TV News LIES

Fox News abruptly announced Thursday that it is parting ways with longtime host Maria Bartiromo after more than a dozen years.

Bartiromo initially brought credibility and flair to Fox Business Network as a financial markets journalist when she arrived in 2014. She became a highly paid mainstay, hosting more than 16 hours a week of programs on the business network and its corporate sibling, Fox News.

She later provided an insider's line to President Trump, fueling ratings but ultimately helping to enmesh Fox News in a spectacular scandal after promoting his lies about the 2020 race.

"We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 1/2 years and wish her all the best on her next chapter," the network said in a brief statement.

More...

Donald Trump announced a new 50% tariff on automobiles and crucial raw materials from Canada, the latest deterioration in trade relations between the two neighbors with historically strong economic ties.

The US president said that the increased tariffs would start on 1 January 2027 on all cars, trucks, automobile parts and steel. He also derided the nation’s tariffs on American farmers, writing on social media that Canada has been “ripping off” the US “for years”.

“On Trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with,” he wrote on Truth Social. “They feel entitled, and yet, WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US! They do 95% of their business with the U.S., with us, the exact opposite!”

In response, Mark Carney told reporters on Monday that Trump’s announcement was largely expected.

“It’s not a surprise for us that the US would take some form of reprisal to our response to their unjustified tariff, which was on top of other unjustified tariffs,” the Canadian prime minister said from Quebec.

“But what message does that send to the workers in Michigan, in Ohio, in Kentucky, in Alabama, who rely on Canadian demand?” Carney continued. “We’re their largest customer for automobiles, more than the European Union, Japan, Korea, many others combined, and the United Kingdom.”

More...

The White House launched a personal attack against a CNN reporter on Monday with a social media post that mentioned her children and accused her of asking a “disgusting and inhumane question”.

A White House post targeted Kristen Holmes, a senior White House correspondent for the network, after she asked Donald Trump to respond to a widely shared comment by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff in a speech on Sunday.

The Georgia senator told a crowd that Trump “doesn’t want to do the job” and instead “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar”.

The comment was an apparent reference to Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant, fueling scrutiny of her perceived closeness to Trump.

When Holmes asked Trump in the Oval Office to respond to Ossoff’s remark, the president dismissed her, calling the senator a “Pee-wee Herman lookalike”.

More...

Conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson said Israeli "agents" close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed him to falsely report that Hunter Biden’s leaked laptop material showed him abusing minors.

"The claim that there was material involving the abuse of minors on the computer came from the Israelis," Carlson said in an interview aired on Monday with Hunter, former US President Joe Biden's son. "I'm just telling you that they came to me with it, and that's how I know it.”

Carlson’s claim dates back to 2020 when he was a presenter at the right-wing cable news network Fox and pushed allegations that Hunter was involved in corrupt business dealings with Ukraine when his father was vice president.

The younger Biden’s laptop story emerged in the weeks before the 2020 US election, which President Biden went on to win against President Donald Trump.

More...

How many people do you need to kill before you’ve violated a ceasefire?

One, surely. But what about two? 10? 100?

Or how about more than 1,200? That’s how many Palestinians Israel has killed in Gaza since agreeing to an ostensible ceasefire with Hamas in October. 

Israel has also continued to pummel southern Lebanon, despite a “ceasefire” there. But the western media appears to see no violations at all. Instead, it sees ceasefires that are “fragile”, “tested”, “strained” or “shaky”.

Given that news reporting is supposed to rely on precision and accuracy, you’d imagine organisations such as the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press and CNN have read the terms of the deal that was signed between Israel and Hamas in Egypt. It’s unequivocal, and there really isn’t much room for interpretation.

There were conditions that needed to be fulfilled within the first 72 hours before the truce could take effect, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces to agreed lines within Gaza, and the return by Hamas of all remaining Israeli hostages, living or dead.

Once the prerequisites were met, which they were, the text said that “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment and targeting operations will be suspended”.

More...

Senate Democrats introduced a new bill on Thursday to roll back Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s news media restrictions at the Pentagon, stating that those are suppressing independent reporting at the department.

The legislation, called the Protecting Pentagon Press Access Act, was introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) that would restore journalists’ access within the Pentagon that was available before the new measures imposed by Hegseth, including the “Correspondents’ Corridor,” a decades-old workspace inside the building that national security reporters utilized.

The bill, which will have a hard time getting traction in the GOP-controlled Senate, would also restore unescorted access to reporters to areas of the department that were accessible without an escort before the late 2025 Trump administration restriction went into effect.

“At a time of war, transparency and independent, accurate reporting matter more than ever,” Schatz said in a statement. “Our bill will reverse the Pentagon’s effort to shut out the free press and make sure the public gets the information it deserves.”

More...