Election

LOL: GOP Fundraiser Lost Money Due to Big Payouts to Trump Golf Club and Fox News Speaker

Posted by on April 22, 2018 at 2:51 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party is struggling to stay afloat in this Era of Trump. The President has been an anchor around the necks of many GOP office holders and candidates. An unprecedented number of Republican members of Congress (over 40) have already resigned or announced that they will not be running for reelection. And this is a year during which they control all three branches of the federal government.

Donald Trump

Republicans still in the game have been hurt in the pocketbook this year. they are raising significantly less money than Democrats and everyone, regardless of party affiliation, is expecting a “blue wave” to sweep Washington come November.

So it doesn’t help when when Republicans stage fundraisers where they actually spend more money then they take in. But that’s what happened in Morris Country, New Jersey in February. And the reasons for the shortfall were emblematic of the con game mentality that dominates the tenor of Donald Trump’s Washington. The New Jersey Globe reports that:

“Morris County Republicans lost money on their winter fundraiser at Trump National Golf Club and have a paltry $13,956 in their warchest […] The county GOP organization raised $58,335 at an event that cost them more than $64,000. They spent $24,487 at Trump National and paid Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld $30,000 to speak.”

That’s right. The reason that the party fundraiser is in the red is because Trump’s facility and a Fox News hack took all their profits. Both Trump and Fox News ought to be conscious of the impact they are having on the electoral prospects of their political allies. They surely don’t want Democrats to win in these races that are considered competitive. But in both cases Trump and Gutfeld seem to be more devoted to their own greed than to their political values. Which is actually consistent with their political values.

The article in the Globe closed with an additional bit of information that makes this embarrassing event look even worse:

“At the February fundraiser, Republicans teased potential donors with the idea that President Trump would attend as a surprise guest – even asking for social security numbers in advance, something that would suggest a presidential appearance. Trump was at Mar-a-Lago and there was little possibility that he would be in New Jersey for President’s Day weekend.”

So this money losing affair flopped even after they tried to fool people into thinking that they might get to rub elbows with their Dear Leader. Apparently Trump wasn’t a sufficient draw to turn around the prospects of this debacle. But at least he made a few thousand bucks off of it. And so did Fox’s Gutfeld. So it wasn’t a total loss. Unless you’re a Republican candidate in Morris County. Here’s hoping the GOP will put on more of these events. Trump and Fox News shills can always use the extra cash.

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

Ann Coulter Knew Trump Was ‘a Shallow, Lazy Ignoramus’ and is Still Proud of Voting For Him

Posted by on March 28, 2018 at 2:58 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s been over a year since the election of Donald Trump and the media is still preoccupied with the hold Trump has on his glassy-eyed disciples. They keep convening panels of Trump voters to ask them why they voted for him and if they still support him. Curiously, they aren’t convening similar panels of Hillary Clinton voters. But the Trump voters continue to profess their undying devotion to the President. Never mind that he is being investigated by a special counsel for colluding with Russia to steal the election, or that his affairs and sexual assaults continue to be revealed.

Ann Coulter

At least there is one Trump fan who is demonstrating a measure of honesty about her support. Ultra-rightist bigot and author Ann Coulter participated in a discussion at Columbia University Tuesday where she was challenged on her past advocacy of Trump. Her remarks were surprisingly candid and they cleared up a lot of what is puzzling about Trump’s appeal. She proudly proclaimed that:

“I knew he was a shallow, lazy ignoramus, and I didn’t care.”

So there you have it. The author of In Trump We Trust admits that she trusted “a shallow, lazy ignoramus” with running the richest, most powerful nation on the planet. The reason that Coulter doesn’t regret her support for Trump is that she always expected him to be just as idiotic as his critics said he was – just as blindingly stupid as he appeared to be. How can she be disappointed if she got precisely what she was expecting?

That’s not to say that Coulter wasn’t disappointed for other reasons. She was clearly upset that Trump didn’t deliver on his most frequently articulated campaign promise. “He’s not giving us what he promised at every single campaign stop,” she whined. And of course she’s referring to the border wall that would be paid for by Mexico. Coulter’s new found bitterness has nothing to do with Trump’s record breaking and pathological lying. She isn’t bothered by his mistreatment of women or the intimidation tactics he used to silence them. His raking in cash from foreign governments and lobbyists is apparently fine with Coulter. But not having surrounded America into a prison-like disclosure in order to keep out brown people is an unforgivable affront.

Despite her dissatisfaction with Trump’s inability to wall off our southern neighbors, Coulter is adamant that she made the right choice to vote for him in 2016. She told the Columbia audience of mostly college Republicans that:

“I regret nothing. I’d do the exact same thing. I’d write the exact same book, with the exact same title. We had 16 lunatics being chased by men with nets running for president – and Trump. So of course I had to be pedal-to-the-metal for Donald Trump. I’d been waiting 30 years for someone to say all these things. I went into this completely clear-eyed.”

The sixteen lunatics that Coulter was referring to were the cream of the GOP crop. They included nine governors and five senators. Two of these loonies (Ben Carson and Rick Perry) ended up in Trump’s cabinet, where they are notable primarily for screwing up and embarrassing the President – and the nation. And what Coulter must have been waiting thirty years for someone to say was that immigrants are rapists and drug dealers from shithole countries. Therefore, it’s understandable why and she the rest of the Deplorables have no regrets. Trump has proven himself to be the president they hoped for. Unfortunately, he’s also the one that the rest of America feared.

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

In Unhinged Speech Trump Slobbers Over Foreign Despots While Attacking America’s Free Press

Posted by on March 11, 2018 at 10:13 am. 2 Comments :

The President of the United States left Washington, D.C. this Saturday, but didn’t head south to his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach as usual. Instead Donald Trump went up to Pennsylvania to deliver a campaign speech on behalf of Rick Saccone, who is at risk of losing to Democrat Conner Lamb next Tuesday in a district that Trump won by twenty points. The rally was reminiscent of Trump’s aimless campaign speeches in 2016 where he pontificated like a mad evangelist for an hour or more.

Donald Trump

In keeping with his practice of shrieking sermonizing, Trump made a point of attacking what he considers the the scourge of his existence: the media (video below). He rattled off the sort of derogatory slander that would ordinarily be reserved for bitter enemies of all that is righteous. It was a storm of damnation, both personal and broadly general.

For instance, Trump lashed out at NBC’s Meet the Press calling it “A show now headed by sleepy eyes Chuck Todd. He’s a sleeping son of a bitch, I’ll tell ya.” Remember, this speech was at a daytime rally with children present. He also went after an unnamed “certain anchor on CNN” who he said was “fake as hell, CNN. The worst. So fake. Fake news.” And he wasn’t letting NBC off either. He ranted that they were “perhaps worse than CNN, I have to tell you. And MSNBC is horrible.” Continuing down that path of raw animosity he called MSNBC “third rate. And NBC, which is horrible. Their newscast, by the way is not doing well. On NBC network. They’re heading down the tubes.”

This might be a good time to inject some facts into the discussion. NBC’s newscast anchored by Lester Holt has won ten consecutive quarters in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. They were also number one in the most recent sweeps period of February 2018. And their morning news program, the Today Show, topped their competition (ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS This Morning) in both the demo and total viewers. As for MSNBC, Rachel Maddow has been beating Trump’s BFF Sean Hannity on a regular basis.

But Trump wasn’t about to let mere reality interfere with his delusions. He went on to make a ludicrous and utterly nonsensical prediction about the media that he despises so, and which he is convinced hates him. Pointing to the press at the rally he said…

“Six months prior to the election, every one of those guys – ‘We really endorse Donald Trump. We think he has to win.’ You know why? Because if I don’t win the election their ratings are gonna go so far down they’re gonna be out of business, every one of them.”

WTF is he trying to say here? That the media that he accuses of trying to destroy him will suddenly reason that it’s in their interest to support him? If that’s true, then why wouldn’t they support him now for the same reasons? What’s more, he’s implying that the media’s surging ratings are the result of having him around to attack. Which means that more viewers are watching because they enjoy seeing him get hammered. That’s actually true. Every poll shows that Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president ever recorded. So people probably are happy to see him get cut down by responsible journalists whose reporting of Trump’s failures is just part their job.

The tone that Trump sets in these rallies is decidedly hostile and un-American. He praises China’s Xi Jinping, who just maneuvered himself into being president for life (of which Trump is envious). He declares that he blindly trusts Kim Jong Un’s promise to refrain from missile and nuclear testing. He protects Vladimir Putin’s Russia from sanctions mandated by Congress as punishment for their election tampering. Trump speaks of these and other anti-democratic tyrants in radiantly glowing terms. But he viciously insults fellow Americans who practice their Constitutionally protected right to freedom of the press. And he thinks that’s how to MAGA – or KAG, as he now says (Keep America Gross).

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

Trump Plagiarizes a Dubious Fox News ‘DREAMer’ in an Inflammatory Anti-DACA Tweet

Posted by on February 10, 2018 at 3:36 pm. 0 Comments :

With the March 5 deadline rapidly approaching, Donald Trump continues to politicize immigration and blame Democrats for the lack of progress in Congress. Never mind that the problem only exists because Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that was implemented by President Obama in 2012. And Trump’s insistence on tying the restoration of DACA to other punitive measures and his idiotic border wall further set back any reasonable resolution.

Fox News Dreamer

In this scenario Fox News predictably has come to the aid of the White House they are in collusion with on virtually everything. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends magically managed to find a conservative DACA recitpient to join them for a Trump-fluffing session on Saturday morning (video below). Hilario Yanez was introduced as a “DREAMer” and was immediately asked what he likes about Trump’s plan. He responded with praise for Trump’s alleged leadership, compassion, and courage. Presumably these are traits demonstrated by first rescinding DACA and then throwing up numerous obstacles to its restoration.

Yanez expanded on the reasons for his admiration of the President by noting his support for the border wall, his opposition to the diversity lottery, and his view that DACA advocates Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi were using DREAMers as pawns. What Yanez was actually revealing was his ultra-conservative political bias which he seasoned with heavy doses of religiosity. He was hardly a representative DACA recipient, nor was he particularly knowledgeable on the subject. As an example, he offered this criticism of Democrats:

“Democrats owned all three branches of the government back in 2008 to 2011, and they still chose [not] to do anything.”

It’s true that Democrats did absolutely nothing about DACA between 2008 and 2011. They might have done more except for the fact that it didn’t exist. The policy was established by Obama in June of 2012 by executive action after the Congress was stymied by persistent GOP opposition. As noted above, it was later rescinded by Trump in September of 2017.

However, it’s absolutely untrue that Democrats “owned all three branches of the government” from 2008 to 2011. George W. Bush was president until January of 2009. And Democrats were short of filibuster-proof majorities during much of that time due to the months-long delayed election results in Minnesota (Al Franken’s race), and the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy. Also, Republicans assumed the majority in Congress in January of 2011. That’s a lot to get wrong and Fox didn’t bother (or know) to correct these easily identified falsehoods.

There’s a good reason for that. These distortions of reality play well on Fox News. And that’s especially true for its number one fan in the White House. Trump spends untold hours watching and recording Fox News and frequently regurgitates what he sees on Twitter as it happens. That appears to be the case here. Shortly after Yanez’s appearance on Fox and Friends, Trump tweeted out an almost verbatim replay of what he said:

There is so much wrong with that tweet it’s hard to know where to begin. First of all, Trump didn’t bother to attribute this comment to its source. That’s the definition of plagiarism. His language was nearly identical, complete with the factual inaccuracies. And the timing of the tweet further proves where he stole this from. Secondly, it’s ludicrous to assign any interest in DACA to Republicans who have been working tirelessly to quash it. And finally, Trump’s political cheerleading at the end does nothing to further a legislative solution. But it does imply that he isn’t interested in any solution until next year when a new congress is seated.

Ironically, Trump’s total abandonment of the DREAMers is going to frustrate his hopes for a more republican Congress. The American people overwhelming favor DACA with a pathway to citizenship. And Latinos are presently the fastest growing segment of the electorate. All of this combines to bolster what many election analysts are predicting will be a “blue wave” in November. Let’s hope that comes to pass. But more importantly, let’s work our butts off to insure that it comes to pass. We may have the political winds at our backs, but Trump has a massive propaganda platform and, of course, Russia.

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

This Racist Trump Ad Calls Democrats ‘Complicit’ in Murders Committed By Illegal Immigrants

Posted by on January 21, 2018 at 8:06 am. 5 Comments :

After only one uneventful year in office (if you don’t count disastrous and embarrassing events) Donald Trump is already focusing on 2020. It’s the earliest launch of a reelection campaign that anyone can recall. For the most part he’s using the guise of campaign as a slush fund to hold rallies that feed his insatiable ego. He craves the adoration of his glassy-eyed disciples, particularly considering his historically low approval ratings. And there is a fair chance he won’t finish his first term if special counsel Robert Mueller comes through.

Donald Trump

Trump just released a campaign ad (posted below) that mirrors his repulsive and bigoted personality perfectly. It begins with video of an alleged murderer spewing vulgarities. That may also be a first for an American political advertisement. But it gets worse. The ominous tone of an anxious narrator asserts that “President Trump is right” in his fetish to build a wall along the southern border that will solve nothing and won’t be paid for by Mexico. The ad is rife with thinly veiled insinuations that all immigrants are scary brown foreigners with a lust for American blood. Trump offers himself up as the sole savior of our vulnerable families. And then he drops this reprehensible rhetorical bullshit:

“Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.”

Oh really? Trump is actually trying to lay the blame for random and heinous criminal activity on his political opponents. He’s associating differences of opinion with complicity to murder. It’s an absurd and unethical political attack that should be repudiated by his Republican peers. The logic of it is so weak that it, if anything, it blows up in his face. It’s more consistent with his own support for white nationalists and neo-Nazis who commit far more crimes of violence than any immigrants. In fact, even undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born citizens.

The racism is not the least bit disguised. The entire premise of the ad is that monsters from south of the border are plotting to invade our country, break into our homes, and commit unspeakable atrocities. The words “Stop Illegal Immigration” appear on screen over video of two Latino men whose faces have been eerily blurred. Never mind that the men in the picture are not engaging in any crime or acting in any way threatening. Just their ethnicity is enough to signal danger in the minds of Trump and his Deplorables.

There is also a hint of totalitarianism in the ad’s language that demands obedience on the part of Democrats, warning them not to “stand in our way.” It’s reminiscent of the threats leveled at German citizens who opposed Hitler’s enforcers as he rose to power. And the consequences of standing in Trump’s way are charges of murder, which have a penalty of death. The next step for the StormTrumpers would be to raid the homes of his perceived enemies, load them into freight cars, and deliver them to concentration camps. Don’t think it can’t happen here. That’s what many Germans thought.

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

UPDATE: In a Sunday morning appearance on Meet the Press Trump’s legislative affairs director, Marc Short, first tries to distance the administration from the racist ad by saying it’s from an outside group. But that’s a blatant lie. The ad is from Trump’s own campaign committee, which Chuck Todd pointed out and Short ignored. Moments later Short refuses to to even criticize the “tone” of the ad and insists that it’s actually helpful to Trump. So after failing to disown it, he embraces it. How Trumpian.

Good News: Trump Plans to Spend 2018 on the Campaign Trail Helping More GOP Candidates Lose

Posted by on December 17, 2017 at 8:18 am. 2 Comments :

In the past few weeks there have been a couple of important elections that drew national attention. One was for the governorship of Virginia. The other was for a senate seat in Alabama. In both contests Donald Trump campaigned furiously for the Republican candidate. And in both cases the Democrat won. Proving that the President’s support is no guarantee of success, even in staunchly red territories of the South.

Donald Trump

So it will come as good news to Democrats to learn that Trump is planning to hit the road in 2018 to campaign for Republican candidates across America:

“President Donald Trump is not on the ballot in 2018, but the White House is planning a full-throttle campaign to plunge the president into the midterm elections, according to senior officials and advisers familiar with the planning. […] The president has told advisers he wants to travel extensively and hold rallies and that he is looking forward to spending much of 2018 campaigning.”

That’s right. The president with the lowest approval rating since polling began is so enamored with himself that he thinks he’d be an asset to other political aspirants. Never mind the recent evidence that an association with Trump spells doom in races where Republicans should have had the edge. His conceit is so all-encompassing that he’s convinced that his presence is beneficial, or even desirable. This is a man so utterly lacking in self-awareness that he can’t comprehend that a majority of voters cringe at the site of him. And any candidate who stands next to Trump on the political stage is going to be covered by the stench of his divisiveness, racism, ignorance, misogyny, and boorish character.

Democrats must be salivating at the prospect of Trump’s ambitious campaign plans. They would surely welcome him into the fray knowing that he is more likely to hurt their GOP opponents than to help them. At the the same time he is one of the best motivators for Democrats to get out and vote. The more Trump tries to push his GOP colleagues, the bigger the blue wave is going to be next November. And as an added benefit, if Trump is traipsing around the country dragging down Republican electoral hopes, he won’t be in Washington creating more domestic and international crises. And Trump’s focus on electioneering is more proof that the only agenda of the Republican Party is the preservation of power.

Representatives of the Trump administration’s political team are as delusional as he is regarding the value of his contribution. One insisted that “this isn’t about adulation and cheering crowds.” That ignores the evidence of his narcissistic tendencies that compel him to continue holding rallies long after the presidential campaign was over. He clearly thrives on the fawning adoration of the deplorables who flock to his personal praise-a-thons.

The risk of having Trump stump for a candidate is that the thrill he gets from his glassy-eyed disciples only exacerbates the harm he is likely to cause. That’s because the more the crowds cheer, the more he talks about himself and ignores the candidate he came to promote. And whenever Trump goes off topic he winds up creating inane controversies that overwhelm whatever message he hoped to communicate.

For these reasons Democrats will be the first to encourage Trump to campaign vigorously and often. The more he is associated with Republican candidates the better the chances of electing Democrats. And Trump’s toxicity will only increase in the new year as more revelations from the investigations of his collusion with Russia emerge. And that’s not even taking into consideration scandals related to his financial corruption and sexual harassment and abuse. So bring it on Donnie. We double dare you.

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

Roy Moore’s Alabama Trainwreck Was a Disaster for Fox News and a Big Win for MSNBC

Posted by on December 14, 2017 at 9:25 am. 1 Comments :

Alabama’s senate race became a national event due the the unique circumstances that marked the election. Roy Moore’s campaign was emblematic of a new movement to hold sexual predators accountable. And his anachronistic racial and religious rigor was reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition. Donald Trump also figured into the southern soap opera. Despite his sudden amnesia with regard to Moore, the outcome would be a referendum on the President whether Fox News liked it or not. And they really didn’t like it.

Fox News Sad

You’ll never guess who else didn’t like it. Fox News viewers voted with their remotes Tuesday. As the election returns came in, the ratings for Fox News fell off a cliff. And by the time the race was called for Doug Jones they had lost more than half their audience. In the 9:00 hour Fox’s coverage of the race was pretty strong with about 3.8 million people watching (831K in the 25-54 demo). For much of that time Moore was still leading. Rachel Maddow wasn’t far behind with 3.1 million viewers (760K in the demo).

However, the race was called (first by Fox News, oddly enough) at about 10:30. And that saw a drop off for Fox to about 3.5 million (889K demo). But, Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC took off scoring 3.745 million (1.0M demo). And CNN also spiked with 3.5 million (1.5M demo). And by the 11:00 hour, when it was clear that Jones was victorious, Fox News was pitifully defeated. They ended primetime with just 1.8 million viewers (470K demo). That’s less than half the total audience they had before the returns were in That compared to MSNBC’s 3.7 million (947 demo), about twice Fox’s numbers, and CNN’s 3.2 million (1.4M demo).

Clearly Fox News viewers were too upset to continue watching television. Seeing the pedophile they supported lose to an honorable Democrat was just too painful. Never mind that by the next morning most of them were insisting that Moore was never a viable candidate, they never really liked him, and that they are better off without him in the senate making the GOP look bad. That’s pretty much the view taken by Fox News and, not coincidentally, many Republicans and Donald Trump. Not to worry. They still have sexual predator and Russian collaborator (allegedly) Trump and his devoted Deplorables to make them look bad.

On the other hand, Doug Jones’ victory inspired viewers to tune into MSNBC and CNN en masse at the conclusion of the race. This isn’t because the Democrat won. Americans tuned in to the networks where they thought they would get truthful reporting of the results, without the desperate spin of losers trying to make excuses. That’s why the numbers didn’t increase for Fox News even when there was actual news to report. And the Fox cultists who had tuned in early weren’t going to subject themselves to what they considered bad news. A few more nights like this and Fox News will have to cease broadcasting.

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

Watch Fox News Freak Out Over Doug Jones Victory, Pretend They Never Wanted Roy Moore Anyway

Posted by on December 13, 2017 at 10:42 am. 7 Comments :

The good people of Alabama came through on Tuesday and elected the decent senate candidate (Doug Jones) rather than the racist, crackpot, pedophile (Roy Moore). That doesn’t absolve the a-holes in Alabama who voted for Moore, but it’s an encouraging sign that positive changes are coming. The only way to characterize this outcome is as a monumental transformation for a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator for a quarter of century.

Fox News

But leave it to Fox News to find other ways to characterize such an obviously anti-Trump, anti-Republican event. And it only took a matter of seconds for Fox to try to recast the Jones win as something positive for the GOP. Anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum were plainly unhappy with the call. Less than a minute after announcing that Jones would win the senate seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Fox went into hyper-spin mode saying this (video below):

MacCallum: “You know there was a lot of discussion about whether a Roy Moore win would be a win, really, for the GOP. And there’s some questions tonight about whether or not there’s some silver lining, perhaps, for Republicans tonight. A victory by Moore, who was embroiled in a sex scandal, might have made it more difficult for the GOP to have gained control of the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.”

There’s so much to unpack here. Let’s start with the eagerness of Fox News to abandon Moore, the candidate they have been pimping for months. They are pretending that his loss is actually what they wanted all along. If they think this will be taken this seriously, it is a bitter insult to their dimwitted viewers. However, they know their viewers best, and they are probably right. The Fox audience would need a “silver lining” or a security blanket and a binky after what happened last night.

What’s more, by virtually conceding that Moore’s “sex scandal” would have been a major obstacle to the GOP’s electoral prospects next year, they are validating the very same case against Donald Trump. Actually, not quite the same. Trump has been accused by more women of more repulsive acts of harassment and abuse. If Fox News thinks that Moore’s loss will make those crimes go away they are deeply delusional. They will surely work hard to bury Trump’s reprehensible behavior, but in the comment above they have recognized that it cannot, and will not, be dismissed.

Finally, MacCallum’s phrasing is curious. The GOP does not have to “gain control” of the Senate next year. They currently have control. What she might be worried about is the growing possibility of Democrats assuming control of both houses of Congress. And once again, whatever difficulty she thinks the GOP would have had with Moore in the Senate isn’t going to be resolved as long Trump is in the White House.

Speaking of Trump, he also made an effort to distance himself from Moore after the loss. He tweeted that:

There is no record of Trump ever saying that Moore would “not be able to win.” What record there is of Trump’s endorsement was deleted from his Twitter feed (here and here and here). He also deleted a tweet congratulating Moore and cheering him on to victory. Ever since Moore won the GOP primary, Trump has been behind him. He even recorded a robo-call and staged a rally just across the Alabama border in Florida to whip up support. But following Moore’s loss, Trump has unceremoniously kicked him to the curb and proclaimed the he was right all along (as he always is in his sociopathic, narcissistic imagination).

These weren’t the only kicks Moore suffered. Other Fox News hosts were equally as dismissive. Ainsley Earhardt on Trump’s favorite show, Fox and Friends, said that “This was not a referendum on Trump. I feel like it was a referendum on Harvey Weinstein.” Her fellow “Curvy Couch” potato, Todd Piro, added that he didn’t want to be a “Pollyanna,” noting that the Republicans still have a one seat majority in the senate. Isn’t that a little too obvious an expression of Republican bias, even for Fox News? And Laura Ingraham giddily opined that “Jones is a lame duck from day one. He has zero chance of winning in 2020. This state loves Trump. This is not an anti-Trump result.”

For the record, Trump’s approval rating in Alabama, according to exit polls, was a 48-48 percent split, with “strongly approve” at 32 percent and “strongly disapprove” at 41 percent. Those are catastrophic numbers for Trump and Republicans in Alabama. And Trump’s approval nationwide is even worse. But don’t expect Fox News to acknowledge that. They are on a mission to implant happy-talk in the minds of their glassy-eyed viewers who need some cheering up. That, however, won’t last long. Fox has already segued to renewed outrage over Hillary Clinton’s emails and denigrating special counsel Robert Mueller as treasonous abomination of justice. Just another day of shrill propaganda for Fox News.

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

Gee Thanks: Donald Trump and Fox News Bring Back the Russia Pee-Pee Dossier

Posted by on October 25, 2017 at 3:55 pm. NO Comments :

The nation, and the world, are presently enveloped in a myriad of potential catastrophes. For example: nuclear war with North Korea; tax reform; natural disasters; terrorism, etc. Under the circumstances, you might think that Donald Trump would seek to focus on any of those critical issues. If so, you don’t know Donald Trump. True to form, the President has managed to shine a spotlight on one of his biggest embarrassments.

Sean Hannity

The now infamous Trump Dossier is a treasure trove of salacious and politically damning information. Much of it is speculative, but much has also been vetted and independently corroborated. The former British spy who compiled it is considered reliable by many intelligence agencies, including those in the United States. And if there is one scandalous controversy that Trump should be anxious to ditch, it’s the one that has him cavorting with Russian prostitutes. But for some reason, the Twitter obsessed President can’t resist his self-destructive urges:

Poor Donnie, Always the victim. And now he’s helping to remind America of his alleged escapades in Moscow with a different kind of golden shower than the one in his Manhattan penthouse. Trump is reprising this story because the Washington Post just published an article that ties Democrats to the Dossier. The only problem with this breaking news is that it was broken a year ago. In October of 2016, David Corn wrote for Mother Jones that the Dossier’s author had been “researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere.” In his article Corn noted that:

“This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project’s financing switched to a client allied with Democrats).”

So what began as opposition research for the GOP was taken up by Democratic operatives. That’s probably because the findings included “troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government.” Also, sources alleged “an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.” But in any case, the Democratic connection was obviously known long before WaPo’s “scoop.” It was even known by wingnut propaganda dispensers at Fox News. Trump fluffers like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have long been peddling this partisan snake oil.

So it’s ironic that Trump is now relying on the “fake” news purveyors at WaPo for his smear campaign info. His tweet Wednesday morning credited Fox News with the data. However, there’s a bigger question here. Do Trump and Fox News really think it’s noteworthy that Democrats might have funded opposition research against their opposition? Isn’t that what all campaigns do as a matter of routine? When Fox’s Jeanine Pirro was defending Trump, Jr. for meeting with Russians during the campaign she bragged that:

“As someone who’s run for office five times, if the devil called me and said he wanted to set up a meeting to give me opposition research on my opponent, I’d be on the first trolley to Hell to get it. And any politician who tells you otherwise is a bald-faced liar.”

In fact, Trump said pretty much the same thing:

Now suddenly it’s an abomination for Hillary Clinton’s campaign to engage in opposition research. The hypocrisy is palpable. But the objective for Trump and his pals at Fox News is to conflate this old, non-story with the more relevant allegations of Trump’s collusion with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. And it’s a talking point that was distributed to all of the network’s programs. Already the subject has been covered by Pirro, Tucker Carlson, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, and, of course, Sean Hannity. For his part, Hannity helpfully stirred the recollection of the most depraved portions of the Dossier:

“The Democrats, media, they were happy to repeat, for example, that ‘Oh, Donald Trump was at the Ritz in Moscow and he had hookers urinating in his bed.’ […] All of this makes the Clinton campaign and the DNC complicit in spreading Russian propaganda and Russian lies about then-candidate, Donald Trump.

You have to wonder why Hannity thought that would benefit his buddy Trump. He could have simply talked about the Dossier in disparaging terms and left it at that. But no. This genius thought visualizing Russian hookers urinating on Trump had to be a feature of the broadcast. Never mind that the entire story involving who paid for some routine opposition research doesn’t even come close to the scandal of enlisting Russians to tamper with an American election. Clearly they are pretending to be more interest in who paid for it than what’s in it. But all of this just illustrates how desperate they are to deflect from the real news and to attack their perennial foe, Hillary Clinton, who holds no office and says she never will.

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 is Now Making (Lie-Riddled) Campaign Ads For Donald Trump (VIDEO)

Posted by on September 5, 2017 at 1:59 pm. NO Comments :

One of the most neglected observations about Donald Trump’s presidency is that he never wanted to be president. His stage-five narcissism and bloated ego has always found campaigning to be more to his liking. He feeds off of the mindless cheers of his glassy-eyed disciples. In his bubble-bunker he imagines (falsely) that they reflect the views of the whole country.

Fox News Trump Ad

For that reason Trump commenced his reelection campaign moments after completing his poorly attended inauguration address. It was an earlier start than any other president. And it was plain that he did it to justify holding more rallies before screaming Deplorables.

Now, in support of Trump’s reelection efforts, Fox News has stepped forward to do their part. This isn’t the typical Trump-fluffing that goes on everyday on the pro-Trump network. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes on Fox and Friends, were always expected to slobber over everything Trump does and says. No, this is something else that goes way beyond the mere contemptibility of biased journalism.

Fox News posted a video that can only be described as a campaign ad for Donald Trump. It is filled with positive imagery and clips of the President advocating American labor and goods. It even attributes laudable policies to Trump that have no factual basis. Watch for yourself:

Some of the statements in this brazenly partisan propaganda deserve more detailed analysis. For instance:

  • “President Trump has made Job creation a central focus of his administration.”

    • Where is the evidence of that? He has talked about it from time to time, but has done nothing substantive about it. His bragging about bringing jobs back from other countries has turned out to be a hoax. The companies he touted still laid off Americans and shipped those jobs elsewhere. He hasn’t even managed to get an infrastructure bill off the ground. The border wall is the only project he proposed that might create a few jobs, and the country is opposed to that.

  • “When signing the Buy American, Hire American executive order, Trump said ‘The policy of our government is to aggressively promote and use American made goods.'”

    • This order has no plans attached to it to produce anything at all. It doesn’t require any action on the part of employers or manufacturers. And if Trump were really interested in hiring Americans, he could start by hiring them to staff his luxury golf resorts. He might also consider having his ties, suits, etc. made in the U.S. instead of China, Mexico, and Bangladesh.

  • “We are building our future with American hands, American labor, American iron, aluminum, and steel.”

    • Not in Trump’s world we aren’t. He has illegally employed foreign construction workers on his buildings. He uses steel shipped in from China. And even the furnishings inside are mostly made in other countries.

Revelations about Trump lying have become so commonplace that people are beginning to tune it out. But what’s troubling about this video from Fox News isn’t just the bald-faced lies. It is that Fox News has no business producing campaign videos for any candidate for office. It is blatantly improper for an alleged “news” organization and a breach of journalistic ethics. It should be reported to the Federal Elections Commission as an in-kind contribution to Trump’s campaign. And the network should be fined and explicitly prohibited from further breaches.

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

However, it may be too much to expect the FEC to act on this. It is a notoriously toothless agency. So Fox may get away with their electioneering for now. But the more the public knows about this violation of trust, the more they will shun the network and its cast of Trump shills. That’s already happening as MSNBC, on the strength of Rachel Maddow’s superb investigative reporting, has surpassed Fox in the ratings. Rupert Murdoch recently took his own Fox News off the air in the U.K. citing lack of viewers. Let’s make him do the same here at home.