ABC, which canceled its “Roseanne” revival over its star’s racist tweet, said it will air a Conner family sitcom minus Roseanne Barr this fall, Politico reports.
“ABC ordered 10 episodes of the spinoff after Barr relinquished any creative or financial participation in it, which the network had said was a condition of such a series.”
“Charles Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist and intellectual provocateur who championed the muscular foreign policy of neoconservatism that helped lay the ideological groundwork for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, died June 21 at 68,” the Washington Post reports.
The Daily Show did a little comparison with a North Korea-Fox News “progagnda-off.”
“President Trump’s top allies in the media have struggled this week to formulate a coherent defense of his administration’s immigration crackdown, oscillating between talking points to provide the president cover for the widely-condemned zero-tolerance policy that has resulted in children being separated from their parents at the southern border,” CNN reports.
“Members of the pro-Trump media seemed to share the same goal: Fending off an onslaught of criticism directed at the White House by members of both political parties. But the ways in which each defender has gone about doing this differed, ranging from falling back on tropes and arguments often employed by white nationalists, to portraying immigrants as threats, to outright dismissing the controversy as part of a fictitious plot.”
The DNC and members of Congress “are turning to Hollywood for help with voter turnout and messaging ahead of the midterm elections and 2020 presidential campaign, quietly consulting with a group of actors, writers and producers here,” Politico reports.
“DNC Chairman Tom Perez, several House members and other top elected officials have already met with the group, formed by members of the entertainment industry in the wake of the 2016 election, that participants liken to a TV writers’ room, complete with producers of such programs as Veep.”
Said writer and producer Alex Gregory: “It really is focused on what do we stand for? In some ways, how did we lose? It is a moment of soul searching right now in that, we lost to an insane person and that was more appealing that what we had to offer.”
President Trump’s first sit-down television interview after his historic summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is expected to be with his friend and confidant, Fox News host Sean Hannity, Axios reports.
Hannity is already in Singapore.
After a battle with cancer, Charles Krauthammer writes that he only has a few weeks to live.
I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.
Sean Hannity sarcastically advised witnesses in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to “follow Hillary Clinton’s lead” and destroy their personal phones before handing them over to prosecutors, The Hill reports.
Said Hannity: “Maybe Mueller’s witnesses, I don’t know. If I advised them to follow Hillary Clinton’s lead, delete all your emails and then acid-wash your emails and hard drives on the phones, then take your phones and bash them with a hammer to little itsy bitsy pieces, use BleachBit, remove the sim cards and then take the pieces and hand them over to Robert Mueller, and say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, this is equal justice under the law.”
Rudy Giuliani was interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News:
GIULIANI: And they — boy, they are switching fast and the Democrats are running for cover. You don’t hear them say the word impeachment anymore. I challenge Maxine Waters to say impeachment.
HANNITY: Say it.
GIULIANI: Say it. Say impeachment, sweetheart. Just say it.
HANNITY: Wow.
ABC canceled its hit sitcom “Roseanne” on Tuesday after the show’s biggest star, Roseanne Barr, went on a racist Twitter rant, CNN reports.
Barr had posted a comment about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett that said if “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”
According to Variety, series co-star Sara Gilbert condemned Barr’s comments: “Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show. I am disappointed in her actions to say the least. This is incredibly sad and difficult for all of us.”
“President Trump falsely accused the New York Times on Saturday of making up a source in an article about North Korea, even though the source was in fact a senior White House official speaking to a large group of reporters in the White House briefing room,” the New York Times reports.
New York Times: “More than five years after one of the most horrific mass shootings in modern history, the families of Sandy Hook victims are still enduring daily threats and online abuse from people who believe bogus theories spread by Mr. Jones, whom President Trump has praised for his “amazing” reputation.”
“In three separate lawsuits — the most recent was filed on Wednesday in Superior Court in Bridgeport, Conn. — the families of eight Sandy Hook victims as well as an F.B.I. agent who responded to the shooting seek damages for defamation. The families allege in one suit… that Mr. Jones and his colleagues ‘persistently perpetuated a monstrous, unspeakable lie: that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, and that the families who lost loved ones that day are actors who faked their relatives’ deaths.'”
“60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl told an awards dinner that President Trump once told her that he attacks the press so no one will believe the negative stories written about him.
Said Stahl: “I said, ‘You know that is getting tired, why are you doing this? You are doing it over and over, it’s boring, it’s time to end that. You won the nomination, why do you keep hammering at this?'”
Responded Trump: “You know why I do it? I do it to demean you all and discredit you all, so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
“It means calling out actual ‘fake news’ when we see it, and supporting brave journalists and their reporting, maybe even by subscribing to a newspaper.”
— Hillary Clinton, speaking about “democratic resilience” at Yale’s Class Day over the weekend.
Dahlia Lithwick: “In other words, if you work in media, you would be well within your rights to have had a tequila shot with your breakfast every day this week. It’s all just terribly sick and sad and the constant stream makes it hard not to be sick and sad all the time. We’ve long since stopped describing news consumption as drinking from a firehose. It went from firehose to tidal wave a year ago. Nevertheless, we’ve persisted.”
“Perhaps the most common refrain journalists hear from strangers is ‘I feel bad for you. I feel sad that following all this is your job.’ The truth of the matter is that there is not enough hazard pay in the world. It’s hard not to want to shut it all off and just hope that some combination of Michael Avenatti, Bob Mueller, and the 2018 elections might restore normalcy. Normalcy would be nice, because weeks and months of being the head/desk emoji is hazardous to one’s mental health. Our brains, messed up from all that banging, still know something is amiss. It feels like the only way to exert any control at all over the insanity would be the capacity to turn it off.”
“And, of course, turning it off is exactly what a president who wants to kill the news is hoping for.”