Rise of Newsmax TV Causes Major Programming Changes at Fox News

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Marshall McLuhan once wrote that

The media is the message.

Well, in the past couple of decades, the Main Stream Media has become not just the message, but also judge, jury, and political executioner.

And, unfortunately, thanks to the influence of the Liberal daughter-in-laws of Rupert Murdoch, Fox News began overcompensating to the Left in keeping its programming “fair and balanced”.

Daily diatribes from Juan Williams, the now-departed Shep Smith, Donna Brazile, and Chris Wallace made me more than once turn the channel to reruns of…well…just about anything.

Then came the night of the 2020 Presidential Election.

Fox News stripped away its veneer of “Fair and Balanced” to join CNN and MSNBC as servants of the Democratic Party.

That was not a very smart move.

Newsmax.com reports that

The rise of Newsmax TV has caused a major shake-up at Fox News, which announced Monday that its early evening show host Martha MacCallum has been demoted back to an early afternoon slot, among other changes to the lineup.

“Newsmax’s consistently strong numbers during the day and especially at the 7 p.m. ET slot has caused panic at Fox, which rarely makes lineup changes,” Newsmax said in a statement Monday, adding with a wink, “The Fox is on the run.”

MacCallum’s “The Story” had long been the #1 cable news show in the 7 p.m. time slot, until Newsmax TV’s “Greg Kelly Reports” began a ratings surge in recent months.

With Kelly pulling an average of 800,000-plus viewers per minute each night, MacCallum had fallen to third place behind CNN and MSNBC.

In December “Greg Kelly Reports” beat MacCallum in a key demo, a news story broken by CNN.

Newsmax has consistently taken one-third to one-half of Fox’s audience in each day part, according to the Nielsen Coverage Rating. The Coverage Rating shows a network’s viewership proportionate to the homes that can tune in.

Last week the Nielsen Coverage Rating for 7 p.m. showed that in the crucial 35-64 demo, “Greg Kelly Reports” was pulling more than half of MacCallum’s “The Story” (.77 versus 1.53).

The Nielsen numbers tell only half the story. Newsmax streams free on most OTT platforms and Fox News does not.

Newsmax estimates the OTT viewership nearly doubles its Nielsen average viewership numbers.

Newsmax’s consistently strong numbers have caused Fox to make additional changes.

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott Monday announced a full shift in its daytime lineup.

MacCallum will be moved to the 3 p.m. spot and replaced by new show “FOX News Primetime” with hosts to be announced. The changes will debut on Jan. 18.

Other changes include that Harris Faulkner will no longer host “Outnumbered Overtime” at 1 p.m., but will host a new show, “The Faulkner Focus,” at 11 a.m.

Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts is moving to the studio as co-anchor of a new two-hour program with Sandra Smith.

I’m so old that I remember when Fox News Channel was not a member of the Main Stream Media.

According to the Old Testament Book of Proverbs,

Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall.

That scripture has never been truer than in the case of Fox News.

Americans have noticed that Fox news has been traveling in a Liberal direction ever since Rupert Murdoch left the running of the channel to his sons.

There are more Liberal Pundits and Anchors on Fox News than there have ever been in its history.

And, those who were not known until recently to be Liberal, such as Steve Doocy, Sandra Smith, and Jedidiah Bila, seem to be relishing the opportunity to drive away the audience which made Fox News Channel number one in the ratings for many, many years.

What is maddening to me is the fact that President Trump went out of his way to be kind to them, helping their ratings over the last four years through live phone calls and exclusive interviews, including one morning when he made a spontaneous appearance on “Fox and Friends”, consenting to a live on the spot interview with Steve Doocy.

So, why has Fox News repeatedly bitten the hand that feeds them?

Poor management.

The change in political viewpoint at Fox Bews has to be the worst marketing decision since “New Coke”.

And, just like New Coke, it has left a bitter taste in the mouths of a lot of Americans.

So, have the powers-that-be at FNC issued an apology yet for the mistake which has driven them to the bottom of the television ratings?

Heck no.

They just keep doubling down on stupid, like AOC at a MENSA Meeting.

Fox News not only jumped the shark…they are gleefully feeding the crocodile known as the Democratic Party, hoping that it will eat them last.

Their arrogance is exceeded only by their stupidity.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Trump’s Town Hall was Must-See TV…”When They Hit Us, We Have to Hit Back”

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FoxNews.com reports that

President Trump, speaking at a Fox News Town Hall in Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa., on Thursday evening, openly suggested that the new Democratic front-runner’s repeated gaffes could be a sign of a competency issue — honing a line of attack that Republicans are expected to repeatedly deploy if Biden becomes his party’s nominee.

Trump also wasted little time in criticizing ex-rival Elizabeth Warren’s decision to drop out of the race only after Super Tuesday, saying she may have sabotaged Bernie Sanders’ struggling presidential bid by siphoning the progressive vote.

The setting was more casual and conversational than Trump’s boisterous rallies, and afforded the commander-in-chief an opportunity to connect directly with voters on camera.

“Bernie Sanders would have won five, six, seven states,” Trump remarked. “When you look at it, she did him no favors. That was not a good friendship. We started to see that during the debates, by the way. It became unhinged.”

Trump went on to argue that Biden was “damaged” by the impeachment process that implicated his son Hunter in apparent overseas corruption while Biden was vice president. “They aimed at Trump and they took Biden down,” the president said.

“Here’s a guy, who didn’t have a job, unfortunately sadly the military was a very sad experience for him — he goes out and gets $3 million plus $183,000 a month to be a board member of a company that a lot of people said was corrupt,” he continued. “Just as bad, China — I just made a great China deal … His son walks out a China for a billion-and-a-half dollars for a fund.”

The Super Tuesday results, Trump said, had come as a surprise — especially given what he suggested were Biden’s possible cognitive impairments.

“I’m all set for Bernie, communist,” Trump began. “And then we have this crazy thing that happened on Tuesday, which he thought was Thursday. But he also said 150 million people were killed with guns, and that he was running for the U.S. Senate — there’s something going on there.”

The president noted that he hadn’t spoken to former President Obama since the 2018 funeral for President George H.W. Bush, in part because of lingering animosity about that administration.

“I sat next to him, I said, ‘Hello,'” Trump said, describing the funeral. “Then I said, ‘Goodbye’ That’s about it. I didn’t like the job he did. I didn’t like the job he and Biden did. I didn’t like the position he put us in. I didn’t like what he did to our military. … Right now we have more ammunition than ever before.”

Concerning health care, Trump said he was “most disappointed” that he hasn’t been able to “sell what a great job we’ve done.” The president touted his administration’s termination of the Obamacare “individual mandate,” and said plans were now less expensive — but that the “carcass of Obamacare” remains a problem.

“Without the whole thing with the individual mandate, it’s a whole different ball game,” Trump said. He promised that the GOP would come up with an alternative, but didn’t offer specifics other than that pre-existing conditions would be covered.

Anchor Bret Baier noted that Trump, when campaigning, had promised to erase the national debt within eight years — but nevertheless had approved $4.6 trillion in new debt already.

“I’ll always talk about it, because to me it’s very important,” Trump said. “The good thing about the debt is we’re paying almost no interest.” He added that more cuts would be coming but that it was crucially important to fund the military in the meantime.

The town hall covered an array of other topics, including stock market turbulence and deregulation. Out of the gate, Trump defended his administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying his decision to limit travel from China had averted a broader domestic crisis.

“I think people are viewing us as doing a very good job,” Trump told a questioner. “This started in China. How it started, is a question. … It’s gonna all work out. Everyone has to be calm.”

The president pointed to something of a silver lining in the episode: “People are now staying in the United States, spending their money in the United States, and I like that. You know, I’ve been after that for a long time. I’ve been saying, let’s stay in the U.S., spend your money here. It’s sort of enforced doing that.”

Trump later noted that he has always disliked the concept of shaking hands: “If there was ever a time you could convince people not to shake hands, this could be it,” he mused, before lamenting that politicians unfortunately are required to shake some hands.

Responding to the threatening statements directed at Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch on Wednesday by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Trump said the comments amounted to a call for physical violence.

“If a Republican did what Schumer did, they’d be in jail right now,” Trump said to applause.

The media, Trump argued, was “a part of the Democrat Party” to a “large extent” — and “we have to fight back.”

He gave a similar answer when asked by a voter how he would “bring us together.” The voter noted that a relative had banished Trump supporters from the family.

“Success” as a country is the solution, Trump said, suggesting that Democrats would come to the bargaining table, if not the dinner table, if he won reelection.

At the same time, Trump said, “when they hit us, we have to hit back.”

Hours before the town hall, Trump took his trademarked parting shots at Warren and Mike Bloomberg, whom Trump likened to an incompetent, undersized Darth Vader-style character from the 1987 parody “Spaceballs.”

Bloomberg had compared Trump to Vader with a video from the movie “Star Wars.”

“Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary…THREE DAYS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote, referring to Warren’s previous claims of Native American ancestry. “She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas. Probably cost him the nomination! Came in third in Mass.”

The Fox News Town Hall was Trump’s first town hall of the campaign season. It was also Trump’s first discussion with Baier and Martha MacCallum since interviews in June 2018 and April 2017.

Somewhere, in this great country, a Liberal is “clutching his pearls”, upset that President Trump was “so mean”.

That’s just too bad.

Liberals had it easy for several years during the Bush Administration because Dubya refused to fight back against all of the Democrats’ insults and demeaning slander, even while the Main Stream Media was using it to cast doubt about his competence in the minds of American citizens.

Then there were the Obama Years, during which Vichy Republicans in Congress refused to fight for US.

And now, after three years of the most horrible personal attacks a leader could imagine, President Donald J. Trump is still standing tall…and fighting back.

This is not the Victorian Age and this is not Britain.

This is America, a country hewn out of hardships faced by rugged individualists who made a way for themselves and their family in this brave new world across the sea.

Can you imagine what Davy Crockett, who represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives would have said about the likes of Pelosi, Schiff, and Nadler? Or, what he might have said about Schumer threatening the Supreme Court Justices?

It would not be “genteel”, I can tell you that

And most of it would probably not have been repeatable.

Yesterday, after Senator Mitch McConnell called Senator Church Schumer on the carpet for his threats against Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Schumer responded with a half apology, half-rant, still attempting to blame his behavior on the Republicans.

Schumer blamed the way that he sounded at the Abortion Rally on the fact that he was a New Yorker and was blunt.

Well, President Trump is a New Yorker, too.

So, the only conclusion that I can come to is that Democrats can dish it out but they can’t take it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Rush Blasts Establishment Republicans for Not Standing Behind Trump and Celebrating “Victory” of Mueller Report

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“The fact that the Republican Party, there are still many people in there that — like Mitt Romney, says he was sickened, oh, he was sickened by what he read in the Mueller report. This is the same guy, Mitt Romney, who they said didn’t care when an employee’s wife died of cancer; same guy that they said didn’t pay his taxes for 10 years. The same guy who they said beat up somebody in prep school. The same guy who said he had a file of nothing but women. They destroyed Mitt Romney, and here he is on their side. What does that tell you?”

FoxNews.com reports that

Democrats still do not understand how Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, says talk titan Rush Limbaugh, host of ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show.’

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh didn’t mince words while addressing multiple issues Tuesday on “The Story with Martha MacCallum” but his strongest hits were aimed at Republicans who had yet to fully jump on the President Trump bandwagon.

“Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, we are not in politics. We are media titans, but we are not in politics. It is the party of Donald Trump right now, and the Republicans that don’t realize that had better get on board,” Limbaugh said, reacting to a New York Times op-ed by Joe Lockhart, a press secretary to then-President Bill Clinton.

“Republicans today are the party of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — a coalition that, in the face of every demographic trend in America, will mean the long-term realignment of the federal government behind the Democrats,” Lockhart wrote Monday.

Limbaugh said Lockhart’s words were an example of frustration within the Democrats.

“They haven’t been able to ‘defeat me’ in 30 years. They can’t defeat Trump. They haven’t been able to stop him, and I think they are frustrated. They have thrown every weapon they have in their arsenal at Donald Trump, and nothing’s worked. Things they’ve used over the years that have been readily available to get rid and take out any Republican they want, they have bounced off of Trump,” Limbaugh told Martha MacCallum.

Limbaugh criticized the Republican party for not fully standing behind Trump and celebrating his “victory” when the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released. He also noted that Trump wasn’t just taking on the Democratis but was battling the Washington establishment — including Republicans.

“Where’s the Republican party with the celebratory emails to their voters? Even fund-raising, or just celebrating the victory, where are they? You don’t hear them. The reason is, Martha, because this is a battle not between two parties, this is a battle between the Washington establishment and the deep state, I call them the administrative state, and outsiders and Americans who feel disenfranchised or unattached,” Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh also went after Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, for saying he was “sickened” by the president’s actions as documented in the Mueller report.

“There is no reason not to get behind him unless you don’t like his voters, and that is where I think the key to understanding this is,” Limbaugh said

Per usual, El Rushbo absolutely nails it.

Trump is the first non-politician since our nation’s early days to become the President of the United States of America.

A bunch of Never-Trumpers who were in in the Republican Party,  such as Paul Ryan, left Congress before the 2018 Midterm Elections. offended that a rank outsider somehow became our 45th President.

To put it bluntly, those Washington Insiders on both sides of the Political Aisle who are so offended by President Trump are the ones who put him in office.

Anger has played an important part in the forging of this great country.

It was anger that formed our country….an anger over being held captive to “Taxation Without Representation”…an anger which, as a prime example of history repeating itself, led Americans to choose a Citizen Statesman for their 45th President over a Professional Politician.

It is this anger, which also propelled Donald J. Trump to his victory in the Republican Primary Race…and those who prefer the Washingtonian Status Quo seem to have forgotten that fact.

That is why the Republican Establishment, at least some of them, continue to “bite the hand that feeds them”, attacking President Trump on a regular basis.

The funny thing is, for all of their angst and “concern”, if they had not accepted the reality of his Primary Victory, and the fact that Americans were angry, they would have gone down to defeat in 2016 and the company would be suffering under the oppressive rule of President Hillary Clinton.

The Republican Establishment would have never achieved victory by once again trying to push the Jello of “Liberal Moderation” up a hill.

Please reference the failed campaign of Jeb! Bush.

The American people were tired of Political Correctness and anti-American political expediencies being forced down our throats by both political parties and trumpeted by their lackeys in the Main Stream Media.

Donald Trump, for all of his brashness and braggadocio, was a breath of free air and, quite frankly an anomaly. He was not a professional politician. He was a businessman who wanted to become a public servant.

And, so far, what he has accomplished as President while being the subject of a 2-year Witch Hunt has demonstrated that he was up to the challenge.

During his actions since taking office, we have seen Trump exemplify leadership ability and a concern for our country that we did not from his predecessor.

Meanwhile, those on the left are still participating in National Temper Tantrum, as if they have the power to overthrow our Constitution and to end Trump’s Presidency for no reason other than they do not like him.

And, the Never-Trumpers in the GOP Elite would gladly help them.

Unfortunately for the Deep State Operatives within our Intelligence Agencies, Special Counsel Mueller DID NOT find any collusion between Trump and the Russians…plus Attorney General William Barr is beginning an investigation into how Mueller’s Witch Hunt got started.

And to those Republicans who would rather stand with the Democrats than stand up for a Republican President, it is time for you to go ahead and get it over with and switch parties, go stand with your Democrat Friends, and then sit down and shut up.

It’s not about what you want anymore.

It is about what us average Americans want.

Until He Comes,

KJ