Silly Donald! You’re allowed to say as many misogynist things as you like, as long as you don’t say them to a Fox News host… in response to her reminding everyone of all the misogynist things you said.
Tag Archives: 2016 US elections
The first GOP debate was a record-breaking cable event
On Thursday night, Fox News Channel hosted a Republican presidential primary debate with 10 of the 17 Republican candidates. At 24 million viewers, it became the most viewed non-ESPN program in cable history. Hell, even I tuned in for part of it (after watching the more interesting Canadian leadership debate) — the first time I’ve ever intentionally watched Fox News. Possibly even the first time I’ve watched Fox News and wasn’t also stuck in a train/bus terminal or airport.
The debate beat out last year’s record-breaker for a non-sports event, an episode of The Walking Dead, by a margin of 6.6 million viewers. The previous record-holder for a cable news event was Larry King’s 1993 moderation of a CNN debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot on NAFTA’s proposed ratification in Congress. Even that audience was 7 million smaller.
This debate had more than 20 million more viewers than the first Republican debate in 2011. Analysts credited — who else but the reality TV star? — Donald Trump’s anticipated presence for generating widespread awareness of exactly when the debate would be, so that more people didn’t miss it. Sadly, the clown car that is the 2016 Republican presidential field has officially become one of America’s top reality TV programs, it seems. A reality show like The Bachelorette only pulls in 8 million viewers at the most these days.
However, in general, Broadcast TV often still generates much larger audience numbers than cable on a fairly regular basis, although there too sports events continue to be the mega-draw. Still, the Thursday night debate exceeded the average viewership of the past decade’s most popular non-sports network show, NCIS, for both the most recent season and any other season, including its peak in 2012 at 21.34 million viewers.
Another interesting comparison point is against series finales on network TV. So for whatever it’s worth, in absolute numbers, this debate’s audience was between the finale viewership counts for St. Elsewhere (22.5m in 1988) and Full House (24.3m in 1995) — 19th and 18th respectively on the list of all-time highs for network TV series finales. However, it has been more than a decade since any network TV series finale exceeded the viewership of Thursday night’s debate. For example, the debate audience was nearly twice the audience of the much-anticipated 2014 finale of How I Met Your Mother.
Remarkably, the “JV debate” earlier in the day was still one of Fox News Channel’s highest-rated primary debates in history, although 18 million fewer people tuned in and there was barely even a live audience.
AFD Micron #8
Say what you like about Trump, there’s a definite appeal to the “All other Republican candidates are losers” part of his platform.
August 5, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 137
Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.
Topics: Presidential megadonors; Medicare turns 50; Nigeria asks US to close banking loopholes. People: Bill, Kelley. Produced: August 2nd, 2015.
Discussion Points:
– Presidential megadonors: Like ridiculously expensive racetrack betting and equally pointless.
– Medicare just turned 50: Are Democrats pushing Big Ideas in public policy these days?
– Nigeria’s new president argues closing corruption loopholes in the West is more helpful than loans.
Episode 137 (51 min):
AFD 137
Related Links
– NYT: Million-Dollar Donors in the 2016 Presidential Race
– The Hill: President: ObamaCare finishes job started by Medicare, Medicaid
– NASI: Medicare’s Efforts to Reduce Disparities
– AFD: Buhari: Anti-corruption help better than foreign aid, for Nigeria
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And don’t forget to check out The Digitized Ramblings of an 8-Bit Animal, the video blog of our announcer, Justin.
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AFD Micron #1
Re: Trump rhetoric comparisons to fascism: America’s origin-story villains, the Nazis, are always portrayed as cold, unfeeling machines, because we don’t want to admit that the greatest evils of history are committed by passionate, patriotic people motivated by righteous anger and simplistic good vs. evil views. Because what’s more American than that?
July 22, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 135
Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.
Topics: Wages in America; Iran nuclear deal. People: Bill, Kelley, Nate, and Greg. Produced: July 20th, 2015.
Discussion Points:
– A unified econo-moral argument for the necessity of dramatically higher U.S. wages tied to productivity gains.
– Why the Iran deal is a good one (and why Iran’s nuclear program is not our biggest concern in the region).
Episode 135 (55 min):
AFD 135
Related Links
– The Globalist: “Americans Need Better Pay Before Longer Hours”
– Mic: “How Many Hours You Need to Work Minimum Wage to Rent an Apartment in Any State”
– Clinton Campaign on Twitter: “Hillary called on companies to share profits with workers…”
– LA Times: “Who gave up what in the Iran nuclear deal”
– New York Times: “Congress to Start Review of Iran Nuclear Deal”
– Haaretz: “Lapid: Knesset must investigate Netanyahu’s failure to thwart Iran deal”
Subscribe
RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”
And don’t forget to check out The Digitized Ramblings of an 8-Bit Animal, the video blog of our announcer, Justin.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Scott Walker: Abortion is between you, your doctor, and me
Scott Walker and family at his 2016 presidential campaign announcement. (Credit: WisPolitics.com / Flickr)
Flippy-floppy Scott Walker just signed a 20-weeks abortion ban bill in Wisconsin. One the one hand, it’s fully consistent with his overall views:
Walker’s record includes defunding Planned Parenthood, requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, a law currently blocked by a federal court judge, and requiring women to have ultrasounds and be shown images of the fetus before having an abortion.
On the other hand, he refused to give a position during the 2014 campaign on the type of ban he just signed and even went as far as to put out a very misleading ad:
Just nine months ago he ran a television ad during his gubernatorial re-election campaign where he said whether to obtain an abortion is an agonizing decision between a woman and her doctor.
Apparently, he meant to say, it’s a “decision between a woman and her doctor” and her state legislature and her governor / native-son presidential candidate.
But he’s the leading choice of “conservative” Republican voters, so, guess he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, and really get himself right up in there.
