Scandalous

Terrified that His Taxes Will Become Public, Trump Sics His DOJ on the Supreme Court

Posted by on November 23, 2019 at 11:35 am. 7 Comments :

Last week’s impeachment hearings revealed overwhelming evidence of the criminal behavior of Donald Trump. The witnesses were largely from his own administration, including Dr. Fiona Hill who was a top aide to Trump’s ultra-conservative National Security Advisor, John Bolton. And every one of them testified that Trump improperly threatened to withhold military funds from Ukraine unless they helped him smear a political rival. In fact, Trump himself admitted it.

Donald Trump

However, in just the few hours since the hearings adjourned, there have been some startling stories of corruption and dirty dealing by Trump and his sycophantic defenders. The ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has been implicated in a scandal of his own wherein he was seeking foreign assistance to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Which is precisely the crime that the Committee is investigating Trump for. As for Trump, he visited his Friends at Fox News to spread propaganda manufactured by Russia. But These aren’t the only problems Trump faces.

The state of New York has been trying to get Trump’s tax returns as evidence in a case probing alleged campaign finance violations. Trump, of course, has been refusing to cooperate, but having lost in the lower courts, Trump is taking his challenge to the Supreme Court. In advance of any decision, the Department of Justice is now weighing in with their own opinion. And naturally they are siding with Trump. This is just further proof that Attorney Genuflect Bill Barr is a toady for Trump who is breaching his oath to serve the American people.

There is no justification for the DOJ to interfere with this litigation. It is outside of the purview of the Department as it involves Trump personally and is not associated with his duties as president. What’s more, the case that the DOJ is presenting to the Supreme Court is typically biased, shallow, and weak on legal rationale. According to their filing…

“The brief, filed by Solicitor General Noel Francisco, says allowing Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance to obtain the tax returns would create a precedent that ‘may subject the president to highly burdensome demands for information’ and ‘raises the risk that prosecutors could use subpoenas to harass the president as a result of opposition to his policies.'”

Literally none of that is is justification for the Justice Department to interfere with this case. The President is not immune to investigations by state prosecutors. And it isn’t the DOJ’s job to define what constitutes a “burden” to the President. Nor is the DOJ permitted to insert itself into what may or may not be a political affair. The President has his personal attorneys for those purposes. The brief went on to say that…

“’The United States has a substantial interest in protecting the office of the president and the powers and duties vested in that office,’ the brief reportedly reads. ‘The United States also has a substantial interest in protecting the autonomy of the federal government from potential interference by the states.'”

To the extent that the DOJ is tasked with “protecting the office of the president,” it is limited to the his official duties, not his personal affairs. Especially those that took place prior to his election. However, the argument that the DOJ has an interest in protecting the President “from potential interference by the states,” is downright ludicrous. It is, in effect, a claim to protect the President from the nation he is sworn to serve. If upheld it would set a precedent that allows any president to violate state laws with impunity. And along with the tax laws that are central to this case, that could include rape and murder.

Trump’s stubborn refusal to release his taxes – as every other president in modern times has done – is a pretty good indication that there is something terribly wrong hidden in them. He isn’t even pretending to be audited anymore. Now he claims that just asking to see his returns is an abuse of power. He’s just sending his lackeys out to make absurd arguments in the hopes that he can keep his skeletons in the closet. And while the DOJ’s case is so thin as to be laughable, it is not outside the realm of possibility that it will be received favorably by a Supreme Court that is stacked with right-wingers and Trump appointees. Time will tell if they honor the law and the Constitution more than their misplaced loyalty to a criminal president.

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

Trump Brings His Crowdstrike Conspiracy Theory Clown Show to Fox News

Posted by on November 22, 2019 at 2:02 pm. 4 Comments :

No one is going to be surprised to hear that Donald Trump unleashed another flurry of flagrant lies in a barely coherent attempt to extract himself from the impeachment quandary that is burying him. But the weakness of his latest arguments is a cringeworthy display of intellectual impotence.

Donald Trump, Pennywise

Trump made yet another appearance on his favorite Fox News morning program, Fox and Friends. He called in to chat with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes and to rail against his perceived enemies in Congress and the media. It was a forty-five minute spectacle of deranged babbling that even Fox’s hosts seemed to find excessive and exasperating.

Among the myriad of topics that Trump meandered about as he vainly sought to persuade people that he isn’t criminally insane, was one that he has been obsessed with for three years. It is also one that has been certified as Russian propaganda. The subject concerns his bizarre notion that a computer server belonging to the Democratic National Committee contains some unspecified evidence of wrongdoing by Democrats. And that server has somehow been transported to Ukraine for unknown reasons. It’s all pretty ludicrous, but oh so Trumpian. His wildly careening rant eventually led to this screwball soliloquy (video below):

“They have the server from the DNC, Democratic National Committee. The FBI went in they told them ‘Get outta here. We’re not giving it to you.’ They gave the server to Crowdstrike, or whatever you call it. Which is a country…a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. And I still wanna see that server. You know the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company.”

Literally everything in that outburst is false. There is no evidence whatsoever that Ukrainians have any DNC server. Democrats never told the FBI that they couldn’t have it. Infact, the DNC provided the FBI with a mirror copy of it, which is all the FBI ever asked for. Crowdstrike is not owned by a wealthy Ukrainian. It’s actually a publicly owned U.S. technology company based in Sunnyvale, California. It was founded by two American citizens, one of whom was born in Russia. It would be difficult for Trump to have gotten more wrong in this statement. It was so preposterous that even Fox’s co-host Steve Doocy questioned it:

Doocy: Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?
Trump: Well, that’s what the word is.

So we have now descended to the point that the President of the United States is justifying his ridiculous conspiracy theories by citing “the word” of unnamed rumor mongers. Trump’s former White House Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert, recently addressed this nonsense saying that “It’s not only a conspiracy theory, it is completely debunked.” Bossert was also troubled by the fact that this theory was being propagated by Trump’s personal attorney, and executive tripe wrangler, Rudy Giuliani.

This isn’t the first time Trump has gone haywire over the Case of the Mysterious Server Just last month he seemed to have had a mental malfunction that produced this unholy gibberish:

“I still ask the FBI, where is the server? How come the FBI never got the server from the DNC? Where is the server? I want to see the server. Let’s see what’s on the server. So the server they say is held by a company whose primary ownership individual is from Ukraine. I would like to see the server. I think it’s very important for this country to see the server. Nobody wants to see it. The media never wants to see it. I’ll tell you, Republicans want to see it.”

And if you think the text of that is wacko, you should see the video It is one of the best arguments for the impeachment of Trump as an urgent necessity. But if that isn’t enough, Trump also told the Fox Friends that “If I didn’t fire Comey, I would be in some trouble right now … It turns out to be the best move I ever made, firing Comey, because they were trying to take me down.” And that is as blatant a confession of abuse of power and obstruction of justice as you’re ever likely to see on television. Trump seems to be determined to impeach himself. So let’s help him out and get it done.

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

Trump Keeps Whining About Impeachment, So Why Doesn’t He Offer a Defense?

Posted by on November 21, 2019 at 12:29 pm. 5 Comments :

One of Donald Trump’s most frequently articulated complaints is that the impeachment hearings are being conducted in a manner that is unfair to him. He grumbles daily (hourly) about due process and wonders why his attorney isn’t allowed to cross-examine the witnesses. Nevermind that everyone knows that “defendants” are not permitted legal representation during an investigation. That right kicks in at trial.

Donald Trump, Impeach

Apparently Trump believes that police detectives must drag the suspect’s lawyer around with them when they conduct interviews. He has surely been told that that isn’t true, but he clings to this absurdity anyway. He also must know that Congress is in an investigatory phase of impeachment. His perspective is already being presented by the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. But if he is concerned that fact witnesses who support his positions aren’t being heard, it’s only because he has refused to allow them to testify. What’s more, there is nothing preventing him from testifying himself. He often says that he is his own best spokesman. However, on this matter he is clearly afraid to speak on his own behalf under oath.

Consequently, Trump resorts to his favored mode of communication: his Twitter machine. On Thursday morning he pounded out seventeen (17!) tweets mostly obsessing about impeachment and the raw deal he thinks he’s been dealt. And the one thing they all have in common is that they completely avoid any substantive defense for his actions. Not a single time does he provide any exculpatory evidence or even an argument that contains some rational account of his innocence.

For the most part, Trump’s tweets focus on attacking either the press or his perceived enemies in Congress. Chief among his targets is Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who Trump, in his infantile way, likes to call Adam “Schitt.” But more to the point, his rage-tweeting included this lament that his fantasies aren’t aligned with the real world:

Anyone paying attention has heard Trump’s tiresome and repetitive declarations that his phone calls with Ukrainian President Zelensky were “perfect,” whatever that means. However, the “transcripts” (actually summary memos) explicitly reveal that Trump did link U.S. military aid to Ukraine digging up dirt on Joe Biden (aka quid pro quo/bribery/extortion). And Trump’s hostility and fear of Schiff was just getting warmed up:

It’s important to note that Trump never details what he thinks makes Schiff corrupt. It’s simply an ad hominem attack intended to rile up his base and salve his tender ego. That’s why he lashes out with blanket insults that malign anyone who dares to criticize him as “human scum.” And yet, somehow he he still has the audacity to contend that he’s “winning big” which, were it true, you would expect him to stop crying over it so much. When has an actual winner ever been so obsessed with all the evidence of him being a loser? But Trump’s angst-ridden anxiety was still just getting started. He still needed to parrot something utterly false that he had just seen on Fox News:

First of all, the man who has been documented as having told more than 13,000 lies ought not to be maligning the honesty of anyone else. Particularly when he can’t cite a single falsehood. Furthermore, the comments Trump quoted from Fox News are easily debunked. The Committee rules are public information. There is nothing in them that gives Schiff the power “unilaterally to release edited transcripts.” All transcripts are reviewed for accuracy by both parties and even the witnesses.

As for the Committee jurisdiction, that is entirely the purview of the majority Democrats and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who also scares the bejesus out of Trump. For the record, Schiff’s committee has been designated as one of several investigating committees. Eventually, the Judiciary Committee will preside over impeachment, if there is one.

The fact that Trump communicates so frequently, and with such vigor, however never bothers to offer a substantive defense, is indicative of one thing: He has no defense. That is affirmed by the questioning by Republicans during the impeachment hearings wherein they completely avoid substance in favor of innuendo, conspiracy theories, and baseless, tabloid-style accusations. If Trump had a coherent defense he would use it. And he would allow those he claims are his supporters to present their case before the committee. That’s the big question. Why would an innocent man prohibit the testimony of those he says would exonerate him? Hmmm?

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

Translating Trump’s Impeachment Video Wherein He Whines About What a Victim He Is

Posted by on November 13, 2019 at 11:11 am. 5 Comments :

On the morning that Congress began their impeachment inquiry, Donald Trump went bonkers with a frantic flurry of furious and fearful tweets. There were 24 of them – including 17 retweets from Fox News and other worshipful Trump-fluffers in the Congress and the press – all before 9:00 AM. It demonstrates a mindset of total desperation in advance of what he must know is serious legal and political peril.

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

Among these Twitter tantrums was a brand new video that Trump produced to summarize his defense (see below). It’s typical of his whining that is such a painful embarrassment to the nation as its president – commonly regarded as the most powerful man on Earth – wallows in his victimhood and prostrates himself publicly in an attempt to avoid accountability.

Trump has shown an astonishing inability to comprehend the process that he’s entangled in. He could really use a remedial course in impeachment to even begin to grasp the situation. He still thinks that he’s entitled to due process during the impeachment’s investigative phase, which no investigation permits. And he has an intense yearning to expose the identity of the whistleblower, whose testimony is no longer needed because Trump publicly admitted to what the whistleblower alleged. His Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, also admitted it.

It’s in that state of open confession and willful ignorance that Trump put out his video. So let’s take a look at at it and translate his self-serving disinformation into what he was really thinking.

TRUMP: What’s going on now is the single greatest scam in the history of America politics.
REALITY: What’s going on now is likely to land me in prison and I don’t have a single substantive response. So I’ll lash out with a vague and vacant allegation for which there is no factual basis.

TRUMP: The Democrats want to take away your guns.
REALITY: The Democrats need to be absurdly accused of things that they have never advocated.

TRUMP: They want to take away your healthcare.
REALITY: And those accusations must include allegations that are better directed at me since all I’ve ever done is try to sabotage the healthcare of millions of Americans.

TRUMP: They want to take away your vote.
REALITY: Democrats want to take away my ability to steal elections by cutting off access to voting and conspiring with foreign dictators.

TRUMP: They want to take away your freedom.
REALITY: Democrats want to take away my freedom to lash out with bizarre and irrelevant outbursts stemming from my incoherent rage.

TRUMP: They want to take away your judges.
REALITY: And I might as well throw in exactly what I’ve been doing with the help Senate GOP Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell.

TRUMP: They want to take away everything.
REALITY: Oh hell, I’ll just throw in the friggin’ kitchen sink. None of what I’m saying makes any sense anyway.

TRUMP: We can never let this happen. We’re fighting to drain the swamp.
REALITY: We can never let people catch on that I’m the King of the Swamp.

TRUMP: And you see why we have to do it. Because our country is at stake like never before.
REALITY: I must be sure to fear monger so that my cult disciples will be suitably scared and blindly loyal.

TRUMP: It’s all very simple. They’re trying to stop me because I’m fighting for you. And I’ll never let that happen.
REALITY: It’s all very simple. I’m fighting for myself and any challenge to my aspirations to tyrannical authority will never be allowed.

Trump is residing in fantasy world that he desperately wants to invite his followers to move into. There is nothing in this video that even remotely refutes the allegations against Trump. But even worse, it is loaded with flagrantly untrue assertions and insults to his political foes. And this is his final retort as these historic hearings commence. That doesn’t bode well for his future if this is his best argument on his own behalf. But it’s good news for patriotic Americans who believe that people in power are not above the law.

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

WTF? Fox News Hack Says Ukraine Isn’t a ‘Sexy’ Enough Scandal to Impeach Trump

Posted by on November 9, 2019 at 1:18 pm. 4 Comments :

Just when you thought that The Onion had not really taken over Fox News and replaced their vile Trump-fluffing with biting satire, a segment is aired that is so mind-numbingly idiotic that it could only be regarded as comedy. Except that it isn’t.

Donald Trump, Pervert

On Friday’s episode of “The Five” (a title that seems to be derived from the combined IQ of it’s right-wing panelists), co-host Jesse Watters delivered a commentary (video below) that purported to be his defense of Donald Trump’s extortion of Ukrainian President Zelensky. To be sure, there are few coherent arguments that excuse Trump for unlawfully withholding military aid unless Zelensky dug up dirt on Joe Biden. Especially after Trump admitted it. But Watters went above and beyond his everyday bootlicking duty to unload a laughably idiotic tirade that not only utterly failed to exonerate Trump, it also insulted every American in the process. He began…

“Leave it to the Democrats to make impeachment boring. This is about a transcript of a phone call with a country no one cares about. These are about transcripts from a deposition that we can’t even watch on television. And what do the transcripts say? It’s from the Under-Secretary of Affairs for Energy Policy at the EU. These aren’t household names. They aren’t heavy hitters. Wake me up when the big dogs testify in public.”

So right off the bat Watters reveals that in order for an impeachment inquiry to be credible, it has to stimulate him. Because “boring” (to him) violations of the Constitution should be ignored and those committing such crimes should be given a free pass. And his assertion that Ukraine is “a country no one cares about” exposes just how dysfunctional his puny little mind is.

What’s more, Watters seems to think that only TV-worthy crimes, committed by “household names,” should be prosecuted. For the record, none of the witnesses was an “Under-Secretary of Affairs for Energy Policy at the EU.” And most objective persons would regard the actual witnesses (National Security Council Russia advisor Fiona Hill, NSC Ukraine expert Alexander Vindman, Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sonderland, Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, and Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch) as pretty heavy hitters. So maybe Watters should wake the f**k up. He continued…

“The other thing is, no one can find Ukraine on the map. If you ask the American people anything about Ukraine they don’t know a thing about it. Americans care about a few countries. They care about Saudi Arabia. They care about Israel. They care about Russia, China and Mexico. That’s it. Ukraine doesn’t rise to the level of a country that people care about.”

Here Watters is making the argument that Americans are so stupid that they can’t be bothered with all of the trivialities about which he claims they are ignorant. That should endear him to the nation. However, it’s a safe bet that Trump couldn’t find Ukraine (or the U.S.) on map either, unless he marked it with a sharpie beforehand. And Watters’ list of the countries that Americans care about depicts them all as slack-jawed yokels. Perhaps Watters is just referring to himself and the Trump voters he knows best. And he continued…

“We’re talking about a military aid package to a country that, I guess needs help, but that a lot of people don’t care that much about. If you turn on television you see a reporter standing in Congress saying someone was hearing something from someone else who was concerned about a military aid package. It’s obsolutely (sic) not registering in the American people’s frame because it’s not a sexy scandal.”

Watters must not regard the members of Congress as “a lot of people,” since they cared enough about Ukraine to allocate $390 million for their defense against the aggressions of Russia. As to whether or not this scandal is registering with the American people, most polls show that they favor impeaching Trump and removing him from office.

Worst of all is Watters bizarre assertion that a scandal must be “sexy” in order for the American people to have any interest in it. That probably exposes the perversions of Watters himself, rather than any insight into the American populace. Watters must think that if it doesn’t involve a Democrat getting a blow job it doesn’t qualify as a scandal. It is also another insult to Americans that he already said are stupid.

But if it’s a sexy scandal that Watters wants, he need look no further than Trump’s predatory sexual harassment and assault of more than forty women. But for some reason, and contrary to Watters’ premise, this nauseating “sex” scandal isn’t getting all that much attention – yet. Maybe Watters should bring it up on his program, if he can stop drooling long enough.

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

HOLY CREEP! Trump Admits to Using the U.S. Military Budget to Bribe Voters

Posted by on November 5, 2019 at 11:55 am. 5 Comments :

The degree to which Donald Trump lacks any hint of self-awareness is mind boggling. He shamelessly boasts about having record-breaking support among Republicans when that support is actually in decline. He demands that the whistleblower testify while, in the same breath, insists that nobody should testify. He pretends that he’s not worried about being impeached, but can’t stop talking – or tweeting – about it.

Donald Trump, Prison

Now, as Trump is being shredded by an avalanche of evidence that he extorted Ukrainian President Zelensky in order to get dirt on Joe Biden, Trump is simultaneously engaging in a another flagrant case of bribery. This one centers around the off-year elections that are now being held in several states. Trump has been consumed with campaigning in the past few weeks, focusing on those states. Both his tweets and his cult rallies have been centered around the election calendar. But in a disturbing Tuesday tweet Trump literally confessed to a bribery scheme to get votes:

This is one of the most brazen admissions of criminal electioneering ever. It begins with Trump reminding the people of Virgina of his “genorosity” with federal dollars. That, of course, isn’t true. Trump has even diverted military funds to building his vanity border wall, which won’t help Virginia in the slightest. And then Trump holds the promise of future spending in the state over their heads. He is plainly trying to frighten Virginia voters with threats that federal allocations will dry up if they don’t vote for him. And we know that Trump is not shy about abusing his power to punish those he doesn’t deem sufficietly worshipful.

This tweet cannot be interpreted as anything other than a bribe. He is trying to appeal to Virginians who are reliant on federal funds for jobs and the economic boost that military facilities bring to localities. That is illegal on its face. It is also a breach of national security as it directs the allocations of military funding based on Trump’s political whims, rather than the needs of the nation’s armed forces. In that respect, Trump is violating his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

For Trump to openly admit to this criminal activity is both shocking and predictable. His capacity for breaking the law and bragging about it is unheard of in American politics. And the saddest part of it all is that he so often gets away with it. As the current impeachment inquiry progresses, hopefully Trump will finally be held accountable for at least a few of his crimes. Were there any realistic administration of justice, Trump would never get out of prison.

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

Trump’s Impotent Response to Impeachment Vote is Flagrantly Delusional and Dishonest

Posted by on October 31, 2019 at 11:47 am. 3 Comments :

On Thursday morning the House of Representatives did what Donald Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party has been asking for. They voted to proceed with the impeachment inquiry in an open, accessible manner that permits the GOP to review all documents and transcripts, issue subpoenas, and cross-examine witnesses. So naturally Trump and Republicans are still whining.

Donald Trump, Impeach

The spectacle of a president whining like a petulant child seems unthinkable, but for Trump it is business as usual. During his campaign he actually bragged that he is “the most fabulous whiner.” And he has spent his presidency proving it. Now, with the walls closing in around him, Trump is lashing out incoherently in a panicked effort to escape accountability for his treasonous misconduct. In an official statement from the White House, Trump laid out an impotent case for his acquittal. Let’s take a closer look at the full statement with some explanatory annotations:

“The President has done nothing wrong, and the Democrats know it.”

The President has done a great many things wrong and, unfortunately for him, the Democrats and a majority of Americans know it. Among his criminal and impeachable offenses are extortion, campaign finance violations, witness intimidation, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy against the United States.

“Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats’ unhinged obsession with this illegitimate impeachment proceeding does not hurt President Trump; it hurts the American people.”

The right calls everything Democrats do unhinged and partisan, so those labels have lost any meaning or relevance. As for the impeachment hurting the American people, that’s impossible considering that fact that a majority of them are in favor of it.

“Instead of focusing on pressing issues that impact real families, like reducing gun violence, passing the USMCA, improving healthcare, lowering prescription drug costs, securing our southern border, and modernizing our aging infrastructure, the Democrats are choosing every day to waste time on a sham impeachment—a blatantly partisan attempt to destroy the President.”

Democrats in the House of Representatives have passed bills addressing nearly all of those issues, plus more than 300 others. It’s the GOP Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who is refusing to let them come to a vote in the Senate.

“With today’s vote, Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have done nothing more than enshrine unacceptable violations of due process into House rules. Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff, and the Democrats conducted secret, behind-closed-door meetings, blocked the Administration from participating, and have now voted to authorize a second round of hearings that still fails to provide any due process whatsoever to the Administration.”

Actually, the rules being followed by the Democrats were written and codified in 2015 by a Republican House majority led by Speaker John Boehner. This was notably pointed out by Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Senior Legal Analyst at Fox News. What’s more, Republicans were participants in every hearing and witness interview that the White House is now falsely portraying as “secret.”

“The Democrats want to render a verdict without giving the Administration a chance to mount a defense. That is unfair, unconstitutional, and fundamentally un-American.”

First of all, there is nothing unconstitutional about a process that is actually in the Constitution. But more to the point, Democrats are conducting an inquiry. In no legal proceeding is the “defendant” permitted to participate in that investigation. When it is concluded it will either be dropped for lack of evidence, or an indictment and trial will take place. And that’s when Trump’s side will have ample opportunity to present their defense. The White House is deliberately trying to deceive the public as to how these matters are conducted.

Of course, the Deceiver-in-Chief is Donald Trump himself. He is mounting a disinformation campaign to attack the process, and by extension, the Constitution. And he’s getting plenty of help from State TV (aka Fox News), which is having problems of its own.

Trump posted a four-tweet quote by Fox’s Laura Ingraham that is nothing more than a GOP pep talk to pressure the right to obediently follow Dear Leader and abandon integrity, honesty, and morality, and to place Trump’s interests above those of the country. And most of the Fox roster is doing the same thing. So once again, it needs to be pointed out that this network is an arm of the Trump regime and should be designated as such for campaign finance purposes.

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

Terrified of Impeachment, Trump Fired Off 104 Tweets About Adam Schiff in October

Posted by on October 29, 2019 at 11:46 am. 5 Comments :

On Tuesday morning the congressional inquiry into Donald Trump’s impeachment continued with an official from his National Security team providing new and damning testimony. The fear this and other late breaking news triggered in Trump resulted in an avalanche of fevered tweets that exposed both his desperation and the pitiful impotence of his response to this crisis.

Donald Trump, Adam Schiff

Trump is apparently unaware that his Twitter tantrums only serve to make him look more guilty. They reflect the terror of a quivering rabbit as it faces certain doom in the jaws of hungry wolf. And the narrow focus of his gushing panic reveals how distressed he is about the inquiry being conducted by House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff.

In a tsunami of hysterical tweets, Trump has singled out Schiff for his harshest criticism. Trump has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that Schiff is corrupt. He’s said that Schiff is a liar, a lowlife, a disgrace, and a fraud. Trump has called Schiff a traitor who should resign or be impeached. And he has tagged the congressman with another of his infantile nicknames – Shifty Schiff – that drips with anti-Semitic undertones. This is not the behavior of a calm or confidently innocent man.

In the month of October Trump has tweeted about Schiff 104 times. That’s an average of about 3 1/2 times per day. Those Schiff-focused tweets included references to many of Trump’s other familiar obsessions such as the whistleblower (22 times), Nancy Pelosi (18), the Ukraine phone call transcript (14), and impeachment in general (24). On Tuesday the 29th alone Trump posted 44 unhinged tweets, of which 10 (23%) were about Schiff. For contrast, Trump posted only a single tweet about the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and that was only to complain that Democrats were trying to make people forget about it. But considering the volume and content of Trump’s tweets, you have to ask who is really trying to make people forget.

A few common themes keep popping up in Trump’s Schiff tweets. One is that Trump is deeply concerned about the whereabouts of the Intelligence Community whistleblower. Who cares? The whistleblower’s complaint was fully corroborated by Trump himself on national TV. This is Trump’ss way of trying to belittle the complaint and to intimidate others from coming forward with the truth. But the parade of witnesses coming to Congress prove that this tactic isn’t working.

Another theme concerns Trump’s insistence that people read the transcript of his phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky. Of course, people have already read it and concluded that it validates the whistleblower’s account and incriminates Trump.

And then there’s Trump’s frequent whining about a brief segment of Schiff’s opening remarks in a hearing where Schiff paraphrased part of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. Trump keeps lying that Schiff presented that as Trump’s own words. However, Schiff prefaced those remarks by saying explicitly that it was just “the essence” of what Trump said to Zelensky.

None of Trump’s demented tirades contain any substance that is based in reality. It’s all the ravings of a madman consumed by fear who will do anything to avoid accountability for his crimes. And the tighter the walls close in around him, the more bizarre and numerous his outbursts become. It’s a pathetic display of victimhood that is especially absurd coming from someone whose office has been called the most powerful on Earth. But that’s just another symbol of American pride that Trump has unraveled as he stumbles toward prosecution, humiliation and irrelevance.

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

GOP Hypocrites Silent on Trump’s Attorney Genuflect Bill Barr Conducting Russia Probe in Secret

Posted by on October 25, 2019 at 1:28 pm. 1 Comments :

The march of the Donald Trump regime to a fully dysfunctional totalitarian state is picking up steam as the Crybaby-in-Chief plots to take down his perceived enemies. The latest warning that Trump is whittling away at America’s principles and freedom came in a news report that his plant at the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, is expanding his already bogus “review” of the FBI’s probe of Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia during the 2016 election. This is how Banana Republican dictatorships operate.

William Barr, Donald Trump

Barr agreed to conduct his Russia review because a desperate and fearful Trump demanded it. He is convinced that he needs a way to discredit the Mueller investigation and the congressional inquiry into his impeachment. But now, according to reports, Barr has upgraded the review to a criminal inquiry:

“The US justice department has reportedly opened a criminal inquiry into the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a move that would raise concerns that Donald Trump and his allies may be using the powers of the government to go after their opponents.”

This escalation of Trump’s war on democracy is emblematic of his aspirations to emulate his heroes Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. He believes that he holds omnipotent power as president and any opposition to him is tantamount to treason. He has literally accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff of such betrayal and called for them to be prosecuted and removed from office.

The investigation that Barr’s Justice Department is conducting is being run by John Durham, the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. It’s operations are shrouded in secrecy as he accumulates potential evidence and interviews witnesses. And that’s exactly as it should be. Investigations are always done behind closed doors to avoid premature disclosures that might impede the investigation or tip off suspects, and to prevent witnesses from coordinating their testimony. So even in an investigation like this one, that has no legal predicate to justify it – other than Internet rumors and conspiracy theories – Durham is following the proper procedures. Consequently, Republicans ought not be too confident that Durham will find any wrongdoing. In the meantime, the rights granted by due process that include equal access to evidence and witnesses will come into play during a trial, if there is one.

These are legal concepts that many Republicans are seemingly unable to grasp. They are clamoring for access and transparency that is never permitted during an investigation. And they are outraged that their inane demands are not being met. Their yammering is a constant and irritating reminder that they couldn’t care less about the law. For example…

  • Rep. Steve Scalise: Why are they trying to impeach a president of the United States behind closed doors in secret where the public can’t see it, the press can’t see it?
  • Rep. Doug Collins: Conducting an impeachment investigation behind closed doors isn’t just unprecedented—it’s un-American.
  • Rep. Matt Gaetz: Adam Schiff’s impeachment inquiry has been marked by secret interviews.
  • Sen. John Cornyn: The do it in secret, cherry pick and leak whatever furthers their narrative. Put it out there for all to see.
  • Rep. Andy Biggs: No more secret proceedings. No more Soviet-style proceedings.
  • John Ratcliffe: Adam Schiff is running an impeachment inquiry secretly, behind closed doors.
  • Rep. Jim Jordan: These proceedings should be public…they’re doing it all in a closed-door process.
  • RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel: What are Schiff and House Democrats hiding from the American people with their secret hearings?

And let’s not forget folks like these…

  • Sean Hannity: Adam Schiff — he is holding secret hearings, secret meetings, that result in secret transcripts all hidden from the American people.
  • Maria Bartiromo: We know that it’s all behind closed doors. […] Why are they doing this, this way?
  • Lou Dobbs: The radical Dems who are holding secret hearings in their attempts to unseat the president.
  • And of course, Trump himself: Democrats are allowing no transparency at the Witch Hunt hearings.

What’s interesting is that all of those GOP and right-wing media hacks are not the least bit disturbed by the secrecy of Barr’s investigation. If they were consistent they would be just as upset and would be demanding that everything Barr and Durham are doing be immediately disclosed to the public. Of course, they aren’t even pretending to be consistent. They are dedicated hypocrites who only want to shield their Dear Leader from criticism, malign Democrats, and most importantly, deceive the American people. And, fortunately for the nation, they are astonishingly inept in the pursuit of those sinister goals.

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

In Fox News Meltdown, Trump Press Secretary Comes Out as ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Kook

Posted by on October 24, 2019 at 12:45 pm. 5 Comments :

As the walls are crumbling all around him, Donald Trump is frantically trying to reinforce the White House bunker that is rapidly becoming his prison. His rants are becoming more incoherent. His tweets are getting more bizarre. And he is generally slumping into a haze of paranoia and victimhood.

Donald Trump, Deep State

Naturally, the Trump Bootlickers Brigade is marching obediently behind Dear Leader as he concocts ever more absurd tales of clandestine conspirators determined to destroy him. The latest soldier in this Battle of the Half-Wits is White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham. Her job title is a bit misleading since she has never held a press conference since assuming the position. But she does regularly submit herself to the brutal interrogations of Fox News Trump-fluffers.

On Thursday morning Grisham held court on Fox News to address a couple of critical matters of national security (video below). They began with a probing inquiry into Trump calling Republicans who occasionally dare to disagree with him “human scum.” that’s a bold position to take against some of the GOP senators, and their colleagues, who will eventually sit in judgment of him at his impeachment. But it does reflect Trump’s shallow thought processes that ignore the fact that these are the same people who are supporting 95 percent of his agenda. So Grisham faced this issue head on in the following exchange with Fox’s Brian Kilmeade:

Kilmeade: The President yesterday called the “Never Trumpers” scum. Does he regret that?
Grisham: No. No he shouldn’t. The people who are against him and have been against him and have been working against him since the day they took office are just that. It is horrible that people are working against a president who is delivering results for this country.

So in Trump World, anyone who has different opinions than the “Stable Genius” are not merely political opponents, they are scum. Even if they are members of the President’s own Republican Nationalist Party. That’s because in aspiring totalitarian regimes like his, dissent is not tolerated in any form. Moving on, Kilmeade asked Grisham if the Intelligence Community that Trump has bitterly and falsely maligned for years, is “paying him back” saying that “It looks like the ‘Deep State’ has turned on the President.” Taking the bait in that loaded question, Grisham replied that…

Grisham: [Trump] has made no secret since the day he took office that this has been a “witch hunt” against him and there some really terrible people in the “Deep State” working against him and working against this country. This is dangerous for the country. […] The President has people working actively against him in his own government. And I just want to talk to the people of this country and let them know that that’s dangerous for them.

What we have here is the official spokesperson for the President of the United States telling a national television audience of glassy-eyed Deplorables that Trump believes that the government he is responsible for leading is harboring a cabal of subversives who are plotting to undermine him. It’s a de facto declaration of war against his own subordinates, most of whom are non-political career professionals. And Grisham is employing the familiar “Deep State” rhetoric of Fox’s primetime propagandists and the Internet’s conspiracy crackpot underground.

In the light of these ludicrous delusions, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends went on to grill Grisham about Wednesday’s “Storming of the Impeachment Inquiry,” wherein Republican members of the House sought to illegally gain access to private hearings and breach national security while they were at it. In her response to this criminal and childish behavior, Grisham gushed that “I’m glad they did it. Again, the Democrats have been doing everything behind closed doors and in secret.”

Setting aside her dismissal of the flagrant lawbreaking, Grisham is completely wrong in her assessment of the hearings. The hearings are actually attended by members of both parties, who have equal rights to access the evidence and question witnesses. In fact, on the very same episode of this program, the Senior Legal Analyst at Fox News, Andrew Napolitano, schooled the Foxies on the matter:

“I read the House rules. And as frustrating as it may be to have these hearings going on behind close doors – the hearings over which Congressman Schiff is presiding – they are consistent with the rules. And when were the rules written last? In January of 2015. And who signed them? John Boehner. And who enacted them? A Republican majority.”

Napolitano also pointed out that the current hearings are analogous to a grand jury that is never done in public. The public stage comes after a vote on Articles of Impeachment and a trial is held in the Senate. The Republican Bitch Mob, as well as Trump and his press secretary, is purposefully lying about these matters of process that the Democrats are executing properly and lawfully.

The abject fear that is radiating from the White House is staggering. Trump is a severely paranoid individual who is utterly incapable of dealing with his psychoses. The nation has never had a chief executive who suspected his own intelligence agencies of plotting against him. And now it’s clear that other senior officials in his administration are taking up the mantle of his madness. Which makes impeachment all the more imperative. Because if neglected it is clear that this will not end well for America.

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