Fox News: Lies, Trains, and Unidentified Objects Shot from the Sky.
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 2/19/23
A typical Fox News viewer might falsely believe that an Obama era law contributed to a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. They might also think that union workers somehow sabotaged or purposefully undermined the same railroad company.
As Sean Hannity invented fake statistics about the U.S. power grid Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suddenly became an expert on the health of whales. The rest of the week was filled with mockery of the unidentified objects shot down by the U.S. military.
The same lovers of the Murdoch owned empire would have no idea that a salacious court document was released in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Services against Fox News. The brief revealed that multiple Fox News personalities knew former President Donald J. Trump’s claims of election fraud were total nonsense yet they pushed them on air for the sake of ratings.
Anyone who exclusively watched the shows I covered last week would have no idea a grand jury investigating Trump and his allies found one or more witnesses lied under oath. They also wouldn’t know that Mike Pence was fighting a subpoena issued to him by the Special Counsel Jack Smith who is also investigating the former president and his role in the January 6th Capitol riots.
Shows I covered last week
Fox & Friends
The Five
Hannity
Hannity Creatively Avoids a Change a Standard Trump Rolled Back on Trains that Carry Hazardous Material
Two days in a row last week Hannity mentioned a law created in 2015 but skipped over the fact that former President Donald J. Trump repealed safety guidelines for trains that carry oil and dangerous material.
On Wednesday Hannity said.
“The situation on the ground there remains very dire. Take a look at your screen. Earlier today, our very own Sara Carter witnessed scores of dead fish in the surrounding waters. Animals all over the region have reportedly died from the toxic fallout of this controlled chemical burn. But after ignoring the crisis for days on end, Transportation Secretary good ole ‘Pothole Pete’ is now looking to pass the buck.
On Twitter, he's blaming who else, Donald Trump for rail regulation from a law that was passed in 2015. Pete, that was two years before trump was sworn in. Now, of course, blaming Trump for anything and everything is just standard operating procedure,” said Hannity.
The next day Hannity had former Congressman and New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin on where they both repeated the same inaccurate information.
“Pete says that it's Trump's fault. They want to blame regulation changes from years ago as opposed to getting any responaibility,” said Zeldin.
Hannity brought the law that was passed by Congress in 2015 again.
“Yeah. The law that that ‘Pothole Pete’ was referring to, you know, was passed in 2015. Donald Trump was not president at that time. So it was actually Obama and Biden's law that he was actually referring to,” said Hannity.
Hannity left out that Trump rolled back regulations that would have required trains carrying oil and other types of hazardous materials to equipped with electronic brakes.
Here’s the timeline - via Politifact.com
2014 - After a series of high-profile train de-railments the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration proposed changes to increase safety for trains carrying hazardous materials.
2015 - The rule for trains carrying high-hazard and flammable materials was finalized by both agencies.
A high-hazard flammable unit train was defined as any train traveling more than 30 miles per hour with at least 70 loaded tank cars containing any number of highly flammable liquids such as crude oil and ethanol.
The rule required trains that fit this criteria to install controlled electronic brakes that stop on all train cars simultaneously. Electronic brakes allow a train to brake faster than conventional air brakes.
As soon as this rule was put in place, lobbyists for the train industry and oil companies pressured Congress to repeal it. Their argument was the cost of the brakes was not justified.
2018 - The Trump administration Department of Transportation repealed the law based on government reports that determined electronic brakes were not justified given the increased costs.
The Associated press reported in 2018 that government reports omitted up to $117 million in estimated future damages from train derailments that might be avoided with electronic brakes.
What Fox News could have said about the Derailment.
Instead of ignoring a rule repealed by Trump in 2018 Hannity could have just pointed out that Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio did not qualify as a high-hazardous train because it did not have 70 cars containing flammable materials. The chemicals the Norfolk Southern train was carrying were hazardous but they did not fall within the narrow definition set by the Department of Transportation.
The National Transportation Safety Board categorized the Norfolk Southern train as ‘general merchandise” which would have only needed conventional brakes.
Steve Doocy Goes Rogue! Again!
I have no idea if Steve Doocy was asked to mildly diss former President Donald J. Trump of if he was rebelling when he called Trump out for repealing the safety rules put in place during the Obama administration.
“Speaking of the White House, apparently regulations regarding trade and safety were changed during the Trump administration. This particular railroad and others lobbied President Trump to dismantle an Obama era rule that would have required railroads to update their braking systems. And apparently the Obama administration had push for it to govern transportation of hazardous materials. After about half a million barrels of crude were dumped. But ultimately, the Trump administration undid that and said the costs exceeded the benefits. Nobody understands,” said Doocy.
As Doocy said this his co-hosts didn’t react. They didn’t disagree with him or add anything to what he said. The statement was made and it was back to business as usual.
Brian Kilmeade Implies the Unions Somehow Played a Role in the Accident.
On Thursday Brian Kilmeade made a subtle dig at the railroad unions. He implied that workers might have had some role in train derailments.
“And now they're ignoring this. I'm also asking what's going on with the whole train system? You got derailments happening at a dizzying rate. Does this have anything to do with the strike in the brokering of the strike that took place against these workers will? The other thing to keep in mind that people have brought up before is that there was a rail strike and it was a force consultation,” said Kilmeade.
On Friday Kilmeade ramped up his accusations against the unions. He provided absolutely no proof or evidence that railroad workers had sabotaged the train or under-staffing had caused the accident.
“Everyone had to go back to work almost against their will. You just wonder what is going on, if they're playing a role, if that's playing a role at all. And what we're seeing now, because a lot of these these trains, some 50 cars, some 100 cars are not fully manned,” said Kilmeade.
Kilmeade provided no witness, no source within the union, no documentation, no study, absolutely nothing to back up his claim.
Sean Hannity Makes Up Facts about the U.S. Power Grid.
During a segment about how windmills are allegedly killing whales Sean Hannity and Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene seemingly invented data about the nation’s power grid.
“And the last time I checked, about 90% of our electric grid, which you would use to then charge for your battery after you pillage the earth to get the materials to build the battery. Isn't that all? Fossil fuel related, 90% of it,” said Hannity
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene agreed.
Well, 90% that percent of it is Sean. But you see, Democrats want to convert that to green energy,” said Greene - Marjorie Taylor Greene.
From the U.S. Energy Information Administration - the total amount of the power grid in the United States that's fueled by fossil fuels is 61%. So that's significantly lower than 90%. The 61% is broken down to 38.4% is natural gas and 21.9% is coal. Renewable energy accounts for 19.8% with the remaining 18.9% of energy coming from nuclear power.
Someone on Twitter tried to debunk my data using the same source. He made a rookie mistake. The user cited a pie chart that gave very different results. The problem with his pie chart is it was labeled “energy consumption in the United States.”
Of course Americans use a lot of energy that does not come from the power grid, the best example is gasoline and diesel fuel for automobiles, buses and trucks. I point this out because I deal with folks like this all day long on social media. Sadly some folks don’t know how to read charts. The label on any chart or graph is extremely important.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Thinks She’s an Expert on Whales.
In one of the strangest segments I’ve ever watched on “Hannity,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) weighed in on some recent whale deaths off the coast of New Jersey.
“Well, I'm not sure. I don't know why AOC isn't dressed in white and crying for the dead whales that keep washing on the beach from wind farms that are being placed all over the ocean. And people are calling the alarms over how this is not only killing unknown thousands of bird species, but also causing whales to beach themselves at record numbers.
But the real problem, Sean, is Pete Buttigieg. He's the secretary of transportation and he's more interested in equity and inclusion in his hiring practices and grant giving schemes and obviously probably chest feeding or something like that than he is rail safety. And that's where we have real danger in our country. You see, Pete Buttigieg was never qualified for the job,” said Greene.
Rep. Greene is not qualified to talk about whale deaths but that’s not going to stop her. Many would say she’s not qualified to be a member of Congress but voters in her district have elected her twice.
There is no conclusive evidence that connects wind farms and whale deaths.
From The Guardian:
A statement from Noaa fisheries officials added: “[T]here is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could … cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys.”
Greene continued.
“And I believe we need to haul him in, in our committees and start questioning him over what's actually happening in his department. Because train derailment is happening every single day. And now thousands of people, birds, animals, they're all sick. And we don't know the consequences of this horrible accident in East Palestine. But we have people like Ilhan Omar.
She wants to, you know, crack down on corporate greed when it comes to rails and the privately owned sections of rails. But really, what we have to do is we have to make sure that our rails are safe. Democrats passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and only $5 billion went towards rail safety. This is a failure. It would have never happened under a Republican controlled infrastructure bill,” said Greene.
I’m not sure why Greene thinks Republicans would have added more money for rail safety or regulations as the party is notoriously anti-regulation.
What a Difference Two Weeks Make with a Balloon
This last video is made up of clips from last Thursday on “The Five” and the primetime lineup from the night the Chinese Spy balloon was discovered over Montana two weeks ago.
Fox News hosts went from screaming about shooting down a balloon to mocking Biden and the military for shooting down objects they deemed suspicious.
I decided to juxapose the two weeks.
February 16th, 2023 - The Five.
“The White House started the week floating the idea the Pentagon may have shot down UFOs or aliens, but now it could just be junk from private companies,” said Judge Jeanine Pirro.
February 3rd, 2023 - Jesse Watters Primetime.
‘But we're not shooting it down. Oh, shoot. That thing dead out,” said Watters.
‘Maybe they want to see if we would have a plane fly high enough to be able to shoot it down,’ said Peter Suciu, senior editor 19FortyFive.com.
“If his military generals came in and said, Don't shoot it down, he should have said, go to the you know, go to the back yard and take off your rank,” said Gen. Keith Kellogg (retired) .
February 16th, 2023 - The Five
“But it could be more ridiculous than that. A hobby club in Illinois thinks that one of its small balloons is, quote, missing in action. And they're worried Biden shot it down. If true, that means we just wasted $400,000 to take out a $12 balloon,” said Pirro.
February 3rd, 2023 - Jesse Watters Primetime.
“I think I speak for most Americans. The argument that, well, we couldn't shoot it down over eastern Montana because of the debris field, it doesn't seem to make sense to me,” said Kevin Corke, Fox News correspondent
February 3rd, 2023 - Tucker Carlson Tonight
“If you were to fly your Cessna in restricted airspace in parts of this country, the U.S. military would scramble jets and they might shoot you down,” said Carlson.
February 16th, 2023 - The Five
“Gentlemen, I want our first mission to be. Not a single balloon will enter American airspace until we know exactly what it is, Watters said in a joking manner as the rest of the cast laughed.
February 3rd, 2023 - Hannity
“They are now spying on us. But the administration says it is too much of a risk to shoot the balloon down,” said Hannity.
February 16th, 2023 - The Five
“$800,000 for this one hot air balloon. Oh, they missed. Yeah, because they missed $800,000 Plus there, two more balloons that we don't know what those estimates of the evasive capabilities for. It's $1.6 million,” said Dana Perino.
February 3rd, 2023 - The Ingraham Angle
“Cries growing louder for the Biden administration to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon,” said Anita Vogel, Fox News correspondent.
February 16th, 2023 - The Five
“He’s waddling away, grinning like a confused patient who wandered out the rest home property and shaking his fist at the clouds. I'll get you balloons,” said Greg Gutfeld.
A word about the Dominion Lawsuit Against Fox News
Fox News has not mentioned this lawsuit in any way shape or form since I started covering the network a year ago. This week’s newsletter won't be focused on the lawsuit since my job is focused on what Fox News shows to its viewers and how it bends and manipulates the narrative to mislead its audience.
I might have a separate newsletter or podcast that focuses on the lawsuit as it develops.
Stories Fox News ignored
Every week I compare 15 hours of Fox News to five hours of the PBS NewsHour the following is a list of stories that PBS covered that Fox News did not.
A new court filing in the defamation case filed by Dominion Votings Systems against Fox News showed that Fox anchors and executives didn’t believe that Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election yet they kept having guests on that promoted the theory. The filing also showed proof that the network was motivated to push the story to keep their ratings and income up.
The grand jury investigating former President Donald J. Trump and his allies attempt to overturn election results in Georgia, found that one or more witnesses lied under oath and recommended that criminal charged be brought against them.
The Defense Department released overdose data, with outline plans to bolster prevention among service members in response to a letter by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA).
The CDC released a report about teenage girls that showed that three in five reported feeling sad or hopeless in 2021. Rates of sexual violence and suicide also rose for the same year. At least one in 10 girls reported being forced to have sex at some point which was up 27% from a survey two years ago.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said he would fight the grand jury subpoena issued by the Special Counsel, Jack Smith, investigating Donald J. Trump and his role in the January 6th riot on the U.S. Capitol.
The Congressional Budget Office issued a bleak assessment of the U.S. economy. It projected both an increase in unemployment and the national debt for 2023.
The Memphis police officers charged with second degree murder and other charges in the death of Tyre Nichols pleaded not guilty. Two Memphis Sherrif deputies were suspended for turning off body cameras when they arrived at the scene after Nichols had been beaten.
The father of the Highland Park shooting suspected pleaded not guilty to reckless conduct charges. Robert Crimo Jr. signed documentation that helped his son Robert Crimo III legally obtain a weapon. Crimo Jr. knew his son had mental health problems and had acted out violently in the past.
Zhao Chunli, the suspect in the Half Moon Bay mass shooting, pleaded not guilty to seven counts of murder and one charge of attempted murder.
The 19-year-old man who murdered 10 people in a racially motivated attack in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York received a life sentence. The mass shooter also faces federal charges for the same crime and could face the death penalty.
PBS produced a segment on people struggling with severe symptoms from Long COVID along with the healthcare professionals that treat them. It’s unknown why some patients who contract COVID-19 end up with long-term debilitating symptoms.
President Joe Biden fired Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton following allegations that he misused government resources and was not physically present on the Capitol grounds during the riot on the U.S. Capitol January 6, 2021.
Lamar Johnson, a man from St. Louis, Missouri, had his conviction overturned after serving 28 years for a murder he did not commit. Another inmate, James Howard, confessed that he and another man committed the crime.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest the far-right governments attempts to pass reforms that would severely limit the Israeli Supreme Court. Protesters are concerned a weakening of the judiciary could destroy democracy in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing corruption charges.
Anti-government protests have erupted in several cities across Iran last week. Protests had slowed due to executions and crackdowns by the government. The protests were exactly 40 days after the the government executed two protesters. Forty day commemorations are common in Iran and the Middle East.
New Zealand issued a state of emergency due to the destructive force of Cyclone Gabrielle. The storm caused widespread flooding, landslides and power outages.
One of the largest food sanitation companies, Packers Sanitation Services, was fined $1.5 million in penalties for employing at least 102 children some as young as 13.
At least 73 migrants are presumed dead after a shipwreck off the coast of Libya.
Four U.S. servicemen were injured in a helicopter raid that killed an ISIS leader in Syria.
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruling upheld the near total ban on abortion in that state. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.
President Biden added Lael Brainard as his top economic advisor and Richard Revesz as his regulations chief. Both Brainard and Revesz have a been advocates for battling climate change.
Trump appointee, David Malpas has stepped down as World Bank President over his views on climate change. He refused to say whether he accepted that fossil fuels were changing the world's climate in a 2022 interview.
The maternal death rate which includes pregnant women and recently pregnant women, increased in 2020 according to a new study by Texas State University researchers and others. The trend started before the pandemic and got worse as overdoses, motor vehicle accidents and homicides all increased.
Four Florida men were arrested for their involvement in a plot to kill Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. The Grand Jury returned indictments against 11 people involved with the crime.
The Justice Department decided to drop sex trafficking charges against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). This is after his friend Joel Greenberg, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges including sex trafficking. Greenberg had cooperated with prosecutors including information that involved Gaetz and his interaction with women involved with the case.
PBS did an extended segment on teenagers and the negative effects of social media as part of their series on the youth mental health crisis.
United States Senate Committee On Commerce, Science, And Transportation - met last Wednesday to discuss reform and repair of the national aviation system.
Activists in the UK are saying the government is not doing enough to protect underage migrants. Roughly 200 underage migrants went missing last month while they were in the state’s care.
The Indian government cracks down on press freedom. The government raided and searched the offices of the BBC in Mumbai and New Delhi.
China declared a “decisive victory” over COVID-19 amid skepticism over how it reports data about the disease.
The White House outlines a plan on how to deal with soaring rents.
Senator Diane Feinstein, 89, (D-CA) announced she will retire at the end of her term and not seek re-election in 2024. She was first elected in 1992.
Tim Carver, former MLB catcher and broadcaster died at the age of 82. He called 24 World Series for ABC, CBS and Fox. As a player for the St. Louis Cardinals McCarver earned two World Series rings.
By the Numbers
I normally use another service for my graphs. The website for the company was down tonight so I had to improvise with the same style of graphs in Excel.
Coming Up…
This week I’ll be covering the first hour of “Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” and “The Ingraham Angle”
You are a GODSEND. I have friends who watch FAUX NEWS all the time. I never realized just how bad it is before subscribing to your posts. More important than the innuendo and outright lies, I think, is their failure to report so much actual NEWS, causing my friends to be monumentally uninformed besides being misinformed.
I'd be happy to supply some educated analysis on any irresponsible economic BS coming out of FNC. --I have a PhD in Econ/quant --Joe