The Week in News
Fox New censors Donald Trump, the virus rages on, and Tucker goes full autocrat.
Fox News censors Trump
So, an interesting story caught my eye a few hours ago. Donald Trump’s spokesperson, Liz Harrington, just savaged Fox News and their new host Dan Bongino for “censoring” Donald Trump’s interview on the network last night.
Harrington claimed in a series of tweets that Fox News edited out a portion of the interview in which Trump “accurately describing the fake election.”
Now, this is pretty juicy stuff. It means, IMHO, that Dominion’s lawsuit over the Big Lie has spooked Fox. I mean, they’re even censoring Trump himself! I just listened to the 43-second clip. Trump did call it a “fake election,” but he also added “I don’t think the country’s gonna stand for it much longer.” That last part sounds like yet another incitement to violence. It’s hard to know whether it’s the implied threat of violence that Fox objected to, or calling the election “fake,” or both. Regardless, they’re spooked. Now is not the time to back down on holding Fox accountable for the harm they’re causing this country. Ramp up the pressure.
Crypto and Infrastructure
I already wrote earlier this week about the problematic cryptocurrency language in the Infrastructure bill. It’s still being negotiated, but it looks like they’ll probably be reaching a deal soon that the crypto community can stomach. I won’t go through the details of the problem, you can read that here, but I will say that it’s kind of amazing that the one issue that bogged down the Infrastructure bill, and stopped it from passing last Thursday night, was crypto. No one could have predicted that. And the fact that the crypto community was able to reach out beyond its usual allies — Republicans — and find sympathetic Democratic ears is good news for those of us who think crypto has an exciting future. In the future, no one is going to want to include an extraneous crypto provision in unrelated legislation, lest this happen again, and that’s good news for a more thoughtful debate as much-needed regulation of the crypto industry moves forward.
Covid
As always, it’s been quite a week in Covid news. Cases continue to rise in Florida, and won’t peak there for another month. And while Florida has seen the worst number of Covid hospitalizations since the pandemic began, other states are in trouble too. Tennessee is predicting that later this week its children’s hospitals will be full. Texas is also in trouble. Here’s a smattering of the bad Covid news from Houston alone (another place where there are no more pediatric beds.) And Arkansas hospitals are also now full.
Among other Covid updates:
An anti-mask GOP congressman now has Covid.
This proud Covid-denier filmed a propaganda vid, then died.
A Texas GOP leader is dead from Covid only five days after mocking vaccines online.
An ex-Newsmax host who attacked “lying freak” Dr. Fauci over the “Scamdemic” has died of Covid.
CNN fired 3 employees for coming to work unvaccinated.
United Airlines is requiring all staff to be vaccinated — the only airline to require it so far.
Vanguard is paying employees $1000 each to get vaccinated.
Republicans in Texas have just instituted some crazy new rules to hamper schools from dealing with Covid.
A new study suggests that people who recover from Covid still need to be vaccinated.
Are “illegals” really spreading Covid? No.
Is it true that “only 2%” of people who catch Covid will die from it?
And finally, I look into just how many people have allegedly died from taking the Covid vaccine, since it’s a big troll talking point.
Tucker goes full authoritarian
Fox News host Tucker Carlson spent the week broadcasting from Hungary, praising the country’s autocratic leader Viktor Orban, and lamenting as to why America can’t have the kind of government that Hungary has — a government that has whittled away at the underpinnings of that country’s fledgling democracy for eleven years. It’s not just sickening that Carlson would repeatedly praise Orban and what he’s done to Hungary, but it’s scary as well. Carlson is clearly trying to sell his audience on autocracy and autocrats. Fox News really has to be destroyed.
In other news
This may just be one of the funniest SNL skits ever. Watch it entirely through.
And yes, I still need to weigh in on the latest news regarding Trump’s coup attempt.
CNN’s Jim Acosta suggests we name new Covid variants after Republican governors.
If this video of the Greek wildfires is real, it’s apocalyptically scary.
Snickers creates yet another homophobic TV ad. Read my Twitter thread on it:
Democratic Rep. Cori Bush apparently didn’t get the message about using the phrase “defund the police.”
I dove into a controversy, as I’m wont to do, over what the phrase “openly LGBTQ” means.
In related news, Latinos really don’t like being called “Latinx.” So why is everyone doing it?
Leave it to the Onion:
Okay, that’s enough for the weekend. Onwards and upwards towards another busy week. Keep fighting, y’all.
JOHN