Friday Fox Follies – Shark Jumps Trump, Fox Takes Lumps

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Another bad week for Fox “News” as the entire free-thinking world rejected 2 iconic symbols the station venerates: the Confederate flag and former-Curvy Couch Potato Donald Trump. But let’s start with a Fair and Balanced attack on Bill O’Reilly, a disgrace to even the slimiest of carbon-based lifeforms.

There is a lot for which to criticize Loofah Lad. Feel free to take your pick of any of these headlines from the last 168 hours:

O’Reilly’s Hypocrisy: Admits He Won’t Tolerate Interviewers Asking About His Lies, But Blackballs Guests Who Avoid His QuestionsO’Reilly: “We Have An Activist [Supreme] Court,” Unable “To Put Ideology Aside” In Recent RulingsBill O’Reilly Rants Against Gay Marriage And ObamaCare Rulings: The Uber-Left ‘Hell Bent On Crushing Traditional Beliefs!’O’Reilly Blasts CNN’s Paul Begala for Pushing Hillary ‘Talking Points’ • O’Reilly: Religious Americans “Are In Danger” If Hillary Clinton Becomes PresidentO’Reilly Lashes Out At Obama For Rainbow White House Display After Marriage Equality RulingO’Reilly: Could Bakers Be Forced To Make Cakes For Nazis After SCOTUS’ Marriage Ruling? • O’Reilly Warns: Gay Marriage Ruling May Put People of Faith ‘In Danger’O’Reilly Warns: Conservatives Will ‘Continue to Lose Power’ If They Keep ‘Bickering’

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In fact, the Falafel King was feeling so good this week, he spiked the football. Watch as O’Reilly Teases Jon Stewart over Departure: Where’s He Gonna Mock Fox Now?

https://youtu.be/bgjQzpO7Jaw

No one needs Comedy Central to make O’Reilly look foolish, petty, and downright ugly. In a long, storied career with enough low points to challenge the Marianas Trench, The Spin-Like-A-Top-Zone hit a new low this week during a Watters’ World segment.

This reporter has called Watters’ World the laziest form of journalism, and/or comedy, both of which Jesse Watters tries to achieve simultaneously with his cute little Man on the Street movies. It’s easy to make ‘Merkins appear dumb: Stick a camera in their face, ask a few questions, and only use those answers that fulfill the reason you’ve taken a camera crew out on location in the first place. Wash, rinse, repeat.

However, This Bill O’Reilly piece on homeless people might be the worst Fox News segment ever. Watch O’Reilly’s Shameful, Dehumanizing Segment On New York City’s Homeless Population:

This segment of Jesse Watters’ heartlessness and poor-shaming was noticed all across the Blogosphere: Addicting Info said, Fox News Reaches New Heights Of Racism By Shaming Homeless Black People In New York, while NewsHounds notes O’Reilly’s ‘Investigation’ Into NYC Homeless Is A Disgraceful Hit Job On The Poor And Mayor de Blasio:

There were no experts interviewed, no police officers, no city officials, no Penn Station managers. Watters didn’t even cite any statistics or studies. Instead, he relied on a series of selectively edited, “man on the street” type interviews.

For example, Watters asked a Caucasian woman, “Does it affect you psychologically when you see homeless people in and out of this area?”  An African American homeless person just happened to be in the background of the shot.

A Caucasian man told Watters, “I see the upswing. I see a lot more people basically living here. …In the stairwells, in the back areas.”

A young African American girl told Watters, “It’s kinda heartbreaking to see other people who don’t have houses. They don’t have money to buy food and it’s a possibility they could die from that.” Later, the same girl admitted the homeless scare her “because you never know what they could do.”

Watch the original video. Virtually every shot is framed to show a homeless person in the background, unless they’re front and center in the foreground. There is absolutely nothing in this entire segment that would fall under the rubric of Fair & Balanced, which I’m sure was the point.

The Young Turks Destroy O’Reilly’s Attempt To Blame Homeless On De Blasio, while — inadvertently — Fox Legal Eagle Arthur Aidala’s little nephew destroys Jesse Watters. Check out how this kid proves that any untrained chimp can do a Watters’ World segment. Also note how much more refreshing it is without Watters’ self-satisfied smirk. Check it out:

https://youtu.be/h4ibBQF7Imk


JUMP, TRUMP, JUMP: While the Left Wing luxuriates in schadenfreude, Bill O’Reilly Gives Donald Trump A Platform To Continue Calling Latin American Immigrants Rapists, but it wasn’t just O’Reilly. Fox News Rallies To Defend Donald Trump After NBC Announces Split, as even ‘Fox & Friends’ Defends Donald Trump After NBC Cuts Ties.

Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly Uses Ann Coulter’s Book To Defend Donald Trump’s Comments About Immigrants because Megyn Kelly Thinks Donald Trump Has A Point About Those Bad Mexicans. As a Fox News Contributor Instructs GOP Presidential Candidates To Follow Trump’s Lead On Immigration, Fox’s Eric Bolling [says]: People Calling For Boycotts Of Trump Products Are “Economic Terrorists.”

Far more instructive is Fox News vs. Fox News Latino: NBC Dumps Trump Edition. As MMfA’s Rachel Calvert writes:

Fox News Latino highlighted how Hispanic advocates pressured NBC to end its relationship with Trump, writing that “Latino media advocacy leaders say NBC’s decision Monday … marked a watershed moment for Latinos.” In particular, Fox News Latino profiled the efforts of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, whose chairman and co-founder published an op-ed encouraging the network to “dump Trump.”

By contrast, Fox News hosts rallied to defend Trump, praising his reluctance to apologize for his offensive remarks and suggesting the backlash unfairly minimized his well-taken points about a so-called border-problem.

Fox “News” and Fox “News” Latino: Diametrically opposed views and never the twain shall meet.


FLAG FLAP: Many years ago Bill O’Reilly dubbed himself a Cultural Warrior and Fox “News” was happy to follow the Falafel King into glorious battle. However, they always seems to be on the wrong side of history during these skirmishes. This week — as the civilized world woke up to the fact that the Confederate flag has always been a symbol of Racism, not to mention traitors — Fox “News” went in another direction.

Consequently, NewsHounds had the courage to ask Is Fox News Dylann Roof’s Soulmate Of Hate? This as Steve Doocy, Allen West [say]: Confederate Flag “Had Nothing To Do With The Murders” So Why All The Fuss? There were numerous segments during the week decrying political correctness, culminating in crocodile tears that the Dukes of Hazzard was removed from the boob tubery.

There’s nothing less PC than a good old fashioned flag burning. When anarchists vowed they would burn a U.S. flag along with a Confederate flag, that prompted Mediaite’s Evan McMurray to note Fox Is Losing Its Damn Mind over Scheduled Brooklyn Flag Burning. Don’t deprive yourself of one of the most unhinged and demented editorials broadcast on tee vee in very a long time. READ & WATCH:

Meanwhile, legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. linked the scheduled burning to Roof himself, who appeared in a photo burning the American flag, though for somewhat different reasons:

“These folks are, in my view, the cultural cousins, cultural brothers and sisters of that maniac murderer in Charleston who decided he was going to burn the flag and show it on social media. There’s little difference between what they do and what he did. They’re on different ends of the same continuum of behavior.”

Yet, Roof’s manifesto read more like the blathering of a typical Fox “News” viewer at a family gathering.

Stephen Colbert famously noted that Peter Johnson, Jr., is named for 3 euphemisms for penis. Personally, I think he’s a dick.


STARNES STAIN: Channeling his inner snake-handler, Todd Starnes Suggests Record-Breaking Floods Are Response To Gay Marriage Ruling.


TUCKER WITH AN “F”: To remind readers: Tucker Carlson occupies a unique role on the Fox “News” Channel. There’s his hosting duties of Fox & Friends Weekends, where he craps all over the Curvy Couch. He also turns up on the network around the clock, taking the Con side in all of those (not very) Fair & Balanced debates on the network. But wait! That’s not all!!! He’s also owner and Big Cheese at The Daily Caller, a hard Right, Obama-bashing web site, that Fox “News” quotes to makes its own bull-manure smell sweeter.

Daily Caller Headline: “Barack Obama, Wife Beater”

SPOILER ALERT: It’s about his undershirt.


FOX BYTES: Satanist takes Megyn Kelly to law schoolFranklin Graham Warns Christians About Gay Marriage Ruling: Prepare For PersecutionKendrick Lamar Responds To Fox’s Geraldo Rivera’s Criticism Of His Music As Harmful To BlacksFox Host Criticizes Women’s World Cup Players For Being Too “Emotional” On The FieldFox Hosts Smear Obama’s Overtime Proposal To Help Workers: “It’s Too Much Government”Fox’s Gasparino: Obama Administration Has Been On A “Jihad Against Business”“Greece On Steroids”: Fox’s Cavuto Attacks New Overtime Rules That Will Help Millions Of WorkersWorried About Terrorism On July 4th? Fox Wants You To Pre-Blame ObamaSteve Doocy: Ten Commandments are in courthouses because it’s ‘where our laws came from’Gutfeld On Bristol Palin: ‘The Media Would Have Been More Supportive If She Had An Abortion’Emails Reveal That Hillary Clinton Thinks That Fox News Is InsaneHillary Clinton Email: Fox News Needs ‘At Least One Sane Realistic Voice’Fox News Ignores, Then Downplays Wash. Post Report On Jeb Bush’s Dubious Business DealingsSorry, Dred Scott: Fox’s Robert Jeffress Claims Marriage Decision Was Greatest “Blunder” In Supreme Court HistoryFox News host makes stunning and passionate defense of same-sex marriage — and it is awesome


Headly Westerfield is the Head Writer at the Not Now Silly Newsroom and your genial host at Fox Follies and Fallacies at the facebookery.


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