and promotions employees. Fox employees Ken LaCorte and Jim Pinkerton, veteran political operatives who’ve worked with Ailes since the 1980s, also worked with Solivan, the source said, adding that Ailes’s personal lawyer, and Fox contributor, Peter Johnson Jr. advised the team. (In an email, Peter Johnson denied any involvement in “Black Room” campaigns, saying, “The only online campaign I’m aware of is yours attempting to create a truth from a fiction with this account.”) 

Targets of the campaigns included journalists John Cook and Hamilton Nolan, who have aggressively covered Ailes for Gawker. According to one source, private detectives followed Cook around his Brooklyn neighborhood and Fox operatives prepared a report on him with information they intended to leak to blogs. (According to the source, one proposed line of attack claimed that Cook — whose wife, Slate news director Allison Benedikt, is Jewish — was anti-Semitic.) “I’m honored to be among Roger Ailes’s enemies,” Cook said.

Ailes also used those resources to go after local journalists, Andrea Mackris (Who accused Bill O'Reilly of sexual harassment, and the author of this New York Magazine article, Gabriel Sherman, just to name a few.

I would not be at all surprised to learn that Ailes also used them to attack journalists or bloggers who reported negatively on other on air "talent," such as Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, and of course Sarah Palin.

(Gee, that might help to explain who paid those assholes to make up stuff about me and put in on the web back in 2009.)

I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg over at Fox News and that the really terrible stuff  concerning Roger Ailes and others is still waiting to be uncovered.

New information proves that Donald Trump wants to win the presidency, but has no desire to be the President.

Look I want to be President, but I want you to do all of the work. Deal?

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

The idea that Trump didn't actually want to win waned for a few days after he secured the nomination. But when the mogul chose to spend the first few weeks of his general-election campaign litigating the Mexican heritage of a federal judge, the notion gained renewed currency — especially after Vanity Fair reported that Trump was already discussing plans to channel his political following into a cable-news empire. 

And yet, this is also a man who transparently hates losing. Especially in a public fashion. Thus, one might reason that the ideal outcome for Trump would be to somehow win the election but not actually have to serve as president. 

According to Robert Draper of The New York Times Magazine, that is, in fact, how the mogul's campaign described his endgame to John Kasich, when trying to convince the Ohio governor to become Trump's running mate: 

One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before. As a candidate, Kasich declared in March that Trump was “really not prepared to be president of the United States,” and the following month he took the highly unusual step of coordinating with his rival Senator Ted Cruz in an effort to deny Trump the nomination. But according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history? 

When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy. 

Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of? 

“Making America great again” was the casual reply. 

As with so many of his ventures, Trump would like to brand his administration — but not actually run it.

You know I have been saying this for months.

Donald Trump does NOT want to be President.

And if he wins he is going to follow Sarah Palin's example and just quit.  

That means if he were to win the election the effective President of the United States would be freaking Mike Pence.

I'm actually not sure if that is better or worse.

But what I do know is that Republicans are the most gullible dumb asses on the planet.

Is Donald Trump blackmailing Fox News? Maybe.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

It was also thanks to some information he had gathered that Trump was able to do something that no other Republican has done before: take on Fox News. An odd bit of coincidence had given him a card to play against Fox founder Roger Ailes. In 2014, I published a biography of Ailes, which upset the famously paranoid executive. Several months before it landed in stores, Ailes fired his longtime PR adviser Brian Lewis, accusing him of being a source. During Lewis’s severance negotiations, Lewis hired Judd Burstein, a powerhouse litigator, and claimed he had “bombs” that would destroy Ailes and Fox News. That’s when Trump got involved. 

“When Roger was having problems, he didn’t call 97 people, he called me,” Trump said. Burstein, it turned out, had worked for Trump briefly in the ’90s, and Ailes asked Trump to mediate. Trump ran the negotiations out of his office at Trump Tower. “Roger had lawyers, very expensive lawyers, and they couldn’t do anything. I solved the problem.” Fox paid Lewis millions to go away quietly, and Trump, I’m told, learned everything Lewis had planned to leak. If Ailes ever truly went to war against Trump, Trump would have the arsenal to launch a retaliatory strike.

The above was written in the New York Magazine article by Gabriel Sherman who wrote the book "The Loudest Voice in the Room" about Roger Ailes back in 2014.

 I read that book but I have to admit that I did not remember this passage, which seems to suggest that Trump may have Roger Ailes in a very ticklish position.

If accurate it not only reinforces the kind of prick Donald Trump is when dealing with people who might stand in his way, but it could also open him up to all kinds of legal problems if it came to light that he was overtly threatening Ailes.

I swear I have NEVER in my life seen anything like this 2016 presidential race in all of my years following politics.

Insiders say that Rupert Murdoch is easing Roger Ailes out at Fox News. Is that kind of like they eased Sarah Palin out?

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

According to four high-placed Fox sources, Murdoch is upping his presence at Fox while Ailes has become less visible to anchors and producers, signaling a shift that marks a new chapter in the network’s history. The most visible change is that, since June, Murdoch has been attending Ailes’s daily executive meeting held on the second floor of Fox headquarters. The secretive afternoon gathering in Ailes’s conference room is attended by about a half-dozen of the network’s most senior lieutenants. It’s where some of the most sensitive decisions about running the channel are discussed. 

Meanwhile, Fox hosts and producers tell me Ailes has been a somewhat diminished force at the network. In 2014, he took an extended leave of absence after a health scare. He still has trouble walking and rarely ventures out of his executive suite. A friend who ran into Ailes in Palm Beach over the holidays remarked that he was using a walker. “He seems detached and removed,” one Fox personality tells me. “He’s not around as much,” says another friend of Ailes. “He doesn’t have as many meetings with talent.” 

What this means politically is that during this year’s fractious Republican primary, Fox isn’t functioning like the disciplined campaign it’s historically been. “There's no directive on anything,” one anchor told me. “There used to be directives on everything, and now there's not, which is kind of nice.” By far, the clearest sign of this leadership vacuum is the network’s erratic handling of Trump in the wake of his feud with Megyn Kelly. “There is no Trump strategy,” the source explained.

Well isn't that interesting?

The article goes on to say that Murdoch is no fan of Trump or Cruz and has been pushing the cable channel to be more hostile towards them while attempting talk up the more establishment candidates like Marco Rubio.

Personally I think that the best thing that could happen to Fox News right now would be for Hillary to win the election.

Let's face it NOTHING brings the conservatives together quite like bashing a Clinton.

Update: Oops I forgot to mention that the best thing that could happen to the country is for Fox News to go out of existence altogether. Which, considering how quickly their audience is dying out, might not be completely out of the question. 

Perhaps one of the most powerful magazine covers of all time.

So far, 46 women have come forward to accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault, in some cases, according to a recently unsealed deposition, with the aid of quaaludes—a powerful sedative that can render a person functionally immobile. But these allegations are by no means new, with some stretching back decades—to a time when the culture of rape in America left victims little recourse but to suffer silently, and in shame. Today, the way we think and talk about rape has evolved, creating a safer space for survivors to feel empowered by speaking up and reclaiming their victimhood. And that’s led us here. Of the 46 women who have come forward to accuse Cosby, we spoke to 35 of them — “a sorrowful sisterhood” of women united by their dark experiences, steadfast in their resolve to remain silent no more. Read more: nymag.com/cosby-women. 📷: Amanda Demme

A photo posted by New York Magazine (@nymag) on Jul 26, 2015 at 6:05pm PDT

Here is a link to the article.

In it you will read the testimony of 35 women who are telling eerily similar stories about their abuse at the hands of a once beloved television personality.

It should be noted that this story was so disturbing to some people out there that hackers shut down New York magazine's webpage after the story hit the internet. 

There is really not much more that I can add here, except to say that if this many women were sexually abused by only one man, how many other women are out there staying silent about their abuse at the hands of men less famous, but just as dismissive of their rights as human beings?
 

Is Roger Ailes on his way out at Fox News? Maybe.

Well fuck.

So as many of you probably know Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as the CEO of his empire, and leaving his son James in charge.

What you may NOT know is that James Murdoch, as well as his brother Lachlan Murdoch, have a VERY contentious relationship with Ailes.

Here is more courtesy of New York magazine: 

Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion. 

Just five days earlier, Ailes released what now appears to be a rogue statement to his own Fox Business channel declaring that he would be unaffected by the announcement that Lachlan and James will take control of Fox as part of Rupert's succession plan. "Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch," Fox Business reported. According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. "Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say," the source said. "In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert." 

This was, apparently, news to Rupert. And now the Murdochs are correcting the record. "Roger will report to Lachlan and James," a 21st Century Fox spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. 

What makes the reversal most remarkable is that, until now, Rupert always backed Ailes during his messy feuds with Murdoch's children. Ailes's tangles with Lachlan were legion. Not long after 9/11, Rupert gave Ailes a new contract after Ailes threatened to resign following a heated argument with Lachlan in the Fox newsroom. Four years later, Lachlan quit his job as deputy COO in charge of the Fox broadcast group after Rupert supported Ailes in a dispute over a TV show that Ailes wanted and Lachlan didn't.

The article goes on to say that James Murdoch is an environmentalist whose wife worked for the Clinton Foundation, and that Ailes has been heard repeatedly referring to James as a "fucking dope" and "Fredo."

So this could be it for Ailes.

Can you even imagine what Fox News would look like without Roger Ailes?

You know if I were Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly I might start sending my resume out.

Of course I the only thing I know for sure is that I am going to need some more popcorn.