Mostly Monday Reads: All Tuckered Out!!!

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Fox gave Tuckums the boot today.  All bets are on as to where he goes now.  The best thing is that it will be a channel in the right-wing propaganda desert and not at Fox.  This is from Jeremy Barr and Sarah Ellison, writing for the Washington Post. “Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News after Dominion lawsuit disclosures. The bombastic conservative was the network’s most-watched prime-time host. Private communications made public in a recent lawsuit revealed his sharp criticism of Fox management.”

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

The obviously sudden departure — Carlson gave no indication he was leaving in his last appearance Friday, and the network was still running promos for his show this morning — came less than a week after Fox settled a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the network for false claims about the 2020 election. Carlson was among several on-air personalities expected to testify.

Many of Carlson’s private messages were released in motions filed by Dominion, revealing that the host was skeptical of many of the election-fraud claims made on-air by Trump-affiliated attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.

But it was Carlson’s comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case, that played a role in his departure from Fox, a person familiar with the company’s thinking told The Post.

Notably, Carlson was not allowed back on air to say goodbye to the mammoth audience he had amassed in his years as a primetime host.

This is from Aiden McLaughlin at Mediaite. “BREAKING: Tucker Carlson OUT at Fox News in Shocking Shakeup.”   (You would not believe the number of headlines with some form of shock in them.)

Carlson found himself embroiled in serious controversy throughout his time at Fox News. In recent weeks, a lawsuit from a former booker at the network, Abby Grossberg, accused Carlson’s staff of making anti-Semitic jokes, liberal use of the word “cunt” in the office, and casual misogyny.

Sources at Fox News told Mediaite the news hit like a bomb inside the network, shocking even staffers close to the ex-prime time host.

CNN’s news is being totally buried by the news of the fall of Tuckums. Mediaite also has this breaking news.  “BREAKING: Don Lemon Announces Firing From CNN in Scathing Statement Blasting Network Leadership.”

CNN This Morning host Don Lemon announced on Monday that he has been terminated at the network.

Lemon announced his firing on Twitter, blasting the network’s management and saying “it is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”

“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought 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. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play. With that said, I want to thank my colleagues and the many teams I have worked with for an incredible run. They are the most talented journalists in the business, and I wish them all the best.”

Lemon’s firing was confirmed by CNN Chairman Chris Licht in a company memo, which was also shared in part by the network’s PR team …

Well, this is certainly an interesting double-header of sorts.  But, another drama continues on Twitter.  Everyone has the Blue Check Blues there.

Here are some interesting headings.

“These celebrities ‘subscribed to Twitter Blue.’ Except they’re dead.”   This is from the Washington Post.

“Twitter Restores Blue Check Marks For Many High-Profile Accounts—But Some Celebrities Don’t Want Them.”  This is from Forbes.

I couldn’t resist this one via Alex Kirshner at Slate.  “Elon Musk’s Weekend-Long Masterclass in Business Failure.”

It’s not that easy to get a hold of LeBron James’ people. Few celebrities are accessible, but James occupies a rarefied stratum of fame in which even getting his representatives to acknowledge you on some matter or another isn’t a given for most reporters. There are thousands of journalists and millions of other people who would like to ask LeBron something at any given time. Many reporters with serious questions might not even be able to obtain a no comment.

So consider what it must have taken for a reporter from the Verge, a technology website that has essentially nothing to do with the NBA, to quickly get a concise, newsmaking response from James’ people on Thursday. LeBron had previously tweeted that he would not pay for Twitter Blue, the subscription product that Elon Musk is now hawking in order to make a tiny dent in Twitter’s financial woes while alienating large numbers of the platform’s users. But when “legacy” verification check marks started to disappear on April 20, as the emoji purportedly became exclusive to paying subscribers, LeBron’s check did not disappear. He or his retinue apparently wanted to be rapidly clear with a Verge reporter about this fact:

LeBron’s media adviser then went on the record that James did not pay, and Musk confirmed thereafter that he was paying for some Blue subscriptions himself, upsetting some of his new fans, who are incensed that their populist champion has decided celebrities should get for free a product for which the plebs pay $8 a month. But the celebs look even less happy. On Saturday night, many accounts with more than 1 million followers—maybe all of them—were slapped with Twitter Blue subscription badges. Dead people got them too, with Musk or someone on his team deciding that Anthony Bourdain, Kobe Bryant, and Jamal Khashoggi should be branded as having paid for Twitter. Living famous people worked furiously to let people know that they had not paid for checks. Chrissy Teigen figured out that by changing her Twitter handle, she could make it go away. Lil Nas X swears “on [his] soul” that he did not buy Twitter Blue. Jason Alexander is exasperated. Sorta-famous media and political figures offered similar clarifications. CNN’s Daniel Dale noted the restored check mark on his account (which has since been unrestored) and said: “Obviously did not do this.”

So, here is a new poll concerning Women’s Reproductive Care.   First, this is a new Marist Poll. “Medication Abortions and the U.S. Supreme Court. NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll. Nearly Two in Three Oppose Banning Abortion Pill… Many Believe in FDA’s Final Approval of Prescription Drugs.”

With the U.S. Supreme Court weighing in on access to mifepristone, a prescription drug used to perform medication abortions, nearly two in three Americans say they oppose laws which ban access to medication abortions, and many believe federal judges should not have the right to overturn the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a prescription drug. The Supreme Court’s decision comes at a time when Americans’ confidence in the Court is at a low, and nearly seven in ten residents nationally say justices appointed to the Supreme Court should have limits placed on their tenure on the Bench. These findings are part of a larger survey on the issue of abortion which will be released on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

Here is a new poll out of Arizona that has me in stitches from Laura Bassett at Jezebel.  “Kyrsten Sinema Has a Net Favorability of -23, Per New Statewide Poll.”

A new poll out of Arizona by a well-trusted, independent national pollster, Public Policy Polling, shows that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I) stands to lose re-election badly in virtually any potential matchup this November and is deeply unpopular among voters.

The survey results, first obtained by Jezebel via an internal Ruben Gallego campaign memo, show that just 27 percent of voters in the state view Sinema favorably and want her to run again, compared to 50 percent of Arizonans who view her unfavorably and 54 percent who say she shouldn’t run again. Rep. Gallego (D-Ariz.), her likely Democratic challenger, has a net positive favorability, with 39 percent of voters approving of him and 28 percent disapproving.

I have to say it’s a pretty good news day for a Monday these days.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?