In a half empty room.There is civil war in the GOP, look who didn't attend, not who did. The longer Donald is running around loose the worse it is for the GOP and the better it is for the country, by destroying their chances in 2024 and Kevin's house is helping. When they indict Donald there will be a shit storm from the magats and silence from the rest of them.
Five takeaways from CPAC and what it means for the 2024 race
Trump proves he still controls the Republican Party as CPAC draws to a closewww.independent.co.uk
Examples of GOP Leadership
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topcat
Well-Known Member
No Beetlejuice?
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
you talk of walking a very fine line...while i am all in favor of shutting fox down, it's because they have given ample reason to do so. You have to be careful who you shut down, and why, or you can become worse than the original problem.
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
no, you want Disney/Tim Burton hell, that's two doors down.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Opinion | Fox News destroyed its reputation for a painfully simple reason
Two pernicious ideas came together to destroy the reputation and the business model of Fox News.
Richard W. Painter: Two pernicious ideas came together to destroy the reputation and business model of Fox News.
Fox News destroyed its own reputation for a painfully simple reason
Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News hasn’t just devastated the network’s reputation. It’s posing the biggest legal threat the channel has ever faced. This danger could have been avoided if better judgment had been used not only in Fox’s newsroom but at the most senior levels of management. According to a recent filing by Dominion, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch conceded that he could have stopped Fox from bringing Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on air to lie about Dominion, “But I didn’t."
What went wrong? An answer came when Murdoch was asked in a deposition why Fox continued to give a platform to My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who was spouting misinformation about Dominion voting machines. “The man is on every night,” Murdoch testified. “Pays us a lot of money … ”
Two pernicious ideas came together to destroy the reputation and the business model of Fox News. The first is rejection of objective truth. The second — less well documented, but equally pernicious — is the prioritization of corporate profits above all.
Two pernicious ideas came together to destroy the reputation and the business model of Fox News.
Fox News was founded as a platform that mixed reported news with conservative political opinion. But over the years — especially once Donald Trump was elected president — the platform shifted to sometimes, perhaps often, abandoning news altogether. Other media outlets recoiled from what Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, called “alternative facts.” But Fox News entered a postmodern world in which factual truth is relative, and one person’s story is just as valid as another person’s story.
This destructive approach was on display again this week with Tucker Carlson’s deceptive account of Jan. 6. If the story that the insurrectionists were patriots is more appealing to Fox viewers than the truth that they were violently trying to overthrow the United States government, than who’s to say the story isn’t true? One observer’s insurrectionist is another observer’s patriot.
Truth was also malleable when Fox News hosts talked about the Dominion voting machines some states used in the 2020 election. Trump and his supporters wanted to blame his loss on imaginary incidents of “fraud.” Fox hosts, with their bosses’ approval, were ready to make the false stories true simply by saying over and over again that they were true.
But why did the network buy into this approach? Why did the hosts say things they knew weren’t true? Why did they destroy their journalistic reputation for the sake of lies?
There's an easy answer: money. Lies make money.
That’s were the second pernicious idea comes in — the “shareholder primacy norm” under which the sole duty of corporate officers and directors is to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders. This idea has had some appeal among academics ever since economist Milton Friedman popularized shareholder primacy in a 1970 New York Times op-ed titled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.”
Most shareholder primacy theorists, however, have never run a business, and most people who have run a business know that in the long run the idea that profits are more important than anything else simply doesn’t work.
Storytelling rather than objective reporting is what Fox sells to their tens of millions of viewers.
Imagine an airline that announces it believed its planes are safe but that the airline’s principal obligation is to earn profits for its shareholders. Most passengers will book other flights. Imagine a corporate health care provider that says its pursuit of profits was the sole obligation of its directors and officers. Patients will find new doctors.
The Business Roundtable, an organization headed by America’s most prominent CEOs, has expressly stated that “the Purpose of a Corporation” is to promote “an economy that serves all Americans.” Corporate CEOs may not always practice what they preach, but at least they know what they are supposed to be doing.
Leading New York corporate lawyers such as Martin Lipton have also rejected shareholder primacy theory, saying that corporations create sustainable long-term value when they focus on a corporate purpose that includes not just profits but also the welfare of other stakeholders such as employees, customers and society as a whole. (One shareholder primacy proponent, New York University law professor Edward B. Rock, went so far as to call Lipton’s view “Leninist,” but very few people who actually practice law or sit on boards of directors have said that Lipton is wrong.)
The irony about the shareholder primacy norm is that a business manager who openly embraces it will likely be out of business. The idea may appeal to some academic theoreticians who rarely lose their jobs for saying something nonsensical, but a corporate manager who openly embraces profit maximization as a sole business objective at the expense of all other objectives will take his company down with him.
One need only think of the 2008 financial crisis to know how disastrous shareholder primacy and profit maximization can be if nonmonetary values such as honesty and fair dealing are compromised to make money. As I have pointed out before, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, once among the largest American investment banks, all failed that same year because of profit driven greed. Corporate managers’ obsession with profits at the expense of other values in the end destroys the reputation, and sometimes the balance sheet, of a corporation, harming everyone, including shareholders.
And that’s exactly where we are with Rupert Murdoch and Fox News. Fox did not advertise blind adherence to shareholder primacy and profits above all else when they broadcast the “news,” but the evidence in the Dominion trial shows that Fox bought this shareholder primacy theory hook, line and sinker. They abandoned the core business purpose of a corporation in the news business — to investigate and broadcast the truth — for the sake of a secondary purpose: profits.
Storytelling rather than objective reporting is what Fox sells to their tens of millions of viewers. This has gone far beyond simply mixing fact with opinion, as other cable news channels also sometimes do. Fox News hosts and journalists repeatedly reported as facts things that simply weren’t true and that they and their bosses knew were not true. They did it to make money.
When a typical corporation goes under due to misguided belief in shareholder primacy, the fallout is tough enough, but it’s restricted to the employees and investors. But when that corporation poses as a news organization, and makes its money selling myths, the fallout doesn’t stop with the company. Our democracy itself pays the price.
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Bagginski
Well-Known Member
Taco Beelzebub - an instant classic, but ‘Bell-ze-bub’(ba) or the joke won’t travel far. May it live long & prosper! And, I really must say, If *I* haven’t taken an interest in “Satan” by now, I never, ever will…but, see, it’s my allergy to Christianity. Satan’s a major NPC in a game I refuse to play; I refuse to play it, because I solemnly disapprove of virtually every part of it. I’m cool w/ Jesus, we go way back - but the rest of it should have been driven out of the temple as well.
That would not be a “Christian” assessment, but may I remind that Jesus was NOT a Christian (and given the history of “Christianity”, and the gospels, he never would have become one)?
And yes, Georgia as a hidden slave empire is all about keeping all demographics in their proper & appropriate places - and yes, that means keeping the privileges and the limitations. Hidden bit of history: in the jim-crow shakeoff of emancipation, Georgia came up with a carefully engineered electoral system they called the ‘county unit system’, and its purpose was to ensure that the rural white power structure remained in place. I won’t try to explain it, it’s vicious convoluted, & it was WAY over 50 years ago - but my first YEAR of high school was all about learning the DETAILS of the county unit system. They may or may not have been proud of it, but they did think it was important
That was the last year there was any sort of civics or constitutional or governmental orientation or instruction toor information provided in school.
(No, they didn’t tell me it was designed to keep de-facto slavery in place…but they didn’t have to: I’d had my eyes open for quite a while where race was concerned: the civil rights movement wasn’t making news yet, lynchings were rareER but not uncommon, and casual, ad-hoc violence in various forms could be seen on the streets, in shops, even in homes, being dished out generally at random, every day. To servants. To ‘colored people’. No difference. When they showed you how they rigged elections to keep all that in place, you needn’t be super aware to see it.)
Dorian2
Well-Known Member
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Not to worry. I reject Satanism as a simple (first-order) refraction of the grim, vitality-opposing theology of the evangelicals. To believe in one is to dignify the other.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
If people stopped saying "Jesus Christ" when they cursed and instead took Cheeto Jesus's name in vain, saying "DONALD TRUMP" instead! More American "Christians" would be offended by the change than using the original version.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
He whose name shall not be spoken...
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
… fades into oblivion.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Let's talk about the other conservative conference....
Arkansas governor signs bill rolling back child labor protections
The Governor believes protecting kids is most important, but this permit was an arbitrary burden on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job,” Sanders’ spokesperson Alexa Henning said in a statement. “All child labor laws that actually protect children still apply and we expect businesses to comply just as they are required to do now.”
Previously, minors under the age of 16 needed to verify their age and get the written consent of a parent or guardian before a work certificate could be issued by the state’s Division of Labor. But H.B. 1410, known as the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, which passed the Arkansas state legislature earlier this month, no longer requires youth under the age of 16 to have that work certificate as a condition of their employment.
The bill’s passage comes after the Biden administration announced last month plans to crackdown on labor exploitation of migrant children across the country, the New York Times reported, following an investigation conducted by the publication.
www.cnn.com
The Governor believes protecting kids is most important, but this permit was an arbitrary burden on parents to get permission from the government for their child to get a job,” Sanders’ spokesperson Alexa Henning said in a statement. “All child labor laws that actually protect children still apply and we expect businesses to comply just as they are required to do now.”
Previously, minors under the age of 16 needed to verify their age and get the written consent of a parent or guardian before a work certificate could be issued by the state’s Division of Labor. But H.B. 1410, known as the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, which passed the Arkansas state legislature earlier this month, no longer requires youth under the age of 16 to have that work certificate as a condition of their employment.
The bill’s passage comes after the Biden administration announced last month plans to crackdown on labor exploitation of migrant children across the country, the New York Times reported, following an investigation conducted by the publication.
Arkansas governor signs bill rolling back child labor protections
Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill into law this week that rolls back a number of child labor protections across the state, including a measure that had required employers to obtain work certificates for children under the age of 16.
www.cnn.com
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
GOP confronted: 'Yes to Neo-Nazis, no to drag races' in Tennessee war on free speech
228,674 views Mar 6, 2023 #MSNBC #Republicans #Tennessee
Tennessee is the first state to ban drag performances on public property, as Republicans use government power to attack free speech and expression. MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber dissects the First Amendment implications of selective government bans on expression in this report.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Top Fuel crowd will be some kinda pissed off
They are not news and should not be allowed to have that word in their name. There must be some FEC rule they're breaking minimally.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
FCC perhaps, but enforcement will be blocked by GOP majorities
printer
Well-Known Member
Carlson shows two sides to his views on Trump, supporters
Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s conflicting feelings about former President Trump and his supporters have been on full display this week amid headlines over his controversial Jan. 6 coverage and private emails unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
Carlson has dedicated two nights of his widely watched prime-time opinion program to defending the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan.6, downplaying the incident as “mostly peaceful chaos,” — comments that sparked a widespread political backlash.
But in private, communications brought to light through the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit show Carlson offering scorn of the GOP’s default standard-bearer.
“We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” Carlson wrote in one text to an unidentified Fox employee on Jan. 4, 2021, just two days before the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol, according to one recent court filing.
In another, he said, “I hate him passionately.”
What emerges is a media personality who wants to seek solidarity with the common man who supports the former president, but who has severe misgivings about the former commander in chief.
thehill.com
Article goes on for a bit, wish the Fox viewers would see what their standardbearer thinks of them and Trump..
Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s conflicting feelings about former President Trump and his supporters have been on full display this week amid headlines over his controversial Jan. 6 coverage and private emails unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
Carlson has dedicated two nights of his widely watched prime-time opinion program to defending the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan.6, downplaying the incident as “mostly peaceful chaos,” — comments that sparked a widespread political backlash.
But in private, communications brought to light through the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit show Carlson offering scorn of the GOP’s default standard-bearer.
“We are very very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” Carlson wrote in one text to an unidentified Fox employee on Jan. 4, 2021, just two days before the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol, according to one recent court filing.
In another, he said, “I hate him passionately.”
What emerges is a media personality who wants to seek solidarity with the common man who supports the former president, but who has severe misgivings about the former commander in chief.
Carlson shows two sides to his views on Trump, supporters
Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s conflicting feelings about former President Trump and his supporters have been on full display this week amid headlines over his controversial Jan. 6 coverage and pri…
thehill.com
Article goes on for a bit, wish the Fox viewers would see what their standardbearer thinks of them and Trump..
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
In Canada we have a more enlightened attitude.
'No regerds!' Irma Gerd finishes 6th on Canada's Drag Race