Well good

And ask for big bucks.

Hallelujah

Fox Business Network has canceled the show of Lou Dobbs, the ardent Donald Trump supporter with a history of espousing misinformation who promoted baseless conspiracy theories of voting fraud after the election.

Friday evening marked the final airing of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs’ regular weeknight program. The Fox host was a major contributor to the false narrative that the election was stolen and continued espousing those views on his program even after admitting that they lacked actual proof.

[...]

Dobbs, 75, has hosted the program since 2011. Trump considered it must-see TV and even reportedly patched the host through during key policy meetings.

Dobbs is still considered the highest-rated host on the Fox Business Network, and he has remained under contract even though he is not expected to reappear on a new show.

[...]

News of the cancellation came one day after Dobbs, 75, was named as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, an election technology company and voting machine maker, which accuses Dobbs and other Fox News anchors of promoting unfounded claims that Smartmatic was involved in a scheme to hand the presidency to Joe Biden.

[...]

Fox said the move to end Dobbs’ show had been in the works before the lawsuit.

  Guardian

OAN will probably pick him up.  Should have canned him long ago.

Do Tucker and Hannity next.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Second voting machine company files lawsuit

A voting technology company swept up in baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election filed a monster $2.7 billion lawsuit on Thursday against Fox News, some of the network's star hosts, and pro-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, alleging the parties worked in concert to wage a "disinformation campaign" that has jeopardized its very survival.

The lawsuit, filed in New York state court, accused Fox, Giuliani, Powell and hosts Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro of intentionally lying about Smartmatic in an effort to mislead the public into the false belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

[...]

In the immediate aftermath of his loss, Trump falsely asserted that the election had been rigged against him. His allies, including Fox, Giuliani, and Powell, promoted various conspiracy theories about Smartmatic, which only provided its services to Los Angeles County in the 2020 general election, to support Trump's false claims.

The baseless conspiracy theories peddled about Smartmatic, which mimicked those pushed against Dominion, falsely suggested that the company's technology was used throughout the country and allowed the November vote to be rigged against Trump.

[...]

Giuliani and Powell have also been sued by another voting technology company, Dominion Voting Systems, for promoting their voter fraud conspiracies.

[...]

Some strains of the conspiracy theory pushed on Fox aimed to tie the company to the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Other strains suggested that Dominion used Smartmatic's voting software in swing states and that votes were exported out of the country to be tabulated; both assertions were false and Smarmatic pointed out in its lawsuit that it doesn't work with Dominion as the two companies are competitors.

  MSN

When Trumpland lies, they go big.

Lou Dobbs will always be an idiot

And, Rudy...

I imagine many of them are asking themselves that very question.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

America 2020 has jumped the shark

UPDATE:

Last month, [Antonio Mugica, a young Venezuelan software engineer,] initially took it in stride when his company’s name started popping up in grief-addled Trump supporters’ wild conspiracy theories about the election.

[...]

But by Nov. 14, he knew he had a problem. That’s when Rudy Giuliani, serving as the president’s lawyer, suggested that one voting company, Dominion Voting Systems, had a sinister connection to vote counts in “Michigan, Arizona and Georgia and other states.”

[...]

Soon his company, and a competitor, Dominion — which sells its services to about 1,900 of the county governments that administer elections across America — were at the center of Mr. Giuliani’s and Sidney Powell’s theories, and on the tongues of commentators on Fox News and its farther-right rivals, Newsmax and One America News.

[...]

Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business reported on Nov. 15 that “one source says that the key point to understand is that the Smartmatic system has a backdoor.”

[...]

Smartmatic wasn’t even used in the contested states. The company, now a major global player with over 300 employees, pulled out of the United States in 2007 after a controversy over its founders’ Venezuelan roots, and its only involvement this November was with a contract to help Los Angeles County run its election.

[...]

Last week, [Mugica's] lawyer sent scathing letters to the Fox News Channel, Newsmax and OAN demanding that they immediately, forcefully clear his company’s name — and that they retain documents for a planned defamation lawsuit. He has, legal experts say, an unusually strong case. And his new lawyer is J. Erik Connolly, who not coincidentally won the largest settlement in the history of American media defamation in 2017.

[...]

“We’ve gotten to this point where there’s so much falsity that is being spread on certain platforms, and you may need an occasion where you send a message, and that’s what punitive damages can do in a case like this,” Mr. Connolly said.

[...]

Mr. Mugica isn’t the only potential plaintiff. Dominion Voting Systems has [...] threatened legal action against Ms. Powell and the Trump campaign.

  NYT

Hit 'em hard or it won't hurt.q

These are legal threats any company, even a giant like Fox Corporation, would take seriously. And they could be fatal to the dream of a new “Trump TV,” a giant new media company in the president’s image, and perhaps contributing to his bottom line. Newsmax and OAN would each like to become that, and are both burning money to steal ratings from Fox, executives from both companies have acknowledged. They will need to raise significantly more money, or to sell quickly to investors, to build a Fox-style multibillion-dollar empire. But outstanding litigation with the potential of an enormous verdict will be enough to scare away most buyers.

[...]

OAN and Newsmax have been avidly hyping Mr. Trump’s bogus election claims. OAN has even been trying to get to Newsmax’s right, by continuing to reject Joe Biden’s status as president-elect. But their own roles in propagating that lie could destroy their businesses if Mr. Mugica sues.

Do it, Tony. Do it for the world.

[Floyd Abrams, one of the country’s most prominent First Amendment lawyers,] noted that “truth is always a defense” and that, failing that, the networks may defend themselves by saying they didn’t know the charges were false, while Ms. Powell may say she was simply describing legal filings.

“It is far too early to predict how the cases, if commenced, will end,” he said. “But it is not too early to say that they would be highly dangerous to those sued.”

[...]

Fox News and Fox Business, which have mentioned Dominion 792 times and Smartmatic 118 times between them, according to a search of the service TVEyes, appear to be taking the threat seriously. Over the weekend, they broadcast one of the strangest three-minute segments I’ve ever seen on television, with a disembodied and anonymous voice flatly asking a series of factual questions about Smartmatic of an expert on voting machines, Eddie Perez, who debunks a series of false claims. The segment, which appeared scripted to persuade a very literal-minded judge or jury that the network was being fair, aired over the weekend on the shows hosted by Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo, where Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell had made their most outlandish claims.

[...]

I’m reluctant to cheer on a defamation case against news organizations, even networks that appear to be amplifying dangerous lies. Companies and politicians often exploit libel law to threaten and silence journalists, and at the very least subject them to expensive and draining litigation.

And defamation cases can also collide with subjects of genuine public interest, as in the most prominent case I’ve been involved in, when a businessman sued me and my colleagues at BuzzFeed News for publishing the Steele Dossier, while acknowledging that it was unverified. There, a judge ruled that the document was an official record that BuzzFeed was entitled to publish.

If a news organization is guilty of defamation, it should be sued.

Mr. Mugica wouldn’t say whether he has made up his mind to sue. Mr. Connolly said that he has “a lot of people watching a lot of videos right now,” and that he’s researching whether to file in New York, Florida or elsewhere. I asked Mr. Mugica if he’d settle for an apology.

“Is the apology going to reverse the false belief of tens of millions of people who believe in these lies?” he asked. “Then I could be satisfied.”

I think we know the answer to that question.

UPDATE:  Newsmax is on it, too.

They're just getting started, folks

Actually, Rudy.   What gave me away?

What the hell just happened?

Did Lou Dobbs just endorse Jaime Harrison???

The world is spinning out of control.

The purge continues

After a 38-year career with the Justice Department, the FBI's top lawyer Dana Boente was asked to resign on Friday. Two sources familiar with the decision to dismiss Boente said it came from high levels of the Justice Department rather than directly from FBI Director Christopher Wray.

His departure comes on the heels of recent criticism by Fox News for his role in the investigation of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

[...]

Fox News has recently criticized Boente's role in the investigation of Flynn, whose criminal charge for lying to the FBI was recently dropped by the Justice Department based in part on the argument that his lies were not material to an underlying investigation.

Boente also said in a recently leaked memo that material put into the public record about Flynn was not exculpatory for the former national security advisor. The memo undermines the Justice Department's latest position that material about Flynn was mishandled by prosecutors.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said on April 27 that, "Shocking new reports suggest F.B.I. General Counsel Dana Boente day was acting in coordination with F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray to block the release of that evidence that would have cleared General Flynn."

  NBC

Sure it had to be Dobbs or one of the other Trumpistas that got Boente canned. Will Wray be next?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

HUGE schadenfraude boost

UPDATE:  Also...

It will only get worse

Welcome to North Korea on the Potomac.

Stalinworld, USA.

Fear and loathing in Washington, DC.

Will Gaetz and Lee be forced to leave the party?

And Gaetz?

“Reclaiming Congressional power is the Constitutional conservative position!” Devin Murphy, Gaetz’s legislative director, wrote to all Republican offices around 11 a.m. Thursday, underlining the text, according to the email obtained by The Washington Post.

The message, arguing for Republicans to buck the president, ended: “We WILL be voting in favor of H. Con. Res. 83, and hope you will do the same!”

[...]

Trump fiercely complained about Gaetz after aides informed Trump that his office had sent the email backing the resolution.

[...]

“The Trump administration was disappointed in the congressman’s vote and is hopeful that as the president’s foreign policy continues to unfold, he will reconsider his points of view,” Eric Ueland, the head of legislative affairs for the White House, said in an interview.

  WaPo

Does all that ass-kissing he did during the House impeachment hearings count for nothing?

Gaetz has been called “the Trumpiest Congressman in Trump’s Washington,” a judgment that he features prominently on his campaign homepage, along with quotes depicting him as “Trump’s Best Buddy,” “Trump’s Ultimate Defender” and “Rising star of the Trumpian right.”

All it takes is one slip.

Describing the resolution, Gaetz’s office used Trumpian punctuation: “It simply seeks to reclaim some of the Article 1 authority that we’ve ceded to the Executive over the past 20 years. (Sad!) It states that only Congress has the authority to declare war, and that Congress has not authorized military force against Iran.”

[...]

A staffer for Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) called Gaetz’s email “a dig at the administration’s lawful use of authority to kill the biggest single terrorist of the post-Cold War era.”

[...]

An aide to Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) simply sent all Republican offices Trump’s tweet urging Republicans to vote against the resolution.

A senior White House official said it was “super uncool” and “quite unwise” for Gaetz to push for limits on the president’s authority. This person added that White House officials would not be returning Gaetz’s phone calls, text messages, “smoke signals or his kneelings in the snow.”

Super uncool. Harsh.

But can he still kiss the ring?  The next few days are going to be touch and go.

[Gaetz] spent much of the day Friday defending his vote and praising Trump.

  WaPo

Of course he did.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 1/13:  Mike Lee working to stay in the party.

Fox and Trump still have Lou Dobbs

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The most transparent government president ever

But did he beg?




Lou Dobbs!  Well, it has to be true, then.

Google, you've been warned!



UPDATE:


UPDATE:

Oh my

This is the guy that Trump has been retweeting so much lately...

Fitton AND Lou Dobbs?  Did they not get the memo?  Trump and Sarah are saying Mueller completely exonerated him again.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Other Trump diehards didn't get the memo.





This is what happens when you get out ahead of your president.  Wait for him next time.



LOL.  Judge Jeanine didn't even read the report, obviously.

Desperate times

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

One small step for Fox News

“We condemn the rhetoric by the guest on Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Gary Schreier, senior vice president of programming for Fox Business, said in a statement, according to CNN. “This episode was a repeat which has now been pulled from all future airings.”

A Fox News spokesperson told CNN that the guest, Judicial Watch head Chris Farrell, will no longer be booked on Fox Business Network or Fox News.

[...]

“This is a criminal involvement on the part of these leftist mobs. It’s a highly organized, very elaborate sophisticated operation,” Farrell said of the caravan. “I have that from the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.”

“A lot of these folks also have affiliates who are getting money from the Soros-occupied State Department, and that is a great, great concern,” he continued.

  The Hill

Fox needs to go a step further and drop Lou Dobbs.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Lou Dobbs knows where the caravan is

No need to ask if Lou Dobbs is lying or an idiot.  We've known the answer to that for years.

Also:

Speaking of Lou Dobbs

Well, that didn't turn out like he was expecting it to.

Trump's helpful aides on Fox

SEBASTIAN GORKA: Lou, first things first, it's truly remarkable, everything that this man has accomplished in 15 months given the depths and the breadth of the swamp, and the lies and resistance to his agenda that we chose as the American people. But now it's war, Lou, this is political warfare. What happened to lawyer-client privilege? What happened the idea that you need a crime before you have a special prosecutor? These things have been thrown out the window, and now we have a fishing expedition that has turned into a witch-hunt. So, I'm glad the president has come out of the corner swinging, but when is the A.G. --

LOU DOBBS (HOST): You wouldn't have expected anything else, would you?

GORKA: No, no, but I want the A.G. to now withdraw his -- his recusal, and say, "This is out of bounds, this has nothing to do with your mandate," and Mueller has to be dealt with. He has to be fired, or he has to be asked, "What are you investigating that has anything to do with Russia?"

  Media Matters

Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs on Monday tore into the Department of Justice and Robert Mueller.

[...]

Dobbs and his guests launched a series of attacks on Mueller hours after the FBI raided the office and home of Michael Cohen, who made the now-infamous $130,000 payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.

"This is now a man that has to be brought under control, it would seem to me," Dobbs said of Mueller. "Frankly, I can’t imagine, because each of us has to come to terms with our own heart and conscience — I would fire the SOB in three seconds if it were me.”

[...]

Dobbs has frequently lavished praise on the president and supported unsubstantiated claims of a "deep state" with the federal government. Trump reportedly speaks with Dobbs for advice from time to time.

  The Hill

Lou Dobbs is a nut job from way back.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.