fox news bullshit

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I’m something of a news junkie. Every morning, first thing, I read the news (well, among the first things–I mean, there’s coffee to be made and all that). I want to know what’s happening in the world. And that brings me to Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who said this:

“If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t solve any problems. We have no democracy.”

This is pretty basic stuff. A society ought to be able to trust news journalists to present reliable facts. Beyond that, we ought to be able to trust news commentators to present opinions they actually hold. We should be able to assume that any person employed to present facts or opinions are NOT LYING.

And that brings me to this: tomorrow is the first day of the trial in the defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox News for allowing its commentators to tell lies about them. This is a big deal.

Look, we all know Fox News is bullshit. We all know the evening commentators act as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. We all know Fox News ‘personalities’ like Maria Bartiromo, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Piro, and Sean Hannity aren’t journalists; Fox lawyers have admitted as much in court. But this case isn’t really about journalism. It’s about defamation.

Defamation is false information that harms the reputation of a person, business, or organization. Fox News commentators spent a big chunk of time after the 2020 election claiming that Dominion Voting Systems 1) was deeply involved in election fraud, 2) had developed an algorithm that somehow rigged vote counts, 3) was owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections (for socialist dictator Hugo Chávez–seriously, I’m NOT making that up), and also 4) paid kickbacks to government officials.

Guess what? That was all bullshit. Also guess what? The people spreading that bullshit KNEW it was bullshit when they spread it. The judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, in pre-trial hearings, has already stated that those claims were all total bullshit (although, to be fair, he didn’t actually use the term ‘bullshit’). He wrote that it was “crystal clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”

But wait, there’s more. Because it’s all bullshit, Judge Davis has also ruled that Fox News can’t argue their ‘contributors’ were simply covering the news (because bullshit ain’t legit news). He further ruled that Fox can’t argue the bullshit could be considered the First Amendment-protected opinions, because there’s plenty of pre-trial evidence demonstrating the hosts KNEW it was bullshit and they didn’t believe it themselves.

So cased closed, right? Fox News loses, right? Dominion wins, right?

Well, yes and no. The jury will have to listen to all the dreary facts; they’ll have to listen to the Fox News commentators testify under oath that they knew they were lying to their viewers (and reader, that testimony is going to be as sweet as Tupelo honey). And THEN the real meat of the case will be presented.

Just to be clear, let me say this again: there’s NO QUESTION that the Fox News commentators were lying sacks of shit. That’s not even at issue. What’s at issue is this: Damages. The jury has to decide if Fox News, by lying and spreading bullshit about Dominion Voting Systems, caused severe damage to the company’s reputation. IF they find Dominion was damaged, then the jury has to decide whether the damage was the result of actual malice.

Actual malice is a legal term of art. Back in 1964, in the case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, SCOTUS defined actual malice as a statement made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” That matters because this is where it all comes down to money.

There are two types of civil damages: compensatory and punitive. Compensatory damages are intended to help the victim; punitive damages, obviously, are intended to punish the offender.

Assuming the jury finds Fox News liable (which ought to be a safe assumption, but you never know when a jury is involved), they’ll first have to decide how much Fox should pay Dominion to compensate for the damage to their business. Then they’ll have to decide if Fox News should be punished financially for deliberately spreading bullshit to the public, and if so, how much.

And that brings us back once again to Maria Ressa. Because Fox News wasn’t just harming Dominion Voting Systems; they were–and still are–harming representative democracy. They’re harming this entire nation. If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. If you lack trust and truth and facts, you can’t solve society’s problems and you can’t have representative democracy. If you allow a major media platform to deliberately and knowingly spread lies and bullshit to a wide audience, you shred the fabric of society.

And that’s really hard to mend. Compensation for the damage done isn’t enough; punishment is necessary.

circular dance of ants

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The photograph below shows a pair of bloodroot blossoms, one of the first flowering plants we see at the beginning of morel season. It doesn’t look at all bloody, does it. The sap, however, is generally orange to bright red. It’s sometimes used by native artists as a dye. The sap is also somewhat poisonous; eating bloodroot probably wouldn’t kill you, but it would certainly make you vomit like a high school drunk.

What’s cool about bloodroot, though, is the way it’s disseminated. The flowers produce pollen, but no nectar–which means all those bees and flies that land on the blossoms foraging for nectar are getting scammed. They’re helping pollinate the plant, but they aren’t getting jack in return.

But what’s really cool is that the seeds of bloodroot are spread by ants. That’s right, ants. The seeds have a fleshy organ–an elaiosome–that ants fucking love. They take the bloodroot seeds to their nest, eat the elaiosomes off them, then chuck out the seeds with the other ant trash and nest debris. Ant trash turns out to be a terrific medium for germinating seeds.

The process of ants foraging seeds for their tasty elaiosomes, then getting rid of the useless seeds in ant trash middens is called myrmechory. It’s from the Greek term for ants (mýrmēks) and a circular form of Greek dancing called khoreíā. The ants don’t actually dance in circles, of course, though they probably could if they wanted to. Who’s going to stop them? The important thing, though, is myrmechory works. It’s great for the ants, who get a scrumptious treat, and for the bloodroot, which gets dispersed across a wider range.

Of course, bees and flies and other pollen-seeking winged foragers get completely fucked over, which probably adds to the enjoyment of the elaiosome-eating ants. I’m okay with that. I mean, bees get to fly, after all; they get a temporary pardon from gravity. Hard to blame ants for being a wee bit envious and taking some small pleasure out of seeing the winged bastards get stiffed.

the improbable wilmer mclean

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You have to feel sorry for Wilmer McLean. Some folks just can’t catch a break.

In 1861 our boy Wilmer was a successful merchant and farm owner. He was happily married to the former Virginia Mason (a wealthy widow). They had a young child and lived in a nice house on a good piece of farmland near Manassas, Virginia. Life was good. At least it should have been. It would have been, except for the brewing civil war.

In April of that year, Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard had been appointed a general in the newly formed Confederate Army and assigned to defend the port of Charleston, South Carolina. Beauregard’s artillery assault on the Union Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor were the first shots fired in the American Civil War. By July, Beauregard was placed in command of Confederate forces in Northern Virginia and he needed a place to establish his headquarters.

So one fine summer day, there was a knock on Wilmer’s door. An aide to Gen. Beauregard politely let him know his farm–his home and his barn–were being commandeered. Wilmer wasn’t happy about it, but as a young man he’d served in the Virginia Militia; he understood that sacrifices had to be made. So he and his family abandoned their farm while the first major land battle of the Civil War–the Battle of Bull Run–was fought on his farm.

Not surprisingly, the McLean home and barn were both damaged during the battle. Beauregard liked to tell the story of how his dinner in the house was interrupted by a Union cannonball coming through McLean’s fireplace. Still, Wilmer and his family returned to the farm after the battle and remained on the farm for another year–until the Second Battle of Bull Run. At that point, Wilmer said, “Fuck this.” He packed up his family (his poor wife was pregnant again) and they moved a hundred miles south to a small quiet town in Southern Virginia, where the war wouldn’t interfere too much with his life.

And hey, it worked. Mostly. By 1865, our boy Wilmer had been living as quiet a life as one possibly could in a nation torn apart by a long, brutal civil war. He was 51 years old; he and his family had a nice house and he was making a fairly decent living as a merchant and a sugar broker for the Confederate Army.

But then, on this very day, April 9th, there was another knock on Wilmer’s door. Charles Marshall was an aide to another Confederate general–Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Marshall wanted our boy Wilmer to show him a house suitable for a meeting between Lee and another general. Given his previous unfortunate experience with Confederate generals, Wilmer showed Marshall a couple of ramshackle houses. Marshall rejected them. After a bit of pressure, Wilmer reluctantly agreed to let Gen. Lee use his own house for the meeting.

The McLean residence in Appomattox Court House

The meeting, of course, turned out to be between Lee and Gen. Ulysses Grant, the commander of the Army of the Potomac. During that meeting, held in Wilmer’s parlor, Lee agreed to surrender his army, essentially ending all major combat operations in the Civil War. It was all very quiet, very formal, very somber.

But once the surrender was signed and Lee had ridden away, the Union officers wanted souvenirs of the historic event. They began helping themselves to various household items–tables, chairs, lamps, whatever was at hand. It wasn’t exactly looting; many of them actually paid Wilmer for the items they took. But as before, Wilmer had no choice in the matter. In 1861, the Union Army damaged his property with artillery; in 1865, they did it by hand. War doesn’t spare civilians.

The end of the war also brought the end of Wilmer’s career as a merchant and sugar broker. He was eventually forced to sell his house and move his family back to his boyhood home of Alexandria, where he found a job with the Internal Revenue Service.

Wilmer McLean liked to say the Civil War began in his front yard and ended in his front parlor. It’s a good line. That good line was the only good thing our boy Wilmer got from the war.

You have to feel sorry for Wilmer McLean. Some folks just can’t catch a break.

eclipsed from the public eye

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Jesus suffering fuck. I’m old enough to remember when the New York Times editorial page was thoughtful and intelligent. I had to cancel my NYT subscription three or four years ago because it had become very much NOT thoughtful and intelligent. But every so often somebody will say, “Greg, old sock, take a look at this” and so I will take a look at it.

This is an actual sentence written by two actual people–Peter Baker and Michael Shear–who are PAID by NYT to write sentences:

The tale of two presidents on this spring afternoon, one quietly focused on technology policy, the other having his fingerprints taken, underscored the unique challenge that has confronted Mr. Biden since taking office more than two years ago. 

Okay, first there’s only ONE president at a time. I know this is quibbling, but these guys earn their living writing stuff, so we can legit quibble the fuck out of them. You got one president and one bullying jackass who used to be president. Get it right.

Second, Baker and Shear have somehow decided that President Uncle Joe, by NOT being fingerprinted after being arrested on 34 felony counts, faces ‘a unique challenge.’ What IS that challenge? It’s…and I swear I am not making this up…it’s that Biden is being “eclipsed in the public eye” by Comrade Trump. That’s like saying a nice sunny afternoon is being eclipsed in the public eye by an EF5 tornado. Baker and Shear seem to think that President Biden spending yesterday discussing policy issues involving artificial intelligence instead of being booked by NYPD for multiple felonies is a problem FOR BIDEN. That’s so massively stupid that the term ‘stupid’ isn’t sufficient to describe it.

Here’s another sentence from that same news ‘analysis’:

The White House made no effort to compete for attention with the arrest of a former president. 

Read that sentence twice. They’re saying the White House didn’t even TRY to wrangle the public eye away from a former POTUS doing a modified perp walk. As if Uncle Joe had somehow failed because he wasn’t standing on a stage waving his normal-sized hands and shouting, “HEY, LOOK AT ME!”. These guys are experienced White House correspondents; you’d think they’d understand President Uncle Joe wouldn’t even want to distract the public from this image.

Comrade Trump after being booked, on his way to being arraigned for 34 felonies.

Just look at that sad-ass, pouty motherfucker. Baker and Shear are apparently among those folks who believe these indictments (and the coming indictments) will somehow benefit Trump, that being charged with multiple felonies in multiple state and federal jurisdictions will lift Trump into the White House in 2024. I don’t know how to explain to these people that being formally accused of committing lots of crimes IS A BAD THING.

It’s a bad thing even for Comrade Trump. There aren’t going to be folks who think, “Man, I was going to vote for Democrats…but THEN THEY INDICTED TRUMP!!!” These indictments aren’t going to bring him any sympathy voters, they won’t bring him any NEW followers. The only people energized by this are folks who already support him, that solid carbon block of fascists and fuckwits who are convinced that being an arrogant asshole is an asset. They don’t care how many laws he’s accused of smashing, so long as he’s openly cruel to minorities and women and LGBTQ folks and those peculiar Christians who think Jesus wanted folks to love each other.

Here is a True Thing: most people can’t stand Comrade Donald Trump. Not just most people in the US; most people on the entire fucking globe. We KNOW him. We’ve dealt with bullying jackasses like him all our lives. The ONLY reason Trump has any political power at all is because twenty or thirty years ago the GOP began tapping into the bullying jackass demographic and succeeded in getting local bullying jackasses into positions of local authority. They’ve slowly rebuilt their party–from the ground up–into the party of bullying jackasses. Local bullying jackasses managed to change local laws making it easier for other bullying jackasses to get elected.

And pundits like Peter Baker and Michael Shear have helped them by shifting the emphasis away from being a bullying jackass to the ‘unique challenge’ of earnest candidates who are being ‘eclipsed from the public eye’ by…well, by pundits like Peter Baker and Michael Shear.

trumpoetry

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Imagine my excitement
At Comrade Trump’s indictment.
The result of his gobshitement
Is arrest.

But I say without restriction
Or any contradiction
It’s really his conviction
I request.

I’d wear a red carnation
And make a big donation
For his incarceration
Without fail.

It would not be prejudgemental
Or in any way grudgemental
To hope that his judgmental
Will end in jail.

not concerned

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I actually have appointments and things scheduled today, which is a rarity. But I wanted to say one thing about Comrade Trump’s indictment(s). No, that’s not true; there are a LOT of things I want to say about it, but I’m going to restrain myself because of all that appointment stuff. This is what I want to say:

I’m not concerned that the indictment(s) will spark violence.

I say that for a couple of reasons. First, this is happening in Manhattan. Trump is not generally popular in New York City. There will likely be angry people who show up in front of Trump Tower or at the DA’s office and raise a fuss, but it’s highly unlikely there’ll be any sort of serious violent confrontation. This isn’t like DC on January 6th. Even if MAGA fuckwits wanted to pull something on that order, the urban geography isn’t in their favor. It’s easier for police to kettle protesters in city streets. And the logistics of a large scale protest are a lot more daunting; MAGA fuckwits would have to arrange travel to NYC, and find a place to stay (hotels in NYC aren’t cheap), and figure out the subway system, and they’d have to do it quickly (unlike 1/6, in which Trump gave them plenty of notice). Large scale violence just isn’t as feasible in these circumstances.

Second, this is about money paid to a porn star to prevent her from exposing the fact that Trump cheated on his third wife who’d just delivered their baby. It’s a lot harder for MAGA fuckwits to justify violence and a possible jail sentence to support a president’s right to betray his marriage and pay hush money to porn stars. It’s a lot harder for conservative Christians to support violence to help a serial philanderer’s attempt to cover up yet another sexual affair. The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth and all that. (If I have to quote the Bible, I’ll always go with the King James version; it rumbles so well.)

The arrest we’ve all been waiting for.

Had any of the other crimes for which Trump is being investigated issued the first set of indictments, I’d be more concerned about violence. Those crimes are a lot more serious. Paying off porn stars is just tacky and sleazy.

And now I think of it, there’s a third reason large scale violence is unlikely. Trump has admitted he did it. He may deny (while not under oath) that he had sex with Stormy Daniels, but he’s admitted he paid her off. He has justified it as a business expense; cheaper to pay her off than to sue her for libel. It’s a variation of the What Happens in Vegas defense.

I could be wrong, of course. I mean, I was absolutely certain there was no way Trump would ever be elected president, so my track record is questionable. My assumption that there won’t be any large scale violence as a result of the indictment(s) may just be wishful thinking. Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe that there will be enough outrage even among hardcore MAGA fuckwits to get them to visit New York City and engage in street violence to defend Trump’s right to hand out cash to porn stars to keep them quiet about his sordid habit of cheating on his multiple wives.

the point

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Okay, this happened. On social media, I posted a photograph of…well, wait. Let me just show you the photo, that’ll make this easier.

That’s it. It’s not anything remotely artsy; it’s just an interior shot made from a corner booth. The primary reason I shot the photo was because it amused me; it’s a classic private investigator perspective–back to the wall and a view covering all three entrances and exits. (Yes, I worked for about seven years as a PI specializing in criminal defense, and yes, I actually did pay attention to those things back then, but no, it’s not really a concern to me anymore, but yes, it’s still sort of a habit.)

A friend commented, casually referring to this as a ‘dive bar’ and adding “…or what we call here, ‘the pub’.” (‘Here’ in that context meant Ireland.) And for reasons that probably don’t bear examination, I felt compelled to point out that this place is NOT a dive bar. Or a pub. It’s a sort of combination roadhouse and bicycle bar.

Because this is how my mind works, I’ve spent a few idle moments (well, maybe half an hour) thinking about the taxonomy of drinking establishments. Obviously, there’s no universally agreed classification; there’s no International Organization for Standardization overseeing drinking establishments. BUT there IS a history.

On the outskirts of town, along a road and bike trail — bicycle roadhouse.

The Roman tradition of conquering places and fucking around with local cultures and norms relied heavily on their ability to build and maintain a network of roads. Along those roads, they created tabernae–rude sheds and shelters where travelers could refresh themselves with food and drink, and maybe a safe place to sleep. Eventually, taverns began more like houses open to the public, and local folks would gather there to get news from travelers over a friendly ale. Public houses–pubs–became central to neighborhoods. Public houses located outside of town (or on the outskirts of town) generally provided rowdier entertainment–roadhouses.

Now there’s an entire constellation of drinking establishments. We still have pubs, some towns still have taverns that also act as inns (though those are largely supplanted by hotels and the hotel bar), we still have roadhouses. But we’ve also got dive bars, which are sort of low-rent pubs devoted to serving local folks inexpensive drinks without a lot of fuss. We’ve got bicycle bars for thirsty cyclists, and brew pubs for beer connoisseurs (from the Latin cognoscere, meaning ‘to know, to understand, be familiar with’), and concept bars that are devoted to a specific theme (like zombies or hobbits or steampunk or bondage), and sports bars with eighteen large-screen televisions showing a disconcerting number of sports events, and cocktail bars where beer and ale is spurned in favor of spirits, and wine bars which you can figure out yourself, and pool bars (both swimming and billiards), and population bars directed at specific groups (like LGBTQ or veterans of foreign wars) and I’m probably forgetting several other types of drinking establishments.

My point is…well, I’ve forgotten what my point was. I definitely had a point when I started writing this. I wonder what happened to it. Somehow I seem to have gone from looking at things from a PI perspective to tavern taxonomy to the fucking Romans to a semi-random rambling list of bar types. A point could get lost anywhere in there.

Turns out, that photo at the beginning did NOT make this easier.

Uh…how ’bout those Red Sox, huh?

a sweet savour unto the lord

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Billy B. Yeats wrote the poem in 1919, just months after the end of World War One, the bloodiest and most technologically advanced war ever fought. His young wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees, pregnant with their first child, had almost died from the global flu pandemic of 1918-1919 and was still recovering. Twenty million people died in that war, twenty-one million during the pandemic. And the Irish War of Independence was just beginning.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer

Falcons hunt at the command of the falconer. It’s not just that the falcon has slipped free of that control, it’s not just that the falcon isn’t listening to the falconer; he can’t even hear the voice of control anymore. Control no longer exists.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned

To Yeats, the entire world must have seemed on the verge of combustion. Everything was blowing up around him. Nobody was in charge; there was no constraint on the horror in the world, there was no legitimate authority to curb humanity’s worst impulses. One era was coming to a bloody end; a new one was being born and nobody knew whether or not it would be monstrously worse.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And here we are, a century and a wink later, after another pandemic, living in a nation we hardly recognize during an era of increasing hate and horror. It feels like our world is at a horrific tipping point. Firearms have become the leading cause of death for children under 18 years of age. Not disease, not accidents, not any natural or organic issue, but a device. A tool, an implement, a thing we deliberately manufacture and freely sell almost without control. The leading cause of death among children is a mechanical apparatus, and one political party celebrates it.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The members of the Republican Party almost universally identify themselves as Christian, and they publicly bemoan the deaths of all those thousands of children. They offer their thoughts and prayers because that’s what you do when you make a burnt sacrifice–you pray when you create a holocaust. Holocaust, from the Greek holokauston, meaning “a thing wholly burnt.” A burnt offering is the oldest form of Biblical sacrifice; a “burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord,” as the King James Version has it. The sacrificed offering should be “without blemish.” Untainted, unspoiled, pure. Like children.

Republican Andrew Clyde, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.

Guns are the rough beast. Republicans, with a “gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,” are willingly sacrificing children to it. We have the power to stop that. We have the power to, at a bare minimum, reduce the magnitude of the holocaust of children. We have the ability to minimize the butcher’s bill.

But we won’t.

The blood-dimmed tide has corrupted the water of our political and social culture. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. It will feed where it wants.