Trump Did THREE Perfect Calls To Overturn Georgia? Go To Three Prisons!
The more we hear from the Georgia grand jury the more we feel like that's a distinct possibility.
Let's get the ball rolling so Fox News doesn't have to: These Georgia grand jurors are so woke, they probably got a restful night of sleep last night. They're so woke they probably didn't even have to drink coffee today. They're so woke they probably go on dates with Hunter Biden to Silicon Valley Bank in the morning.
OK cool. The Atlanta Journal Constitution dropped some very cool new reporting and interviews with the grand jurors in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's investigation into Donald Trump's attempts to overthrow the free and fair 2020 election in Georgia. If you're already cringing hearing "Georgia grand jurors talking to media," worry not. These people are anonymous and it appears they're being very careful about blabbing any information they shouldn't.
What they are telling us, though, is fascinating. For instance, Trump made yet another PERFECT CALL trying to overthrow the election. There was the most famous one — the "find me 11,780 votes" one, to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. There was the one to Frances Watson, the lead investigator in the secretary of state's office, when he pressed her to get to the "right' answer on what happened in Georgia.
And now we have Trump's third perfect call, which jurors heard, to Georgia Republican House Speaker David Ralston, telling him to convene a special session of the Georgia Legislature to overturn Joe Biden's win and give it to him. Ralston, as we know, did not do that.
One juror said Ralston proved to be “an amazing politician.”
The speaker “basically cut the president off. He said, ‘I will do everything in my power that I think is appropriate.’ … He just basically took the wind out of the sails,” the juror said. “‘Well, thank you,’ you know, is all the president could say.”
We feel like there's a pattern here.
A juror the AJC talked to spoke of crying in their car at the end of the day, particularly days when they'd hear testimony from people whose lives Donald Trump ruined because he's a weak sore loser who doesn't love himself and can't look his unending failures in the face.
Among the most compelling witnesses, various jurors said, were Fulton County poll workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, who had received death threats after being singled out by Trump and his then-attorney Rudy Giuliani. Another mentioned Eric Coomer, the onetime executive for Dominion Voting Systems, who left his job after being vilified. Also mentioned was Tricia Raffensperger, the wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who broke down when describing the vitriol and threats leveled at her, one juror said.
“I was pretty emotional throughout the whole thing,” a juror said. “I wouldn’t cry in front of any of the witnesses, but when I would get in my car, I was like, I just left that and I have to just go do my job now?…. I just know things that are hard to know.”
They talked about how they want people to know how serious their deliberations were — especially after the media tour their foreperson took — and the respect for the system and the people who administer it they came away with.
Donald Trump Destroys People's Lives
GA Grand Jury Foreperson Is Telling Us What We Want To Hear. She Should Stop That.
They talked about understanding the gravity of what they were participating in, as they confronted lockdowns and being protected by SWAT teams and bomb-sniffing dogs. The latter happened the day seditious bastard Michael Flynn showed up and, of course, refused to answer questions.
Speaking of, they talked about the three kinds of witnesses they heard from: those who came freely, those who came under subpoena but answered freely, and those who fought tooth-and-nail and then refused to answer questions, often people who had been in Trump's inner circle. Those people annoyed the shit out of them, not because of any preconceived notions they had about people taking the Fifth — hearteningly, prosecutors made sure they didn't have those — but because they knew it was going to take forever and be tedious as fuck.
Of course, jurors report that sometimes when those dicks would refuse to answer questions, prosecutors would helpfully play videos of them talking elsewhere, to fill out the record.
Jurors dropped some details about what some folks did say to them. This quip from Lindsey Graham is getting a lot of play:
“He said that during that time, if somebody had told Trump that aliens came down and stole Trump ballots, that Trump would’ve believed it,” the juror said.
Such a pathetic damned idiot.
One juror talked about how gross it was seeing certain witnesses speak one way to them and then go back out on the campaign trail and say election-denying garbage. But these last quotes are a bit more uplifting:
“I can honestly give a damn of whoever goes to jail, you know, like personally,” one juror said. “I care more about there being more respect in the system for the work that people do to make sure elections are free and fair.”
Said another juror: “I tell my wife if every person in America knew every single word of information we knew, this country would not be divided as it is right now.”
The grand jurors said they understand why the public release of their full final report needs to wait until Willis makes indictment decisions.
“A lot’s gonna come out sooner or later,” one of the jurors said. “And it’s gonna be massive. It’s gonna be massive.”
Well, that gives us hope, because unlike that very nice juror who doesn't care who goes to jail, we are much meaner than that and we would like to see at least 10 people buried underneath Guantanamo over this, starting with Mr. Perfect Calls himself.
Speaking of, let's see if he's going berserk or anything.
We'll mark that one down as a "yes."
[AJC]
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Maria Bartiromo Is Scared And Sad! And More LOL Highlights From Last Night's Fox News Document Dump!
These fucking people.
A whole bunch of new texts and and emails were unsealed last night in the $1.2 billion defamation case Dominion Voting Systems filed against Fox News, and boy howdy. The amount of shit these people talk about each other, about Donald Trump, and the obvious sneering contempt they have for the viewers they lie to.
Let's read some together!
We've already talked about Tucker this morning: "I hate Trump passionately." So do we. This may be the first time we've ever vehemently agreed with Tucker.
One More Funny Thing, Though.
Here's another Tucker, for your "they knew they were lying to people" file.
A producer for Tucker Carlson noted “One funny thing” during a Nov. 20, 2020, exchange with an unidentified person.
“Dominion was used in Ohio and Florida,” Alex Pfeiffer wrote. “Trump won them. Did they forget to rig those or all part of the plan?”
Yep, that sure is funny.
Let's talk about Maria Bartiromo's garbage show now, because that is some hilarious dirt.
How Do You Solve A Problem Like ...
The Washington Post reports on the deposition from David Clark, who's in charge of the weekends on Fox, which means he's in charge of Bartiromo's "Sunday Morning Futures."
Asked whether he considered that show to be a “credible source of news,” Clark answered: “I don’t know.”
A Dominion lawyer followed up, incredulously: “You don’t know as the executive in charge of Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, whether her show is a credible source of news?”
Clark replied: “I am going to answer the question yes.”
I don't know. Yes. Sure. Why not? Yes, my answer was yes the whole time!
Clark also did not think Hannity or Tucker were good sources of news, though he said he knew that their viewers thought so.
Speaking of Bartiromo's lack of credibility, on November 10, 2020, she was texting with Steve Bannon (as one does), and this is what was said:
“I am watching the world move forward. & it’s so upsetting steve,” she wrote.
"I want to see massive fraud exposed Will he be able to turn this around. I told my team we are not allowed to say pres elect at sll [sic]. Not in scripts or in banners on air. Until this moves through the courts.”
Bannon wrote, “71 million voters will never accept Biden. This process is to destroy his presidency before it starts; IF it even starts.”
"But I’m scared & sad,” Bartiromo wrote.
Bannon responded, “You are our fighter. Enough with the sad ! We need u.”
He then suggested that she run for Senate against Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “This is your moment,” he wrote.
“1. We either close on Trumps victory or delegitimize Biden. 2. Win both seats in Georgia. 3. Win back house in 2022 4. Elect u to the Senate. 5. IF we don’t close on Trump victory now have Trump declare for 2024 the day after taking back House and you win in Nov 2022.”
Wooooooooooow.
As Wonkette's Liz Dye wrote at Above The Law yesterday, it does appear Fox News's defense with Bartiromo is going to be that she's just really, really gullible.
We would add that she was "scared & sad." It was "so upsetting steve."
Rupert.
Some stuff in here should amaze us, but somehow doesn't. For instance, emails where we see Rupert Murdoch slipping Biden ads to Jared Kushner under the table, just to help a buddy out. (Fox News's spox says PFFFFFT, the Biden ad was already on YouTube.)
There's also Rupert shooting with the shit with former House Speaker (and current Fox boardmember) Paul Ryan in a January 12, 2021, email, over whether maybe Trump could resign before Joe Biden's inauguration and have Mike Pence pardon him and then go away forever. "Would Pence agree?" Murdoch asked.
But really, Rupert Murdoch just has an amazing kind of contempt for Trump, and for Rudy Giuliani, and for all their election fraud lies. Here's what he had to say after that one Rudy press conference on November 19, 2020, when his hair dye was leaking out of his face:
“Stupid and damaging. The only one encouraging Trump and misleading him. Both increasingly mad. The real danger is what he might do as president. Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls! Don’t know about Melania, but kids no help.”
He wasn't wrong.
And he also wasn't wrong when he called Sidney Powell "that crazy, would-be lawyer." (Everybody hates Sidney Powell, sounds like. Fox News senior vice president Raj Shah called her "MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS.")
Another random Rupert quote: "I hate our Decision Desk people! And pollsters!" (They were fixin' to say Joe Biden had won.)
Oh yes, and he admitted in an email to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on January 21, 2021, that "Maybe Sean and Laura went too far" in spreading election fraud lies to their viewers.
You know, perhaps.
The Primetimers Hate The 'News' People Hate The Primetimers Hate the 'News' People And The Network Brass Is Just LOL-ing About All Of It.
Sean Hannity at one point texted with "Fox & Friends" idiot Steve Doocy — the thing whose stray sperms helped make Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy — about how angry they were that the "news" portion of Fox News was pissing off the base. "We might as well tell ppl to stop watching at 9am and 'turn the Tv back on tonight at 9!'" said Steve Doocy.
That comes up a lot in these documents, Fox News people going after the "news" side from all directions.
Laura Ingraham texted the other primetimers on November 15, "My anger at the news channel is pronounced." That group text continued like this:
"It should be," Carlson responded. "We devote our lives to building an audience and they let [Fox News Sunday host] Chris Wallace and [correspondent and anchor] Leland f------ Vittert wreck it."
"Let's be honest," Hannity joked. "Without Chris Wallace where would we be? We owe him everything."
Ingraham then prods her peers, saying "We have more power than we know or exercise."
Ingraham also hated the Decision Desk, just like Rupert did: "We are officially working for an organization that hates us."
Even the brass got in on the action. After then-Fox News White House reporter Kristin Fisher tore apart the Giuliani hair dye presser on November 19 on Dana Perino's show, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott wrote to Fox News President Jay Wallace, "I can't keep defending these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to handle stories. The audience feels like we crapped on [it] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us."
Yes, even though Rupert was saying all those mean things about Rudy and they all knew he was off his nut.
Speaking of off his nut, Fox News people said all kinds of mean shit about Lou Dobbs. Jay Wallace emailed Scott and Fox News PR Chief Irena Briganti in September 2020 and said "the North Koreans do a more nuanced show" than Lou Dobbs did. The Washington Post cites a later text from Tucker Carlson to his producer about Dobbs, saying, "I know for a fact Rupert could not stand Lou’s show and has felt that way for many years.”
Sometimes it was serious people appalled that the "news" side was selling its soul to become more like the lying primetimers. In one memorable exchange, Bill Sammon and Chris Stirewalt — the election numbers nerds who got fired for being good at their jobs and calling the 2020 race correctly — talked about how appalled they were that, one month after the election, Bret Baier, supposedly the nighttime "news guy," was still doing conspiracy theories about election fraud. "It's remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things," said Sammon. "But sadly no surprise based on the man I saw revealed on election night," said Stirewalt.
\u201cWe get more context around that Bill Sammon ""it's remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things."\n\nHe's talking about Fox News' "flagship evening news broadcast" -- not primetime -- still focused on "supposed election fraud" a month after the election.\u201d— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1678236306
Indeed, there are quite a lot of emails and texts from people on the "news" side who have now left or been forced out. Here's an example:
[Former "Special Report" producer] Phil Vogel wrote he was taking a pay cut and forgoing six weeks paid leave to get out. "The post election coverage of 'voter fraud' was the complete end," Vogel wrote, citing the birth of his daughter. "I realized I couldn't defend my employer to my daughter while trying to teach her to do what is right."
We'd say we're sympathetic, but it's been pretty obvious what Fox News is ever since the day it debuted.
There is so much more, and we don't know how all this will shake out. But we've got to think this is real fuckin' embarrassing for Fox News, especially when you consider that the rest of the news about them this week is about Tucker's big 1/6 recruitment porn video failures.
Really fuckin' embarrassing indeed.
To read more Fox News texts, click every link on the internet, they are everywhere.
[NPR / Washington Post / Deadline]
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Uh Oh, Idaho MAGA Found Some Woke, It Is In This 6000-Student Tech Training Community College
Is the woke in the welding program or the commercial truck driver certification?
It's always worrying when I see that Idaho, my home state, has made the New York Times again, and the headline on Monday's story was a doozy: "The MAGA-fication of North Idaho College." It turns out that the community college, which is hardly a hotbed of wokeness, has been subjected to the tender mercies of board candidates backed by the super-rightwing Kootenai County Republican Party, that fun-loving bunch of MAGA loons who endorsed a raving antisemitic creep for a local school board (he lost) and also unsuccessfully tried to take over the local Democratic Party and steal its donations, through ratfucking most foul.
Read More:
North Idaho GOP's Batsh*t Plan: Take Over Local Democratic Party, Steal Donations, ?????, PROFIT
Local GOP Proudly Endorses Sweaty Anti-Semite For Post Falls, Idaho School Board
Once the Kootenai GOP decided to push candidates for the board of trustees for North Idaho College (NIC) — officially nonpartisan seats, but nothing is nonpartisan here — things went weird quickly, as the Times explains.
For most of the past two years, the college’s governing board has been a volatile experiment in turning grievances into governance. Trustees backed by the county Republican Party hold a majority on the board. They have denounced liberal “indoctrination” by the college faculty and vowed to bring the school administration’s “deep state” to heel and “Make N.I.C. Great Again.”
The problem for the culture warriors who took over the NIC board of trustees seems to be that there simply wasn't a lot of radical Marxism to weed out at the school, which as the Times says is "better known locally for its technical training programs than the politics of its faculty."
But that was no reason not to sow chaos: The conservative majority on the board has chewed through several NIC presidents, resulting in votes of no confidence from the college faculty and the student government and departures of faculty and administrators, and all that instability led to warnings from the regional accrediting agency that the college was in danger of losing its accreditation. The agency put the college on notice in late February that it must "show cause" for keeping its accreditation, and that was quickly followed by a downgrade of NIC's bond rating by Moody's, which cited the warning and the "dysfunction" in the college's governance.
If North Idaho College loses accreditation, that would essentially shut it down after 75 years of operation, since students' credits for any future classes would no longer be transferable. We bet that would really own the libs, should any be found.
In the latest development, a degree of stability has been imposed on the college. Last Friday, a judge ordered the board to reinstate NIC President Nick Swayne, whom the board voted in December to put on administrative leave ... for no reason. Monday night, the board voted, grudgingly, to reinstate Swayne and put Greg South, the interim president with whom it replaced Swayne, on leave.
Swayne had sued the board, arguing that his contract didn't allow the board to put him on leave without cause, and Kootenai County District Judge Cynthia Meyer ordered he get his job back, at least until the lawsuit is resolved. The Spokane Spokesman-Review reports that when the board voted unanimously to reinstate Swayne, "about half the crowded meeting room inside the student union erupted into applause."
So how the hell did this mess get started? This being North Idaho, a magnet for far-Right crazies of all sorts, the local population is already full of angry MAGA folks and anti-government loons; Donald Trump won 70 percent of the vote in 2020 and some Republicans think the election had to be rigged because how was it that low?
Still Moar!
North Idaho Has A New Wingnut News Source, And It's A Doozy
Idaho Election Officials Not So Sure They Agree 100% With MyPillow Guy's Forensic Work
Idaho Wingnuts Fret Imaginary Hordes Of Antifa Super Soldiers Coming To Get Them
So it's not too surprising that the Kootenai GOP felt it had to get involved for the first time ever in the NIC board elections back in 2020, after the college's diversity council endorsed protests for social justice in the wake of George Floyd's murder, including those organized by Black Lives Matter. For context, also remember that Idaho was one of several places where armed wingnuts freaked the fuck out that summer over bullshit internet rumors of huge gangs of Antifa and BLM supersoldiers heading for every town to cause mayhem.
As the Times notes, a precinct committeewoman wrote an op-ed in the local paper complaining that the diversity council "states, in writing, that it supports Black Lives Matter, the radical, racist and Marxist organization," and claimed that a "seminar sponsored with your taxes validates the white male privilege theory. This translates into NIC supporting Black Lives Matter and guilting white male students."
So clearly, voters needed to take action, and they did, electing the two candidates endorsed by the Kootenai GOP. They joined up to form a rightwing majority with incumbent member Todd Banducci, who "had clashed on occasion with other trustees and the school’s administrators and staff." He seems nice!
In an email to a conservative student, Mr. Banducci wrote that he was “battling the N.I.C. ‘deep state’ on an almost daily basis,” and complained that “the liberal progressives are quite deeply entrenched.” [...]
In a conversation after the election, Mr. Banducci chided [Rick] MacLennan, then the college president, for his wife’s support for Hillary Clinton and told him that he would give him “marching orders,” according to Mr. MacLennan.
Well that's certainly proof of Marxist indoctrination at the college. Friction between MacLennan and the board continued, and a local civil rights group filed a complaint with the regional accrediting body, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, saying Banducci was interfering with faculty and staff at the college.
Ultimately the the board shitcanned MacLennan — without cause, because it could, and then hired NIC's wrestling coach to be interim president. We should note here that it was not Jim Jordan; that was Ohio. The Times sums up the ensuing clusterfuckery:
A power struggle ensued, with the state education board at one point appointing several interim trustees who hired a new president. [That's Swayne, just to keep things clear-ish — Dok] In the November 2022 election, candidates backed by the G.O.P. committee once again claimed a majority and replaced him, too.
Along the way, there have been other ... moments, let's say. In December far-Right antisemitic podcaster Vincent James Foxx, who lives in the area, bragged online about harassing a student at a NIC board meeting:
“He’s like, ‘Oh wow, you’re like a literal Nazi, aren’t you?’ And I was like, ‘You’re like a literal f—t, aren’t you?” Foxx said, laughing. “He walked away with his head down. He did, like, the virgin walk down the whatever, down the hallway.”
The Times notes that Foxx also showed up at a January board meeting in January to offer the rightwing bloc his "100 percent support," which was nice of him. Another board meeting, in December, "was interrupted twice by fire alarms."
With the reinstatement of Swayne this week, the temperature may be dialed down a bit, maybe, as the college prepares its reply to the "show cause " order and tries to keep its accreditation. But the board is still plenty contentious. At Monday's meeting, chair Greg McKenzie, part of the GOP-endorsed faction, said that the "majority of the board members doesn’t necessarily agree with the court order, but the college will abide by the court’s ruling." The board also voted to keep South, the interim president, on paid leave, presumably to have him handy should Swayne lose his ongoing lawsuit.
Minority board member Tarie Zimmerman questioned the wisdom of keeping South at all.
“I think we should actually terminate his contract,” she said. “We have a president. We will as soon as we follow the court’s order. We don’t need the services of Dr. South any longer.”
McKenzie did not allow discussion about South’s compensation while on leave, calling it a personnel matter.
“You’re welcome to try to overrule the chair,” he told Zimmerman.
Sounds like everything should be smooth sailing, then. No wokeness has yet been discovered at NIC, but clearly fighting over who gets to be in charge is a dandy substitute for a culture war. And if worse comes to worst, and NIC loses accreditation, we bet the State of Florida would be happy to accredit whatever's left.
[NYT / Spokesman-Review / Coeur d'Alene Press / Spokesman-Review / Image: North Idaho College on Flickr]
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Should Fox News Call Elections Based On Numbers Or Feelings? Journalism Is Tough!
More on the ongoing humiliation of Fox News.
Here's another one for the "Let's pretend we didn't know THE WHOLE TIME that Fox News was actively lying to its viewers" file. It's the "surprise" we've all been "grappling with" ever since we started reading Dominion filings. That said, it's a bit wild to see just how craven these people really are behind the scenes, and how much apparent contempt they have for their viewers. We've learned just how much bullshit Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch believed Donald Trump's fever dreams about a "rigged and stollen [sic] election"] election" to be. "Really crazy stuff," he said.
This weekend's batch of news isn't a court filing, but rather reporting from the New York Times on how nuts it was off camera at Fox just after the 2020 election, how much "panic" there was. You'll remember that one major event from Fox's election coverage was that it correctlycalled Arizona for Joe Biden, far earlier than anyone else did, and Trumpworld was seething over it.
Fox anchors and execs were so mad their network had called it correctly. We imagine things do feel weird and icky over at Fox News HQ on the rare occasion their network is the most accurate of them all. They were worried all their idiot viewers were going to leave them for Newsmax, who would blow BS up their butts even harder than Fox was willing to.
And so Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott put together a Zoom call to figure out how to make sure this never happened again:
[O]n Monday, Nov. 16, 2020, Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, and Jay Wallace, the network’s president, convened a Zoom meeting for an extraordinary discussion with an unusual goal, according to a recording of the call reviewed by The New York Times: How to keep from angering the network’s conservative audience again by calling an election for a Democrat before the competition.
We were not exaggerating. They were trying to make sure they were never that correct again, at least not when a Democrat was going to win. Obviously Fox News has been in this position before. Who can forget Karl Rove's seething anger on air when Fox News (correctly) called Ohio for Barack Obama in 2012, which led then-anchor Megyn Kelly to dramatically walk down to the network's Nerd Room to confront the election math nerds over the call? That was funny.
And here was Fox News eight years later, being right again!
How could they avoid problems like this in the future?
Maybe, the Fox executives mused, they should abandon the sophisticated new election-projecting system in which Fox had invested millions of dollars and revert to the slower, less accurate model.
Maybe they could do that!
OR MAYBE:
Or maybe they should base calls not solely on numbers but on how viewers might react.
Yes, we have to weigh accurate reality against the delicate snowflake feelings of Fox News viewers. Maybe they should issue trigger warnings before election calls. Maybe they could remind them that they will always love them no matter what and this isn't their fault.
OR MAYBE:
Or maybe they should delay calls, even if they were right, to keep the audience in suspense and boost viewership.
Maybe they shouldn't tell them at all!
Let them figure it out in a few years, when they realize Santa has the same handwriting as mommy and Joe Biden has the same handwriting as the president.
“Listen, it’s one of the sad realities: If we hadn’t called Arizona, those three or four days following Election Day, our ratings would have been bigger,” Ms. Scott said. “The mystery would have been still hanging out there.”
Or maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe somebody more credible would have gone ahead and made the call that all the Seen Enough-ers on Twitter were ready to make a few days after the election. It certainly felt to this news-watching blogger that at least part of the reason everybody else was so reticent to call Arizona was the weapons-grade freakout Fox News was having over its own (correct) call. (The Times reminds us that the Associated Press -- the true gold standard in election forecasting -- went ahead and called Arizona just a few hours after Fox did. They also quote one Fox exec who is pretty sure the other networks waited because they were having fun watching Fox's fans go feral because they had made that correct call.)
Obviously nobody would ever want to be in the position of having to retract a call. And despite its millions of faults, Fox News actually is known to be pretty spot-on when it comes to calling elections. And they had this fancy new election projector doohickey!
But not for long!
Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the two main anchors, suggested it was not enough to call a state based on numerical calculations, the standard by which networks have made such determinations for generations, but that viewer reaction should be considered. “In a Trump environment,” Ms. MacCallum said, “the game is just very, very different.”
Christ, what fucking clowns. These are the "news side" anchors, too, by the way, in case you are having a hard time remembering.
At 8:30 the [morning after the election], Ms. Scott suggested Fox not call any more states until certified by authorities, a formal process that could take days or weeks. She was talked out of that. But the next day, with Mr. Biden’s lead in Arizona narrowing, Mr. Baier noted that Mr. Trump’s campaign was angry and suggested reversing the call. “It’s hurting us,” he wrote Mr. Wallace and others in a previously reported email. “The sooner we pull it even if it gives us major egg. And put it back in his column. The better we are. In my opinion.”
Yes, why not just put it in Donald Trump's column to get Trump and his fans to stop sobbing, even if that's not ultimately correct? The numbers nerds were fully aware that was what was going on, and they were super-confident in their call.
Arizona had never been in Mr. Trump’s column, and the Decision Desk overseen by Bill Sammon, the managing editor for Washington, resisted giving it “back” to a candidate who was losing just to satisfy critics.
The Times notes that because of all this, Fox News, which could have been the first to call the whole election (correctly), was the last one to do so. Even though their numbers nerds knew. And their idiot viewers just started having meltdowns and angrily shitting on their kitchen floors while watching Newsmax, to punish Fox News for its betrayal.
Anyway, Bill Sammon got fired for being good at his job, and Chris Stirewalt, the numbers nerd who the Times notes actually went on Fox to explain and defend the Arizona call, got fired for being good at his job.
Mr. Sammon, who had called every election correctly over 12 years at Fox and had just been offered a new three-year contract, was told that same day that his contract would not be renewed after all. He heard not from Fox but from his lawyer, Robert Barnett. Mr. Stirewalt was out too.
Fox would, in the end, wait until after Georgia to announce the purge, without attributing it to the Arizona call. Mr. Sammon, who negotiated a severance package, would call his departure a “retirement,” while Stirewalt’s dismissal was characterized as a “restructuring.”
Sorry about your livelihoods, guys. Donald Trump and some white people who live in East Bugfuck, Alabama, are having full-on toddler meltdowns because you told them the truth about the election results and now you need to leave the building.
This has been an article about a news network. What will we learn about it next?
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