Once upon a time, Todd Starnes tried to get me fired. He raged about me on Fox News, posted it on various wingnutty sites, and made enough noise that a university lawyer contacted me to let me know that they were getting all these complaints…and also to reassure me that they had my back, and nothing I said was actionable.
So you’ll forgive me if I chortled smugly at this headline.
It’s good news, also because it makes me wonder if Fox News is getting a bit worried about their intimate association with far-right radicals and is trying to edge away a bit. Democrats may worship Moloch, but Republicans definitely worship Mammon, and their god is feeling some heat lately.
Ray Ceeya says
PZ, I been following your blog since I was in college (around 15 years ago) and I forgot about that. He actually accused you of instigating manslaughter, or maybe committing murder yourself. The fact that scum like that is set for life with a severance package (from Fox News) makes me very angry. Apparently, if you’re a crazy person on the left, you spend most of your life in borderline poverty (quietly serving the community you love), and if you’re a right wing nutcase you get to retire at 51 because you were too unhinged for Fox News.
Social Justice isn’t dead, but Trump smashed it so bad it’s on life support. FWIW, I’m not done fighting. But I am getting old and creaky.
davidc1 says
Ah ,revenge will be on the menu in the Myers household tonight ,with a side order of gloating .
Will he get replaced by another wackaloon ?
robro says
Robert Jeffress is in the news for saying the same thing, as well as hyping civil war. Perhaps Todd was aping Jeffress’s line.
nomadiq says
Probably because I’m an atheist, but suggesting Democrats worship some pagan god seems like a small spec compared to other disgusting lies this guy has offered up. Why is this the one thing that triggered Fox News?
jack lecou says
That headline is a bit of a crash blossom. At first I read it as him having been ousted for proselytizing for his Moloch cult on air, which would have been an interesting twist. “Democrats, you should just join us in worshiping our dark god, already. This month we’ll be holding special services every midnight in the bowling alley near the maternity ward. Why don’t you come check it out?” Etc.
PaulBC says
That’s a load of Molochey!
Why does he think I have to worship anything?
timgueguen says
I doubt those comments are what got him canned given the other crap heard on Fox News. We’ll probably find out the real reason soon.
blf says
Yes — very possibility. An excerpt from an excerpt (based on the Grauniad’s Seven days of Fox News impeachment coverage proves divisive — for its hosts ; see poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread):
The diagram needs(?) updating, as it seems now to be the case Barr has also been threatening foreign governments, very possibly including Ukraine (New reports reveal wider role for Barr and Pompeo in impeachment scandal: “Attorney general and secretary of state both reportedly took part in contacts between Trump and foreign leaders”.)
Whilst these individuals and institutions aren’t, perhaps, the “far-right radicals” poopyhead meant, they are certainly part of, and also certainly an enabler of, the lunatics.
nogginscratcher says
I’m aware of Moloch being used as a name/metaphor for the “demon” of human nature that prompts us to pursue self-interest to a destructive extent instead of cooperating, because that’s how the incentives are structured.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
But that’s neither true worship nor associated with Democrats.
Snarki, child of Loki says
Why should anyone worship Moloch, when SITHRAK is available?
Not that it matters, of course.
microraptor says
I thought the only thing that could cost you your job at FAUX Noise was saying something that caused advertisers to quit the channel.
Jonathan Norburg says
Sadly, his contract is not being renewed because he isn’t drawing the kind of numbers Faux news wants. Has nothing to do with the ridiculously outrageous things either he or Jeffress have said. They’ll just find someone even more outrageous and less intelligent to replace him. Anybody know any right wing parasites looking for work?
robro says
Rupert’s bully pulpit (aka Fox News) is having some bumpy times. According to several stories, there have been conflicts between the “news” side and the “opinion” side…I don’t watch TV, much less Fox, but I found it surprising that there’s a difference. In any case, Chris Wallace outed two of Tucker Carlson’s guest “analysts”, lawyers Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, for working “off book” (i.e. secretly) with Giuliani on the Biden political hit effort. Also, one of Rupert’s sons has publicly stated he doesn’t agree with everything that’s done on Fox. He’s vague on the details…maybe he thinks the news people aren’t toeing the line…but it’s surprising that Rupert’s scion would be critical at all.
raven says
Xpost from Dispatches
Actually fundie xians today still do…practice human child sacrifice.
They call it “faith healing.”
They know it doesn’t work.
Estimates are they sacrifice a few hundred children this way, every year in the USA.
Their other human child sacrifice is called “training up a child”.
It’s a torture-murder that involves beating children to death over weeks or months.
Moloch would be proud of these fundie xians
unclefrogy says
I never heard of Moloch until I read Howl by Allen Ginsberg
and read part II I would quote it here but it is kind of long
I can not read the poem aloud with out my voice breaking down I still see the best minds being destroyed by madness
i am lucky enough to have an LP of a reading it by the author
@14 that is not the half of it
uncle frogy
hemidactylus says
Umm..it’s not Hannity or Carlson saying it, but holy batshit:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/judge-andrew-napolitano-trump-attacks-presidency
The wheels may be coming off the bandwagon.
John Morales says
unclefrogy, Moloch was one of the old Canaanite deities, just like Yahweh (and Dagon and Baal etc). Over time, as monotheism took hold, the others were (quite literally) demonised.
(Thus the 1st Commandment)
— see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh#Iron_Age_I_(1200%E2%80%93930_BCE):_El,_Yahweh,_and_the_origins_of_Israel for example
hemidactylus says
He actually came from a Florida news background, but Shep Smith has a reputation of being all about the news. I can’t stomach that network so I am going on hype.
Are there any adults in the room at Fox? The opinion piece by Napolitano gives me a tiny shard of hope. Regardless of distaste for conservatism, for House impeachment to survive in the Senate we need some conservative soul searching and backlash against Trump. Don’t get your hopes up. Graham was principled against Clinton. Not so much against Trump. Sigh!
DanDare says
The comments on the opinion piece are the outright “nuh uh. Your just lying and being paid by libtards and have wrong hair” that has become the only method of discussion for these idiots across the net.