Dog-wagging familiarity for our crash-test-dummy POTUS...
In 1999, Arpaio's staff rigged the entire fake assassination plot – just so he could get his mug on TV.
News cameras were already rolling when deputies arrested Saville. Gullible TV reporters gobbled up Arpaio’s story about a local Unabomber who was plotting to kill America’s “toughest” sheriff.
In 2004, a jury found Saville innocent of all charges. Not only that, but it ruled that Arpaio’s minions helped buy the bomb parts themselves and “entrapped” Saville in a TV-ready murder plot.
This should be a bullet point for 2018 and beyond...
Since Trump was elected, Fox & Friends has taken a special place in the media landscape. It’s clear that the program is in something of a feedback loop with the president. But contrary to what CNN president Jeff Zucker says, this isn't state-run television "extolling the line out of the White House." Scholars tend to say state-run media usually aims to keep the rank and file in line, while demobilizing the populace and deflating political opposition. Most of it is very boring. Watch some live Chinese state-run media and you'll immediately understand.
We analyzed 17 months of Fox & Friends transcripts, which captures nearly a year before Trump was elected president and about six months after. (More on the methodology at the bottom of this piece.)
What we found is that Fox & Friends has a symbiotic relationship with Trump that is far weirder and more interesting than state media. Instead of talking for Trump, they are talking to him.
The regular hosts — Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Ainsley Earhardt — and their rotating cast of guests increasingly view their role as giving advice to the president. They prognosticate on what the president, his staff, or his party should do. And it’s all couched in language that makes it seem they are on his side — that the damning news reports from mainstream media were unfair obstacles to his presidency
The statues were paid for by former University of Texas regent and Confederate veteran George Littlefield in 1920. The lawsuit argues the school broke its agreement with Littlefield by removing the statues.
A university spokesman says the school’s lawyers had carefully considered the decision.
The association unsuccessfully sued the university in 2015 to stop the removal of a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
A CNBC fact-check in June noted that while he had signed a large number of bills – more than all but two Presidents in the past eight decades – they have tended to be of minor importance.