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Maria Bartiromo, a Fox Business and Fox News host who has falsely claimed that – according to an “intel source” – President Donald Trump won the November election, will be among six rotating hosts as Fox News expands its evening lineup of extremist opinion shows into the 7 PM hour. Fox is moving its “straight news” show, “The Story with Martha MacCallum," to 3 PM.
“Maria Bartiromo has been the source of some of the most destructive conspiracy theories at Fox Business and Fox News…particularly in the past few months,” tweeted Yashar Ali, a New York Magazine and HuffPost freelance journalist who’s broken major stories about public figures in the media and politics.
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</div><p>“But what is Fox going to do…fire her?” he added. “They allowed her to book guests like Sidney Powell.”</p><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p3" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><p>Powell is the pro-Trump conspiracy theorist attorney who is being sued for $1.3 billion for alleged defamation by Dominion, the voting machine manufacturer.</p><p>Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake <a href="https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1351226121476575242" rel="noopener" target="_blank">noted</a> that Bartiromo “has spent the last two months unquestioningly parroting Trump’s voter fraud allegations.”</p><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p5" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><p>“She also recently cited an unnamed ‘intel source telling me that President Trump did in fact win the election.'”</p><p>Bartiromo last month in fact did claim that, according to an “intel source,” Trump actually won, which is false. Here’s video of that false claim:</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Why does she have a show? Why is she still broadcasting? Fox Anchor Maria Bartiromo actually says an 'intel source' told her Trump did in fact win the election. Okay, that's it, it's over, Trump won. <a href="https://t.co/ESLFZlm3Lq">pic.twitter.com/ESLFZlm3Lq</a><br/>
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1339286624278986752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2020</a><br/></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p8" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><p>The Daily Beast’s media reporter Max Tani <a href="https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/1351265714712109056" rel="noopener" target="_blank">adds</a>, “If I were Trish Regan, I'd be pretty upset that I got pushed out of Fox for doing one little COVID conspiracy theory while Maria Bartiromo has spend months entertaining election fraud theories and got a promotion!”</p><p>Vox’s Aaron Rupar notes that “Bartiromo lets Trump lie with impunity” in this clip from late November, but that allegation is actually true for most of Trump’s appearances with Bartiromo.</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
Trump’s own lawyers conceded in court that the claim he makes here about poll watchers is a lie — but Maria Bartiromo lets Trump lie with impunity <a href="https://t.co/5nyfc4XnsF">pic.twitter.com/5nyfc4XnsF</a><br/>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1333069551756599298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2020</a><br/></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>Last August Bartiromo lied, telling President Trump there was “a coup” against him.</p><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p12" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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“There was still a coup against you!” Maria Bartiromo tells Trump. (Narrator: there was no coup against him)<br/>
“The fact was President Obama knew everything. Vice President Biden, as dumb as he may be, he knew everything,” Trump replies. <a href="https://t.co/DlAICqV43U">pic.twitter.com/DlAICqV43U</a><br/>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1293914614367834115?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2020</a><br/></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>Just this past Friday James Murdoch, the son of Rupert Murdoch who owns the multi-national media empire that includes Fox News, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/media/james-murdoch-election-disinformation/index.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">decried “media property owners” and their news outlets for spreading dangerous disinformation</a>.</p>
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Melania Trump is going out the way she came in: apart from her husband.
Americans may remember the First Lady did not move to the White House until the summer of 2017. Now she is leaving Americans with a farewell video, in another break from President Donald Trump. White House aides have been urging the President to record a similar video, as a way to tout his “accomplishments,” but he steadfastly refuses.
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</div><p>Mrs. Trump recorded a nearly seven-minute video in which she brags about her “Be Best” anti-bullying program, calling it a “great success.”</p><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p3" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><p>But perhaps in the most hypocritical portion of the video the First lady urges, “Do not lose sight of your integrity and values. Use every opportunity to show consideration for another person, and build good habits into our daily lives.”</p><p>She asks Americans to “always choose love over hatred, peace over violence.”</p><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p5" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351258353704579074" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1351258353704579074&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 473px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>Earlier in the day the First Lady’s tweet honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. caused “birther” to trend on social media.</p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351193985260400651" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-1" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1351193985260400651&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 349px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p8" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><p>And just minutes after the video posted “BeGone” trended on Twitter, thanks to tweets like this:</p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351269084592304128" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-2" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1351269084592304128&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 219px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>The First Lady’s hypocrisy was quickly mocked.</p><p>Here’s how some are responding to her video:</p><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p12" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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</div><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351262566144749571" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-3" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1351262566144749571&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 704px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351265108702466051" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-4" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-4&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1351265108702466051&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 656px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351260731166003200" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-5" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-5&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1351260731166003200&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 560px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1351263980698923008" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-6" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-6&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1351263980698923008&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650019070%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 551px; height: 560px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><div class="ncrm_ad_block story_page_incontent_p16" style="margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; max-width: 728px;">
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Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro is fond of saying, "facts don't care about your feelings," a quip that implies that empirical data is more important than anecdotal evidence. Yet a recent psychological study suggests that conservatives, not liberals, are far more apt to let their feelings to get in the way of accepting facts.
<p>In a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12706" target="_blank">paper</a> published in the journal Political Psychology in October, researchers from Cal Poly Pomona and Eureka College describe a pair of studies that they conducted to determine if there is a connection between a person's political ideology and their willingness to accept scientific and non-scientific views on non-political subjects. Their goal was to assess how people feel not just toward scientists but also "nonexpert" voices. They allowed the surveyed individuals to either rate one higher than the other, or argue that "both sides" were equal. </p><p>The researchers then conducted a pair of studies in 2018 in which participants, after being screened based on their political philosophy, "read a supposed article excerpt where a researcher was quoted as debunking a popular misconception. An alternative viewpoint followed, rejecting the researcher's viewpoint."</p><p>The authors of the paper found that, although conservatives and liberals both reported more favorable views of the science researcher than the rejecter, conservatives were more likely to think both sides were closer in legitimacy. They also found that in general conservatives held a less favorable view of the expert than liberals and a more favorable view of the rejecter than liberals.</p><p>Why are conservatives more likely to reject empirical data?</p><p>"From my understanding traditional conservatism is all about individualism, so more weight is given to an individual's experience with any given phenomenon," Dr. Alexander Swan, assistant professor of psychology at Eureka College and a co-author of the paper, told Salon by email. "This experience is fueled by our innate sense of intuition — what feels right to me? What makes sense?"</p><p>Although he noted that liberals are not immune to this tendency, Swan pointed out that modern conservative ideas are often opposed to scientific conclusions, citing as one example how many conservatives are skeptical of the reality of man-made climate change because "this would impact the capitalistic pursuit."</p><p>Dr. Randy Stein, assistant professor of marketing at Cal Poly Pomona and another co-author of the paper, had a similar observation, recalling in writing to Salon how an <a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/06/20/the_years_of_imperial_thinking_george_w_bush_and_the_birth_of_a_nightmare_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">unnamed official from President George W. Bush's administration once said</a> that they are "not part of the 'reality-based community,' and studying reality is something you can do but studying it is subservient to creating it, and if you study it you're kind of a sucker." He described this as a "kind of imperialistic approach to reality, you can do your research but that's just one way of looking at it, because in the end I'll create my own." Like Swan, Stein added that liberals can do this too, but it is more pronounced among conservatives in part because their media is hostile to institutions like academia and medicine whose conclusions contradict their biases.</p><p>"Keep in mind, political ideology is something you can pick," Stein explained. "Trumpist/populist conservatism is pretty open as far as pushing 'don't believe what the media tells you' and 'don't believe experts' type thinking, so it's going to be more attractive to those who think that way."</p><p>Stein and Swan also saw a partial connection between their conclusions and the refusal of both President Donald Trump and many of his supporters to accept that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/12/30/trump-is-a-historic-loser-no-other-one-term-president-has-refused-to-leave-office/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election</a>.</p><p>"In our studies we had people rate the perspectives of researchers and people arguing against the research. So that's a bit different than a refusal to admit defeat, but it's not in another universe entirely," Stein observed. "If you're an 'all ways of looking at it are equally good' kind of person, you're increasing vulnerability to all sorts of ideas, and scattered, flimsy 'evidence' can start to sound legitimate even if there's no evidence in a systematic sense."</p><p>Swan argued to Salon that the 2020 election results are a "sticky subject and not really an extension of our research" because "the outcome of the election isn't a belief in science or not, but rather a faith in our democratic institutions and practices." He argued that propaganda plays a role, for instance, in refusal to accept the election results and that he is hesitant to apply their findings to the elections. He added, however, that people need to trust the institutions and individuals producing evidence in order to have faith in them. "I think there is a pretty clear marker in this instance that distrust was deliberately sown over months and months."</p><p>Swan also emphasized that he was not arguing for people to "blindly accept what scientists say," but instead that they should look at the strength of evidence regarding certain conclusions. "The more you grapple with this difference at all levels of education, the more scientifically literate a person is, a stronger critical thinker they become, and it doesn't allow for confirmation bias to take hold by allowing somebody to just nod along with their side because it aligns with a pre-existing belief (e.g., creationism taught side-by-side with evolution.)"</p><p><br/></p>
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