Podcast Musings on a Friday Morning

So, I started my Friday as I usually do, listening to the mellifluous tones of the ZMan Power Hour podcast while I exercise.  And as luck would have it, today’s show was made up of several segments about things in the news.  I like this kind of show because he puts his slant on these topics and it gives him a chance to be amusing at the expense of the clowns involved.

For instance, he commented on the recent Banking Sub-Committee meeting that featured Senator John Fetterman.  After a few clips of Fetterman attempting to articulate complete sentences about the recent bank failures ZMan opined that the real takeaway was that the Democrats want Fetterman there because having a brain damaged hobo in the Senate further disrupts the norms of our society.  After all, if the most powerful deliberative body in the world can include a man who can no longer master the use of the definite article, “the” in his sentences then why shouldn’t the country go for decades without negotiating a budget for the federal government.

And I get his point.  But the reward for me is listening to someone who can interlard his speech with a description like “brain-damaged hobo.”  There’s an eloquence, a style there.  We have to enjoy our lives and having someone as witty as that provides the opportunity.  And he has a number of these witticisms.  Some he borrows from impeccable sources.  He has taken Oscar Wilde’s phrase, “It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at …” and used it to very good effect on a number of occasions.  He invented that excellent trope “Xirl Science” where he reads from the published papers of mostly female practitioners of usually social sciences like “gender studies.”  The contents are sometimes hilarious in their use of pseudoscientific jargon and obvious lack of rigor or even coherence.  But my all-time favorite ZMan-ism was when he called David French an obsequious rumpswab.  It doesn’t get better than that.

I don’t always agree with all of the ZMan’s conclusions.  But his analysis of what’s going on is usually very insightful.  And his podcast is extremely well done.  The audio quality is good.  His thought process is clear and well enunciated and there is enough humor with the often-distressing message about our times to keep us from gagging on the medicine.

So, he did a segment on Tucker Carlson’s banishment from Fox News and their replacing him.  And while discussing this he made the point that eliminating Tucker Carlson may have also been a business decision based on the reality of cable news economics.  Not enough people are getting their news from cable channels to make it a lucrative business.  The highest rated news channels get one or two million viewers.  There are YouTube channels that get ten times that.  If Fox News pays Tucker Carlson millions of dollars a year, then there isn’t that much left for their bottom line.  And they would prefer to pay chump change to some kid to read off the teleprompter instead.  And I think he’s right.  They’ll be “retiring” all the high salary pundits and hiring kids who just want a job.

And that makes sense.  If a place like Twitter will give a megaphone to independent contractors like Tucker Carlson it may not be long before cable news is a thing of the past.  And that’s good.  The news channels have been shown to be a racket with their sham objectivity and their willingness to lie for the powers that be.  In a sense what I do is no different from what the pundits perform.  The only difference is the economics.  And honestly, that seems to be shifting too.

The ZMan provides a quality product.  The value proposition he provides is very equitable.  He provides entertainment and valuable information.  That’s much more than you get from many cable news shows.  So, it was a good lesson I took away.

Now to figure out a way to make it pay!

A Former Fox Insider Speculates on Tucker Upending Fox’s Position

Ken LaCorte has an excellent blog that talks about right-wing stuff in an intelligent way.  Here he speculates on Tucker teaming up with Newsmax or some other smaller right-wing station and pulling with him his fans.

“Could Tucker join forces with some of his former Fox News colleagues and create a new conservative media powerhouse? With the combined star power of figures like Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck, and Greta Van Susteren, a rival network could pose a serious challenge to Fox News’ dominance in the conservative media sphere.”

I think the answer is yes.  My question is Newsmax the right vehicle.  I’m wondering if someone like Elon Musk could be a better vehicle.  And instead of the listed journalists I think people like Taibbi and Greenwald provide more journalistic clout.  But we’ll see.

 

 

 

 

What’s Next for Tucker Carlson?

Well, now there’s no reason to watch Fox News anymore.  It should be interesting to see how Carlson decides to go forward from here.  I’m assuming he’s not hurting for money.  He should probably start a channel on Rumble and put up a paywall.  He’s one of the more interesting people in broadcasting.  People will pay to get his content.

The other possibility is he goes into politics.  That I see as more problematic.  Politics is a very dirty game.  If you don’t need to use it to make lots of dirty money it won’t be an interesting career.

I think Carlson could form some kind of relationship with the likes of Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Salena Zito, Sharyl Attkisson and a few other real journalists to produce a media outlet that would provide the kind of reporting and opinion that can’t be found anywhere else in the media.  They would have believability.  That’s something that is so sorely lacking everywhere else.

If done right and without all the overhead that comes with a Fox News or a CNN, Carlson and a few reporters could break away from the dying landscape of network and cable news shows that no one needs or wants anymore.  News and analysis.  With the internet and a few resources like Rumble and maybe Elon Musk’s Twitter who needs studios and boardrooms?

Come to think of it, Carlson interviewed Musk last week.  Maybe those two could strike up a deal where Tucker’s content was available exclusively on Twitter with some of it behind a paywall.  It could make both of them a lot of money.  And it could serve as a model for the future.  I’ve heard that Musk wants to add a “substack” option to Twitter.  Having someone like Tucker Carlson as his first big “channel” might be just the thing he needs to steer talent to his platform.

So anyway, Tucker’s “firing” could be a very opportune moment to start seeing a new journalism.  Without the bloat of the dinosaur media, a cadre of people who want to tell interesting stories that have some resemblance to objective reality could provide a service that people would be willing to pay for.  I, even I, would pay a little bit for that.

Now it’s also certain that all the usual suspects on the Left will be gunning for Tucker Carlson.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a target for the Justice Department’s attack dogs.  Their hatred for him probably rivals how they feel about Donald Trump.  After all he’s another traitor to his class.  They’ve already once gone after his family at home.  He had to move away from Washington to protect them.  This is not a trivial threat.  Hopefully he’s made enough money to be able to afford professional security services.  But no one is safe from the abuse that the FBI can bring to bear.  We’ll have to see whether these problems crop up for him.

Well, these are interesting times.  Tucker Carlson has been the only truthful voice in mainstream news commentary.  I hope that he will be able to find a way to continue shining a light on the criminal activities of the Washington regime.  There isn’t any other voice out there that has both his reach and credibility.  Hopefully someone like Musk who has the reach and also the money to set up a platform for him will come along and take advantage of this interesting opportunity.

Don Lemon Squeezed Out at CNN

Don, we hardly knew ye.  Ah, who am I kidding, there was nothing to know.  Finally CNN got around to firing that useless mound of stupidity, Don Lemon.

Don lashed out at the network for ending his broadcasting reign of error:

“After 17 years at CNN I would have though that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network,” Lemon wrote. “It is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”

But CNN said they had offered to meet with him to explain to him just how awful an employee he was.

“Don Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate,” its communications team wrote in a statement. “He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”

I attempted to interview friends of Lemon but discovered that none existed.  He will be missed by the cleaning lady who admitted that his office garbage pail was usually pretty clean.

Seriously, I guess someone will be sad about this.  Probably whoever is next in line over there to be fired.  Hopefully he’ll be scooped up by some other media outlet like Buzzfeed News.  Oh wait.

What is surprising to me is that CNN was able to justify firing a gay black man from a woke corporation based on his antagonizing white women employees.  That’s bold.  It challenges the whole intersectionality hierarchy.  Normally a gay black man can only be trumped in the hierarchy by a black transwoman or two latinx gender fluid females who suffer from lactose intolerance.  But who knows?  We’re living in strange times where you can’t depend on anything anymore.  Well anyway I’ll miss The Lemon.  His like will never be seen again.  I hope.

 

Elon Musk Verbally Pummels BBC Reporter

My opinion of Elon Musk is based on very little more than that he ticked off millions of leftist by buying Twitter.  But that alone has made him a sort of folk hero for me.  For all I know he’s an incipient Bond villain preparing to blow up the planet to sate his gargantuan ego.

But as long as he does things like this I will applaud him.  Watch the video clip.  It’s the usual hit and run interview where the reporter asks the victim if he still beats his wife.  But Musk breaks down the questioner’s accusations one by one and shows that they weren’t based on any concrete example he could provide.

Between this and the NPR incident Musk had made it a fun time to be on Twitter.  Now he’s talking of changing the name which sounds like a great idea.  Lots of people think that Musk’s eventual plans for Twitter are a lot more interesting than the current message board for the politically obsessed.  I can’t say that I know anything about that but I tend to believe it because otherwise he’d have been insane to pay $55 billion for it.

Well, anyway, Elon, you magnificent bastard, that was one funny slap down.