The White House And Its 'Shadow Cabinet' Of Fox News TV Hosts

Past administrations have had favored press members, says New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, "but nothing where someone is so close in that they are coordinating on a daily basis with the president."

www.npr.org

"Some of the people who are still hosting shows on Fox are seen by many of the people who are in and around the White House — including some of the White House staff — as basically being a 'shadow cabinet.' ", Jane Mayer

Trump: "Block that deal. I want it blocked. I've told you 50 times. We need to get that suit filed."

Gary Cohn told John Kelly:  "Don't you dare do that. This is not how we're going to do business."

In July 2018, former Fox News co-President Bill Shine joined the White House staff as deputy chief of staff for communications and assistant to President Trump.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has pretty much shut down most of the daily briefings for the press, and that instead, she started appearing quite frequently on Fox News, where she gets softball questions. So a number of Trump administration officials, including Sanders, have started popping up on Fox News rather than being available to the press corps at large .

“Sean Hannity has now had something like 44 interviews with President Trump himself. That's in comparison with just 10 combined for all the other television networks. And CNN, which President Trump doesn't like, has been given no interviews.”

• On what that story shows about the Trump White House's relationship to Fox News
• On how Fox News had the Stormy Daniels story before the election — and killed it
• On reporting that Trump was tipped off about Fox News host Megyn Kelly's question before the Republican presidential debate in August 2015
• On the origin of Trump and Murdoch's relationship  
• On how Murdoch has disparaged Trump behind his back in the past, seeing him as a "real estate huckster and a shady casino operator"

GOP Ripped For Attacking Admiral William McRaven: ‘The Depths to Which the GOP Will Sink’ for Trump…

"Worth reflecting on what McRaven's criticism says about Trump and about you."

www.mediaite.com

“I stand by my comment that the President’s attack on the media is the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime.”

“When you undermine the people’s right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the Constitution and all for which it stands.”

— Retired FOUR Star Admiral William McRaven

If you had told me two years ago that the official GOP twitter account would be attacking *Bill McRaven* as a partisan hack, I would have said you were out of your mind.

— Susan Hennessey✔@Susan_Hennessey   1:17 PM - Nov 19, 2018 

Worth noting that McRaven forcefully shot down those rumors as soon as they emerged.

Worth noting the depths to which the @GOP will sink in attempting to justify the President's despicable smear of yet another American hero.

— Susan Hennessey✔@Susan_Hennessey   1:02 PM - Nov 19, 2018

Far-Right Site Gab Ditched by Cloud Host Joyent, Suspended by Stripe Amid Synagogue Massacre

Gab, the self-declared free speech platform that has welcomed countless neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and various other far-right bigots, had its PayPal accounts terminated on Saturday after authorities named anti-Semite and alleged Gab user Robert Bowers as the suspect in a massacre of at least 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday. The backlash has reportedly continued to mount throughout the weekend, with Gab’s hosting provider Joyent notifying the site’s management its account will be suspended as of 9:00 a.m. ET on Oct. 29, and payment processor Stripe suspending transfers to Gab’s bank account “effective immediately.”

gizmodo.com|Tom McKay

• PayPal 💰
• Stripe 💰
• Joyent - host service
• Apple and Google have either prevented the site from releasing its app on their mobile stores earlier this summer
• Microsoft “terminated its Azure agreement with Gab last month”
• Gab has also tweeted it would likely be banned from both Facebook and Twitter, though both accounts remained active as of Sunday afternoon.

The Washington Post reported that Gab’s chief technology officer, Ekrem Büyükkaya, announced he was stepping down on Sunday because “attacks from the American press have been relentless for two years now and have taken a toll on me personally.” 

“Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab, will get angry when people for call his site a white nationalist website or an alt-right website but anyone who spends time on it knows that it’s a haven for extremists,”

Fox News had racist bigot Tomi Lahren telling viewers “Obama created Festivus to destroy Christmas” (Ms Lahren supports fracking and believes that climate change is a myth).

— Zelo Street,  The President’s Team Is Bent

FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts

It was hard to avoid seeing the video posted last week showing local news stations reciting a “must-run” script about fake news from their parent company, Sinclair broadcasting, in eerie synchrony. It creeped out a dozen Senators so much that they asked the FCC to look into it — and Chairman Ajit Pai has responded, saying that’s not going to happen.

techcrunch.com

The Senators’ letter, which you can read here, expresses concern that Sinclair is clearly using its power over local news stations to advance a political agenda at a national level:

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is responsible for ensuring that broadcast licensees use the public airwaves to serve the public interest. We call on the FCC to investigate whether Sinclair’s production of distorted news reports fails the public interest test.”

“In light of my commitment to protecting the First Amendment and freedom of the press, I must respectfully decline.”, Ajit Pai, fcc chairman 

And as icing on the cake, they bring up the fact that Sinclair ought to be under extra scrutiny since it is in the 

• middle of a merger that would give it unprecedented reach in broadcast,
• FCC is also accused by many of favoring Sinclair in particular with some of its deregulatory policies.

Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary, and “classic propaganda”

Stations are required to air terrorism alerts daily. 

Sinclair responded to criticism of its must-run Boris Epshteyn segments by tripling the number of times stations are mandated to air them each week.

— Mother Jones

War is Peace Freedom is Slavery Ignorance is Strength

— George Orwell, 1984

Fox News analyst blasts network as 'propaganda machine' while announcing departure

A longtime Fox News analyst sharply criticized the network on Tuesday, denouncing the outlet as a "propaganda machine" devoted to President Trump, and saying that it was "wittingly harming our system of government for profit," in a stunning internal email announcing his exit from the company.

money.cnn.com|Oliver Darcy

Ralph Peters, a US Army lieutenant colonel who served as a military analyst for Fox News, said he felt "compelled to explain" his departure from the company to colleagues, before skewering the network he has called home for years.

"Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed."

“In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.”