Why is Trump Doing (and the Media Covering) His Newsless Coronavirus Briefings?

Posted by on August 11, 2020 at 1:44 pm. 2 Comments :

Last April Donald Trump fired himself as the Coronavirus Task Force spokesmodel. It was a termination necessitated by the obvious harm he was doing to his already floundering reelection campaign and the campaigns of his fellow Republicans. No one lamented his three month absence considering the fact that, due to his ignorance and ego, he had nothing of value to contribute anyway.

Donald Trump TV Set

Trump himself complained that the briefings served no purpose and were a waste of time. “The American people are getting nothing but Fake News,” he whined about an event where he was the dominant speaker. That’s quite a confession.

So it was with some surprise that Trump renewed his canceled broadcasts last month. The new version of the Trump Virus Show was recast with only the eponymous star. The supporting cast of doctors, epidemiologists, and other experts were sacked, presumably because their knowledge and ability to communicate upstaged Diva Donald.

So now we are, once again, witnessing the absurdity of the President of the United States being reduced to the daily recitation of dry statistics that could be easily read by an intern or an elementary schooler, either of whom would do a better job. Trump’s stodgy, emotionless oratory couldn’t possibly be more annoying.

This ought not to be dismissed as just another peculiarity of the Trump Era. There is, of course, a deadly pandemic ravaging the nation and the world. The economy is in shambles with a record number of people unemployed, high rates of evictions and foreclosures, business bankruptcies increasing, and more Americans seeking assistance from welfare agencies and food banks.

Yet somehow Trump finds the time to stand before the press – who he repeatedly maligns in Stalinist terms as the “enemy of the people,” – and performs his reality TV shtick. He disseminates provable lies, yells at and insults reporters, shamelessly lavishes undue praise on himself, and viciously attacks Democrats – and even Republicans – that he perceives as adversarial or disloyal.

Most of the time consumed in Trump’s “briefing” is wasted on matters having nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. He regales in the performance of the stock market, which his policies are artificially propping up for the benefit of the wealthy and is a poor indicator of the economy that is currently in recession. He weaves fictions about his alleged legislative achievements. And he desperately invents electoral news that casts him as the victor in contest that exists only in his demented mind.

These charades are actually poorly disguised alternatives for the campaign rallies and other blatant politicking that he can’t pull together. Trump is reported to be despondent after weeks of not getting his ego stroked by worshipful disciples. So he demands attention by pretending to stage news conferences that are devoid of any actual news.

For that reason, the media should show some integrity and decline to service Trump’s pathetic and narcissistic neediness. He has proven repeatedly that he has nothing newsworthy to convey. So by showing up, the press is acting as his campaign’s communications staff. They are giving him free airtime and allowing him to spread his propaganda, lies, and hate speech.

If Trump wants to rant about Democrats and pay tribute to himself, he can pay for ads like any other candidate. In the meantime, the press can send junior reporters with cameras to document Trump’s meltdowns and then air whatever turns out to have some substantive news value, if anything. Short of that, the media needs to step back and stop helping to further Trump’s electoral aspirations.

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

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‘Shocked’ Fox News Host Gets Schooled on Trump’s Lies about the Coronavirus

Posted by on August 10, 2020 at 1:10 pm. 5 Comments :

The endless stream of lies emanating from Donald Trump on a daily (hourly) basis continue without pause as the number of Americans infected by the coronavirus exceeds 5,000,000, and the fatalities surpass 163,000. Unmoved by these horrifying statistics, Trump persists in deflection and trivializing the suffering that the nation is enduring due to his negligence, incompetence, and egomaniacal refusal act responsibly.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

On Monday morning Trump took time away from his golfing regimen to express his desire to see more young people placed in danger by compelling them to participate in collegiate sports programs. Never mind that colleges around the country have already had to shut down due to spikes in coronavirus cases. Trump doesn’t care about kids, or anyone other than himself. As Trump told Fox News last week…

“My view is schools should reopen. This thing is going away. It will go away like things go away. And my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost – and I would almost say definitely, but almost – immune from this disease.”

Exactly! COVID-19 will “go away like things go away.” Things like bone spurs and cancer and senile dementia. My view is that Trump is almost – and I would almost say definitely, but almost – completely insane. Trump’s view, though, is shared by his bootlickers on Fox News. In a segment on Fox and Friends (video below) discussing how the coronavirus affects children, co-host Ainsley Earhardt revealed her surprise that kids were affected at all:

Earhardt: 97,000 kids have tested positive? That was such a shock to me because we heard kids really don’t get it. If they do they’re all going to be okay. Do you have any details about that percentage of kids that do get it? Are they all doing okay? Do they have any deaths?
Dr. Natasha Kathuria: I don’t know about the mortality or morbidity right now in that group. That was just in two weeks. So about 100,000 new cases in pediatric kids just in two weeks. And I can guarantee you that number is much higher. We don’t really test kids that often. They’re usually asymptomatic, they have very mild symptoms, But they’re still shedding this virus.

This was a “shock” to Earhardt because she “heard kids don’t really get it” from her fellow propagandists on Fox News, where that lie has been a regular part of the disinformation that they disseminate every day. The data about the virus’s impact on children was revealed in a new study that tracked such cases and found a total of nearly 340,000 children have been infected to date. The number for the past two weeks (97,000) represents a 40% increase just as schools were reopening in some states, and includes at least 611 child fatalities.

Earhardt, however, wasn’t finished trying to shape the discussion to frame it more positively to align with Trump’s lies. Her follow up for Dr. Kathuria was couched in a false assumption that was quickly shot down:

Earhardt: We’re just going to have to be extremely careful. Most Americans want their kids back in school, but we want to do it safely. But it is true though that when the kids get it, they don’t have the – you said – it’s just minimal side effects, right? If they even see those at all.
Dr. Kathuria: That’s a majority of them. The likelihood of death and the likelihood of critical illness is lower. But it’s possible. A seven year old just died in Georgia with no medical problems. We hear about this and we see it all the time. Kids get sick.

Nice try, Ainsley. But reality demands recognition that children are not only susceptible to illness, they are also carriers who can bring the virus home to their parents, grandparents, and others in their community. The good doctor deserves credit for not buckling to Earhardt’s leading and biased questions. And if Earhardt was shocked to learn about kids getting sick, think how shocked she must have been that some morsel of truth managed to leak out onto the air at Fox News.

UPDATE: At his coronavirus briefing (aka 2020 reelection event) Trump was asked if he was concerned about 97,000 kids getting the virus. He replied that it didn’t concern him and then reiterated his false belief that kids are immune.

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


Trump Rips Obama’s Executive Orders as ‘Major Power Grabs of Authority’

Posted by on August 9, 2020 at 1:58 pm. 4 Comments :

Nobody is surprised anymore by the rank hypocrisy of Donald Trump and his sociopathic aversion to the ethical principles that most Americans hold dear. He has repeatedly revealed himself to be utterly devoid of the personal qualities that define human interactions: goodwill, empathy, charity, and compassion. In his world there is only Trump and what’s best for him.

Barack Obama, Donald Trump

As further evidence of his twisted and sadistic psychoses, Trump endeavored to brazenly politicize the debate over relief for a nation that is suffering the consequences of his incompetent mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. It began with him ignoring the fact that Democrats had passed a relief bill in the House of Representatives three months ago that GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell stubbornly refused to allow a vote on. So Trump decided to follow his tyrannical aspirations and unilaterally impose his solutions by dictatorial edict.

Trump characterized his proposals as “Executive Orders” intended to bypass the lawful jurisdiction of Congress. But what Trump actually signed were one executive order and three presidential memoranda, none of which have the force of law. However, they still pose threats to the welfare of the American people and the stability of constitutional governance.

To Trump the law is just an inconvenient obstacle that makes him struggle to figure out ways to defy, disregard, or twist it cynically to his advantage. His attempt to peddle these phony executive orders is a perfect example of his contempt for the ethical administration of the law. In fact, when President Obama was in office, Trump had an entirely different opinion of the use of executive orders:

So when his arch nemesis, Barack Obama, uses executive orders, they are an affront to freedom, an embrace of tyranny, and an admission that you’re a failure at “the art of the deal.” Trump elaborated on this in an interview on Fox News. When the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends asked Trump if Obama could be impeached for his executive orders, he replied…

“Well, he certainly did something that was unconstitutional […] I mean, I think certainly he could be impeached and certainly they could shut down the government.”

Elsewhere on Fox News there were additional assertions of Obama’s alleged tyrannical leanings, here and here.

This is the same Donald Trump who just signed an executive order mandating that all insurance policies must cover preexisting conditions. Apparently no one bothered to tell Trump that Obamacare already does that and has been law for the past ten years. In the meantime, Trump is still trying to repeal Obamacare, including the protection for preexisting conditions, with a lawsuit that is headed for the Supreme Court.

If your head is spinning at this point, just sit down and strap yourself in, because it’s only going to get worse between now and November. We are all witnesses to this blatantly political charade by a demented president whose future is circling the drain, and whose hypocrisy is wildly out of control.

For the record, here’s a quick primer on Trump’s political trickery:

One memorandum purports to provide a $400.00 enhancement to unemployment benefits. That represents a $200.00 cut from the previous benefit. But it is also deceptive in that Trump is only offering $300.00 and asking states to make up the $100.00 difference, which they cannot afford during these pandemic times. And if the states don’t contribute, it’s possible that the federal contribution is voided.

The second memorandum claims to defer student loan payments. But a deferral still means that the students will be required to make up those payments in the still uncertain future.

The third memorandum is especially grotesque. Trump calls it a “payroll tax holiday.” Which means that this will also result in a massive balloon payment next year. Although Trump tries to soften the blow by attempting to blackmail Americans into voting for him with an unfulfillable promise to waive the payroll taxes and terminate any in the future. What’s more, payroll taxes are the sole funding source for Social Security and Medicare. Consequently, terminating them would kill those programs entirely.

Finally, the single actual executive order in the bunch addresses assistance to renters and protection from eviction. However, this “order” merely instructs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to look into the matter with no guarantee of any benefit being delivered to the people.

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


Sean Hannity Freaks Out Because Biden Declined an Interview with Fox News

Posted by on August 8, 2020 at 3:18 pm. 3 Comments :

The quantity of certified bull… oh, let’s just say malarkey, that is spun by Donald Trump continues to flow like an avalanche of asininity. Just this week he has waxed idiotic about the presidential debates, about politicization of the coronavirus, about voting by mail, and too much more to summarize here.

Fox News Sean Hannity

Naturally, Trump’s Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News), has been quick to buttress his lies and the infantile hostilities that are the staples of his reality TV act. And first among the Fox News Trump-fluffers is his “shadow” Chief of Staff Infection, Sean Hannity, who has been scientifically linked to increasing COVID-19 fatalities.

On Saturday morning Hannity posted a tweet intended to embarrass Joe Biden by implying that he is afraid of Fox News and is dodging Chris Wallace who recently interviewed Trump. The tweet read “HIDIN’ BIDEN: Biden Campaign Tells Chris Wallace He’s ‘Not Available’ For Interviews at This Time.” It linked to a two week old article that claimed that Biden “is refusing to speak with the journalist” because he “is ‘not available’ at the moment.'”

First of all, informing a reporter that you’re not available “at the moment” is not the same as a refusal. It just means that another time might be better. After all, Biden is in the midst of a search for a vice-presidential running mate, and he’s planning an unprecedented virtual convention. On top of that, Biden is masterfully allowing Trump to take center stage and deliciously sabotage his own campaign with ever more bizarre outbursts and demented ravings.

However, Hannity’s attack tweet left out a fairly important piece of information. Biden had already done an interview with Wallace last March, months before Trump did. What’s more, if anyone is afraid of the press, it’s Trump. The vast majority of his interviews have been exclusively with his bootlicking pals at Fox News. He has not done a single interview with CNN or MSNBC as president.

Biden would have legitimate reasons to decline to be interviewed by the blatantly biased right-wing shills on Fox News. But he hasn’t done that. That makes Hannity’s lies all the more egregious. Particularly when you compound that with the fact that Trump is so obviously frightened of being challenged by the press when they aren’t his sycophants, or when he isn’t in a position to bully them or run away.

Trump’s rambling and incoherent rants are typical of a deeply disturbed narcissistic sociopath. And the attempts by Trump and Fox News to characterize Biden as unfit for the office of the presidency just seem more ridiculous every day. The bad news for Trump is that no one is buying his rancid assaults and viciousness. Even a poll by Fox News found that majorities of Americans say that Trump does not have the mental soundness to serve. Suck on that Bunker Boy.

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


HOAX: Trump’s Endless Obsession with Politicizing the Coronavirus

Posted by on August 7, 2020 at 1:49 pm. 2 Comments :

So far this election cycle, Donald Trump has been asked four times to describe his agenda should he be reelected to a second term. And four times – most recently two days ago – he failed to articulate a coherent vision for the future or even a compelling reason to vote for him. That might have something to do with why he’s trailing so badly in every poll.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

How hard could it be for Trump to lay out a plan for finally getting the coronavirus pandemic under control, restoring the jobs lost due to his incompetence, advocating for the welfare of working Americans, and repairing the nation’s relationships with international allies? Not that Trump is capable of doing any of that, but you would think that his press operatives ought to be able to craft an image makeover for PR purposes. You would think.

What makes this task so difficult for Trump is that he can’t be relied upon to focus his increasingly feeble mind on anything that isn’t either directly beneficial to him personally or injurious to his perceived enemies. Evidence of this mental fetishism that consumes Trump was provided in a Friday morning tweet that raised an old issue seemingly out of thin air:

The likely trigger for Trump’s latest tantrum was a “Trump Hoaxed America” Twitter ad that featured a string of his paranoid “hoax” accusations. It covered matters that he has repeatedly dismissed as hoaxes, such as climate change and the investigations into his unsavory connections to Russia during the 2016 election. More to the point, the ad also included Trump’s infamous outburst that the coronavirus was just another Democratic spawned hoax. Hence his enigmatic tweet. Here’s the ad that Seems to have gotten under Trump’s thin skin:

For the record, What Trump said at his cult rally on February 28, in Charleston, South Carolina, (video below) was that…

“Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that right? … Think of it, And this is their new hoax. But you know we did something that’s pretty amazing. We’re fifteen people in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great.”

Trump’s complaint that he wasn’t referring to the pandemic as a hoax is specious at best. He included it in a list of other alleged hoaxes, not flimsy assertions about political rhetoric. And the notion that “politicizing the coronavirus” was the actual hoax doesn’t even make sense unless he means to say that it wasn’t politicized.

However, for the sake of argument, let’s concede the point and move on to the rest on Trump’s comment. Immediately following his hoax assertion Trump bragged that there were only fifteen people in the United States who were diagnosed with the coronavirus. Then he praised himself for the number being so low and insisted that “We’re doing great.” That was nearly 5,000,000 cases and 160,000 deaths ago.

So whatever fictions Trump wants to sell to Fox News and his cult disciples, there is still the unmistakable presence of a deliberate hoax. It’s the one that Trump and his Republican confederates have manufactured for five months pretending that he has everything under control, that the virus isn’t harmful, and that it’s going to disappear magically any day now. And this isn’t just a garden variety hoax. It’s a hoax that is killing people. And it’s a hoax that, at this late date, no one in their right mind still believes.

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


Trump is Lying About – and Trying to Manipulate – the Presidential Debates

Posted by on August 6, 2020 at 3:20 pm. 2 Comments :

Apparently it hasn’t been enough for Donald Trump to rail maniacally about voting by mail. Or to attack his own medical experts for truthfully warning about the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Or to threaten to ban TikTok, a Twitter app that sometimes hosts messages that are critical of Trump. Or to whine incessantly about Fox News (aka State TV) when they aren’t sufficiently worshipful.

Trump Fear

Nope. It has not been nearly enough to satiate Trump’s massive and fragile ego. Now he is turning his wrath on the Commission on Presidential Debates, the independent, non-partisan organization that has been producing these general election encounters for almost fifty years. True to form, Trump cannot enter into any activity without angrily stomping his bone spurred feet until he gets the undeserved attention demanded by his addled-brain, malignant narcissism. Consequently, Trump took to his Twitter machine to bellow…

In order to give his imperious grumbling some additional oomph, Trump dispatched his equally schizoid personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to fire off an urgent missive to the Commission with a set of utterly irrational, albeit self-serving, requests. However, it’s hard to take seriously a plea that opens and closes with a disparaging remark about Joe Biden finally being, “available to leave his basement for the fall debates.” Stay Classy, Rudy.

Giuliani’s letter sought to change the terms of the already agreed upon debate schedule to add another meeting between Trump and Biden in early September because…

“By the time of the first presidential debate … as many as eight million Americans in 16 states will have already started voting. [Giuliani claimed to want to] avoid having millions of Americans disenfranchised by not being able to see and hear the two major party candidates debate before they have ballots in-hand.”

For Giuliani and Trump, or any Republican, to complain about disenfranchising voters after having gutted the Voting Rights Act, and worked so hard to eliminate early and weekend voting, close polling places, purge registration rolls, and draw preposterously gerrymandered districts, is Olympic-grade hypocrisy.

There is, however, a notable logical fissure in Giuliani’s demands. The vast majority of the states don’t allow for any voting prior to the first debate, which will be held on September 29. And the few that do provide ballots before then, do not require that they be returned until election day. Which means any voter who receives a ballot can simply hold onto it until after any or all of the debates before making their decisions and mailing it in. Although it is best to return ballots as soon as possible to facilitate tabulation, it is not required.

What’s more, voters this year are particularly committed to their presidential preference already. According to a recent poll by CBS News, most voters say that they “strongly support their candidate” (77% of Trump supporters / 74% of Biden supporters). Nine in ten say they would never consider the other candidate. So barring a catastrophic meltdown, the debates may not have much influence over the election outcome. And by all appearances, it’s Trump who would be most susceptible to the meltdown scenario.

In addition to Trump’s ludicrous scheduling alterations, he also weighed in on who he thinks should moderate the debates. Note that the candidates have never selected the moderators for these debates in the past. And the reason for that is perfectly illustrated in Trump’s ultra-partisan list of preferred moderators. Out of 24, nine of them are from Fox News, including notorious Trump-fluffers like Maria Bartiromo. The list also includes some shameless bootlickers from the New York Post, Christian Broadcasting Network, and the Wall Street Journal.

The Commission sent Giuliani their response that can be summarized as a big “NO” on every count. Surely Trump will regard that as a personal slight and throw a Twitter tantrum casting himself as the victim of a “Deep State” plot to destroy him. Because, sadly, that’s what we’ve all come to expect from the Crybaby-in-Chief. But his infantile tactics won’t help him get his way this time. And his well-founded fear of being humiliated is driving him to ever more deranged outbursts, such as…

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

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Crybaby Trump Runs to Fox News Following His Latest Media Fiascoes

Posted by on August 5, 2020 at 2:03 pm. 3 Comments :

The flop sweat gushing from Donald Trump is flowing like a tsunami the closer we get to Election Day. His polling continues to languish near historic lows for both reelection and job approval. And even his traditional allies are politically distancing from him for fear of being swept away themselves. it’s a downward spiral that shows no sign of slowing down.

Donald Trump, Mask, Fox News

Trump’s response to the imminent peril that he finds himself in has been to triple down on the lies, insults, and fear mongering, that have been the staples of his campaign. As a result he lashed out at Dr. Deborah Birx, his hand-picked Coronavirus Task Force medical expert, as “pathetic” just because she told the truth for a change. He flip-flopped on his opposition to mail-in voting (but only in Florida where he needs the votes of senior citizens who might not otherwise cast ballots). He made a ludicrous and unconstitutional proposal to delay the election. And he even threatened to ban TikTok from the United States in retaliation for criticism on the app from people like Sarah Cooper.

But that’s not all. Trump’s recent interview by Jonathan Swan of Axios exposed his shallow and hostile knee-jerk defensiveness and inability to engage in a coherent discussion. A PolitiFact analysis identified 22 false statements in the interview. And in a desperate effort to counteract the pitiful image he displayed, he immediately sought refuge in the warm embrace of his Fox News sycophants.

In the past three days Trump has done three phone-in interviews on Fox. One with his BFF Sean Hannity. One with Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, Lou Dobbs. And on Wednesday morning, a full hour (video below) with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Here are a few of the lowlights:

ON SUSPENDING THE PAYROLL TAX:

FOX: What’s your plan for businesses when it comes to the payroll tax cut?
TRUMP: Well, I may do it myself. We’re negotiating right now. I have the right to suspend it. And I may do it myself. I have the absolute right to suspend…ah, the payroll…ah, do the payroll tax. We call it a payroll tax suspension.

Did our “stable genius” president come up with the idea of calling suspending the payroll tax a “payroll tax suspension” himself? More importantly, does he know that the payroll tax is used exclusively to fund Social Security, and that his proposed suspension would put the program at risk? And finally, he clearly doesn’t know that he has no authority whatsoever to suspend or otherwise alter tax laws passed by Congress. To his great dismay, he is not the American Dictator.

ON OPENING SCHOOLS:

FOX: What is the latest in your view as to how these schools should reopen?
TRUMP: My view is schools should reopen. This thing is going away. It will go away like things go away. And my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost – and I would almost say definitely – but almost immune from this disease.

My view is that Trump is almost – and I would almost say definitely – but almost completely insane. He repeats himself ad nauseam without ever answering the question or making an intelligible point. And above all, he is comfortable with exposing children and their families to a deadly virus that is still out of control due to his negligence and incompetence.

ON OBAMA’S EULOGY FOR JOHN LEWIS:

FOX: Do you agree that [Obama’s eulogy for John Lewis] seemed like a campaign speech and less of a eulogy?
TRUMP: I thought it was a terrible speech, it was an angry speech. It showed there’s anger there that people don’t see. He lost control and he’s been really hit very hard by both sides for that speech. That speech was ridiculous.

You really have to wonder if Trump even saw Obama’s inspiring and heart-felt tribute. It is Trump’s review that is “terrible” and “angry” and utterly “ridiculous.”

ON HIS 2ND TERM:

FOX: Mr. President, what is your second term agenda? What are your top priorities?
TRUMP: I want to take where we left – we had the greatest economy in the history of the world. We were better than any other country. We were better than we were ever. We never had anything like it in this country […] What I want to do is take it from that point and build it even better.

Trump went off on a deranged rant about everything from unemployment to the stock market to how awful our allies are. What he never bothered to mention was anything about his second term agenda.

Needless to say, no one on Fox News challenged Trump’s lies or even bothered to ask a follow up question. They merely tossed him softballs and let Trump ramble on incoherently for twenty minutes. So Trump gets away with claiming he can unilaterally undo tax legislation, baselessly project his own anger onto Obama, and failing to articulate an agenda for the future. And for the record. Trump unleashed another 20 falsehoods on the Fox interview.

Which is why the one thing Trump said that is remotely connected to reality was just slightly off the mark. Referring to his prediction about the forward course of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump babbled that “This thing is going away. It will go away like things go away.” However, that typically inane Trumpism is more aptly applied to his presidency. And for those of you with exceptionally strong stomachs and nothing better to do, below is the full Fox and Friends interview.

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


In Desperate Reversal Trump Pleads with His Supporters to ‘Vote By Mail’

Posted by on August 4, 2020 at 12:22 pm. 5 Comments :

For several weeks Donald Trump has been ranting in his customary incoherent manner about the risks of voting by mail. He insists that it is a process that is rife with fraud, despite not having any evidence to support his alarmist raving. To the contrary, all the evidence shows that it is safe and secure, and has been for decades.

Every study conducted to ascertain the reliability of mail-in voting has concluded that there is no problem other than trivial numbers of incidental errors. David Lublin, an elections expert and professor at American University in Washington, D.C. told ABC News that…

“Voter fraud has not been a widespread problem in the United States. It’s just not remotely a widespread problem that, in fact, usually when claims are made, the more they’re investigated the more they disappear.”

Even a Commission on Election Integrity set up by Trump himself in 2017 failed to document any fraudulent voting and, humiliated, was disbanded a few months later.

So it is with particular curiosity, although not remotely surprising given his penchant for hypocrisy and lies, that Trump has reversed himself completely and is now embracing mail-in voting, but only because it is now in his interest to do so

Trump’s tweet starts off with the tacit admission that he has been deliberately misrepresenting an alleged difference between mail-in voting and absentee voting. But everyone other than Trump knows that there is no difference whatsoever in the processes for requesting or casting ballots. They are just different names for the same thing. What’s more, Trump concedes that voting in this manner is both “Safe and Secure, Tried and True.” While he singles out Florida, the same is true for every other state.

This striking turnaround comes just hours after Trump reiterated his baseless charge that voting by mail is an attempt to rig the election and will result in massive fraud. A few days ago Trump unleashed a maniacal tirade declaring that, due to mail-in voting, “This is going to be the greatest election disaster in history.” He likely meant that not as a warning, but as a promise of what he intends to do.

The reason for this frantic u-turn is likely that Trump has finally been convinced that his anti-voting harangues are actually hurting his own reelection prospects. Republicans across the country have been begging him to stop this rhetorical nonsense because they see how badly it is affecting their campaign efforts for both the White House and down-ballot races for Congress, the Senate, and local offices.

The real purpose of Trump’s assault on democracy has been to suppress the vote. He and the GOP have been focused on reducing voter participation for years. They know that when more people vote, Democrats win. Trump even admitted this last April when he told Fox News that it “doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” He went on to complain that Democrats were “crazy” for supporting vote-by-mail, saying that “They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” For once, he’s right.

To achieve his nefarious anti-democratic ends, Trump is attempting to sabotage the Postal Service. He is refusing to allocate necessary funding for continued operation. He has advocated for privatization, which would utterly destroy the 250 year old, constitutionally mandated institution. He recently installed Louis DeJoy, a major campaign donor, as the new Postmaster General. DeJoy is already ordering slow-downs and other measures to impede service with the intention of disrupting the election.

Trump obviously doesn’t care about the adverse effect this will have on voting. And he certainly doesn’t care that a majority of Americans support mail-in voting. But he is also ignoring the fact that a crippled post office would have trouble delivering Social Security checks, prescription medicines, and other critical necessities. It could literally cost lives. But Trump’s purposeful mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic has already taught us that he couldn’t care less about any of that.

However, now that Trump has become aware that he might also suffer some ill effect of his campaign against mail-in voting, he is callously and selfishly changing his tune. Whether this will have any effect on his cult disciples is another question. They have already initiated demonstrations to protest mail-in voting by burning their own applications. If MAGAts don’t want to vote, that’s something Democrats should eagerly encourage. Feel free to retweet/share this:

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


PATHETIC: Attack Dog Trump Snarls at Dr. Birx for Daring to Tell the Truth

Posted by on August 3, 2020 at 2:50 pm. 4 Comments :

You have to wonder how anyone can lower themselves to working for Donald Trump. The rancid patterns of his perverse and egomaniacal behavior are so reliably steeped in punishing vengeance that it’s impossible to ignore the certainty that eventually you will become his victim. What measure of denial prevents people from seeing that?

Donald Trump Angry

On Monday morning Trump provided yet another example of his steaming wrath, this time directed at an otherwise loyal member of his sycophantic Coronavirus Task Force. In a tweet that began by insult House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump stumbled into a bitterly insulting stab at Dr. Deborah Birx:

First of all, Trump’s sniveling whinery about Pelosi is ramped up to at least eleven. What he describes as “horrible” was actually pretty tame. Pelosi was asked if she had confidence in Dr.Birx. To which she calmly replied “I don’t have confidence in anyone who stands there while the President says ‘swallow Lysol and it’s going to cure your virus.'” No rational person could argue with that.

Secondly, Trump indicates that his anger is rooted in criticism of Dr. Birx being “too positive on the very good job we are doing” on combating the TrumpVirus. But that’s precisely why she has lost the confidence of Pelosi and every other knowledgeable person. Only the most heartless and uncaring cretins could celebrate 157,000 dead Americans and nearly five million sickened as a “positive” outcome.

Finally, Trump got to the point by making the accusation that Birx “took the bait & hit us.” He then called her “pathetic.” And what was so pathetic about Birx’s remarks? She simply said that “What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread. It’s into the rural as equal urban areas.”

Birx was absolutely correct. Despite her generally embarrassing performances as Trump’s dancing puppet, Birx had a rare moment of honesty that corresponded to the facts. And Trump wasn’t having it. So while Pelosi gently conveyed that she lacked confidence in Birx, Trump viciously disparaged her as pathetic. And then he accused Pelosi of saying “horrible things.”

What’s more, Trump’s White House Director of Strategic Communications, Alyssa Farah, went even further saying that “It is deeply irresponsible of Speaker Pelosi to repeatedly try to undermine & create public distrust in Dr Birx.” What does Farah think that Trump is doing when he castigates Birx, Dr. Fauci, and other members of his task force whenever they have the audacity to place their expertise above his flabby gut feelings?

No one has done more to undermine his own team than Trump. He doesn’t even allow them to attend the briefings anymore. Which may be for the best since they are usually just photo-ops for his reelection campaign.

In addition to his tweet attack on Birx, Trump also praised himself for his tragic mishandling of the Coronavirus pandemic, lied again about cases being created by testing, ranted about the “fake” news, indulged in his obsession with TV ratings, and bragged about the puny crowds who attended his event in “Frorida.” In other words, business as usual in the Dark Circus of Trump’s Dystopian World.

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


Trump Clings to Pitiful Fox News Polling Analysis that Mangles Reality

Posted by on August 2, 2020 at 1:23 pm. 2 Comments :

As Election Day draws nearer, Donald Trump’s prospects for reelection become more distant. All of the national polls show him losing to Joe Biden by substantial margins. Even worse, Trump is losing in every crucial swing state. Biden is even competitive in the traditionally red states of Texas and Georgia.

Donald Trump

With less than 100 days to go, Trump has to recognize that he is deep trouble. Although, with the severity of his malignant narcissism, he may have convinced himself that is universally beloved. But the truth is that his personal and job approval ratings are swirling the drain. His policies are rejected by broad majorities of the American people. His opportunities for in-person campaigning are constrained by the Trump Virus, ironically a problem exacerbated by his own negligence and incompetence. and it’s only been getting worse for him as time goes by.

Consequently, Fox News is stepping up their efforts to defend Dear leader with ludicrous analyses of polls that are inherently awful. Host Jesse Watters delivered a monologue on Saturday night that selected one poll that he managed to spin so furiously he might have created a black hole of derp. Watters led off a segment he dubbed “The Trump Turnaround” by saying that “You can feel the momentum shift in the presidential race. It showed up in the polls too, in key battleground states.”

It’s hard to know what Watters was actually feeling, but it could not have been momentum. He was citing a poll conducted by Change Research for CNBC. They are a pollster that is frequently an outlier that leans to the right. According to their methodology statement, the poll “reaches voters via targeted online ads that point people to an online survey instrument.”

Huh? So respondents self-select by clicking on Internet ads. That is hardly a scientific process for statistical data analysis. However, even this dicey poll had nothing positive for the Trump camp. The take that Watters tried to sell to dimwitted Fox News viewers (and to Trump) was that this poll was less horrible for Trump than the previous one.

Watters noted that the lead Biden holds over Trump in six “battleground” states (Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) were smaller than the poll published two weeks prior. What Watters fails to mention is that they are still leads. That’s right, Biden is beating Trump in every one of these states, and Watters thinks there is good news in that.

Watters also neglected to inform his Fox Cult following that the leads reported in this poll are significantly smaller than the leads reported in every other poll. Comparing these results to the average of recent polls shows Biden’s cumulative lead in the swing states is literally double what the Change Research survey found. So naturally this prompted Watters to aim this admonishment at his audience:

“Don’t believe the lies you hear from the media or on social media about a Biden Victory. This is going to be a very close election. But President Trump has the edge.“

Concluding that “Trump has the edge” when he is behind in every instance is a feat of Olympian bullshittery. Which is, of course, what Fox News is most famous for. And it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump retweeted this segment to bask in the glow of his epic failure. But if Watters and Trump want to believe this so badly, let’s not spoil it for them. Reality will reveal itself in its own time.

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