Tuck You 🌻 🌻 🌻 🎻 🎻 🎻 🎻

Cue the Teeny Violins: Imagine being Don Lemon, you work for CNN for 17 years, get canned and the story of your dismissal is nothing more than a footnote to a way bigger one, the firing of Fox’s Tucker Carlson. It’s not just Lemon whose story was swallowed up by the Tucker tsunami, Jeff Shell’s dismissal was too.  Until the weekend, when Shell was fired for engaging in “inappropriate conduct with a female employee” he’d been the CEO of NBC/Universal, arguably a much bigger position than Tucker’s. But Tucker was and maybe still is a force of nature, the big Kahuna in the hate sweepstakes, so it’s worth starting with him.  No one except for the Murdochs and Fox management know exactly why he was fired but there are a few credible theories none of them related to him pushing the Great Replacement Theory or being an unrepentant bigot with an affinity for Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán.  If anything, those are the characteristics that his bosses at Fox loved and likely shared.  Rather the theories are that Tucker who didn’t see the axe coming and wasn’t told why he was kicked to the curb, was fired for some combination of the following: for seriously disparaging Fox Management during his Dominion depositions; for repeatedly using the “C” word to describe women during those depositions; for some other more damaging revelations included in the redacted to the public but known to Fox parts of the texts uncovered during the Dominion discovery process; for something related to the discrimination lawsuit by Abby Grossberg, the Fox producer who asserts that Fox lawyers told her to be inventive, as in to prevaricate, during her Dominion deposition; and because Fox is cleaning itself up in anticipation of a future sale.  Don’t feel too bad for Tucker, he’s very rich and doesn’t need to ever work again but if he wants to, he already has some options, one from Russia State Media if their tweet offer is to be taken seriously and another from right wing media outlet OANN to come by and talk.  OANN is broke so maybe they’re looking for a capital infusion in exchange for providing their platform although it’s hard to see how either OANN or that other financially strained right-wing network Newsmax could afford to hire Tucker, not just because of his compensation demands but because of the liability that would come along with him, both OANN and Newsmax are still in Dominion’s crosshairs and Smartmatic’s suit is just around the corner. Even on Fox, Tucker didn’t generate ad revenues due to the toxic nature of his drivel. It’s probably too early to say a final good-bye to Tucker but still it’s nice to see him gone from Fox, well nice for everyone but the usual characters including Eric Trump, Margie Q, Lauren Boebert and Gym Jordan and their crowd.  All of them are up in arms, calling for a Fox boycott or worse.     

Lemonade: Moving to Lemons, it turns out that Don’s shtick didn’t go over well with the morning crowd or more significantly  CNN’s new management which is kind of ironic given that it was new CEO Chris Licht who moved him from his night time slot where he was freer to express his opinions to CNN’s morning show which, according to Licht’s vision, is supposed to deliver blander, centrist news in a collegial environment.  The move didn’t work, Lemon put his foot in his mouth a few times and didn’t play well with his new compatriots Poppy Harlow and CNN’s current “it girl” Kaitlan Collins, especially with Kaitlan who started her career at the Tucker Carlson founded Daily Caller.  So, after months of what seemed like management approved leaks about Lemon being misogynistic and difficult, Licht axed him. Media being a small world, it’s reported that Tucker and Don have hired the same lawyer to represent them in what is expected to be protracted settlement “negotiations.”  Let’s not forget Jeff Shell, less well known outside of the media world but a bigly player, the now former NBC/Universal CEO got caught with his pants down, after Abu Dhabi based Hadley Gamble, a senior international correspondent at CNBC who previously worked at Fox, because everyone in media works everywhere, and who has interviewed world leaders including Putin provided messages that documented the married Shell harassing her. Apparently, Shell and Gamble had been involved to some degree for eleven or so years. Forget about fingerprints and DNA, these days it’s the texts that do you in.     

2024: President Biden made it official this morning, announcing that he’s running for reelection.  A few more polls touched down yesterday and unlike the weekend’s NBC polls that dissed Biden they show Joe beating both DeSantis and Trump in key swing states so as I said yesterday, forget about the polls, they probably mean little at this point.  DeSantis is on a world tour, trying to burnish his international creds by visiting South Korea, Japan, the UK and Israel.  Yesterday he and his wife Casey who looked like she was dressed in Disney princess attire were in Tokyo where when questioned about polls showing him behind Trump, DeSantis responded that he hadn’t even announced his run so who cares about polls.  He’s not wrong about that but his head went into full bobble mode, betraying that he really is concerned and he should be because back at home Trump received endorsements from GOP Senator and campaign chair Steve Daines as well as from NY Republican darling Lee Zeldin, the former Congressman who was a stronger than expected challenger to NY’s Governor Hochul and who is also expected to challenge NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who is up for reelection this cycle.

Fanning the Flames: As if yesterday’s news cycle wasn’t full enough Fulton County DA Fani Willis also weighed in with some plums of her own.  The bad news is that unless she’s pulling an Alvin Bragg-like fake, she won’t be indicting anyone including Trump in May, but the good news is that she will be dropping some indictments somewhere between July 11 and September 1.  That’s what she revealed in letters sent to state and local law enforcement where she told them there would be a “need for heightened security and preparedness in coming months due to a pending announcement.”