John Oliver explains Tucker Carlson's lame but lucrative shtick

Taking away their FCC license to broadcast for not having facts on fact programming sounds a little more likely than suing for journalistic performance (numeracy, factuality, or equal empathy (nee impartiality,)) but I’m sometimes a bit of a noob to organizing that. A few conversations with clinical level mental sufferers, about their son, might not be a bad idea.

He is on for hours at a time; maybe send a light bowtie full of chiclets and see if he freaks out when he contracts the rainbow? He’s probably already been gifted dogecoin and started looking glorious hyperbitcoinization in the counterintuition; add traction?

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Yeah, not live so they edit stuff like this out.

ETA the fucking coward started saying “fuck” so it couldn’t be aired on American television.

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YAASSSSSS! how could i forget Bill Nye??

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Fox News is a cable network. Cable networks aren’t licensed by the FCC, and aren’t subject to FCC content regulations.

The broadcast affiliate news operations are seperate news rooms, and don’t air the opinion programs like Carlson’s so it’d be a pretty big stretch to go after those because of something on Fox News.

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He directly addresses why ignoring this asshole is dangerous. One is that he’s using white supremacist talking points, two is that his audience isn’t just made up of people who consider themselves white supremacists, and making it seem okay to believe in white supremacists views while pretending that’s not what they are.

We’ve ignored this movement for years and that’s what allowed it to become mainstream. Continuing to ignore them will only lead further down that road, with the next capitol insurrection succeeding. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I really don’t want to live in a white supremacist society. Igoring this problem does not make it go away, it allows it to fester and insinuate itself further into the body politic.

TL;DR: Tucker Carlson is one of the major figures responsible for the radicalization of large number of white, middle and upper class Americans.

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Bill Nye the Bow Tie Guy!

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It’s cable, so that’s not a legitimate out. As John Oliver proves several times an episode.

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bow-ties-cool

on certain folks

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Not even on Fox? My impression of American conservatives is that they are more comfortable with children being gunned down in school than with grown fucking adults saying fuck.

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It’s not a legal out. No call from the FCC for bad language. And at this point, with so many Faux News anchors out due to one scandal or another, they don’t have much bench strength. Tucker is their main show. If he started dropping F bombs every other word, they would roll with it.

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I didn’t actually mean legally, I wasn’t even aware that you couldn’t say fuck on broadcast television. I just mean that once you start saying fuck repeatedly in an interview it’s going to end up on the floor anyway unless it’s incredibly important for the ratings and money for the station.

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I think Jon Stewart put an end to running anything live on Carlson’s shows: https://youtu.be/GooQwKDMqcI

That was also about the time that he stopped wearing bow ties.

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FCC will fine the heck out of broadcast TV stations for profanity. There’s even the whole George Carlin bit, “The Seven Things You Can’t Say on TV”

But on cable, those forbidden things are often the draw. I mean, Oliver tries to get at least 7 per half hour show. It’s disappointing when he doesn’t.

That’s only enforced when it’s likely children will be watching. Outside of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. should be fair game. Which would be fine for Oliver, but not Tucker if it applied.

There’s a news story every time someone on SNL drops an f-bomb, none of them say they’re fined but they all imply it’s possible. Often the cast member is dropped soon after. I’m guessing it’s network and advertiser pressure.

He dropped the bow tie look in 2006, so that probably helped.

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My vintage aloha shirts feel your pain.

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Could be worse, those could conceivably become acceptable again someday. You could be stuck with a collection of expensive John Lasseter branded Hawaiian shirts which have all the stigma of regular Hawaiian shirts plus the association with Pixar’s most famous sexual harasser.

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oh crap, i have some of THOSE, too! if they are Shaheen, i’m gonna wear them anyway, and the racists militia people can just deal with my gay fabulousness.

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FCC doesn’t apply; Faux News is on cable.

ETA: FCC could start enforcing content regulations on cable, but as of right now they’ve abdicated that space for some reason. (Thanks, @smulder!)

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Watched the Oliver segment on 1.2 X speed to see what it was about while getting ready for bed yesterday. Takeaway was that TC basically took apprenticeship in the methods of Pat Buchanan after condemning those, i.e. he analysed and understood them.

And he now is a master. And has many, many apprentices. And there isn’t much to say to him except that he is an arsehole who must be fully aware of what he is doing.

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