Fake News Is Eating Real News

Trump is going after PBS and NPR. And sadly, he's likely to win that fight.

The effects of this would be absolutely devastating. Already, there is too much disinformation being constantly shoved in Americans' faces. That disinformation machine is what put Trump into office, by delivering a steady-stream of lies, lies, lies. Through it all, NPR and PBS have been stalwarts of the truth, telling people what they need to know instead of what they want to hear. They are the ONLY major not-for-profit news outlets within the U.S.

And Trump wants to completely remove all public funding.

That dollar amount would have a huge impact. Congress has apportioned $500 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and that funding is maintained on a two-year cycle precisely to prevent political interference. But Trump has clearly been bulldozing his way through the usual barriers, and that means this time, that money may be forfeit. That adds up to a $1 billion dollar cut for public broadcasting.

Will that kill NPR? Probably not. That public funding mostly goes to local stations. As every Public Media pledge-drive reminds us twice per year, the vast majority of it's funding comes from "viewers like you." At most, tax money funds about 15% to 20%. And while that may force some local stations off the air permanently, we live in an era where any smart phone can bypass the need for local stations with an app. NPR will go on reporting the news the way it should. PBS will take a huge hit, though. And with Sesame Street having been first bought out by HBO, then cut loose, it is likely that someone else besides CPB will have to take up the streaming rights after 2025. Donations will pick up the slack, especially if NPR reminds its viewing audience that a donation to their cause results in far more change than donating to some pesky Democrat who is stuffing your inbox and phone texts with messages begging for money.

But for many, they will be left with nothing but corporate-owned, oligarch media. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Trump will then pepper NPR with bogus, SLAPP lawsuits.

He will target similar lawsuits at MSNBC. Rachel Maddow will surely be targeted. That network will be unable to afford the financial damage of such an onslaught, and probably shut down.

And then, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, CNN/HBO will be targeted. In particular, John Oliver and Bill Maher.

Well, not Bill Maher anymore. He defected. Fuck him.

After that? There will be little else except Oligarch News, brought to you by Sinclair, Newscorp, Newsmax, OAN, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk.

Leaving Americans with nothing to turn to other than the BBC for unbiased news. This is coming, folks. Brace for it.

This is how freedom of the press dies -- in the name of "freedom of the press."

Eric

**

It's Time For Bill Maher To Retire

It's been a while since I've taken aim at Bill Maher. I attacked him in 2009, and again in 2015. I later defended him when he fucked up in 2017.

But this time, well...

Well, if you didn't see the episode itself, you've seen it floating around various social media posts. Bill Maher, the guy who has made a career out of making fun of people (mostly) on the political Right, had a sit-down meeting and dinner with President Trump, brokered by their mutual friend, Kid Rock. Then said some soft-sell positivity about Trump on his show afterwards.

Okay, I get the argument about needing to have dialogue with the opposite side. I believe in the same values Bill does in regards to needing to talk with those who disagree with you. Like Bill, I hate the fact that we all live within our information bubbles these days, and scarcely a contrary argument ever gets through. I agree that those bubbles need to be burst.

But... Donald Trump?

He's in a special category, and the firewall regarding being cordial with him exists for a damned good reason. If it were Adolf Hitler, Bill's betrayal couldn't have been more stark.

But I need to remind you, this shouldn't surprise us. Bill has never been a limousine liberal. You may recall (some of you), when he did his first TV show, Politically Incorrect, his brand was largely being slightly right of center, taking occasional jabs at religion and shitting on Bill Clinton all the time. He proudly supported Bob Dole for president in 1996. And in the 2000 presidential election, he endorsed Ralph fucking Nader.

Then came 9/11.

One of the would-be guests on Politically Incorrect, conservative pundit Barbara Olson, was killed when her plane was hijacked and flown towards the Pentagon. The plane, as we all know, crashed before it got there. Bill may have taken the loss personally. Like many other atheists, he sided with the right-wingers who wanted to go after Islam. And he ended up siding with Dinesh D'Sousa (of all insane nutballs), in agreeing that the 9/11 terrorists were courageous.

"We have been the cowards," he said, "lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it -- not cowardly."

He later apologized, but the damage was done. Advertisers pulled out. Some ABC affiliates stopped airing the show altogether. Maher got scolded by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher. Politically Incorrect scuffled, its ratings dived, and it was finally cancelled in June of 2002.

So when Maher rebounded with Real Time With Bill Maher in 2003, sounding largely anti-Bush and railing against crazy right-wingers, we need to remember that he was placating to the demographic who watches HBO, not necessarily taking a moral stand. And he would have said literally anything back then to get back on the air. For him, being anti-Bush was the perfect formula for accomplishing that.

But deep down, I'm quite certain Bill Maher remained that same, center-right guy from all those years ago. And then, as now, he's willing to be flexible if it keeps him alive, both in real life, and on the air.

But for all his occasional flexing, he has also been steadfast in many things. He has remained solid to classic neo-liberalism, believing in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free-trade. And while he may have gotten some things wrong (vaccines, for instance), he has usually been intellectually sound.

It was Maher who correctly called out how big a threat Trump was in 2016. It was Maher who correctly pointed out that Trump was not about to leave willingly in 2020. It was Maher who warned us most starkly that Trump would be a vicious dictator in exactly the way he's manifesting now.

Which is why Maher's goddamned sane-washing of Trump now is so unforgivable.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, as we all know, treats celebrities differently than he does other people. He likes having celebs who hate him couch their negative opinions in "yeah, but..." So he treats celebs with golf-course respect, and they come away from the meeting with a generally more positive attitude about Trump. It's a scam, and one that Trump is uniquely talented at. He can charm certain people, and the bigger the celeb, the greater the person's wealth, the more charm he turns on. And no matter who you are, Trump can always get on your good side, and you on his, if the magic words get spoken: "Let's make a deal."

And Bill Maher bit on it, hook, line, and sinker!

This is why he went on his show and dared to say that Trump was a different guy when the cameras were turned off (wrong!); that he was amenable to hearing the truth (an act!); that he was willing to consider Maher a friend (oh, come on!).

There is even a special fallacy named for what Maher did - it's called the "But Hitler loved dogs!" fallacy.

But deep down, there's a mad genius behind this betrayal. Maher can do the math. He knows damned well Trump is a dictator. He's said so. He knows that he's unleashing a reign of terror. He's been one of the biggest voices warning us about it!

So why is he capitulating now, of all times?

Because the proverbial handwriting is on the wall. Trump has gone after immigrants, and whether or not they are legal and protected doesn't matter. He has gone after Universities and their students, and they have largely caved. He has gone after law firms and they have largely backed down. He is currently going after PBS and NPR, who are likely to lose their federal funding. And it's not hard to see who is next. Trump will go after MSNBC. He will target Rachel Maddow in particular. He will likely win that fight.

And then?

Then he's coming for HBO/CNN. That means John Oliver, and Maher himself.

So Maher knows what's coming, and he has gone 100% chicken shit over it. I can't entirely blame him. He's trying to survive. He's also half-Jewish, and Jews know how to survive even the most oppressive of regimes.

It's still a betrayal, damn it.

So, Bill, it's time for you to retire. If you can't stand up to Trump anymore, you are useless, and your show has no audience. You wanted to capitulate to Trump, and you achieved that. You wanted to survive, and you probably will. You've already made your money. You've stopped going on tour. You're near retirement age anyway.

So fucking leave! Your absence helps us more than your presence at this point.

And when your memoirs are published posthumously, maybe you can admit that you were too scared shitless to do your goddamned job, one you were 100% committed to -- until suddenly you weren't. Maybe say something like, "Hey, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it if I ended up dead."

Okay. Solid argument. But that only means the next dude after you is going to die.

For you, Bill, the cock has crowed twice, and you have denied us thrice.

Eric

**

It's Getting Beyond Obvious

It's getting so obvious even Fox News viewers are beginning to smell the bullshit.

In spite of everything the Right Wing Media Machine is throwing at its viewership, the scandals just won't sink this time. Because this time Trump really is driving our nation's economy straight into the ground. This time, Social Security and Medicare are really and truly being derailed. This time people really are being kidnapped and deported without due process of law.

This time, it really is storming outside, while Fox News is reporting that everything is sunny. What happens when their viewers look out the window, see the rain, hear the thunder and lightning, and finally put two-and-two together?

What happens when the die-hard evangelical Trump voter gets the panicked phone call from his grey-haired mother regarding her Social Security checks no longer arriving?

What happens to a Sean Hannity fan when the price of everything skyrockets and they can't afford what their kids want for Christmas?

What happens to the die-hard conservative retiree who slowly realizes he has to return to work at age 70, because he's spent two solid months on the phone trying to get the government to give him his own, hard-earned Social Security money, and finally has to give up and find a job just to survive.

What happens then?

Actually, never mind then. What's happening to them now? Because it's here.

The bullshit is finally hitting them in the face. When will they finally be overwhelmed by the smell?

So far, the answer has consistently been, "never." But there's ignoring the elephant in the room, and then there's getting trampled by said elephant. If we haven't reached that point by now, its hard to imagine what more it could take.

And Jeanine Pirro may not be overly concerned about her 401(k) right now, but then again, she has her million-dollar Fox News contract to sustain her through retirement.

Everybody not on Fox News' payroll is panicking.

I mean, just a brief dive into what Fox News is "reporting" quickly reveals just how much that network has zero fucks to give about the truth anymore. It strongly asserts the guilt of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, despite the Trump Administration outright admitting it had deported him wrongly. He had been granted legal protection by a judge in 2019, and Trump's goons blew right past that ruling anyway.

Or there's the case of Mahmoud Khalil, arrested, green card ignored, due process overlooked. But now, there's just enough legal wiggle room to have him deported anyway, and thus it seems he will be. And naturally, Fox News sees this as a complete vindication rather than a case of "ready, fire, aim" legal luck.

Look, I'm no fan of Islam, and I've certainly sided with Israel more than Palestine, but Khalil had his right to free speech. And for exercising that right, he was essentially kidnapped.

In fact, in many ways, what Trump is doing is engaging in mass-kidnapping.

Meanwhile, the "Signalgate" scandal is simply not going away. Why should it? An incompetent fool allowing real-time military attack information to be leaked to a journalist? That's the sort of stuff that gets soldiers killed! And Americans know it! And because it's Signal, an app many Americans know well, they're simply not blinded by the smokescreen.

"No classified information was shared."

Uh, it was an active military strike. It doesn't get much more classified than that! Jeffrey Goldberg published the whole thing after the Trump team tried to lie about that.

"Jeffrey Goldberg hacked his way in."

No, he was invited. Obviously.

"Jeffrey Goldberg is an awful human being who pulled a dastardly trick."

Oh, boy. Even if he were a total skunk (which he's absolutely not), he didn't trick anybody. He was invited.

There's no way around it, Signalgate was just sheer, inexcusable, obvious incompetence. Mike Walz, the National Security Advisor who set up the group chat, and sent journalist Jeffrey Goldberg the invite, is the one and only reason this happened. His incompetence, and that of the entire defense team, who knew of this group chat being used instead of official, secure government channels, resulted in this huge breech of highly sensitive information.

And neither he, nor anyone else involved, got fired.

I've said it before, the pyromaniacs are running the Fire Department.

What happens to a Fox News viewer when their house is inevitably the one on fire?

Eric

**