March 17, 2015

"I wrote a piece attacking Fox for not being the opposition on immigration and amnesty — for filling up the airwaves with reports on ISIS and terrorism..."

"... and not fulfilling their responsibility of being the opposition on amnesty and immigration. I posted it at 6:30 in the morning. When I got up, Tucker had taken it down. He said, 'We can't trash Fox on the site. I work there.'... He said it was a rule, and he wouldn't be able to change that rule. So I told him I quit... I just don't see how you can put out a publication with that kind of giant no-go area. It's not like we're owned by Joe's Muffler Shop, so we just can't write about Joe's Muffler shop. t's a larger problem on the right: Everybody is scared of Fox... Fox is their route to a high-profile public image and in some cases stardom. Just to be on a Fox show is a big deal. And I think that's a problem on the right, Fox's monopoly on star-making power."

Said Mickey Kaus. 

The Daily Caller has always been pretty bad. Except for Mickey.

70 comments:

Ron said...

I like Kaus a lot, and good for him quitting over this, but he does seem to go through a lot of publishers.

traditionalguy said...

Si Senor. El Patron Ailes gusta audiencia parte.

D. said...

the megaphone for the win

http://www.unz.com/isteve/

chickelit said...

Sounds like Tucker Carlson had stars in his eyes. Too bad he just lost his integrity.

Spread Eagle said...

That site is very buggy and poorly designed.

Hagar said...

Mickey Kaus has a one-string banjo.

David said...

So what does Tucker say?

And by the way, if the other networks hired any potential stars, perhaps Fox would not have a monopoly on star-making.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Only a liberal could be surprised to learn the Fox has a pro-amnesty stance.

Known Unknown said...

I've always liked Kaus. Wish he would write a little more about cars, though.

traditionalguy said...

Ailes has the Producer's casting Midas touch. He knows TV talent.

Speaking of talent, Ann Coulter when asked for her opinion on the GOP field said that she hates them all except for Scott Walker.

Anonymous said...

It's not a problem on the right, it's a problem on the left.

IF the left didn't have such a monopoly on the news media and journalism in general, Fox wouldn't have a monopoly on the right.

Big Mike said...

I think Daily Caller is wonderful, and I especially enjoy Jim Treacher sticking in the knife and giving it a little twist. Not to mention "Guns and Gear." As for Kaus, well, there's only one string on his violin.

Qwerty Smith said...

This is foolish if it is true, even perhaps from a marketing standpoint. Lots of opinion media exists to (1) enable us to enjoy a two-minutes hate, while (2) letting us convince ourselves that we are becoming better informed. The occasional discordant note (e.g., Jon Stewart criticizing a Democrat) serves both goals by making us feel like we are more open-minded than the yahoos on the other side. Getting caught silencing those notes ruins the whole effect by forcing the audience to see that they have been attending a pep rally all along. Shame on the DC, and shame on me for occasionally reading it. I'm deleting it from my bookmarks.

averagejoe said...

Tucker Carlson is what The Boston Herald's conservative gadfly Howie Carr would call "a bow-tied bum-kisser".

Paul said...

So Kaus 'thinks' that cause he has this pro-amnesty stance that Fox HAS to take the anti-amnesty stance?

And if Kaus is pro-immigration then Fox HAS to be anti-immigration?

Didn't know there was some kind of law or rule on how one's views are dictated by a liberal.

Michael K said...

This is as bad for Daily Caller and Fox as the NRO firing of John Derbyshire over his column for his kids per race.

His kids are Eurasian by the way.

Amnesty is a deal killer for the base. Only the Chamber of Commerce types are for it. The H1B visas are hollowing out the entire tech industry.

The Edison story in LA is not going away.

The utility has a large IT department. In 2012, before any layoffs, it had about 1,800 employees, plus an additional 1,500 contract workers.

Computerworld interviewed, separately, four affected SCE IT employees. They agreed to talk on the condition that their names not be used.

The IT employees at SCE are "beyond furious," said a second IT worker.

The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill.

"Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said.


This is not illegals climbing the fence.

Beldar said...

I'm a fan of Mr. Kaus, and even donated to his primary campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from California. I enjoy reading his stuff, and respect him, although I agree with him only occasionally, and on some topics, never at all.

I'd like to hear Mr. Carlson's response before drawing any conclusions or assigning any blame.

But his departure would certainly be one less reason for me to ever browse the Daily Caller's website.

chickelit said...

Michael K wrote:

The H1B visas are hollowing out the entire tech industry.

This. It's the biggest potential wedge issue that Dems have against the Republican establishment and yet the Dems refuse to raise the issue politically. i surmise from this that a certain amount of collusion is going on.

In a nutshell, Democratic Party immigration policies are squeezing up the middle class from the bottom and Republican ones are squeezing down from the top. Democrats want votes and power; Republicans want money and power.

Gahrie said...

Tucker had every right to kill the story, and Kaus had every right to quit because of it.

Revenant said...

So Kaus 'thinks' that cause he has this pro-amnesty stance that Fox HAS to take the anti-amnesty stance?

And if Kaus is pro-immigration then Fox HAS to be anti-immigration?

Calling Kaus "pro-amnesty" is like calling Rush Limbaugh "pro-Obama".

chickelit said...

Hagar said...
Mickey Kaus has a one-string banjo

Which string -- G, D, G, B , or D?

Guildofcannonballs said...

I tried to get Mark Steyn fired from NRO.

Steyn is one of the greatest writers I've ever read. He is a very respectable replacement of WFB, unlike Lowry.

But Steyn's singular support for K. Shaidle, whom as an object of this sentence--not the subjects--libeled WFB (in fact I maintain Steyn is the only reason for her prominence (prominunce) today, and yeah you think my choice of prominence is a reason to joke: ha ha my grammar is worse) so his ass should have been fired from NRO for supporting lies about William Frank Buckley Junior.

Treating genius writers, true day-in-and-day-out writers, differently than others is just.

Treating employees or contractors who "trash" the doggie-of-large-proortions-paying-the paychecks isn't quite dog/bites/man.

Revenant said...

This. It's the biggest potential wedge issue that Dems have against the Republican establishment and yet the Dems refuse to raise the issue politically.

The tech industry is dominated by Democrats. That's why they don't use it as a wedge issue.

The big mystery is why Republican politicians keep pushing it. It brings in future Democratic voters to help Democratic donors make more money. Sigh.

The worst part of it is that you really can't get good workers from India for bargain prices anymore. The Indians you get for bargain prices are like the Americans you get for bargain prices here, only with worse accents.

Guildofcannonballs said...

You gonna treat an 80 IQ as everyone else?

If so that results in cruelty. If you're IQ is above 81 you ought know this through the experiences of childhood and experience subsequently henceforth.

If not let's start the talk: you're an idiot with so little sympathy as to lack a concept of life and your humans in it to do only other than your bidding, however extravagantly made up.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Fox, as in Vincente, is, with italics, oh fuck it I'll just do it is!, the damn opposition on immigration and amnesty, the difference being silly little old geography. QUOTE FOX YOU IDIOTS. ASK HIM BREITBART, YOU ARE A NEWS ORGANIZATION I HEAR. I HEARD IT ALL ON LEVIN, SO ASK MEXICO'S FOX.

Now let's get this Ted Cruz to whip this into something prominently specialized to his Harvard Law extents.

Now's the time; the time she is now.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Maybe my axiom should be bitching is easier than solutions with tangibleness in play.

Anyway, like Levin says 3rd party yeah there's 50 of em jackass.

You're gonna start number 51?

WTF?

Just do it and shut up.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"oh but we can't quote V.F. he'll come back and attack us!" - says the cowards.

The Divisions have entered monthly for years, unlike the Popes.

The Popes Divisions, and I don't mean Ireland's Catholics saving civilization you hictgnorant guppies of pop culture.

mccullough said...

Kaus was the main reason I browse the DC a few times a week. There are a few stories you read there you don't find anywhere else, but I find most of it just panders to cartoonish conservatives.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I haven't forgotten yet the $5 per month I made to this Althousian Experience.

I hate myself, not in the cutesy song way, for wanting to donate here.

It's a celebration of my lack of understanding of The Last Psychiatrist, which, amongst the litteny you'll find other examples no doubt as your drive to looking increases, per the biblical admonition "the more I tried to sate the hunger the stronger was such intensified" or something or other.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Christ I had an epiphany.

Abe Lincoln didn't start the Republican Party, but I do not believe, not for a heartbeat, that any party started, no matter how I might even start my own party, could end up as successful as Abe's party.

Let's think of the shits that would start our "don't fuck people and be fair" party.

They are losers forgoten.

Humanity, without God which we don't have and MOST CERTAINLY cannot argue with, counts arguments lost (including 100 million souls, born documented, attesting it to this day and far, far beyond) otherwise (in the most nonblasphemous sense mustered in the most elegant sense I can hope muster could mean to women and men of goodwill) than God.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Being put on war footing in 2000 by the Left in order to destroy America, America needs not facilitation of horror, but persons who don't starve brown kids to win in Iowa.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Being too happy and content to care, blessing it with God as convenient, Americans are surely do an uprising of faith based on the ideals we are founded with.

The Chinese call this interesting, as I should like to think they would.

William said...

I believe that if you look really hard you can find some sites that are critical of Fox News.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I have determined I must contribute to this.

I feel sad.

My brain doesn't properly work I guess.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"The big mystery is why Republican politicians keep pushing it."
Do a little research, Revenant. Look up the United States Chamber of Commerce, its policy positions, and the amount of money that they steer to GOP candidates.

Guildofcannonballs said...

The reasons to kill me still abound after all my efforts.

richard mcenroe said...

Wait a minute! Tucker Carlson, the man who aired the Mike Tyson "I want to rape Sarah Palin" ESPN interview, made an error in judgment? Who could POSSIBLY have seen that coming?

Guildofcannonballs said...

The reasons I live supersede all those, each and every single one reason that could kill me but hasn't.

I feel dumb for thinking dumbness profound, yet experience wrought s not thinking so much as lack of preparation.

Glenn Beck could never understand the wealthiest and hence is perfectly apt to demonstrate without the "demons" nor the "trate."

Stock up y'all, there's sanctity to be had by Beck but moreso knowledgeable know Whittle.

Who Hewtt and his buddy Drug Zcar Billy Bennett make me happy. Their honesty, in parts, but not the whole, is their downfall and the pro-let's-just-drug-all-kids-except-if-they-see-pot movement condemns them to the Hell of all those addicts they war against.

Bobby Jindal.

Drug Warrior, because, hey, Nancy said "Just Say No" and she locked up generations, so why can't Bobby and Hugh and Billy Bennett do the same?

Don't you fools know history?

And Ted Cruz, who doesn't support Iowa corn killers or 10th Amendment rapists like Hugh Hewitt and his Fascist (Billy I know what the state ruining lives means through whatever means necessary and I hope you never ever know Sir cause your service is so Adrmirable Secratary) Enforcers are paid to enact.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Scott Walker is cool with corn prices rising becuase WE (including Rh) burn it through no willingness delibrite of our own; Scott Walker sadistically enjoys brown babies starving.

No joke.

Idiocy is no excuse when it comes to the rich fat white Iowa corn growers demanding dead brown babies be enjoined.

Fuck Scott Walker, brown baby killer.

Literrally.

Yeah

Yea

Ye

I spelt it wrong.

Didn't burn babies food though: never.

Anonymous said...

Scott Walker is going to have to do something about his terrible hair dye. Sorry to be so superficial, but his hair is too dark and ratty/unsmooth for it to look natural and, like a jhs girl's bright pink streaks in algebra class, it makes it hard to concentrate.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Now how could clouding my truth...


"

I had something really great there.

It was there, I had it.

Too.

Revenant said...

Do a little research, Revenant. Look up the United States Chamber of Commerce, its policy positions, and the amount of money that they steer to GOP candidates.

Thanks, Mr. States-the-Obvious. I know the CoC is pro-H1B and gives money to Republicans.

It doesn't give enough to make their support for the program sensible for their election prospects, though. Every time Republicans come out in favor of this stuff they pay for it at the ballot box. Campaign cash doesn't do you any good if you lose the elections.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Without Christianity I am nothing but evil.

This is a warning.


Kill me now: best I don't repopulate.

Christianate.

Once I find that blond.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Scott Walker sadistically enjoys brown babies starving.

This is a fact.

The fact anyone defending Walker is too stupid to understand the fact is a fact.

Fact is Walker is ready for his children to do whatever; lots of folks aren't.

Mr. D said...

I would like to see what Carlson has to say about it. I do like Kaus.

tim maguire said...

How is FOX's responsibility on this issue any different from any other news source? Mickey might be right to quit over this, but he's wrong to single out FOX for not supporting his pet issue.

tim maguire said...

Paul, you obviously have no idea who Mickey Kaus is, but even granting that, your comment makes no sense. Why would Kaus attack FOX News for agreeing with him?

Rusty said...

I want what NotquiteunBuckley has been having.
Just not as much as he's had.

lonetown said...

"He who pays the piper calls the tune."

Doesn't work for a news organization.

tim in vermont said...

I just realized that I haven't watched Fox in months. Probably not since the election, but I read Mickey Kaus a lot.

Mickey Kaus has a one-string banjo.

Lately. But even within his chosen subject area, he finds some subtle stuff nobody else is saying.

Tank said...

Carlson works for Fox. Carlson owns the Daily Caller. Carlson does not want his writers criticizing his boss. This makes sense. There are a million places to criticize Fox; the Daily Caller is not one of them. Kaus can go write where he feels comfortable and can write what he wants.

Don't construe the above as any kind of endorsement of Fox in general. It's certainly better than ... everything else on TV ... but that's a pretty low bar.

Carlson has not been reluctant to state the above policy about Fox.

Saint Croix said...

Tucker Carlson is a whore. Yes, yes, he wears a bow tie. Still a whore, though. Bought and paid for little slut. That's you, boy.

Saint Croix said...

Mickey Kaus is liberalism at its best. Liberals are reckless with money. Mickey Kaus is reckless with money, too. His own money. His own financial situation. He's risking that, sacrificing money for higher goals. He's inspiring.

Tucker Carlson is conservatism at its worst. Conservatives play safe with money. Tucker is thinking about money, his own money. He sacrifices truth, honesty and openness because money is so important to him.

SeanF said...

Althouse: The Daily Caller has always been pretty bad. Except for Mickey.

Big Mike already mentioned him, but how can you not like Treacher?

Christy said...

The Daily Caller needs to hire some of those foreign IT people to get their site working. Kaus and Treacher are why I once read it, but they aren't worth the struggle to get to their stories.

Anonymous said...

Michael K: The Edison story in LA is not going away

If only. The stuff going on at Edison has been going on for decades, all over the country. There's always a brief spasm of local outrage, indignant comments from shocked people who are apparently unaware of this common practice, and then you never hear anything more about it outside of niche publications like Computerworld (where the writer you link, Patrick Thibodeau, has been crying in the wilderness about it for years).

Meanwhile, everybody is nodding along to some congressman or Presidential candidate reading press releases from the CoC about our terrible shortage in STEM skills and how we're all going to freeze to death in the dark and revert to Stone Age conditions if we don't pump up the visa mill to 11.

This is not illegals climbing the fence.

Nobody who matters wants to do anything about that, either, so I don't know why people are slamming Kaus for being a johnny-one-note on this issue.

Known Unknown said...

The Indians you get for bargain prices are like the Americans you get for bargain prices here, only with worse accents.

We outsourced most of our IT to India. I hope it's extremely cheap, because the support is horrendous.

phantommut said...

As usual, Mickey is correct.

That's why he goes through so many publishers.

Thorley Winston said...

It’s a little unclear to me but it seems like Kaus isn’t upset at FOX for being “pro-amnesty” – he’s criticizing them for devoting more airtime to covering ISIS and terrorism than the immigration issue. At least that’s how I read the excerpt Althouse posted.

FedkaTheConvict said...

This just proves that Rush is correct when he refers to Tucker Carlson as Chatsworth Osbourne Jr.
Carlson uses his weekend TV gig to drive readers to his website.

Anonymous said...

Good for Kaus, if his account is accurate. But I suspect Tucker Carlson will dispute some aspects of that account.

lgv said...

Tucker Carlson is the Ezra Klein of the right, or maybe the Josh Marshall of the right.

Tucker actually has a better resume than the other two I mentioned, but they all make me question the value of these "pundits" or writers or whatever you want to call them.

After a while, you realize their thinking is no more profound than the average Althouse commenter.

Jason said...

Chickelit: Which string -- G, D, G, B , or D?

Not all banjos have five strings.

End tenor banjo shaming.

Stop the hate.

damikesc said...

I actually like DC, but if they pull punches, then they are useless.

If Tucker loses his FNC gig due to criticizing FNC, then that would be quite sad and upsetting. But him biting his tongue to protect it is far, far sadder.

Amnesty is a deal killer for the base. Only the Chamber of Commerce types are for it. The H1B visas are hollowing out the entire tech industry.

It'd be a huge boon for the Republicans and kill most of the remaining white working class support for Dems if a Republican supported this.

I'm at the point where I support high minimum wages. Fuck the Chamber of Commerce.

It doesn't give enough to make their support for the program sensible for their election prospects, though. Every time Republicans come out in favor of this stuff they pay for it at the ballot box. Campaign cash doesn't do you any good if you lose the elections.

These same clowns support giving Hollywood and the music industry insane IP laws to keep churning out money...to give to Democrats primarily.

The Republican establishment is laden with idiots who are little different than Democrats.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I only went to the Daily Caller to read Kaus (and an occassional click-bait firearm post) and the site itself seemed badly designed. Treacher's tweets are often funny but you can get those from an Instapundit link.

Kaus is an independent thinker and a valuable voice--his blog was one of the first I followed regularly and I stayed with BloggingHeads as long as I did primarly for his segments.

I encourage everyone to read his book "The End of Equality" (available through the Althouse Amazon portal, I'm sure)--it's a bit dated (w/r/t descriptions of the parties/political players) but the underpining ideas are sound and in a way ever more relevant today.

Sigivald said...

Kudos on Kaus for standing up to that.

On the other hand, I've never understood his near-obsession with immigration/amnesty.

I basically stopped reading his Caller content because it was all-amnesty-all-the-time, and even worse, mostly inside-baseball stuff about it.

Go back to general politics, Mickey!

(I mean, sure, talk amnesty and immigration sometimes. Just, Jesus, not all the time for years on end.)

Sigivald said...

Paul said: So Kaus 'thinks' that cause he has this pro-amnesty stance that Fox HAS to take the anti-amnesty stance?

And if Kaus is pro-immigration then Fox HAS to be anti-immigration?


Kaus is anti-amnesty, at least in my reading of his endless posts of it over the past two years, tiresome as they were at the time.

He's not demanding Fox oppose him - he's demanding they oppose the Left media bloc on a currently partisan issue, and one where he thinks opposition is justified in itself, as he thinks an amnesty is bad policy.

Which makes more sense, since that's kinda Fox's entire raison d'etre, as self-promoted.

CatherineM said...

The only show I watch on Fox is Special Report and RedEye. I am always disappointed when Tucker is on, especially RedEye. He is so shrill and his reactions to what others will say on a panel always seem to be in an effort to get the camera to switch to him

DLS said...

The Mickey Kaus column that Tucker Carlson spiked:
http://www.kausfile.com/2015/03/18/fox-makes-it-easy-for-amnesty/

Bad Lieutenant said...

-WFB,

What do you think the real WFB would say, looking at your sorry ass?

Why don't you straighten up and fly right? I don't oppose your views, hard to do when I can barely discern them. I oppose your going full retard. Please, there might be some decent thought in there trying to get out. Talk normal. If this is normal, get help. It's tiring.