GOP Approval for Trump Rises AFTER Racist Tweets – Tells You Something About the GOP

Posted by on July 17, 2019 at 12:04 pm. 3 Comments :

From the very first day Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president, he established his credentials as the Republican Party’s foremost spokesman for white nationalism and the racist hate groups who rallied to his campaign. And trump hasn’t been shy about his gratitude for their support. This week he even told a Fox News reporter that he isn’t concerned that white nationalists are “finding common cause” with his racist remarks.

Donald Trump, MAGA

Following Trump’s brazenly bigoted Twitter rants against Democratic women of color, there has been a deafening silence from his GOP colleagues. They are either too scared to take the ethical road and condemn Trump’s racism, or they agree with it. And now there is a new Reuters poll that really tells us all we need to know about today’s Republican Nationalist Party:

“Support for U.S. President Donald Trump increased slightly among Republicans after he lashed out on Twitter over the weekend in a racially charged attack on four minority Democratic congresswomen, a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll shows. […] his net approval among members of his Republican Party rose by 5 percentage points.”

There you have it. Trump may be an avowed white supremacist, but his public utterances affirming that are clearly a deliberate strategy to appeal the members of his party who are lapping it up. They like him even more when he’s articulating overtly racist messages. That can only serve to incite ever more repugnant hate speech from the President and his Klannish confederates.

For contrast, approval from Democrats and independents both declined in the poll. And a separate poll from USA Today confirmed these findings. It showed that overall large majorities of 59 percent of voters called Trump’s tweets “un-American.” And 68 percent said they were “offensive.” But a majority of 57 percent of Republicans said they agreed with Trump’s racist tweets.

Contrary to the disgust by most Americans for Trump’s racism, he continues to dig himself deeper into the abyss of blatant bigotry. On Wednesday morning he quote-tweeted a Fox News commentary by GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who said that “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse” are “Wack Jobs.” And somehow Trump thought that would help his argument that he isn’t a racist scumbucket. He also tweeted a poll of his own to bolster his lagging defense:

First of all, let’s not ignore that Trump is once again maligning four women of color, who were elected to represent their districts, with his obviously sarcastic thanks to “the vicious young Socialist Congresswomen.” It’s part of his reelection strategy to fire up his Deplorable base by dehumanizing his critics.

As for Rasmussen, it is a thoroughly disgraced, right-wing purveyor of deliberately slanted surveys. Nevertheless, Trump posts a similar tweet every time Rasmussen puts Trump at 50 percent. Never mind that the same poll also shows Trump with a negative “approval index” wherein his strong disapproval always exceeds his strong approval. What’s more, whenever Rasmussen hits 50 percent for Trump, it only lasts a few days before he is once again in negative territory. And this is with the most Trump-friendly pollster on the planet.

So Trump is caught in an endless loop where Rasmussen puts him at around 47 percent, then he pops to 50 and Trump squeezes out a tweet. Then he drops to the mid forties again. Then he spikes back to 50 triggering another tweet. This has happened at least fourteen times just this year. You have to wonder if this is a strategy on Rasmussen’s part to give Trump some phony survey data to brag about.

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

Although, it hardly seems worthy af bragging when Trump can’t even manage to get half the nation to approve of him for more than a day or two in a notoriously pro-Trump poll (most polls have him in the low forties). And it is downright disastrous when Trump’s Republican Party support goes up after he spends several days ranting like the Klan’s Grand Wizard. But that should inform America’s voters that the problem isn’t just Trump. It’s the entire GOP. And in 2020, all of them need to be exorcised from our local and national governments.

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On Fox News Kellyanne Conway Calls Democrats a ‘Dark Underbelly’ Who ‘Pal Around with Terrorists’

Posted by on July 16, 2019 at 11:17 am. 1 Comments :

The obvious and nauseating bigotry of Donald Trump has been erupting like a flaming volcano of racism for several days now. The latest Vesuvial blast began with Trump’s heinous demands that a group of four congressional women of color should “go back” to where they came from. Never mind that they are all U.S. citizens, three of whom were born here. He further disparaged these elected representatives and proud Americans as communists who hate the country.

Kellyanne Conway, Fox News

On Tuesday morning Trump responded to the near unanimous condemnation of his hate speech by unleashing one of his typical tweetstorms, doubling down on his abhorrent “love it or leave it” diatribe. He posted seven tweets on this subject alone, exposing how desperately afraid he is and driven to malign anyone who dares to criticize him. He even whined about a proposed bill of censure in congress to denounce his loathsome remarks.

Remember, this is a President who, when asked if he was concerned that white nationalists find common cause with his comments, he replied, “It doesn’t concern me at all because many people agree with me.” He’s right. A lot of white nationalists do agree with him. They are, in fact, his base.

Also on Tuesday morning Trump’s Senior White House Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, managed to make matters even worse. She was “interviewed” on Fox News (video below) where she performed her famous filibuster routine, refusing to allow even the friendly Trump-fluffers of Fox to get a word in. And in this harangue, Conway let loose some more racist dog whistles to earn the affection of Trump and his Deplorables. Referring to the four Democratic women known as “The Squad,” Conway said that…

“They represent a dark underbelly in this country […] We’re tired of some of these women palling around with terrorists.”

The audacity of these people is shocking. Conway had no reservations whatsoever about highlighting the “darkness” of the critics she was so intent on vilifying and dehumanizing. And her reckless accusation of an imaginary terrorist affiliation is the sort of thing generally reserved for fascist propagandists. It is also a retread of Sarah Palin’s slanderous yelping at President Obama. The Fox News hosts didn’t react or follow up on these sick statements at all. Of course, Trump said much the same thing yesterday when he explicitly – and falsely – asserted that Rep. Ilhan Omar expressed pro-Al Qaeda sentiments. But Conway wasn’t finished with her crusade of defamation. She defended Trump’s racist tweet tantrum saying that…

“The President explained what he meant by those. The President explained that if you don’t like it here get out. That, by the way, goes way beyond these four people. That goes to everybody who’s tearing down the American flag and putting up the Mexican flag.”

How does that make anything better? Conway merely expanded the scope of her racism to include even more people. And she did it with a straw man argument that has no basis in reality. None of the Democrats she and Trump have been attacking have ever torn down an American flag or replaced it with any other. She fundamentally misunderstands the principle that dissent is patriotic in a healthy democracy. Trump also doesn’t get it, even though his past is one of unrelenting dissent and disparagement of America. He even called it a “Hell Hole” during his campaign.

Kellyanne might learn something from her husband George Conway, who wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post aptly titled “Trump is a Racist President.” But it is totally implausible that she would grasp the insight her husband is offering. Nevertheless, Conway did hit on a moment of truth during this segment when she complained that “People are analogizing a red hat to a swastika.” However, she utterly missed the fact that this analogy is only being put forth because of how accurate it is.

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


Made in America? Trump Uses White House Farce to Lie and Embrace White Nationalists

Posted by on July 15, 2019 at 4:05 pm. 2 Comments :

On Monday morning Donald Trump hosted a “Made in America” charade at the White House that was intended to celebrate domestic manufacturers, workers, and products. What makes this especially absurd is that Trump himself has his own merchandise made primarily in China and other foreign countries. What’s more, he also buys most of the materials and furnishings for his properties from abroad and hires many foreign workers to staff his resorts and commercial buildings.

Trump Charlotsville

Setting aside the hypocrisy of Trump hosting this affair, there were other problems that interfered with its intended goals. Specifically, Trump couldn’t resist spewing the sort of hate speech that is the hallmark of his presidency. So, ignoring the gathered businesses, Trump held an impromptu press conference to exalt himself and double down on his purposefully racist tweets from the day before.

It seemed like Trump had hit rock bottom when he told several congresswomen that they should “go back” where they came from. Never mind that they came from the U.S. by birth or naturalization. What we need to remember is that there is no bottom with Trump. And this was demonstrated today when he addressed the media. His comments were typical of the long-winded, rambling verbal diarrhea that he is famous for.

However, he sunk to new depths of hostility and division that were painful to endure. For most of the time he focused on Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-America who represents Minnesota’s 5th congressional district. She was also one of the four congressional women of color that Trump attacked viciously the day before. But today he went even further (video below):

“I’m watching them. All they do is complain. So all I’m saying is if they wanna leave they can leave. They can leave. I mean, I look at the one, I look at Omar. I don’t know, I never met her. I hear the way she talks about Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has killed many Americans. She said you can hold your chest out. ‘When I think of America…huh. When I think of Al Qaeda I can hold my chest out.'”

So after repeating his bigoted remarks from yesterday, Trump explicitly asserted that Omar expressed pro-Al Qaeda and anti-American sentiments. That would be profoundly disturbing if it had actually happened. It absolutely did not. So how did Trump come to utter this repugnant lie about an elected member of Congress? It appears he got it from one of his Twitter followers (The Reagan Battalion) who he has retweeted before. This twit posted a video that he falsely claimed showed Omar being supportive of Al Qaeda. It was, in fact, quite the opposite.

In the video Omar is discussing a professor who would gesture with his shoulders whenever he used words like “Al Qaeda” to emphasize the reference. It was his gestures, not hers. And the gestures were not even supportive. But at no time in the full video did she ever say that she holds her chest out when thinking of Al Qaeda. That was an invention totally attributable to Trump’s deranged imagination. Which was further on display as he later told this lie about Omar to the press :

“When she talked about the World Trade Center being knocked down and ‘some people.’ You remember the famous ‘some people’? These are people that in my opinion hate our country. […] These are people that hate our country. They hate our country. They hate it, I think, with a passion.”

This is another example of Trump deliberately misrepresenting what was said. Here Omar was simply criticising people whose reaction to 9/11 was to cast blame on all Muslims. Her reference to “some people” was to draw a distinction between the terrorists and every other peace-loving Muslim who repudiated their vile actions. Trump went on to lie some more about Omar saying that she “hates Israel” and “hates Jews” and repeated the lie that she spoke about “how great Al Qaeda is.”

In the eleven minutes that Trump spent with the media, he exhibited one the signs of his rapidly progressing dementia. He repeats the same things over and over. During this avail he said of the Democratic congresswomen that “If they don’t like it here they can leave” ten times. He also said that “They hate America” six times. It was festival of rancorous bluster that served no purpose other than spreading hatred. But perhaps the most troubling exchange happened when Trump was asked this question:

John Roberts, Fox News: Does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist, and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point?
Trump: It doesn’t concern me at all because many people agree with me.

So Trump isn’t concerned that white nationalists are embracing him because – well – because there are many white nationalists embracing him. That surely provides him much comfort when he’s trying to decide what racist tropes he’ll disseminate next. At least he knows that he has the support of America’s neo-Nazis and Klan organizations. He must be so proud. And just think…it’s all made in America.

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


Hate Screech: Trump Tells U.S. Born Democratic Congresswomen to ‘Go Back Where You Came From’

Posted by on July 14, 2019 at 11:31 am. 8 Comments :

On his regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm, Donald Trump affirmed his devout racism by attacking four Democratic representatives who also just happen to be women of color. Trump’s tweets are so abhorrent that even his own administration refused to defend the blatantly bigoted remarks. But Trump’s hatefulness extends even beyond the racism aimed at political foes.

Donald Trump, Klan Leader

In the series of tweets that Trump posted, he managed to include an array of hate messages that are, sadly, typical, of his public comments. He tweeted that:

The representatives Trump is targeting are Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Although he is too afraid to actually mention their names. And it’s inescapable that his comments were directed exclusively to “Progressive Democrat Congresswomen.” So he is not only exposing his festering bigotry, he is also displaying the misogyny that has long been a part of his repugnant character. It is what leads to his abuse of women and his friendships with other abusers (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein, Roger Ailes, and Bill O’Reilly).

What’s more, Trump is maligning the countries that he is telling these women to go back to. He calls them “the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world” and “totally broken and crime infested.” It’s reminiscent of his blanket disparagement of what he called “shithole countries” last year.

The unmistakable signals that Trump is sending to his white nationalist base is disgusting and intolerable. But it’s made all the worse by his ignorance. Three of the four representatives Trump targeted for this harassment were actually born in the U.S. So Trump’s attack is based solely on his stereotyping of them by the color of their skin. It’s notable that he never made any such demands of Republican representatives who really are foreign born (Dan Crenshaw: UK; Mark Meadows: France; David Rouzer: Germany; Ted Cruz: Canada). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are all men from predominantly white, Eurocentric countries.

In addition to these tweets that call for banishing Democratic women of color, Trump also posted a frantic flurry of twenty-one (21!) tributes, by mostly random and anonymous tweeters, to an utterly phony “movement” aimed at persuading African-Americans to “walkaway” from the Democratic Party. It’s part of the broader “Blexit” fraud that Fox News has pushed.

The white-wing of the GOP really thinks that African-Americans are stupid enough to ignore hateful diatribes like the ones Trump just posted, and join the party of oppression and white supremacy. And Trump is so demented that he believes that promoting the racist walkaway scam, in the same barrage of tweets where he insults congressional women of color, is a winning strategy to advance black acceptance of the GOP. This only confirms the many diagnoses of Trump as a sociopathic narcissist who is unfit to serve.

And for those who were curious, Fox and Friends thought it was funny:

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


Trump in a Panic Sweat Posts 13 Lie-Riddled Tweets About – Get This – Hillary’s Emails

Posted by on July 13, 2019 at 12:31 pm. 0 Comments :

There is nothing more telling than a Donald Trump Tweetstorm. It reveals what he’s most afraid of and what is consuming his fevered and demented imagination. So it shouldn’t be dismissed when he posts a flurry of thirteen tweets by the disreputable and dishonest StormTrumpers at Judicial Watch. Particularly when the content of those tweets are predominantly the ancient right-wing obsessions over Hillary Clinton’s emails. Are these people serious?

Donald Trump Sweating

Unfortunately, the conservative junkies who are still addicted to fables about Clinton’s emails are deadly serious. They are feeding a fetish that borders on being a psychotic compulsion. And they bring it up whenever they feel threatened by the onslaught of inconvenient facts that challenge their demented world view. And Trump is among those suffering from this manic neurosis.

The symptoms of Trump’s mental disorder were on full display Saturday morning. The thirteen retweets of Judicial Watch propaganda must have seemed like the perfect antidote to the realities in the news that were so unpleasant for him. He just lost another one of his unethical cabinet flunkies (a record breaking achievement), Alexander Acosta, due to his relationship with pedophile rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Of course, Trump had his own relationship with Epstein who he said was a terrific guy.

Trump is also weathering a storm of criticism due his policy of caging children in inhumane conditions. And he is dreading the upcoming congressional testimony of special counsel Robert Mueller. All of this is taking place as the 2020 presidential campaign is beginning with Trump losing in the polls to all of the top Democrats. Consequently, Trump, in a fit of sheer desperation, completes his re-tweetstorm with a comment of his own:

We are sadly witnessing the shameful spectacle of a president making explicit accusations of criminality about an honorable, lifelong public servant in law enforcement. Even worse, this is a charge that has been debunked repeatedly when Trump has made it in the past. Most recently Trump attacked Mueller on this during an “interview” (more of a tongue bath) with Fox News Trump-fluffer Maria Bartiromo in June:

“Mueller terminated them illegally. He terminated the emails, he terminated all of the stuff between Strzok and Page. Robert Mueller terminated their text messages together. He terminated them. They’re gone. And that’s illegal. That’s a crime.”

Setting aside the cognitive dysfunction that Trump thinks texts can be “terminated,” everything else in that comment is provably false. And Trump surely knew that his charges were false because they were refuted when he made the very same remarks last december:

In fact, this lie was shot down by the Inspector General of Trump’s own Justice Department. It was reviewed by fact checkers who unanimously concluded that it was false. And it was rated as “Pants on Fire“ by PolitiFact, who wrote that:

“First, a new report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog suggests the roughly 19,000 messages slipped through the cracks due to technical glitches with the FBI’s data-collection tool on Samsung devices, not because Strzok and Page went around the system.

“Second, perhaps most importantly, while the messages were initially not captured, they have since been recovered. Trump’s claim gives the false impression the texts are still unaccounted.”

Trump’s fear is obviously getting the better of him. It shows in his rambling, disoriented speeches, his glassy-eyed engagement with the press while his helicopter whirs in the background, and these rabid outbursts on Twitter.

In addition to the Mueller-related tweets, and the Hillary bashing, Trump also posted three tweets that comprised nearly half of Sean Hannity’s Hour of Lies on Friday night. His Twitter feed is becoming the Internet’s channel for Fox News reruns. Which Fox surely appreciates since they stopped posting on Twitter entirely last November. Trump is, in effect, the PR executive for Fox News. And Fox pays him handsomely for that with nauseatingly fawning tributes 24/7. It’s a mutually beneficial, albeit sick and dishonest, arrangement.

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


Trump’s Cowardly Scheme to Upstage the Mueller Hearing is Stymied by House Democrats

Posted by on July 12, 2019 at 12:29 pm. 1 Comments :

For more than two years Donald Trump has exhibited signs of mortal fear whenever the subject of his unsavory connections to Russia were brought up. That’s especially true with regard to mentions of special counsel Robert Mueller and his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Donald Trump Robert Mueller

Most of the time Trump has endeavored to lie about and malign Mueller in the harshest terms, calling him corrupt, conflicted, dishonest, and even treasonous. He tried to prevent Congress from ever seeing the Mueller report (and the public as well). Although on a few peculiar occasions Trump tried to butter up Mueller with faint praise in order to validate his delusional assertion that the final report exonerated him. Never mind that even Fox News’ Senior Legal Analyst and Chief Political Anchor didn’t buy that delusion.

A few weeks ago the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees scheduled hearings to get Mueller’s testimony on the record. It was a necessary step to inform the public, most of whom have not read the Mueller report in full (like many members of Congress) and are not familiar with its conclusions that identify criminal activity on Trump’s part and multiple instances of obstruction of justice. The hearings were set of July 17.

Shortly after that announcement, Trump announced that he would be holding another one of his Deplorable Cult Rallies in North Carolina on the same date. That was surely no coincidence. Trump was plotting to steal the media’s attention from the congressional hearings that he obviously feared. This is a tactic that he has used before. When he refused to participate in a Republican primary debate on Fox News because he was afraid of Megyn Kelly, he held a phony “charitable” event on the same day. And he often tries to manipulate the press with releases intended to distract from coverage of other news that he fears.

Now the Democrats in Congress are discussing delaying the Mueller hearing for one week. That would mean that Trump’s deliberately competing rally would not interfere with the Mueller hearing after all. Trump would either have to reschedule his rally also, or schedule an additional rally a week later. Either way it would make him look brazenly opportunistic and self-serving.

Still, we can’t rule out Trump changing his calendar in order to thwart the congressional testimony of Mueller. His fear is a powerful motivation for much of his behavior as president. He proved that again just yesterday with this trembling tweet:

And last week Trump unleashed this desperate and frightened tweet:

One thing we’ve learned from Trump is that there is no bottom to the barrel of his sleazy behavior. He will pull out all the stops to sabotage the public’s right to know about his criminal activities. If it isn’t a competing rally, it could be an escalation of his abhorrent deportation crusade, or an attack on Iran, or a pardon for Jeffrey Epstein, or an executive order remanding all immigrant children to Epstein’s Palm Beach Detention Center and Spa. Don’t laugh. With Trump anything is possible.

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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Trump Hypes His Social Media Summit with a Babbling Barrage of Embarrassing Blather

Posted by on July 11, 2019 at 12:02 pm. 1 Comments :

The President of the United States is demonstrating with pride how he is wasting his time and taxpayers money. To be sure, there are a lot of more important matters to address than what he is calling a “Social Media Summit,” but this event is frightening evidence of just how severe his mental infirmities have become.

Donald Trump, Twitter

It isn’t just the fact that Trump has invited some of the most noxious Internet trolls and conspiracy theorists (i.e. Brent Bozell, James O’Keefe, Bill Mitchell, Charlie Kirk, etc.) to the White House. Even though that alone is a dangerous validation of crackpots determined to spread disinformation. Trump’s promotion of this Bizarro Circus of Derp is worrisome business all by itself. He pitched this conclave of kooks on Twitter Thursday morning with a six-tweet essay that reads like the manifesto of a sixties acid casualty. Grit your teeth and read on (each tweet is highlighted with a link):

The White House will be hosting a very big and very important Social Media Summit today. Would I have become President without Social Media? Yes (probably)! At its conclusion, we will all go to the beautiful Rose Garden for a News Conference on the Census and Citizenship.

A big subject today at the White House Social Media Summit will be the tremendous dishonesty, bias, discrimination and suppression practiced by certain companies. We will not let them get away with it much longer. The Fake News Media will also be there, but for a limited period..

…The Fake News is not as important, or as powerful, as Social Media. They have lost tremendous credibility since that day in November, 2016, that I came down the escalator with the person who was to become your future First Lady.

When I ultimately leave office in six……years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding), they will quickly go out of business for lack of credibility, or approval, from the public. That’s why they will all be Endorsing me at some point, one way or the other.

Could you imagine having Sleepy Joe Biden, or Alfred E. Newman……or a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1/1024th), as your President, rather than what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!

Sorry to say that even Social Media would be driven out of business along with, and finally, the Fake News Media! Will be a big and exciting day at the White House for Social Media!

The only thing “very big and very important” about this is the signal it’s sending to mental health professionals about trump’s declining cognition and grasp of reality. There has never been any hint of verifiable bias against conservatives online. It is their own paranoia and conspiracy brain-rot that causes them to rant about this incessantly.

It’s funny (in a horrific way) that Trump says the media has “lost tremendous credibility” considering the Bozo Brigade that he invited to this party. However, it isn’t funny that he “jokes” about remaining in office beyond the term allowable by law. That reveals his all too real aspirations for dictatorship that he has expressed seriously on many occasions. It goes hand-in-hand with his oft-repeated affinity for murderous tyrants around the world.

Equally disturbing is Trump’s gleeful fantasy that the media organizations he despises as “the enemy of the people” will “quickly go out of business” when (if) he leaves office. As well as his thinly veiled threat that “they will all be Endorsing me at some point, one way or the other.” WTF does that mean?

Then Trump launches into his predictable cascade of infantile insults aimed at anyone he dislikes, and especially political opponents. His tiresome and repetitive nicknames (Sleepy Joe, Alfred E. Newman, Pocahontas, et al) do nothing but remind the American people that the President has the emotional maturity of a seven year old. And he only makes matters worse with his vain and narcissistic claim that he is “great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!”

Every American should be outraged that this sort of behavior is being tolerated by White House staffers, Republican officeholders, and the minority basket of Deplorables who prop up this nutcase. His Fringe Media Summit isn’t really important at all. But the presence of someone with such obvious psychological problems at the head of government is a disaster waiting to happen.

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


Crybaby Trump Hypocritically Calls Boycotts ‘Vicious’ and ‘Crazed’: Here are 10 of His Own

Posted by on July 10, 2019 at 11:23 am. 0 Comments :

One of the most frequent defense tactics employed by Donald Trump is to accuse your accusers of the same thing that you’re guilty of. It mainly serves as a distraction and a method of casting false blame on others. But it’s an irrational tactic that doesn’t actually exonerate the person using it. They remain guilty, but only equally as guilty as the falsely charged victim.

Donald Trump, Boycott

That may be sufficient for Trump’s purposes, which is generally to shift attention away from his crimes until the next scandal erupts. But it also highlights how shallow and deceptive his arguments are. And even more problematic, it showcases his rabid hypocrisy.

Case in point. Trump went off on Twitter about a grassroots boycott of Home Depot after it’s co-founder, Bernie Marcus, announced that he would be donating a large portion of his wealth to reelecting Trump. The President blasted out a three-tweet tirade in defense of Marcus that included an overt threat aimed at his critics:

Naturally, anyone who pays tribute to the Narcissist-and-Thief is regarded as “truly great” and “patriotic.” And it is verboten to disparage him in any way. Those who do are “radicals” with ulterior motives. As opposed to free citizens exercising their constitutional rights.

Also, notice that when Trump refers to “your favorite President” he has to explicitly identify himself. That’s because no one would actually think of him in that context without such prompting. He goes on to malign boycotts as “vicious and totally crazed,” but in the very same tweet calls on his aptly named Deplorables to launch their own. And why wouldn’t he? Crazed viciousness is his trademark.

Finally, Trump dives head first into the “accuse your accusers” maneuver. After describing the strategy of “using Commerce to hurt” others, and acknowledging that it causes indiscriminate pain, he blatantly orders his glassy-eyed disciples to charge ahead with their own assault on commerce.

What’s most disturbing about this is that Trump is either suffering from some form of Alzheimer’s or he is being deliberately dishonest (or both). In this Twitter tantrum Trump fails to mention that boycotts have been a frequent weapon of choice for his own battles. For the record he has called for boycotts at least ten times, mostly against American businesses: Harley-Davidson, CNN, Apple, Macy’s, Fox News, Univision, Mexico, HBO, Rolling Stone, and most recently AT&T. As seen on his own Twitter feed:

This is only a partial list. Other victims of Trump’s boycott frenzy include Starbucks, Oreos, Ford, and many more. Clearly Trump has separate standards for himself and everyone else. But there is a bigger problem here. There’s a significant difference between citizens independently voting with their pocketbooks when there is an issue that they feel strongly about, and a president whose bully pulpit ought to never be used against the companies and workers he was elected to represent. Trump is the one who doesn’t care about who he hurts, and he is deliberately causing harm to the American people and economy when he bashes domestic enterprises.

There has never been an American president who so brazenly sought to damage businesses that are major employers of American workers. No other president would have even thought of such a thing. But Trump only thinks of himself. Even when he attacks foreign businesses he is blinded by his selfishness. He went after products made in China despite the fact that many of his (and Ivanka’s) are manufactured there and his businesses buy Chinese goods by the boatload.

The American people should be concerned that their President will so callously attack the companies that employ them, their families, and neighbors. The next target of Trump’s wrath could very well be their own employer. It is unethical and anti-American for any leader to deliberately try to harm the companies that keep Americans working. But then the president that has called the media “the enemy of the people” obviously couldn’t care less about the damage he does to American workers, even including physical assaults and death threats.

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


The Fake Fox News Story About Seth Rich Was Planted By Russia and Promoted By Hannity

Posted by on July 9, 2019 at 2:27 pm. 6 Comments :

Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News has just published an extensive investigative report revealing that the bogus story about the murder of the Democratic National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was originally planted by Russian intelligence. (Insert SHOCKED! face here). This was a completely fabricated piece of actual fake news that was prominently pushed by Fox News, and particularly Sean Hannity.

Fox News, Sean Hannity, Vladimir Putin

The article by Isikoff went into stark detail about the origins of the callous claims that Rich was actually the source of hacked emails the were published by Wikileaks. Those who told and spread these lies had no compassion whatsoever for the family that was grieving the loss of a loved one. Likewise, they didn’t care that they were disseminating falsehoods created by Russian spies intended to disrupt an American presidential election. Isikoff reported that…

“The conspiracy claims reached their zenith in May 2017 — the same week as Mueller’s appointment as special counsel in the Russia probe — when Fox News’ website posted a sensational story claiming that an FBI forensic report had discovered evidence on Rich’s laptop that he had been in communication with WikiLeaks prior to his death. Sean Hannity, the network’s primetime star, treated the account as major news on his nightly broadcast, calling it ‘explosive’ and proclaiming it ‘might expose the single biggest fraud, lies, perpetrated on the American people by the media and the Democrats in our history.'”

“In fact, the Fox story was a ‘complete fabrication,’ said [U.S. attorney Deborah] Sines, who consulted with the FBI about the Fox News claims. There was ‘no connection between Seth and WikiLeaks. And there was no evidence on his work computer of him downloading and disseminating things from the DNC.'”

In an interview on MSNBC, Isikoff elaborated on what his investigation uncovered (video below):

“The timing is so interesting here. The week that this breaks on Fox News, in the story they later had to retract and acknowledged didn’t ‘meet their editorial standards,’ Sean Hannity is shouting it from the rooftops. What’s going on that week? It’s the week that [special counsel Robert] Mueller was appointed. It’s the week [FBI Director James] Comey was fired. It’s when the Russia story was blowing up.”

Isikoff noted that Hannity’s guest was Trump’s attorney for the Russia affair, Jay Sekulow. He had just been hired by Trump, but Hannity left that fact out of the segment. Together they were pushing the phony Rich story as a means to undercut the Russia narrative.

Fox News later issued a mushy retraction that admitted no fault. They said they would conduct an internal investigation to ascertain where they went wrong, but any findings from the alleged investigation remain undisclosed. However, Hannity never conceded any wrongdoing at all. To the contrary, he insisted that his “reporting” was accurate and would continue:

“I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com, I retracted nothing. For those accusing me of pushing a conspiracy theory, you are the biggest phony hypocrites in the entire world. This issue, it’s so big now that the entire Russia collusion narrative is hanging by a thread. […] These are questions that I have a moral obligation to ask, and I will do the mainstream media’s job like I have most of my career.”

True to form, Hannity never did retract his lies about Rich. But he did delete all of his tweets about Rich (you can still see them here). He is exhibiting the same dishonesty, arrogance, and stubbornness as his bestie in the White House, Donald Trump. They both will cling to the most ludicrous assertions, even after they have been proven to be utterly false. The truth plays no part in their determined propaganda crusades. And neither does patriotism, as both Hannity and Trump have now been been shown to be willing confederates (aka “useful idiots”) of covert Russian operations.

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


Trump Goes Off (His Meds) on a Crazed Anti-Media Tweet Tantrum Against – Fox News?

Posted by on July 8, 2019 at 9:10 am. 5 Comments :

It must be extraordinarily difficult for the President of the United States to get through every weekend without being fawned over by his most devoted supporters and promoters: the weekday primetime hosts on Fox News (aka State TV). Donald Trump’s notoriously fragile ego needs constant stroking or it erupts in an explosion of nonsensical ravings and unbound hostility from his Twitter stronghold.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Strange

That’s the sensitive psychological condition that Trump found himself in on Sunday night when he unleashed a torrent of tweets bursting with self pity and anger at an unfair world that wasn’t sufficiently adoring. This hissy twit included an unexpected barrage of animus aimed squarely at Trump’s media confederates at Fox News. It’s not the first time, but it’s one of the most extended and shrill. And it’s a warning to Fox that if you dare to stray from Trumpian orthodoxy, you are officially guilty of betraying the cause of white-wing nationalism, and Trump personally. It’s Trump’s admission that he regards Fox News as his personal publicity shop. The substance of this tweetstorm is so profoundly disturbing that we can just let it speak for itself.

Poor Trump is suffering the brutal symptoms of withdrawal due to the lack of his weekday Trump-fluffers: Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Apparently Jeanine Pirro and Mark Levin aren’t sufficient to get him through these lonely weekends. But does he have to be so cruel as to call the Fox weekenders worse than CNN? That’s a low blow coming from Trump.

Deprived of his State TV babysitters, Trump whines about the brass at Comcast. He’s referring to Chairman and CEO of Comcast Brian Roberts and NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke. And he apparently believes that they tell everyone on NBC what to say. That must be because that’s the way the propaganda machine at Fox News operates, so he thinks real news organizations do the same.

He also unloads on what he says was a boring Democratic primary debate. Never mind that it was the most watched Democratic debate in history and drew more viewers on the second night than the first, which is not generally an indicator that the viewers were bored. Then Trump takes an odd, leftfield swipe at the New York Times because, well, what anti-media Trump rant would be complete without it?

Next, Trump takes aim directly at Fox News again, this time accusing them of having “forgot the people who got them there!” As if the network is obligated to behave in the manner that Trump demands or it’s being disloyal. That sentiment is extended with Trump’s complaint that Fox hired Donna Brazile, a former Democratic Party official. He lies about her having given Hillary Clinton debate questions during the 2016 Democratic primary. In fact, Brazile never had any actual debate questions. She only gave Clinton a list of topics and questions that she assumed would be covered. That’s still improper for a CNN contributor who was supposed to be unaffiliated, but it isn’t the same as stealing actual questions and handing them over to a candidate. Ironically, that’s an accusation that was levelled at Fox News for tipping off Trump before a GOP debate.

Finally, Trump insults all of the dayside Fox anchors as “terrible” and takes a swing at Fox’s chief news anchor and managing editor of breaking news, Shepard Smith. Considering how often Smith debunks Trump’s lies, that isn’t surprising. Take, for instance, this brutal fact check on Trump’s lies about Russian collusion. But then he closes this manic episode by proclaiming that he knows what the Fox News audience wants and that Fox is failing in its duty to be a staunchly partisan right-wing mouthpiece by not bending obediently to the bias that Trump thinks is required of them.

It’s difficult to be certain exactly what triggered this meltdown, but it doesn’t take much to set Trump off these days. He is becoming more frightened and unstable with each new poll that shows him losing in 2020, and each new revelation of his rampant criminal activity, including the arrest of his pal Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking.

However, there was an entertaining bit of “news” made on Fox Sunday when reporter Greg Palkot was covering reaction to the U.S. winning the World Cup. He was live from a sports bar in Lyon, France when the crowd began chanting “F*** Trump.” Then Palkot interviewed an American patron who cheered the U.S. team’s victory and then proudly exclaimed “Now we need to win in 2020, Democrats. Get that racist out of the White House.” That’s surely something that would gnaw at Trump if he saw it. But it warms the hearts of every truly patriotic American who can’t wait for Trump to booted from office whether by losing an election or well deserved impeachment.

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