There is something seriously wrong with our culture in this day and age. The car which went out of control, killing two people near the Canadian border, was an unusual and unfortunate accident. But the reaction to it was in another league altogether. Fox News, apparently jonesing for ratings, used the accident as a heroin injection, thereby setting off a five alarm response in right-wing media and social media. Nothing indicated a terrorist attack. But Fox News needed one and by Gawd, it created one. And now the illusion exists that one took place — and of course it’s Joe Biden’s fault, that a Bentley went out of control in Niagara Falls. Fox News was forced to recant, but not after they got the big views for four hours or so.
After diving headfirst into speculation that a Wednesday afternoon explosion at the New York-Canada border was an “attempted terrorist attack,” Fox News reversed course with correspondent Alexis McAdams having to walk back her reporting based on “high-level police sources.”
A deadly vehicle crash at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls led to immediate closures of all four bridges between Canada and the United States on the busiest travel day of the year. Traveling at a high rate of speed, a vehicle reportedly entering the bridge on the U.S. side became airborne after hitting a curb, exploding when it impacted a checkpoint structure, law enforcement officials said.
While authorities investigated whether the crash was deliberate, and the incident initially created a heightened state of alert, officials noted there were no secondary incendiary or explosive devices found among the vehicle’s remains.
And in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stated that there was “no indication” the crash was an act of terrorism. Reuters reported that the explosion was “likely caused by a reckless driver” based on early assessments of the scene.
But in the immediate aftermath of the incident, Fox News went all-in on depicting the fiery crash as a likely terror attack—even going so far as to openly speculate whether the explosion was part of a coordinated series of attacks related to either the war in Gaza or illegal immigration.
This is made up bullshit, cut from whole cloth. There were no “high-level police sources.” There were no low-level police sources. There was nothing at all, except a car going out of control. And frankly, I’m not the least bit surprised that this accident was as wild as it was, with the car flying a reported ten feet in the air, because it was a Bentley. I knew a guy in Los Angeles who was a dealer in high end cars and I rode in both a Bentley and an Aston Martin. These are incredibly powerful cars. They go for about a quarter of a million dollars. They make a Mercedes or a Beemer look like they’re standing still — and I have friends who own those cars, so I’ve ridden in them, too.
The Bentley and the Aston Martin are James Bond’s cars, as you may recall. Bond had a 1933 Bentley and then Q told him one day that his car was passe and he was going to get a specially equipped Aston Martin and so that’s what you saw in the movies going forward. So all that happened yesterday was that a high powered piece of automotive machinery lost control and exploded. Again, most unfortunate, but scarcely an international incident or evidence of a global geopolitical plot, which is how Fox News framed it.
Fox News is a plague upon this nation. Ronald Reagan is responsible for this plague, let’s just tell it like it is. When Reagan retired the Fairness In Broadcasting Act, he paved the way for the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch and in they swarmed like locusts, laying waste to the truth and planting fields of lies.
Now that I’ve given my sermon on Fox News for the day, here is what Chris Christie said to Vivek Ramaswamy.
Radio silence from me because I have years of law enforcement experience fighting terrorists and crime and you do not. You jump to the conclusion it is terrorism without any definitive proof. This is why your judgment is so flawed and you’d be such an awful President. Here’s a… https://t.co/6Y1vKRrUAC
— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) November 22, 2023
Christie’s tweet ends, “hint for you: wait for the evidence and then make judgments. That’s what any experienced leader would do.”
This is the downside of social media. All that happened was that a powerful car lost control. Period. Two people died, which is tragic. But to inflame this situation and turn it into a mini 9/11 is flat out madness. Yet Fox News led the charge and soon Kari Lake, Vivek Ramaswamy, the entire right-wing pack were all over it. As Mark Twain is credited with saying, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has had a chance to put its boots on.”
I begin to understand why Donald Trump got 73 million votes in 2020. It’s because we live in a world where hysterical lies get more coverage than simple truths and people react emotionally rather than rationally. I pray that the better angels of our nature reelect Joe Biden and don’t opt for fascism a year from now.
Amen to your final sentence, and Happy Thanksgiving to you and all Zoomers.
Same to you, Carol, and many happy returns of the day.
I can’t believe how our culture has changed. I well remember Watergate. There were different opinions about it all, but at least we agreed on the facts. A fact free culture is a civilization in decline.
this multi-faceted twisting of events is a new level
of deceit and should be cause in the public eye to
disqualify the perpetrator from public speaking, nevermind
being a decision maker for any level of office.
let him talk to himself like the raving lunatic he is.
hell there are songs that signify such behavior and have
been around longer than.
“Upside out or inside down
False alarm, the only game in town
No man’s land, the only game in town
Terrible, the only game in town”
Passenger –
Grateful Dead
swarmy river has.
Nikki Haley and i agree on one thing and that is that Vivek Ramaswamy is “just scum.” That says it all. Not that her lying, hypocritical ass is too many notches removed.
When can we get rid of Fox News and other purveyors of lies and innuendo? How can we expect to live as a country when everyone is being force fed bullshit by the media. We need to find a different way! If we don’t we will be killing one another for the likes of Fox News. It would be a tragedy that we gave the Murdochs that much power. Send them home. Let their own people deal with them. Anyone dying over a bunch of well paid assholes like those at Fox is a crime in my opinion. Add to that, the used to be major players are acting like assholes so they can survive and I mean the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek and the like. The world is changing around them and they are dying and they haven’t even considered that as a possibility. And I used to think capitalists were smart.