General

Jeanine Pirro of Fox News Unleashes a Bizarre Trump Defense with the Clintons as Bonnie and Clyde

Posted by on April 21, 2019 at 1:09 pm. 2 Comments :

There is no one on Fox News that makes life harder for Saturday Night Live than “Judge” Jeanine Pirro. Her cartoonishly feverish harangues are nearly impossible to satirize. Pirro herself seems to be doing a mock impersonation of a paranoid schizophrenic on acid. The best way to translate that into comedy is just to yell the already incoherent excerpts from her actual commentaries.

Donald Trump, Jeanine Pirro

On the latest episode of her Saturday Trump-Fluffing Hour (video below), Pirro outdid herself with an extended diatribe addressing the release of the redacted Mueller report by Trump’s disgraced Attorney General, William Barr. She began the program by asking an ironically self-owning question:

“Are you fed up yet? More than two years of non-stop, unprecedented maligning by the mainstream media, high level Obama administration officials, and disappointed, disgruntled and deranged Democrats, of the commander in chief as the ‘agent of a foreign government,’ a ‘Putin puppet,’ a ‘treasonous dictator,’ all because they despise the outsider president WE put in the Oval Office.”

Anytime a Fox News shill to mentions Trump in the same sentence with descriptives like “agent of a foreign government,” “Putin puppet,” and “treasonous dictator,” you’ve got to consider that a win. But Pirro’s take on conclusions of the Mueller report are indicative of a mind infected by cult worship. For one thing, her assertion that the alleged “maligning” of Trump was unprecedented ignores Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office where he was accused of being a gay, terrorist-sympathizing, communist Muslim, who was born in Kenya. And most of those attacks were by Pirro herself.

What’s more, Pirro’s characterization of Trump as the “outsider president WE put in the Oval Office,” begs the question: Who is “WE”? Fox News? The Deplorables? Vladimir Putin? It certainly wasn’t the American people who favored Hillary Clinton by a margin of three million votes. Nevertheless, Pirro has had enough:

“Enough already. The system worked. The process is over. No collusion. No obstruction. Full cooperation. Enough lives have been damaged. Enough reputations ruined. Enough families destroyed. They took down people with process crimes having nothing to do with Russia.”

So what Pirro regards as a working system is one that makes the election’s loser president. But that doesn’t mean the process is over if there were irregularities such as Trump exploiting Russian interference in the campaign by disseminating stolen data. That’s collusion whether or not he did it via direct interactions with Putin. As for “full cooperation,” that’s not something you can claim when you refused to to talk to the special counsel for fear of being caught in a lie. But Pirro was far from through bloviating:

“I’m not gonna dwell on the fact that the real collusion with Russia was with the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics – Bill and Hillary – who sold our uranium to Russia and pocketed a quick $145 million dollars through their trusty charity.”

There is that textbook passive aggressive attack by saying you aren’t going to dwell on something even as you’re dwelling all over it with frothy saliva dripping from the corner of your smarmy, sarcastic smile. Never mind that there is zero evidence that Hillary engaged in any with any Russian operatives. Or that she profited in any way from the sale of any uranium to Russia. Even Pirro’s Fox News colleague, Shepard Smith, debunked that flagrant lie.

Perhaps the most nauseating part of this mental unraveling is Pirro’s comparison of Bill and Hillary Clinton to Bonnie and Clyde. She didn’t bother to actually include any explanation for why she associated two American public servants with a couple of murderous bank robbers. She probably just thought it would arouse the nether regions of her dimwitted viewers to spill out some unintelligible insults. Which Pirro continued to do as this tedious program dragged on:

“They will seize on the language that you cannot indict a sitting president. Which is simply the law. Yet Mueller comes out and says he cannot exonerate the President of obstruction. There was not sufficient evidence to bring a charge. If there’s not sufficient evidence to bring a charge that should have been the end of it. But no. In a show of political whore-manship – that’s what I said, political whore-manship – Mueller left crumbs for Congress. He added he couldn’t exonerate Trump to give the Democrats something to work with.”

First of all, there is no law that prohibits indicting a sitting president. Pirro is outright lying about that. Also, Pirro complains that a finding that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to bring a charge should be “the end of it.” Which is exactly what Mueller did. He ended his investigation and wrote a report that the Attorney General still won’t allow the American people to see.

However, even the parts that we were allowed to see are filled with evidence that Trump engaged in activities that were either unlawful or immoral. And he clearly left these questions open for Congress to deal with, as is appropriate for his role as special counsel. And for that Pirro calls him a “whore” – twice! And on that note it’s impossible to resist acknowledging that Pirro just dived into a subject that she knows all too well.

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

Thank Gawd! Trump is ‘Happy’ and ‘Content’ Because ‘YOUR’ Country is Doing So Well

Posted by on April 21, 2019 at 9:47 am. 1 Comments :

If there is one thing that the American people have anxiously been waiting to establish on this Easter/Passover weekend, it’s whether or not Donald Trump is happy and content. And now we have conclusive confirmation of the President’s emotional satisfaction despite his ever increasing legal and political jeopardy.

Donald Trump Climate Change

It’s been less than a week since the release of the heavily edited version of the report from special counsel Robert Mueller by Trump’s obedient lackey in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. Even with the numerous redactions, the report is a damning condemnation of Trump’s criminality and rampant dishonesty. But if you were wondering whether any of that reality has been a drag on his mood, fear not:

Well, that’s a relief. Trump is gleefully pursuing his duties (primarily golfing and watching Fox News) in the wake of news that affirms his campaign and presidency were riddled with corruption and collusion with Russia. And the reason he cites for his cheerfulness is that “your” country is doing so well. Notice that he doesn’t seem to consider it his country. But nevertheless, have a great day.

And why not? It’s a day when (according to Trump) 138 million people were massacred by terrorism in Sri Lanka. It’s a day when Trump was exalted in an op-ed in the New York Times that demanded an apology from the media and Democrats. Never mind that the op-ed is three days old, was written by a MAGA cultist, ignores all evidence of the crimes and lies in Mueller report, and that there are lots of conservative op-eds in Times.

What’s more, it’s a day when Trump continues to whine relentlessly about “Trump Haters and Angry Democrats,” and the Mueller report that he said “totally exonerated” him. But now he calls it a “hit job” and complains that it’s the “other side” who are the criminals, and that he was the subject of imaginary spying.

If that doesn’t sound like someone who is happy and content, then you don’t know Donald Trump. He apparently enjoys being consumed by seething outrage at his perceived enemies and wallowing in anger and self-pity. It’s pretty much all he does these days. And fortunately for him, with all of the bad news still to come, he’ll have plenty of opportunity to bask in his revelatory recreation and pretend that it makes him all tingly inside.

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

Trump Thinks the Mueller Report is a Woman, That’s Why He’s ‘Moving On It Like a B*tch’

Posted by on April 20, 2019 at 11:32 am. 2 Comments :

It’s only been three days since Donald Trump’s obedient lackey in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, released his redacted version of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Barr’s alleged “press conference” thoroughly distorted the content of the report and cemented his reputation as a dishonorable shill.

Donald Trump drinking

However, it’s Trump himself who has gone completely overboard with wild-eyed ranting about the report. He is at once lambasting it as a hoax that should never have happened, as well as a conclusive vindication of his glaringly obvious crimes. So naturally he spent his regularly scheduled Saturday Morning Tweetstorm demonstrating the severe mental infirmities that have become the hallmark of his presidency. You might say that he “moved on it like a bitch.” He began with this:

Mueller is a life-long Republican who was appointed by a Republican acting Attorney General who was appointed by Trump. But in Trump’s “very large a-brain” (his own words) it’s still some sort of deep state conspiracy against him. And now he can’t even keep track of the number of “Angry Democrats” amongst the “Trump Haters” (Fact Check: It’s about 63,000,000). And then there was this:

First of all, No one is doing more to “stir up and anger the pols and as many people as possible” as Trump. In fact, it’s practically all he does with his incessant rage-tweeting and lie-riddled comments at his staged photo-ops. And if he really thinks that the “principle conclusion” of the Mueller report was that there was “no collusion,” he’s more deranged than anyone imagined. Even Fox News’ senior legal analyst agrees with the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, that there is evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice. And for an alleged hoax that is allegedly dead, Trump can’t stop whining about it. And then there was this:

True to form, Trump praises the “Witch Hunt” against him as “the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. political history.” Of course it is. I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. No one does better witch hunt than Trump. Believe me. And, according to Trump, the “end result” of the Mueller report manages to be “no collusion” despite the voluminous references to meetings with Russians, pathological lying, and flagrant obstruction of justice. That really is “Pretty Amazing!” And then there was this:

Why is our supposedly tea-totalling president toasting (himself probably) with a cocktail? But more to the point, what’s with that cheesy propaganda video? The lies that Trump stuffed into it shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s just a tedious rehashing of what he tweets ad nauseum.

What should bother the American people is that he spends our tax dollars on bullshit like this. This is the true “Presidential Harassment,” but not the sexual kind that he’s so well known for. And not the kind that he panic-tweets about so much (here and here and here). Sadly, he has an army of Deplorables who actually suck up these perverse ravings without swallowing. Pretty Amazing!

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

Game Over? Trump’s Post-Mueller Panic-Tweets Exalting Fox News Reveal his Fear and Desperation

Posted by on April 19, 2019 at 8:37 am. 2 Comments :

Apparently the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s shill Attorney General, William Barr, wasn’t the ultimate vindication that he hoped it would be. Of course that didn’t prevent him from posting multiple tweets frantically insisting that the report showed there was “no collusion, no obstruction” – which it definitely didn’t do.

Donald Trump, Fox News

Trump went on a vindication binge featuring the usual Confederacy of Sycophants who routinely defend his every word and deed no matter how loathsome. He quoted a phalanx of Fox News fluffers like Tucker Carlson, Martha MacCallum, and Jesse Watters. And he posted some hokey propaganda videos and a Game of Thrones meme that said it was now “Game Over.” That was followed by a couple of rants about the “Crazy Mueller Report” that contained “total bullshit” even though he previously insisted that it “totally exonerated” him.

These are further signs of dementia that should not be ignored. And amidst this flaming ego eruption was one peculiar tweet that was nothing more than a promo for Fox News that said:

“It was a really great day for America! A special evening tonight on @TuckerCarlson, @seanhannity & @IngrahamAngle Will be very interesting!”

Sure, what a great day. America learned that their president fraternized with numerous Russian operatives in an effort to get dirt on his political opponent, and then repeatedly lied about it and pressured others to lie for him. He gleefully exploited stolen data and brazenly obstructed justice in order to avoid the legal and political consequences. And to celebrate, Trump suggested plopping yourself down for several hours of mindless and false propaganda provided by his favorite Fox News collaborators.

However, after tweeting and then retweeting it, for some reason Trump deleted it (it lives on here). He later posted several comments quoting some portions of those programs, but his free ad urging his Deplorables to tune in was exorcized from his feed. Did Fox News miss a payment?

Trump doesn’t have much to worry about though. Fox News will continue to prop up his presidency until news of his child cannibalism is revealed – and maybe even after that. All of Fox’s primetimers devoted their programs to parades of Trump’s innocence. Sean Hannity spent much of his show attacking the “hate-Trump media.” Tucker Carlson declared that the White House press corps had been humiliated. And Laura Ingraham went even further:

“To those who branded the primetime hosts on this network as ‘State News,’ for daring to tell the truth – not just our truth – but THE truth. You owe us an apology.”

Yeah, that’ll happen. Especially since the Mueller report actually validated most of what the media has been saying for the past two years about Trump’s nefarious and criminal activities. Everything from the press reports that Trump directed the lies about his son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, to accounts of his angry rampages when his staffers refused to break the law for him, was affirmed in the Mueller probe.

Perhaps what ticked Trump off were the instances where some Fox News personalities had the audacity to allow some real news to slip though. For instance, the time that Fox’s senior legal analyst agreed with Rep. Adam Schiff that there was evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice. Or when Fox’s chief news anchor, Shepard Smith, described as “patently false” Trump’s whining about the Mueller probe as a “witch Hunt” and a “hoax.” These are the sort of incidents that caused Trump to nervously instruct his aides to “keep an eye” on Fox News to make sure it stays loyal to him. That’s what life in the bunker feels like to Hair Trump in these dark days.

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

Fox News is Referenced in the Mueller Report Four Times, and Each Makes Trump Look Worse

Posted by on April 18, 2019 at 2:39 pm. 0 Comments :

With the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, there is going to be a flurry of furious spinning by Trump’s devoted martinets in the right-wing press. Trump himself will continue his frantic robo-rant of “no collusion, no obstruction,” as he has been doing for months.

Fox News, Robert Mueller

Naturally, Fox News will assume its predictable role as the main line of defense for Trump. They will focus exclusively on any positive angles among the vague interpretations of Mueller’s report offered by Barr or other Republican partisans. And they will brazenly ignore anything in the report that is remotely detrimental to Trump, of which there is a significant amount. Even Chris Wallace of Fox News noted that “There is a lot of stuff in here that is damaging to the president, politically embarrassing to the president.”

However, Fox News itself had a place in the Mueller report with four references to Trump’s State TV affiliate. The following passages from the report illustrate just how deeply integrated Fox is with Trump and his associates. For instance:

Page 70:

“That night, the White House Press Office called the Department of Justice and said the White House wanted to put out a statement saying that it was Rosenstein’s idea to fire Comey. Rosenstein told other DOJ officials that he would not participate in putting out a ‘false story.’ The President then called Rosenstein directly and said he was watching Fox News, that the coverage had been great, and that he wanted Rosenstein to do a press conference. Rosenstein responded that this was not a good idea because if the press asked him, he would tell the truth that Comey’s firing was not his idea.”

What we have here is Trump keeping tabs on the investigation by watching Fox News, and then trying to get Deputy AG Rosenstein to lie for him about FBI Director James Comey’s firing. That’s obstruction of justice right there. The fact that Rosenstein refused doesn’t make Trump’s attempt any less illegal. And then there’s this:

Page 99:

“[Reince] Priebus recalled learning about the June 9 meeting from Fox News host Sean Hannity in late June 2017. Priebus notified one of the President’s personal attorneys, who told Priebus he was already working on it. By late June, several advisors recalled receiving media inquiries that could relate to the June 9 meeting.”

It’s rather remarkable that Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, found out about the infamous Trump Tower meeting (with Don Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and some Russian operatives) only by watching Fox News. That’s how out-of-the-loop Trump’s closest White House aide was, but also how integral Fox News is to Trump’s affairs. And that’s not all:

Page 126:

“In a Fox News interview on August 22, 2018, the President said: ‘[Cohen] makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else. And one of the reasons l respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial-you know they make up stories. People make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, they call it, I know all about flipping. The President said that flipping was ‘not fair’ and ‘almost ought to be outlawed.'”

In this “interview” with the unabashedly pro-Trump “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, Trump is laying the groundwork for threats directed at his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, while simultaneously praising his more loyal campaign chairman, Manafort. This is a fairly clumsy attempt at witness tampering. Which he did some more of here:

Page 151:

“In January 2019, after the media reported that Cohen would provide public testimony in a congressional hearing, the President made additional public comments suggesting that Cohen’s family members had committed crimes. In an interview on Fox on January 12, 2019, the President was asked whether he was worried about Cohen’s testimony and responded:

‘[I]n order to get his sentence reduced, [Cohen] says “I have an idea, I’ll ah, tell-I’ll give you some information on the president.” Well, there is no information. But he should give information maybe on his father-in-law because that’s the one that people want to look at because where does that money-that’s the money in the family.'”

Trump made these accusations during an interview with his adoring acolyte, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. They were directed against Cohen’s family as a flagrant attempt to scare him into keeping his mouth shut.

It’s hard to see why Mueller didn’t think he had sufficient evidence to indict Trump, or at least to recommend that Congress take up an inquiry that could lead to impeachment. And as guilty as Trump now appears to be, it’s plain that Fox News was a willing accomplice every step of the way. It is not insignificant that Fox was referenced four times in the report. They were further included in twenty-seven footnotes. No other national news network was referenced in the body of the report even once. What does that tell you?

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

AG Barr’s Bastardization of the Mueller Report Cements His Reputation as a Trump-Fluffing Shill

Posted by on April 18, 2019 at 9:06 am. 3 Comments :

On Thursday morning Donald Trump got just what he wanted when he planted William Barr as his obedient lackey in the Justice Department. Barr held what he called a “press conference,” but was more of public sanitation of Trump’s clear and obvious criminal behavior, much of which was done in full view of the public. This will go down in history alongside the legal mendacity Nixon’s accomplices in Watergate.

Robert Mueller Trump

Much of What Barr said in his remarks was the best evidence that he was being flagrantly servile to Trump. He began by describing the Mueller report as concerning “matters related to Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.” And then he nearly ignored that entirely for the remainder of his remarks. Barr never explicitly mentioned incriminating activities like the meeting between Don Trump Jr and Paul Manafort with Russians in Trump Tower. Nevertheless, he did conclude that “no evidence that any Americans – including anyone associated with the Trump campaign – conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.” How does he square those two facts? Barr doesn’t say.

Barr did bring up the fact that Russians were found to have hacked into the emails of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. But he let’s Trump off the hook by saying that the Mueller report “did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations.” That, of course, was never alleged by anyone. What Trump and company did was to aid and abet the Russians in disseminating the product of that illegal hacking. All the while denying that it ever occured.

Barr noted that “Wikileaks then made a series of document dumps,” but he absolved Trump of any wrongdoing by stating that “Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign.” The public evidence to the contrary is undeniable. Trump promoted WikiLeaks’ stolen data over 140 times and said explicitly that “I love WikiLeaks.” Then he later denied this reality by saying that he “knows nothing about WikiLeaks.” Again, that contradiction is another example of his consciousness of guilt.

Barr did address the fact that “the Special Counsel investigated a number of ‘links’ or ‘contacts’ between Trump Campaign officials and individuals connected with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.” But he’s trivializing what were actually hundreds of contacts by dozens of Trump associates. And he cavalierly dismissed those contacts saying that he “did not find any conspiracy to violate U.S. law.” Well, then what else would he call it?

Barr’s “bottom line” was that the report concluded that “the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.” But what he isn’t denying is that Trump and his campaign abetted those schemes by promoting their narratives while pretending they didn’t exist.

Additionally, Barr cleared Trump of obstruction of justice by asserting that there was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” That’s Barr’s conclusion, not Mueller’s. And it ignores all of the evidence to the contrary, including Trump’s innumerable lies to cover up his activities and even his television confession that he fired FBI director James Comey because of “the Russia thing.”

Proof of Barr’s bias was evident in his comments that Trump “was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” How does Barr know that Trump was frustrated and angry? He never testified. And as for his having “a sincere belief” that he was the subject of “presidential harassment” (as Trump calls it), that’s a brazenly subjective view that reveals prejudice on Barr’s part.

What’s more, Barr claimed that “the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation [and therefore had no] corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.” It’s absurd to say that someone who refused to be interviewed had fully cooperated. And Trump’s corrupt intent was evident nearly everyday in his tweets that maligned Mueller and his team as virtual traitors who were acting with purposeful deceit to stage a coup against Trump. Additionally, it’s impossible to ignore Trump’s witness tampering with both threats and the dangling of possible pardons.

This release of the redacted Mueller report, and Barr’s obsequious presentation of his deceitful version of facts, produces more questions than it answers. And the fact that Trump required this improper defense by the Attorney General just makes him look more guilty. There are still some sixteen other investigations of Trump in progress that encompass potential crimes related to his campaign, his inauguration, his businesses, his sexual affairs and assaults, and his presidency. So if Trump thinks this is “Game Over” as he tweeted following Barr’s press conference, he is not only wrong, he’s downright delusional.

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

Choosing Ignorance: Majority of Republicans (and Trump) Oppose Full Release of Mueller Report

Posted by on April 17, 2019 at 1:08 pm. 4 Comments :

On Thursday a version of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller will be released by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. It will be heavily redacted by Barr to prevent the American people from seeing all of the facts accumulated during the investigation that they paid for.

Donald Trump

Even before the release of the redacted Mueller report, there has been enough voluminous evidence of Trump’s conspiracy with Russia, WikiLeaks, and other nefarious characters, to warrant impeachment and/or indictment. But the report almost certainly contains new information that likely further incriminates Trump, his family, and associates. Even the senior legal analyst at Fox News said so. Which explains why Trump is so panicked by the impending release. He is exhibiting a palpable fear of what might come out, and he feverishly expresses that fear in his Twitter rampages. But he isn’t the only one who is consumed with the dread of imminent truth.

A poll by Monmouth University asked voters if the Justice Department should “provide the full Mueller report to Congress.” The response overall was a resounding majority (60%) saying that the full report should be made public. That’s in line with every other poll on this subject. What’s more interesting is the breakdown by political affiliation. The poll found that Democrats were overwhelmingly in favor (81%) of an unfettered presentation of the facts. Which speaks to their confidence in Mueller and their appreciation for openness no matter the results. Likewise, a solid majority of Independents (61%) also favor full disclosure.

On the other hand, Republicans were committed to burying their heads in the sand to avoid what they must be assuming will be bad news for their Dear Leader. Only thirty-three percent said they want the full, unredacted Mueller report released to the public. In other words, two-thirds of GOP voters are choosing to remain deliberately ignorant. They have no problem with wanting to see all of Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails, or President Obama’s thirty year old school transcripts, but the sight of the product of a two year investigation of the current president by Republican law enforcement officials is too much for them to bear.

Trump is also terrified by the prospect of this information becoming public. His comments on it reflect a man who is deeply disturbed and irrational as a result of this publicity. He has tweeted about Mueller nearly every day this month and over three dozen times just this year. He wavers wildly from insisting that he has been “totally exonerated” to hostile assaults on Mueller’s team (who he says exonerated him) as being corrupt and biased. Sometimes in a single tweet:

So Trump thinks that Democrats in Congress – and by extension all of the American people – don’t have the right to see what he himself calls the “No Collusion Mueller Report.” Why wouldn’t he want everyone to see a report that he says proves his innocence? What’s more, he absurdly claims that Democrats have abandoned their respect for Mueller, even though this poll proves that they still look forward to seeing what his report says:

Clearly Trump is lashing out blindly in all directions at once and making no sense at all. Even his complaint about the cost of the probe is completely off-base. It was more than paid for by just the asset forfeitures from convicted Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. But the opposition by Trump and his Republican Nationalist constituents to the release of the full, unredacted report, along with the underlying documents, is proof that they have something to hide.

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

Consequently, they are taking the peculiar position of begging to be kept uninformed. It’s not an unfamiliar state of affairs with the Republican base (remember the Tea Party?). And to an even greater extent, enforced stupidity is a sacrament to the right-wing cult followers of Trump. After all, they still regard him as an honest, faithful, law-abiding, humble, diplomatic, brilliant, successful, family man, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Trump Admits that Fox News is State TV Where Democrats Like Bernie Sanders Should Not Appear

Posted by on April 16, 2019 at 11:05 am. 0 Comments :

There isn’t really much dispute as to whether or not Fox News is a devoutly right-wing network that has fully transitioned into Donald Trump’s State TV propaganda affiliate. Fox News made Trump during the 2016 election by plastering their air with his rallies and endless Trump-fluffing commentaries by adoring hosts and guests. And they’ve only gotten worse as his presidency has sunk into an abyss of hateful division, idiotic policies, and legal turmoil.

Donald Trump Fox News

The one place you’ll find an argument about that is, of course, Fox News. They still desperately try to pretend that they are “fair and balanced” despite the obvious political prejudices that make up the vast majority of their programming. Their executives and on-air personalities go to great lengths to cover up the flagrant partisanship that is the core of their network’s mission.

Unfortunately for Fox, the primary beneficiary of that favoritism, Donald Trump, isn’t so careful. In fact, consistent with his bullheaded dumbassery, he is downright reckless in revealing the unsavory relationship between himself and his TV fixation. This was demonstrated definitively in his Tuesday morning rage-tweeting:

Let’s break down this presidential Twitter breakdown. First of all, Trump is lashing out at Fox News for even allowing Bernie Sanders to hold this town hall. He not only insults Sanders as “crazy,” but confesses that he finds it “weird” to be watching him on Fox News. Then Trump blasts Fox’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, for being “so smiley and nice.” That implies that Trump was expecting him to be frowny and mean – like Trump himself is almost constantly. But contrary to Trump’s assessment, Baier and his co-host Martha MacCallum were frequently contentious on everything from Sanders’ income, to abortion, to taxing the rich, to immigration, and notably, to healthcare.

On the healthcare issue, Baier surveyed the studio audience to ask them “How many are willing to transition to what the Senator said – a government run system?” Note his framing in the question. Medicare for All is NOT a government run system for healthcare. It is a single payer system for health insurance. Doctors and hospitals remain independent. Nevertheless, the audience erupted into cheers of support for Sanders’ plan.

And that’s the sort of thing that triggered Trump and incited his angry tweet, which is really an attack on the audience (which he curiously put in quotes as if to suggest they were fake) and the majority of the American people (70%) who favor universal healthcare.

Finally, Trump sought to take one last swipe at Fox News for hiring a former DNC official as a contributor. And he carelessly gave away his belief that Fox should be an exclusively pro-Trump, Democrat-free platform by saying “now we have @donnabrazile?” We? Trump is now openly referring to Fox News as a network that he is in partnership with. So not only is he mad that his media partner hosted Sanders, and that Baier wasn’t sufficiently nasty, but he’s calling them out for being disloyal to their shared objectives.

News Corpse is on record as being opposed to Democrats lending legitimacy to Fox News by appearing on the network. It isn’t about being afraid to face Fox’s hostility, that’s a cake walk. It’s about refusing to help them sanitizing their hateful agenda and outright lies. Sanders did a good job of representing himself and standing up to Fox’s bullying, as expected. But that doesn’t mean he should have been there in the first place. He could easily out-debate Alex Jones too, but he should go on InfoWars either. No one should be helping them fill their coffers and spread their message. There aren’t any Democratic votes to found there. And it only results in deranged outbursts like the one Trump just unleashed.

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

After a Lifetime of Failure, Trump Finally Admits He’s a Total Idiot Asking ‘What the Hell Do I Know’?

Posted by on April 15, 2019 at 4:11 pm. 5 Comments :

Before Donald Trump, there was never a president with such a long record of business dealings that have gone south. And that doesn’t mean to Mexico. Trump’s accumulated failures must have set a record for pure incompetence. But his psychotic narcissism makes him think that he’s some kind of business genius, never mind all of the evidence to the contrary.

Donald Trump

This unique combination of blunder and bullheaded conceit has resulted in a president who has the blind lunacy to post the following tweet in all seriousness:

So Trump’s advice to Boeing is to fix the problem that has caused two airliners to crash killing hundreds of people. Wow! I’ll bet Boeing never thought of that. Furthermore, Trump thinks it would be a good idea for the company to develop some “additional great features.” How does Trump think of these things? Nobody else could ever have imagined such a brilliant concept. These brainstorms are on a par with his plan to build a useless vanity wall along the southern border, and to give rich people tax cuts, ballooning the national debt by trillions of dollars.

As for Trump’s fabled expertise with business and branding, all we need to do is look at his collection of enterprises that he stamped his name onto that are all now defunct:

  • Trump University
  • Trump Steaks
  • Trump Water
  • Trump Air Shuttle
  • Trump Vodka
  • Trump Magazine
  • Trump Taj Mahal (and three other casinos)

Trump’s steel trap mind has also noticed that no other company’s brand has ever suffered like Boeing is now. He must never have heard of Tylenol, or Enron, or BP’s Deepwater Horizon, or Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals, or the Exxon-Valdez. But never mind all of that. Trump says that Boeing can just change the name of the jet that crashed and all will be well. And then he tacks on in closing “But again, what the hell do I know?” Ironically, that’s actually is a darn good question. Does anyone have an answer?

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

Fox News vs Itself: Shep Cuts Off Conspiracy Nut’s Notre Dame Fire Rant, Hannity Embraces It

Posted by on April 15, 2019 at 2:53 pm. 2 Comments :

The heartbreaking news from Paris has caused shock and despair around the world as the famed, iconic, 800 year old Notre Dame Cathedral was engulfed in flames. The sight of this majestic testimony to the brilliance and creativity of humankind crumbling into ashes was literally painful to watch. Every decent citizen of the Earth is feeling the loss today.

Notre Dame

So that leaves the indecent cretins with plenty of opportunity to demonstrate how repulsive they can be. And they lost no time in taking advantage of this tragic event. One of them was French official, Philippe Karsenty, who called into to Fox News and was interviewed by Shepard Smith. Karsenty is a right-wing character who regularly espouses ludicrous conspiracy theories and was recently convicted of defamation. His exchange with Smith nearly devolved into another fruitcake tirade until Smith cut him off (video below):

Karsenty: It’s like a 9/11, it’s a French 9/11. It’s a big shock. We’ve had churches desecrated each and every week all over France. So, of course, you will hear the story of the political correctness which will tell you it’s probably an accident.
Smith: Sir, sir, we’re not going to speculate of the cause of something that we don’t know. If you have observations or you know something, we would love to hear it.

Of course, Karsenty had nothing to offer other than his wild speculation. So Smith ended the interview and gave this admonition to any other conspiracy theorists and the weak, gullible minds they seek to disinform:

Smith: We’re not doing that here, not now, not on my watch. The man on the phone with us has absolutely no information of any kind about the origin of this fire and neither do I. The fire investigators will at some point come to a determination about what caused this and conspiracy theories about anything are worthless and in many cases counterproductive and injurious to society. And those who entertain them are not acting in the best interests of the people of this planet.

Well said, Shep. As for “those who entertain” such nonsense, one of Shep’s network colleagues may be among the first to dive further into the conspiracy soup. Sean Hannity told his radio audience that terrorism may have played a role in this fire. He had no facts, or even vague insinuations, to back that up. It was pure exploitation and fear mongering. What’s more, the wingnut Gateway Pundit and ex-Sputnik shill, Cassandra Fairbanks, praised Hannity and called Smith an “arrogant pompous douche.” And finally, Donald Trump himself weighed on the fire story:

Really? Trump is telling the French first responders to “act quickly,” something they probably never thought of. And his advice to have tankers drop thousands of pounds of water on the already damaged and fragile structure was immediately dismissed as incredibly stupid. But then, what else would you expect from Trump?

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