FOX News knowingly pushed false 2020 Election Fraud

 Fox News hosts called 2020 election fraud 'total BS' in private, new Dominion court filing says

Fox News anchors and producers privately acknowledged that former President Donald Trump and his allies' allegations of election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election were false despite their network's promotion of those claims, according to a new court filing by Dominion Voting Systems.

In a nearly 200-page document filed as part of its billion-dollar defamation suit against the network, Dominion Voting Systems shared emails, texts, testimony, and other private communications from Fox News personnel that cast doubt on claims that Dominion's voting machines had somehow rigged the presidential election in Joe Biden's favor.

So basically "Trump is a demonic force, a destroyer. But I make a shitload of money supporting him so I'll do everything I can to make sure he gets all the power he wants, and repeat all his lies for him."

Fox knows they are not news. Other channels know they are not news. The only people who dont know are fucking morons, urr im mean fox watchers.

This is actually a pretty big deal. It’s clear evidence that the Fox hosts knew that the election fraud stuff was bullshit, but they aired it anyway. Malicious disregard for the truth is a major aspect when proving libel, and this is strong proof.

Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Election Fraud Claims. ‘Crazy Stuff.’ 

Fox News stunned the Trump campaign on election night by becoming the first news outlet to declare Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner of Arizona — effectively projecting that he would become the next president. Then, as Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election and the president refused to concede, many of the network’s most popular hosts and shows began promoting outlandish claims of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy involving Dominion machines to deny Mr. Trump a second term.

And also there’s this with Tucker Carlson:

On Nov. 12, in a group text chain among Ms. Ingraham, Mr. Carlson and Mr. Hannity, Mr. Carlson pointed to a tweet in which a Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, fact-checked a tweet from Mr. Trump referring to Fox broadcasts and said there was no evidence of voter fraud from Dominion.

“Please get her fired, ”Mr. Carlson said. He added: “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” Ms. Heinrich had deleted her tweet by the next morning.

This is terrible. Tucker didn’t like a co-worker doing her job because it hurt the stock price, and so he pushed to get her fired and was able to have her delete her tweet the next morning. What an anti-American piece of shit.

Also, this is an excellent thread about all this from Will Summer of the The DailyBeast. The court documents are screenshotted of what he’s referencing below each tweet in seeing actual documents. 

Off the air, Fox News stars blasted the election fraud claims they peddled

In the days and weeks after the 2020 elections, the Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false claims that then-President Donald Trump had been cheated of victory.

Off the air, the network's stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them "mind-blowingly nuts," "totally off the rails" and "completely bs" - often in far earthier terms.

The network's top primetime stars - Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity - texted contemptuously of the claims in group chats, but also denounced colleagues pointing that out publicly or on television.

It's a very telling thing they would mock these claims and people but have a low enough opinion of their audience that they would think they would believe such ridiculous claims.

And sadly, they thought right. It's the ones calling everyone else sheeple that are the most easily led. 

I remember tuning in to Fox’s Tucker/Ingraham/etc the night of Jan. 6. That day, they weren’t exactly telling their massive audience that Trump was “off the rails”… far from it, in fact. Because they couldn’t. They’re paycheck chasers. Leadership has never been their purpose.

Big shocker—if you radicalize an audience and devalue truth for years, at some point you’ll end up with an audience that has gone completely off the deep end. And then they’re dictating terms to you.

That’s why you’d see Fox News wringing its hands so often, every time they’d lose flocks of viewers to OAN and Newsmax because they stopped short of running the looniest of the loony conspiracy theories.

Same reason all those establishment Republicans would wince every time they tried to disavow Trump once and for all, only to have to go crawling back, time after time, because MAGA crazies had become their base.

Fox News hosts didn't believe 2020 election fraud claims, $1.6 billion Dominion defamation suit asserts

"Sidney Powell is lying," about having evidence for election fraud, Tucker Carlson told a producer about the attorney on Nov. 16, 2020, according to an excerpt from an exhibit that remains under seal.

The internal communication was included in a redacted summary judgment brief filed Thursday by attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems.

Carlson also referred to Powell in a text as an "unguided missile," and "dangerous as hell." Fellow host Laura Ingraham, meanwhile, told Carlson that Powell is "a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy," referring to former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani.

Sean Hannity, meanwhile, said in a deposition "that whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second," according to Dominion's filing.

And yet everything else is fake news. Their viewers are such puppets. 

Trump'g Stolen Election gets shot down by grand jury

 Georgia grand jury recommends perjury indictments in Trump election meddling probe

A Georgia grand jury looking into possible election meddling by former President Donald Trump said “one or more witnesses” may have lied under oath and urged prosecutors to pursue criminal indictments in those cases.

The special grand jury also found no significant fraud in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election won by President Joe Biden, according to portions of the final report on its monthslong investigation unsealed Thursday.

I'm still just sitting here wondering why Trump is not only not in prison but running again in 2024 after calling and asking the GA Secretary of State to just "find" enough votes for him to win. I mean if that wasn't a crime, it should be. We should be passing laws right now to make that a crime. How is anyone okay with this bullshit?

 What is hidden is likely a bombshell not only for Trump but his 'associates' that testified, most of them unwilling. Don't forget that Lindsey Graham went all the way to the Supreme Court to try and get out of it, that was for a 'reason'. Rudy is definitely in the mix here too.

“The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” the report said.

Trump Grand Jury Recommends Perjury Indictments

A panel investigating Former President Donald Trump in Georgia said some witnesses may have lied under oath. 

The special purpose grand jury also recommended the local Georgia prosecutor bring criminal charges if those lies can be proved, according to portions of the panel’s final report that were released on Thursday. 

What's a bit of perjury among friends trying to illegally overturn the results of an election?

Really only two new pieces of information:

• Perjury charges are recommended against individual(s).
• The special grand jury unanimously established no widespread fraud in the election.

The crucial part of the report we still have no information on is:

Who has been recommended for charges, and for what.

Perjury will not be the only indictments the DA will seek.

Fani Willis essentially affirmed two weeks ago that "serious" charges would be pursued "imminently" against multiple people when she contested the release of the report to protect the integrity of "future defendants."

She must now seek any charges at a regularly impaneled grand jury, and this might already be happening. In Georgia, these run in two-month stints. Because of defendants' rights to a "speedy trial" there is sort of a procedural roadblock where the DA may have to wait until the next grand jury is seated in March to seek charges.

Seems kinda like lazy journalism that most of these articles don't link to the report itself, it's only 9 pages, and as legal documents go, pretty easy reading:

https://www.fultonclerk.org/DocumentCenter/View/1706/EX-PARTE-ORDER-OF-THE-JUDGE-2-16-2023-Report 

Trump 2024 ffs

 Trump makes shocking comments about trusting Putin over US ‘intelligence lowlifes’

Donald Trump has repeated claims that he trusts Russia’s president Vladimir Putin over his own director of national intelligence.

The former president was denounced by both Republicans and Democrats when he originally made the claim at a 2018 joint press conference with Vladimir Putin. Now, he has repeated them on his Truth Social platform.

His post described members of the intelligence community, presumably including the CIA, NSA, FBI and cybersecurity agencies, as “lowlifes”.

Its bizarre. Never before has it been more clearcut.

Imagine if he had made these comments in the 80s. He would have been drug out into the street and hung.

NOTHING has changed in Russia/USA relations.

The 'truth' he posted on his Twitter knock off:

Remember in Helsinki when a 3rd rate reporter asked me, essentially, who I trusted more, President Putin of Russia, or our “Intelligence” lowlifes. My instinct at the time was that we had really bad people in the form of James Comey, McCabe (whose wife was being helped out by Crooked Hillary while Crooked was under investigation!), Brennan, Peter Strzok (whose wife is at the SEC) & his lover, Lisa Page. Now add McGonigal & other slime to the list. Who would you choose, Putin or these Misfits?

He is relitigating something from 4 years ago because he is still butt hurt about having to walk back his comments.

He stood in front of the CIA memorial wall after months of similar statement to ensure them they have his "full support," then immediately veered off and started ranting about fake news. This is tantamount to apologizing to someone then insulting their mother. It's hard to underestimate just how much of a nutjob this guy is. He's done so much insane shit that most people can't remember even half of it.

Video of Trump deposition in New York fraud probe shows former president taking the Fifth, repeating "same answer"

At the outset, Trump responded to three questions by saying, "For all of the reasons provided in my answer, which is incorporated herein in its entirety, I decline to answer the question."  

Wallace then told Trump he could just say, "same answer" — "to speed things up." 

Trump did so more than 400 times during the course of the full interview, according to a New York attorney general court filing. After the deposition concluded, Trump issued a public statement saying that he had exercised his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer.

“If you are innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” - Former POTUS Donald J Trump, 2016.

Trump pleaded the fifth more than 400 times in fraud deposition, video shows

Questioned about his financial affairs, the former president repeatedly invoked his fifth-amendment right against self-incrimination – part of a refusal to answer he repeated more than 400 times.

Amusingly, pleading the fifth doesn't help him in this civil case. In civil cases pleading the fifth can be used as a sign of guilt. Sure it temporarily prevents him from criminal charges. It still hurts his case in the civil proceeding.

Trump denounced over call for supporters to get ‘locked and loaded’ to fight for him: ‘Sick’ 

Mr Trump, who is actively using his own social media platform Truth Social after he was barred from Twitter, reposted a message by a supporter who seemed to suggest violence.

“Then they will have to figure out how to fight 80,000,000 + it’s not going to happen again. People my age and old will physically fight for him this time,” a Truth Social post from username @freeTX1776 read.

Around 950 people have been charged with crimes and around 350 people have been sentenced so far for crimes for responding to Trump’s last call-to-arms on Jan 6th.

He got away with the last coup attempt. Of course he's going to try another one.

What did they expect?! 

Trump not being held accountable for his crimes is the best example ever presented to the American people that the Rule of Law in our country is nothing but a sham.

List of Republicans Who Have Suggested Cutting Medicare, Social Security

List of Republicans Who Have Suggested Cutting Medicare, Social Security 

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden was heckled by several Republican politicians after claiming "some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset."

In response to his remark, a number of Republican lawmakers were heard saying "no," House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted "liar" and Speaker Kevin McCarthy could be seen shaking his head.

From the article: Mitch McConnell, Ron Johnson, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott have all supported going after Medicare and Social Security. That's just of the current sitting Senate, I'm sure there are plenty in the House who would gut them, too, given the chance.

Shows the importance of this line from last night's SOTU:

"If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I will veto it... but I guess that's something no one's gonna try to do."

As well as the hypocrisy of republicans acting shocked and aghast while heckling Biden for the suggestion they'd cut Medicare and Social Security. But then, it seems like telling as many lies as possible is a prerequisite for being a member of today's GQP. 

The Republicans have been attempting to kill Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid for decades. Bush Jr. tried to privatize it and fortunately was unsuccessful.

The biggest issue is since Regan; corporate and individual wealth has soared while their share of paying taxes has diminished into vapor with the some of the largest of corporations literally paying zero taxes. After decades of tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, now they say we must cut SS and Medicare because it is too expensive...these mf*ckers can go bite a big one.

It comes as no surprise the effort to kill social programs continues to please their obscenely wealthy donors. It is literal robbery of individuals to slash benefits or attempt to privatize it.

Why those voting for republicans think they are the working mans party that will make their lives better is beyond me, it must be some sort of brain pathogen.

Republicans Are Angry at Joe Biden for Accurately Describing Plan to Sunset Social Security

In early 2022, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the Republican Senate campaign arm, released what he called an “11 Point Plan to Save America.” One year later, one specific dim element of that plan—a proposal that all laws, including Social Security and Medicare, would expire in five years unless reapproved—is still coming back to haunt Republicans. The threat to two of the nation’s most beloved social programs was the backdrop of the most dramatic moment of President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. And as much as Scott may protest—or perhaps because of it—Democrats won’t be dropping the attack anytime soon.

But wait there's more:

Indeed, it’s a point of bipartisan agreement: Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly conceded last year that under Scott’s plan, Medicare and Social Security would have to be reapproved every five years.

For the far-right Floridian to double down on this point again today only helps bolster the White House’s point. Scott seemed to think he was correcting Biden with his Twitter thread, when in fact he inadvertently helped prove the president right.

Postscript: At the conclusion of his weird Twitter thread, the senator added, “Biden & the Dems did, in fact, cut Medicare just last year. They lie about it & the liberal media covers for them.”

It is among the most tiresome of Scott’s many lies. He’s been told several times that his efforts to deceive the public on this point are indefensible, and yet the Republican continues to peddle this demonstrably ridiculous claim, indifferent to reality and propriety. The fact that he repeated the lie again this morning, while ironically accusing his rivals of lying, served as a reminder that the GOP lawmaker is impervious to shame

https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1623298304573419522

From the Republican party who holds the country hostage when they pout, they actually believe they're pulling a fast one on us. Stupid clowns. 

Republicans are on Twitter witch hunt

 Republicans held a hearing to prove Twitter's bias against them. It backfired in spectacular fashion

Right-wing media outlets and personalities are happy to amplify these claims and spread them to millions of viewers who turn to them for their news. Fox News, for instance, hyped the GOP claims from the hearing on Wednesday, portraying the nonsense coming out of the hearing as if it were a serious affair uncovering considerable wrongdoing.

The facts — reality — simply do not matter. It didn't move one Republican when the Twitter executives they had subpoenaed before the committee refuted their claims. And it didn't matter much to the right-wing media apparatus that blindly repeated them to their audiences.

Republicans have distorted this Twitter story to the point of getting it backward. Twitter has a "public interest policy" that keeps it from banning accounts of certain important people. That policy was applied to accounts like Trump's secretly and unofficially until 2019. Trump retweeted at least 145 conspiracy accounts, including more than two dozen that were themselves later suspended for their rule breaking posts. In one egregious example, Trump tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", which broke Twitter's rules against glorifying violence. Literally no one other than Trump was getting away with the things he was posting on Twitter.

This hearing showed even more examples of this anti-Democratic bias by Twitter. Apparently, they relaxed their rules on hate speech to accommodate Trump using Twitter to tell certain minority members of Congress to go back to where they came from. The Trump White House also asked Twitter to ban Chrissy Teigen. This isn't looking great for the Republican victim complex. 

Twitter Kept Entire ‘Database’ of Republican Requests to Censor Posts

WHEN THE WHITE House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.

That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company. The newly empowered Republican majority in the House of Representatives is now devoting significant resources and time to investigating this supposed “collusion” between liberal politicians and Twitter. Some Republicans even believe the release of the “Twitter Files” is the “tip of the spear” of their crusade against the alleged liberal bias of Big Tech.

Archive here.

Strange how selectively Tiabbi keeps suppressing information that doesn't fit what he's selling.

A reminder that the data show that Twitter's algorithm amplifies conservative views over others. 

Ex-Twitter Officials Confirm to Congress: Trump, Not Biden, Has Tried to Censor Tweets

Spurred on by the so-called “Twitter Files,” the House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter’s decision to temporarily block a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was supposed to show overwhelming proof that the social media giant was engaged in anti-conservative “censorship.”

Instead, former Twitter officials revealed on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump not only received preferential treatment for years, but he also directly requested the site remove tweets that he didn’t like. At the same time, they also noted that President Joe Biden hadn’t contacted Twitter to take down any tweets or censor content.

YES, THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE DEMANDED TWITTER REMOVE CHRISSY TEIGEN’S TWEET CALLING TRUMP A “PUSSY ASS BITCH” 

One needn’t be an expert in psychology to understand that Donald Trump has some of the thinnest skin known to man. A prime example of this would be his apparent decision to run for president because Seth Meyers made fun of him. Another? His administration’s reaction to a celebrity calling him a “pussy ass bitch” on Twitter.

The irony that Trump's attempt to censor the tweet only reinforce the tweet's accuracy 

Dumpster fire is getting out of hands

Trump shares photos of DeSantis alleging he partied and drank with high school girls when he was a teacher

Former President Donald Trump reposted a photo on Tuesday of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that accused him of drinking alcohol with minors when he was a high school teacher. 

"That's not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!" Trump wrote sarcastically on his social media app, Truth Social. 

The picture shows a 23-year-old DeSantis smiling between three women with blurred out faces, whose ages aren't clear. One of the females in the photos is holding a brown glass bottle but DeSantis isn't pictured drinking. Still, the caption reads, "Here is Ron DeSantimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher," followed by the vomit emoji.  

Nothing warms my heart like the two GOP front-runners (correctly) calling each other pedophiles.

When Trump ran Miss Teen USA and Miss USA he stated:

I'll go backstage before a show, and everyone's getting dressed and ready and everything else. ...You know, no men are anywhere. And I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant. And therefore I'm inspecting it. ... Is everyone OK? You know, they're standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that. But no, I've been very good.

Trump is a predator with over 25 accusations of sexual harassment against him. 

Well, Trump Is Now Suggesting Ron DeSantis Is a Pedophile

DONALD TRUMP RECENTLY has been ramping up his attacks on Ron DeSantis ahead of a potential 2024 Republican primary showdown. We’re not going to lie, we figured it take the former president a least a few more months before he started accusing the Florida governor of pedophilia.

Trump has been doing just that on Tuesday, though, sharing a few posts on Truth Social purporting to show DeSantis “grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher.”

“That’s not Ron, is it?” Trump wrote, sarcastically. “He would never do such a thing!”

Says the guy who spent so much time with Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump only accuses people of things that he himself is guilty of. It's as predictable as the sunrise, so I guess we know what he's really telling us.

And he says it FIRST. That way the other guy looks foolish turning around and saying the same thing back. I’ve always been convinced that’s why they scream “stolen election.” That way, if/when they actually steal 2024 the Democrats will look disingenuous screaming “stolen election”. It works. That’s why he does it.

Best case scenario, DeSantis wins the nomination, trump runs as a 3rd party candidate and the 2 of them split the conservative vote.

Trump helps circulate photo accusing DeSantis of drinking with underage girls 

Former President Donald Trump took a potshot Tuesday at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, sharing an old photograph floating around social media that purported to show him drinking alcohol with minors.

The blurry photograph, which Mr. Trump posted twice on his social media feed, appeared to show a man smiling alongside three young women, and a caption reading: “Here is Ron DeSanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher.”

This guy always always stabs you in the back. Always. How fucking stupid do you have to be to work with this asshole?

Desantis, now you pick the pedophile card to play against trump. Epstein? Miss America? Talking dirty about his own daughter?

Eat each other alive.

Republicans, thinking who do we pick?? Pedophile option A or pedophile option B 

Gift that just keep giving

George Santos Is Accused of Sexual Harassment in His Capitol Office

A prospective congressional aide has accused Representative George Santos of ethics violations and sexual harassment, according to a letter the man sent to the House Committee on Ethics and posted to Twitter on Friday.

The man, Derek Myers, briefly worked in Mr. Santos’s office before his job offer was rescinded earlier this week, according to the letter.

Mr. Myers said in the letter that he was alone with Mr. Santos in his office on Jan. 25 when the congressman asked him whether he had a profile on Grindr, a popular gay dating app. Then, he said, Mr. Santos invited him to karaoke and touched his groin, assuring him that his husband was out of town.

Already? How stupid IS this guy? He is under investigation for many, many, things and he does something like this in his first few weeks in office? How quickly the Democrats would have removed him from office if he happened to be in the other party? He'd be out already!

Dude sees that Republicans get away with fucking everything and probably realizes that in his position, he can do the same now. Why else would a gay man even run Republican? He knows damn well the Dems would have booted his ass out before he even set foot in his office. The GOP welcomed him with open arms.

Probably the same reason Trump switched to the GOP. Their base is notoriously undereducated and pliable. If you want to be powerful and escape all accountability, you run as a Republican.

How dare you accuse an astronaut, elf, and professor of patent law of such things? He didn't die on the shores of Tripoli to be slandered! An 11 time US Open (combined golf and tennis) champion deserves better!

In the UK any one of the things he has been accused of would be enough for him to be forced to resign... Because the political parties would not want to be associated with it. Why do the GOP want to be associated with it? They're the party of "power at all costs" and that's how we ended up with Trump, a broken supreme court, and now this conman in Congress.

George Santos Accused of Sexual Harassment by Former Volunteer

U.S. Representative George Santos has been accused of sexual harassment by a man who spent a week volunteering in his congressional office in January, while hoping for a permanent job.

Derek Myers, a former journalist, claimed Santos groped his groin without consent and invited him round as Santos' husband was out of town, on January 25, when he was "alone with the Congressman in his personal office."

Santos has become the absolute poster child for Republican hypocrisy. No matter what he does now, or did in the past, McCarthy will close both eyes just so he can look in the mirror, hold up the gavel and call himself Speaker of the House.

The saddest part is - pretty much the rest of the country knows he is Speaker in name only. He has no freedom to even have his own opinion (as Trump most recently reminded him of), leave alone make any legislative decisions. And for this, McCarthy enables someone as corrupt as Santos to remain in the House, doing who knows what kind of damage to the country.

How sad it must be to be so desperate. 

George Santos is useful to the republicans:

It draws attention from the performance or lack of performance from the speaker of the house

It draws attention from other republicans & there prior or current scandals ; it relies on the fact that people are drawn to newer information and larger controversies instead of prior events

George Santos is essentially the class clown distracting the teacher while the other students steal lunch money and break the rules.

So long as George Santos exists in the house ; the speaker of the house is shielded from attention to his mismanagement & other committe chairmen such as Jim Jordan

George Santos Reportedly Hires Lawyer Convicted of Brazilian Gang Killing

The Brazilian lawyer that out Republican Rep. George Santos of New York has selected to defend him against fraud charges in the country was reportedly convicted and incarcerated for his involvement in a gang execution.

Jonymar Vasconcelos, 47, received an 18-year sentence in 2007 over the shooting death of a mechanic Aristeu Vieira de Mattos in 2004, according to São Paulo newspaper Folha.

Can’t this guy do anything like a normal person?