Tucker Carlson fired; Russian journos barred on US soil

THE days when the United States of America can still claim to be a “bastion” of freedom of the press and expression no longer hold true as powerful private corporations who own, partially or wholly, the mainstream media continue to dictate US policies and shutting down those brave enough to call a spade a spade.

This, after Fox News, one of the most conservative, pro-America and pro-Republican mainstream news outlets in the United States suddenly fired its most popular and respected commentator, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, simply known as Tucker Carlson worldwide, effective April 24, 2023.

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” as quoted in the report filed by the UK-based ‘The Guardian.’

The decision to fire Carlson came from the network’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, 92, the Australian-born media magnate who also owns The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post in the United States and Sky News and the Daily Telegraph in Australia, among others.

The dismissal of Carlson came on the same day that another US corporate media company, CNN, also announced the dismissal of one of its most popular commentators, Don Lemmon. Founded by Ted Turner in 1980, CNN is now owned by Warner Discovery, a merger of Warner Brothers and Discovery Channel, both private corporations.

In both cases, supporters of corporate mainstream media claimed Carlson and Lemmon were embroiled in legal cases involving sexual advances and ‘misogynic comments’ involving their women co-workers from years back. Carlson is also involved in a defamation suit that allegedly cost Fox more than $700 million to settle.

Particularly for Carlson, however, his followers jumped astronomically—6.1 million in Twitter alone—for his increasing open criticism of America’s proxy war in Ukraine and criticism of ‘Big Pharma’ in relation to COVID-19 vaccines that he said were not only expensive but also unsafe and ineffective, especially during his last broadcast for Fox on April 19, 2023.

Carlson was also the first to interview Sen. Robert Kennedy Jr., who is both anti-war and anti-Big Pharma after Kennedy announced he would be seeking the Democratic Party nomination for president in next year’s election.

Kennedy had vowed to shutdown US foreign military bases, seek peace in Ukraine and investigate Big Pharma.

Kennedy, in a Twitter post on April 25, said Carlson had crossed the “red line” among US television anchors “by acknowledging that US television networks pushed a deadly and ineffective vaccine to please their (Big) Pharma advertisers.”

“Carlson’s breathtakingly courageous April 19 monologue broke TV’s two biggest rules: Tucker told the truth… and he lambasted obsequious newscasters for promoting jabs they knew to be lethal and worthless… Fox just demonstrated the terrifying power of Big Pharma.”

But while the dismissal of Carlson and Lemmon can be simply dumbed down to “corporate interest” as what the corporate mainstream media now wants the incidents depicted, the decision of the United States government not to allow the entry of Russian journalists to cover Russia’s activities at the United Nations, especially its chairmanship of the UN Security Council, glaringly demonstrates America’s censorship of contrary views nowadays.

In a statement also on April 24, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, said he was “mistaken” into thinking that the world’s noticing of America’s “ugly behavior” would not result to the physical barring of Russian journalists on American soil.

“The country that calls itself the strongest, the smartest, the freest and the most just, has chickened out, did an unwise, stupid thing, that I am convinced of, by showing what its asseverations about protecting freedom of speech and access to information are really worth,” Lavrov said.

“We will also have to work for you, show more energy, and put more effort into bringing the truth to the world community and the public,” he added, apparently referring to the fact that with no Russian journalist covering the UNSC, the global narrative would again be in favor of the West thru their corporate mainstream media.

“Please try to keep track of what we are going to do there (UNSC) and spread this truth through your channels.

“I am convinced that it will draw much more interest all over the world than the “filtered” information that our Western colleagues bring down on the heads of their viewers, listeners, and readers,” the Russian top diplomat added.

Lavrov also warned that Russia would not take America’s censorship sitting down, cryptically ending his statement with: “Most importantly, be sure that we will not forget or forgive.”

The US decision to ban Russian journalists on US soil to cover events in a neutral organization like the UN is on top of its ongoing persecution of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, with the help of the United Kingdom and Assange’s own country, Australia.

The US wants Assange deported to the United States to face trial for espionage after WikiLeaks, beginning in 2010, disclosed the war crimes committed by the United States and NATO troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, among them the massacres of innocent civilians.

Assange remains in isolated detention in the UK since 2019 as both the global effort to set him free and prevent his extradition to the US continue.