Free Press

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

Posted by on December 1, 2024 at 12:54 pm. 1 Comments :

It is becoming more apparent every day that Donald Trump has abandoned any pretense of presidential leadership or responsible governing, He is now fully committed to a juvenile campaign of trolling his perceived enemies, “owning the libs,” and exacting retribution for wrongs he believes he has suffered.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

What else could explain the collection of crackpots that Trump has nominated to positions of considerable power in his emerging administration? It is no wonder that Trump is refusing to allow his nominees to undergo FBI background checks. So far the weirdo roster includes a brain-wormed, anti-vax, conspiracy theorist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, to run the Department of Health and Human Services, a blatantly unqualified, sexual deviant, Pete Hegseth, as Defense Secretary, and an alleged pedophile with no legal experience, Matt Gaetz, (who has already been dropped for being even too ridiculous for the MAGA-philes) for Attorney General? The only apparent prerequisite for a job in Trump’s White House is unflinching adoration for Trump and an apprenticeship at Fox News.

SEE THIS: Trump is Stacking His Cabinet with Fox News Trump-Fluffers

However, Trump may have outdone himself with his latest proposed nominee. He is putting the name of Kash Patel up to be the Director of the FBI. As usual, Patel has little to no experience for the job he is being tasked to preform. What he has is an extraordinarily brown nose and a record of performing any evil or illegal stunt that Trump asks of him. That includes being a relentless election denier, covering up Trump’s theft of classified documents, and being an accomplice in Trump’s attempts to stage a violent coup on January 6, 2021.

There are a multitude of examples of Patel’s manifest unsuitability to serve in the upper echelon of federal legal affairs. But one particular example stands out. During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room, Patel spoke about what he would do if put in a position of power. And it had nothing to do with fighting crime or making the nation safer. He ranted that…

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice. And this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators.”

Yes, indeed. That IS why they are tyrannical dictators. Patel’s first priority is to persecute the free press that accurately reported on Trump’s serial criminal activities. This would be an implementation of Trump’s visceral hatred of the free press that he calls “the enemy of the people.” He has already sought to suppress the media by filing innumerable, meritless lawsuits against a variety of news organizations. He has even threatened to revoke the licenses of the networks. Licenses that, by the way, do not exist, so therefore, cannot be revoked. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t do damage in other petulant ways.

In addition to his assaults on the media, Trump intends to retaliate against honorable officers and prosecutors who brought January 6th insurrectionists to justice. He is focused intently on inventing crimes related to Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged.” And he will seek to legally terrorize upstanding FBI operatives who recovered the stolen classified materials that Trump lied about hoarding at his Mar-a-Lago home/hotel.

Trump posted his announcement about Patel on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. […] He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax.”

First of all, Trump cannot unilaterally announce that Patel “will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Only that he is being nominated. The Senate must confirm the nomination before Patel can assume the post. And due to the highly controversial nature of this nomination, there is some doubt as to whether the narrowly divided Senate will provide their consent.

Secondly, Trump’s announcement explicitly cites one of the best reasons to block Patel’s confirmation. The role he played in trying to hide Trump’s unsavory and well documented associations with Russian officials and operatives was arguably as treasonous as Trump’s own actions. There was no “hoax” with regard to Trump and Russia. And Patel didn’t uncover any wrongdoing. He participated in it.

The opposition to Patel’s nomination isn’t coming solely from Democrats. Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, said that “The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.” And Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr wrote in his book that he “categorically opposed making Patel deputy FBI director,” telling Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that it would happen “over my dead body. Someone with no background as an agent would never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the bureau.”

It is also notable that for Patel to assume the directorship of the FBI, the current Director, Christopher Wray, would have to resign or be fired by Trump. Wray, by the way, was appointed by Trump in 2017, after he fired James Comey for not sufficiently sucking up. A shortcoming that Wray may soon be punished for by Trump.

The unmistakable path toward tyranny that Trump is traveling should alarm every American who cherishes the principles this nation was founded on. His flagrant efforts to silence the media is his way of insuring that he gets away with his authoritarian takeover. But with the Patel nomination, he may be overreaching. And that could give a couple of Republicans in the Senate the courage to stand up to him and for democracy. And that’s all it would take to sink the nomination of Patel.

Ironically, Trump’s overreach may actually stiffen the spines of Republican senators after they get a taste of independence by rejecting Gaetz and possibly Patel. They may just have the integrity to also ditch Kennedy, Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and some of the other more reprehensible nominees. That may be a lot to hope for, but if we the people make our voices loud enough, they might actually hear us and do the right thing.

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YIKES! Trump’s Press Briefing Room Could Be Populated By Fawning Sycophants and MAGA Trolls

Posted by on November 30, 2024 at 2:03 pm. 0 Comments :

As the administration of Donald Trump continues to take shape, the vile nature of the beast is becoming unmistakable. Although he campaigned on “draining the swamp,” it is clear that his true intention is to fill it to the brim with toxic sludge. That would explain his proposed department heads whose total lack experience compliments their preposterous policies.

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Donald Trump, Newspapers, Baby, Hate

Among Trump’s ill-considered staffers are the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr at Health and Human Services, Matt Gaetz at the Justice Department (now succeeded by Pam Bondi because Gaetz was TOO sleazy), and Pete Hegseth (whose own mother castigated him as an “abuser” of women) at the Defense Department. The “qualities” Trump’s nominees share are primarily unwavering fealty to Trump, and having served previously on Fox News.

SEE THIS: Trump is Stacking His Cabinet with Fox News Trump-Fluffers

The nightmare roster of Trump’s Cabinet should not deflect our attention from other critical White House offices that Trump is determined to debase. For instance, Trump is reported to be planning an overhaul of the White House Press Briefing Room. His animosity toward to the media is well known, repeatedly referring to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” His hatred of the free press is further evident in his serial lawsuits and threats against news enterprises that have committed the offense of telling the truth about him.

The latest wrinkle in Trump’s anti-media campaign is his focus on restricting who will be admitted into the Briefing Room. Politico is reporting that…

“‘Both the strategy and the press briefing room will likely look a whole lot more like the media consumption habits of the American voters of today versus the 1980s,’ said a Trump official granted anonymity to discuss plans still in the works. ‘I could very well see a press briefing room where Maggie Haberman sits next to Joe Rogan.'”

Oh Great! Trump wants to replace reputable journalists with fawning sycophants and MAGA trolls. To be sure, there are some serious problems with the way that mainstream media has covered Trump over the past few years. They have been far too felicitous, too timid with regard to calling out Trump’s pathological lying, and too quick to normalize or “sane-wash” his incomprehensible babbling.

However, that’s not a reason to ditch the media. It’s a reason to fight to reform it. Even in its current state the media has provided significant information about Trump’s criminal activities and his associations with nefarious players, including agents of hostile foreign adversaries.

We can wave goodbye to any of that sort of reporting if Trump has his way and the national newspapers and television networks are replaced or overshadowed by people like Rogan, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes, Laura Loomer, Alex Jones, etc.

Just imagine the sort of questions that the aforementioned Trump-fluffers would ask of his doting press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. Following his imposition of inflationary tariffs, they would ask how quickly his policy will make all Americans wealthy? After Ukraine falls due to Trump withholding aid, they would inquire as to how much better life will be under Russian rule. As more women and others suffer and die as a result of his weakening or repealing Obamacare, they will seek to learn more about his proposed raw milk cure for the new pandemic.

The purpose of hosting journalists in the White House Press Briefing room is to hold the administration accountable and gather information to keep the nation’s citizens informed. But under the reign of Trump it would shift to disseminating pure propaganda intended to disinform, and exalt Dear Leader.

This will make the job of real journalists that much harder. Not just because gathering relevant news will be more difficult, but because breaking through the wall of official propaganda will be a challenge. We will need to come up with new ways to to communicate and to validate the news. And the White House will become an obstacle to those goals. Is the media in its present form capable of operating in this new environment? They – and we – better be.

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Fox News Asks Biden’s Press Sec if He Apologized to Trump for Saying He’s a Threat to Democracy

Posted by on November 13, 2024 at 2:57 pm. 0 Comments :

The unfortunate outcome of the presidential election last week is already sending spine-chilling reverberations across the political landscape as the ghastly consequences of another Donald Trump occupation of the White House become impossible to ignore.

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Fox News, Joe Biden, Fake News

The shape of Trump’s Cabinet has become deplorably clear in the past few days. His nominees so far reflect his inherent corruption, ignorance, aspirations of autocracy, and the shallowness of a former reality TV game show host. Most of his picks are closely associated with his Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News.

SEE THIS: Trump is Stacking His Cabinet with Fox News Trump-Fluffers

Trump has not yet named his choice to be his press secretary. But rest assured that it will be a brazenly dishonest purveyor of self-serving falsehoods. In the meantime, we should appreciate the press secretary currently serving President Biden, Karine Jean-Pierre.

At Wednesday’s daily White House press briefing, the noxious odor of Fox News wafted into the room as a reporter from their business network, Edward Lawrence, was called upon to ask a question. True to form, it was a preposterous question that had nothing to do with any matter of concern to the American people. Instead, he sought to manufacture a melodrama out of the morning meeting that Biden had with Trump…

Lawrence: We saw a unified front related to a transition in the Oval Office meeting. But a lot was said on the campaign trail like ‘Trump is a dangerous threat to our country and our democracy. Was there an apology today?
Jean-Pierre: I’m sorry? Apology from whom? I’ve answered this a couple of times with respect to democracy in the past week. The President is always going to feel obligated to be honest with the American people. What he says still stands. And it’s not just him. You heard this from former [Trump] staffers.

Biden had nothing to apologize for. He told the truth about Trump. And as Jean-Pierre went on to note, is was Trump’s own close associates who were the ones that raised the question of his threat to democracy. It was his White House Chief of Staff, Gen. John Kelly, his Defense Secretary, Gen. James Mattis, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and others who said that Trump was a fascist who praised Hitler. Trump himself made statements that were overtly threatening to democracy, such as branding his critics as “the enemy within.”

Lawrence’s question also neglected to mention that Trump used the very same language aimed at Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who he said, without a shred of evidence, were threats to democracy. But Lawrence didn’t bother to ask whether Trump apologized. Unrattled by Lawrence’s purposeful provocation, Jean-Pierre gave a calm and coherent response…

Jean-Pierre: What we also want to be very clear about is listening to the will of the American people. There was an election. It is important to respect our institution. It is important to respect the free and fair election. And that’s what this President is doing.

America needs to prepare itself for what’s to come in the White House Press Briefing room. Axios is reporting that Trump is expected to “shake it up.”

“Trump’s first administration tried to ban outlets it saw as unfavorable from off-camera press briefings. That included the New York Times, Politico, CNN and BBC.” […]

“Any efforts to expand access to daily press briefings to pro-Trump outlets, such as Steve Bannon’s War Room, would need to come at the expense of existing outlets.”

So get ready for briefings that feature folks like Bannon, Alex Jones, and Laura Loomer. The “mainstream” media reporters from the New York Times and CBS and NPR will all be banished as “fake news.” And Trump’s press secretary is likely to be someone like his former attorney Alina Habba or his daughter Tiffany. Which means the rest of the media had better grow a spine and be prepared to protect the very notion of a free press.

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Trump’s Prospective CIA Director, Kash Patel: We’re Gonna Come After the People in the Media

Posted by on November 9, 2024 at 1:00 pm. 4 Comments :

The nightmare scenarios that were contemplated prior to Donald Trump prevailing on Tuesday were never given the proper consideration that they deserved. Most politicians and pundits downplayed the most serious consequences of a second occupation of the White house by Trump. And the media engaged in new reality-distorting shenanigans that came to be known as “sanewashing,” the practice of cleaning up Trump’s spine-chillingly abhorrent, and mind-numbingly incoherent, commentaries to make them appear to be almost rational.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

However, the grim truth always emerges eventually. And as Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Trump showed us who he is repeatedly during his last term in office and throughout this year’s campaign. And who Trump is is a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, financial fraudster, pathological liar, and aspiring dictator. But despite the abundance of evidence, many people managed to gloss over it and vote him in anyway.

SEE THIS: What Is America? Who Votes For This?

Among the atrocious concepts that clog Trump’s cranium, are his yearnings to impose on America the visceral animosity he harbors toward the free press that he has maligned, in Stalinist terms, as “the enemy of the people.” He has filed innumerable, meritless lawsuits against a variety of news organizations, and threatened to revoke the licenses of the networks. Licenses that, by the way, do not exist, so therefore, cannot be revoked.

Given the current state of affairs, this would be a good time to recall what Trump flunky, Kash Patel, articulated in December about what would become the agenda for the press if Trump were to be reelected. In an episode of Steve Bannon’s “War Room” plodcast, Bannon and Patel shared the following exchange…

Bannon: Kash, I know you’re probably gonna be head of the CIA. But do you believe that you can deliver the goods on this in a pretty short order the first couple of months so we can get rolling on prosecutions?
Patel: Yes. We got the bench for it Bannon. And you know those guys – I’m not gonna go out there and say their names right now so the radical left-wing media can terrorize them. But the one thing we learned in the Trump administration the first go round is we gotta put in all America patriots, top to bottom. And we got them for law enforcement. We got them for intel collection. We got them for offensive operations. We got them for DOD, CIA, everywhere. […]

We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re gonna come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re gonna come after you.”

And there you have it. Patel is explicitly declaring his intention to use national security government agencies to assault the media. He is unabashedly proclaiming a policy to “come after” journalists and their employers who were critical of Trump, particularly on matters related to his “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” from him.

Patel held a number of national security posts in the previous Trump administration, including Chief of Staff to Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller. He is now considered to be on Trump’s short list of nominees to be his CIA Director. This makes his threats the all more disturbing. The CIA is prohibited from conducting operations against American citizens on American soil. So in addition to these threats breaching the Constitution’s First Amendment protection of the free press, they would be violations of federal law regarding intelligence operations.

Not that Patel or Trump give a whip about breaking the law. Trump has already been convicted of 34 felonies and has 54 more pending. Patel was compelled to testify before Congress where he took the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating himself. And Trump’s plans for his Injustice Department are just as bad as those for national security…

SEE ALSO: Trump AG Prospect Savors ‘Glorious’ Plans to ‘Put Kids in Cages’ and Migrants ‘In the DC Gulag’

The trepidation that at least half of the American people feel about Trump reoccupying the White House is well founded. His proposals to implement the biggest mass deportation operation in history, slap inflationary tariffs on all imported goods, and cozy up to foreign tyrants, is not idle blather. He is showing us who he is. And his Cabinets appointments will validate the horrific regime that he intends to reign over.

Which makes it all the more imperative for Americans who cherish the privileges of our constitutional democracy to be ready to resist and fight back against Trump’s attempts to impose an autocracy with him sitting atop it in a golden throne. These may be seem like dark days, but we are the source of a brilliant light if we choose to be.

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The Media Still Doesn’t Get the Danger that We – and They – Are In, But the Daily Show Does

Posted by on November 7, 2024 at 12:29 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the recurring themes of the Kamala Harris campaign that was highlighted in nearly every speech she gave was the insistence that “We are not going back.” And even though it appears on the surface that we are indeed regressing to a grim past, she was right. Losing the election does not mean that we have lost the will to advance the principles of democracy and freedom.

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Donald Trump TV Set

It seems impossible to imagine that voters, given the choice between a respected prosecutor and public servant, or a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and wannabe dictator, would choose the latter. But that’s what happened on Tuesday night. There are as many plausible explanations for that major malfunction of democracy as there are pundits proposing them. And in the days ahead they will all be examined. But for now the nation must answer a couple of deceptively…

…SIMPLE QUESTIONS: What Is America? Who Votes For This?

In the meantime, we remain burdened with an aspiring authoritarian-elect and a media establishment that doesn’t realize the risks they face, which led to the abhorrent state we find ourselves in today. And for anyone who doesn’t grasp the direness of this situation, note that Donald Trump, in his victory speech Tuesday night, went out of his way to make his hostility to the free press clear, saying that “I told JD [Vance] to go into the enemy camp. He just goes: OK. Which one? CNN? MSNBC?”

Throughout the 2024 election season, Trump expressed his deep animosity toward the media, including his official Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News. But for some reason, the media rarely defended itself and the unique provisions in the First Amendment of the Constitution that protects it.

However, there was a guardian of the free press that was found in an unlikely – although increasingly common – place. And it proves the not-very-old adage “I get my comedy from Fox News and my news from Comedy Central.” The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic delivered a monolog that, in addition to being hilarious, was more honest, and more profound, than most of what was seen on the mainstream media. She said in part that..

“Yeah, it’s official. America has elected its first criminal president before electing its first female president. What a day for proud felonists.”

And…

“Just think about what happened here. America voted this guy out in 2020. And what has he done since then? He tried to overthrow the government, he was convicted of 34 felonies, he spent an entire campaign promising vengeance against his enemies.”

And…

“Seems the only people you can’t blame for Trump’s victory are Black women and people in comas.”

And finally…

“Honestly, I don’t really care why she lost, I care why he won. We have spent so much time diagnosing Donald Trump and what his actions say about him. He’s a dictator, he’s a fascist, he’s a malignant narcissist whose blood type is fryer oil.

“But it’s pretty clear that America is the one that needs the diagnosis, because whatever’s wrong with him, we f**king love it. In this moment Donald Trump is holding up a mirror to the American people and it might be time to take a good f**king hard look. And I’m sorry. I told myself that this show would be uplifting tonight and give people hope and inspiration, but unfortunately, I’m too depressed. And quite frankly, very, very, hungover.”

Exactly! There will be scads of speculation about what Harris, or Democrats, or even a lazy, weak, greedy, complicit, press might have done wrong. But ultimately it was the voters who chose to pull the lever for the ignorant, profane, mentally infirm, lying, criminal, who caused hundreds of thousands of avoidable pandemic deaths, incited a treasonous insurrection, and whose closest associates labeled him a fascist and noted his praise for Hitler.

To be sure, those voters were influenced by the media that failed in its obligation to inform the public. And that failure was evident in the desertion by viewers that indicates just how dissatisfied they are with the quality of the news they are getting. Considering the feeble response by the media to existential dangers posed by Trump and his MAGA movement, it’s no wonder that American is tuning out.

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Tyrant Trump Demands ALL TV News Licenses Be Revoked and Kamala Harris Concede the Election

Posted by on October 10, 2024 at 12:36 pm. 5 Comments :

Ordinarily, a presidential candidate would conduct their campaign in a manner that would amplify his or her most appealing character traits and suppress or minimize those most likely to alienate or repulse voters. But the campaign of Donald Trump is, to say the very least, anything but ordinary.

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Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

During his short career in politics, Trump has managed to project an extraordinary variety of repulsive traits. They include his rancid prejudices (racism, misogyny, xenophobia, etc.), his pathetically infantile responses to well deserved criticism, his pitiful ignorance of life in America (government, history, law, culture, etc.), his noxious and delusional narcissism, and perhaps most troubling, his affinity for foreign dictators that mirrors his own authoritarian aspirations. The latter he actually said aloud to his Fox News pal, Sean Hannity…

SEE THIS: Trump Cloddishly Dodges Hannity’s Softball Questions About Whether He Would Be a Dictator

Now, as Election Day draws nearer, Trump is continuing to emphasize the personality defects that repel the most people. In a series of utterly unhinged rants on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, Trump lashed out at the media that he despises with rhetoric that confirms his dreams of tyrannical power. It was an absurd extension of his previous outburst threatening to revoke the broadcast license of CBS for airing a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris. Now he is including ALL broadcast networks. He began by bellowing…

“A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better. A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal. TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election Interference. She is a Moron, and the Fake News Media wants to hide that fact. An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems got them to do this and should be forced to concede the Election? WOW!”

Needless to say, Trump has no evidence that CBS altered anything that Harris said in the interview, other than routine editing for time. Trump is manifesting figments of his severely perverse imagination. Furthermore, there would be nothing illegal about such editing if it did occur. Consequently, Trump’s demand that Harris “be forced to concede the Election.” is what psychiatrists would describe as “NUTZ!” It’s an impotent demand that Trump is making because he knows that he is losing. But he was just getting started. He continued his rant saying that…

“60 Minutes is a major part of the News Organization of CBS, which has just created the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History. CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!”

Once again, CBS did nothing wrong. But Trump’s “solution” to what his diseased brain is concocting is to revoke the licenses of ALL broadcast networks. Because that’s precisely what his idols (Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, etc.) would do. Never mind that networks are not licensed by the federal government, only individual stations. What Trump is proposing is, nevertheless, an open assault on the First Amendment of the Constitution and contrary to American principles. But why would Trump care about that now. He never has before. Then he wound up by saying that…

“With me, 60 Minutes does the exact opposite! They take everything I say, realize how totally BRILLIANT it is, and take it out. So, with Kamala they add, with ‘TRUMP,’ they delete. Like the Democrat Party, THEY ARE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

Once again, Trump is suffering from bizarre hallucinations. He didn’t do (aka chickened out of) the 60 Minutes interview this week, so there was nothing he said to delete, and certainly nothing that was “brilliant.” Even if he were referring to an interview from 2020, it was Trump who cut it short, walking out before it was completed. Lately he has been demanding that Lesley Stahl apologize to him for something that she never said in that interview.

What Trump is whining about in these comments should be a bright red flag for American voters. Trump is promising that, if returned to power, he would abuse it in the same way that his totalitarian heroes do. And if he would abuse power to oppress the media, he would abuse it to oppress every other institution – and even individuals – that he finds objectionable, or that are insufficiently worshipful of him.

That should be the message that Americans take into the voting booth this year. And they must vote for Harris and Walz if they want to preserve America’s free press and, even more foundational, America’s democracy.

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Trump Threatens CBS Over Kamala Harris Interview on 60 Minutes He Says Was ‘Possibly Illegal’

Posted by on October 9, 2024 at 1:19 pm. 4 Comments :

Donald Trump has spent the past nine years castigating the media in the most vile terms. He regularly insults journalists as “stupid,” “lying,” “corrupt,” and biased against him, simply because they report the things he actually does and says. He maligns them with the same language that Stalin used, calling them “the enemy of the people.”

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Donald Trump, Constitution

Trump’s fear and fury at the press is a core feature of his perverse persona. He labels any reporting that isn’t sufficiently worshipful “fake news.” Even his official Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) isn’t safe from his seething animosity. And his anger extends far beyond mere insults and tantrums. He often issues impotent threats if a news network has the audacity to engage in responsible journalism. For example…

SEE THIS: Wannabe Dictator Trump Threatens to Revoke ABC News Broadcast License in Fox News Interview

On Wednesday morning Trump was so bothered by a recent media event that he unleashed a rambling and rancid rant on his failing social media scam, Truth Social. The object of his outrage was the 60 Minutes interview of Vice-President Kamala Harris on Monday. Trump had agreed to participate at first, but later chickened out because he objected to their insistence on {gasp} fact-checking. And now, after the fact, Trump is lashing out with another lame and utterly preposterous threat. He raged that…

“I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (‘cut and pasted’) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought, all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the ‘News Division,’ which must be licensed, to make her look ‘more Presidential,’ or a least, better. It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation.”

What Trump is whining about is that 60 Minutes edited the Harris interview, something that is done routinely in television journalism for legitimate reasons, including time constraints, clarity, and relevance. Trump’s assertion that some answers were edited “four times in a single sentence” is downright bonkers. And there is no indication whatsoever that Harris’ answers were altered to effect some political advantage. Trump’s complaint doesn’t even make sense, because he’s accusing CBS of edits that resulted in the answers being “virtually incoherent.” How would that help Harris?

Most troubling is Trump’s charge that the 60 Minutes interview was in some way “illegal.” As usual, Trump doesn’t provide any evidence of a crime, nor any statute that has been violated. He simply believes that if it bothers him it must be against the law. So he latches onto the fact that TV stations (not network “news divisions”) must be licensed to use the public airwaves. Which is his way of threatening CBS with the revocation of its license if they do not comply with his tyrannical demands.

This threat is consistent with Trump’s abhorrence of the free press. And it’s also consistent with his flaming hypocrisy. He has never complained that Fox News regularly (albeit futilely) edits his interviews to make him look better. He has never accused Newsmax of campaign finance violations for their slobbering sycophancy. And he doesn’t seem to object to the constant “sane-washing“ of his demented speeches by the rest of the so-called “mainstream” media. Which leads us to the rest of his Truth(less) (anti)Social comment…

“This is a stain on the reputation of 60 Minutes that is not recoverable – It will always remain with this once storied brand. I have never heard of such a thing being done in ‘News.’ It is the very definition of FAKE NEWS! The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY! This is an open and shut case, and must be investigated, starting today!”

The public is indeed owed an apology – from Trump. His hostility toward the press is another example of his imminent threat to democracy. And his attempts to intimidate the media are antithetical to the Constitution that he has said he would “terminate.”

If this is “an open and shut case,” why is Trump yammering about it on his website that no one but his glassy-eyed cult followers read, rather than filing a complaint with the FCC or the Justice Department? Maybe because even he knows that he’s full of **it.

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Herr Trump Threatens to Prosecute Google for Showing Stories that Hurt His Tender Feelings

Posted by on September 28, 2024 at 1:16 pm. 0 Comments :

Nothing sets an aspiring authoritarian’s heart aflutter more than the prospect of silencing the voices of malcontents who dare to criticize them. It’s the reason that tyrants take such pleasure in seeing their foes fall out of windows and in muzzling the free press.

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Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

America’s most prominent wannabe dictator, Donald Trump, is no exception to this. For years he has embraced the Stalinist slogan lambasting the media as “the enemy of the people.” And he hasn’t been shy about hurling vicious insults at journalists and news organizations. Even Fox News isn’t safe from Trump’s wrath…

SEE THIS: Crybaby Trump Unleashes a Flaming Freak Out Vilifying Fox News for Not Censoring his Foes

Trump’s relentless assault on media includes digital media as well. On Friday he lashed out on his own floundering social media scam, Truth Social, to unburden himself of the overheated hostility that he harbors for the press. This time his rage was directed at Google, who he alleges is steeped in bias against him. Trump ranted that…

“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris. This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!”

There is so much wrong with that outburst that it requires a little further exploration. To begin with, Trump says that some undefined illegality “has been determined” in Google’s practices. The obvious question is: determined by whom? Sean Hannity? Rudy Giuliani? Melania’s hairdresser? The ghost of Rush Limbaugh? Or some other disembodied voices in his head?

Secondly, what law does Trump imagine has been violated? Was it Section 666 of the U.S Penal Code prohibiting felonious meanness aimed at hypersensitive narcissists?

Third, Trump’s allegation that Google is “only revealing and displaying bad stories” about him is unsupported by any factual data. It isn’t even supported by any fabricated data. It’s just Trump whining about it to his cult followers on his own website that only reveals and displays slobbering adorations of him. Most of which are “made up for this purpose.”

Meanwhile, Trump is outraged by what he claims are good stories about Kamala Harris. So in effect, he’s complaining that Harris is doing too many things that generate positive press. What a devious plot by her. However, if Trump really wants to see fewer bad stories about himself, he might want to consider doing fewer bad things. For starters, he could cut back on his lying, and racism, and infantile insults, and intentional divisiveness, and sucking up to foreign dictators, and impugning America as a failed, third world country.

Finally, Trump expresses his hope that “the Justice Department will criminally prosecute” Google. And he issues a direct threat that, if elected, he will “request their prosecution, at the maximum levels.” Which would violate the ethical principles that separate the presidency from the Justice Department. And still Trump doesn’t say on what grounds he would prosecute. Not that it matters to him.

The only thing that Trump is interested in is securing unwaveringly worshipful celebrations of his messianic perfection. And if the media doesn’t comply, then he will see to it that they are harshly punished. And somehow that manifestation of totalitarian oppression remains appealing to some glassy-eyed segment of the American public, and pretty much all of the MAGA-tized Republican Party.

Which makes it all the more imperative that Democrats prevail at the polls in November at every level, from the presidency to the sanitation department. Which, ironically, would be an appropriate career path for Trump to traverse.

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Wannabe Dictator Trump Threatens to Revoke ABC News Broadcast License in Fox News Interview

Posted by on September 22, 2024 at 1:15 pm. 3 Comments :

The fallout from the ABC News debate with Vice-President Kamala Harris and convicted felon Donald Trump continues to produce lesions in the body politic. Mostly in the form of whining by Trump, despite the fact that he insists that he won, which is contrary to post-debate polling.

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Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

In the two short weeks following the debate, the positive impact for Harris is inarguable. Her fundraising, which was already remarkable by recent standards, continues to set records. And polls have shown her surging into leads nationally and in the critical swing states, a development that has Trump sinking into severe psychosis…

SEE THIS: Trump is Suffering From a Severe Case of Self-Deception on a Level Never Seen Before

For someone who wants the world to believe that he emerged from the face-off as the undisputed victor, Trump sure complains a lot. He has spent the past couple of weeks attacking the debate moderators as biased, and making ludicrous accusations that Harris was given the questions (and answers) beforehand and that she wore a communications device disguised as an earring. None of which contained even a speck of truth.

Building on those lies, Trump gave an interview to MAGA friendly Fox News flunky, Brian Kilmeade, wherein he elaborated on his psychobabble. But his remarks transcended his familiar mutterings of bias, devolving into open authoritarian threats…

Kilmeade: A Democratic pollster is calling for an investigation of ABC and the moderators. He wants communications pulled to see if they were talking to each other because of the fact-check on you and not on them, and the questions and topics. Do you join in those questions?
Trump: Sure, I do. I think they should be investigated. And you know, they have to get a license from the federal government.

First of all, the alleged Democratic pollster Kilmeade mentioned was the notoriously right-wing former Democrat, Mark Penn. And neither he, nor Trump, nor Fox News have any justification for, or authority to demand internal communications from ABC News.

More ominous, however, is Trump’s response wherein he makes an overt threat to revoke the broadcast license of ABC News. That’s the sort of totalitarian abuse of power that is practiced by Trump’s idols, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un. And it’s how Trump promises govern if he were to return to power. It’s also consistent with his longstanding hatred of the free press that he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.”

Trump, and Fox News, assert that ABC demonstrated bias by daring to fact-check Trump during the debate, but not Harris. However, it isn’t her fault that Trump lied more than 30 times, while she stuck to truth. And if demonstrating bias was the crime that Trump and Fox is so concerned about, they might want to take a look in the mirror. Fox “News” has been nothing but a bald-faced, and shamelessly dishonest, right-wing propaganda outfit from its inception.

What’s more, Trump grossly exaggerated (as usual) the incidence of fact-checks, saying that he was checked “nine or 11 different times about things that I was right on virtually every case.” And while they could have legitimately fact-checked him 30 times, it was actually only four, for which he was clearly wrong. The moderators politely corrected Trump on the following subjects…

  • Abortion: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
  • Migrant Pet Cuisine: “[There were] no credible reports of pets or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”
  • Crime: “As you know, the FBI says that overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.”
  • The 2020 Election: “60 cases in front of many judges, many of them Republican, looked at it and said there was no widespread fraud.”

That was every fact-check of Trump that occurred during the debate. And everyone one of them was appropriate and fair and handled with dignity and an intent to inform voters. And despite his lie-riddled, angry, and often incoherent performance, Trump still says that…

“I thought it was a great debate for me. I thought it was one of my best debates that I’ve ever had. And some people disagree, but I thought it was the strongest debate I ever had.”

Well, if that was “the strongest debate [he] ever had,” then why is he so afraid to take the stage with Harris one more time before Election Day? Does he really want that embarrassing display to be the last thing that millions of Americans see before they vote? Or is he just too scared that he will get pummeled again if he agrees to another match?

Harris’ challenge to Trump to have another debate is brilliant. It’s a lose-lose scenario for Trump. If he agrees, he is likely to get another beatdown. If he declines, he’s affirming his fear. So the question for Trump is whether he is more worried about being seen as a loser or a chicken. Although it may be too late for him on both counts.

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Trump Incites an Attack on the Press at His Cult Rally, Then Celebrates that ‘He’s On Our Side’

Posted by on August 31, 2024 at 12:33 pm. 1 Comments :

There is a unique atmosphere that pervades the campaign rallies staged by Donald Trump. They reek more of conventions of brainwashed cult crackpots than anything resembling a political event. Trump mesmerizes his glassy-eyed audience of indoctrinated disciples with endlessly repetitive tirades filled with flagrant lies and messianic self-exaltations.

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Trump Charlotsville

Among the standard features on Trump’s playlist are hostile harangues aimed at the media that he assails in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” His seething animosity toward the press is purposefully included in every speech in order to keep his devotees in a constant state of outrage at what he tells them are “fake” and/or “corrupt” reporters who mean to do him harm. Although he does have his exceptions…

SEE THIS: Trump Thanks White Nationalist as a ‘Great Journalist’ for His Sexist Attack on Kamala Harris

On Friday Trump spoke at another one of his traveling salvation shows. It was typical in most respects with warmed over talking points and pre-chewed propaganda. But there was an episode that erupted that deserves special attention. Not because it was unusual or unpredictable, but because, in fact, it was neither. As reported by the Associated Press…

“A man at Donald Trump’s rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, stormed into the press area as the former president spoke and was surrounded by police and sheriff’s deputies before eventually being subdued with a Taser. The incident Friday came moments after Trump had criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and dismissed CNN as fawning for its interview Thursday with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.”

[NOTE: The AP article was edited after this post was published. It added that “It was not immediately clear what motivated the man or whether he was a Trump supporter or critic.” And it included a reply from the Trump campaign saying that the campaign “tried to distance the former president from the man and his actions, suggesting he was a Trump opponent.” This article has been edited to reflect this new info.]

There is still more to learn about what happened at the rally. But what is known is that Trump has a deep hatred for the press and that he spreads that to his followers. Trump’s deliberately provocative rhetoric has incited violence on other occasions. Most notably the deadly insurrection and attempted coup at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

While the actual motive is still unclear, it is interesting that the alleged attack took place as Trump was lambasting the media for what he believes is biased coverage. Which by his definition is any coverage that isn’t unflinchingly adoring of him and grossly derisive of his foes. Trump believes that the press should model their reporting after his own analyses of political news. Such as his coverage of the Kamala Harris interview on CNN, that Trump deemed “BORING!!!”…

Also notable was what was going on as the alleged attack on the media was in progress. Trump interrupted his speech to draw attention to the alleged assault. But he wasn’t disturbed by the apparent violence or concerned about the possible victims. Nope. He literally celebrated the disturbance saying “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?” And he appeared to stand up for the perpetrator by informing the bloodthirsty crowd that “That’s Okay. No, he’s on our side.” Why he thought that is unexplained.

So there you have it. Even if this cretin wasn’t a Trump supporter, Trump seems to be cool with thugs threatening the press, as long as they are his thugs. He is fine with intimidating the media as a means of physically enforced censorship. And his flock of feebles will fall in line, as good cult members do.

Regardless of what motivated the alleged attacker, Trump’s apparent support could embolden others to commit similar crimes. And it is likely to be repeated in November after Trump loses the election. Hopefully law enforcement will be prepared to respond appropriately should that occur. And if it does, the leader must held responsible along with his goon squads.

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