Wankery

Lying Trump Shill Sarah Sanders Gives Solace to Domestic Terrorists and Russian Conspirators

Posted by on February 22, 2019 at 1:11 pm. 3 Comments :

It has been several days since the arrest of Christopher Hasson, a domestic terrorist who compiled a cache of weapons and ammunition with the intention of murdering Democrats and journalists. But Donald Trump has still said nothing about it, even though he has commented on the Jussie Smollett case, 6G communications technology (which doesn’t exist), and a remorseful “ISIS wife” who wants to return to her home in the U.S.

Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

In the absence of any comments from the President, reporters asked his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, if she could provide any insight into Trump’s feelings on the matter. This lead to an exchange that was purely pablum for Deplorables:

Reporter: Is there any plan for the President to maybe tone down his rhetoric, and do you think this contributes to these sorts of extremists getting these ideas?
Sanders: I certainly don’t think that the president at any point has done anything but condemn violence against journalists or anyone else. In fact, every single time something like this happens, the president is typically one of the first people to condemn the violence and the media is the first people to blame the president. We should all join together and start condemning the violence whether it’s against members of the media, whether it’s against Democrats, Republicans, any person in this country. That is unacceptable, and that is why every time it comes up we have been consistent and repeatedly said that we condemn violence in all forms.

The first notable part of this robo-reply is that it didn’t mention Hasson or his plot to commit mass murder. Sanders pointedly did not condemn him or make any statement to deter others from conspiring to commit the same atrocities. She simply generalized the horror and pretended that it’s a problem for both sides of the political aisle, although the data shows that right-wing domestic terrorism is far more prevalent and on the rise.

What’s more, Sanders’ claim that Trump hasn’t “done anything but condemn violence” is provably false. In fact, Trump has encouraged violence at his cult rallies, telling people to “knock the crap out of” protesters, and not to worry about it because “I promise you I will pay for the legal fees.” Trump also praised Rep. Greg Gianforte, who was convicted of assaulting a reporter, saying that “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type.” And of course, Trump’s repeated assertions that the media is “the enemy of the people” are unambiguously incitements to violence, particularly of the sort aspired to by Hasson and committed against the Capital Gazette of Maryland.

During the same press avail, Sanders was asked about the media reports that special counsel Robert Mueller might be wrapping up his investigation and what Trump’s thoughts were about the pending report. Here is the question and Sanders’ response:

Reporter: You were saying a minute ago that there was no need for the campaign to collude with the Russians, but there have been so many indictments. There have been convictions. And there were so many contacts with the Russians. How do you balance that?
Sanders: It’s real simple to me. The President was far and away the better candidate. He had a better message and he outworked Hillary Clinton. And that’s why he’s president. He didn’t need to, nor did he, collude with the Russians. Pretty simple.

Notice what’s missing in Sanders’ reply? Pretty everything that was asked about in the question. Sanders said nothing about the indictments, convictions and numerous contacts with Russians by many of Trump’s closest associates and family, all of whom lied about their activities before being confronted with evidence that forced the truth out of them.

The result of Sanders’ remarks are not inconsequential. By failing to specifically condemn Hasson and anyone else who would seek to emulate him, Sanders is implicitly condoning those actions. Why does she find it so easy to universally condemn innocent refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. as criminals, rapists, and drug traffickers, but cannot denounce actual right-wing terrorism? And by refusing to address the facts surrounding Trump and his nefarious relationships with Russia, she is giving permission for our foreign adversaries to continue to undermine our democracy.

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

What both of these failures to stand up for American principles and sovereignty demonstrate is the tendency by the Trump administration to act against the interests of the United States. In some circles that is referred to as treasonous. At the very least it reveals a suspicious leaning toward some self-interest on Trump’s part that benefits our enemies. And that’s about as solid a justification for impeachment that you’re ever going to see.

This Just In: Trump finally addressed the Hasson matter, but only after he was asked by Hallie Jackson of NBC News. His answer is unbelievably disgusting. He called it “a shame.” WTF? It’s a shame when your kid cheats on a math test. A terrorist plotting mass murder is an atrocity. And Trump’s assertion that he hasn’t been fully briefed a week after the arrest is undoubtedly another lie.

Sean Hannity of Fox News: Americans Should Not See the Mueller Report on Trump that They Paid For

Posted by on February 21, 2019 at 12:53 pm. 3 Comments :

A recent story by CNN is stating that special counsel Robert Mueller is wrapping up his investigation and that a report may be issued as soon as next week. There are some people familiar with the probe who dispute that timeline as unlikely considering the amount of unfinished business, including pending indictments and testimony. But the Trump-fluffers at Fox News are nevertheless preparing for the worst by advocating censorship.

Fox News, Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity took the news from CNN as a warning call. That’s ironic since he generally agrees with Trump that CNN is “fake news.” But he’s apparently concerned that this story is accurate and that something must be done. Specifically, Hannity thinks that any report issued by Mueller should be suppressed and not made available to the public. That’s a peculiar position for someone in the media to take. Under ordinary circumstances, journalists are proponents of full transparency, especially with regard to government affairs.

But Hannity (who is getting trounced in the ratings by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow) has a different point of view (video below). He prefaced his opinion with a brief summary of how special counsel reports are handled and who was responsible for those procedures:

“According to special counsel regulations, Mueller will provide a confidential report to the Attorney General Bob Barr explaining the decisions reached by the special counsel. Next, the attorney general will notify the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees, quote, ‘upon the conclusion of the special counsel’s investigation.’ It is totally in the hands of the attorney general, and his alone to decide what, if any, details can be released in compliance with the law. He can control the timing of the notification over, quote, ‘legitimate investigative or privacy concerns.’

“Now, also, remember, these regulations, they were presented to Congress two decades ago by Democrats, Janet Reno, the AG, Deputy AG Eric Holder. That was after the Starr investigation.”

However, Hannity then goes on to completely misinterpret how those procedures would be applied to the Mueller report. He concluded that imposing certain limitations on releasing information that may have “legitimate investigative or privacy concerns” amounts to a free hand by the newly installed Attorney General, Bob Barr, to withhold whatever he wants. That’s not how it works.

Hannity continued by announcing that he would be traveling to Vietnam with Trump for the summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. And he used that as another excuse to keep the American people from having access to the Mueller report:

“Would it not be wholly inappropriate to actually release the findings when the President is out of the country participating in these high stakes negotiations with with such an important topic?”

Okay then. How about releasing it the following week? Surely Hannity would have another reason why that would also be wholly inappropriate. But what’s really inappropriate is someone in the media arguing in favor of the government keeping secrets from the people. No credible journalist would ever say such a ridiculous thing.

Although there is some dispute on whether or not Hannity is a journalist – mainly by him. On his radio show he insisted that “I’m a journalist but I’m an advocacy journalist.” But on Twitter he angrily noted that “I’m not a journalist jackass. I’m a talk host.” Which raise the question that if he isn’t a “journalist jackass,” then what kind of jackass is he? Hannity later deleted that tweet, but the Internet Archive preserved it here.

Apparently Hannity is whatever he says he is at the time he’s saying it. Like most of what comes out of his mouth, it cannot be taken seriously or relied upon to be operative an hour later. And as for the release of the Mueller report, there are options available to gain access to it without the interference of Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General. For instance, Democrats in Congress are exploring their option for subpoenaing either the report or testimony from Mueller.

Either way, Hannity is not likely to get his wish that the report be kept secret from the American people who paid for it. And Trump’s defenders at State TV (aka Fox News) and other right-wing media outlets are going to have to strain themselves to find ways to justify their advocacy of censorship. In the end, transparency will likely prevail. That’s important because without it the crimes of the President would never be resolved to the satisfaction of the nation he conspired against. No matter how badly Hannity and Trump want that.

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

Trump is Silent About a Real Domestic Terrorist’s Plot to Kill Democrats and Journalists

Posted by on February 20, 2019 at 6:01 pm. 3 Comments :

Early Wednesday morning Donald Trump posted another tweetstorm that ranted incoherently about the media being “the enemy of the people” and wishing for them to “go bust,” putting thousands of Americans out of work and leaving only State TV outlets like Fox News to provide their lies to the nation. It was the sort of reckless tirade that can (and has) lead to bloodshed.

Trump Charlotsville

Later in the day came news that just such an unthinkable act of mass murder was foiled by law enforcement officers of the FBI and the Coast Guard. According to NBC News:

“A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant working in the nation’s capital lived a secret life as a “domestic terrorist” who aspired to mass murder and compiled a target list of prominent politicians and journalists, federal prosecutors allege in court papers.”

The suspect, Christopher Paul Hasson, was arrested on drug and gun charges, but prosecutors said that he was intent on committing a killing spree against journalists and Democratic politicians. He described himself as a “white nationalist” and searched for pro-Russian and neo-Nazi literature online. The report went on to provide details of Hasson’s proposed victims:

“Prosecutors say the list included designations they believe referred to Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters, Ilhan Omar and Sheila Jackson. Also on it was former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

“Media figures on the list included [Joe] Scarborough, MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Ari Melber, and CNN’s Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and Van Jones.”

This is the sort of deadly, crackpot white nationalism that comes from watching too much Fox News and listening Trump’s deranged sermons at his cult rallies. Hasson is without a doubt a domestic terrorist with a determination to carry out the most hostile version of the dystopia advocated by Trump. But Trump has said nothing about his plot or arrest. However, Trump did post a tweet announcing that he gave an order to prohibit Hoda Muthana from reentering the U.S.

Muthana is an American citizen who traveled to Syria allegedly to join ISIS. She now regrets her decision and expresses remorse for her “naive, angry, and arrogant” behavior. Whatever you may think of her, or her desire to return to her family and birthplace, Trump’s participation in the matter is absurd. This is a decision that is generally made way below the presidency. So the only imaginable purpose for Trump’s involvement is the publicity.

Nevertheless, Trump doesn’t seem the least bit interested in publicizing the arrest of a straight-up domestic terrorist whose views are aligned with his own. And he doesn’t seem to think that it might be useful to condemn such actions in order to deter others like Hasson from concocting their own plots. Trump’s banning of Muthana will have negligible impact on anything. But his silence on Hasson will be viewed as greenlighting the revolution that his Deplorables dream about.

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

Bring It On: Trump Flunky Lindsey Graham’s Proposed Hearings Could Backfire, Proving Trump’s Treason

Posted by on February 18, 2019 at 2:45 pm. 4 Comments :

The hypnotic effects of cult worship have never been so clearly displayed as with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. In short order he went from a virulent opponent of Donald Trump to his most devoted sycophant in Congress. Graham’s metamorphosis would make a superb to sequel to Kafka’s novel about a man who turns into a cockroach.

Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump

Let there be no ambiguity with regard to the transformation that Graham had to undergo. He literally described Trump as a “kook” who is “crazy” and “unfit for office.” But after chugging what must have been gallons of Kool-Aid, Graham reversed himself with those very same words in the opposite context:

Now Graham is the newly installed chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee with a brand new compulsion to protect Trump from any and all criticism, while slandering those he perceives as the President’s foes. That puts former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe in Graham’s crosshairs. McCabe just published a book on “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.” He goes into some detail regarding the evidence that Trump and his associates had suspicious connections to Russia and various Kremlin operatives. In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday McCabe summarized some of his concerns saying:

“If the president committed obstruction of justice, fired the director of the FBI to negatively impact or to shut down our investigation of Russia’s malign activity and possibly in support of his campaign, as a counterintelligence investigator, you have to ask yourself, ‘Why would a president of the United States do that? […]

“So all those same sorts of facts cause us to wonder if there is an inappropriate relationship, a connection between this president and our most fearsome enemy, the government of Russia?”

Based on the growing evidence against Trump, it would have been dereliction of duty had McCabe and his FBI colleagues not looked into the matter. Republicans persecuted Hillary Clinton with far less cause over everything from Benghazi to her emails. In fact, Graham was one of the fiercest proponents of those congressional probes. But now he has abandoned that ferocity in order to make himself a human shield for Trump.

To that end Graham announced that he would hold hearings to ascertain whether there was improper bias on the part of McCabe or others in the FBI and the Justice Department. That would be a risky proposition for him because it would result in many of the treasonous charges against Trump being aired publicly. McCabe, Rosenstein, and the Democrats on the Committee would be able to fill in the gaps that Graham would like to leave out. He wouldn’t be able to get away with the sort of biased pronouncements he unleashes in the media. For instance, in a Sunday interview on Face the Nation, Graham proclaimed that:

“It’s stunning to me that one of the chief law enforcement officers of the land, the acting head of the FBI, would go on national television and say, ‘Oh by the way, I remember a conversation with the deputy attorney general about trying to find if we could replace the president under the 25th Amendment. We’re a democracy. People who enforce the law can’t take it into their own hands. Was this an attempted bureaucratic coup? I don’t know.”

Actually, McCabe never had a conversation about the FBI trying to replace Trump. There was a conversation about whether there was support within Trump’s own cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, which would declare the President unfit to serve. That’s something Graham already weighed in on before “the change.”. And it is entirely within the purview of law to consider such actions. In fact, it’s absurd to characterize it as a “coup” because it would require the affirmation of Trump’s closest allies. Plus it would give him an opportunity to refute the allegations. And then the Congress would need to confirm any action with a super-majority. It’s called “Constitutional Democracy.”

For Graham to assert that it would be improper for “people who enforce the law” to “take it into their own hands” is utterly ridiculous. That’s actually the job of people who enforce the law. It’s like saying that a police officer who catches you trying to steal a car can’t arrest you because he’s a person who enforces the law so he can’t take it into his own hands.

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

It’s logic like that that permeates the Trump cultists like Graham. You simply cannot make any sense of it, nor is it productive to argue with them. They’ll just get that glazed look in their eyes, call you communist, and blame Obama for whatever it is you were arguing about. It’s one thing to have to suffer through interactions with these Deplorables online. But it’s another thing entirely to have them as sitting U.S. senators. Hopefully that will change next year.

SRSLY? Fox News Complains About ‘Embarrassing’ Coverage of Kamala Harris Shopping

Posted by on February 16, 2019 at 12:52 pm. 1 Comments :

You have to hand it To the Trump-fluffers at Fox News. It hardly matters what the substance of any story is, they will twist it into a positive propaganda piece for Donald Trump, or a lame criticism of of his opponents. They have staff on call 24/7 to massage the news of the day into something utterly dishonest so that it would fit nicely into a Trump campaign ad.

Fox News, Brit Hume, Donald Trump

Take for instance Brit Hume, the Sr. Political Analyst at Fox News (and former chief news anchor). On Saturday morning he was riffling through the Twitter-verse on the hunt for anything he could spin to tickle the fancy of of Fox’s fave fascismo, Donald Trump. And, lo and behold, he stumbled onto a video of Sen. Kamala Harris campaigning in Columbia, South Carolina.

This video shows Harris visiting a boutique during a campaign swing that featured small businesses owned by women. Ordinarily that would seem to be an admirable recognition of an important, and too often neglected, constituency. It is certainly a sector of the electorate that both Trump and Fox News generally ignore, when they aren’t insulting them. But for Hume to complain that this was somehow “embarrassing” just boggles the mind.

Hume was triggered by what is merely a human interest clip of a candidate interacting with voters. The video was posted by CBS News reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns. There was nothing “glowing” about it. It was a typical observation of a candidate in the field. There are thousands of these presented in every election for every candidate.

Someone needs to remind Hume that he works for the network that serves as the dedicated PR division of the Trump White House. Everyone from their morning suck-ups on Fox and Friends, to their primetime knob polishers, do nothing but deliver video wet kisses to Trump (which hasn’t been working out very well for them in the ratings). The biggest star on Fox News, Sean Hannity, unleashes slobbering poems of political devotion every night. He has even appeared on stage with Trump at his cult rallies (and Trump has returned the favor with promotional tweets). That’s true for several other Foxies also, including Brian Kilmeade, Pete Hegseth, Laura Ingraham, and Jeanine Pirro. These are people who unambiguously campaign for Trump.

If Hume is so concerned about an eleven second video of Harris in a local shop, what does he have to say about hours of Fox News cameras focused on a stationary plane that Trump was expected to come out of? What does he have to say about hours of uninterrupted broadcasts of Trump’s hate-filled and that contained zero newsworthiness? What does he have to say about the dozens of interviews (more than forty so far) that Trump has done with Fox News as President, while doing none with CNN or MSNBC during that time?

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

This is a superb example of the tunnel-blindness of Fox News. They lash out at Democrats and liberals for the most innocent activities, but ignore the the flagrant crimes committed by Trump and his nefarious associates. A perfect recent example is Trump’s Hannity-inspired declaration of a national emergency. Just the sort of thing they said Obama should be impeached for. If you strung Fox’s hypocrisies together, they would encircle the Earth a few hundred times, while still insisting that the Earth is flat.

Trump Confirms that Fox News Shills Are His Chief Influencers in Psycho ‘National Emergency’ Speech

Posted by on February 15, 2019 at 10:51 am. 3 Comments :

It’s official. The most aggressively biased Fox News propagandists are acting as Donald Trump’s primary advisors on the question of a “national emergency” to fund his precious vanity wall, as well as a host of other issues. In a Rose Garden address, the President cited the entire primetime roster on Fox News when asked about which conservative voices shape his views.

Donald Trump, Fox News

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Trump is known to consult his “braintrust” at Fox News frequently, even in nightly phone calls with Sean Hannity before bedtime. In fact, it was Hannity who gave the order for Trump to declare a national emergency in the first place. So when Trump stepped out onto the White House lawn to announce that he would sign the bipartisan congressional bill to fund the government – despite the fact that it contained no money for a wall – he answered an inquiry about the right-wing pundits he is known to rely on without hesitation or shame (video below):

Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News: Mr. President, could you tell us to what degree some of the outside conservative voices helped to shape your views on this national emergency?

Trump: Look, I would talk about it. Look, Sean Hannity has been a terrific, terrific support of what I do. Not of me. If I change my views he wouldn’t be with me. Rush Limbaugh, I think he’s a great guy. He can speak for three hours without a phone call. Try doing that sometime. For three hours he speaks. He’s got one of the biggest audiences in the history of world. I mean this guy is unbelievable.”

Of course, Hannity would withdraw his support if Trump didn’t continue to advance the same radically rightist views that Hannity holds. That’s the whole point. And it’s why Trump doesn’t change his views. He fears losing Hannity’s support, and that of the Fox News Deplorables who are glued to him and the rest of the network’s crackpots. And it’s predictable that Trump admires Limbaugh’s ability to ramble on incoherently for hours on end. It’s a “skill” that they share. Then Trump continued:

Trump: They don’t decide policy. In fact, if I went opposite…I mean they have somebody, Ann Coulter, I don’t know her. I hardly know her. I haven’t spoken to her in way over a year. But the press loves saying Ann Coulter. Probably if I did speak to her she’d be very nice. I just don’t have the time to speak to her. I would speak to her. I have nothing against her. In fact I like her for one reason. When they asked her like right at the beginning, ‘Who’s gonna wing the election? Donald Trump.’ And the two people that asked her that question smiled.

So Trump doesn’t know Ann Coulter. Well, except for his admission that he has spoken to her during his presidency. And the fact that she has appeared with him at his rallies. And he claims that she is one of his conservative critics, but then cites her prediction that he would become president as the one reason he likes her. Then he went on:

Trump: Laura’s been great, Laura Ingraham. Tucker Carlson’s been great. I actually have a couple of people on CNN that have been very good. I have some on MSNBC the other day. They did a great report on me. I say ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ I think it was the only one in over a year.

And there you have it. Trump filled in the rest of the Fox News primetimers, all of whom he praised as being “great” because they are such constantly slobbering sycophants. As for the MSNBC segment, he actually tweeted about that last week, but included a video clip that was deceitfully edited to cut out the criticism and to make it appear as if it was wholly positive.

Trump’s speech was predictably deranged as he stumbled from one topic to another without any connecting logic. It was a smorgasbord of his unhinged rants that are familiar to anyone who has seen him at his cult rallies. He even did a childish, sing-song style bit about how he expects the legal challenges to his emergency declaration to go down. This performance was, in fact, sufficient to justify the reported considerations by former FBI official, Andrew McCabe, to remove Trump from office via the 25th Amendment for being mentally unfit to serve. But then, we already knew that.

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

On Orders from Sean Hannity (His Fox News Boss) Trump Will Sign Border Bill, Declare Emergency

Posted by on February 14, 2019 at 1:34 pm. 1 Comments :

After the unmitigated disaster of the Trump Shutdown last month, Donald Trump is taking steps to avoid another embarrassing loss to his nemesis, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Under Pelosi’s guidance, the bipartisan committee in Congress tasked with drafting a new funding bill has arrived at a consensus that does not include any money for Trump’s idiotic vanity wall. So the President is responding in the most ignorant and undemocratic way possible.

Fox News, Sean Hannity, White House

The Constitution of the United States makes clear that the Congress is responsible for all spending allocations by the federal government. Ordinarly, the president would be bound by the decisions of the Congress that is made up of the people’s representatives. But Donald Trump is in no way ordinary. It appears to be his intention to ignore – and even insult – the people (who polls show are overwhelmingly opposed to the wall) and do an unconstitutional end run around Congress to get funding for his precious wall.

Of course, Trump didn’t come to this decision on his own. That would require reading a bill that is over 1,000 pages and being able to grasp what it means. Instead, Trump is merely following orders from his superiors at Fox News who are accustomed to telling him what to do, and having him obey. It was only one day ago that Sean Hannity delivered his command to Trump in the form of commentary on his program. Hannity’s segment was built around this premise: “How Trump can take Congress’ garbage deal, and stick the wall down their throats.” That’s a particularly fascist tone to take with regard to presidential powers (something they are familiar with). What Hannity actually proposed was this:

“Step one: The president signs the deal, and uses the $1.375 billion as a downpayment for the wall. Step two: President Trump has identified some $900 million for additional construction that is already available for the administration’s discretion. That would bring the pot to about $2.3 billion. Step three: This needs to happen simultaneously, and it has the president declaring a national emergency. This is the time.”

So how did the White House respond to the bill that Congress is about to send him?

Gee. That’s exactly what Hannity told him to do. And this isn’t the first time. In fact, the Trump Shutdown was largely the result of Hannity’s insistence that Trump not agree to any deal that didn’t include wall funding. This time, however, they knew that a shutdown would only make matters worse for Trump, so they decided to try to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. But that’s isn’t going to work out any better them.

The emergency declaration will surely be challenged in court, where Trump will likely fail because there isn’t any emergency. And Trump’s own words and actions are the proof of that. He has repeatedly claimed that his administration has reduced illegal border crossings. He said that he already stopped two “caravans” of refugees at the border without any wall. And he has been putting off any executive actions on this for months. All of this affirms that no emergency condition exists.

Trump is engaging in pure theatricality in order to get his way, not to secure the nation, but to be able to say that he fulfilled a dumb campaign promise (that included Mexico paying for the wall, but now that’s been forgotten). No court in the nation will rule that Trump saving face over a campaign promise constitutes a national emergency. So Trump will lose in the end. But in the meantime he will have degraded democracy and divided the country even more than he already has. And that’s the Trump legacy that will endure long after he’s gone.

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

Tucker Carlson of Fox News Parrots Trump’s ‘No Collusion’ Mantra in the Stupidest Way Imaginable

Posted by on February 13, 2019 at 1:30 pm. 2 Comments :

The competition for “The Stupidest Person on Fox News” is always a heated affair with way too many deserving candidates. With people like like Sean Hannity (a perennial leader, but ratings loser), Laura Ingraham, Steve Doocy, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, etc., in the running, it’s may be impossible to name a single winner. But if anyone holds the inside track it’s usually Tucker Carlson.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

On Tuesday Donald Trump caved in again to his superior, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, over the funding for his idiotic vanity wall along the southern border. The deal that the bipartisan committee in Congress hammered out actually allocates less money to the wall than the deal Trump rejected before his shutdown. So in an effort to draw attention away from yet another example of his pitiful negotiating skills, Trump went back to his whining about the numerous investigations of his criminality that are in progress. He tweeted this on Wednesday:

Of course that tweet, like almost everything Trump says, is totally false. The Senate Intelligence Committee did not make the statement that Trump is attributing to them. It was just the opinion of Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the committee. The Democrats disputed Burr’s opinion on its face and noted that their probe is not even complete. What’s more, Burr didn’t even say that there is “no evidence of collusion.” He said that he hadn’t seen any “direct” evidence. Which leaves plenty of room for circumstantial evidence or the simple fact that they had not seen the volumes of evidence that special counsel Robert Mueller has.

Naturally, Trump isn’t interested in the complexities of the truth. His mission is to simplify and distort everything to the point where his dimwitted Deplorables can be fooled into thinking he’s winning. He previously tweeted a “Thank You” note to MSNBC for airing a segment that reported Burr’s comments. But Trump cut off the video just before it went into the detail that exposed the very real legal jeopardy that Trump faces.

Enter Tucker Carlson. It won’t surprise anyone that Carlson acted out his sycophantic infatuation with Trump as he always does. He agreed with Trump’s mistaken comments about the Senate committee’s non-conclusion. And he went into great (but malformed) detail to make his point. He insisted that, according to the Senate committee “There is no evidence whatsoever that the Trump campaign conspired in any way with the government of Vladimir Putin during the last presidential election.” As noted above, none of that is true. But what makes Carlson’s suck-up a candidate for awards in stupidity is how he frames his phony argument:

“If you’ve been following the story at all, and of course you have been, you will not be surprised by this. “No Russian collusion” is a lot like the moon landing actually happened, or the abominable snowman was probably a long-haired mountain goat. You knew that already because you are not an idiot.”

So Carlson is arguing that the proof that there was no collusion is that it’s self-evident, that that’s just the way it is and everyone knows it. Never mind all the indictments, convictions, and disclosures of secret meetings with Russians by dozens of Trump associates. You just know it couldn’t be and, therefore, it wasn’t.

And here is where the dumbness becomes Olympic-grade. Carlson later quotes former Navy intelligence officer, Malcolm Nance, saying on MSNBC that there was no direct evidence implicating Benedict Arnold in treason, but that “everyone knew it was treason when they caught the man.” Carlson found this out-of-context soundbite so absurd that he repeated three times. And not once in those repetitions did he realize that he was ridiculing exactly the same reliance on something being self-evident that he relied on himself a few minutes earlier. He apparently has the attention span of brain-damaged gnat.

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

What’s really disturbing is that this is precisely the sort of logical malfunction that works so well among Trump’s cult followers and Fox News viewers. They won’t catch the obvious contradictions or cognitive failures that define the right’s crackpot ideology in the Era of Trump. But they will follow along blindly with whatever their Dear Leader and his State TV surrogates tell them is the truth. Which makes one wonder whether their stupidity is even worse than that of Carlson, Fox News, and Trump.

Donald Trump Lamely Tries to Rescue ‘Failing’ Sean Hannity’s Arsekissing Hour on Fox News

Posted by on February 9, 2019 at 12:36 pm. 0 Comments :

Donald Trump would not be president today were it not for the donation of millions of dollars of free airtime to his candidacy by Fox News. The broadcast of his hate-filled cult rallies in their entirety for the months preceding the election allowed Trump to disseminate his message of divisiveness and bigotry to an audience he would never have been able to reach otherwise.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

Since the election Fox News has continued to serve Trump as his own personal propaganda outlet with hosts and guests who furiously defend everything he says and does, while fiercely attacking his critics. And he continues to get preferential treatment with regard to airtime and interviews. He has done more than forty interviews as president with Fox News, but zero with CNN and MSNBC. And he has another Fox interview next Monday with Laura Ingraham.

However, Trump’s biggest booster on Fox News is indisputably Sean Hannity, who has even appeared on stage at his rallies in violation of Fox News “standards,” such as they are. Hannity devotes most of his program to his sycophantic admiration for Trump and deranged conspiracy theories about everyone from Hillary Clinton to special counsel Robert Mueller. Last summer Hannity let two of Trump’s lawyers guest host his three hour radio show. And, of course, Trump has granted him more interviews than any other television personality.

None of that, however, has prevented Hannity’s show from declining in the ratings. What used to be the number program on cable news now loses on an almost nightly basis to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Hannity’s total ratings crashed nineteen percent since the midterms in November. His fall in the coveted, advertiser-friendly 25-54 year old demographic was a massive thirty percent. He is also suffering from an exodus af advertisers along with his colleagues Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham due to their offensive and racist rhetoric.

Consequently, Trump is coming to the rescue of his friend and “shadow” chief-of-staff. On Saturday morning Trump retweeted three of Hannity’s tweets that were typically flattering to the President. The first was an article from Hannity’s website about remarks by the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee concerning his opinion that no evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia has been found. That opinion was refuted by the ranking Democrat on the committee, but Trump wasn’t interested in that. Nor was he interested in the mountains of evidence found by the special counsel, other than to whine incessantly that it’s a hoax.

The second retweet was an article on Hannity’s website asserting that Ford was investing a billion dollars in two Chicago-area factories, and giving Trump credit for it. But as with every other announcement of this kind, it was either something that had been planned long before Trump was president, something that was merely a proposal with no guarantee, or something that would never actually come to pass. And none of that has ever stopped Trump from taking credit anyway.

The third retweet was Hannity’s posting of an article on TheHill by right-wing shill and Trump flunky, John Solomon. The article posited a ludicrous conspiracy theory that Rep. Adam Schiff, the new Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, had met secretly last year with GPS Fusion founder Glenn Simpson, whose company hired the author of the Steele Dossier. No such meeting ever took place, and the article provided no evidence of it. Nevertheless, Hannity posted it and Trump retweeted that posting.

Trump often live-tweets what he’s watching on Fox News. And by the frequency of it, he seems to do nothing else all day long. But he rarely posts multiple tweets in succession promoting a single program. Doing so now, at a time when Hannity’s show is sinking like a rock, seems like Trump is throwing a life preserver to his drowning pal. But this can’t possibly help. If Trump’s followers on Twitter aren’t already watching Hannity, they aren’t ever going to start now. And his retweets certainly aren’t going to slow the rapid growth of Maddow’s program.

The problem with Hannity’s show isn’t that there aren’t enough Trump supporters watching it. It’s that Hannity is a repugnant jerkwad whose asskissing is so tedious that even conservatives and Republicans are sickened by it. The problem is that Hannity offers the same noxious blend of lies and insults every night, aimed at the same “villains” he’s been attacking for years. His program is both annoyingly repetitive and presented by an angry mouth-breather who seems less coherent than the schizophrenic on the street corner shouting at passing cars. That has never been a winning formula for television viewing.

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

HUH? Fox News Doofus Thinks that the Democratic Women at the State of the Union Like Trump

Posted by on February 6, 2019 at 6:19 pm. 4 Comments :

Anyone who has spent any time watching Fox News is well aware that it is a blatantly biased mouthpiece for conservative Republicans in general and the President in particular. It is often referred to (by me) as “State TV” because of its devoted support for everything Donald Trump does and says. And when they aren’t furiously defending the President, they are viciously attacking his critics.

Fox News Friends

That creates plenty of opportunities for them to embarrass themselves with painfully ignorant rants and diatribes that are entirely devoid of facts, logic, or reason. Their hosts and guests are notoriously ill-informed or deliberately dishonest. But every now and then they outdo themselves with comments that are so profoundly stupid it’s hard to comprehend they could make them without the aid of some powerful psychotropic medications. And Wednesday morning, following Trump’s State of the Union address, there was just such an event.

During the speech, Trump pointed out that there were more women serving in the current session of Congress than ever before. That brought the mostly Democratic women in the audience to their feet as they cheered and congratulated themselves on their victories. This startled Trump who said that “You weren’t supposed to do that.” It’s hard to tell if he was referring to their applause or to the fact they got elected. But it was Fox News who really excelled at misunderstanding what had taken place. Steve Doocy, co-host of Fox and Friends, opened the program with this bit of celebration on Trump’s behalf:

“How do you like him now? Well the ladies of the freshman class of the Democrat Party seemed to like the President a lot last night. They gave him a standing ovation when he was talking about how many women were in the workforce and how many of them were elected in this past election.”

Holy Crap! Is Doocy having a stroke? Does he really believe that these Democratic women were standing up for Trump? The whole reason the were all wearing white was to make a statement that was critical of the Trump/GOP agenda that is rife with misogyny and discrimination. And their outburst was an obvious expression of satisfaction for having achieved so many electoral victories on behalf of women, and at the expense of Trump and the mostly Republican men they defeated.

They were protesting Trump, not applauding him. It’s one thing for Trump to misunderstand this reaction. He is a malignant narcissist who is mentally incapable of recognizing any derogatory sentiments aimed at him. His sickness results in his only seeing how much everyone – in his warped mind – loves and admires him. But watching these Fox News hacks so badly mangle reality makes one wonder if they are also severely delusional, or just determined to distort reality for their audience of Deplorables no matter what depths of absurdity they have to sink to. Either way, it exposes them as utterly useless as commentators on current events or more pointedly, the complexity of politics. But then, we always knew that about them.

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