Politics

Fox News is Spinning (Lying) Furiously to Cover Up A Devastating Exodus of Advertisers

Posted by on August 22, 2019 at 10:25 am. 2 Comments :

You almost have to feel sorry for the poor shills at State TV (aka Fox News). Their corporate mission is inextricably tied to defending Republican policies and politicians. And with Donald Trump gumming up the works every day with tirades that stretch the boundaries of either hate speech or humor, their jobs cannot be easy. In fact, it must be a downright nightmare having to make lame, impotent excuses for their “Chosen One.”

Fox News, Titanic

In addition to facing Trump’s rapidly declining poll numbers, Fox is also having to absorb incoming rhetorical missiles from Trump, the guy they are working so hard to promote and protect. It’s a complex tango that results in everyone getting their toes stepped on. But Fox is up to the challenge. They just announced the hiring of Trump’s former Press Secretary and confessed liar, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She’s expected to be running for Arkansas governor, so this job is Fox’s campaign contribution.

Fox News is simultaneously suffering through some difficult financial times due to the noxious commentaries of some of their top program hosts. Particularly Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. In April of this year Variety reported that “ad dollars attached to ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ fell 47.8%, to $48.3 million from almost $92.7 million in 2017.” That’s a nearly 50 percent haircut. The numbers of ads on his program dropped a similar percentage to only fifteen from thirty-six last October. Laura Ingraham is experiencing the same drop-off in advertisers. So what could be causing these financial calamities while their viewership remains as passionately loyal as any cult?

Well, it could be that Tucker Carlson’s flagrant bigotry is a staple of his nightly program and advertisers are reaching their breaking point. His most recent controversy was triggered by his preposterous statement that white nationalism “is a hoax.” Never mind that most acts of domestic terrorism are by white nationalists, according to the Trump-appointed FBI Director, Christopher Wray.

Meanwhile, Laura Ingraham’s problems began after she attacked the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting. These are kids who suffered a nightmare that no one should ever face, but who Ingraham considered fair game for even more abuse. She is also notorious for her racist and elitist views, such as when she said that basketball legend and philanthropist LeBron James should “shut up and dribble.”

Fox News, however, is fiercely defensive and unrepentant. They insist that they haven’t lost any revenue as a result of their loathsome hosts because the ads are merely shifted to other programs. That’s an outright lie. It would mean that the other programs had unsold ad inventory that these ads could be slipped into. If that’s true they are admitting to even bigger problems selling ads throughout the day. But even if we accept Fox’s explanation, that still means they lost money because moving a primetime ad to a less expensive daypart would require significant discounting. What’s more, Fox programming is now cluttered with unpaid Fox News promos and cheesy, low cost ads for reverse mortgages and MyPillow.

Any other business would be concerned about this sort of dwindling revenue. But since Fox News is a political operation first and a business second (and never a news enterprise), they are willing to take the hit. While they are surely as greedy as any other corporation, they are more committed to advancing the interests of Trump and the GOP. If that’s a costly proposition, they regard it as money well spent to disinform their audience and spread right-wing lies. And unless the movement to defund Fox escalates significantly, expect this to continue throughout the 2020 election cycle and beyond.

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

Trump Says ‘I Am the Chosen One’ After Tweeting that He’s ‘The Second Coming of God’

Posted by on August 21, 2019 at 12:39 pm. 5 Comments :

Many people have been predicting that as the tribulations of Donald Trump intensify, his mental state will become ever more unstable and dangerous. That appears to be the case as he is battered by devastating poll numbers, a weakening economy, and chaos on both domestic and foreign matters that is pulling back the curtains on his incompetence and failure.

Donald Trump Messiah

But did anyone see this coming? In response to a question about his trade war with China, Trump looked to the heavens and proclaimed to reporters today that “I am the chosen one.” Well, maybe if he means chosen by Vladimir Putin. And while some may regard this as typical Trumpian hyperbole, it needs to be viewed in relation to his other recent commentaries.

Trump has long been known to harbor aspirations of dictatorship. He has expressed jealousy over Xi Jinping’s status as “President for Life.” He openly yearned for Putin’s power to “get rid of” the press. But perhaps most troubling is his fervent wish that Americans worship him the way North Koreans do Kim Jong Un. That’s a theme that returned on Wednesday when Trump retweeted Wayne Allyn Root, a notorious conspiracy crackpot who, among other things, was a prominent Birther and believed that the Democratic Party murdered Seth Rich. Trump’s tweets quoted Root saying that…

“President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…and the Jewish people in Israel love him….”

“….like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God…But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for…..”

“…..all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow! @newsmax @foxandfriends @OANN

So Trump’s “America First” mantra is now being set aside to allow him to also be the president of Israel. Even worse, Trump is echoing the blasphemous assertion that he is the “King of Israel” and even the returning Messiah as “the second coming of God.” It’s also notable that Trump is crediting Fox News and the even more radical right One America News Network for these remarks.

For the record, Jews do not believe in the second coming. But Christians in America do. And are they really comfortable with Trump passing along these flagrantly unholy pronouncements? Is there any sacrilege that Trump can commit that will cause his pious devotees to question his omnipotence? Apparently telling more than 12,000 lies won’t do it. Nor will cheating on his three (so far) wives. Although there may be a bit of concern about his potty mouth.

Trump has previously made staggeringly irreligious remarks. For instance, when asked if had ever asked God for forgiveness, he replied that he didn’t need to because he has never done anything wrong:

“I’m trying to lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness. […] Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you’re not making mistakes?”

That, of course, shows that Trump has a painfully misguided interpretation of the tenets of his own alleged Presbyterian faith, including “original sin,” wherein all are born with sin and require God’s forgiveness for salvation. But he also has a perversely delusional image of himself as infallible, a state that Christians believe only Christ had achieved. Which brings us back to these new comments wherein he regards himself as, at least, Christ-like.

In the past few days Trump has delivered abhorrent, anti-Semitic diatribes aimed at Democratic members of Congress, and Democratic voters in general. He said that they are both stupid and disloyal. That’s not only insulting, but it rekindles an old affront to Jews as not being patriotic Americans.

What’s more, it ignores the reality that American Jews are overwhelming Democratic and ardent opponents of Trump. So it’s fair to say that he hasn’t helped himself with that sector of the electorate this week. In fact, he’s just digging himself deeper into an abyss of hatred and division that Americans of all stripes will reject in November of 2020.

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

Trump’s Favorite Pollster Has Him Floundering Near His Lowest Point of the Year

Posted by on August 20, 2019 at 1:08 pm. 2 Comments :

The best way of determining what Donald Trump is most afraid of is by tracking what he’s tweeting about most furiously. Often it’s Democrats who he’s unable to debate on rational terms so he lashies out with racist insults. Other times he’s frantically trying to convince his Deplorables that the country isn’t headed for a painful recession of his own making.

Donald Trump

However, an extraordinary amount of Trump’s limited attention span is frequently consumed with the press that he thinks is engaging in a conspiracy to destroy him. His knee-jerk tirades against what he calls the “fake” news are never backed up by facts, but always dripping with acrimony and the bile of his gushing paranoia.

It’s bad enough when just the news outlets that he loves to attack are reporting honestly about his latest failure (which he hates), but now even his pet news sources are joining the resistance, in his mind. Fox News just released a poll that shows him with a near record high disapproval rating. It also shows the top Democratic challengers beating him in the general election. That, of course, has him hopping mad.

Consequently, he really isn’t going to like the latest polling from his favorite – and most flagrantly biased – pollster, Rasmussen. Trump often tweets every time Rasmussen reports a positive number. But don’t expect him to tweet that his approval rating is now at a dismal (for Rasmussen) 44 percent, with a disapproval of 54 percent. That’s one point off of his worst showing of the year.

Of course, these Rasmussen numbers fluctuate with little connection to real world events. Although in this case the multiple mass shootings a couple of weeks ago, and the effect of Trump’s tariffs on the economy and the pocketbooks of average Americans, may be taking a toll. So naturally Trump takes to Twitter to vent his outrage:

Notice that this eruption of his infamous and reckless “enemy of the people” mantra is not being directed at the media because of their reporting on Trump’s collusion with Russia or his idiotic border wall. Nope, this outburst is because they didn’t sufficiently swoon at the size of his crowd at a New Hampshire cult rally. To trump size matters. And he has been whining about this for several days now. It’s all he has left.

The notion that the media is “corrupt” because they aren’t fawning over the blind devotion of his glassy-eyed followers is patently absurd. Even worse, Trump is boasting that he broke an attendance record set by Elton John at the same venue. But that comparison is ridiculous considering that Elton’s fans paid upwards of $60.00 a piece, while Trump’s red-hatted geeks got in for free. Let him charge sixty bucks and see how many show up.

To sum up, Trump’s attempted negotiations with China, North Korea, Iran, and even allies like Mexico and Europe are falling apart. The nation is livid about his (and his GOP comrades in Congress) negligence to do anything affirmative about guns. Migrant children are still being separated from their parents and housed in cages. And most economists are predicting an imminent recession or worse. No wonder both Fox News and Rasmussen are delivering near record low numbers for Trump. And, as a result, you can expect his behavior to become even more unhinged going forward. It’s as predictable as a Trump casino going bankrupt.

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

Trump Suffers HYSTERICAL Twitter Breakdown, Attacks Former Staffer for Praising Him

Posted by on August 20, 2019 at 8:49 am. 1 Comments :

If there’s one thing that Donald Trump does exceedingly well, it’s to make a total ass of himself without having the self-awareness to know that he’s doing it. Trump embarrasses himself nearly every day with comments that demonstrate either his flagrant ignorance or his brutish and abusive hostility or both. In his narcissistic delusion he believes that everyone of his critics is part of a conspiracy to destroy him. But in reality, no one does a better job of that than Trump himself.

Donald Trump

Case in point: On Monday night Trump posted a video tweet that contains so many of the elements of his psychopathy. But it must be seen to be believed. It features his former friend and staffer, Anthony Scaramucci with this comment: “Nobody ever heard of this dope until he met me. He only lasted 11 days!”

Okay then, let’s take a moment to break this juicy morsel down. And let’s begin with the fact that the video, a compilation of repeated instances of Scaramucci saying flattering things about Trump, is a work of pure idiocy. Why? Because Trump is replaying these tributes right after calling Scaramucci a “dope.” He’s apparently pointing out what a fool Scaramucci is for having said all those nice things. Which is actually a pretty good point. Now, of course, the Mooch says Trump is “crazy, narcissistic,” and “unfit” to serve as president. But Trump didn’t have any video of that.

As for Scaramucci’s notoriety, lots of people had heard of him. Prior to his doomed association with Trump, he was the founder of an international investment banking firm and a frequent guest on Fox News. Trump obviously heard of him, from watching Fox News, of course. That’s where he finds most of his pitifully incompetent staff.

Trump hired Scaramucci as his Communications Director, one of the most important White House jobs, and one of the closest to the President. He was Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ boss. And while Trump often says that he hires “the best people,” this one, as Trump noted, only lasted eleven days. Now Trump says he was an “unstable nut job” who he “barely knew” So you have to wonder if that’s how Trump staffs his entire administration. The record sure suggests that, considering all the people that Trump has hired and later said were incompetent. For instance:

  • His personal attorney, Michael Cohen
  • His campaign chairman and White House Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon
  • Senior Advisor, Omarosa Manigault Newman
  • Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell
  • Attorney General, Jeff Sessions
  • Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson

See the pattern? And now it’s Scaramucci’s turn to bask in the white hot glow of Trump’s wrath. But one of the most delicious ironies of this is that the reason the Mooch only lasted eleven days was because he was caught on tape acting like Trump – an angry, profane bully. Now that he’s become a prominent critic of Trump, the President is doing what he’s done every other time this has happened. Which is to lash out viciously and pretend you never met the guy.

This time, however, Trump thought it would be cool to show Scaramucci praising him over and over again, and then calling him a dope. Which can only be interpreted as Trump saying that Scaramucci is dope because he praised Trump. Can anyone disagree with that?

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

Trump Threatens Fox News: ‘I’m Not Happy with Fox and I’m the One Who Calls the Shots’

Posted by on August 19, 2019 at 12:38 pm. 3 Comments :

The evidence that Fox News is just a subdivision of the Republican Party (or vice versa) continues to pile up. And the closeness of that relationship has never been stronger than it has during the administration of Donald Trump. Fox News and Trump share a profound intimacy wherein the State TV network will unceasingly defend the President and malign his critics, while he generally sings the praises of his most devoted Trump-fluffers. Leaked emails recently revealed the existence of a literal Propaganda pact between Fox News and Trump.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Strange

However, on occasion Trump will have a brief falling out with his PR team at Fox. It usually occurs when a Fox News pundit has the audacity to tell the truth about Trump or to challenge his perceived omnipotence. Foxies like Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith have periodically been victims of Trump’s wrath. But his complaints are never based on any identifiable error in content or facts. Trump just lashes out in unhinged tantrums when someone at Fox is not sufficiently worshipful.

That rare moment of independence presented itself recently when Fox News released the results of its latest poll. The numbers were decidedly negative for Trump, including the finding that the top four candidates for the Democratic nomination for president (Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Harris) handily beat Trump in 2020 general election match ups. Trump never even broke forty percent. The poll’s respondents also gave a much higher favorability rating to the Democratic Party (51/45), than the Republican Party (41/54), which they rated as significantly unfavorable. And in a searing rebuke of Trump’s assessment of his own ability to unify the nation, 59 percent of voters said that he is “tearing the country apart.”

Predictably, Trump went bonkers at Fox daring to deflate his messianic self-image. And he frantically unloaded his outrage during another episode of his “Chopper Talk” reality show that has replaced White House press briefings. It was a jaw-dropping spectacle that confirmed that Trump regards Fox News as an affiliate of the White House that must always be obedient to his demands (video below). He began…

“Fox is a lot different than it used to be, I can tell you that. […] Fox has changed. And my worst polls have always been from Fox. There’s something going on with Fox, I’ll tell you right now. And I’m not happy about it. I don’t know what’s happening with when they have a Juan Williams who’s never said a positive thing. And yet when I show up at the Fox building he’s out there, “Oh sir, can I have a picture with you? Can I have a picture? He’s 100 percent nice.”

First of all, Trump has complained before about Fox News polls that he says “have always been terrible to me.” However, this collection of his own tweets proves that Fox’s polling has often been favorable to him, and he knows it. And it’s interesting that he considers that Juan Williams being polite somehow makes him a hypocrite. That actually tells you something about Trump’s boorish and infantile personality. Then he continued…

“Fox is different, there’s no question about it. And I think they’re making a big mistake because Fox was treated very badly by the Democrats. Very, very badly. Having to do with the debates and other things. I think Fox is making a big mistake because, you know, I’m the one who calls the shots on the really big debates. I guess we’re probably planning on three of them. And I’m not happy with Fox. I’m certainly happy, I think, Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs. I think Tucker Carlson and Laura, Jesse Watters and Jeanine. We have a lot of great people.”

Trump is unambiguously threatening Fox News here. He’s saying that if they don’t start delivering more favorable polling results he might just prohibit them from hosting election debates. He believes that Fox’s polls should not be honest, representative samples of the electorate but, instead, should be aligned with the views of his favorite shills (Hannity, Dobbs, Carlson, etc.) And if they aren’t, then Fox will be punished. Also, his assertion that “WE” have a lot of great people, is a clear indication that in his mind Fox News is part of his regime. TrumpenFox is a monstrous creation that crossbreeds news and politics.

This would be a good time to point out that Trump’s assertion that he “calls the shots” is bullshit. The apolitical, independent Commission on Presidential Debates has sponsored general election presidential debates in every election since 1988. So unless Trump intends to unilaterally rescind that process, he won’t be deciding which networks host the debates.

Of course, given his recklessness and ignorance, Trump just might try to nix the Commission and impose his own terms for debate. That, however, wouldn’t go down well with the Democratic nominee who likely oppose any such move. And if the debates are canceled as a result, it would just make Trump look petty, stubborn, childish, and most of all, scared. Which is unquestionably the true state of his diseased psyche, considering his utter failure to deliver on his campaign promises, and the teetering state of the economy. The American people would see in real time that the Donald Trump who dodged the draft is the same coward dodging the debates.

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

Blindered Trump Flunky Larry Kudlow Doesn’t See a Recession Now, Or in 2007 Either

Posted by on August 18, 2019 at 11:25 am. 1 Comments :

The past week has generated considerable concern about the state of the economy. And among the most anxious observers is Donald Trump, who knows that his reelection is dependent on being able to tout a positive outlook. However, due to his own ignorance and incompetence, the real world isn’t cooperating. The stock market is down for the third consecutive week. The dreaded “yield curve inversion,” a fairly reliable signal of an imminent recession, took place. And there’s a global slowdown in manufacturing and consumption.

Donald Trump Rally Trash

So how is the Trump White House responding to these warnings that will impact every American? They are sending out their most accomplished liars to peddle utterly false impressions of the health of the economy. Topping that list is Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow. He’s a notorious failure whose record for accurate predictions is almost comical. The President hired him after watching his Trump-fluffing performances on Fox News.

On Sunday morning Kudlow made the news talkies circuit to blatantly mislead the nation about their economic future. His performance was notably ineffective, at least partly because he appeared to be stinking drunk, which the Internet couldn’t help but notice. More importantly, his summary of the rosy scenario that the White House is pitching could not have been more deliberately deceitful. In an exchange with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Kudlow engaged in this fantasy (video below):

Todd: The private sector seems to be concerned about the trade war with China, that there are some rough waters ahead. Maybe a recession, that those odds have risen. What do you see?
Kudlow: Well, I tell you what. I sure don’t see a recession. […] Most economists on Wall Street towards the end of the week have been marking up their forecasts for the third and fourth quarter. That echoes our view. What we’ve got here, consumers are working at higher wages. They are spending at a rapid pace. They’re actually also saving while they’re spending as an ideal situation. So actually I think the second half of the economy is going to be very good in 2019. No, I sure don’t see a recession.

First of all, it is patently untrue that “most economists on Wall Street … have been marking up their forecasts.” To the contrary, many have been sending up flares to warn of what they see as an inevitable decline. To be sure there are those with more optimistic views, but those types of Pollyannas have always been around just prior to the sky actually falling. Case in point…Larry Kudlow in 2007, who insisted that “The pessimistas were wrong…There’s no recession coming.” That was just a few months before the worst recession in nearly a century:

Kudlow went on to justify his horribly missed call by lying that “Every other forecaster” was saying the same thing. While he was not alone, there were some more accurate predictors, including current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. And Warren is cautioning people to be aware of another similar downturn. Some of the indicators are economists’ estimates of third-quarter GDP growth at about two per cent, way short of the four percent that Trump promised. Also, the manufacturing sector is slumping with output that has fallen 0.4 percent in July. Plus, the University of Michigan’s survey-based index of consumer confidence fell sharply in August, reaching its lowest level since 2016.

Meanwhile, Trump is telling his glassy-eyed disciples attending his cult rallies that “You have no choice but to vote for me, because your 401(k), everything is going to be down the tubes. Whether you love me or hate me, you have got to vote for me.” So did Trump just admit that voting for him would result in an economic catastrophe? That would be uncharacteristically honest of him.

Of course, he didn’t actually mean that. He was engaging in his classic brand of fear mongering to make sure his cult followers stay frightened and in line. But the truth is that Trump couldn’t care less about the financial prospects of the American people. He is solely focused on his own interests – either personal finances or reelection – and that is what’s driving everything he does and says. His Deplorables won’t learn that until it’s too late. But hopefully they will be spared that suffering, which can be avoided if citizens come together to vote Trump out or back Congressional efforts to impeach him.

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

Is Trump’s Obsession with Crowd Size Masking His Latent Insecurity and Impotence?

Posted by on August 17, 2019 at 1:30 pm. 4 Comments :

On Thursday Donald Trump held the latest of his White Nationalist Cult Rallies in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was a routine outing wherein he regaled his disciples with the same old playlist of rancor and lies that comprise every Trump event. Apparently the StormTrumpers never tire of hearing him call Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, promise to build a an idiotic wall on the southern border, lie about Democrats, and brag about himself for things he never did.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Another staple of Trump’s rally protocol is to deliver post-event reports about how awesome and beloved he is. The size of his crowds has been an obsession since the pitiful attendance at his inauguration. Judging by the attention that he continues to pay to this self-flattery, it’s more important than anything he says in his rambling, mostly incoherent speeches. And the aftermath of this address was no different. In an attempt to create a false impression of his indomitable popularity, it was not sufficient to post a single boastful tweet. No, it took five frantic tweets for Trump to hail the worshipful adulation of his cult followers.

The tweets covered a variety of egocentric obsessions including: a general thanks for showing up; a specious claim to record breaking attendance; another false assertion that the “Placed (sic) was maxed out”; a command to look at what he vainly called “tremendous overflow“; and finally, he reiterated, without evidence, that he had drawn the “Biggest crowd EVER,” while also whining about the media coverage, which he said was “fake” and the work of “the enemy of the people.”

Needless to say, Trump was lying about his “maxed out” crowd. And the proof of that was in video images on Fox News of empty seats directly behind him as he was speaking. Another notable problem with these tweets is that they violate federal law. While Trump is allowed to hold campaign rallies, his Twitter feed is an official platform of White House business. As such it cannot be used for politicking. Not that federal law would deter a recidivist criminal like Trump.

There is good reason for a sick braggart like Trump to be plagued by – and over-compensating for – his own inadequacies. A recent poll by his pals at Fox News found that the top four candidates for the Democratic nomination for president (Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Harris) handily beat Trump in 2020 general election match ups. In fact, Trump doesn’t even break 40 percent. He’s also trying to avoid the reality that his failed economic policies are leading the nation into the Trump Recession. All of this portends disaster for the Trump reelection effort.

Still, with the abundance of bad news that surrounds him, you have to wonder what sort of deranged mind is so singularly focused on persuading everyone that he is the subject of undying adoration. Rather than present himself as a competent steward of the government who is working hard to make things better, Trump is singing his own praises as a public attraction. This is a holdover neuroses from being a reality TV personality. Even worse, it’s Trump’s malignant narcissism that drives him to such humiliating gestures of self-acclaim.

A garden variety egotist would be satisfied with others paying him tribute. But Trump surpassed that level of psychosis decades ago. He’s a knotted ball of insecurities who knows deep down that he’s an incompetent failure. And that suppressed knowledge dooms him to an existence of flaccid impotence as a leader and a man. The problem is that it’s also hurting an entire nation of innocent victims of his ignorance and misdirected vengeance. Hopefully, we won’t have to stand for that much longer. If Trump isn’t impeached, he is likely going to suffer the ultimate humiliation when he’s voted out of office and indicted for crimes against America.

UPDATE: On Saturday afternoon Trump added fourteen (14!) more self-congratulatory tweets, mostly from random, anonymous fans slobbering over him. He’s even sicker than I thought.

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

The Propaganda Pact Between Fox News and Trump Revealed in Disturbing New Emails

Posted by on August 16, 2019 at 1:25 pm. 1 Comments :

The parasitic relationship between right-wing Republicans and Fox News has been well documented for most of the network’s existence. Few people were fooled by their original tagline (which they have since abandoned) that declared the network “fair and balanced.” The partnership of an ultra conservative Australian media mogul (Rupert Murdoch) and a Republican media consultant (Roger Ailes) was enough to paint a clear picture of the political bias built into the operation.

Donald Trump Fox News

Nevertheless, it is still worthwhile to make note of significant confirmations of Fox’s deceitful intentions, especially when it comes from within the organization itself. That’s what happened when Jeremy Barr of the Hollywood Reporter published emails that were acquired by a non-profit group through the Freedom of Information Act. The correspondence shows just how tightly integrated Fox News is with Donald Trump and his administration. The network was caught red-handed doing the bidding of the White House and its executive branch departments.

“A trove of Treasury Department emails released to the non-profit organization Democracy Forward and provided exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter this week paint a picture of a close, friendly bond between the Trump administration agency and two news organizations, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.

“The 270 pages of email correspondence were obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and detail conversations that took place in 2017 and 2018.”

Among the brazenly inappropriate interactions were several that occurred between Fox News anchor David Asman and Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh, who is also a former Fox News contributor. Asman actually gave Sayegh policy advice prior to Trump’s massive tax scam reform. “Take the BIG TAX CUTS NOW,” Asman suggested, “a long-term deal with small cuts is useless.” A few days later Asman told Sayegh that the network would be airing a segment on Trump’s tax policies and promised Sayegh that “You’ll like it.”

On another occasion, Treasury aide Jason Chung contacted Fox to ask that they make changes to a Fox Business Network article. The author of the article was only too happy to comply, responding
“Jason, I just did exactly what you asked me to do.” And last year emails were uncovered that show that Fox News allowed the White House to approve a script for a segment with Scott Pruitt, the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency at the time. That was such an egregious breach of journalistic ethics that Fox even addressed it, but only with a vague statement that they had “disciplined the employees involved.”

The marriage of Trump’s White House and Fox News is as strong as ever. They share numerous personnel who have worked for both entities. Fox can always be counted on to savagely malign Trump’s critics and political foes. And Trump-fluffers like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Tucker Carlson, and Lou Dobbs can be depended on for endless epistles of adoration. These and other network shills will predictably rise to defend Trump no matter how repulsive his words or deeds, as demonstrated by how they turned baby cages into summer camps. On Thursday Fox was the only cable news network to air Trump’s New Hampshire cult rally live. We can expect that sort of special treatment to continue, while any bad news for Trump (and there has been a lot lately) is suppressed.

Fox is even muzzling reports of its own poll that showed Trump disapproval at a near record high. The poll also showed that all four of the Democratic candidates tested in the poll (Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Harris) beat Trump in 2020 matchups. Trump never even broke forty percent. The poll’s respondents gave a much higher favorability rating to the Democratic Party (51/45), than the Republican Party (41/54), which they rated as significantly unfavorable. And in a searing rebuke of Trump’s assessment of his own ability to unify the nation, 59 percent of voters said that he is “tearing the country apart.” No wonder Fox News isn’t giving much airtime to these poll results. And again, this is their own poll.

We can expect this sort of deliberate disinformation to persist throughout the upcoming presidential election cycle. Fox News will bury anything they deem to be negative for Trump, while lashing out viciously – and dishonestly – at Democrats and what they regard as their “fake” news competitors. They will continue to collude with Trump to produce flattering coverage of him and the state of the union, even if the nation plunges into recession, which seems increasingly likely. In fact, they will collude with anyone who seeks the same rightist objectives as they do. So as Trump said in the 2016 election: “Russia, are you listening?”

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

Trump’s Collusion with Russia and Obstruction of Justice are Still on America’s Mind

Posted by on August 15, 2019 at 1:01 pm. 0 Comments :

There has been a flurry of profoundly significant news stories over the past few days and weeks. They include the stock market’s biggest point drop of the year (and a harbinger of recession), the death of Donald Trump’s pedophile pal, Jeffrey Epstein (and Trump’s promotion of an insane conspiracy theory explaining it), and a week of mass shootings in the streets of America (at least partially incited by Trump’s hostile and racist rhetoric).

Donald Trump Impeach

However, the biggest story of the year is one that has been on the minds of most Americans for months. Earlier this year special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report on the activities of Trump and his campaign with regard to Russia’s attack on the American presidential election. The report contained damning evidence of tolerance at best, and conspiracy at worst, by Trump and his closest associates in Russia’s effort to install Trump as president. There were also multiple examples of how Trump engaged in blatant obstruction of justice to cover up his embrace of Russia’s attack and his complicity with it. Mueller himself affirmed those conclusions in his congressional testimony. It was so obvious that even the Senior Legal Analyst at Fox News reported that Trump’s actions were “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.”

One of the most peculiar and disturbing characteristics of the Trump era is that his scandalous behavior is unleashed with such frequency and speed that it’s hard for most Americans and the press to keep up. And each new offense shoves the previous ones off of the front pages. But the matter of Trump’s treasonous collusion with Russia has managed to remain at the top of the nation’s conscience. And a finding by Politico reveals just how concerned the people still are:

“According to data obtained by POLITICO under the Freedom of Information Act, the special counsel’s final report was downloaded nearly 800 million times from DOJ’s website between its public release in mid-April and early July.” […]

“Mueller’s report didn’t do so bad on the commercial side, either, even with the DOJ making the special counsel’s findings available for free. Several publishers have been selling their own versions of the report, including one published by the Washington Post that spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.”

Nearly a billion downloads, and it’s still ongoing. That’s a remarkable statistic. Of course, this figure doesn’t account for some people downloading the report more than once. But that’s not likely to have happened very much. Even if everyone downloaded two copies it would be phenomenal. It would mean that every man, woman, and child, in the country got two copies (and then some). It represents an intense interest on the part of the American people to obtain the facts in this matter.

Members of Congress who are conducting their own investigations should be encouraged that their constituents are so engaged. Even when other news takes precedence over the Russia story, the people have not forgotten it. Recent polls show that up to 50 percent of voters favor impeachment. Even a Fox News poll (despite the fact that they lied about it). So while the country deals with other important issues like the economy and gun control, no one should neglect what is is the most troubling and overarching issue of our time: that the President of the United States welcomed and encouraged electoral help from a hostile foreign nation, and then sought to hide that from the law and the people.

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

Trump is Panic-Tweeting Fox News Denials of Imminent Threat of the Trump Recession

Posted by on August 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump has failed at nearly everything he promised to accomplish. There is no wall on the southern border. HIllary Clinton has not been locked up. He has no denuclearization deals with Iran or North Korea, no trade deals with China or Mexico or the EU, no infrastructure bill, and Obamacare has neither been repealed nor replaced.

Donald Trump, Stock Market

The one key issue that Trump has been clinging to for two years is his argument that the economy is booming. Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that that isn’t true. Many critical indicators such as wage growth and job creation are lagging (and trailing Obama’s record). But Trump has been using the stock market as his evidence of a strong economy. That, of course, demonstrates his ignorance of economics. The stock market only reflects the value of equities that are mainly traded by giant financial institutions. It is not a gauge of the economies health.

However, now even Trump’s misapplied measuring stick is biting him in the asinine analyses he’s been peddling. On Wednesday the market has fallen off a cliff, and specifically due to Trump’s ill-considered policies on trade and taxes. And the site of this downturn has thrown him into a tizzy of excuse-making. If he doesn’t have this to brag about, he’s got nothing but his racism left to hold his cult together.

Consequently, Trump unleashed a series of tweets intended to shore up the catastrophic financial news of the day. And they leaned heavily on his top economic advisers at the White House – er, I mean at Fox News. Trump’s Shadow Cabinet was busily papering over the bitter truth that everyone can plainly see. And Trump embraced it frantically for fear of having to take any responsibility. Rest assured that he will greedily steal credit for the economic boom times from 2010 to 2017, during the Obama administration, but blame Obama for the crash of 2019.

The tweetstorm began with a familiar Trump whine: “The Fed has got to do something! The Fed is the Central Bank of the United States, not the Central Bank of the World.” Indeed. And the Fed is doing its job. But that job is not to save the stock market. It is to manage inflation and to promote monetary and financial system stability. Trump only wants the Fed to cut interest rates for his own selfish interests. First, he hopes that it would artificially stimulate further over-exuberance in the stock market, boosting his reelection prospects. And secondly, it would reduce his own interest payments on over $350 million dollars of outstanding variable interest loans.

The next tweet was another Fox News reference wherein they blindly praised Trump’s tariffs saying that “you can’t tell me that it has hurt our economy.” That’s obviously true. Not the part that tariffs haven’t hurt the economy (they have), but the part where he says you can’t tell him that. And you can’t tell Trump that (or anything) either. It’s like yelling a non-existent border wall. He will continue to tell the same lies, even after he’s been proven to have lied.

Trump then tweeted that “Tremendous amounts of money pouring into the United States,” because “People want safety!” That completely contradicts the movement in the markets. Then Trump quote-tweeted another Fox flunky who said that Fed Chair Jay Powell was making mistakes by, among other things, being “data dependant.” Because why would anyone want to rely on actual data to make important decisions? That’s goes against the core philosophy of the Trump Doctrine of Alternative Facts.

LATE ADDITION: Trump squeezed out another couple tweets on this subject in the afternoon. One declared defensively, and without foundation, that “We are winning, big time, against China,” before deciding that “China is not our problem … Our problem is with the Fed.” That led into the second tweet that lashed out at “clueless Jay Powell” and the “CRAZY INVERTED YIELD CURVE!” This was not only a display of Trump’s wildly unbalanced mental state, but further evidence that he doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.

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

So as the stock market descends, Trump grasps for support from his State TV fluffers who he knows will always prop him up, no matter how ludicrous and desperately they have to revise reality. There is no coherent argument that justifies Trump’s failures but, fortunately for him, Fox News is adept at spinning lies for any occasion. And the glassy-eyed Deplorables will believe anything that Dear Leader tells them.