Fox follies

I worked as a professional newsman (sports writer at a daily newspaper) for nearly 40 years before retiring, and through all of that time, I was always conscious of upholding the highest of journalistic standards whenever I wrote something for publication.

I still do, even as I write my blog. Old habits, I guess.

The very ultimate standard, of course, is to tell the truth. That would seem obvious, although there are times when one person's version of the truth can be another person's perceived disinformation. Not necessarily a lie, perhaps, but maybe an alternate truth? How do you distinguish between the two?

Malice could be a way. Malice is the intention to do harm or evil. And that's essentially what happened when Fox News settled its defamation case this past week with Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping $787.5 million. Without going into detail, Fox basically claimed Dominion committed fraud (with doctored voting machines, so they said) in the 2020 election that put Joe Biden and not Donald Trump in the White House.

In the lead-up to the trial, in the discovery phase, it was revealed that many Fox commentators (Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, et al) knew the elections were fair and honest, but reported fraud instead. They told their viewers lies, and the defendants knew they were lying. Some, like Carlson, said through email, texts and deposition transcripts, that he hated Trump "passionately." Other damning behind-the-scenes evidence was also revealed.

That makes Fox and company hypocrites and liars and vandals of American democracy, which is dependent upon a free press that reliably tells the truth.

I myself was waiting for an actual trial. The weight of the evidence against Fox seemed overwhelming. As difficult as it is to prove defamation, it was clear Fox didn't want to take its dirty laundry to trial. So it settled.

But it settled without a clear-cut apology for lying to its viewers. On the day of the settlement, Fox offered a statement that said, in part: "We acknowledge the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false."

There it is. Fox admitting culpability. That's the best you're going to get from them.

And then this: "The settlement reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards."

Wait. Didn't they just admit to lying to their viewers? An action which they now claim to be "the highest journalistic standards."

So they're still lying to you. There are no high journalistic standards at Fox.

The question now is how Fox viewers will absorb this settlement. Fox has hardly mentioned the settlement to its viewers. Some Fox viewers might not even be aware a defamation suit was filed against the network. Sometimes it's not just about the lies they tell you, but often it's about the truth they don't tell you. That's how pernicious Fox has become.

How dangerous is that? Ask yourself how many Jan. 6 rioters were Fox viewers who unwittingly consumed the Big Lie? We'll never know, but we can guess. Some of them have plenty of jail time to think about it.

Now, a second defamation suit filed by Smartmatic, another voting system corporation, is in the works. The discovery phase is in its early stages, so you can expect even more revelations about Fox's cynicism in the near future. Unless Fox is smart enough to settle early.

This is what I hope: This time I hope when Fox settles that Smartmatic forces Fox to make on-air apologies about lying to its viewers. I hope Fox begins each broadcast hour for a full year with a court-ordered disclaimer: "We at Fox lied to you about Smartmatic committing voter fraud. We lied to you about Dominion. We lie to you about everything."

That won't happen, of course. Dominion and Smartmatic are private corporations seeking compensation for damages, not the salvation of American journalism or democracy.

But it's a start. Dominion, for its part, has filed suit against other right-wing news organizations like Newsmax and OAN for similar damages. It's also filed defamation suits against individuals who lied on Fox, such as Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell and Mike Lindell.

I don't know. Maybe these viewers just like being lied to. They like being told what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

The truth is out there.

Carnage continues

The one thing that has really stuck with me for the past seven years or so is the phrase "American carnage."

That was the wrongful view former president Donald Trump offered us in his dispiriting inaugural address in 2016. I had no clue there was such a thing as American carnage, but as things turned out, that's pretty much what we have now. So Trump wasn't actually describing something that we were living through prior to 2016. It was, in my view, a miasma that he personally ushered into our society.

Carnage became the template for his administration. We live with it still. We are severely divided as a nation, between blue and red, rural and urban, black and white, the Second Amendment and gun control, (National) Christianity and just about every other religion there is.

And to my mind, there is a single thread that stitches all of this together: Trump.

You know. The guy who just recently became the first former president to ever be indicted. The guy who separated infants from their families as policy to stop illegal immigration; the guy who gave us Operation Warp Speed to bring Covid vaccinations to the country, then downplayed the importance of vaccinations in the first place as hundreds of thousands of his followers died; the guy who hijacked the formerly honorable Republican party and turned it into a cult of personality and a party of grievance and retribution with no interest in actual legislation; the guy who incited an insurrection where police officers were injured or killed; the guy who called for the suspension of the U.S. Constitution while pleading the Fifth Amendment himself more than 400 times during a recent fraud deposition in January; the guy who put enough conservative judges on the Supreme Court to overturn 50 years of Roe v. Wade, thus putting the lives of thousands of women in jeopardy; the guy who tried to dismantle NATO and blackmail Ukraine, which led directly to the Russian invasion of that country; the guy who claims the Black prosecutors in his cases are racist but never himself; the guy who calls for voter suppression by eliminating mail-in ballots while using them himself.

And that's only the ones I can think of on a Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, the carnage continues. It continues in front of our very eyes. 

So the question lingers: are our eyes open? Or are they closed?

 

The Tennessee Three

Well, there it was. On live television. For the whole world to see.

American racism at its most blatant worst.

The Republican-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Black male Democrats from its ranks on Thursday for a violation of chamber "decorum" when they approached the well without being recognized to vocally support gun control demonstrators in the gallery and in the halls. A third representative, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a white female, was spared expulsion by a single vote, even though she was standing along side colleagues Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis.

But the incredibly arrogant and mostly white GOP supermajority booted the two Black guys without due process and possibly in violation of their First Amendment right to free speech for their few minutes of vocal protest. The body contains 75 seats of Republicans and only 23 Democrats. In order to expel a member, at least 66 votes – two-thirds of the legislature – were needed for removal in each instance. Jones was ousted with a 72-25 vote and Pearson was removed by a 69-26 count. Johnson kept her seat with a 65-30 vote, falling short of the required 66.

That certainly doesn't look good.

But the appearance of racism goes deeper than the expulsion of two duly elected Black members of the chamber. Jones and Pearson represent mostly black and brown districts in their respective cities and now those citizens are without representation, so the racism reaches an even broader level. Talk about suppressing the vote...

It's possible that both Jones and Pearson could be reinstated by their local governing bodies in their districts – as early as today – and then be eligible for an upcoming special election to fill their vacancies. Now wouldn't that be ironic? And correct.

What is astounding to me is how blatantly racist this whole process became, and how public it was. Republicans, especially those in supermajorities, don't even try to hide their bullying and hypocrisy any more. And guess what? There are now supermajorities in Wisconsin and North Carolina (thanks to a legislator in North Carolina who last week switched her affiliation from Democrat to Republican, thus betraying those who elected her to her seat).

It's a dangerous moment for democracy. It goes to the heart of gerrymandering districts for the political control of one party. It's why we have ideological judges in the courts making rulings that go against the majority of the people (like nullifying Roe v. Wade). It's why a single judge can make a ruling affecting the entire country (see Texas judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who ignored the science and invalidated a 23-year-old FDA approval of the drug Mifepristone). It's why a 70-30 issue like gun control can't get anywhere in congress, so more children are massacred in their schools. Almost daily, it seems.

It's minority rule. I'm pretty sure this isn't what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they were trying to put together a county of, by and for the people. What we have now in most red states are nothing more than gangs in the legislatures.

Stay tuned.

What a moment

I never thought I'd live in an era that has seen so much American history.

Most of it the result of one man.

For a president – and now an ex-president – Donald Trump has been a virtual history lesson. Twice impeached. Twice. Hush payments to a porn star. Inciting an insurrection. Supporting the call for the execution of his vice president during the Capitol riot. Calling for the imprisonment of his political opponents. Calling for the suspension of the U.S. Constitution.

And now, he's the first president – former or otherwise – to be indicted. He could be facing 30 or more charges for his alleged role in the hush money payment scheme and subsequent cover-up involving porn actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

Trump's political supporters see the indictments as the weaponization of both the Department of Justice and the American judicial system. Of course they would. Would they see it that way if the target of an indictment was, say, one Hillary (Lock her up!) Clinton? Hmm?

Others, perhaps more rational, see the indictment as a moment of accountability that has finally arrived, that the wheels of justice are finally turning, that no man is above the law. Trump could soon be facing indictments in Florida for taking top secret documents, in Georgia for election interference, and Washington DC for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In any event, we, as a nation, are on tenuous ground. This is the first time a president – current or former – has been charged with crimes. We've never been here before. And, as a nation, we're as divided as we can be. The Jan. 6 episode showed us that violence could erupt at any moment and for all the wrong reasons, such as believing in a lie. A big lie.

It's also a time for those of us who are pleased with the indictments to be cautious and wary. The actual charges have yet to be unsealed – we don't know what's in them. We need to let the judicial system play its course and accept whatever the final verdict is announced, calmly and with reason.

Because if we don't, it's only going to get worse.

Tourney tumbler

I never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd become a Miami Hurricanes fan.

But here I am, patiently waiting for this evening's final NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament quarterfinal game pitting the 'Canes against Texas for the right to advance to the Final Four.

How did this happen? How did I get here?

In my admittedly flawed self-analysis, I think this goes back to my days as a sports writer for The Dispatch, where I had the distinct pleasure of covering the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC was the center of the collegiate basketball universe back in those days and, as a consequence, I subsequently became an ACC snob.

So whenever the NCAA Tournament rolled around, I'd unprofessionally pull for all the ACC teams in that year's field.

That was back in the days when there were eight teams in the conference. But expansion has altered my perception of the league. There are now 15 teams in two divisions and the rhythm of the league's ebb and flow seems somehow diminished to me. It's unwieldy. Some of the teams, like Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse and Pitt are so far from the actual Atlantic Coast as to be absurd, if not comedic.

Several of the teams are refugees from the former Big East Conference, like the aforementioned Pitt and Syracuse. But you can also throw in Boston College and, yes, Miami. So maybe they should rename the league the Big Eastern Seaboard Conference. Still unwieldy, but at least it's a bit more geographically accurate. I mean, what are we teaching these kids about maps and GPS anyway?

But I digress. 

On Friday, the No. 5 seed Hurricanes took a huge step by humiliating No. 1 seeded Houston 89-75. In the round of 32, the 'Canes clobbered Indiana 85-69. In the opening round, Miami nudged Drake 63-56 in its closest game of the tourney.

Miami players like Isaiah Wong, Norchad Omier and Nijel Pack have run right through Tobacco Road to the sun-kissed beaches of Florida, taking the ACC with them. We'll see if the ride continues today.

And speaking of Florida, here's Florida Atlantic (good geographic name), a No. 9 seed, doing its best Cinderella impression, especially after knocking off No. 3 Kansas State 79-76 yesterday to make it to the Final Four! When did Florida become the basketball universe?

Where's Duke? Where's Kentucky? Where's Indiana? Where's UCLA? Maybe it's time for new blood to reign in the NCAA, I don't know.

Right now, I'll be pulling for the 'Canes, mostly because of my ACC habit. But of the teams remaining, I kind of like Connecticut. The Huskies appear to be well-rounded, especially with the likes of 7-2 freshman Donovan Clingan in the middle and Adama Sanogo on the wing.

Anything can happen on a given night, but if form follows form, watch out for the Huskies.

I just Woke up

For several years now, I kept hearing this word in political conversation that was meant to express an ideology of social awareness, particularly in affairs of racism and justice.

That's what it was to be "woke." At first, I thought it was a misuse of the past tense and past participle of wake, and yet, in its urban dictionary context, it somehow made sense.

It certainly did in the Black community, where the colloquial "woke" originated as far back as the 1930s, if not earlier. Back then, it meant to be aware of your surroundings, especially while wandering in a racially dangerous and unjustly biased world. It even showed up in a protest song, "Scottsboro Boys", by Lead Belly (He sings "Stay woke" at the end of the song).

The word gained resurrected credence (or "cred") with the Black Lives Matter movement, especially after the deadly police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. "Woke" was added to the BLM rhetoric after the fatal police shootings of Eric Gardner and Tamir Rice and others and soon, its meaning came to encompass gender equality, gender identity, reproductive rights and voting rights, among a host of other social issues.

Somewhere along the way, the word "woke" was co-opted by the Republican Party as a pejorative and as a way for them to "own the libs", which seems to define the very existence of the party these days since it has no other serious platform to explain itself.

Ironic, isn't it, that a party committed to restricting voting rights and healthcare issues (to the point where maternal mortality is actually rising in a country that styles itself as advanced) should commandeer a word that originated in the Black community? Because of the GOP cynicism, we now have illogical absurdities like college boards and school boards banning books, of all things. Critical Race Theory (which is a theory and discussed only in graduate college courses) and the 1619 Project can no longer be subject material, by law, in some schools. Once again, whites have found a way to subjugate African-Americans, only now it's 2023.

Actually, I'm not sure anybody really knows what woke means, much less Republicans. It just might mean anything you want it to mean. I guess if you shout "woke" often enough, people might think you're on to something.

If being woke means to be socially aware, then why is the GOP so intent on being asleep? All I hear coming out of the mouths of Republican politicians like Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, et al, is woke, woke woke. It's a call to move our society backwards, to a time we can no longer be.

They've misused the word to mean something else and it's become a political rallying point for the GOP. If anything, each time they scream woke, or to become anti-woke, it tells me how uniformed they truly are. If I am woke, then I wear the word as a badge of honor. We all should if being woke means moving social justice forward. We all should if it means not being afraid of new ideas and perspectives.

We all should if it means accepting people into our circles who are not like us. In my world, that is being woke, and it's not wrong.

Siemens changes things

 Back in the mid-1970s, when I first arrived in Lexington as a wet-behind-the-ears sports writer for The Dispatch, I found myself in the middle of a burgeoning and historic furniture and textile district.

And I didn't even know it.  I mean, I came from eastern Pennsylvania. We had Bethlehem Steel, suppliers of the material that built the Golden Gate Bridge.

But here, furniture and textiles were the lifeblood of the Davidson County community. Manufacturing factories were everywhere in Lexington, and indeed, in the area. Thomasville had its big chair and High Point had its international furniture market. It was amazing.

Everybody knew at least one person who worked in a furniture factory or textile mill, it seemed.

Then, after more than 100 years, it all disappeared. By the 1990s, the factories had closed down and moved to more profitable sites overseas. Against all logic, it seemed, it was actually cheaper to ship raw materials from the United States, mostly to Asia, where it was crafted by pennies-on-the-dollar labor. Then the product, now noticeably inferior to what was once made here (truism: you get what you pay for), was sent back to the States for assembly and consumption.

Davidson County spent the next couple of decades trying to recover and repurpose itself, the empty factories in the middle of Lexington and Thomasville serving as harsh reminders of what had once been. Community leaders began earnest, sometimes frantic attempts to attract new industry that would offer well-paying jobs and benefits.

The arrival of particleboard manufacturer Egger in 2018 provided a significant boost to the area. Homes were being sold and apartments were being rented and it certainly helped the local economy. And then, last week, Siemens Mobility announced it would build a plant on 200 aces at the industrial park on Brown Street where it will build passenger railcars. Operations are expected to begin in 2024 with 500 employees.

 As a resident of Lexington, I cannot be happier. Siemens, an internationally known corporation, will become the largest taxpayer in Davidson County, which should mean that city and county services will be upgraded and improved, including health and education.

For the life of me, I could never understand why it took this long to attract major industry to the area. The railroad runs through the middle of the county as does an Interstate highway; we are located in a population center that includes Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro; and taxes are generally lower in Davidson County than in neighboring counties. We even have an airport, for crying out loud.

I am not privy to the politics that goes into luring corporations to job-hungry communities. I don't see the money that changes hands or the sly winks that are closely guarded. But it's probably always been that way and probably always will be. All that really matters is that the jobs will be here soon.

And I suspect Siemens will be here for a long time. Railroads are the arteries of commerce in this country and railcars will always be in demand. Even in the future, when flux capacitors have us traveling through time, Siemens will probably be the brand you see on the package. 

It's about time. It changes everything for us here in Davidson County. And that's a good thing.