It’s not hard to understand why Fox News allowed and even encouraged Ed Henry’s predatory behavior. Sure, they made some public noises about reform and trying to have people act less like pigs. But there was no reason for them to really do so, without someone being willing to really make a major public situation out of it.

In the cases of Bill O’Reilly and Eric Bolling, there were public situations and fairly embarrassing ones. And with O’Reilly, there was a similar scenario of Fox News having sat on multiple cases or paid them off over two decades before finally being publicly humiliated over them. Looks like Ed Henry’s conduct was similar. I’d note that there are others within Fox News, who have been able to get away with this kind of thing – Charles Payne is one who comes to mind. And there are most certainly many others we haven’t even heard about. Yet.

As for why Ed Henry got a cushy promotion for himself even while behaving like this, there are a couple of obvious factors. One is that they were rewarding him for hounding the Clinton campaign all through 2016, particularly his biggest attempted “gotcha” moment about “wiping” the server. As part of their multi-year victory lap over “owning the libs”, they were delighted to give him a promotion and make sure that his face was front and center for all to see. And the other is, again, that they weren’t all that concerned about whether he was harassing women. Rush Limbaugh used to openly brag about scoring harassment and crude jokes – why would Fox News, which modeled its behavior after Limbaugh, do any different.

RW Fan brings up an interesting aspect – about whether or not Henry would be stupid enough to threaten a lawsuit. I agree that Fox News would have had to have enough to discourage him from that approach. And I again ask the question about Eric Bolling’s 50 million dollar lawsuit against Yashar Ali – how’s that going for him? And how are all the lawsuits that Bill O’Reilly said he would be filing to defend his “good name”? These guys seem to talk a big game but then not actually do anything. Similar in many ways to Pence’s childish little spokesman over the past 3 1/2 years, isn’t it?

Henry can now go join fellow disgraced sexual miscreants Eric Bolling and Bill O’Reilly in exile. Perhaps he could see if Bolling can get him a spot on his webcast? Or maybe O’Reilly can put in a word for him with the guys on The First webshows? Henry could shill on that webcaster in between Buck Sexton’s rants.

Or maybe Henry could try suing a journalist for having the temerity to report on his misdeeds. That’s always a winner for angry Right Wing pundits, isn’t it?

Speaking of which, how is Eric Bolling’s 50 million dollar lawsuit against Yashar Ali going? He was all gung ho about it three years ago, and how he was going to make so much money from it. I wonder why we haven’t heard a peep from Bolling since Ali’s attorney told them to drop the suit or face the consequences…

And will Bill O’Reilly decry this as Ed Henry somehow being “destroyed”?

The deliberate exposure of thousands of people to a deadly virus just so that Pence’s childish little spokesman could strut around has got to rank down there as one of the most despicable acts ever committed by a political campaign.

Gaetz is an unimportant little troll. In reality, he chose to be a kind of “Big Brother” to Nestor Galban as an act of hatred toward the Cuban people and a way to try to bolster his “street cred” with angry Right Wing ex-Batista supporting Cubans who he hopes will continue to support him in his gerrymandered district in Florida.

He is not a father, and he did not rear Nestor from anything like childhood. He has no credibility in this matter, and Richmond was absolutely correct to school Gaetz on his viciousness. If anyone should be apologizing to the Congress, it’s Matt Gaetz.

I repeatedly warned people not to celebrate prematurely on this yesterday. I pointed out that Roberts made a point of saying that the Pence White House undisputedly could get rid of DACA. The issue was that they needed to file a piece of paper first to give a justification to show that it wasn’t just an arbitrary or capricious act. But there was no problem with Pence getting rid of DACA and immediately rolling up the buses to toss the kids into the Mexican desert.

Pence’s childish little spokesman predictably spent all of yesterday throwing a tantrum about this. I noted that all he had to do was get that piece of paper and he could start the deportations as soon as he liked.

And what do you know? As of today, Pence’s childish little spokesman announced he’s going to have that piece of paper submitted as soon as possible so they can get this show on the road. And I’m sure the same people who were celebrating yesterday will jump up and down in rage when he does it. Granted, it will likely be challenged again in court and get bogged down until after the election. But if people get complacent and fail to vote in November and Pence squeaks in again, I guarantee you that we’ll see DACA kids being thrown out of the country (and fleeing en masse) before the end of 2021.

There are times when I honestly wonder if Ingraham is actually doing some kind of advanced performance art – like Stephen Colbert once did on his show. She can’t possibly believe she’s fooling any sane person into buying statements like these.

The Pence White House and its childish little spokesman have a long, long record of bigotry and general hatred for most Americans and frankly for most human beings, period. We can look to the “Muslim ban”, the constant slurs from Stephen Miller, the attacks on Chicano immigrants, the infamous tantrum about “#@$%hole countries”, and even the nonsensical birther material that gave Pence’s childish little spokesman his big start in politics.

To say that these people aren’t racist is beyond laughable. To then accuse everyone else of somehow being racist is deeply offensive.

When this epoch of our history is hopefully concluded at the end of this year, bigots like Ingraham will have nowhere to hide and no ability to walk back their vicious behavior. They will simply need to live with their shame. November cannot come soon enough.

Of course acting president Pence has no plan to do anything other than to continue trying to rally his base. He couldn’t care less about the pandemic, about the civil unrest or anything else unless it directly impacts his chance for another 4 years to damage our nation.

Reade’s motivation has been pretty clear from early on. But this interview with Kelly is obviously self-promotion for both of them.

It’s frankly offensive to see people trying to use the very real issue of sexual assault as a political cudgel, and it’s beyond strange to see angry Left Wingers collaborating with angry Right Wingers to do it.

Carlson is trying to inoculate himself from this story, which it’s pretty clear even Fox News staff know to be extremely problematic.

I’ll note that Carlson starts off with a couple of cheap shots – one to smear Dems for somehow being hypocrites and the other to play a little game about Biden somehow being senile. (That’s why Carlson was having so much fun talking about Biden stammering – not mentioning that Biden has always had to fight against a speech impediment)

Carlson does provide several of the facts we know about Reade’s allegations and her recent history of sketchy behavior, which is only part of the reason why her allegations are being looked at with skepticism. (And the fact that she’s repeatedly changed her story is only one other part of her credibility problem.)

The Reade story is just the latest attempt to chase Joe Biden out of the 2020 campaign, and it illustrates an odd alignment between Far Left and Far Right advocates. Earlier, we had the “Ukraine Corruption” approach, which the Right spearheaded and some Bernie Sanders fans echoed – but that was based on long-discredited conspiracy theories and only resulted in Pence’s childish spokesman getting himself impeached. Then we had the “Biden is SENILE!” approach, which they’re still playing today, and which Bernie Sanders fans have enjoyed indulging. And now we have a rape allegation being trumpeted by Sanders fans and then being amplified by Right Wingers – with both sides agreeing that they hate Biden and want him to lose.

I’ll also note that the hypocrisy on display here is not coming from principled Dems and Leftists. Comparing the Ford/Kavanaugh situation to the Reade/Biden one, there are some clear parallels. People on the Far Left immediately condemned Kavanaugh in the former matter and Biden in the current one, even before hearing any evidence. So to be fair to them, they’ve been consistent in their approach. Dems and Leftists trying to examine these cases have also been consistent – looking for actual evidence and a stable account. With Professor Ford, we had documentary evidence from her therapist and an unchanging story from the moment she first told it to the moment she was put in front of the Senate. And we had Kavanaugh’s own history and his bizarre tantrum when confronted about it. So Professor Ford’s story had and still has credibility. With Tara Reade’s story, we have conflicting versions from her and from her friends and brother, and we have no documentation of any rape or of her filing even a complaint about harassment. And we have clear indications of bias from her and from the people trumpeting her story on both the Right and the Left. So this is not a story that has credibility.

But let’s look at how the Right Wing has reacted to the two cases. In the case of Professor Ford, they immediately rejected it before they’d heard any evidence. They decided he was innocent without even asking any questions, because he was their chosen man to help tip the Supreme Court farther into the realm of the Hard Right. In the case of Tara Reade and Joe Biden on the other hand, they’ve immediately decided that Biden is guilty without even asking any questions. So the Right Wing guy is automatically innocent but the likely Dem nominee is automatically guilty. Good to know.

Given that the judge in the case (who’s a Right Wing Republican) already went after Flynn in court quite publicly, this will be an interesting situation to watch develop. I’m honestly unsure if he simply gavels out the matter or if he makes a public show of disputing it.

Either way, it’s clear that the Pence White House has no intention of allowing this case to proceed. I note that an actual prosecutor on the case made a specific point of stepping down just as Barr and Jensen were playing their toadie games with it.

Assuming that people show up to vote this November, I would hope that the next actual Attorney General will investigate this cover-up as thoroughly as possible. I have a feeling that some Pence White House people could be looking at criminal subpoenas next year.

I’ll say it again. Every one of these angry Right Wingers pushing this narrative of “oh well, a few people will die” so they can frantically try to restart the economy in time to save the Pence White House must be challenged in the years to come. They NEVER get to play a moral high ground card about their opposition to women’s reproductive rights again. Because they cannot say that they are “pro life” when it’s blatantly obvious that they couldn’t care less about life. Their opposition to abortion isn’t about life – it’s about their wish to tsk-tsk at other people and to feel superior to them, in addition to the wish of angry Right Wing men to control the women in their lives and everyone else’s.

Fox News and the Pence White House both tried to play up the false premise that President Obama somehow had some animosity toward Joe Biden and that his waiting for the primaries to conclude was somehow in defiance of angry Right Wingers demanding he interject himself into the process.

This is part of their larger false narrative about how Joe Biden is a doomed candidate who can’t get anyone to support him and is certain to go down to crushing defeat. (Some angry Left Wingers are trying to push this false narrative these days as well…) What’s odd about that narrative is that it runs counter to their open panic over Biden getting the nomination. If Biden is such an ineffectual loser, why are they so frightened of him?

Honestly, who cares what Sarah Huckabee Sanders thinks about any of this? She was a thoroughly incompetent and unpleasant Press Secretary, and she’s done nothing to add to the national dialogue. I’m honestly surprised that Fox News is continuing to keep her on at this point.

And here we have Brit Hume playing the role of “elder statesman” as though he had any currency toward having that position. (And we can imagine Bill O’Reilly desperately fuming on the sidelines, as this was a role he wanted for himself.)

If any treatment turns out to be a testable, provable remedy against this thing, I don’t care which company created it.

My issue with the angry Right Wing approach to pushing one pet idea like hydroxycholoroquine is that they’ve they keep pretending it’s some kind of instant fix to this crisis. They’re hoping it’s a silver bullet that will suddenly finish the social distancing and give the Pence White House bragging points. They don’t understand that the rest of the country is fully aware of how and why we got into this mess and how much responsibility the Pence White House bears for it.

Ellen makes another good point here: The fact that “pro-life” angry Right Wingers keep pitching the idea of massive numbers of death being just fine is a spectacular display of their innate hypocrisy. O’Reilly happened to blast his own hypocrisy with his advocating for Tiller’s death, but now all the rest have plunged themselves into the hole.

From this point forward, any “pro-life” angry Right Winger who has voiced this notion of all these deaths being okay never gets to play that card again without getting a loud rebuke of “NO. YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T CARE IF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE THE ECONOMY WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN LIVES. YOU HAVE NO MORAL GROUND ANYMORE.”

It’s frankly tiring to see Chris Wallace continuing to lie and sneer about the record of Democrats while he pretends to be a “responsible Republican”. This is nothing new for Wallace, as we all saw with his attempted “gotcha” of Bill Clinton in the mid-2000s. Wallace is frantically attempting to paint Biden, who’s spent his career as a determined centrist, as a wild-eyed Marxist-Leninist somehow.

Wallace lies when he says that Biden is somehow “so far to the left of where even Barack Obama was in 2012”. Nonsense. In 2012, President Obama pushed DACA through. And there’s nothing more than DACA in Biden’s positions – Biden certainly doesn’t support decriminalizing anything. And Biden’s discussion of making sure everyone has healthcare isn’t about “illegal immigration” – it’s about making sure everyone can get to the doctor, particularly during a major viral outbreak. Would Chris Wallace prefer to see the immigrant community have no healthcare and simply spread the virus to everyone else? Or is he just hoping they’ll die quietly and leave him alone?

It’s true that Bernie Sanders has succeeded in getting his message and his issues onto the table for the Democratic Party, and that’s a good thing. Joe Biden will incorporate, as Hillary Clinton did before him, several policy goals from Sanders and his base – and that’s a major step toward making sure we don’t just have a race between Angry Far Right Republicans and some watered down Republican Lite alternative. But these are not issues that are wildly Left of where President Obama’s policies were. Was it really that long ago that Chris Wallace and everyone else at Fox News was accusing President Obama of pushing “socialism”? Do they really think we’ve forgotten that quickly?

Watch out now for a new wave of angry Right Wing attacks on Joe Biden, likely to be accompanied by some on the Left who are infuriated to see that Sanders is out of the running. We’ve already had several waves, and we’ll certainly get a few reruns before November:

1. “Corrupt Joe Biden” – this is the nonsense story about how somehow Joe Biden is secretly corrupt and how his son Hunter’s board seat at a Ukrainian company instantly means that the Bidens are criminal, inethical and immoral. In fact, Hunter Biden’s seat was completely legal and Joe Biden made sure to stay well clear of it. The only tangible result of the Far Right’s obsession with this tack (in their hope to turn it into more Hillary email fun) has been that the Pence White House saw its childish spokesman impeached.
2. “Senile Joe Biden” – here’s the version of the story where Joe Biden suddenly has dementia and is somehow incapable of even handling his own campaign. There’s no actual evidence of this, but angry Right Wingers keep pushing it. In reality, Biden has had a long history of mis-speaking and of rambling on in his speeches. One variation on this theme has been a fun one that Bill O’Reilly is now desperately promoting from his corner of the internet – the notion that somehow Joe Biden is about to drop out of the race and give all his delegates to Andrew Cuomo. It’s a nice try – implying that Biden is on death’s door and that Cuomo is somehow a “godfather” waiting in the wings – but there is no evidence that this is anything more than an angry Far Right fantasy.
3. “Rapist Joe Biden” – this is the narrative that both Far Right and Far Left are trying to push regarding Alexandra Tara Reade’s latest version of her allegations about Biden from 1993. Joe Biden certainly has a long record of being handsy with women – not in a sexual way, but in a patriarchal way. Doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t get his hands smacked by anyone who’s been annoyed by him, but it doesn’t make him a predator either. That record has been consistent, and it’s of a piece with Biden’s personality. When he talks to people, he clearly prefers to put a hand on their shoulder and to get into their personal space. In the case of Ms Reade, she’s given three different accounts of her interactions with Biden from when she was a staffer for him back in the early 1990s. In one account, she mentioned him being handsy in the same manner everyone else did. No mention of an assault. In another account, when specifically asked about her discussion of handsiness, Reade answered that she had no problem with Biden and no bad feelings toward him. As of 2019, Reade suddenly changed her story and went to Ryan Grim and Amanda Marcotte with a spectacular accusation that Biden had raped her in his office in 1993 and that her family would back up her new version of her story. Reporters trying to confirm this have been unable to get more than a family member insisting that Reade mentioned it at some point. What they have confirmed is that Reade has a history of making odd statements and that she’s tried to erase part of her history of online comments. The Biden campaign has responded to Reade’s sudden rape allegation with a note that it’s outrageous and false and a recommendation that it be investigated so people can see that for themselves. (I’ll note that Ryan Grim’s other claim to fame is that he outed Professor Blasey Ford two years ago during the Kavanaugh ram. Professor Blasey Ford was trying to keep her allegations quiet and anonymous. Grim chose to push her into the spotlight, which has had truly unfortunate consequences for her and her family. In the case of Professor Blasey Ford, the allegations were clearly substantiated, but the issue was that she did not want her name and face dragged through the public trough. In the case of Ms Reade, we have someone who is clearly trying to put herself into the spotlight in hopes of bringing down a presidential candidate)

I note that all three of these narratives are being played at the same time. Joe Biden is thus played as a horribly corrupt politician getting favors for his son, a senile doddering old babbler who doesn’t know where he is or what day it is, and a sexual predator who’s somehow been secretly raping women for the past 50 years. One really must wonder whether angry Right Wingers are aware that these narratives don’t make any sense. One must also wonder why Right Wingers are so terrified of Joe Biden that they feel it necessary to throw these smears around.

We can guarantee that Fox News and Fox Business will put the happiest spin they can on this.

Eyes, they don’t care. They just want to see if they can get millions of people to run back to work and everything else, hoping that somehow nothing will go wrong and the economy will somehow instantly bounce back in time to allow Pence’s childish spokesman to win his campaign this year. If this means that millions of people die in the process, they figure they can blame someone else. What they’re not counting on is everyone remembering that the Pence White House and Fox News and AM radio hosts have advocated for this and thus bear the responsibility for its consequences if anyone is stupid enough to believe them. Just like Fox News and the Pence White House are directly responsible for endangering people by telling them to use various supposed “cures” that have all kinds of problems.

I agree with this on both counts.

Carlson is correct in pointing out the obvious criminality in what Burr has done here. Unless Burr has some way to explain his behavior here, this would fall under the classification of “Felony”.

At the same time, Carlson is teeing off on an easy target and frankly a distraction during a major crisis for both the Pence White House and its various sycophants at Fox News and AM Radio. Burr’s self-dealing here should be prosecuted, but it’s small potatoes next to the viciousness and incompetence of the Pence White House. And it’s even smaller potatoes next to the demonstrated craven spin from propaganda outlets like Fox News.