After his Fox News town hall, network hosts launched a propaganda onslaught against Pete Buttigieg

[SidDithers]

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/20/after-his-fox-news-town-hall-fox-friends-launches-propaganda-onslaught-against-pete-buttigieg/223745

Fox hosts called Buttigieg a "clown," a "slippery demagogue," and "Pope Pete," and mischaracterized his positions

South Bend, IN, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s performance at a Fox News town hall garnered rave reviews Sunday night from journalists and pundits, with some arguing that his successful turn proved that Democratic presidential candidates should be making on-air appeals to the network’s viewers.

“This is exactly why Dems' refusal to debate on FOX is so self-defeating,” argued political analyst Jeff Greenfield. “Well-prepared candidates would have chapter and verse to offer, and on a live debate or town hall there's no way for FOX to block or distort their points.”

What pundits who offer opinions like these are really demonstrating is that they do not understand what Fox is and how it operates. Appearing on the network did give Buttigieg the opportunity to speak directly to its audience. But the town hall does not exists in a vacuum; Fox is a right-wing propaganda machine that constantly pushes disinformation in order to damage progressives and help conservatives. And within hours -- after the commentariat had stopped watching Fox -- the network began smearing Buttigieg in an effort that will likely minimize any gains he might have made with its viewers.

snip

No matter how persuasive the candidates might be, they can’t reverse years of propaganda in a single evening. Fox’s programming is extremely effective, and the network has spent decades priming its audience to hate Democrats. To the extent that regular Fox viewers were tuning in to Buttigieg’s town hall, he had an opportunity to speak to them. But now that he’s no longer on their airwaves, Fox’s hosts, who have a much more extensive and durable relationship with their audience, get to rebut everything he said for hours on end. This suggests that any support Buttigieg gained from Fox’s viewers during the town hall will be ephemeral at best.

Fox, on the other hand, reaped dramatic benefits from Democratic participation in its town halls. Because of both the network’s role as a malevolent force that shills for the president and the volatility and bigotry of its stars, Fox entered the spring in a state of crisis as advertisers fled the network for safer harbors. But these town halls allow the network to rebrand itself and thus make the case to advertisers that it is safe to return.

As Fox faced disaster, Democratic presidential candidates bailed it out. And now the network will pay them back by doing whatever it can to undermine their message and ensure their defeat.

Sid

[True Dough]

1. They launch attacks against all Dem candidates on a regular basis

There's no avoiding it.

[Moostache]

2. Yeah, they do that...BUT

there's also little sense in providing them controlled video tape that they can manipulate and splice into "out-of-context" clips for their studio shows to rip into for months...

Fox News viewers are NOT liberals, progressives or potential Democratic voters - they are bigoted assholes that would vote 3rd party or stay home before they would ever support a Democratic candidate.

I love Pete and his campaign is his to run as he sees fit, but it is NOT a good move to appear on Fox News, ever.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. You mean Fox never spliced, cut up, or took out of context a CNN or MSNBC video?

They can do it with any words uttered in public.


“You didn’t build that”, iirc, wasn’t said in a Fox studio.

[oldsoftie]

7. Many Fox viewers are NOT republicans. Its been shown in numerous studies.

Having the nightitme hosts blather negatively would happen even if he DIDNT do the townhall.

[True Dough]

19. You mean like this?

Pelosi never appeared on Fox News and she's a victim.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142319842


There's no stopping the underhanded tactics by some on the right. At least Pete got the word out to the millions who were watching the town hall live.

[donkeypoofed]

3. So Mayor Pete will serve as an example of what happens when ya go on Faux News

Elizabeth was right.

Did they also pull the same crap with Bernie? I dont recall.

[oldsoftie]

9. But they're using Hannity and the other night shows as most of the examples.

No oe would expect anything else out of them

But did the daily news hosts do the same? I seriously doubt it. If they wanted to "set them up", Fox would stack the audience with rude questioners. Each town hall has been pretty much the same; the audience mostly full of the candidates supporters.

If Trump is so critical of them doing it, it must not be that bad of an idea. He hates it

[Politicub]

10. And yet Mayor Pete's star continues to rise

IMHO, Fox News is an important outlet for a gay candidate to face. I don't think it matters as much for Warren or Harris. It's important for Mayor Pete to show he will not be bullied. He pushed back on the bullies on their playground.

Hard core conservatives will never change their opinion. But what about the gay kid sitting in his parent's living room? He may see Mayor Pete peeking through the conservative media bubble.

Growing up gay, I didn't have many role models. Now there are many of them.

And only one Mayor Pete. He has served his country and put his life on the line for it.

[oldsoftie]

4. Most of this is Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson & the other "opinion" hosts. Everyone KNOWS how they feel

But the through the day reporting didnt slam him at all; they promoted the show.

No one going on Fox townhall is going to expect the nightime opinion hosts to suddenly become unbiased.

[Celerity]

12. +1

[marylandblue]

5. I'm not buying it.

He's arguing that Fox is being abandoned because it is 24/7/365 bigotry and Trump propaganda, but advertisers are coming back because they changed to 24/7/364 bigotry.

As long there are viewers for it, there will be Fox. Rush is still on the air despite wholesale abandonment by advertisers, and I don't recall any Democratic candidate going on his show.

[LuvNewcastle]

8. Well, they can say what they like about him,

but they can't call him a coward. And now he's given all the candidates an example to point to and say "see, this is what they do to you when you humor them." I think his appearance on Fox won't help him much, but I'm proud of him for doing it. He has really shown himself to be a class act in this campaign, and I hope we see a lot more of him in the future. I hope there are more Pets Buttigiegs out there to lead the party forward.

[Politicub]

13. The claim that advertisers are coming back to Fox because of democratic town halls doesn't...

pass the smell test. I looked for evidence and I couldn't find a single article with evidence of the author's claim that advertisers are returning. Most of what I can find is about advertisers continuing to flee the network based on what their on air hosts are saying.

This is an opinion column. And unfortunately, not a very informed opinion.

And this is garbage hyperbole:

As Fox faced disaster, Democratic presidential candidates bailed it out.

[oldsoftie]

14. I missed that quote. You're absolutely right

[RedParrot]

15. Buttigieg accuses Trump of faking disability to avoid Vietnam draft

Buttigieg: “I mean, if he were a conscientious objector, I’d admire that, but this is somebody who, I think it is fairly obvious to most of us, took advantage of the fact that he was a child of a multimillionaire in order to pretend to be disabled so that somebody could go to war in his place.

I know that dredges up old wounds from a complicated time during a complicated war, but I am also old enough to remember when conservatives talked about character as something that mattered in the presidency, and so I think it deserves to be talked about.”


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/pete-buttigieg-trump-vietnam-war-disability-accusation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[LuvNewcastle]

16. I'm glad he brought that up.

I also remember when conservatives talked about character, and somebody needs to be hammering the fact that this President has the lowest character of anyone who's ever held that office. Yet the RWers love him. They act like he does no wrong. They ask him to sign their fucking Bibles. Everybody needs to see what hypocrites his supporters are. They might not have any shame, but some people in America still care about how a man's words line up against his deeds.

[Nuggets]

23. I'm glad he brought it up too.

Trump’s in perfect health, his doctor says.
What happened to his bone spurs?

Plus his diet can’t be helping. He eats like college freshman.
How are his arteries not packed?

[cwydro]

17. Actually, that's one advantage to our candidates going on FOX.

People hear them for themselves - they can make up their own minds.

[LanternWaste]

18. A Dem on Fox allows himself one step forward and is pushed two steps back

There's a cost/benefit analysis to be done in appearing on any Fox programming, and as far as I can see, the costs outweigh the benefits. Every time.

[Nuggets]

20. Buttigieg seems like a really decent man.

These attacks won’t stick imo. The attacks on him have fallen flat.

The only issues I’ve seen thus far that might put him in a negative spotlight is his firing of the Police Chief.

I agree that the Chief broke the law but did Buttigieg ever look into the allegations that provoked the recordings in the first place?
Or did he just bust the Chief and then move on allowing potential racists to remain in the department?

The other issue he showing his record on the economy of South Bend: Was his housing project effective in a positive way for those neighborhoods, and was the economy already in the process of producing a lower unemployment rate regardless of his time in the mayors office?

[Celerity]

21. Yes, the tape issue could have been handled better, but because the tapes were illegally made

there was no way to legally prove anything in regards to actions that could lead up to either termination or less disciplinary actions for the other officers.

I also think that even if Pete had had a crystal ball, and knew in 2019 he would be running for POTUS and that the tapes would be an issue, he still would not have broken the law and released them. That would have immediately opened up South Bend to massive civil liabilty, and possibly open up Buttigieg himself to being prosecuted. I also think, if he did have that crystal ball, he would not have come down so quickly on Boykins, but hindsight is 20/20, and I would think if I had the FBI and the US attorney come to me, weeks into my mayorship, and tell me my chief of police is under federal wiretapping investigation, I probably would have done the same thing. Of course, in 2012, I was 16 years old, and would not have been eligible to be a mayor (I think, not sure of local laws), lololol. No city in the world would want a 16yo me as mayor!

Boykins was not summarily fired, he resigned under pressure (again after Buttigieg had just found out he was under FBI investigation within weeks of becoming mayor for the first time) and then rescinded it the next morning.

Pete demoted him, and Boykins stayed on at the department until he retired with a full pension in 2017. If Buttigieg had released the tapes (and every court that has actually ruled on them, including a federal one, has said they were illegal wiretapping) he would have exposed the city to potentially millions of dollars in further lawsuits.

The chief was also very much in the wrong, regardless of what the other cops either did or did not do. I am NOT defending them (the other cops) at all, simply looking at things through a strictly legal framework. The other cops sued the city and won far more money than the chief did in his lawsuit, and as I have stated before, the only people who know what is on those tapes are the FBI, the US attorney, and the 2 who made and listened to them (the chief and the actually terminated Communications director, who did that for over a year well before Pete was the mayor) and obviously the other cops themselves.

The way Boykins went about the whole thing had caused massive chaos in the entire department, so something had to happen. If Buttigieg had summarily fired the other cops, based on zero legally-admissible evidence, the city would have ended up paying multiple millions in additional settlements. I think the best Pete could have done is simply to demote Boykins outright and not ask for his resignation, but hindsight is, as I stated before 20/20.

If the new judge rules the tapes released, then the mayors office will do it, but until then (and this has been Buttigieg's stance the whole time) he cannot legally do so. Again, he has not listened to the tapes himself, he is merely the custodian (well the mayors office itself is, not Pete personally). I so do not trust that RW judge (Steven Hostetler, a Pence appointment and a finalist for the Indiana Supreme Court) to do anything but try to cause mayhem and damage overall. If he does, there still was literally nothing Pete could have legally done to prevent that. He isn't Trump, he plays by the rule of law.

Here is a good, newer article with updates

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/23/politics/south-bend-tapes-ruling/index.html

snip

Few have heard the recordings, but that may change as the case moves forward.

According to a federal court decision laying out the facts of the case, the tapes case dates back to 2011, when, because of crashes in the South Bend Police Department's telephone recording system, Police Department Communications Director Karen DePaepe listened to some recordings to determine whether data loss had occurred.

While listening to some of the calls, DePaepe heard comments from Brian Young, the captain of the department's investigative division, that "she found to be inappropriate," according to the 2015 federal court decision. The court document also indicates that Young's line was recorded without his knowledge because the officer who previously had his phone number had asked for the line to be logged.

DePaepe then told Boykins about the recordings and, according to the court, the police chief "decided to continue the recording practice to gather more information before making a decision on what to do." Seven months later, according to court documents, Young found out his line was being recorded and asked for the recording to stop; nothing was done at that time. Two months later, Boykins asked DePaepe to "give him relevant recordings of Young's line to keep them as evidence," according to the court. The communications official then "made five audio cassette tapes for eight recordings that occurred between February 4, 2011, and July 15, 2011."

On Monday, Hostetler ruled that recordings made prior to DePaepe's discovery were not covered by the Indiana Wiretap Act and thus were not prohibited. That ruling means those tapes may be released to the city council. However, one outstanding issue -- the exact date DePaepe discovered the recordings -- could determine which tapes are released. The recordings made after DePaepe's discovery -- and the tapes made by her at Boykins' request -- "present a more complicated question," leading the judge to issue a partial judgment that notes that no person gave "express consent" -- written or verbal consent -- to be recorded.

Still in question is whether the officers had granted "implied consent" -- consent determined through actions or conduct -- to be recorded, Hostetler wrote. Another outstanding issue, Hostetler wrote, is whether the recordings violate the Federal Wiretap Act. The judge set a pre-trial conference for the matter on May 1. No trial date was set.

At a CNN town hall on Monday, Buttigieg said he has not heard the contents of the tapes, but he does want to know what is on them as long as listening to them does not violate federal and state wiretap laws.

"The reason I don't know (what is on the recordings) is these tape recordings were made in a way that violated the Federal Wiretap Act. That is a federal law that controls when you can and can't record people," Buttigieg said. "That's a law punishable by a term in prison and so I'm not going to violate it, even though I want to know what's on those tapes like everybody else does."


snip



As for the 'gentrification' spun up story, that was extremely disingenuously reported



How the Media Is Getting Mayor Pete's Gentrification Story Wrong

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/04/21/how-the-media-is-getting-mayor-petes-south-bend-gentrification-story-wrong/

South Bend, Indiana was a prosperous manufacturing town through much of the 20th century. It achieved a measure of fame for hosting the auto plant that built the Studebaker. But as the economy changed, so did the town’s fortunes. Between 1960 and 2010, its population plummeted by nearly 25 percent. Left in the wake of mass departure and economic stagnation was a rash of urban blight: thousands of homes and other buildings stood vacant, left to disrepair. With blight came decreased home values and a rise in crime.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, now a Democratic presidential candidate, launched an initiative in February 2013 he called “1,000 Homes, 1,000 Days.” The goal: identify 1,000 vacant or abandoned homes (about a third of the total) and either demolish or repair them. By November 2015, 427 homes “were repaired, 569 were demolished, 10 were deconstructed, 6 were set aside for repair by community development corporations, and 110 were under contract for demolition,” according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provided a block grant supporting the initiative. If Buttigieg’s reelection with 75 percent of the vote is anything to go by, South Bend’s citizens have signaled their approval. The city’s population has steadily increased since 2013.

Buttigieg has made the initiative’s success a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, so it should be no surprise that journalists have looked into it. But two remarkably similar stories published last week—in Buzzfeed and on CNN.com—said the initiative “smacked of gentrification.” That this odd phrase appeared verbatim in both stories is perhaps interesting. (Buzzfeed’s Henry Gomez, who published his piece first, should wonder where CNN’s Dan Merica and Vanessa Yurkevich got their inspiration.) What’s puzzling, however, is the decision to frame the demolition and rehabilitation of vacant and abandoned homes as akin to displacing minority communities. (Judging from 2011 and 2019 population estimates, no displacement appears to have occurred. What’s more, it’s hard to displace people from homes where no one was living.)

The two major challenges Buttigieg’s initiative faced were the town’s lackadaisical enforcement of building code violations and absentee owners of the targeted homes. One of the initiative’s biggest obstacles was determining if the blighted properties’ owners were both sufficiently willing and able to improve them. Both the Buzzfeed and CNN stories lean heavily on two sources: Stacey Odom and Regina Williams-Preston, two African American women who had purchased blighted properties. Odom purchased one, which she hoped to fix up and make her own home, without knowing that the initiative had already slated it for demolition. Williams-Preston had purchased three vacant homes “with plans to refurbish them and either sell them for a profit or create a business, like a day care for local kids,” CNN reported. Sadly, her husband fell seriously ill and money that would’ve gone toward their investment went toward health care instead.

Both stories strike a decidedly oppositional tone. Buzzfeed seemed particularly intent on framing the story as a conflict between a robotic, white, impersonal politician and a black community. (The word “data,” and the mayor’s abiding interest in it, somehow became grounds for opprobrium.) Ironically, both stories show Buttigieg to have been an exceptional leader. Odom struggled to get her property off the demo list, but then, as CNN reports, she had a chance encounter with Buttigieg. What happened next was governance par excellence:

snip



Regina Preston-Williams was a primary source of quotes in many negative attempted negative pieces on Pete. She was inervied by TYT and other Bernie-related organs multiple times. She had 2 strong reasons to go after him Number one, she was running for mayor against a Buttigieg-endorsed candidate (she lost with only 7% of the vote.)

Number two, she had lost a lawsuit with the city and had an axe to grind. Neither of thsoe two issues were almsot every disclosed. A person from South Bend tipped me off to them.

BTW, the local paper, The South Bend Tribune, is no friend of his

https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/elections/south-bend-mayoral-candidate-says-her-code-violations-will-help/article_cbd0ec12-9dfe-5422-8b90-fa72b448258a.html

SOUTH BEND — More than two years ago, the city of South Bend sued Common Council Member Regina Williams-Preston and her husband over unpaid fines from code violations on nine properties they owned.

The combined fines at one point topped $72,000.

The couple and city have since settled the cases, and Williams-Preston is now running as a Democrat for mayor. But rather than hurt her election chances, she says the case will motivate her to help other African-Americans with limited resources if she’s elected.

Williams-Preston claims the city targeted her and her husband’s properties, and those of their neighbors, with “aggressive code enforcement” to further two goals: Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s pledge to address 1,000 vacant and abandoned homes in 1,000 days, and the West Side Main Streets Plan, which calls for revitalizing the neighborhoods between Western Avenue and Lincoln Way West.

The city filed the suits against Williams-Preston and her husband, Tyrone Preston, in July 2016 — seeking $7,238 in costs and fines from her and about $65,000 from him. The couple, collectively, owned nine residential properties in the city, including their home on North Elmer Street. They planned to renovate some and demolish others.

snip

They were cited for 41 code violations, despite the homes having sat vacant for longer than a decade, and the couple couldn’t afford to pay the fines, Williams-Preston said. Some of the citations were for parking cars on the empty lots and their own yard.

Under terms of a 2017 out-of-court settlement, the city dropped the suit in exchange for Williams-Preston’s agreement to make $50 monthly payments toward a $2,131 debt, according to city records. The city ultimately demolished the three tax sale houses — two of them on the couple’s block and the third located seven blocks away – and Tyrone agreed to pay $25,000 toward the city’s demolition costs, a debt he’s paying off in $350 monthly payments, Williams-Preston said.

snip


Williams-Preston also said then-City Attorney Cristal Brisco acknowledged in a conversation that the process the city used to determine the size and number of fines levied against a property owner was too subjective.

“The city found that the way in which they assessed civil penalties was not something that they could defend in court,” she said. “They used to fine $200 or $250, but during the 1000 Houses in 1000 Days, they said well, we got to get these properties in the hands of the city, so we’re going to up those fines.”

But the city administration disputed that characterization of its position. Buttigieg spokesman Mark Bode said no one from the city would comment on Williams-Preston’s claims. But he pointed to a July 2017 email exchange between Brisco and Williams-Preston, obtained by The Tribune through a public records request, as evidence that Williams-Preston is wrongly portraying the city’s stance.

“As per our conversations over the last several months, civil penalties that were assessed without a consistent procedure were to be dismissed not just for my properties but for all residents in South Bend,” Williams-Preston wrote to Brisco, after asking her why some of her properties still had liens.

Brisco replied that the county solid waste district had imposed the liens for nonpayment of recycling fees.

“Your email,” Brisco wrote, “states that based on our conversations over the past several months, you’ve come to understand that civil penalties that were issued without a ‘consistent procedure’ were to be dismissed for all residents in South Bend. This statement implies that there is a systemic problem with the civil penalty process in South Bend … This is inaccurate, and there seems to be some confusion regarding the information I’ve previously provided to you.”

When asked this week for comment on the email exchange, Williams-Preston maintained her version of the story.


snip

[Nuggets]

22. Good info

I wasn’t looking for Buttigieg to use illegal tapes or release them.

I believe a thorough investigation is in order though as folks don’t usually jeopardize their careers, at the height of their careers, or for no reason.

If it’s just been dropped I’d like to know why?
Are there any other witnesses or officers who have have had similar occurrences?

[Celerity]

24. as far as I know that was the only illegal taping down at the SB PD, I am sure similar events have

taken place elsewhere. I really do not like the fact the state judge it has been kicked back to by the Federal Appellate Court is a hardcore RWer appointed by Pence. He has powerful motives to cause havoc.

The whole underlying issue is that even IF the cops were doing doing bad things, Boykins and the comms director did not find anything out until they had been illegal listening via wiretap for many months. If they had heard it via the very first time after they discovered the taping system was still up, and had went to the FBI themselves (or at least told the old mayor before Pete, who could have had the city legal counsel figured out what to do), none of this nightmare would be happening. Crazy shit like this is a dime a dozen in massive cities like NY, LA, Chicago. Because SB is relatively small, and because there really was nothing else of any truly vast, major controversy going on the 7 plus years Pete has been mayor, this has been magnified to an epic degree. Where I am from, Southern California, this whole thing pales in comparison to some of the murderous, organised crime activity that has rocked the cops out here for decades.

here is but one example, that had its roots starting 25 years before I was even born (white supremacist sheriff's gangs)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynwood_Vikings