Fox's Shepard Smith claims that many of his fellow hosts are there strictly to entertain, and that he and they "serve different masters."

Courtesy of Time: 

Smith says he’s unbothered by the divergence between his reporting and Fox’s opinion slate. “We serve different masters. We work for different reporting chains, we have different rules. They don’t really have rules on the opinion side. They can say whatever they want. If it’s their opinion. I don’t really watch a lot of opinion programming. I’m busy.” He laughs, enigmatic punctuation that may indicate he’d been trying for a bon mot, or might just be a Mississippi-nice way of indicating he’s said what he’s going to say, bless my heart.

 .........

Unlike some portion of the audience that reflexively switches on Fox News, Smith is disengaged by politics. “I get it,” he says, “that some of our opinion programming is there strictly to be entertaining. I get that. I don’t work there. I wouldn’t work there. I don’t want to sit around and yell at each other and talk about your philosophy and my philosophy. That sounds horrible to me.” 

So to sum up, much of Fox News broadcasting is there simply to entertain, there are no real rules on the opinions side of things, and yet this is Donald Trump's go to source for news and policy advice.

Do you remember that 2012 study which found that people who watched Fox News were less informed than people who did not watch any news at all?

Well apparently that's not a bug.

It's a feature.

And now it features into how the president makes decisions which effect this country, and our world.

P.S. By the way since this story came out suddenly we are learning that Smith is going on a "previously planned vacation."

Thea last time I heard that phrase was when it was used to explain why Bill O'Reilly was not showing up to do his show after those sexual harassment allegations became public.

I hope that is not the case here as Shep is probably the last remaining actual journalist currently working at Fox News.

P.P.S. Here was Hannity's response.

While Shep is a friend with political views I do not share, and great at breaking news, he is clueless about what we do every day. Hannity breaks news daily-Warrant on a Trump assoc, the unmasking scandal, leaking intel, Fisa abuse, HRC lawbreaking, dossier and more REAL NEWS! 9p https://t.co/zJpnnyFTtP

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 16, 2018

I think Hannity is confusing "breaks news" with "pulls conspiracy theories out of my ass."

Shit is so bad in Trump's White House that even Fox News cannot bother to cover for them anymore.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

“Let’s just go through it,” Wallace said, before laying out a shockingly lucid analysis of Trump’s troubles. 

1. “Hope Hicks has quit. She’s the person closest to the president in the White House.” 

2. “The president hates his attorney general.” 

3. The deputy attorney general now has to defend the hated attorney general “from the attack by the president.” 

4. Trump’s top economic advisor is threatening to quit because of proposed tariffs, which he wasn’t consulted about. 

5. “The president reportedly wants to oust his national security advisor,” the respected H.R. McMaster. 

6. “Somebody is trying to get Jared Kushner.” 

7. Trump wants to be rid of Kushner, his son-in-law, but doesn’t want to do it himself and so he’s also asked his Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to “help me Kushner and Ivanka out of here.” 

“Other than that, it’s sweetness, light, puppies and unicorns here in D.C.,” Wallace said, wryly. 

“Wow—that’s a nice clip for whoever picks up clips,” Smith said.

That's what I thought, which is why I picked this clip.

Of course there are still those on Fox News who will never criticize Donald Trump, no matter what, but clearly those with at least an ounce of integrity simply cannot continue to defend the indefensible. 

Shepard Smith of Fox News is finished pussy footing around, aggressively calls the Trump Administration out for lying.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

In introducing AP reporter Julie Bykowicz, who contributed to the scoop, Smith went off: 

Julie, the White House says, ‘Ah, he was a private citizen at the time.’ But there’s been a lot of lying, Julie. And — there’s been a lot of lying, there’s been lying about who you talk to, and by lots of people and almost inevitably and invariably, they were lying about talking to the Russians, about something. It’s too much lying and too much Russia and too much smoke. And now they’re investigating. Where are we in this thing? 

From the looks of things, Smith doesn’t share the qualms of other news outlets with respect to the appropriateness of a certain inflammatory one-syllable English word.

Shep Smith has long been my favorite Fox News talking head.

Ah, who are we kidding, he is the ONLY Fox News talking head that I like.

And this is exactly why. 

I have to imagine that he is completely secure in his job, because he has been calling this stuff out for years and apparently nobody at Fox is able to censor him.

Fox News host Shep Smith says something reasonable about the Kim Davis rally, immediately gets attacked by Right Wing.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

“They set this up as a religious play again,” he said. “This is the same crowd that says, ‘We don’t want Sharia law, don’t let them tell us what to do, keep their religion out of our lives and out of our government.’ Well, here we go again.” 

“When this started, this lawyer said he needed an accommodation for a woman who wanted one. She said she didn’t want her name on a license for gay people,” Smith said. “Now they’ve come up with one, they’ve let her out of jail… But it’s not what they want.” 

“This is what they want, what you’re hearing now and this what they’re going to get: stirred up argument and a couple of days in the news cycle, and they’re going to be able to make these claims.” 

Smith argued the Supreme Court had already ruled on the issue of gay marriage, and the issued was settled. “This is not unprecedented. They did it when they said black and white people couldn’t marry.”

Well that is an acute observation.

 Which means it cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.

This courtesy of The Right Scoop: 

What a puke. Christians simply want for the government to stay out of our Christian beliefs instead of imprisoning us when our beliefs go against the invented rights of a lawless Supreme Court. And then he calls us hypocrites for not wanting Muslim theocracy in our country, suggesting we want to push our Christian values on the government? Does he know anything about how this country was founded? Has he ever read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence? What an idiot. 

Yeah what an idiot.

What an idiot for saying something pretty damn obvious.

What an idiot for pointing out the historical perspective in all of this.

And what an idiot for staying on Fox News.

Seriously Shep, WTF?

Is Roger Ailes holding your family hostage? Does he have incriminating pictures of you? What could possibly keep you at a cable news station with an ideological viewpoint that you clearly do not share?

I just don't get it.

(H/T to Raw Story)

Fox News reporter claimed that he was an eyewitness to a cop shooting a black man in the back, except he never saw anything, there was no shooting, and he damn near started another riot.

Fox's Mike Tobin

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith apologized on-air Monday afternoon after his colleague Mike Tobin erroneously claimed to have witnessed a Baltimore police officer shoot a black man in the street. 

Shortly after 2:45 p.m. ET, Tobin called into Fox News’ The Real Story and told host Gretchen Carlson that he saw police officers chasing a man, and “as he was running away, that police officer drew his weapon and fired and struck the individual who was running away.” 

Video showed the allegedly wounded man cuffed and being removed from the scene on a gurney, while an officer stood over a six-shooter on the sidewalk and colleagues secured the area with pepper spray guns.

However as it turns out there was no shooting, and the Baltimore police moved quickly to shut down the rumors before they could begin to circulate.

The reports of a man being shot at North and Pennsylvania Ave are NOT true. Officers have arrested a man for a handgun at the location

— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) May 4, 2015

And so, on live television, about half-an-hour later, Tobin back-tracked on his story, telling Smith that he had only heard a single gunshot, and did not actually see anyone fire a weapon. There was a row of parked cars between him and the scene, he admitted. 

The final nail in this story’s coffin came when on-the-ground reporter Leland Vittert caught up with a white-shirted officer (lieutenant or above in ranking), who definitively stated that there was no actual shooting victim. Police arrested the man for possessing the aforementioned revolver, and the gunshot noise was from when the man dropped the weapon.

So in response poor Shep Smith, possibly the only reasonable on air personality still at Fox News, had to do this:

Leave it to Fox News to invent a story of the police shooting a black man in the back, right after the city of Baltimore finally calms down after rioting over the actual death of a black man at the hands of the police.

Boy that is some good journalism.

Finally some level headed reporting on Ebola from....Fox News?

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

“We don’t have an outbreak,” Smith said. “We have two sick people from one dying man. And the rest of this should stop, because it’s not productive. And it’s not worth ratings, and it’s not worth politics, and we all need to stop it.” 

You know I recently slammed Shep Smith for his histrionics over ISIS and claims that the other Muslim countries would not work with the US to fight them.

However on this topic he is by far the voice of reason.

I usually watch MSNBC, and not only is Chris Matthews constantly pulling his hair out over this, I also watched a clip during Chris Hayes show where they followed an ambulance containing an Ebola victim with a helicopter. 

Shades of OJ Batman, that is ridiculous!

We have been documenting Ebola outbreaks since 1976, and yes this might be the biggest one so far, but there are still far fewer deaths than can be attributed to the common flu each year.

Remember when the AIDS epidemic had some suggesting the rounding up of homosexuals, testing them for HIV and then isolating them from the rest of the population?

Same out of control hysteria this time around. And of course it is driven in no small way by the politics of fear.

And we all know which political party that favors.

Fox News host Shepard Smith just lost a bet to give White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest "every penny he will ever make" at Fox News. See? This is why I don't gamble.

Just in case you did not hear that clearly, here is a transcript of the exchange courtesy of Newscorpse: 

Earnest: We are going to have Muslim majority countries, Muslim led countries, as part of this coalition. This is not going to be the United States against ISIL. This will be the international community, including the Muslim world, against these extremists. 

Smith: Like Saudi Arabia’s going to have some boots over there, or Jordan. 

Earnest: Well, I will let the individual members of the coalition announce the commitments that they’re prepared to make. 

Smith: There will be no commitment from those two. On this I will bet every penny I will ever make at this network. 

Earnest: That’s a substantial bet. 

Smith: It is a big bet, and it is a good bet, because it’s not going to happen and the whole world knows it.

That was from last week, and now as all of you undoubtedly now know the President launched air attacks against ISIL. And the Pentagon issued this report as to who provided support in the fight:  

U.S. military forces and partner nations, including Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, undertook military action against ISIL terrorists in Syria overnight, according to a U.S. Central Command news release. 

Wait, Saudi Arabia AND Jordan? 

But that would mean that Shepard Smith is now working for Fox News without compensation, as all of that now goes to Josh Earnest. I mean unless Smith is not a man of his word that is.

What am I saying? He works for Fox News. Those people are overflowing with integrity.

Right?