Trump’s Bizarre Defense of Fellow Sexual Predator Brett Kavanaugh is Legally Incomprehensible

Posted by on September 15, 2019 at 11:50 am. 2 Comments :

The New York Times published a story this week that contained new and credible allegations of sexual assault by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. While the article buried the charges in the body of the story, the victim, Deborah Ramirez, provides a harrowing account of Kavanaugh’s behavior that is consistent with the experiences of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and others.

Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh

The renewed controversy over the Donald Trump nominated Justice has stirred the debate over Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve on the Court. There are already calls for investigations and even inquiries into whether Kavanaugh should be impeached. Among the justifications for his ouster from the bench is the now apparent fact that he lied to the Senate during his confirmation hearing. And he had no business being confirmed at all considering the fact that the FBI failed to investigate the charges against him, including those by Ramirez.

Enter Donald Trump. It comes as no surprise that Trump would rush to the defense of his nominee. Not just because he needs to validate his choice, but also because they share so much in common. Trump is also a serial sexual predator who has been accused by more than twenty women of harassment and/or assault. So naturally Trump lashed out on Twitter to protect Kavanaugh from the truths that are emerging.

Trump’s first inclination is always to blame everything on the media. It’s his way of telegraphing to his cult followers that, despite the facts and the evidence, what they are hearing is not to be believed. Trump’s assertion that Kavanaugh is “an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY,” has no basis in reality. And it’s absurd to suggest that he has been treated worse than his victims.

However, Trump goes completely off the ledge when he offers his advice that Kavanaugh should sue the press and his accusers for libel. Trump has often threatened to sue his own accusers, but always chickens out. During the 2016 campaign he swore that “All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” Those lawsuits never came to pass. His lawyers surely told him that truth is a defense against libel, and the proceedings would subject him to discovery, wherein he would have to provide all relevant documents and evidence in his possession. There is no way he would do that.

Even worse, Trump said that “the Justice Department should come to [Kavanaugh’s] rescue.” This is further proof that Trump believes the Justice Department serves as his personal attorney, and can serve the same function for Kavanaugh. Clearly Trump has no idea how government works. But, unfortunately, he does have an Attorney General, William Barr, who doesn’t care how government works and is willing to violate the Constitution on behalf of a criminal president.

Trump’s glaring ignorance is apparent throughout these tweets. He obviously doesn’t know what “recrimination” means. Just retaliating against the women in these matters by calling them “liars” is recriminatory. And they have also been disparaged as drunks and sluts. Trump’s complaint that his critics are trying to “scare [Kavanaugh] into turning Liberal,” and to “influence his opinions,” makes no sense whatsoever. How would holding Kavanaugh accountable for his past behavior – and more recent lies – cause him to rule more favorably for the people causing him so much trouble? If anything, it would have the opposite effect.

Let’s be clear. The only reason Trump is even bothering to make a stink about this is that he’s afraid for his own fate. He even said as much in another tweet where he asked if it “sounds familiar” that Kavanaugh’s criticisms were based “on threats of Impeaching him over made up stories.”

Trump regards this as an attack against him. He doesn’t care about Kavanaugh or the Supreme Court, and certainly not the law. He sees this as criticism of his choice for the nomination and his own sex crimes. And anything that reflects negatively on him must be attacked with the full force of his viciousness and dishonesty. That’s how the diseased minds of malignant narcissists work. And Trump is, once again, providing a textbook example of this. Sadly, it’s also an example of why no one with these hostile and destructive psychoses should ever serve as president.

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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The ‘It’ Fracture: Crybaby Trump is Afraid of Joy-Ann Reid and Thinks Journalism is Showbiz

Posted by on September 14, 2019 at 1:14 pm. 1 Comments :

If it’s Saturday, it’s time for another regularly scheduled Donald Trump Tweetstorm. And the “stable genius” occupying the White House doesn’t disappoint. In fact, he even reminded everyone of his alleged stability in a tweet thanking some unnamed admirer for recognizing his alleged genius. In a normal world that would be sufficient proof that he’s a flaming fruitcake.

Donald Trump, Pennywise

Among the Twitticisms that Trump posted was a celebration that Republicans son a couple of seats in bright red districts that they were always favored to win. Although one of them was pulled out by a razor-thin two point margin. Another tweet bragged about his 94 percent support among Republicans, which in reality is only 83 percent. Which is irrelevant anyway because, contrary to his dementia, he isn’t running for president of the GOP. Then he dropped a couple of tweets that consisted only of his tiresome campaign quotes (MAGA, KAG) that he’s hammering into the numb skulls of his cult followers.

However, the most Trumpian eruption of the morning was one that attacked the media, of course. It’s his goto wankery when nothing on Fox News ignites his smoldering emotional tinder. And this time Trump lashed out at MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid for something that Trump didn’t bother to explain:

To answer Trump’s first question, Joy-Ann Reid has been a commentator and host on MSNBC for five years and currently hosts her own popular Saturday morning program, AM Joy. Not that Trump really needed this prompting. Despite pretending that he doesn’t know Reid, his own tweet goes on to reveal that he’s pretty familiar with her show, her reputation, her network, her reporting, and her ratings (she averages more than a million viewers each week). Although much of what he thinks he knows is wrong, as usual. Reid is also the author of a New York Times bestselling book that Trump surely knows about, but hasn’t read: “The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story,”

What’s troubling about Trump’s attack on Reid – besides being another assault on an African-American journalist – is his bizarre characterization of her as lacking “the ‘it’ factor,” something he asserts is “needed for success in showbiz.” That’s right, “Showbiz!” Because that’s what Trump thinks journalism is. In fact, that’s what Trump thinks his presidency is. His job before becoming president was hosting a reality TV game show, which he did for 14 years. That’s not a hobby, it’s a career. And he still sees everything from within that Hollywood bubble.

So what might have triggered this outburst by Trump? He frequently insists that he never watches MSNBC, but with all of the whining he does about it, it’s obvious he watches every day. And today Reid did an extended segment on impeaching Trump (full video below). Undoubtedly he was watching while getting drool all over his Egg McMuffins. And his tweet tantrum makes much more sense when we know what he was almost certainly responding to.

Reid’s guests itemized a long list of impeachable offenses by Trump, beginning with obstruction of justice and continuing through encouraging Russia to interfere with the election, exploiting the presidency to enrich himself, violating campaign finance laws by paying hush money to his mistresses and not reporting it, defying subpoenas and suppressing evidence, and much more.

It’s easy to see why Trump is so afraid and desperate this morning. He knows what he did, and he knows that the truth is coming out. And he knows that changing the channel to Fox News won’t prevent the inevitable accountability he will be forced to face. So he resorts to this sort of deranged panic-tweeting. Expect more of this madness as Congress uncovers more of Trump criminal behavior. And expect it to get worse before it gets better.

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


Fox News Shill Geraldo Rivera Confirms Trump is a Racist While Arguing that He Isn’t a Racist

Posted by on September 13, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 2 Comments :

The debate over whether or not Donald Trump is a racist has been over for months, years really. The evidence is in his frequent and virulent hate speech, as well as his policies that are deliberately aimed at disadvantaging people of color. And the fact that he is supported by the nation’s most prominent white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups is further proof of his embrace of bigotry.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

Most people upon discovering that KKK leaders are praising them would stop and reflect on what they did or said to attract such loathsome admirers. But not Trump. He actually panders to them and refuses to make any outright criticisms. He invites them to the White House and recycles overtly racist tropes that history has condemned. He even told women of color – who happen to be members of Congress and U.S. citizens – to “go back you came from.”

Notwithstanding all of these facts, Fox News continues to pretend that there is nothing remotely racist about Trump. It’s a position that mimics the worshipful fawning of state run media in Russia, North Korea and other totalitarian regimes. And on Trump’s favorite Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes earned their pay by ignoring the truth about Trump and slobbering over Dear Leader’s bottomless capacity for universal love.

Aside from the helpful montage of Democrats correctly pointing out that Trump is a racist, this clip features Steve Doocy wondering why they weren’t asked “What do you mean? What are you referring to?” The fact that he even bothers to ask that question demonstrates just how blind he is to reality, or more accurately, how blind they want their views to be. For the record, Doocy’s question has been answered many times, and this compilation from Vox serves as a convenient resource.

Later in the program, long-time Trump friend and blabbering sycophant, Geraldo Rivera, showed up for another of his regular appearances and began sucking up in the first few seconds of his segment. He started off with a glassy-eyed confession that “I love the President and I’ve known him for 45 years and he is not a racist.” Geraldo then blames Trump’s troubles on “sloppy rhetoric” that “makes him vulnerable” to charges of racism. But as he continues, Geraldo himself outlines Trump’s rancid bigotry that extends far beyond rhetoric:

“When the President says ‘shathole countries,’ and NFL players who kneel are ‘sons of bitches,’ and ‘Mexicans are rapists,’ I think that he should emphasize the positive.”

See? It’s as simple as that. Just ignore the fact that you’ve viciously insulted African countries, African-American athletes, and Latinx refugees fleeing violence and poverty. Focus on imaginary “positives” that can be exploited to brainwash the dimwitted Trump cultists and viewers of Fox News. Geraldo also advised Trump that “His staff should look more like the country. It should be more diverse.” That’s not the sort of advice you give to someone who isn’t noticeably prejudiced.

It’s ironic that Geraldo’s defense of Trump contains such a useful itemization of the evidence that he is, in fact, flagrantly racist. But Geraldo wants you to dismiss all of that and be filled with the same reverential and baseless adoration of Trump that he has. And this isn’t just the position of Geraldo. It’s the same irrational mask of delusion that all Republicans and Fox News hacks wear and that they want to strap onto you. It’s just that you don’t see them tugging at the strings this openly very often.

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


Pathological Liar Trump Sinks to Making Up ‘Quotes’ as His Impeachment Fears Grow

Posted by on September 12, 2019 at 1:03 pm. 1 Comments :

This week Congress returned from its summer recess and almost immediately got to work by voting to proceed with an inquiry into Donald Trump and the case for his impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee passed a resolution that set the procedures and rules for future impeachment investigation hearings. Committee chair Jerry Nadler made clear that Trump’s conduct “poses a threat to our democracy,” and that “We have an obligation to respond to this threat.”

Donald Trump Impeach

The dagger dangling precariously over Trump’s intellectually numb skull is having an impact on his already panicked temperament. Under ordinary conditions (if there were any) Trump would be behaving erratically. But with the looming prospect of impeachment he has leapt off the cliff’s edge and is hurtling into the abyss of his psychoses. That would explain his tweet Thursday morning that purported to be a quote by Rep. Al Green:

By now most American know that Trump is a pathological liar who has been documented to have told more than 12,000 lies since his inauguration. Most recently he outdid himself by lying about the path of Hurricane Dorian. He even altered official weather maps, bullied NOAA officials to concur with his flagrant falsehoods, and chastised the Fox News White House correspondent for not backing him up.

However, the tweet above goes much further down the rabid hole of paranoia and deceit. The words Trump attributed to Rep. Green as a quote were never said by Green. At best, Trump is wildly distorting comments made by Green four months ago when he was interviewed on MSNBC (video below):

Host Phillip Mena: Are you concerned that impeachment talk may actually help the President’s reelection?
Green: I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected. If we don’t impeach him he will say that he’s been vindicated. He will say that the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and they didn’t take up impeachment. […] We must impeach this president. If we don’t, it’s not the soul of the nation that will be at risk only, it’s the soul of the Congress.

So Green wasn’t saying that Trump couldn’t be beat, nor that impeachment was a response to the fallacy of him being unbeatable. He was merely answering the question by noting what Trump would say if Democrats didn’t proceed with impeachment. And he was acknowledging the possibility of Trump’s reelection, which any reasonable political analyst would concede exists. But no one could plausibly interpret those remarks the way Trump did in his wholly dishonest tweeting of a fake quote. And to drive that point home, Green replied to Trump’s tweet with one of his own:

Trump lies so often that it’s becoming a passe affair that gets ignored in the press. That should never happen. He’s still the President and such dishonesty is an abhorrent trait that must be called out as a destructive assault on democracy every time it happens. But inventing quotes by members of Congress takes his noxious behavior light years down the road to tyranny. It cannot be tolerated by patriotic Americans. And the fear that triggers this sort of moral fraudulence must be recognized as a dangerous manifestation of mental infirmity. By making up quotes about his impeachment, Trump is only affirming the necessity that he be impeached.

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


Trump Backs E-Cigarette Ban After 6th Vaping Death, Still No Gun Reforms After 313 Deaths

Posted by on September 11, 2019 at 1:33 pm. 3 Comments :

On Wednesday morning Trump invited the press – you know, the “enemy of the people” – into the White House to make an announcement about his new initiative to ban flavored e-cigarettes. He is apparently very concerned about a recent report that a sixth person has died from lung disease associated with vaping.

Donald Trump, Yosemite Sam, Guns

This is a legitimate problem that potentially affects millions of people, including children, who have taken up the habit. And there hasn’t been enough research to establish the safety of this relatively new product. However, there is something peculiar about the rapid response with which Trump is moving to limit access to e-cigarettes. If six deaths ever from vaping is a serious enough crisis to push through a virtual prohibition on an otherwise legal product, why isn’t 313 deaths this year alone enough of a crisis to enact common sense gun reforms?

Many conservatives and Trump Republicans make the argument that restrictions on access to assault-style guns won’t prevent people from acquiring them. But they seem to believe that similar restrictions will be effective on e-cigarette smokers. That’s a contradiction they cannot explain away. At the same time, they are driven to action by a half dozen vaping-related deaths, but fight tooth and nail to protect their right to own military weapons intended solely to mutilate the human body, despite being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people at schools, churches, and malls.

During his brief visit with the press (video below), Trump revealed that he is “looking at vaping strongly” because “it’s very dangerous” and that “children have died.” Of course, all of that is true many times over for guns and mass shootings. He also asserted that “we’re going to have some very strong rules and regulations.” Which he is vigorously obstructing with regard to guns and accessories like large capacity magazines. He elaborated saying that…

“Vaping is becoming a big business as I understand it, like a giant business in a short period of time. We can’t allow people to get sick and we can’t have our youth be so affected. And that’s how the First Lady got involved. She’s got a son — together that is a beautiful young man, and she feels very, very strongly about it. She’s seen it. We’re both reading it. A lot of people are reading it. But people are dying.”

First of all, it’s curious that Trump has noticed that Melania has a son, as if he has nothing to do with it. But more to the point, Trump’s observation that “people are dying” from vaping seems especially callous when he can’t make the same connection to the far more numerous fatalities caused by easy access to killing machines that have no justifiable purpose for anyone other than soldiers and police officers.

It’s hard to dismiss the likelihood that Trump’s reluctance to take any action on guns is due to his alliance with – and/or fear of – the National Rifle Association. He has repeatedly made hollow, insincere gestures toward reform efforts, only to abandon them after talking to his pals at the NRA. And it’s fair to say that Big Tobacco has a firmer grip on Trump and the GOP than Big E-Cig. Since the e-cigarette industry doesn’t have anything comparable to the NRA lobbying on their behalf, they will end up being regulated in short order. And Americans will continue to be mowed down by assault weapons thanks to the self-serving, cold-blooded, depravity of Trump and his Re[publican Nationalist Party.

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


John Bolton Texts Fox News Live to Say He Resigned, Contradicting Another Trump Lie

Posted by on September 10, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 3 Comments :

The administration of Donald Trump continues to be a hot mess. Having already achieved a record number of departures of White House top staff, Trump has just parted ways with his fourth National Security Advisor, John Bolton. Sources say that Trump and Bolton argued about the President’s foiled scheme to bring the Taliban to Camp David.

Donald Trump, John Bolton

The break up with Bolton leaves Trump’s national security team littered with “acting” heads, including National Security Advisor, Homeland Security Secretary, Director of National Intelligence, and Chief of Staff. These are all critical posts that have a particular significance during these times of international turmoil. Trump is awkwardly juggling relations with Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, China, Russia, and many more foreign hot spots that threaten American interests. But the nation under Trump’s “leadership” lacks competent management in the jobs that oversee those crucial areas of statecraft.

Trump announced Bolton’s dismissal in his usual way – via Twitter saying “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation.” It isn’t surprising that Trump and Bolton disagreed. That was apparent even before Bolton was hired, and anyone paying attention knew it. But Trump’s staffing decisions are based on the shallowest criteria, such as how they look on Fox News.

Not surprisingly, Bolton had a different view of how his separation came about. Contrary to Trump’s claim that he asked Bolton to resign, Bolton says – also via Twitter – that he made the offer first. And just to drive the point home, Bolton live-tweeted Fox News where his pal and former colleague, Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends, read the tweet on the air:

So Bolton, a former Fox News contributor, hasn’t been unemployed for an hour and he’s already angling for his old job at back at Fox. But the more important question going forward is which Trump-fluffing Fox News shill will Trump name as the next National Security Advisor? There are several prospects in the the Fox family who would meet Trump’s low standards for work in his White House: 1) Be willing to lie unflinchingly for Trump; and … well, that’s pretty much it.

One candidate could be Walid Phares, a longtime right-wing pundit and advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Phares distinguished himself as an Islamophobe and a crackpot conspiracy theorist with claims that tied President Obama and Hillary Clinton to the Muslim Brotherhood. Another candidate could be retired Gen. Jack Keane who makes frequent appearances on Fox defending Trump blindly for whatever the atrocity of the day happens to be.

However, a more likely candidate would be this favorite of Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who was a presenter on the recently shuttered NRA-TV before becoming a full-fledged Fox contributor who sometimes fills in for Hannity. Bongino has already caught Trump’s eye with a book that makes wild assertions about the “Deep State” spying on Trump. The President has tweeted about or retweeted Bongino 84 times. Typically they are just factless tributes to Trump’s imaginary awesomeness and virginal innocence, such as…

So we can expect the next National Security Advisor to be a worshipful member of the Trump cult. And he will join a team of hacks who have never been confirmed by the Senate because, according to Trump, “I like ‘acting’ because I can move so quickly.” In other words, he likes “acting” because he can just pull sycophantic, unqualified names out of his arse without having to get the constitutionally mandated consensus of the Senate. And sadly, in these troubled times that’s what America has to suffer though with our wannabe dictator in the White House.

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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America First? Trump’s Attacks on the Media are Both Ignorant and Anti-American

Posted by on September 9, 2019 at 1:58 pm. 3 Comments :

Another day, another malicious assault on the Constitution and its First Amendment protections for a free press. Donald Trump is continuing to march toward a totalitarian state where he controls the media. And in his latest manic outburst on the subject he goes further than ever to lie about and threaten both journalists and American workers employed by the media that he so desperately hates.

Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow, Shepard Smith, Anderson Cooper

Trump’s noxious tweetstorm began with a gleeful nod to the news that an “activist investor” has acquired a bundle of AT&T stock:

Trump’s celebration of this investment is a typically shallow analysis considering the investor purchased a share of AT&T that is only a little more than one percent of its outstanding shares. That isn’t gong give him any real leverage, and he’ll have no role in board or management decisions. What’s more, shareholders have absolutely zero influence over the editorial content of a news network, nor should they. So Trump is wandering around in a fantasy world that he clearly knows nothing about.

Trump also knows nothing about the state of the cable news business. His hatred for CNN notwithstanding, the network is enjoying the highest ratings and revenue in its history. This is an example of Trump expressing the delusions in his diseased brain as if they had some correlation to reality. But what’s worse about this Twitter tantrum is that Trump is maligning an American company before the whole world. That is recklessly inappropriate for the President of the United States, and a betrayal of the thousands of American workers at CNN and AT&T.

In addition, Trump repeated the flagrant lie that foreign leaders have asked him “Why does the Media hate the U.S. sooo much?” Perhaps Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un might have asked him that, but they probably also ask why he doesn’t arrest and/or assassinate them. After all, he has openly yearned for those powers himself. For the record, the media doesn’t hate America, and they don’t even hate Trump. They hate lies, corruption, treason, and ignorance. It isn’t their fault that Trump exemplifies all of those abhorrent traits. But Trump wasn’t through ranting:

Once again, MSNBC’s ratings and revenue are growing rapidly. Trump may wish that news networks that tell the truth about him were failing, but the opposite is true. Meanwhile, at Fox News their ratings are still impressive, but their revenue is in a steep decline because advertisers don’t want to be associated with the Trump-fluffing, white supremacist dogma that is the hallmark of Fox. And if Trump is tiring of negative stories about him, he might try doing something positive for once. Or at least stop doing so many things that are objectively stupid, destructive, racist, and/or corrupt.

Trump went on to bash the media in general as “an arm of the Democrat Party.” without providing any proof whatsoever. But that’s been his modus operandi for years. And coming from someone who leans so heavily on his State TV network (aka Fox News), it’s starkly hypocritical. His intent is to drag down the reputation of the press to prevent people from taking it seriously when they report what he’s actually doing and saying. He actually admitted that to Leslie Stahl when she asked why he attacks the press. “You know why I do it?” he replied. “I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

Everyone needs to remember that whenever they hear him criticize the media. By his own admission he isn’t doing it to correct the record or to stand up for the practice of journalism. He’s doing it to brainwash anyone dimwitted enough to fall for his deliberately deceitful disparagement of honest reporting. Sadly, there are way too many Deplorables who are happy to wallow in the filth that Trump spews, even after they’ve been told – by him – exactly what he’s doing.

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


Trump Lies Too Much to Take His Word that There Was Ever a Taliban Meeting

Posted by on September 8, 2019 at 10:56 am. 12 Comments :

Our Reality TV President has done more to debase the presidency of the United States than anyone could ever have imagined. Donald Trump’s pathological lying, infantile insults, willful ignorance, blatant self-dealing, mental infirmity, disrespect for the law and the Constitution, and bizarre affinity for foreign dictators, cannot be dismissed as mere character flaws. They are dangerously and deliberately anti-American.

Donald Trump

Among Trump’s multitude of personal and presidential improprieties are his official proclamations via Twitter. They represent an unprecedented devaluing of governmental discourse. It’s a cartoon version of diplomacy. And Trump’s latest Twitter pronouncement may truly have blasted through the bottom of the barrel and excavated a rough passage to China.

There is so much wrong with this tweet it’s hard to comprehend that it wasn’t the work of comedians on acid. And while many of Trump’s Twitter outbursts seem astonishingly stupid, this one really deserves further examination. So let’s break it down, shall we?

Disclosing Peace Talks with Terrorists
The first problem with this tweet is that it exists at all. No sane leader would even contemplate disclosing on Twitter that there was a secret meeting being planned with the same terrorists who harbored the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden. Nor would the cancelation of such a clandestine meeting be tweeted along with petulant threats to make future talks even more difficult.

Invitation Without Pre-conditions or Concessions
Trump’s tweet revealed that he intended to reward these still unrepentant terrorists with a meeting at a presidential retreat on U.S. soil, despite the fact that they have not conceded a single thing to earn it. To the contrary, they still celebrate 9/11 as a proud victory in their struggle to impose a radical form of islamic rule. They continue to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and it’s religious and imperialistic principles. And since the Taliban haven’t agreed to anything prior to the meeting, an agreement that fails to restrict their governance of Afghanistan appears all the more likely. Especially since Trump is such an awful negotiator that he already said publicly that he wants to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan. He needs a deal more than than they do, which can only result in a bad deal for the U.S.

Staining the Anniversary of 9/11
Trump also managed to show callous disrespect for the victims of 9/11, their families, and all Americans by scheduling a meeting with bin Laden’s protectors for the week of the anniversary of 9/11. The memory of that horrific event is still an open wound that millions of Americans recall in stark and painful detail. Apparently that isn’t the case for Trump.

Canceling the Meeting Because Terrorists Committed an Act of Terror
This is a mind-boggling admission by Trump. Peace talks are always held between two warring factions. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that one side or the other engages in violence prior to the completion of any peace treaty. That’s the whole reason for the talks. But Trump is pretending that a recent car bombing in Kabul is his excuse for calling off the meeting. What was he expecting? He never demanded anything, including a cease fire.

Trump Wants to Know: “How Many More Decades Are They Willing to Fight?”
It’s hard to imagine that Trump thinks this is a serious question. The Taliban, and their comrades in Al Qaeda, have already been fighting for many decades that go back to before the U.S ever set foot in Afghanistan. He should ask his friends in Russia. It’s further evidence that they are committed to a long term battle that Trump is showing he doesn’t have the stomach for. Most Americans certainly do not want this war to continue, but as President, it’s foolish and dangerous to show your cards to the enemy.

What Peace Talks?
It’s notable that there has been no confirmation from the Taliban that any meeting was ever actually scheduled. There is no indication that they traveled to the U.S., or were preparing to do so. There is no indication that they have had to alter such plans. They have not issued any statements criticizing Trump for abandoning the peace effort. Just total silence from the Taliban.

And that may be the most revealing part of this whole affair. Why is anyone taking Trump’s word that there were any peace talks scheduled in the first place? This is the President who has spent the last week insisting that his inclusion of Alabama among the states at risk during Hurricane Dorian was correct, despite documented evidence that it wasn’t. He went so far as to summon the Fox News White House correspondent to the Oval Office for a spanking because everyone at Fox wasn’t obediently regurgitating his lies. He’s the President who has told more than 12,000 lies just since his inauguration.

Consequently, it would be foolish to assume that any peace talks were actually scheduled with the Taliban. Trump could easily have made it up the way he made up what he said was the question he was asked most at the G7 meetings in France a couple of weeks ago. Or the way he made up the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Or the way that he made up that China pays the tariffs, not American importers and consumers. Or the way he made up untold numbers of other purposeful fallacies intend to deceive the American people. So until there is proof that peace talks at Camp David were actually scheduled between Trump and the Taliban, no one should believe they were. His tweet is just not good enough.

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


Wannabe Dictator Trump Proposes Banning Reporters He Doesn’t Like From the White House

Posted by on September 7, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 3 Comments :

The legacy that Donald Trump has said he wants to follow him when his presidency is over is that he exposed the “massive dishonesty in the Fake News.” He’s as likely to be remembered for that farcical delusion as for being the first man to walk on the moon. But history will undoubtedly record him as one of the most antagonistic presidents toward the Constitution’s protection of a free press.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

As if to secure that title for posterity, Trump tweeted on Saturday morning what amounts to threat aimed at a news enterprise that he has long despised – The Washington Post. Trump’s festering hatred for the Post stems from his paranoid aversion to any media that has the audacity to tell the truth about him because he knows what that will lead to. He said that…

In that missive Trump achieved an impressively manic Level Four Fury by packing the adjectives “nasty, lightweight, disgusting,” and “fake,” all into one tweet. But worst of all, he proposed that the Post reporters be banned from White House grounds simply for doing their job. That’s typical of Trump’s raging authoritarian tendencies, wherein he believes that he has the right to pick and choose who is allowed to be a journalist.

He’s tried this twice before in recent weeks when he attempted to revoke the White House credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta and Playboy columnist Brian Karem. In both cases Trump lost in court and the journalists’ credentials where restored. This obviously gnaws at Trump who has openly yearned for the sort of tyrannical control of the press that his pal Vladimir Putin enjoys.

What Trump was reacting to was a Washington Post article by Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker that accurately described Trump’s wasted summer of embarrassment and failure. The headline read “Trump’s lost summer: Aides claim victory, but others see incompetence and intolerance.” The article was well sourced throughout and painted a clear picture of…

“…what some Trump advisers and allies characterize as a lost summer defined by self-inflicted controversies and squandered opportunities. […] The two months between Independence Day and Labor Day offered a fresh and vivid portrait of the president as seen by Trump’s critics — incompetent, indecisive, intolerant and ineffective.”

Trump included in his tweet a link to an op-ed by his press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, in the wingnut Washington Examiner. She tried to counter the Post’s article with examples of positive news stories about Trump that she said the Post ignored. The only problem with that was that the Post actually did cover those stories at the time. It’s astonishing that an alleged “press secretary” could write such a poorly researched op-ed, or that anyone would publish it. As for the Post, their executive editor, Marty Baron, defended his reporters and blasted Trump saying that:

“The president’s statement fits into a pattern of seeking to denigrate and intimidate the press. It’s unwarranted and dangerous, and it represents a threat to a free press in this country.”

That’s the Trump Media Doctrine in a nutshell. His paranoia and fragile ego drive him to attack the press with unsubstantiated charges of fakery and the infamous Stalinist rhetoric that “the media is the enemy of the people.” His hostility toward unfettered journalism even extends to friendly media like Fox News who Trump recently lambasted as “not working for us anymore,” and ordered his cult followers to “start looking for a new news outlet.” And on Friday he summoned Fox’s White House correspondent, John Roberts, to the Oval Office for an official spanking because he wasn’t worshipful enough.

So there is no one in the media who is safe. Trump will viciously assault his critics. And he will callously abandon his friends. He demands unwavering loyalty and the pure exaltation of Dear Leader. In order to avoid his wrath you must hate those whom he hates. And you must defend him at all times, no matter how foolish or contrary to American principles. And unfortunately, there are those in both the right-wing media and the Republican Nationalist Party who are all too willing to comply with those political terms of enslavement.

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


Trump Summons Fox News White House Correspondent to Oval Woodshed for a Spanking

Posted by on September 6, 2019 at 11:25 am. 10 Comments :

There is little in the current news cycle that is less important than Donald Trump’s absurd and pointless lies about Alabama being in the path of Hurricane Dorian. For the record, Alabama was ruled out as being at risk two days before Trump issued his warning to residents of that state. But despite the facts that were confirmed by the National Weather Service’s Hurricane Center, Trump has elevated this nonsense to ridiculously atmospheric heights.

Donald Trump

There is a case to be made that Trump’s lying is significant because it might have unnecessarily rattled Alabamians or even shifted resources to areas where they weren’t needed. But more troubling is that it puts Trump’s severe mental instability on display. He could have just said that a mistake was made and this story would have slipped quietly away. Instead he turned his egotistical aversion to ever being challenged up to twelve – that’s twelve pile-on tweets insisting that he was correct, contrary to reality.

The latest of these demented tweets came on Friday morning when he accused the media of being fixated on the story he has been obsessively ranting about. “They went Crazy,” he tweeted, “hoping against hope that I made a mistake (which I didn’t).” Well, yes he did, and all the evidence affirms it. He went on to whine about not getting an apology that he doesn’t deserve, including for “the Witch Hunt, or SpyGate!” Nevermind that the Mueller probe (aka “witch hunt” in Trump’s cartoon brain) produced abundant evidence of Trump’s illegal activities, and “SpyGate” was a figment of his imagination.

However, the most deplorable action on Trump’s part during this vacuous waste of time occurred on Thursday when, as reported by CNN, Trump ordered the Fox News White House correspondent, John Roberts, to appear before him in his chambers. Trump was very unhappy with the reporting by Roberts and Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. This was not the first time that Trump has lashed out at Fox for not being being sufficiently adoring. Just last week he even ordered his cult followers to “start looking for new news outlet.” But this may be the first time that he has reprimanded a Fox reporter in the oval Office.

In an email by Roberts that was provided to CNN, he said that Trump “insisted that it is unfair to say Alabama was never threatened by the storm.” Roberts wrote that Trump was “looking for acknowledgment that he was not wrong” when he falsely claimed on Sunday that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian. By that time it was already known that Dorian had turned sharply to the north and east. But that didn’t stop Trump from lobbying Roberts with outdated information and charts. Even in those old projections there was only a 5-10 percent chance of a slight brushing of a sliver of Alabama, while Trump had said that there was 95 percent probability of landfall in Alabama.

CNN also reported that Trump “voiced his displeasure about Fox News anchor Shepard Smith’s skeptical reporting about the Alabama map,” and asked Roberts “to hit back at Shepard Smith.” This would be regarded as wholly inappropriate for any president to say to any journalist, but this is Trump and Fox News, so all pretensions to credibility are irrelevant. What Trump was fuming about was Smith’s commentary (video below) on the Alabama non-controversy wherein he said that…

Some things in Trumplandia are inexplicable. This week’s edition, the President’s ongoing claim that Alabama was at risk from hurricane Dorian. It wasn’t. Maybe he got some bad info, somebody maybe he made a mistake. Maybe he was confused. We don’t know. But he was wrong. Everybody makes mistakes. Instead the next day, the president blamed the media for his own inaccurate warning and started to rewrite history on the matter. […]

Why would the president of the United States do this? He decries fake news that isn’t and disseminates fake news that is. Think China pays the tariffs. The wall is going up. Historic inauguration crowd. Russia probe is a witch hunt. You need an ID to buy cereal. Noise from windmills causes cancer. It’s endless.

Indeed, it does seem to be endless as Trump prolongs this spectacle into the weekend. And along with trying to bully his friends at Fox News, Trump ordered his Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, Rear Admiral Peter J. Brown, to issue a flagrantly false work of propaganda that backed up Trump’s ever-expanding web of lies. And not surprisingly, Trump’s BFF, Sean Hannity, took to the air to criticize the “psychotic jackasses in the media mob” who he said were misreporting that Trump lied, even though they merely reported the actual events as they occurred.

The only reason this preposterous story persists is that Trump can’t keep his narcissistic mouth shut for thirty seconds. His deranged insistence that he be perceived as right in all matters at all times forces him to defend even the most trivial blather that oozes from his pie hole on an all too frequent basis. And this time he even tried to browbeat a friendly Foxie into complicity with his dishonest drivel. The fact that it didn’t work may be a sign of trouble ahead for Trump. We can only hope.

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