Not long after Fox News suggested that University of California, Berkeley should no longer receive federal funding after a protest against alt-right Milo Yiannopoulos turned violent last night, Fox’s BFF in the White House did the network’s bidding by threatening exactly that.
On this morning’s Fox & Friends first, Mediaite caught Todd Starnes sounding off in an oh-so-righteous rant:
STARNES: What happened at the University of California, Berkeley last night should enrage the nation.
[…]
Here’s what needs to happen; President Trump should immediately issue an executive order blocking Berkeley students from receiving any federal funding. Same goes for any other public university that wants to silence conservative voices. Free speech for all, or no federal money. Not a single taxpayer penny, period.
And Trump, apparently with nothing else on his mind, despite having threatened war with Iran, to invade Mexico, alienated important ally Australia just yesterday and having approved a botched counterterrorism raid that got a navy SEAL killed on Sunday, thought this bit of Fox News so urgent that he had to drop everything and tweet a new threat:
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017
Fox has been using the Berkeley protest to nurse and gin up resentment and anger toward some of its favorite targets: academia, liberals and California. Oh, sure, Fox is claiming to be an advocate for free speech. But where is the Fox outrage over the beating of a liberal at a conservative “Friends of Abe” meeting that featured the criminally sleazy James O’Keefe? I must have missed it.
Nor has Fox allowed a little thing like Trump’s own endorsement of violence toward people who disagree with him get in the way of the network’s cheerleading for him.
Meanwhile, Fox is also overlooking the monstrousness of Yiannopoulos. It’s just so convenient for them. It helps to enhance his victimhood, it helps to ingratiate themselves with Breitbart, the alt-right, alt-president, and now it’s helping to promote Fox’s war on academia and liberals while hiding under the cloak of free speech and free thought!
Don’t get me wrong, I never condone violence of any kind toward anyone. But if you think Fox cares about rights for anyone other than conservatives, then I’ve got a Trump inaugural cake to serve you.
Watch Starnes’ ginned-up outrage below, from the February 2, 2017 Fox & Friends First.
I really wish the protesters in Berkeley had simply shunned this jerk peacefully and leafletted his event – I would even have encouraged them to have appeared at the event and asked him challenging questions about his predilection for hate speech and viciousness. Having a riot over it is a criminal act that just fuels the Fox News nonsense machine. Most Berkeley students weren’t supporting having a riot, and while most sane people think this guy is a jerk, they’re not going to dignify his behavior with further violence.
That said, if the Tweeter-in-Chief wants to cut off federal funds to UC Berkeley, then just do it and stop talking about it. If the GOP wants to cut off funds to Los Angeles or California, then just do it and stop all this posturing. I’m not impressed by bullying tactics. If they mean what they say, then stand up and follow up. If they don’t mean it, then admit that they don’t even know what they’re talking about. But enough of the huffing and puffing.
