Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live Tears Up Trump’s Ludicrous Lie that Everyone He Meets is Crying

Posted by on April 16, 2023 at 11:23 am. 2 Comments :

The single most reliable characteristic of Donald Trump is that whenever he speaks is almost certainly lying. His lies generally involve insults aimed at his foes, distortions of his political “accomplishments,” examples of his blithering ignorance, and always hysterically exaggerated exaltations of himself.

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Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump

Last week Trump visited Fox News for a tongue-bathing session with Tucker Carlson. This was Carlson’s penance for expressing his true feelings about Trump in internal communications acquired by Dominion Voting Systems in their billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News. In those private discussions Carlson told his Fox confederates that Trump is a “demonic Force” who he “hates passionately.”

SEE THIS: In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

In lieu of digging up his rosary and reciting a thousand “Hail Trump’s,” Carlson pitched him a few soft (and well-tanned) balls and gazed adoringly while Trump rambled incoherently for an hour.

The entire interview was a rehashing of every bit of nonsense Trump has been disgorging for months and years. And it included one of his favorite venerations of himself: The fatuous fantasy that his cult disciples are frequently reduced to tears whenever they are in his putrid presence. Describing the scene when he appeared in a New York courtroom to be arraigned on 34 felony counts of fraud, Trump said that…

“When I went to the courthouse, which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I’ll tell you, people were crying. People that work there, professionally work there. They have no problems putting in murderers, and they see everybody, it’s a tough, tough place. And they were crying. They were actually crying. They said, ‘I’m sorry.'”

First of all, a courtroom is not in any sense a prison. Although it isn’t surprising that Trump would feel trapped there. But more to the point, Trump’s wild assertion that court staffers were crying and apologizing – which was refuted by witnesses – is just plain preposterous. And among those who recognized that fact were the folks at Saturday Night Live. SNL’s “Weekend Update” segment featured “anchor” Colin Jost running a compilation of Trump’s prior claims that he makes people sob, and asking “Why is everyone in Trump’s stories always crying?” Jost followed that up by pointing out that…

“You’re bragging that when people see you they just burst into tears? Because it never sounds like excited crying like when teenagers see BTS. It sounds more like scared crying like when hostages see Jigsaw.”

It’s remarkable that Trump can say these things with a straight face, confidant that anyone would believe him. But it’s even more remarkable that there are people who actually do believe him. That’s the power, harm, and danger of cults. And clearly Carlson has joined the Trump Cult as he made no effort to ascertain the validity of Trump’s boasting. In fact, he is so thoroughly indoctrinated that he has even advocated a violent response to Trump’s having been indicted.

SEE THIS: Tucker Carlson Warns that Trump’s Indictment Makes This ‘Not the Best Time to Give Up Your AR-15’

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Trump Whines that Reports He Sicced the DOJ on SNL are Fake News, and Also True

Posted by on June 23, 2021 at 8:58 am. 2 Comments :

The daunting degree of incoherence present in Donald Trump’s recent statements is unmistakably accelerating as his obsession with the 2020 presidential election that he lost decisively to Joe Biden continues to fester. He still refuses to concede five months after Biden was inaugurated.

Donald Trump

In one of his statements released on Tuesday, Trump claimed that 100,000 “obsolete” voters removed from the voting rolls in Georgia should be counted as having voted for him, despite the fact that, by definition, they haven’t voted for anyone for at least five years. Last week he bragged about how powerful his social media presence is, despite the source he cited showing that his online engagement had suffered a massive decline after having been banned from Twitter and Facebook.

Adding to this rash of desperate and deranged outbursts, Trump also put out a commentary complaining about a report that he had sought to punish Saturday Night Live and other late night comedy programs for their mockery of him. The story that was published by the Daily Beast said that…

“In March 2019, the then-president of the United States had just watched an episode of the long-running, liberal-leaning NBC sketch comedy series (it wasn’t even a new episode, it was a rerun), and grew immediately incensed that the show was gently mocking him.”

And that…

“According to two people familiar with the matter, Trump asked advisers and lawyers in early 2019 about what the Federal Communications Commission, the court system, and—most confusingly to some Trump lieutenants—the Department of Justice could do to probe or mitigate SNL, Jimmy Kimmel, and other late-night comedy mischief-makers.”

Holy crapola. This is the sort of tyrannical tripe that Trump busied himself while occupying the White House. His utterly predictable outrage at being laughed at has now resulted in the sort of rambling hysterics one would expect from a malignant narcissist. He asserted that the whole story was – what else – “fake news” put out by the “lamestream” media. But that’s not all. His run-on rant was filled with the conceit, hostility, and paranoia of a certifiable basket case:

“The story that I asked the Department of Justice to go after ratings-challenged (without Trump!) Saturday Night Live, and other late-night Losers, is total Fake News, It was fabricated, there were no sources, and yet the Lamestream Media goes with it. I did say, however, that Alec Baldwin has no talent, certainly when it comes to imitating me. The one who had what it took was Darrell Hammond. With all of that being said, however, I do believe that the 100% one-sided shows should be considered an illegal campaign contribution from the Democrat Party, hard to believe I got 75 million votes (the most of any sitting President) despite all of that, together with a very Fraudulent Election. 2024 or before!”

Trump’s assertion that “there were no sources” ignores the fact that the story cited two sources with knowledge of Trump’s resentment toward the comedians who dared to satirized him. But more troubling is his circular psychosis wherein he denies the story detailing his interest in persecuting the comedians, while simultaneously contradicting his denial and affirming that it’s all true.

At the outset of the statement Trump declares that he never “asked the Department of Justice to go after” the offending comics. But by the end of the statement he’s proclaiming that what they did “should be considered an illegal” act. Then he, once again, takes a bizarre pride in getting seven million fewer votes than Biden, and closes with a cryptic reference to his returning to the presidency before the next election.

Trump’s animosity toward entertainers is nothing new. He has frequently fixated on numerous other celebrities who, like most of the American people, found him repulsive. His feelings that this sort of personal affront by comedians was worthy of investigation and revenge were expressed repeatedly in the past. For instance, on Dec 16th 2018, he tweeted that…

“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?”

And on Feb 17th 2019, he tweeted that…

“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!”

And on Mar 17th 2019, he tweeted that…

“It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side.’ Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows……” [cont’d] “….Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia! Such one sided media coverage, most of it Fake News. Hard to believe I won and am winning. Approval Rating 52%, 93% with Republicans. Sorry! #MAGA”

Trump’s denial of the Daily Beast story looks pretty ridiculous in light of his past comments, as well as those within the denial. He wants the legality of criticism to be “tested in courts.” he years for “retribution” and for the critics to “be looked into.” He refers vaguely to some unspecified “consequences” to be meted out by the FEC and/or the FCC. And he somehow implicates Russia into this schizoid conspiracy.

Clearly Trump had the intent to abuse the powers of the presidency by harassing his comic tormentors. The only reason it wasn’t carried out was because he was patronized by his own advisors and staff who gave him assurances that they would look into his requests for legal vengeance, but never actually did so. And what makes this truly worrisome is that he still hasn’t hit rock bottom.

UPDATE: If Trump hoped his comic bashing would scare them off, he’s gonna be disappointed. Both Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel addressed this Tuesday night in their monologues:

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.

GOP Senator Rants on Fox News: Voting Rights Bill Was ‘Written in Hell By the Devil Himself’

Posted by on March 10, 2021 at 12:42 pm. 5 Comments :

The House of Representatives has produced a transformational voting rights bill that is appropriately titled the “For the People Act” (HR1). It’s passage would significantly increase access to voting by guaranteeing early voting periods, mandating automatic voter registration, and creating transparency for money in politics, for starters.

Church Lady, Republican

Naturally, Republicans are steadfastly opposed to these measures because they would advance voter participation, particularly among communities that have been historically oppressed. If there’s one thing that Republicans hate more than democracy, it’s when democracy is practiced by minorities, workers, seniors, youth, and women. They know that they cannot use honest persuasion to attract voters because their policies are widely rejected. So they resort to suppression in order to keep turnout artificially low.

There are currently more than 200 bills being pushed by Republicans in 40-plus states aimed at making it harder for people to cast ballots. It’s a coordinated, nationwide campaign by the GOP to prevent Democrats from winning fair elections. And leading the effort is the Republican senator from Utah, Mike Lee. His remarks Wednesday on Fox News illustrate the manic desperation of Republicans to block the American people from expressing themselves at the polls:

“Everything about this bill is rotten to the core. This is a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself. This takes all sorts of decisions that the federal government really has no business making.”

Really? Sen. Lee actually thinks that providing early and weekend voting access is demonic? And isn’t cute that Fox News thinks that the bullet points in its graphic are bad things? For the record, the American people are broadly in favor (68%) of the reforms contained in this bill, including Republicans (57%).

However, Lee and his GOP confederates are against those reforms noted above. As well as curtailing the influence of big money, ending partisan gerrymandering, enhancing security, expanding mail-in voting, and numerous other efficiency and ethics reforms. Conversely he believes that cutting off access to the polls, permitting wealthy donors to have undue influence, carving out bizarre districts that protect incumbents, and otherwise defiling democracy is godly.

Lee complains that the reforms in the bill are an imposition of the federal government on state’s rights, which is an argument used frequently by racists and religious bigots to enact flagrantly discriminating laws. However, the fairness of national elections is clearly a concern for which federal standards are appropriate. What’s more, Republican hypocrisy regarding states rights is evident every time they try to federalize legislation about marriage, abortion, civil rights, guns, or the environment.

The “For the People” act is a critical reform that enhances and strengthens democracy. Sadly, its passage in the Senate is doomed by the prospect of a Republican filibuster. Unless the filibuster is abolished or altered, this legislation will fail and the GOP strategy of winning elections by preventing their opponents from voting will succeed. Hopefully the Senate Democratic leadership will do the right thing and make it possible for the people’s voices to heard in future elections.

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.

Trump’s Reality TV Hospital Video and Dwindling Tweetery Raise More Questions

Posted by on October 4, 2020 at 10:02 am. 4 Comments :

The Reality TV game show host who is currently serving as president likes to criticize Joe Biden for staying in his basement, which hasn’t been true for many weeks. Donald Trump, however, canceled all of his scheduled public appearances and is now holed up in his figurative basement at Walter Reed Medical Center. All of the information coming from Trump, his doctors, or his White House staff is so utterly lacking in credibility that it inspired Michael Che of Saturday Night Live to point out that “It’s a bad sign for America that when Trump said he tested positive for a virus, 60 percent of the people were like, ‘Prove it!'”

Donald Trump, coronavirus

Trump has abandoned his duties as both the president and a candidate for reelection. In a disturbingly incoherent four minute video that Trump posted on Twitter Saturday, he said that he was “feeling much better.” That’s consistent with his desire to always present himself as having a nearly divine invincibility (a ludicrous characterization that is supported and advanced by Fox News). But if that’s so, then it raises questions about why he’s still in the hospital and what he’s doing while he’s there? Prior to his contraction of the coronavirus, Trump spent much of his time watching Fox News and tweeting. He’s probably still glued to his State TV pacifier and the comforting adulation he receives from the network’s devoted Trump-fluffers. However, he has significantly scaled back his Twitter output.

Trump posted an average of 55 tweets per day in the month of September. But since his admission to Walter Reed Friday, Trump has posted a total of 14 tweets in three days. That would be understandable if he were suffering from the symptoms of a debilitating viral infection. But Trump is portraying his symptoms as mild and minimally constraining him from doing his job. The White House even posted photos of him allegedly working while still hospitalized. In the video (posted below) he made a point of discussing his commitment to being productive despite his grim diagnosis:

“I had no choice because I just didn’t want to stay in the White House. I was given that alternative. Stay in the White House. Lock yourself in. Don’t ever leave. Don’t even go to the Oval Office. Just stay upstairs and enjoy it. Don’t see people. Don’t talk to people. And be done with it.

“But I can’t do that. I had to be out front. This is America. This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world. I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say ‘whatever happens, happens.’ I can’t do that. We have to confront problems. As a leader you have to confront problems. There’s never been a great leader that would have done that. So that’s where it is.”

WTF Trump he talking about? He is saying that if he were convalescing in the residence area of the White House it would be tantamount to being “locked in” to a place that he could never leave and never see or talk to anyone. Which, of course, isn’t remotely true. However, it is exactly what being confined to the private rooms of a military hospital is like. Trump is far more restricted at Walter Reed than he would be at the White House. It would be much easier for him to conduct business there, where he has ready access to communications, documents, the vast resources of governing and, of course, his Cabinet, aides, and other support staff.

How can Trump plausibly suggest that by exchanging the comfort and convenience of the White House for the sterile seclusion of a hospital that he is more “out front” or better able to “confront problems”? That makes no sense at all. If anything, it indicates a cognition failure that should warrant more serious examination. And in the end, that may be at least part of the reason he’s still hospitalized and refraining from his all-consuming Twitter habit. Which while curious and out of character, is a welcome relief from the relentless hostility, ignorance, and madness his tweets provoke.

UPDATE I: Late this afternoon Trump briefly left his hospital room to drive by the small crowd of Trump cult disciples worshiping outside of Walter Reed. He waved from the back of a limousine like the Pope blessing his flock. Some reporters suggested that he wanted to demonstrate that he was strong and healthy. But this was the selfish act of a malignant narcissist who craves attention above all else.

An attending physician at Walter Reed described Trump’s behavior as “irresponsible.” A Secret Service source called it “reckless and careless and heartless.”

But none of that mattered to Trump. As a consequence of his contracting the coronavirus he had to cancel his cult rallies. So he needed some other way to soak up the admiring cheers from his most zealous devotees. He chose, therefore, to put the lives of his staff and secret service agents at risk in order to stage this political theater. It was reminiscent of when he deployed the military to assault peaceful demonstrators to clear his way to a photo-op in front of church.

In a video Trump tweeted prior to this dangerous stunt, Trump said that he had learned a lot about COVID-19. Obviously that’s just another lie. Trump’s ego is, as usual, running the show. And to hell with the welfare of anyone else.

UPDATE II: Trump’s Twittering has resumed. On Monday morning he unleashed 19 tweets by 8:00 AM. Although most (15) of them were single line lies about why his cult followers should vote for him. Not exactly the sort of thing that will change the strong trending of support for Joe Biden.

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

Judge Jeanine Pirro Returned Saturday Night – on Fox News and SNL – And Both Were Hysterical

Posted by on March 31, 2019 at 8:55 am. 1 Comments :

Two weeks ago “Judge” Jeanine Pirro was suspended from her weekly perch on Fox News after she made comments so reprehensible that they even offended the suits at Fox. Pirro attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar whose Muslim faith, according to Pirro, was incompatible with the United States Constitution. Despite the nearly universal disgust for Pirro’s hate speech, she retained the fervent support of Donald Trump. who begged Fox News to return her to the air.

Jeanine Pirro Fox News

On Saturday night Trump got his wish. Pirro once again hosted her Trump-fluffing White Nationalist Hour with all the drooling ferocity she had before her brief suspension. She obviously learned nothing from her time-out, and offered no apology. Her “Opening Statement” segment addressed the release of the “summary” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report by Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. However, it began with a torrid tirade that might better have been directed at Trump:

“When someone lies to you, do you just say ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it’? Well that’s not how our system works. There has to be accountability. There has to be a consequence. Because as the President himself said ‘This should never happen again.’ And I can guarantee you it will happen again unless we make an example of the traitorous, treasonous group that accused Donald Trump of being an agent of the Russian government.”

Except for that last line that disputed accusations of Trump being a Russian agent, Pirro’s rant could have been a righteous assault on the relentless dishonesty of Trump. His flagrant lies and avoidance of accountability really is not the how system ought to work. And there definitely should be consequences for Trump and his vast army of criminal accomplices.

Pirro went on to warn that investigations like the one Mueller conducted could become “a blueprint for a future effort to overthrow the government.” But she got it completely backwards. Mueller was probing activities that included undermining our democratic election by Trump and a hostile foreign country. He was the one working to prevent government corruption. She further advised her viewers not to be “satisfied with the Mueller report,” which makes sense considering the fact that neither she nor any of her viewers have seen it. What’s more, what little we do know about the report is insufficient to vindicate the President. But what she meant was that they shouldn’t be satisfied with what she claimed was Trump’s exoneration, a conclusion that the report explicitly denied. And finally, she closed with a demand to stop all of Trump’s critics, by throwing them in jail, with what she called “behind the bars justice.”

A little later in the evening, Saturday Night Live weighed in with an appearance by Pirro (as played by Cecily Strong) during the Weekend Update news segment. It was a nearly identical portrayal of the injudicious judge who is pretty funny herself, albeit unintentionally. She made a point of thanking her superfans, the “mean, horny men laying on in-home hospital beds and white prison gangs who control the remote on Saturdays.” And I defy anyone to differentiate between Pirro’s wild-eyed raving and Strong’s satirical take on it. If anything, Strong’s impression was too understated.

Trump Confirms that Fox News is State TV in Bonkers Defense of Bigotry, Pirro, Carlson, et al

Posted by on March 17, 2019 at 12:07 pm. 5 Comments :

Now there can be no further dispute. Donald Trump has made it absolutely clear that Fox News is unambiguously State TV, and that the Trump White (Nationalism) House is inextricably intertwined with the network’s mission of propaganda and right-wing tyranny.

Donald Trump

During Trump’s regularly scheduled Sunday Tweetstorm, the President unleashed one of his most deranged outbursts of all time. It was a sustained assault on the free press, freedom of speech, the First Amendment, and a democratic government that honors individual freedom. While Trump has always been an opponent of the media – which he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people” – he has taken his hostility to a new low that provides incontrovertible evidence that his regime and Fox News are conjoined partners in undermining the free society principles that the United States were founded on.

Trump began his Sunday sermonizing with an attack on Saturday Night Live, which he seems to be unaware was a rerun:

That’s right. The flailing Snowflake-in-Chief is now spending his time barking at comedians, even though there supposedly a “national emergency” in progress. But even worse, he thinks that his government agencies should have the power to investigate these comics due to their having the audacity to make fun of him. If he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t give them so much material. But his inclination to use oppressive state measures to silence them should worry every patriotic American. And it wasn’t the first time he’s done this either.

What’s more, his impotent swings at SNL also include crazy allegations that the funny folks on late night TV are the ones colluding with Russia, a nation not well known for its sense of humor. And he follows that up with the false assertion that he enjoys a fifty-two percent approval rating. He got that from an ultra-biased Rasmussen poll that is now a moth old. Rasmussen currently has him at forty-eight percent, while most other polls put him the thirties.

However, if you think any of that was proof that Trump has lost his mind, you might want to sit down. Because he was just getting warmed up. His next tweets contained more of his psychotic whining about a “Witch Hunt,” followed by a personal attack on John McCain’s intelligence. How utterly repulsive for Trump to go after a dead senator/veteran who can’t defend himself. Especially for something that Trump is notably lacking in. Trump even had his “fixer” threaten his schools to keep his records secret.

Finally, Trump disgorged himself with a what could only be described as a slobbering suck-up to Fox News, the network that defends his every atrocity and maligns his critics with outright lies. What triggered Trump was the news that one of his adoring bootlickers, Jeanine Pirro, was bumped Saturday for a rerun of a tabloid documentary. While Fox wouldn’t comment on the preemption, it has been credibly speculated that they didn’t want her program to air so soon after the massacre at Muslim mosques in New Zealand, because of her recent Islamophobic comments. Based on that, Trump went to work on behalf of his bosses at Fox News:

Holy Crap! Trump is totally confirming that he and Fox News are locked in a political/governmental embrace that this country has never seen before. Not that we didn’t already know that, but Trump is shedding any pretense of independence that either of them might have sought to convey. And this comes at a time when Fox News has been trying to convince people that they are a legitimate news network capable of hosting a Democratic Party primary debate. Well, that’s blown all to hell now, isn’t it?

Trump has taken on the role of chief PR and marketing president for Fox News. And he’s offering advice that they “stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct.” When exactly have they ever done that? Trump implores Fox to “fight for our Country,” by which he clearly means to fight for him. And he warns them to “Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!” Obviously Trump sees this as a war, and he expects casualties.

As with his own delusional perception of his approval, Trump thinks that America is on the side of Fox News. But MSNBC has been beating them regularly for several months. Rachel Maddow is crushing her competition, Sean Hannity, nearly every night. And because of the obsessive bigotry of hosts like Pirro and the disgusting Tucker Carlson, Fox News is losing audience, advertisers, and revenue at an alarming rate.

If it wasn’t enough that Trump is virtually drooling over his Fox sycophants, he also found it necessary to bash the few people on the network that have a modicum of integrity:

For the record, Shepard Smith just won a First Amendment award from the Radio Television Digital News Association. And in his speech he gave a backhanded slap at the “opinion” hosts on the network that he fervently tries to disassociate himself from. But if you aren’t a fawning Trump-fluffer you can expect him to bring his tiny “mushroom” hammer down on you.

This Twitter tirade is the best evidence yet that Fox News cannot be taken seriously as a news network. They certainly cannot be trusted to host a Democratic primary debate. They shouldn’t even be considered as a platform for interviews by anyone but devout Trumpists. If Trump thinks that crazed outbursts like this are helpful to Fox News, he is, as usual, pitifully mistaken. It only certifies that Fox is a brazenly partisan mouthpiece for Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party.

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

If Fox had any integrity they would repudiate Trump’s comments and insist that they don’t support such media bias. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Fox News knows that their audience is comprised mainly by loyal Trump cultists and they aren’t going to do anything that might alienate them or the racist white nationalists and neo-Nazis who wallow in this filth. These are the core components of their wretched business model.

Wannabe Dictator Donald Trump Threatens Saturday Night Live with ‘Retribution’ for Mocking Him

Posted by on February 17, 2019 at 10:17 am. 4 Comments :

The aspirations of Donald Trump to become America’s first nationalist dictator are well known to anyone who has listened to his deranged ranting for the past three years. He frequently cozies up to foreign tyrants and displays his obvious jealousy for their authoritarian control over their oppressed people. And on Sunday morning Trump let those desires loose again in a disturbing Twitter outburst.

Donald Trump

Responding to the opening of Saturday Night Live’s latest episode, Trump was clearly jolted out of his plush lazyboy at Mar-A-Lago. He may not even have been able to enjoy the omelette bar or his golf cart ride to tee time. What triggered the President this time was merely another appearance by Alec Baldwin as Trump in a satirical look at his embarrassing Rose Garden announcement of a fake national emergency. This was a speech where he sang a little song about the Supreme Court and admitted that Sean Hannity and Fox News are his chief advisors. Baldwin did his usual spot-on impression that we all know tortures Trump everytime he sees it. And for some reason, he keeps watching:

https://twitter.com/Marmel/status/1097164309606461440

Trump, however, has demonstrated that he has no sense of humor (or decency) whatsoever. His reactions to satires like this are always overflowing with the petulance of a cholicky infant. But on this occasion he went a bit further than his standard “angry POTUS “ routine:

First of all, Trump seems to think that Saturday Night Live is part of NBC’s news division, referring to it explicitly as “Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC.” That may just be another symptom of his senile dementia kicking in. But then he went on to suggest that SNL shouldn’t be allowed to “get away with” mocking him. He apparently is unfamiliar with the Constitution and the right of free speech.

But the worst part of this bruised ego spasm was Trump’s threat that SNL ought to be subject to “retribution” for having the temerity to express themselves freely. Who does he think should have the authority to administer that retribution? And who else would he punish for similar “crimes” of believing they live in a free country? He says that this “should be looked into.” By whom, and for what? Does Trump want to make it illegal to say anything critical of him?

Naturally, he followed up his fascistic tweet with another one that goes even further. His common complaint that “the media is the enemy of the people” was lifted verbatim from Joseph Stalin. So no wonder Trump feels so connected to it and its message of pure despotism.

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

This may have been only a tweet about a late-night comedy show, but in Trump World it could very well be a prelude to prison camps for free thinkers and speakers. It’s happened before, even if Fox News wants to erase the memory of it. And not just in Hitler’s Germany. The legacy of Joseph McCarthy (who Trump admires) remains as a stain and a warning on the tapestry of American history.

Sunday’s Trump Tweetstorm Calls First Amendment Illegal, ‘Should Be Tested in Courts’

Posted by on December 16, 2018 at 10:13 am. 3 Comments :

If it’s Sunday, this Donald Trump’s regularly scheduled Twitter tantrum. Like clockwork, the President is firing off nearly incoherent messages that attack his critics, lie about easily verified matters, and promote his favorite source of propaganda, and the PR division of the Trump White House, Fox News. It’s a display of desperation that only serves to make him appear more guilty and afraid of the coming consequences of his criminal acts.

Donald Trump

Leading off Trump’s parade of polemics is a tweet that reinforces Trump’s long-held aversion to free speech and the First Amendment of the Constitution. We are all familiar with Trump’s denouncement of the press in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” and his projectile vomiting of invectives at journalists who have the audacity to report what he actually does and says. And now we have Trump literally threatening to legally censor the media for doing its job:

Does Trump really think that Saturday Night Live is a news program that can be put alongside NBC News as a provider of coverage of his administration? Apparently any media entity that fails to kiss up to the Snowflake-in-Chief is subject to his hostile harangues. But this tweet goes even further to demand that the press be constrained by some legal authority to prostrate itself to what he believes is fair. Every president has had to undergo criticism from both journalists and satirists, but Trump’s skin is way to thin to take it. That’s common for cowards and tyrants who feel the need to control society and suppress those who don’t sufficiently worship Dear Leader.

The rest of Trump’s morning meltdown was equally disturbing. He babbled nonsensically about text messages by former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. His rant was lifted from the ultra-rightist webzine The Federalist, which failed to understand the agency’s report regarding the disposition of those texts:

Trump agreed with the Federalist’s phony assertions that the messages were deleted and lost. They weren’t. The agency recovered and preserved them after a temporary tech glitch. But this triggered his knee-jerk outcry of “Witch Hunt” which he continued in another tweet:

What Trump calls “breaking in” is more commonly referred to as the accumulation of evidence by law enforcement. And the subject of the investigation, Trump’s lawyer, complimented the FBI as “extremely professional, courteous and respectful,” and later pleaded guilty to the charges against him. What’s more, Cohen unambiguously fingered Trump as being the facilitator of the crimes in his case. That’s surely what Trump is really mad about.

As for the bit about Hillary Clinton’s server, she voluntarily gave the FBI a complete copy of it, so they had no need to take physical possession. But having no legal ground to stand on, Trump resorted to dredging up old stories about his nemesis, President Obama.

Trump is falsely claiming that Obama’s immigration policies were “far worse” than what the Trump administration has done by grotesquely seperating children from their parents (which he’s still doing, and even justifying it). That’s demonstrably untrue. It was only Trump’s policy to charge every asylum seeker with felonies that resulted in the separations. And if that obvious attempt at misdirection wasn’t sufficient to deflect attention from his problems, Trump also tried this one:

Really? Ken Starr? He headed up the persecution of the Clintons twenty years ago, and after finding no evidence of any crime, started to dig into Bill Clinton’s sex life. He’s hardly a credible source for anything having to do with Trump’s criminal behavior. And naturally, Trump saw Starr’s comments while watching Fox News.

This frantic outburst on Twitter is just the latest example of a mind that is utterly warped by the trepidation of being caught having committed a historic crime spree. And in utter distress due to the gloomy fate that awaits him, Trump is lashing out like the wounded vermin that he is. And while every untrue utterance he made is bad enough for the nation to be worried about his mental degradation, his calls to punish the press are the most troubling.

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

Trump is acting out the behavior of a fallen dictator desperately trying to hang on to whatever power he has left. But with the walls of justice closing in around him, he has nowhere to hide. A recent report notes that every entity that he has headed – the Trump Org, Trump Foundation, Trump campaign, Trump transition team, Trump inaugural committee, and the Trump White House – are under investigation. When he does go down, he’s going to go down hard.

LATE BREAKING: Trump must not be very busy presidenting today because he posted four more tweets this afternoon (so far).

One was a demand to watch a Fox News interview of conspiracy crackpot Jerome Corsi.

Then two more (here and here), also triggered by Fox News, were about former Trump advisor, and confessed felon, Michael Flynn being “persecuted” by Robert Mueller. Of particular note was Trump saying that Jeff Sessions “should be ashamed of himself” for allowing the “HOAX” to get started. So should Trump’s new Acting AG Whitaker also be ashamed for not stopping it?

And finally, Trump added a tweet that was just boilerplate “Witch Hunt” bashing and denying his collusion. You know, like all innocent people do obsessively.

Forgetful Fox News Hack Whines That SNL is Anti-Trump Because of Stormy Daniels’ Bit

Posted by on May 6, 2018 at 6:24 pm. 1 Comments :

It goes without saying that Fox News will leap to the most extreme conclusions in order to delegitimize any entity or person they regard as less than adoring of Donald Trump. Their automatic bias is dialed up to eleven at all times, as is their phony outrage.

Fox News Stormy Daniels

However, an example of this from Sunday’s episode of Fox’s MediaBuzz jumps off the charts as host Howard Kurtz complains about Saturday Night Live recruiting Stormy Daniels to play herself in the cold opening of the program. Kurtz and his guest, Kat Timpf, were both very unhappy that SNL would demonstrate such obvious political partisanship. Here is their exchange (video below):

Kurtz: Does SNL putting on Stormy Daniels herself kind of remove any last pretense that this program is virulently anti-Trump and it’s just about comedy?
Timpf: Yeah, absolutely. It’s very, very anti-Trump. And it’s not as funny because of it. Because we already know where all the jokes are gonna be going. We don’t watch the sketch and see Alec Baldwin and say, “Oh, I wonder what the punchline is gonna be here. The punchline is gonna be “Oh, the President’s an idiot. The President’s a liar.” And the bottom line is the people who are watching it and enjoy it, they are gonna hate President Trump no matter what. But the people who support him, they don’t care about Stormy Daniels. They don’t care about any of this. So it’s not like they’re changing any minds with any of these sketches.
Kurtz: Right. It’s not like Alec Baldwin hasn’t made clear that as a person he detests President Trump.
Timpf: You can tell by the way he acts.
Kurtz: I wouldn’t have any problem with a Stormy Daniels actrress, but Stormy Daniels herself? Really?
Timpf: I’ve had enough Stormy Daniels.
Kurtz: I think our viewers might agree with you.

If knowing what people with obvious agendas are going to say in advance negates their positions, then no one ever needs to watch anything on Fox News. We already know what the punchlines are and they aren’t the least bit funny. Although it’s interesting that Kurtz admits that his audience is a single-minded borg community who all think alike.

However, what really exposes Kurtz and his colleagues at Fox News as partisan propagandists is his deliberate blocking out any part of reality that contradicts his preconceived notions. Here’s why: He’s furious at SNL for casting Stormy, and insists that having done so is proof that the show is anti-Trump. So what did it mean in November of 2015 when Donald Trump was the host of the program for the whole hour and a half? Wasn’t that proof that SNL is hopelessly biased to the right and pro-Trump (despite the universally bad reviews)?

How Kurtz could have forgotten this infamous episode that created a huge stir in the press at the time is unfathomable. But he and his guest somehow managed to latch onto a couple of minutes in this weekend’s program and declare it evidence of a rampant liberal bias, while pretending that Trump’s hosting gig never existed. And Kurtz is the top media correspondent on Fox News. He should – and probably does – know better.

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

TWEET CHALLENGE: Alec Baldwin Mercilessly Trolls An SNL-Obsessed Trump

Posted by on December 4, 2016 at 1:19 pm. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump continues to demonstrate that he is temperamentally unfit to be president. As president-elect he is still exhibiting a level of thin-skinned narcissism that portends serious trouble ahead for America. Rather than focusing on the critical issues that face the nation, Trump busies himself with Broadway play reviews, media bashing, and attacks on TV comedy shows.

Alec Baldwin Trump

On Saturday night Trump once again went after Alec Baldwin for his satirical portrayal on Saturday Night Live. The opening segment mocked Trump’s Twitter addiction as so sever that it interfered with his national security briefings. Indeed, Trump has been neglecting those briefings since Election Day. Ironically, Trump jumped onto Twitter to respond with a bitter and substanceless put-down:

Trump has called SNL “unwatchable” before, but he’s still watching. Clearly he’s preoccupied with anything and everything that has to do with himself. The good news for Baldwin is that he can’t get any worse. It’s all uphill from here. Alec.

Baldwin had an appropriate reply to Trump’s tweet that turned the humor into something more serious:

Donald Trump is the first candidate in more than half a century to refuse to release his tax returns. We have learned from other sources that he didn’t pay income taxes for eighteen years. However, we still don’t have detailed information about his unsavory business ties. Those may include gross conflicts of interest and relationships with criminals or foreign operatives.

Trump has not taken up Baldwin’s challenge. And I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for him to do so. The standard way Trump handles these sort of matters is to ignore them until he can think of a distraction. He has already posted a stream of tweets defending his atrocious deal to pay the Carrier Corp a bribe to get them to keep an Indiana plant open. For that price Carrier is still sending half the jobs from that plant to Mexico. That’s what dealmaker Trump thinks is a good deal.

Hopefully, the media that Trump despises will keep some pressure on him to release his taxes. This problem doesn’t go away just because he won the Electoral College vote. In fact, it’s even more important now because he will soon be making decisions that impact his own businesses. The American people have a right to know if their president is a crook. Now where have I heard that before?

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

Watch the SNL opening here: