President Potty Mouth: Hypocritical Evangelicals Suddenly Triggered By Trump’s Profanity

From the earliest days of his presidential ambitions, Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters have been the so-called “evangelicals” who profess to be devout disciples of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have packed his rallies, raised millions of dollars, and voted with the blind loyalty of a glassy-eyed cult. They provided a base of political support that benefited from the unshakeable faith that only religion can muster.

Donald Trump Messiah

However, there are now some rumblings of discontent in the pews. Politico is reporting that some in the evangelical community are becoming uncomfortable with “Trump’s penchant for profanity,” despite the fact that it has been there for decades:

“Trump’s indelicate language has frustrated religious fans who have otherwise been staunch supporters of his agenda. They agree with his social policies, praise his appointment of conservative judges and extol his commitment to Israel — often tolerating Trump’s character flaws for the continued advancement of all three. But when it comes to ‘using the Lord’s name in vain,’ as Hardesty put it, ‘the president’s evangelical base might be far less forgiving.'”

Seriously? Naughty words are what is triggering the Trump faithful? Apparently they have no problem with Trump being on his third wife, breaching vows to God to be bound “until death do us part.” They aren’t troubled by his serial infidelity, including dalliances with porn stars while his wife was home nursing his newborn. They look past his lies and payoffs to cover up his sinfulness. And speaking of lies, they don’t seem to be bothered that he has told more than 12,000 of them just since his inauguration.

What’s more, while fainting at the sound of obscenities, these willfully blind believers have shown no concern for the caging of children, the blatant racism, the prideful boasting, the infantile and wrathful name-calling, the love letters exchanged with murderous dictators, the flagrant disrespect for the law, the determination to befoul the planet, the obsession with terminating healthcare for millions, and the ignorance of nearly everything, including the bible.

Early on Trump pretended to be a devout Christian solely for political gain. Never mind that his entire life has been a monument to lust, greed, and the rest of the seven deadly sins. When he was asked by Republican “Word Doctor” Frank Luntz, if he had ever asked God for forgiveness, Trump replied that he didn’t need to because he has never done anything wrong. No, really! He said that

“I like to work where I don’t really have to ask for it. I like to do the right thing where I don’t actually have to ask for forgiveness. Does that make sense to you? You know, where you don’t make such bad things that you don’t have to ask for forgiveness. I mean, I’m trying to lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness. […] Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you’re not making mistakes?”

That, of course, shows that Trump not only has a perversely delusional self-image, but he also has a painfully misguided interpretation of the tenets of his own alleged Presbyterian faith, including “original sin,” wherein all are born with sin and require God’s forgiveness for salvation.

The Politico article notes that some of Trump’s most annoyingly pious “spiritual” backers are not worried about his profane utterances. “We all wish he would be a little more careful with his language,” said Jerry Falwell Jr, “but it’s not anything that’s a deal breaker, and it’s not something we’re going to get morally indignant about.” And Fox News contributor Alveda King said that “she’s inclined to extend grace to the president when he swears or makes inappropriate comments.”

Well, isn’t that special? Funny that they don’t extend the same measure of “grace” to Democrats or liberals. In fact, last week the top story on the Fox News website was a condemnation of Democrats for using obscenities following a heartbreaking week of mass shootings. Naturally, it ignored Trump’s rampant ravings replete with rude rhetoric reserved exclusively for personal insults.

That’s the sort of hypocrisy that is to be expected from Fox News and the Trump Cult. And while there are a few voices of sanity, don’t expect things to change any time soon. Their eyes are so glazed over that they can’t see the depths of their delusion or of Trump’s reprehensible dishonesty and deception. These are the people who claim to be God’s messengers. And they’re the same people who insisted that Barack Obama was the anti-Christ.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

In Defense of Fox News (?): Trust in Media Graphic Was Early, Not Censored

There is no question that Fox News is the most brazenly biased right-wing distorter of reality that has even been broadcast. It’s executives, hosts, and contributors are almost entirely devoted to disseminating conservative propaganda, much of it dictated by Donald Trump’s White House. Even worse, Trump’s positions are often dictated by Fox News.

Fox News Lies

That said, there has been a story circulating around the InterTubes that is just plain wrong. It asserts that Howard Kurtz, host of Fox’s MediaBuzz, was surprised by a graphic that showed Fox News as being the least trusted cable news network, and that he called for it to taken down in order to suppress that anti-Fox information. There is a lot wrong with that assertion.

First of all, there was a graphic that appeared during Kurtz’s program that was out of place. Kurtz did ask that it be taken down. But that’s only because it was out of sequence. When that part of the discussion came up a couple of minutes later, he showed that graphic again at the proper time. There was no attempt to censor it. (See video below).

Also, the argument that this graphic was taken down because it showed Fox News as trusted less than MSNBC and CNN is not accurate. The Monmouth University survey that was the basis for the graphic’s data did not compare the networks’ trustworthiness. It compared whether respondents trusted Trump or the media more. That’s actually worse from Trump’s perspective. Although that misreading is largely the fault of Fox News. The graphic needs to be read left to right, not top down. By highlighting the column instead of the rows Fox invited the misinterpretations. As News Corpse previously wrote about this poll:

“Like other polls before it, Monmouth found that Americans trust the media more than they do Donald Trump. That’s gotta sting the President who has been striving furiously to turn the nation against the press. The detail shows that 48 percent of Americans trust CNN more than Trump (35% trust Trump more). Forty-five percent trust MSNBC more than Trump (32% for Trump). Even 30 percent trust Fox News more than Trump (20% for Trump). Although the Fox numbers also show that a plurality of 37 percent trust both equally. This affirms that Trump’s base is still immovably stuck in the low thirties.”

The original story asserting that Fox News was embarrassed by an errant graphic and deep-sixed it appears to have been published by the Associated Press. They have since corrected their story. But it’s important that the record be correct in the progressive media so as to preserve our moral claim to being reality-based. There are more than enough legitimate examples of Fox News lying. And the findings in the poll are bad enough for Trump that they don’t need to be muddied up with misunderstandings.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

‘I Never Said I’m A Perfect Person” Says Trump, Except That He Actually Did

The world-class ego, narcissism, and arrogance of Donald Trump have been on public display for decades. He can hardly complete a sentence without exalting himself as the richest, smartest, biggest, and bestest at everything. There is absolutely no trace of humility in the non-stop parade of vainglorious self-promotion that he exudes.

Donald Trump Messiah

In the wake of his deplorable comments bragging about committing sexual assault, Trump’s delusions of grandeur come into even sharper focus. In the very first words in his non-apology apology video Trump makes a play for sympathy by mewling that “I’ve never said I’m a perfect person.” There’s just one problem with that. He has said exactly that both implicitly and explicitly.

In 2011, Republican “Word Doctor” Frank Luntz asked Trump if he had ever asked God for forgiveness. Trump answered “I am not sure that I have […] I don’t think in terms of that.” While that answer fits perfectly with Trump’s signature pompousness, it also reveals why he’s so reluctant to apologize for anything. That includes his blatantly offensive remarks about immigrants, minorities, veterans and women. If he won’t ask God for forgiveness, why the hell would he ask anyone else?

Then last year Trump played his Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free-Card again during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. [Note: Cooper will be moderating the next debate. Will he bring this up?] He was asked to revisit his previous comments and given an opportunity to refine them. He rejected that opportunity and, as usual, he doubled down on his immunity from needing to seek God’s grace.

TRUMP: Well, I like to work where I don’t really have to ask for it. I like to do the right thing where I don’t actually have to ask for forgiveness. Does that make sense to you? You know, where you don’t make such bad things that you don’t have to ask for forgiveness. I mean, I’m trying to lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness. […] Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you’re not making mistakes?

Talk about your Original Spin. There is no other way to interpret an assertion that you never make mistakes than as a claim of perfection. So right there Trump has exposed the lie at the foundation of his apology. Furthermore, he’s effectively saying that a good Christian can avoid seeking forgiveness from God by simply never making any mistakes. Who knew it was that easy? Of course, to do that would require a level of virtue not seen in about two thousand years. And yet he argues that he has achieved this pinnacle of purity. But if you ask the Presbyterian Church, to which Trump claims to belong, they have a completely different interpretation:

“Presbyterians believe the Bible when it says that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). Unlike crime, which involves the breaking of human law, sin is a condition of the heart or an expression of that condition where we are estranged from God and fail to trust in God.” […]

“Presbyterians believe God has offered us salvation because of God’s loving nature. It is not a right or a privilege to be earned by being ‘good enough.’ No one of us is good enough on our own — we are all dependent upon God’s goodness and mercy. From the kindest, most devoted churchgoer to the most blatant sinner, we are all saved solely by the grace of God.”

Trump seems to think that forgiveness is something that you request when you have told a lie, cut someone off in traffic, or cheated in golf. His understanding of religion is on the level of a four year old (no offense to four year olds). He has no concept of the tenets of his faith that regards all men and women as sinners. Trump doesn’t seem to think that his own mistakes (of which he has none) rise to the level of sins. That means his three marriages and serial infidelity are wholly virtuous in God’s eyes. His four bankruptcies that left thousands of creditors in the lurch were just divine accounting. His fraudulent Trump University that ripped off hundreds of “students” actually taught them a valuable lesson in dealing with charlatans. And these say nothing of his sins of greed, lust, pride, and his newly revealed admission of sexual assault.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that The Donald doesn’t need the forgiveness of God or anyone else. That’s because he is his own deity with omnipotent powers to solve every problem bigger and better than mere mortals. His followers are likely to grant him the forgiveness he refuses to request. And these are the self-appointed paragons of faith who claim to represent America’s morality. By the way, they’re also the same people who have been calling President Obama the Anti-Christ for seven years.

All-Woman Panel On Fox News Defends Donald Trump’s Disrespect For Women

A couple of weeks ago Hillary Clinton correctly observed that Donald Trump has a “penchant for sexism.” He has demonstrated that repeatedly with his personal attacks on Megyn Kelly, Carly Fiorina, Rosie O’Donnell, and others. What’s more, he is a fierce opponent of a woman’s right to choose, and prohibiting pay and job discrimination based on gender. He is also on his third wife and wants to bang his daughter. In light of that record of misogyny, Clinton was actually pretty mild in her criticism.

What transpired next was a tirade of extraneous attacks from Trump directed at Bill Clinton’s decades-old infidelities that, while improper, do not in any way absolve Trump of his past and current repulsive behavior. It is merely an attempt by Trump to deflect attention from himself. And for that he has been getting plenty of help from Fox News. The network has endeavored to keep the focus narrowly on Clinton’s affairs with frequent stories dredging up the former president’s past, while ignoring Trump’s nauseating present.

Now a new poll conducted by Fox News shows that the result of this propaganda blitz may not be exactly what they intended. When women were asked who they thought was “more respectful of women” – Bill Clinton or Donald Trump – they responded overwhelming that it was Bill Clinton (55% to 31%).

Fox News

Despite all the hard work by Fox and Trump, American women still prefer Clinton over Trump by a wide margin. So what is Fox to do now? Well, of course, they will assemble a panel of conservative women to refute their own poll.

All four of the women called upon for this Fox Business Channel segment are hard-core wingnuts. They include a Tea Partier, a conservative columnist, a former Bush aide, and even Donald Trump’s national spokeswoman. With four opinions represented, Fox somehow could not manage to include a single Democrat or Clinton supporter who might actually have agreed with their poll. The “fair and balanced” network made sure that only one point of view was supplied. And the results would be comical if they weren’t so sad. Here are some of the highlights as these right-wing spinners attempt to roll back what America’s women actually think:

Katherine Timpf (National Review): It can’t just be about ‘Oh Bill Clinton’s a bad guy.’ It’s what does it have to do with Hillary? It has to do with, if you look back at the way that Hillary treated these women who were accusing her husband of sexual assault, so far beyond the opposite of this new liberal feminist idea of they have a right to be believed, rather she called them names that I could not say on TV without getting suspended. So we need to look at that, and do put the focus on Hillary, but how she’s related to what happened then because she played a direct active role there. It wasn’t just Bill. She did some things that make me sick. It all makes me sick.

That comes very close to infringing on Sarah Palin’s “Word Salad” copyright. Timpf has virtually implicated Hillary in her husband’s affairs. She also doesn’t bother to include a single bit of truthful commentary, particularly the assertion that Hillary used language that could not be used on TV. Although I will agree that Timpf does appear to be sick.

Katrina Pierson (Trump spokeswoman): You’ll recall that this didn’t come up until she called him a sexist. She was thumping that woman’s card very hard. […] When you’re looking at who is being respectful or disrespectful to women if you’re in the media today, then you’re probably not gonna think so much of Trump because people don’t really remember everything that happened with Bill Clinton. We’ve got an entire generation of people who are still trying to figure out what this discussion is.

If she thinks that people in the media today are not exceedingly well-versed about the controversies of the Clinton years, she’s acutely delusional. Obviously the women responding to the poll didn’t have any trouble figuring out what the discussion is, and they recognize a cad when they see one.

Gina Loudon (Tea Party): People have short memories, first of all, so there’s the psychological component of that. But also, like Katrina said, there are generations of people that don’t even know what happened, but if you ask them who’s more trustworthy, the numbers on Hillary not being trustworthy are terrifying. And this is the other thing – Donald Trump hasn’t even begun to campaign against Hillary Clinton. […] My guess, Charles, is that the minute he starts to unleash on Hillary, she won’t even know what hit her.

So Loudon’s position is that it’s the people who are too ignorant to realize how horrible Clinton is and how awesome Trump is. The young ones never learned and the old ones have forgotten. What a bunch of idiots these women voters are, according to Loudon. Furthermore, Trump has been campaigning against Clinton for months. He has called her the “worst Secretary of State in history” (although he used to think she was a “terrific woman” and said that “I really like her and her husband both a lot”).

Cathy Taylor (GOP strategist and former George W. Bush advisor): I think we’re gonna see the tide shift quite a bit as we see Donald Trump continues on his path and starts to campaign as more of a general presidential campaign versus a primary campaign. Let’s remember that he has not really focused on women yet. He’s been very good to women as a businessman. And when you look at policies and policy recommendations, because policies are going to be more favorable, as with any of the GOP candidates, than Hillary Clinton. And let’s remember, there’s good guys and there’s nice guys. Bill Clinton may be a nice guy, Donald Trump is much more of a good guy.

Ms Taylor may need to wipe a bit of the drool off her chin. Trump actually has focused a great deal on women in this campaign, and it’s all been derogatory. Especially his policies, which are pretty much the same as the rest of the GOP and firmly rejected by majorities of women. As for the distinction between a “nice guy” and a “good guy,” I can only respond – WTF? Is this a political campaign or high school?

The video of this discussion (below) opened with a clip of Republican pollster and self-proclaimed “Word Doctor,” Frank Luntz, saying that “Trying to tie Bill Clinton into Hillary doesn’t make sense,” and that “You cannot win this election without getting at least 45% of the female vote.” But Republican candidates are doing everything they can to alienate women (and Latinos and African-Americans). And Fox News is making a desperate effort to clean up after them. The problem is that their efforts are so ham-handed that no one is going to be convinced by the ultra-partisans who are clearly acting as Trump’s surrogates. What’s most revealing about this is that Fox will hold nothing back when their conservative principles are being challenged. The challenger must be destroyed, even if it’s themselves and their own poll.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Be Afraid: Following Trump Focus Group, Fox News Word Doctor’s ‘Legs Are Shaking’

There is a palpable fear within the Republican Party that is directly attributable to the alleged popularity of their resident loudmouth blowhard and racist demagogue, Donald Trump. The fact that Trump’s offensive reality show antics has dominated the GOP primary, effectively suppressing the media presence of every other candidate, is causing the party regulars to tremble at the notion that he might actually have a shot at the nomination (he doesn’t).

Donald Trump

While their fear of Trump prevailing in the primaries is largely unfounded, they are right to be mortified by what Trump’s success with some Republican voters means to the party and its prospects in the general election next fall. He is cementing the party’s reputation as antagonistic to minorities and political moderates, but even worse, he is appealing to an ignorance that is rampant on the right.

To illustrate the frightful attitudes of Trump’s supporters, Fox News “Word Doctor” Frank Luntz conducted a focus group to find out what drew them to the cartoon-brained billionaire. The results painted a picture of a community of dunces who have mistaken being vulgar and obnoxious for straight talk. After listening to the group, Luntz, who Trump has called a “a low class slob,” told the assembled reporters that…

“You guys understand how significant this is? This is real. I’m having trouble processing it. Like, my legs are shaking. I want to put the Republican leadership behind this mirror and let them see. They need to wake up. They don’t realize how the grassroots have abandoned them. Donald Trump is punishment to a Republican elite that wasn’t listening to their grassroots.”

What a load of bull. If Republicans have anything to fear it is the Frankenstein monster of their own making. If they need to wake up it is from the nightmare doomsday scenarios that they have been promulgating for the last seven years that portrayed President Obama as a dictator who would destroy the economy, confiscate their guns, outlaw Christianity, and declare the country the new capital of the Global Islamic Caliphate.

The grassroots of the GOP didn’t abandon the party. They were shuffled into a Tea Party subdivision that has been whining about exactly the same things that Trump’s supporters are whining about. In fact, Trump has assumed the mantle of Tea Party leadership that Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and others tried and failed to assume. He isn’t punishment for not listening, he is the manifestation of having listened and taken their idiotic yammering seriously. Some of the reasons given by the group for supporting Trump were indistinguishable from the bellyaching of the Tea Party. For instance…

  • “I think America is pissed. Trump’s the first person that came out and voiced exactly what everybody’s been saying all along.”
  • “When Trump talks, it may not be presented in a pristine, PC way, but we’ve been having that crap pushed to us for the past 40 years.”
  • “I used to sleep on my front porch with the door wide open, and now everyone has deadbolts. I believe the best days of the country are behind us.”
  • “I’m frustrated beyond belief. I feel like I’ve been lied to. Nothing’s getting better.”
    “We know his goal is to make America great again. It’s on his hat.”
  • “We’ve got to show the Republicans that we’ve had it with them, that we will not be there every single time. They treat us like crap and they lie to us and promise us things and then they expect us to vote again.”
  • “He’s not afraid. He keeps prodding on even if people give him negative press. He doesn’t change and apologize.”

These cretins are articulating a cacophony of contempt for America. They are inconsolable that it doesn’t resemble the fantasy they have of the white, Christian, utopia they think they were promised by God who wrote the Constitution. What’s more, they are achingly stupid. They blindly repeat the mantra that Trump is expressing what they feel, but Trump hasn’t offered any actual policies that address any real problems, so how do they know? Well, they know because it’s written on his hat. So there.

The responses from this focus group are not unique. Last month John Heilemann of Bloomberg News assembled a focus group that felt pretty much the same way. What’s interesting about this is that the character traits for which they praise Trump would be considered abhorrent if they came from Obama. If the President was described as speaking for people who were “pissed,” who thought America’s best days are behind us, didn’t care about negative press, and refused to apologize, these same Trumpbaggers would holler at the top of their lungs about what an arrogant, unpatriotic, egotistical, fascist he is.

It isn’t Trump they like. It’s the undisguised hatred and bigotry aimed at the real objects of their disgust. That begins with our African-American President and extends to all progressive sectors of society including Latinos, women, union members, teachers, scientists, and an array of diverse spiritual and secular citizens. It is not surprising that Trump’s most staunch supporters are America’s white supremacists, who regard him as the champion of disaffected whites. Although Trump espouses a platform that is identical to that of every other Republican candidate, his supporters prefer him because the others aren’t as crude or as perceivably filled with hate.

So these focus groups serve a valuable purpose in exposing Trump’s followers as the hostile and ignorant swine that they are. And to the extent that other Republican candidates, voters, and media fail to renounce it, they are just as bad. That’s what should be making Mr. Luntz’s legs shake.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Immaculate Birther: Donald Trump Says He Doesn’t Have To Ask God For Forgiveness

The world-class ego, narcissism, and arrogance of Donald Trump have been on public display for decades. He can hardly complete a sentence without exalting himself as the richest, smartest, biggest, and bestest at whatever he attempts or proposes. There is absolutely no trace of humility in the non-stop parade of vainglorious self-promotion that he exudes.

This annoying character flaw would be bad enough if it was constrained to his business exploits and personal self-appraisal. However, Trump has recently enlarged his bubble of pride to encompass his faith as it relates to his presidential candidacy. When asked by Republican “Word Doctor” Frank Luntz if he had ever asked God for forgiveness, Trump said “I am not sure that I have […] I don’t think in terms of that.” While that answer fits perfectly with Trump’s signature pompousness, it also reveals why he is so reluctant to apologize for anything, including his blatantly offensive remarks about immigrants and Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero. If he won’t ask God for forgiveness, why the hell would he ask anyone else?

Donald Trump Immaculate Birther

Yesterday Trump expanded on his spiritual principles during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. He was asked to revisit his previous comments and given an opportunity to refine them. He rejected that opportunity and, as usual, he doubled down on his immunity from needing to seek God’s grace.

Trump: Well, I like to work where I don’t really have to ask for it. I like to do the right thing where I don’t actually have to ask for forgiveness. Does that make sense to you? You know, where you don’t make such bad things that you don’t have to ask for forgiveness. I mean, I’m trying to lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness. […] Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you’re not making mistakes?

Talk about your Original Spin. Trump is effectively saying that a good Christian can avoid having to seek forgiveness from God by simply never making any mistakes. Who knew it was that easy? Of course, to do that would require a level of perfection not seen in about two thousand years from the perspective of believers. And yet he argues that he has achieved this pinnacle of purity. But if you ask the Presbyterian Church, of which Trump claims to be a member, they have a completely different interpretation:

“Presbyterians believe the Bible when it says that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). Unlike crime, which involves the breaking of human law, sin is a condition of the heart or an expression of that condition where we are estranged from God and fail to trust in God.” […]

“Presbyterians believe God has offered us salvation because of God’s loving nature. It is not a right or a privilege to be earned by being ‘good enough.’ No one of us is good enough on our own — we are all dependent upon God’s goodness and mercy. From the kindest, most devoted churchgoer to the most blatant sinner, we are all saved solely by the grace of God.” […]

“Presbyterians believe it is through the action of God working in us that we become aware of our sinfulness and our need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. Just as a parent is quick to welcome a wayward child who has repented of rebellion, God is willing to forgive our sins if we but confess them and ask for forgiveness in the name of Christ.”

Trump seems to think that forgiveness is something that you request when you have told a lie, cut someone off in traffic, or cheated in golf. His understanding of religion is on the level of a four year old (no offense to four year olds). He has no concept of the tenets of his faith that regards all men and women as sinners. And setting aside the scriptural rendering, Trump doesn’t seem to think that his own mistakes (of which he has none) rise to the level of sins. That means his three marriages and serial infidelity are wholly virtuous in God’s eyes. His four bankruptcies that left thousands of creditors in the lurch were just divine accounting. His fraudulent Trump University that ripped off hundreds of “students” actually taught them a valuable lesson in dealing with charlatans. And these say nothing of his sins of greed, lust, and pride.

To make matters worse, Trump has assumed the posture of a beleaguered victim of the dark forces of Hell (aka the media). He believes he is being crucified by his enemies in the press and the Republican Party. This persecution may lead to his self-excommunication and a holy war via a third party candidacy for the White House. Oh God please, we pray.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

If there’s one thing that has been made clear, it’s that The Donald doesn’t need the forgiveness of God or anyone else. That’s because he is his own deity with omnipotent powers to solve every problem bigger and better than any mere mortals. And just as he remains certain that he will win the votes of the Latinos he has insulted, and the veterans he has demeaned, he is equally certain that evangelicals and other faith-based voters will flock to his holiness despite his heresy, profanity, and obvious Messiah complex. By the way, these are the same people who have been calling President Obama the Anti-Christ for seven years.

GOP ‘Word Doctor’ Inadvertently Admits (And Praises) Blatant Fox News Bias

As one of Fox News’ favorite contributors J. Christ said: “Physician, heal thyself.” That would be good advice for Dr. Frank Luntz, who has dubbed himself “The Word Doctor” for his efforts to deceitfully manipulate language in order to peddle otherwise unpopular conservative policies.

Fox News Frank Luntz

Wanna see how Fox Nation “doctors” their news stories?
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On Sunday’s episode of MediaBuzz, the Fox News media analysis program, host Howard Kurtz brought Luntz in to discuss the public’s low opinion of the media. The segment turned into a slobbering love fest of Fox News with Luntz heaping praise on the network with almost every answer. However, in one instance he may have provided a little too much information.

Kurtz and Luntz were attempting to demonstrate how “fair and balanced” the notoriously conservative network is with a clip from one of Luntz’s focus groups. Luntz began by asking the group if they trust Fox News. A distinct majority raised their hands to indicate that they did. One of the few dissenters who was asked to elaborate was a woman who said that “I really believe – I know no one wants to hear this, especially here – that Fox is an extension of the Republican Party.” Seizing on that candid opinion, Luntz heralded Fox for being “willing to challenge itself,” and took a swipe at MSNBC, who he said would not have allowed the question. Then he escalated his gushing adulation to say that…

“In 2008, when I did focus groups with Obama and McCain, all three of my sessions during the debates had Obama winning. And Fox still devoted six, seven, eight minutes to those focus groups. They have nothing to fear, and I appreciate that about this network.”

Imagine that. A Republican pollster holds focus groups that favor Obama but Fox aired the results anyway. That’s an open admission that Fox is exactly what the woman in the group said: “an extension of the Republican Party.” Otherwise, why would Luntz regard it as so extraordinary that it deserved special recognition? Luntz was praising Fox for broadcasting the segment even though it was contrary to their Republican political leanings. And of course they have nothing to fear when the other 99.9% of their programming is solid GOP talking points straight from RNC press releases.

But Luntz shouldn’t get so excited about this anomaly. Fox’s version of fairness and balance is anything but. Their oversampling of right-wing pundits and politicians has been well documented. They even provide a platform for Republican candidates to campaign while still employed by Fox as paid contributors. And just last week Bill O’Reilly did a segment that attempted to prove that Fox was ideologically evenhanded, but it backfired badly. His guest, Fox host Heather Nauert, noted that there were nineteen “liberals” on Fox “out of quite a lot” of conservatives, Nauert fumbled.

[FYI: I counted only sixteen liberals (and some of those were questionable) facing off against 121 conservatives according to Fox’s website. The “liberals” are Evan Bayh, Bob Beckel, James Carville, Alan Colmes, Susan Estrich, Santita Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, Mara Liasson, Leslie Marshall, Deroy Murdock, Kirsten Powers, Ellen Ratner, Geraldo Rivera, Julie Roginsky, Joe Trippi, and Juan Williams]

Elsewhere in the MediaBuzz segment Kurtz posed this question to Luntz: “You are saying that the audience has gotten more partisan […] Aren’t people like you in part responsible for that?” Good question, Howie. Here is Luntz’s ludicrous response which Kurtz left unchallanged:

“Well, it’s a simple question. Is the death tax an accurate description of being taxed when you die? Isn’t exploring for energy what oil companies do? Is it opportunity in education, in terms of vouchers or school choice? If you believe that the words that I’m using aren’t accurate, then you’ve got a legitimate point. I believe that these are accurate descriptions, which is why the American people seem to support it.”

Quite clearly these are not accurate descriptions. They are deliberate deceptions that Luntz carefully tested to assure that they would elicit predetermined reactions from voters. The “Death Tax” that Luntz coined is not a tax on dying. It is tax on property that is being transferred from one party to another, which is exactly what would happen if it were being done between two living persons. His “exploring for energy” dodge is meant to disguise the fact that it refers to environmentally risky off-shore drilling that the public opposes. As for “opportunity in education,” that is so vague as to be meaningless, and it dispenses with the truly descriptive phrasing of vouchers, which is what the program is all about.

Luntz is a professional deception specialist. Republicans rely on him for ways to package unpopular GOP policies so that citizens are persuaded to vote against their own best interests. In other words, he constructs lies that he sells to desperate right-wing politicos, and he supports a luxurious lifestyle by doing so.

Jon Stewart Dismantles The GOP/Fox News Messaging Machine

It’s been three months since the Republican Party took a beating at the polls losing the White House as well as two Senate seats and seven in the House. Yet they are still immersed in a vicious debate over whether their policies are driving away majorities of the electorate or if it’s just a messaging problem.

Heavyweight GOP operatives like Karl Rove, Eric Canter, Jim DeMint, Rush Limbaugh and various Tea Party goons are polishing their finest bluster and throwing blame around like cream pies at a clown convention. What they seem to be missing is that their messaging has been the one part of their tactical campaign that has been working. Americans, for the most part, know exactly what Republicans stand for, they just don’t like it and voted against it in droves. So the the response from the GOP is to take another stab at obscuring their true intent by developing another phony facade behind which to campaign. That effort was mercilessly skewered last night by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show:

Stewart’s focus on the self-described “Word Doctor” Frank Luntz could not have been more appropriate. Luntz has positioned himself as the poster boy for political window dressing.

Frank LuntzIn the pre-2012 election warm-up he conducted a seminar for the Republican Governors Association to teach them how to practice more effective deception. He told his pupils that he was “so scared” of Occupy Wall Street and laid out a directive for them to refrain from using damaging phrases like “tax the rich,” “sacrifice,” and “capitalism,” and replace them with his equivalent of verbal comfort food.

While desperately dishonest, Luntz is actually closer to solving the GOP’s problems than most of his comrades in the communications arena who are Apocalypse vendors trying to outdo one another with tales of doom. They want to keep the right-wing sheep in state of constant and debilitating fear by insisting that America’s demise is imminent, freedom is hanging by a thread, and the foreign-born usurper in the White House is amassing his troops for a run at dictatorship. Compared to that, Luntz is as warm and fuzzy as you can get, albeit just as averse to the truth.

The Apocalyptists, however, are winning the internal GOP war. Their gloomy forecast has prevailed as happy-talkers like Luntz fade into the woodwork. Luntz even acknowledged the defeat in a post-election commentary about why “Fox News viewers ought to be outraged.” The doomsayers have a much higher wattage broadcast platform. And although they whine incessantly about what they imagine to be a liberal media, their own role in propagandizing the nation is far more aggressive. As Jon Stewart sarcastically put it…

“If only people knew what the Republicans were about. What the Republicans need is some kind of a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week perpetual messaging refinement and distribution resource. Preferably one cloaked in the trappings of journalistic authority but without any of its ethical constraints.”

Yeah, if only they had that. Then their message wouldn’t be getting suppressed by media titans like Current TV. Wait a minute – that doesn’t exist anymore. Well the leftists certainly have dominated the airwaves on talk radio for the last few decades. Oh wait, that isn’t true either.

I guess the fact remains that the only billionaire sponsored mouthpiece for extremist right-wing thought control is still Fox News. And despite their monopoly on media manipulation they still can’t stop whining about what victims they are.

Fox Flunky Frank Luntz Says “Fox News Viewers Ought To Be Outraged”

If you were to look for a political pollster or analyst who spent more time manufacturing a false narrative about the presidential election than Frank Luntz, you would probably give up in despair.

Luntz is a Fox News fixture who appears on numerous programs flaunting his phony focus groups that invariably swayed to favor Mitt Romney. He was also called upon to review campaign ads, some of which were produced by his Fox colleague, Karl Rove. Those reviews always seemed to rate the GOP ads better, which further affirmed his assessment that Romney was the favorite to win. And to top it off, Luntz is a consultant for hire to the Republican Party, so anyone expecting anything like objectivity from him is terminally naive.

Now that President Obama has decisively won reelection with an electoral landslide, Luntz has crawled out from beneath his wretched rightist rock to make what may be the most hilarious, deceitful, and self-serving statement of the whole campaign season:

“The published polls that the Romney campaign and the Republican establishment were trashing day after day turned out to be accurate. […] This is a bad day for establishment pollsters and it’s something they should be held accountable for. You have to tell your clients the truth. And you have to be accurate. And to miss so many states and to be this far off – Your Fox News viewers ought to be outraged, because day in and day out they were told that Mitt Romney was going to win.”

Indeed, Fox News viewers should be outraged – At Luntz and Fox News! After all, that is where conservative voters were fed the most conspicuously dishonest misinformation about the election and the projected outcome. They are the reason that Romney and his supporters were described as “shell-shocked” when they realized that he had lost. They are the ones who promoted nonsense like “Unskewed Polls” that ironically sought to skew published polling so that Romney came out ahead.

Fox News was so brazenly hypocritical in their reporting of election surveys that they chose to only publish polls that had Romney in the lead. They ignored or disparaged any poll that put Obama on top – even their own Fox News commissioned polls.

Fox News Polls

If election day was “a bad day for establishment pollsters,” it was a bad day for Luntz, because you don’t get more establishment than him. He was as much a part of the problem as anyone. Just a couple of weeks before the election he appeared on Fox to say that it was time to “take Florida off the swing state list,” because it had swung clearly and irreversibly to Romney. Of course, Florida went for Obama, as did all but one of the so-called “swing states.”

The disingenuous babble on Fox News has only one purpose: advance the political interests of conservatives and Republicans. That fact was illuminated by none other than Luntz himself when he told the Los Angeles Times that his airtime has previously been cut on Fox because “his findings didn’t comport with the outlet’s orthodoxy.” That’s an admission that Fox requires their contributors to toe a partisan line, and Luntz has obviously complied.

For Luntz to come out now and tell Fox viewers that they should be outraged is typical behavior for a propagandist who calls himself the “Word Doctor.” He is a professional flack who counsels his clients to lie by distorting language. It was Luntz who coined the term “government-run health care” as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (or ObamaCare). It didn’t matter that the legislation was only aimed at health insurance and was not in any way a government takeover of medical services. The phrase itself was awarded the “Lie of the Year” from PolitiFact.

Frank LuntzIt’s what Luntz does. In one of his more infamous efforts to distort public discourse, he delivered a speech before a group of Republicans wherein he offered a series of rhetorical replacements for words he thought were damaging to the GOP cause. Words like “capitalism, compromise,” and “middle-class.” This screed was served up after first declaring his abject fear of the Occupy Wall Street movement, saying that he was “so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death. They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.” And his approach to countering it was not to formulate a policy response, but to change the wording of the GOP rebuttal in the hopes of confusing the public.

So, should Fox News viewers be outraged? I’ll say. But, sadly, they will probably just sink back into their stupor and continue to believe whatever falsehoods Fox throws at them going forward. Fox is already trying to sell the myth that Obama’s victory was insignificant and comes without a mandate. They are soft-peddling an electoral blowout and the fact that Democrats won even more seats in both the House and the Senate in a year where they were expected to lose seats. They are fostering the notion that the GOP should resist tax increases on the wealthy, despite the fact that Obama ran (and won) on that platform and exit polls show that 60% of voters favor it.

This further demonstrates that Fox is doing precisely the same things that ought to have enraged their viewers, and when they lose these arguments as well, their audience will be similarly shell-shocked. But they are getting exactly what they deserve by being foolish enough to keep watching a network that deliberately lies to them.

The Fox News Un-American 4th Of July Election Special

Demonstrating their blatant hostility to fairly representing the American people, Fox News broadcast an election special on the Fourth of July that consisted of almost exclusively conservative Republicans. Out of eleven political guests there was only one Democrat (Rep. Rob Andrews of New Jersey).

Balancing out that lone voice was Supreme Wacko Allen West (who thinks that there are 80 card-carrying Democratic communists in Congress), virulent Democrat hunter Darrell Issa (who never met a Democrat he doesn’t hold in contempt), and a panel of eight all-GOP House freshmen. Even for Fox this is a strikingly unbalanced division of ideologies.

Frank LuntzThe host of the program was the GOP “Word Doctor,” Frank Luntz. Luntz is best known for developing rhetoric and catch phrases to deceive people into supporting programs they would never back if they were told the truth about them. Recently Luntz held a seminar with GOP leaders advising them on how to mislead their constituents. Luntz advised Republicans to avoid certain words and replace them with others that he had focus-group tested. For instance: Out: Capitalism / In: Economic Freedom.” When conservative PR flacks tell Republicans not to talk about capitalism, a significant shift is taking place.

The program’s highlights included Allen West reiterating his belief about communists infiltrating Congress. No one bothered to challenge his nightmarish delusions. Darrell Issa was allowed to defend his inquisition of the Obama administration via a softball question about whether he thought he was too hard on Democrats. Did they really expect him to say “yes?” No one bothered asked him why his Committee on Oversight never held hearings on Republican malfeasance.

The program was so steeply slanted that the set was decorated with paintings of past presidents, but not a single Democratic president was on display. It was a feast of both overt and subliminal propaganda that sought to pretend that there was only one political opinion that encompassed the whole of the American population. For Fox News to schedule this brazenly partisan hour of Republican PR on Independence Day and label it an “American Roundtable” is evidence of just how far they will go to promote their benefactors in the party of the Greedy One Percent (aka GOP). They are going to be unpleasantly surprised when they discover that there are millions of Americans who do not share their self-serving, elitist views, but who aspire to a more inclusive and uplifting agenda that seeks to make “liberty and justice for all” more than just a slogan to be exploited by cynical Republicans and deceitful “news” networks.