Trump Posts Hysterical Lie that ‘Everyone is Watching’ His Failing Twitter Ripoff, Truth Social

The desperation of Donald Trump continues to present itself with virtually every public comment he makes. As his legal peril escalates with investigations in progress in New York, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., Trump is amping up his attacks on anything and everything in order to wipe the slime from his brow and/or deflect attention from his crimes.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

In the two weeks since the FBI retrieved numerous boxes of classified material from his Mar-a-Lago bunker, Trump has frantically fabricated a stream of increasingly bizarre excuses for his illegally hoarding sensitive national security documents in the insecure basement of his Palm Beach hotel/home.

RELATED: Trump’s Lawyers Have a Shiny New Excuse for His Hoarding Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago

Now Trump is lashing out wildly to change the subject again. On Sunday morning Trump took to his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, to whine about the “Fake News” correctly describing his social media scam as “little used.” He sobbed that…

“It’s amazing, I’ve had two stories — one in Politico, one in the Fake New York Times, where in the midst of the story, they say that I put my message out on Truth Social, a ‘little-used’ site with ‘few’ people watching. More Fake News. They know it’s now one of the hottest sites in the world, but they will never admit it, that’s why they call them the Fake News. Everyone is watching.”

What’s amazing is how brazenly Trump can lie without a hint of shame. The charge that Trump is making against the New York Times and Politico are based solely on the fallacies that fill his feeble mind. If Trump truly thinks that Truth Social is “one of the hottest sites in the world,” and that “they” know it, he is more cognitively collapsing than previously known. Also, the only ones calling the media “fake news” are Trump and his cult followers.

Trump’s post links to the ultra-rightist Washington Examiner as his source for these flagrant falsehoods. The Examiner just quotes an article on Vice News. Vice reports accurately that downloads of Truth Social did spike following the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. But that was hardly anything to celebrate:

“In the week prior to the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, the Truth Social app was downloaded less than 20,000 times, averaging around 2,500 downloads per day from Apple’s app store.

“However in the week after the search, details of which were first announced publicly by Trump himself on Truth Social, it was downloaded 107,500 times, an average of 13,400 per day.”

Let’s put that into context. Twitter currently has more than two hundred million active daily users. Truth Social is hovering at about half a million. Which doesn’t really qualify it as a “hot” site. What’s more, Truth Social’s user data is sketchy at best. They report Trump as having three million followers, which is two and a half million more than the site’s total. He had 80 million on Twitter. Vice went on to say that…

“From the beginning, Truth Social has been beset by technical problems. There was initially a huge backlog of users who simply couldn’t get onto the platform. It was also only available on Apple’s platform; there is still no Android app available (it’s ‘coming soon,’ the company says) and registrations are currently closed for new users, according to the platform’s website.

For the record, the New York Times article that Trump appears to be referring to was about his childishly sarcastic “endorsements” of Democratic candidates Carolyn Maloney and Dan Goldman, who immediately rejected him. However, there doesn’t seem to be any Politico article that makes the claim that Trump is yammering about.

The bottom line is that if Trump really wants to spread his lies that Truth Social is a hotbed of online activity, he’s going to have to post them somewhere other than Truth Social where hardly anyone will see them. The site is ghost town. Which is, ironically, what Truth Social’s CEO, Devin Nunes, called Twitter on Fox News.

RELATED: SRSLY? Trump’s TRUTH Social Boss, Devin Nunes, Tells Fox News that ‘Twitter is a Ghost Town’

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Boring Biden? Fox News is Very Upset that Biden Isn’t a Hyper-Psycho Drama Queen Like Trump

When Fox News isn’t complaining that President Biden is mentally incompetent (a diagnosis that the American people find more applicable to Donald Trump), they are grousing about how he is an over zealous radical tyrant riding roughshod over conservative “values.” How he can be both an addled wimp and an evil genius remains a mystery.

Click here to Tweet this article

Joe Biden, Donald Trump

The whiners at Fox News don’t really care if their criticisms are true, or even if they make sense. The only thing that matters is that they have a rhetorical cudgel with which to beat up on Biden. And even when they have nothing, they will try to deploy that nothingness as a weapon. It’s a pathetic tactic that only exposes how vacant their political strategies are. And leading Fox News in the cognitive vacancy department is their Primetime host, Jesse Watters.

RELATED: Trump’s Twitter Proxy Implies Biden is Mentally Unsound for Referring to Notes, But Guess What?

On Friday evening Watters was clearly out of political spitballs. So he resorted to the hackery that the absence of scandal is scandalous. His harangue (video below) was based on an article in Politico, a source usually regarded as “fake” news by the Fox set. Except when they think they can spin it to their advantage. He began with an old and regularly recurring trope that Biden is “just boring,” and elaborated saying that…

“…he promised to be boring, and he’s doing everything he can to keep that pledge. And they’re not wrong. Joe doesn’t even schmooze these peeps in D.C. And for a Democrat, that is a sin. He spends almost every weekend in Delaware. The guy just loves his basement. Presidents are supposed to excite the Washington establishment, but Joe is doing the exact opposite.”

RELATED: Fox News Attempts (and Hysterically Fails) to Contrive a Fake Biden Scandal

Apparently Watters believes that it’s the President’s job to “schmooze” the elites in Washington. And if he isn’t doing that, he’s derelict in his duties. Although that standard was never in place for Trump, whose social interactions with anyone who wasn’t a slobbering sycophant were invariably disastrous and vulgar. What’s more, Watters complains that Biden was holed up in his basement. That, of course, is a routine right-wing lie by partisans who never cared about Trump spending hundreds of days (and millions of taxpayer dollars) at his own golf resorts.

Watters also spoke of “exciting” the Washington establishment as an official duty. He lamented the lack of “presidential sightings,” “black-tie banquets,” and “Glamorous new aides, preferably with active social schedules and newsworthy romantic lives!” Unfortunately, Biden preferred to waste his time with trivialities like managing a deadly pandemic, restoring the economy, and responding to the genocidal attack by Russia on Ukraine, to name a few.

Watters was also disturbed that Biden didn’t attend the exclusive Gridiron Dinner this week. He sent Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo instead. But as Watters noted, it was a good thing that he passed, because many of the guests contracted COVID. For which Watters had another negative spin, saying – and virtually hoping – that “Eventually, Biden is going to catch COVID, it’s bound to happen and you’ll never see Biden or another party again.” Watters seems to be laying the groundwork for his next manufactured scandal.

RELATED: Fox Family Values: Tucker Carlson Viciously Mocks Media and – Biden’s Marriage?

What conservative crackpots like Watters mean when they talk about Biden being boring, is that he doesn’t excrete the same noxious hysteria and hostility that was the hallmark of the Trump era. Even Politico’s article conceded that it wasn’t so much Biden’s lack of substantive excitement, but rather engaging PR. “The majesty of the White House,” Politico wrote, “the star power of the inner circle — these are tools that can be harnessed to charm decision-makers and narrative-writers.” That’s true, but it was too nuanced for someone as shallow as Watters to wade through.

Consequently, America is saddled with the asinine assertions of cretins like Watters who struggle to invent scandals where none exist. That’s why then end up accusing Biden of such atrocities as wearing a face mask, or riding a bike, or picking a dandelion for his wife, or eating ice cream…

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Tucker Carlson’s Insane Rant that Democrats Are Plotting to Censor Your Text Messages

STOP THE MADNESS! Fox News is demonstrating both their full blown devotion to the Cult of Trump and their impotence with regard to managing the worst purveyors of flagrantly dishonest propaganda and conspiracy crackpottery that populate their network. And both of those obscene circumstances come in the form of perpetually ticked off and furrow-browed Tucker Carlson.

Fox News. Tucker Carlson

On Monday night Carlson delivered another of hallmark harangues. The subject of this one was an atrocity that exists only in his diseased brain. Stepping off the ledge even further into dementia territory, Carlson is now alleging that Democrats are plotting to censor your text messages and other private communications. The very first paragraph was a study in professional bullshittery:

“Last March, as the first big clusters of coronavirus cases started to appear in this country, media executives in Silicon Valley coordinated with officials in Washington to determine how much the public was allowed to know about the growing epidemic that was killing them.”

So Carlson is alleging as fact that there was a convocation of media and techies to coordinate a blueprint for abridging freedom of speech. As usual, he doesn’t bother to present any proof of this gathering, but that’s only because there isn’t any. He went on to say that…

“Today we learned the Biden administration considers censorship is applicable to private speech as well. What you say in private, when you’re alone with your phone, you won’t be able to say or read what you want because the DNC plans to control – and apparently have the ability to control – the flow the information you receive on your phone.”

OMG! According to Carlson the Democratic National Committee can – and is – monitoring your text messages and is intent on censoring what you read and write. That would be horrifying, but for the fact that it’s a claim that isn’t remotely associated with reality. Carlson based the whole thing on an excerpt from an article in Politico that said…

“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively, and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages.”

Notice that there is nothing in that sentence that asserts any attempt to monitor or censor anything at all. The article was referring to Democratic organizations having ready responses to the potentially deadly lies being peddled by Republican operatives via mass SMS messaging. Liars like Carlson are understandably frightened by fact-checkers and initiatives aimed at disseminating the truth. Politico notes – and Carlson failed to acknowledge – that the goal is to counter right-wing misinformation. For example…

“Turning Point USA has also sent out SMS messages urging people to sign petitions on the topic [of vaccinations]. In one message, viewed by POLITICO, [TUSA Chief Charlie] Kirk contends, ‘Biden is sending goons DOOR-TO-DOOR to make you take a Covid-19 vaccine.'”

That, of course, is a blatant and dangerous lie. It’s fear mongering that has been all over Fox News for the past couple of weeks. And speaking of misinformation, Carlson is engaging in a new rebranding of “alternative facts” wherein he proclaims that “misinformation very often is factually true.” However, anyone with a smidgen of cognitive coherence knows that, by definition, misinformation is literally false. Unfortunately, that standard of cognition would exclude Carlson, who has his own definition of misinformation, and he exploits it to spread more irrational fear about life-saving vaccines:

“Misinformation is anything the Biden administration doesn’t want you to know – including, for example, how effective the COVID vaccines actually are, and what the potential side effects from them might be from taking them.”

Carlson went on to reveal his ignorance of virology – or deliberate deception – by asserting that vaccinated people have no reason to worry about unvaccinated people. “So why is official Washington so angry,” Carlson asks, “at the people who won’t get vaccinated? How precisely do they propose a threat? It makes you think that maybe none of this is really about COVID. Maybe it’s about social control.” No, Tucker, it makes you think that the more available hosts there are, the more the virus can mutant into variants that could put everyone, including vaccinated people, at risk.

Carlson is coming full circle and exposing his true agenda. It is all about “social control,” and his ludicrous claim that “Your private conversations will be controlled by the DNC.” Which he still has failed to affirm with any shred of evidence. But then, nobody expects Carlson to deal in facts, not even his Fox News or their lawyers who defended him court by arguing that no reasonable person would believe anything he says.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

GOP Senator Whines That Biden Isn’t as Stark Raving Mad as Trump

The election of Joe Biden as President has profoundly changed the White House culture and the national political environment. And it’s not just because he is articulating and implementing an agenda that advances the interests of the American people, and that they overwhelmingly support. It’s also because Biden isn’t a narcissistic, pathological lying, sociopath like his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, King

The Republican Party had a chance to distance themselves from the insanity that Trump excreted so excruciatingly. Instead they chose to embrace him with more devotion than ever, despite the fact that he has become America’s Biggest Loser. Republican members of Congress have been making the mandatory pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Dear Leader’s – let’s just say ring.

Chief among the obedient faithful is the Senate’s number two Republican, John Cornyn of Texas. And to demonstrate his loyalty to Hair Trump, Cornyn posted a tweet that he intended as a slam on Biden. It said that…

“The president is not doing cable news interviews. Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional. The public comments are largely scripted. Biden has opted for fewer sit down interviews with mainstream outlets and reporters. […] Invites the question: is he really in charge?”

First of all, it needs to be noted that Cornyn’s tweet was cut and pasted, without attribution (plagiarism?), from a Politico article by White House Correspondent Eugene Daniels. But more to the point, Cornyn is apparently appalled that Biden doesn’t regard his duties as President to be ranting endlessly on Twitter and posting clips of himself on Fox News (between rounds of golf at his own resorts). In Cornyn’s acutely warped Trumpism, Biden is neglecting his job by spending all of his time actually doing it.

The excerpt from the Politico article was not meant to be critical. It was merely descriptive of a president who isn’t a pompous braggart that needs to be the center attention at all times; who isn’t at war with the free press; and who expresses himself with simple honesty. Biden views the presidency as a sacred duty to serve the people, rather than his own ego. And he sought to be a relief from the reality TV melodrama of the Trump era. That point was made by Daniels later in the article:

“During the campaign, the Biden team sold themselves as a return to calm. Their commitment to that pledge since taking office makes clear that it wasn’t just a show for voters but an actual strategy. It is a head-spinning departure from four years of President Donald Trump, who was his own surrogate and aspiring assignment editor, tweeting changes to policy and taking the typically adversarial relationship with the press to a full-on war. […] But Biden aides believed that simplicity and restraint was the best approach. He won the election.”

The stance by Biden and his administration is a deliberate departure from the madness of Trump & Company. What’s more, it is what the American people want and voted for in droves. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, stated it succinctly when Cornyn’s comments were raised at the daily White House briefing:

Reporter: Sen. John Cornyn has called Joe Biden’s tweets “unimaginably conventional” and said that his comments were “largely scripted” and questioned whether he was really in charge. Does the White House have any reaction to that?
Psaki: Well I can confirm that the President of the United States does not spend his time tweeting conspiracy theories. He spends his time working on behalf of the American people.

Working on behalf of the American people? What an original concept. The Republican Party might want to consider that sometime. That’s if they can stop working on behalf of the wealthy, the kleptocracy, and the Messiah of Mar-a-Lago long enough to care about the nation more than their party or themselves.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

UH-OH: Fox News Speculates that Trump is a Loser Who Might Drop Out of the Race

The downward spiral into which Donald Trump is descending may finally be beginning to sink in, not just to Trump, but to the right-wing media propagandists who are struggling to shore up his sickly presidency. With each day there is news that contributes to the terminal prognosis of Trump’s floundering reelection campaign. And the accumulating sense of doom has become impossible to ignore.

Donald Trump

Trump himself is well aware of the dilemma he faces as every national poll shows him getting crushed by Joe Biden. Even worse, polls of the seven most crucial swing states (Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, and Minnesota) are also showing Biden leading. So Trump has fallen back on his customary dismissal of the media and the independent firms they hire to conduct their surveys:

Trump is certainly “sorry,” but not for the reasons he states. He’s a sorry excuse for a leader who resorts to petulant whining whenever he doesn’t get his way. And he’s surely sorry that everyone from the New York Times to Fox News is reporting how thoroughly the American people have rejected him. Even his favorite pollster, the rabidly biased Rasmussen, has Trump’s approval rating at 42%, matching lows as far back as January of 2018.

These numbers have Trump repeating his oft-mentioned lie that he has 95% approval within the Republican Party. Not only is that untrue, it’s irrelevant. He is not the president of the GOP. What’s more, Republicans represent a measly 28% of the electorate. Which is hardly enough to secure a victory in November.

The conditions for Trump’s campaign have deteriorated so badly that close associates are speculating as to whether he might drop out of the race entirely rather than suffer defeat. Politico is reporting the prospect of Trump’s renowned cowardice, along with comments from insiders who say that…

“The president has privately come to that grim realization in recent days, multiple people close to him told POLITICO, amid a mountain of bad polling and warnings from some of his staunchest allies that he’s on course to be a one-term president.”

And as if that weren’t bad enough, Fox News is joining those with suspicions of Trump running away from an expected rout. Fox host Trace Gallagher prefaced a question to Trump surrogate John Sununu (video below) saying that “President Trump’s poll numbers declining in recent weeks […] is leading some speculation that if his support keeps falling, the president might drop out of the race.” And Fox News featured a graphic during the segment that warned of a “rough polling stetch” (sic) for Trump.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Polling

Whether there is any chance of Trump bailing is an open question. He has a reputation as a coward who flees from any trouble that confronts him. But he also has a stubborn streak and a massive ego that can overwhelm his fears. In the end it makes no difference because either outcome would be similarly humiliating for Trump. His malignant narcissism prevents him from accepting that he is less than the manifestation of perfection. And that will result in his eventual downfall being all the more debilitating when it comes to pass.

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

The Vanishing Witch Hunt: Why Trump Has Been Scared Off of His Fetish with Mueller’s Russia Probe

For most of the past two years Donald Trump has been bellowing like a banshee stuck in a time loop that made him repeat the same tedious whining continuously: witch hunt, Witch Hunt, WITCH HUNT! It’s been a mantra that he hopes the recitation of which will cause his recurring nightmares of treason and prison to subside. But despite his commitment to constant verbal regurgitation of the phrase, he has not found any comfort or relief.

Donald Trump, Witch Hunt

Trump is a trembling wreck whose every public comment is drenched with the fear that consumes him. He is a non-stop fountain of complaints, criticisms, and most of all, whining (Although he also brags about being the “most fabulous whiner”). But there has been a curious change in his recent behavior.

Taking a look back at Trump’s Twitter feed reveals something that requires some explanation. Back in May, Trump tweeted twenty times about what calls the “Witch Hunt.” Of course, he’s referring to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller of his unsavory connections to Russia, obstruction of justice, and other assorted crimes. Mueller has already found numerous “witches” who have been indicted, convicted, and/or pleaded guilty. Trump’s tweets continued in June with twenty-seven more. Then there were twenty in July and twenty-five August.

However, that was the end of the Witch Hunt Tweetstorming. In September Trump tweeted about the Witch Hunt only five times. And in October it was down to one single Witch Hunt tweet. And that one was more about his dissatisfaction with his own Justice Department than with Mueller’s Russia probe. What could have caused this frightened retreat from a refrain that he was singing so incessantly

Well, Politico is now reporting a possible cause of Trump’s backing off his Witch Hunt obsession. And it’s a blockbuster, if true. They are asserting that Mueller may have already subpoenaed Trump to appear before a Grand Jury:

“Since mid-August, [Mueller] may have been locked in proceedings with Trump and his lawyers over a grand jury subpoena – in secret litigation that could tell us by December whether the president will testify before Mueller’s grand jury.”

“We know that on August 16th (the day after Giuliani said he was almost finished with his memorandum, remember), a sealed grand jury case was initiated in the D.C. federal district court before Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell. We know that on September 19, Chief Judge Howell issued a ruling and 5 days later one of the parties appealed to the D.C. Circuit. And thanks to Politico’s reporting, we know that the special counsel’s office is involved (because the reporter overheard a conversation in the clerk’s office). We can further deduce that the special counsel prevailed in the district court below, and that the presumptive grand jury witness has frantically appealed that order and sought special treatment from the judges of the D.C. Circuit.”

The circumstances surrounding these events suggest that a particularly important witness is the subject of thest court proceedings. Whether or not it is Trump it’s too soon to confirm. But it is more than speculation. And the timing coincides with Trump’s reduced Witch Hunt tweeting. That would make sense because if negotiations like this were taking place, even Trump wouldn’t be stupid enough to foul it up with deranged outbursts on Twitter. Would he?

Plus there’s another peculiar affair that was reported on Tuesday. Some nefarious pro-Trump shills appear to be trying to smear Mueller with phony charges of sexual misconduct. But it’s blowing up in their faces. Note also that Trump’s attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, have been mysteriously out of the public eye. And if Giuliani isn’t shoving his way in front of a TV camera, something serious has to be going on.

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

Time will tell if this story pans out. And the period following the midterm election would be the perfect time for these legal disclosures to take place. Mueller, the consummate professional, would not have interfered with the election within the sixty days that is traditionally a quiet period for these sort of proceedings. But after the election he’s free to make whatever disclosures are appropriate. And that is probably what is giving Trump the frights this Halloween.

Stephen Colbert did a pretty good (and funny) summary of Wohl’s incompetent role in this:

HUH? White House Will ‘Look Into’ Why State TV (Fox News) Stopped Airing Trump’s Rallies Live

Trump delivered another tedious and repetitive stump speech at one of his, now frequent, cult rallies Wednesday in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was a showcase for all of his “greatest hits” featuring “Build the Wall,” “Lock Her Up,” “Witch Hunt,” and many more. However, there was difference with this revival meeting that sets it apart from most of those in the past.

Fox News, Donald Trump

Politico reports that the Trump Broadcasting Network’s State TV (aka Fox News), declined to air the event live and uninterrupted as they usually do. Fox News has been a devoted servant of this administration when it comes to disseminating propaganda via their airwaves. They even promote on air with chyrons that read “Trump Rally Live & Only on Fox News, Other Networks Ignore Presidential Rally.” But it’s possible that Trump’s floundering popularity and financial concerns may be influencing their programming going forward. Politico notes that:

“As he’s ramped up his rally schedule ahead of the midterms, viewership numbers for the raucous prime-time events have been roughly similar to — sometimes dipping below — Fox News’ regular programming, and the network has recently stopped airing most evening events in full.”

That’s right. Trump is losing fans on the network that has been his official fan club for more than two years. This cannot be good news for the President, especially since he is increasing the number of these affairs specifically to boost the campaign prospects of Republican candidates in the cities where he is performing.

Consequently, Trump is compensating for this reduced coverage by calling into Fox News programs by phone. In the past three days he’s done that three times, ringing up his buddies Jeanine Pirro, Shannon Bream, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. But this is not likely to satisfy the White House. They have grown accustomed to the fawning attention they get from Fox News and expect it to continue. And they aren’t sitting around waiting for Fox to correct the situation. According to Politico:

“One senior White House official was unsure why the network would decide to cut away from presidential rallies, saying officials planned ‘to look into that’ and wouldn’t be surprised if White House communications director Bill Shine, a former Fox News executive, was in touch with former colleagues about the trend.”

Let that sink in. The White House believes that they have some sort of right to free airtime on Fox News, and if they aren’t getting it they will take action to set the network straight. Notice that they aren’t talking about looking into CNN or MSNBC. They are focusing on their wholly owned platform for media exposure and dispatching Bill Shine to address this outrageous policy shift. Shine is the former president of Fox News and Trump’s current deputy chief of staff for communications. And if you think that this isn’t explicitly about having an impact on the upcoming midterm election, just take it from the mouth of a GOP campaign operative who worries about the loss of Trump’s TV time because:

“‘It exposes us to a national audience that we normally don’t get to,’ a Senate Republican campaign staffer said of the coverage of Trump rallies. ‘We tend to see lots of new sign-ups and small-dollar donations. There’s obviously folks streaming [rallies] online, but being able to be onstage with the president in front of a prime-time audience is huge for a campaign trying to reach conservatives across the country who will open up their wallets.'”

Among the other observations made by Politico are that Trump’s rallies are drawing fewer viewers. “His events at times popped for more than 4 million viewers on Fox News,” a source said. Which is “a number he hasn’t come close to in 2018.” What’s more, “network officials’ fear was that too much repetition would lead to lower ratings,” and that Fox News could lose millions of dollars in ad revenue because they “can’t take commercial breaks while Trump is speaking.”

Perhaps the decision to cut back on live rally airings led to Trump making a blatant promotional pitch for Fox in order to get more airtime via flattery. He gave a shout out on Wednesday to Foxies who he praised for maligning Democrats as “the Dimms,” saying:

“The great Lou Dobbs, he says that, right? Sean Hannity says that. ‘The Dimms.’ Judge Jeanine says that, doesn’t she? Laura [Ingraham]. Laura. How good has Laura been, right? Do we like Tucker? I like Tucker.”

Actually, only Lou Dobbs says that, but getting the facts straight has never been of much concern to Trump. All he wants is to have his face in front of the Deplorables who are glued to Fox News all day and night. He wants to make sure his perverse and incoherent message is being injected into the already acutely ill-informed brains of Fox’s loyal audience. And if Fox News thinks they can get away with reducing his airtime, they better be prepared for more of this:

Yeah, that’ll happen. More likely Fox will cave in to Trump’s tantrum and resume their live broadcasts. They can make up the lost revenue with the tax cuts Trump will promise them. And their hosts who get preempted by the rallies will all get “exclusive” interviews. That’s how State TV works. Trump is learning well from his friends in Russia and North Korea.

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

Is Donald Trump Already Sick Of A Job He Never Really Wanted?

Three weeks. While it may seem like a year, that’s all that’s gone by since Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States of America. And the chaos that has characterized his short reign is unprecedented. Trump entered the White House with the worst approval rating of any president on record. And it has actually gone down from there.


So reporting from Politico that Trump is “vexed” by the challenges and scale of government doesn’t come as a surprise. He has shown little interest in transitioning from being a private businessman to a national leader. His absence from security briefings, and his fixation on image and polling, reflect a man who isn’t taking his job seriously. However, Politico’s opening paragraph perfectly describes this cognitive disconnect:

“Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of running the massive federal bureaucracy.”

Politico’s sources report that Trump has been surprised and frustrated that running government is not at all like running his business. He doesn’t seem to understand the role of the co-equal branches of government and is angered that he can’t simply do as he pleases. And who could blame him? For all the rhetoric from conservatives, government is not remotely similar to business and cannot be run like one.

To appreciate why Trump is having so much difficulty adapting, we need to look at his past. Donald Trump was born into wealth. All his life he has been able to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. If he felt like jetting to Paris for the weekend, he could. If he was invited to watch the Super Bowl with wealthy friends, no problem. From a business perspective, he could launch a hotel project in Manhattan, or a golf course in Dubai, at will.

Conversely, as president Trump is bound to his office. His duties are not chosen, but thrust upon him. What ever legislation or crisis that lands on his desk demands his attention. And in many cases, those things may not hold any interest for him. Too bad. That’s the job.

What’s more, the trappings of the presidency for him must be stifling. He cannot simply get up and go somewhere when he feels like it. Every presidential outing requires planning, security, and logistics at the destination. There are some places he can’t go at all due to these requirements. And the living arrangements are sub-par from his perspective. The White House is a step down from his gold-encrusted Manhattan penthouse. He can’t travel on his beloved, luxurious private jet.

Given the demands of the job, and the restrictions on his personal freedom, for Trump being president is like prison. And the strains of this “incarceration” are showing in the poorly executed actions he’s taken, and the low morale and in-fighting among his staff. Not to mention his barking at the press and attacks on judges. These cracks in the administration are exposed in Politico’s reporting. Take for example, these excerpts:

“The president and his allies believe career NSC staff assigned from other agencies are out to get them.” […]

“[H]e has also sought refuge from the pressures of the presidency, frequently calling up old friends and sounding them out about golf. […]”

“The interviews paint a picture of a powder-keg of a workplace where job duties are unclear, morale among some is low, factionalism is rampant and exhaustion is running high.”

This doesn’t sound like someone who is comfortable with the new responsibilities he’s taken on. It doesn’t sound like someone who is even interested in doing the job. He sacrificed a lot of the high life and freedom to which he was accustomed. And all for a job that he had never aspired to or shown interest in.

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

Considering Trump’s impulsive and erratic behavior, might he just decide that the sacrifices aren’t worth it and resign? Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. But there are signals from Trump and his closest associates that suggest that he’s anxious to escape and return to his prior life of leisure. Why wouldn’t he want to spend his golden years in his golden palace?

Republicans In Congress Are TERRIFIED Of Trump And His ‘Horde Of Enforcers’

Donald Trump ran roughshod over his GOP opponents in the 2016 Republican primaries. It was a scorched Earth style campaign that left his foes, not just beaten, but humiliated. He didn’t merely challenge their policy positions or leadership skills, he used language meant to shame them. Fellow Republicans were viciously maligned as “Lyin’ Ted’ and “Little Marco.” Eventually Trump succeeded in capturing the nomination, but not without leaving bodies on the battlefield.

Trump/Bannon

Those same tactics are now being deployed against the Republicans in Congress. Many of them are saying privately that they are fearful of taking positions against Trump. That poses a critical problem because their traditionally conservative views are often at odds with Trump’s twisted brand of populism. Trumpulism favors cordial relations with Russia and its strongman Vladimir Putin. It proposes to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure improvements, mainly benefiting wealthy contractors. It is critical of the U.S. alliance with NATO. It would impose stiff tariffs on American companies with foreign factories. All of these positions are in direct opposition to decades of Republican doctrine.

The problem now is that Republicans are literally afraid to speak their minds. They have been warned by Trump and his surrogates that any diversion from total obedience to his agenda would be viewed as betrayal. As reported by Politico:

“It’s little wonder that Capitol Hill Republicans have papered over their not-insignificant policy differences with Trump, shying away from any statement about the president-elect that might possibly be construed as critical. They’re terrified of arousing the ire of their tempestuous new leader — or being labeled a turncoat by his army of followers.” […]

“Since the election, numerous congressional Republicans have refused to publicly weigh in on any Trump proposal at odds with Republican orthodoxy, from his border wall to his massive infrastructure package. The most common reason, stated repeatedly but always privately: They’re afraid of being attacked by Breitbart or other big-name Trump supporters.”

The threat from Breitbart is a real concern. Especially since its chairman, Stephen Bannon, is currently on leave to serve as Trump’s strategic advisor in the White House. But it doesn’t stop there. As South Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Sanford said, “People are naturally reticent to be the first out of the block for fear of Sean Hannity, for fear of Breitbart, for fear of local folks.”

Texas Rep. Bill Flores can attest to Sanford’s worries. After he made some rather tame remarks at a conservative conference, the Trump enforcers snapped into action. Breitbart began with an article condemning Flores for plotting to “stifle Trump’s campaign promises.” Sean Hannity of Fox News picked up the story and added his own vitriolic objections. He implied that Flores was using code to tell Trump to “Go to hell.” Subsequently, Flores was showered with complaints that included predictions of the end of his political career and even death threats. Never mind that he is one of the most conservative members of the House and a co-founder of its arch right-wing Freedom Caucus.

The media component of Trump’s Crusaders is a key to their intimidation tactics. They have the power of Fox News as well as dozens of other right-wing media outlets. Strain all of that through Facebook and Twitter and you get a powerful amplification of their defamatory propaganda.

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

The rest of the GOP caucus is learning a lesson from this. They are choosing to keep their mouths shut rather than risk offending Trump or his defenders. The StormTrumpers stand at the ready to crucify any Republican they view as disloyal or insufficiently resolute. It’s a chilling state of affairs that impinges on the core principles of democracy. And in that regard, it should not be a surprise coming from the Trump camp. His authoritarian leanings have been apparent from the start of his campaign. And since it’s clear that Republicans can’t be relied upon to defend democracy, Democrats better be prepared to do it.

Trump Shill Exposes His Deranged Political Philosophy: ‘There’s No Such Thing As Facts’

America has just endured a campaign marked by an unprecedented flood of deliberate falsehoods emanating from a presidential candidate. While politicians are notorious for stretching the truth, never before has it been taken to these extremes. If nothing else, Donald Trump gets credit for mangling the truth beyond all recognition (see the Trump Bullshitopedia)

Trump / Scottie Nell Hughes

Now we have confirmation from a prominent surrogate that this was a strategy, not merely a character flaw. Scottie Nell Hughes has appeared daily on CNN espousing the Trump doctrine and defending his racist and ignorant outbursts. Like every Trump surrogate, she exhibited no shame when sanitizing his vulgarities and whitewashing his bigotry. Many observers have wondered how she and other StormTrumpers could back him up with a straight face. Wednesday on the Diane Rehme radio show, Hughes cleared up the mystery.

The conversation turned toward Trump’s assertion that “millions of illegal votes” cost him the popular vote. Never mind that there is no evidence to support the charge and that Trump failed to provide any. This is something that he does with reckless abandon whenever he has the urge. And right on cue, Hughes defended him with the same lack of proof. But then then she went further and made a startling confession regarding his political philosophy:

“I hear half the media saying that these are lies. But on the other half, there are many people that go, ‘No, it’s true.’ And so one thing that has been interesting this entire campaign season to watch, is that people that say facts are facts—they’re not really facts. […] Everybody has a way of interpreting them to be the truth, or not truth. There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts”

Good golly Miss Scottie. That may be one of the most brazenly demented claims since Napoleon said that “In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” And to be fair, Trump kinda proves that Napoleon may have had a point. However, Hughes is making a blanket statement that things that are demonstrably true do not exist. That explains a lot about Trump’s record of lies throughout his campaign. If there are no facts, then he wasn’t lying when he said there were thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11; or that U.S. corporations pay the highest taxes in the world; or that climate change is a hoax created by China. All of those statements are provably false.

Hughes went on to say that “amongst a certain crowd” Trump’s claims are true, and therefore it’s as good as a fact. She says that if “people believe they have facts,” then they do. Unfortunately for her, by definition a belief is not a fact. Hughes, and the bulk of Trump’s followers, have succumbed to a cult mentality wherein the affirmations promulgated by the leader are regarded as gospel.

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

The voice of reason on the broadcast was provided by Glenn Thrush of Politico. He remarked that he had to “pick my jaw up off the floor” before responding. Then he said this:

“There are no objective facts? That is an absolutely outrageous assertion. Of course there are facts. […] I think that what is very revealing – an important thing that Scottie Nell Hughes is saying – is that there are no facts. I think that it is an intended result of this campaign and administration to think that there aren’t any facts. It’s all opinion so we’re gonna sort of manipulate the things that we care about. I believe that the job for the media and civil society now is essentially to say that there are such things as facts. So the line may be drawn here.”

It seems absurd to have to assert the existence of facts. But that’s the world that has been ushered in by Trump and his Legion of Liars. They can’t possibly persuade anyone to support them if they have to rely on reality. Consequently, they are determined to create their own reality and suck the weak into it. Whether or not the media does its job remains to be seen. But they haven’t got much of track record with which to instill confidence. Stay tuned. Or not.