Author: Mark NC

FANTASYLAND: Fox News Lies That DOGE Savings (That Don’t Exist) Will Go Back to the People

Posted by on February 18, 2025 at 12:32 pm. NO Comments :

The task of serving aspiring authoritarian, Donald Trump, as his official Ministry of Propaganda is one that Fox News has eagerly undertaken and performed devotedly for nearly a decade. It’s a sweet gig because all it requires is the willingness to invent and disseminate half-baked fiction suited for kindergartners without the bothersome need to cling to pesky and unnecessary facts.

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Donald Trump, Fox News, Lies

The revolving door between Fox News and the Trump regime that currently occupies the White House spins at a rapid pace. Not only does Trump reserve the majority of media appearances for his fluffers on Fox, he has used the network as his recruiting agency for his Cabinet and other staff, plucking 19 Foxers, so far, to join his administration.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

On Tuesday morning’s episode of “Outnumbered” on Fox News, co-host Kennedy offered her take on the work being done by Trump’s co-president, Elon Musk, for his bogus Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a wholly contrived agency whose purpose appears to be dismantling the legitimate functions of government in order for Trump to assume unchallenged levels of power, with the side benefit of allowing oligarchs like Musk to steal from the public treasury without any oversight or consequences. To that end, Kennedy rattled off this nonsense…

When you are finding all of this money, when you are taking it back, when you are cutting off future streams of funding, give that back to the American people. Then you will see the economy absolutely explode. And people will once again be able to take out new loans, start new businesses, and will the wonderful things that follow when they have more of their own money.”

That is, in a word, BULLSHIT! First of all, Kennedy’s imagination is running wild about “all of this money” she says is being found. There is, so far, no actual documentation a single penny of waste, fraud, or abuse, found by Musk’s DOGE team of StormTrumpers. Their claims include easily debunked assertions, without evidence, such as that “tens of millions” of Social Security payments have been made to people more than 150 years old. Or that $50 million worth of condoms were sent to Gaza for Hamas.

Secondly, the funds that they falsely claim are being recovered would have been spent on products and services in the performance of the duties of those agencies. That includes infrastructure construction, healthcare, housing, education, agricultural goods, citizen outreach, and more. The loss of that funding would not only harm the Americans for whom it was intended, it would actually be a drag on the economy, as those funds fail to circulate.

Finally, the Trump regime has never even suggested that any savings would go “back to the America people.” To the contrary, they have promised to give it all to the wealthy and to corporations in the form of more tax cuts for the rich that never get redistributed to benefit local economies. Anyone expecting to get a check from DOGE is terminally naïve, and would be better off buying a lottery ticket from that dude outside the corner liquor store swigging whiskey from a discarded Starbucks cup.

As an example of the alleged savings discovered by DOGE, here’s one that Trump’s Rapid Response team posted on Twitter that claimed that about $72 billion in “improper” Social Security payments were found during an audit by the agency’s Inspector General. The Trumpists were all giddy because they thought this proved there was rampant, undetected fraud going on.

However, let’s break this down, shall we? To begin with, the improper payments were discovered by the Inspector General during Biden’s term. There was no fraud associated with them. Most were overpayments to eligible recipients that were likely recovered. The total amount was only 0.84% of all Social Security payments. Which is evidence that the system is pretty darn efficient.

Most notable is the fact that the overpayments were found in the course of a routine audit, which suggests that DOGE is completely unnecessary. And they were found by an Inspector General that Trump later fired, along with 17 others who were doing their jobs admirably.

Now Trump, Musk, and their DOGEbros want to congratulate themselves for sabotaging agencies that the American people rely upon, and they pretend to find savings that they never prove were actually found. That’s par for the course with Trump. His entire existence is a like a reality TV show that is scripted by con artists for a cult base of whining toddlers. At least he knows his audience.

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Trump’s Border Czar Confirms His (and Trump’s) Flaming Fascism in Fawning Fox News Interviews

Posted by on February 17, 2025 at 11:52 am. 1 Comments :

Donald Trump made a multitude of promises for achievements he would accomplish on day one of his second occupation of the White House. They included lowering grocery and other consumer prices, ending Russia’s war against Ukraine, freeing all of the Gaza hostages, and repealing Obamacare. To no one’s surprise, he has miserably failed to fulfill most of his campaign promises (aka lies).

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Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child

There were, however, a few promises that Trump managed to deliver. None of which advanced the interests of the American people. They include cuts to funding for climate change and environmental programs, curtailing DEI initiatives, pardoning January 6th insurrectionists who assaulted Police officers, imposing tariffs on allies that will burden Americans, weaponizing the Justice Department to attack judges and political critics, and suppression of the free press.

MORE HERE: What Is America? Who Votes For This?

Perhaps Trump’s most prominent promise was his pledge to implement a program of mass deportation of migrants and refugees. It was, from the start, an inhumane response to matters regarding immigration. What’s more, it ignored the critical need for migrant workers in agriculture, construction, and healthcare. But Trump never cared about any of that.

Consequently, Trump sought to execute plans aimed at ridding America of a necessary component of its labor force. But he has even failed at that. As a result, he has dispatched his “border czar” – a darkly appropriate job title – Tom Homan, to disseminate some lies on his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News. Homan was interviewed by Fox’s Stuart Varney, who asked a rather simple question, but got a disturbing answer…

VARNEY: The administration said the worst of the worst were the people who would be held in Gitmo. But there’s an article in the Washington Post this morning that says some families members of those detained say they’re being falsely branded as members of Tren de Aragua. What’s your response to that?
HOMAN: That’s the Washington Post. President Trump’s been clear, we’re gonna put the worst of the worst in Gitmo. And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: No one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally it’s not okay.

First of all, Homan casually dismisses the facts presented by Varney, simply because they came from the Washington Post. That’s typical of the Trump regime that is afraid to deal with reality, so they just toss it aside with infantile insults.

More to the point, Homan totally dodges the substance of the question to regurgitate tired Trump talking points. But his deflection is worth noting, When Homan says that “No one’s off the table,” he means it. So also on the table are…

  • People who have committed no crimes
  • People who are only accused but not convicted
  • American citizens wrongly apprehended
  • Family members who are here legally
  • Children and infants

They are all rounded up and incarcerated in the same facility as Al Qaeda terrorists. They have no legal rights or constitutionally mandated due process. It is the sort of police state action that is routine in Russia, China, and North Korea. All of which are authoritarian governments with leaders that Trump admires and seeks to emulate.

And if that weren’t bad enough, Homan then scurried off to another Fox News program where he implied that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was breaking the law by advising the targets of Trump’s interment operation of their civil rights. Homan went on to repeat his slander that migrants who have not had their day in court are nevertheless presumed guilty.

“”We’re talking about people that are in the country illegally, committed a crime, they’re a public safety threat, and they’ve been convicted of serious crimes.”

No, that is NOT what we’re talking about. He is only talking about people who are suspected of being in the country illegally. And even then, that is only a civil offense, not criminal. But the bigger problem is that the StormTrumpers who are apprehending people are catching citizens and other innocent people in their too broadly cast net. And even when they are told about that, that don’t care, and won’t change their actions. Because fascists don’t bother with the trivialities of the law if it gets in the way of their totalitarian aspirations.

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PINO TRUMP: A President-In-Name-Only Who Spends More Time on TV and Golfing than Presidenting

Posted by on February 16, 2025 at 12:57 pm. 2 Comments :

During Donald Trump’s first occupation of the White House, he was not known as a workaholic. To the contrary, he spent an extraordinary amount of time on extracurricular activities that had nothing to do with the duties of the office. And more often than not, he was frolicking at his own fancy resorts at taxpayer expense.

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Trump in Bed, Eating, Sad

Not much has change this time around. In the three and half weeks since his inauguration, Trump has lounged around his Mar-a-Lago bunker, or one of his other vacation villas, nearly as much as his White House digs. And when he was at the White House, he busied himself with trivialities that did nothing to advance the interests of the American people.

SEE THIS: Trump is Busy Doing the People’s Work: Pushing for Plastic Straws and Firing Journalists?

This Sunday afternoon, Trump will be attending the Daytona 500 race in Daytona Beach, Florida, a short jaunt down I-95 from his Palm Beach hotel/home. Never mind that the nation is suffering from a variety of problems that he is aggressively avoiding. Many of which are of his own making, such as the high cost of consumer goods and housing, immigration, access to healthcare, unemployment, and recovery from natural disasters.

This avoidance of responsibility is not unusual for Trump. Thus far in his second term he has been preoccupied with petty public appearances that are more suited to his old reality TV hosting gig. He has attended the Super Bowl, the National Prayer Breakfast, and awkwardly staged executive order signings. And in the weeks prior to that he went to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Army-Navy game, the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, and the World Series. He’s like an honorary ambassador who is dispatched to ribbon cutting ceremonies at the local Piggly-Wiggly.

Among Trump’s other pressing “presidential” duties are his frequent visits with his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News, and other MAGA media outlets that disseminate his daily PR. And if that weren’t enough, he has also appointed himself the chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. So look for future inductees like Kid Rock, Scott Baio, Roseanne Barr, and even Ivanka.

You may be wondering how the president of the United States could have the time to engage in all of these activities while still pretending to serve as commander-in-chief. Well, Trump has the unique advantage of being able to delegate his work to Elon Musk, someone who is more vigorous and committed to the mission of undermining democracy. Which makes Trump a figurehead who has conceded his duties to the billionaire who bought him the office. Pretty soon we can expect to see Musk sending Trump to the funerals of foreign dignitaries.

In the meantime, Musk will run ram shod through the government, putting tens of thousands of civil servants out of work (exacerbating unemployment nationwide), sabotaging agencies that serve the people and save lives, endangering the public health, and even imperiling national security.

But at least Trump won’t have to bothered with the complex and stressful details of governing. Nor will he have to miss another tee time or sporting event. And if the American people suffer he will just blame it on Biden or Obama, or DEI, or the “radical left fake news.” These deflections may work for a while with his cult followers. But before too long even they will get tired of being lied to. And there will be a resistance movement that will rise up and take back their country.

The charade being played out by Trump and Musk is destined to fail. Even Fox News will cease to be able to cover for these traitors. They are already stumbling in their pathetic efforts…

https://twitter.com/NewsCorpse/status/1891170563936190481

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Truth Social, Trump’s Pathetic Personal Propaganda Platform, Continues to Bleed Cash

Posted by on February 15, 2025 at 1:07 pm. 1 Comments :

In what may be the least surprising news of the year so far, Donald Trump’s flagship social media enterprise, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) – the parent holding company of his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social – released its annual report on Friday that revealed just how big a failure it is.

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Donald Trump Circling the Drain

Who could have guessed that the convicted felon responsible for bankrupting four casinos, stealing from his own charity, operating a phony university, and shuttering numerous scams hawking everything from steaks, to air travel, to vodka, to magazines, to board games, would now be running a money-losing hustle whose sole mission appears to be raking in cash for himself? As reported by CNBC, TMTG’s fortunes are something less than stellar…

“The company’s revenue declined 12% year over year, according to its annual report. The company saw its net loss widen to $400.9 million from $58.2 million in 2023.”

So in 2024 Trump’s boondoggle lost nearly seven times what it lost in 2023. And 2025 isn’t looking any better. Except, that is, for Trump himself, who is skillfully fleecing his flock of cult disciples, while simultaneously providing a path for parties interested in greasing his palm for political favors. That includes adversarial foreign operatives who are buying influence, not investing. A brief history of TMTG reveals the risk of trusting Trump with your money…

Trump Wants to Run America Like his Businesses – Trump Media and Crypto – That are Crashing
Some analysts predicted that Trump’s businesses would enjoy a surge in value after his reelection. That has not been the case. Trump Media has declined 25% just since his inauguration. What’s more, Trump introduced a crypto coin just days before his inauguration. That has crashed 75% since then.”

Grifter-in-Chief Trump Puts His Truth Social Stock into a Phony Trust Controlled by His Son
A new SEC filing by the company revealed that Trump has transferred his majority share holdings to a revocable trust in an attempt to deceive the public that he is separating himself from financial interest in the enterprise. But like virtually everything else that Trump engages in, it is a thinly disguised scam structured to unscrupulously enrich himself.

LOSER Trump’s Truth Social is Well on its Way to Becoming His Next Bankruptcy
TMTG reported its earning for the second quarter of 2024. And it was not a pretty sight. As reported by Investor’s Business Daily, “Trump Media reported net sales of $836,000, down 30% vs. a year earlier. Operating costs soared to $19.5 million vs. $4.9 million a year earlier.”

Trump’s Truth Social is Shedding Users Like a Miserable Childless Woman’s Mangy Cat
The Donald Trump-controlled Truth Social platform recorded its third straight month of declining traffic. Truth Social attracted 2,112,000 unique visitors, down 38% compared to June 2023 when the site generated 3,407,000 unique visitors. It was the platform’s second worst traffic performance since June 2022 when Truth Social had only 1,891,000 unique visitors.

Trump Crime Syndicate: Investors Arrested for Insider Trading in Failing Truth Social Scam
Trump’s associates in his truthless, anti-social media venture were arrested and charged with insider trading. Reports indicate that “the three individuals together made more than $22 million in illegal profits.”

Truth Social Disease: Ads on Trump’s Twitter Ripoff are Mostly Scams and Trump-Fluffing Merch
Advertisers are afraid of their ads being juxtaposed with hate speech and other noxious content. Consequently, the only advertisers who are willing to shell out are sketchy scammers, conspiracy theorists, and junk peddlers.

If you you’re wondering why Truth Social is doing so badly, it may have something to with the content it offers. It is primarily an outlet for Trump’s malignant narcissism. So most people couldn’t care less. And even Trump’s devotees are likely bored by his relentless self-promotions. On Saturday morning, for instance, he posted 31 comments in nine minutes. They were mostly links to MAGA media like Fox News, Breitbart, and the New York Post, that spewed disinformation and lies.

Although there were also pitiful comments like this: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Which is pretty much a declaration of his belief that he is America’s dictator and not subject to those pesky legal trivialities that all the rest of us have to abide by.

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JD Vance Goes to Germany to Bad Mouth America and Lie About Trump’s Propaganda Campaigns

Posted by on February 14, 2025 at 12:39 pm. NO Comments :

For 60 years the annual Munich Security Conference has brought together representatives from around the world to engage in diplomatic discussions under the theme of “peace through dialogue.” The meetings promote amicable relations between participating nations and the resolution of conflicts. Which makes this year’s conference especially significant considering the state of the world today.

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Liberty Crying

With the ongoing aggression by Russia against Ukraine, and Israel’s grossly inhumane assault on civilians in Gaza, the United States has taken on an oversized role in the world’s hostilities. And it doesn’t help matters that Donald Trump exacerbates the problems by threatening its own allies (Mexico, Canada, Greenland, etc.) with invasion and/or annexation for the pettiest of reasons.

SEE THIS: Fox News Embraces Dear Leader Trump’s Imperialist Plans to Invade and Annex Greenland and Panama

The representatives that Trump sent to the Conference during his prior occupation of the White House included Mike Pence, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, Mike Pompeo, and Mark Esper. Note that Trump has since disavowed every one of them as incompetents and idiots who were never qualified to serve in his administration. Which begs the question: Why did he appoint them?

This year Trump sent JD Vance. Does this foretell the fate of Vance in the years (or maybe weeks, days) to come? At least for the time being Vance is likely performing down to Trump’s expectations. He has the requisite lack of relevant experience that Trump demands. His speech to the Conference was filled with lies and was a remarkably hostile screed against America. So Trump must have loved it. What follows are some choice excerpts with corrective annotations.

Vance: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years. Have we learned nothing that thin mandates produce unstable results.”
Note: Trump’s alleged “mandate” was one of the lowest margins of victory (1.5%) in American history. And he and his administration are the ones exhibiting fear of their own voters by firing Justice Department inspectors and prosecutors who would reveal their misconduct, as well as their brazen suppression of the free press.

Vance: “Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference. Even when people expressed outside of the country and even when they are very influential. And trust me, I say this with all humor, if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”
Note: Expressing opinions may not be election interference, but purposefully lying and disseminating disinformation is. Particularly when they are influential. And comparing the work of Greta Thunberg, who began her grassroots climate activism as a 15 year old, to Elon Musk, a politically connected billionaire, is downright idiotic.

Vance: “You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even..But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
Note: First of all, neither Trump nor Vance have ever condemned Russia’s attempts to influence our elections. That said, if Vance and Musk don’t think that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (hundreds of millions actually) on digital advertising isn’t effective, they why do they do it? Clearly they recognize that voters can be swayed and deceived with advertising campaigns. And so do the Russians.

Vance: “The threat that I worry that most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within.”
Note: This isn’t “America First.” It’s “Blame America First.” The Trump regime is always ready and willing, even anxious, to condemn America, while never even modestly criticizing Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, of Kim Jong Un, who he idolizes and seeks to emulate.

It’s safe to say that the the happiest people in the audience for Vance’s speech were the Russians and other adversaries of the United States. They could not have better represented the case against America than Vance did. He also offered a strong defense for the anti-American propaganda activities that many of our enemies are already engaging in.

It’s hard to imagine that Trump’s decision to dispatch Vance to this Conference wasn’t intended to humiliate America. He couldn’t have chosen a better person for that purpose. Unless, that is, he decided to go himself. So, on second thought, we probably should be grateful that he sent Vance.

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Trump is APPALLED at the ‘Large Scale Social Deception’ that His Own Administration Paid For

Posted by on February 13, 2025 at 1:43 pm. 1 Comments :

Donald Trump is notoriously fond of castigating his perceived enemies for offenses that he himself is responsible for. Every time he has falsely accused President Biden of committing crimes, it has been to deflect from his own documented criminality, including 34 felony convictions. Every time he has railed at Democrats for cheating, or attacked liberals as extremists, it has been to cover up his own dishonesty and manic radicalism.

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Trump Lies

Nothing is more predictable than Trump’s displays of pure projection that mirror his worst behaviors. And his feigned blindness to what is obvious to everybody else speaks to the degree of mental deterioration that he must be suffering, and/or his pathological impulse to lie about everything. These may be factors in why Trump’s popularity is wallowing at record lows.

SEE THIS: Trump 2.0 Begins with Approval Ratings that Rank Below Every Other President Dating Back to 1953

Consequently, no one should be surprised that Trump is now unleashing a rancid and utterly unwarranted assault on the media that he despises so thoroughly. Just one day after he brazenly violated the First Amendment rights of the Associated Press (because they wouldn’t kowtow to his preposterous renaming of the Gulf of Mexico), Trump is now making bizarre and unfounded accusations aimed at Reuters. He posted the following harangue on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social…

“DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study ‘large scale social deception.’ GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!”

What things “look like” to Trump are usually grossly distorted by his perversely warped political baises. And this case is no exception. To begin with, Trump was alerted to this phony atrocity by his unelected co-president and puppet master, Elon Musk, who shortly before Trump’s posting, tweeted that…

“Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for ‘large scale social deception’. That is literally what it says on the purchase order! They’re a total scam. Just wow.”

There a couple of serious problems with these crackpot commentaries. Let’s begin with the fact that the expenditure in question was not one that financed engaging in “large scale social deception.” It was clearly described as a contract to conduct research on nefarious social media operations in order to defend against such threats to national security due to the social media campaigns of foreign adversaries. Naturally Trump is opposed to that because it would put constraints on his BFF, Vladimir Putin, and other tyrants that Trump admires and seeks to emulate.

Furthermore, the expenditures that Trump and Musk are complaining about were made in 2018, during Trump’s occupation of the White House. So he is actually attacking the work of his own administration. And yet, still managing to blame it on “Radical Left[ists]” and demanding repayment of the funds that he paid out. None of this was secret. It was all documented and available online. Mediaite did a quick fact-check and easily found that…

“The contract in question, issued in 2018 during the first Trump administration, was actually awarded to Thomson Reuters Special Services for cybersecurity research. […] The ASED program aims to create scalable systems capable of detecting, analyzing, and mitigating threats to bolster cybersecurity.”

For the record, Thomson Reuters Special Services is a division of the same corporation that owns Reuters News Service, but is not affiliated with it in any working capacity. TRSS has no input into Reuters reporting or editorial practices. It would like saying that Pepsi and Quaker Oats are clandestinely conspiring to alter each others recipes because they are both owned by the same corporation.

The bottom line here is that Trump and Musk are deliberately lying about the pseudo-scandal that they are pretending to have uncovered. And they are demonstrating that they couldn’t care less about the facts that are so readily available. So if anyone still needs more reasons not to trust anything that either of them say (a line that should have been crossed long ago), this should be a convincing closer to that deal. From now on, if you are fooled by these con artists, you want to be fooled. Also, you are in a cult.

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The Media Must Boycott Trump’s Phony Press Conferences Until He Stops Censoring Journalists

Posted by on February 12, 2025 at 12:32 pm. 2 Comments :

There have been a disturbing amount of firsts achieved by Donald Trump as he commences his second occupation of the White House. None of which would foster pride in any honorable man or woman. They include his being the first president convicted of felonies; the first adjudicated as a rapist; the first barred from running a charity; and the first to openly admire, praise, and seek to emulate vile dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and even Adolf Hitler.

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Donald Trump TV Set

Trump is also the first president to hold the free press in such contempt that he repeatedly refers to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” And no American leader before him has sought so aggressively to undermine the constitutional protections of the press provided in the First Amendment. The white hot intensity of Trump’s hostility toward the media is reflected in his nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel…

SEE THIS: Trump’s Free Press? His FBI Flunky Kash Patel Threatens to ‘Come After the People in the Media’

The latest example of Trump’s anti-press obsession is his response to a perfectly reasonable editorial decision by the Associated Press concerning Trump’s preposterous plan to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” The AP noted that “Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States.” Then they elaborated saying that…

“The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”

That decision is entirely within the rights of the AP to make as they see fit, and within the principles of professional journalism. However, in Trump’s egomaniacally twisted view, he imagines that he has the right to punish the media whenever they do something that offends him personally. Consequently, Trump issued an order banning the AP from Oval Office media events. That is pure, unadulterated censorship that violates the Constitution. The AP responded saying that…

“Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

The AP was not the only media enterprise that was appalled by the tyrannical behavior of Trump. Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said that…

“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions. The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.

“The WHCA stands with The Associated Press and calls on the administration to immediately change course.”

Craig Aaron, President and Co-CEO of Free Press Action, testified before Congress Wednesday and enumerated the attacks on the free press by Trump and his administration that “is using the power of the government to shake down the media and quash dissent.” Including…

  • Trump’s FCC chairman (and Project 2025 co-author), Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke broadcast licenses because he doesn’t like the viewpoints he sees on TV.
  • Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News for $20 billion because he didn’t like how 60 Minutes chose to edit an interview with Kamala Harris.
  • Disney/ABC, Meta, maybe now CBS — paying tens of millions of dollars to settle specious lawsuits. They appear to be paying off the president to shield themselves from reprisal or gain regulatory favors.
  • All the billionaire owners of these companies line up on the dais at the president’s inauguration clutching million-dollar checks to show their loyalty.

MORE HERE: Trump Hurls Hate and Fear at All of the Media He’s Suing Following the ABC News Capitulation

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also made an impassioned speech defending the free press and condemning Trump’s censorious assault on the AP…

“Yesterday, Donald Trump banned the Associated Press, a 179-year-old newspaper organization, from the White House because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America.’ This is straight up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination. Trump’s DoD kicked out eight newsgroups that had space in the Pentagon, but which asked skeptical questions of the new Secretary. Including the New York Times, NBC News, and the Washington Post. All ousted in favor of outlets willing to faithfully advance the party line of the state, like Breitbart and One America News Network.”

Raskin: "Yesterday, Donald Trump banned the Associated Press, a 179-year-old newspaper organization, from the White House because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America." This is straight up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-02-12T15:24:14.097Z

For these, and so many other reasons, the media needs to stop pussy-footing around with Trump. He is virulently opposed to the mission of the free press in America, and he couldn’t care less about the Constitution’s explicit protections. And now that he has escalated his attacks to actually banning journalists for doing their jobs, the press must stop giving him the attention he craves to disseminate pure propaganda.

His press conferences are nothing more than staged photo-ops where he badgers and bullies reporters without answering their questions. Instead he replies with known lies, infantile insults, and noxious self-exaltation. Then he filibusters until his nannies usher the reporters out of the room.

News outlets don’t need to be present to suffer that disrespect and abuse. They can send interns to record the nonsense that he spews, and then report on it later with proper context and fact-checking. That will surely drive Trump crazy(er), as he seethes in an empty room yearning for the adulation he covets to satisfy his narcissistic lust.

UPDATE 2/14/2025: Trump has escalated his war on the AP. They have now been banned indefinitely from the Oval Office and Air Force One.

UPDATE 2/22/2025: The AP is suing the Trump administration to rescind its unconstitutional ban on their reporters.

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LOLOL: Fox News Lists ‘The Big Moves that Trump Has Made that Will Impact Your Everyday Life’

Posted by on February 11, 2025 at 2:39 pm. 6 Comments :

You really have to hand it to Fox News. When they aren’t serving dutifully as Donald Trump’s Ministry of Propaganda, they are providing a valuable public service by keeping their viewers informed about the critical issues that matter most to them during these trying times.

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Fox News, Fake News

The commitment to responsible journalism that Fox News is famous for is demonstrated on a daily basis in innumerable ways. They include their gushing adorations of all things Trump. Their flagrant lies about made-up Democratic scandals. Their distortions and deliberate misinterpretations of breaking news stories. And their devotion to reporting as fact anything that Trump or his MAGA cronies tell them.

SEE THIS: Fox News Hack Tells ‘Legacy Media’ to ‘Simply Repeat, Retweet’ Whatever Dear Leader Trump Says

On Monday morning Fox’s “Outnumbered” co-host, Emily Compagno, sought to lavish praise on Trump with an enumeration of “some of the big moves that President Trump has made that will impact your everyday life.” And did she waste time with trivialities like wars in Ukraine and Gaza, or the inflationary tariffs that Trump has imposed on many of America’s allies, or his threats to invade and annex Canada, Mexico, and Greenland, or the unconstitutional offenses against federal agencies by Trump’s co-president, Elon Musk?

Nope. Why bother with those distractions when there are real problems that Trump is working hard to solve? According to Compagno, these are the “big moves” that Trump is focused on…

“It seems like nothing is off the table in Trump’s second term. Trump has just ordered the end of penny production. […]

“Trump has also declared that every February 9th will officially be known as “Gulf of America Day.” […]

“He has clearly had enough. Vowing to bring back plastic straws once and for all. Writing ‘I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, that don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!’

“God, I love it. All in a day’s work.”

That’s right! Trump is fulfilling his many campaign promises by finally ridding America of pennies, paper straws, and gulfs with names that fail to properly exalt America, even though the gulf was named before there was an America.

Meanwhile, the nation is on the verge of, if not fully engrossed in, several constitutional crises. The Trump team is shutting down crucial services that police corporate corruption. They are halting already allocated life-saving aid to impoverished countries. They are invading the privacy and security of American citizens, They are terminating prosecutors and inspectors general. And they are refusing to comply with court orders to cease these unlawful activities.

But praise the lord that the torture we’ve endured by the atrocities that Trump is addressing is over. And thank goodness we have Fox News to alert us to these glorious improvements in our otherwise woeful existence. MAGA!

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Fox News Hack Tells ‘Legacy Media’ to ‘Simply Repeat, Retweet’ Whatever Dear Leader Trump Says

Posted by on February 10, 2025 at 1:56 pm. NO Comments :

Is there anyone left in America who is not convinced that Fox News is a shameless disseminator of disinformation in the service of Donald Trump and his ultra right-wing MAGA cult? If so, the network itself has helpfully provided an argument that ought to seal the deal.

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Fox News, Bullshit Factory

Trump himself has provided the best evidence that Fox News is his Ministry of Propaganda. He will appear almost nowhere else on television. The only reason he gave an interview prior to the Super Bowl was because the game and the interview were being broadcast on Fox. What’s more, much of his Cabinet and White House staff (19 so far) were recruited from Fox News.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

On Monday morning the dedicated Fox News Trump-fluffers on “Outnumbered” engaged in their routine morning worship ritual wherein they fawn over their idol and endeavor to reconstruct reality in a way that makes the convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and aspiring anti-democracy authoritarian look palatable to his gullible cult followers. To that end, co host Emily Compagno launched into a screed castigating the free press and offering her prescription for how the media ought to cover Trump…

“The fact that the media can’t keep up, A) doesn’t matter because we’re not looking to them for the news anyway. And B) guess what president Trump is doing? His office of comms is directly emailing, putting out on Truth Social, putting on the website, every day, all day, exactly what they are doing. So all you have to do, legacy media, is simply repeat, retweet, repost, and that is the news, and that is the facts.”

See? All the media has to do is to mindlessly regurgitate Trump’s divine and infallible utterances, and then take the rest of the day off. What could be easier? According to Compagno, whatever Trump says “is the news and that is the facts.” No need to argue or research or seek any other opinion. Just shut up and sing along with the Trump hymnal.

Never mind that Trump has actually been documented as the most dishonest occupant of the White House ever. He lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. He even continues to lie after he’s been shown that what he said is a lie.

Compagno, however, characterizes Trump’s fountain of falsehoods as his attempts to provide access and transparency. But putting out emails that are demonstrably false, and babbling on social media “every day, all day,” is not how you keep people apprised of what you’re doing. Particularly if what you’re putting out is pure bullpucky. To the contrary, that’s how you deceive simpletons who want to be misled.

It’s also how you steamroll the press to keep them from getting substantive answers to critical questions. That’s what Compagno was referring to when she said that “the media can’t keep up.” It’s Trump’s way of “flooding the zone with bullshit” (as his partner in crime Steve Bannon says) as a deflection tactic.

So while Trump is yammering about renaming the Gulf of Mexico, or banning paper straws, he is also advancing his agenda to cut taxes for the rich (paid for by cutting Social Security and Medicare), curtailing Constitutional rights, and assuming tyrannical control over the government.

Finally, it’s telling that Compagno admits that “we’re not looking to them for the news anyway.” Of course not. Why would the leading distorter of news look to actual journalists for news when they are busy making it up themselves? Or more accurately according to her own admission, transcribing it from their messiah.

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The Trump Regime Wants to Abolish Judicial Review and the Constitution’s Separation of Powers

Posted by on February 9, 2025 at 12:46 pm. 5 Comments :

The reprise of Donald Trump’s occupation of the White House is extraordinarily significant from a historical perspective. Setting aside his appallingly apparent lust for authoritarian power (which we shouldn’t do), he has achieved a few firsts that the American people must not diminish or forget.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

For instance, Trump is the first convicted felon to be elected president. He’s also the first adjudicated rapist, the first to advocate censorship of the free press, the first to openly praise and support fascist dictators, and the first to accept bribes through his hotels and golf resorts, and other phony business ventures (Trump Media, Trump coin, etc.).

SEE THIS: The Grifter-In-Chief: Will Donald Trump Divest From His Bribery Platform, Truth Social?

Another constant in the cavalcade of Trump’s criminality is his flagrant hostility toward justice and the rule law. Trump shares his hatred of law enforcement with all of the organized crime gangs that preceded him, and for the same reasons. None of them want to be held accountable for their wrongdoing.

It has been less than three weeks since Trump’s inauguration, and he has already been spanked by the courts multiple times for exceeding his authority. In one case his deadline to force for federal employees to resign was delayed. In another his attempt to end birthright citizenship was blocked. Most recently his order to shutdown the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was halted, and his cronies prohibited from accessing or retaining any data that they had collected.

It was the latter ruling that triggered the Trump team to escalate their war on the judiciary. Trump’s co-president, Elon Musk, was compelled to speak out on his own propaganda platform (Twitter/X) saying that “A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!” And that “I’d like to propose that the worst 1% of appointed judges, as determined by elected bodies, be fired every year. This will weed out the most corrupt and least competent.”

Musk’s proposal to annually fire judges at the whim of partisan elected representatives is a blatant assault on the independence of the judiciary. But it isn’t surprising that he has no respect for these pesky details that form the foundation of America’s justice system, and that prevent him from acting out his tyrannical fantasies.

Joining in on the judge bashing is Vice-President JD Vance. He tweeted a message that demonstrates just how clueless about the law a Yale Law graduate can be after he’s been indoctrinated into a cult. He wrote that…

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

JD Vance posted this decree essentially advocating for the elimination of the constitutionally co-equal judicial branch of government so that Trump can reign as a tyrant.

— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T17:58:39.379Z

Every word of that is nonsense. None of what he claims is illegal violates any law. To the contrary, if a general, an attorney general, or any other executive branch official, were to engage in conduct that is contrary to the Constitution, they can be ordered to stop the offending conduct and be punished, if necessary, in accordance with the law. Any other interpretation would be a de facto authorization for the president – or any subordinate he designates – to violate the Constitution at will.

This rant by Vance essentially decrees that the constitutionally co-equal judicial branch of government is irrelevant and that Trump is free to reign as a tyrant. To be sure, that’s precisely what Trump aspires to. But it is not remotely permissible in a constitutional republic with clear delineations outlining the separation powers.

So neither Trump, nor Vance, nor Musk, nor anyone else in the Trump Mob, can ignore judicial rulings. Neither can they unilaterally impeach or otherwise intimidate or remove judges who don’t rule in their favor. And it is a frightening feature of the current state of America that anyone actually needs to be reminded of that.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality:
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