Press Briefings Remain Bizarre as War on Christmas Returns
The David Pakman Show - October 8, 2021
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Reporters WILL NOT STOP Asking Absurd Questions
Fox News’s Peter Doocy is still asking “gotcha” questions of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and falling flat on his face whenever he does it. Doocy’s latest attempt went as followed: “Does the administration agree that parents upset about their kids’ curriculums could be considered domestic terrorists?” The question was in reference to the National School Boards Association last week pressing President Biden to review whether violence made against public school officials should be considered a form of domestic terrorism. Doocy tried to spin this as best as he could to make it sound as if the administration wanted to target parents who merely disagreed with what was being taught in schools and to mark them all as terrorists. Psaki began her answer by clarifying that the National School Boards Association is not a part of the US government and cited the US Justice Department’s position on this which is that threats against public servants are illegal and run counter to the nation’s values. Doocy doubled down by making it seem as though the Biden administration was opposed to parents expressing their minds at school board meetings. Psaki retorted that Biden does support free speech in these meetings, “but he doesn’t stand for the fundamental right . . . for people to take a violent action against public servants.” Score another one for Psaki and another zero on the board for Peter Doocy.
Fox News LOSES IT Over (Misunderstood) Fauci Christmas Comment
It is October which means it is about time for Fox News to pretend there is a “War on Christmas” being waged by the left wing in America. Fox decided to kick off their coverage of the “War on Christmas” this year by tying in the nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. When asked about the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and whether people should “gather for Christmas,” Fauci took a wait-and-see approach. He said, “it’s just too soon to tell. We’ve just got to concentrate on continuing to get those numbers down and not try to jump ahead by weeks or months and say what we’re going to do at a particular time.” What followed was a bunch of Fox News commentators attacking Fauci like Jason Rantz who said, “to tell me that it’s not safe to visit your family for Christmas, to say that now in October, indicates this isn’t really about public health at this point.” Of course, that’s not what Fauci said and Rantz is doing his best to skew the doctor’s comments. Kennedy on “The Five” took issue with Fauci for talking about Christmas before we’ve even celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving, but left out the important context that he didn’t come up with the question — he was simply asked it. Fox News sounds incredibly desperate here, but by leaving out important context, they’re able to work Fauci’s reasonable comments right into their “War on Christmas” agenda.
From yesterday’s show:
Landlocked State Republicans Rush to Virtue Signal About the Border
Every six months or so, Republicans make a big deal out of immigrants coming across the southern border from Mexico and this time the fearmongering is coming even from governors, senators, and congresspeople from landlocked states. These GOP politicians are finding it especially advantageous to bring this up now that Joe Biden is president and they can make it seem as though he’s unwilling or unable to do anything about border crossings. Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said that “the reality is that every state is now a border state.” The argument that Ernst and her allies are making is that people may come in through a border state like Texas or California, but then they settle in places like Iowa where she represents. The senator got even more xenophobic by demeaning and dehumanizing these immigrants, saying, “of course, we’re going to have rapists, we’re going to have those that are terrorists, we’re going to have other bad people.” This is the exact same vocabulary with which Donald Trump launched his 2016 presidential election run. Since this type of rhetoric has become normalized within Republican circles over the past few years, folks on the right don’t even bat an eye at the suggestion anymore.
From yesterday’s show:
Conspiracy Network OAN 90% Funded by AT&T
It turns out that the far right conspiracy channel One America News gets 90% of its funding from AT&T. Reuters completed an investigation on this and found that tens of millions of OAN’s dollars came from AT&T — the same AT&T that bought Warner Media, which owns CNN. This was discovered in a deposition given by OAN’s founder Robert Herring Sr. He said, “[AT&T] told us they wanted a conservative network. They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.” This story is incredible for a number of reasons: The types of people who turn to OAN for “news” are skeptical of the reporting they’re getting from mainstream outlets but it turns out that the funds are coming from the exact same place. CNN is also to blame here, as they have done journalistic critiques of OAN over the years, without disclosing that they have the same parent company. This goes to show the need for enforcing anti-trust laws to make sure one conglomerate can’t gobble up all of the news outlets in the country and so that there is actual diversity in the media sphere.
More on the show:
--Caller gives an update about the COVID disaster in the state of Alaska
--Socialist caller asks for advice about de-radicalizing other leftists
--Caller asks whether moderates and centrists are necessarily corrupt
--Caller wonders what ever became of the Intellectual Dark Web
--Caller asks why the left is so terrible at branding and messaging
--An instant favorite caller from Mexico is hesitant to travel to the United States
--A DACA recipient calls in
--Caller asks about American kids still stuck in Afghanistan
--This week’s email bag, including some rancid hate mail
--On the Bonus Show: A very special and bizarre Bonus Show
--Become a Supporter: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership