Civil Rights

Fox News Senior Racist, Tucker Carlson, is Terrified that Black Voters Will ‘Flood the Suburbs’

Posted by on April 23, 2023 at 1:09 pm. 4 Comments :

For several years now, Tucker Carlson has used his Fox News platform to propagate the blatantly racist theory of “white replacement.” The gist of the argument is that Democrats, liberals, and others committed to equality, are plotting to dilute the votes of white bigots by importing people of color into communities currently dominated by Republicans and right-wingers who seek to suppress the votes of non-white citizens.

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Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Klan Hat

[BREAKING: Tucker Carlson is now a former Fox News host]

Carlson’s efforts on behalf of this theory have earned him the admiration of America’s most prominent and virulent racial hate groups. Decent people would be severely disturbed if they learned that the KKK or neo-Nazis were supporting them. But it doesn’t seem to bother Carlson. In fact, it likely inspires him. So he persists in promoting the white replacement theory at every opportunity.

RELATED: Tucker Carlson of Fox News Fears Democrats are ‘Importing New Voters’ to ‘Replace’ Him

Most of the time Carlson’s discourse on the subject asserts that Democrats are encouraging immigrants to come to America illegally as a means to electorally outnumber the “native” white folks. Never mind that those immigrants can’t vote, and even if there were some amnesty program, it would still take years before they would have citizenship and voting rights.

However, in his latest harangue, Carlson is accusing Black Americans of being part of the great replacement. He unleashed a rancid monologue that was not only insulting, it made no logical sense…

Black Americans are the only racial group in this country with average credit scores of under 680. Now, why is that? We don’t know. […] If you wanted to change that you would encourage people to have good spending habits and pay back their debt. But they don’t care about that – making people happier and getting them out of debt. No. they want to change the suburbs, make them denser, so there will be more reliably Democratic voting. That’s the bottom line.

So Carlson claims not to know why a perennially discriminated group might have lower credit scores than the majority population. That’s not because he’s ill-informed. It’s because he’s deliberately lying in order to advance his asinine narrative. In Carlson’s warped mind, he asserts that it’s a plot by Democrats to “change the suburbs.” And his reference to making them “denser” is a just his dog-whistle alternative for “blacker.”

But Carlson was far from finished. As reported by Media Matters, he went to declare that…

“The defining strategic insight of the modern Democratic Party is that you don’t really need to convince anyone of anything. What matters is demographics. You need to import enough people from elsewhere.”

Ironically, it’s Carlson who is injecting demographics into this discussion. He’s asserting that people of particular races, or age groups, or income, are going to vote a particular way. And they must not be permitted to move into neighborhoods where people that look and think like Carlson live. He went on to say that…

“…the plan is to flood the suburbs with voters they believe will support the Democratic Party.”

Carlson’s choice of the word “flood” was a purposeful allusion to Blacks moving to suburbs as a natural disaster. Because to Carlson, that’s precisely what he believes it would be. But he doesn’t bother to explain how any of this makes sense. After all, if Blacks who are financially able to migrate to the suburbs did so, wouldn’t that leave the districts they moved out of with fewer supposedly Democratic voters? And contrary to Carlson’s rant, couldn’t those new residents be convinced by Republicans to vote differently?

No. Republicans – as Carlson said of Democrats – “don’t care about that.” They only care about keeping their neighborhoods segregated and clinging to political power. And Carlson isn’t afraid to make these grotesquely racist remarks out loud on his national television program. He knows that it’s certain to get him more appreciation from the bigots who currently comprise the bulk of his audience, and that of Fox News.

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UH-OH: Wait Until the GOP / Trump Cult Finds Out How Ultra Woke FOX News Is

Posted by on March 19, 2023 at 12:33 pm. 2 Comments :

The preeminent buzzword of 2023 is indisputably “Woke.” The Republican Party has adopted it as the braindead alternative for anything that they are opposed to. They can simply apply it to whatever the outrage of the day is without the burden of having to think or construct a logical argument. It’s that freedom from thinking that makes it so profoundly stupid. Yet somehow they’re proud of it. They don’t even have to have a coherent definition of it, which, conveniently, they don’t.

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Fox News, Titanic

Consequently, the GOP mindlessly rails against woke banks, woke schools, woke justice, woke healthcare, woke climate, woke economy, woke education, woke capitalism, and more broadly wokism, the woke mind virus, and the ominous woke-ocracy.

Prominent Republicans embrace their sinister take on being woke as if it were a tangible object, or at lease a cogent ideology. But their commentaries are pitifully hollow. For instance…

  • Nikki Haley: Woke is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic.
    [Really? So where have all these woke fatalities been buried?]
  • Ron DeSantis: [Florida is the state] where woke goes to die.
    [To be fair, Florida is the state where lots of people go to die]
  • Kevin McCarthy: We’re going to pass bills to fix…woke indoctrination in our schools.
    [That’s if he can find any]]
  • Tucker Carlson: Woke M&M’s have returned.
    [Leave it to Tucker to uncover the worst of woke]
  • Donald Trump: Everything woke turns to shit.
    [As usual, Trump articulates the problem in the most graceful and intelligent way]

What all of these anti-woke activists seem to be missing is that what they profess to be so adamantly opposed to is often ingrained in the institutions that they revere and rely on. Most notable among them is the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News. That’s quite an oversight for a party that is so committed to anti-wokism that they created the first ever House Anti-Woke Caucus.

SEE THIS: GOP Creates an ‘Anti-Woke’ Caucus to Take on the ‘Greatest Domestic Threat to America Today’

Before they continue on their anti-woke crusade, they might want to take a look at the Fox News Corporate Responsibility Report that boasts that the company is “committed to diversity from the very top. […] An inclusive and diverse workplace is not merely a strategy or business objective—it is fundamentally woven in the fabric of the Company.” It goes on to elaborate more specifically that…

“Our Preventing Harassment, Discrimination and Retaliation Policy protects individuals on the basis of a person’s actual or perceived race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, family status, caregiver status, sex (including pregnancy status, childbirth, breastfeeding, and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, sexual and reproductive health decisions, reproductive health decision-making, hair texture or hairstyles, military or veteran status, political affiliation, arrest or conviction record, union membership, unemployment status, credit history, status as a victim of domestic violence, stalking or sexual offenses, or any other legally protected characteristic.”

OH MY! Have the GOP Woke Police heard about this? How can any Republican appear on Fox News under these conditions? It’s almost as if Fox News supports the sort of equity and civil rights that they vilify on the air 24/7. Never mind that they have a rather bizarre definition of “equity.”

RELATED: HUH? Fox News Host Ridiculously Redefines ‘Equity’ as Evil and the Cause of Communism

However, there is much more in Fox’s report that should concern their GOP benefactors. Such as…

“We have taken specific action as part of our strategy to mitigate environmental risks, including those related to climate change.”

And that…

“FOX is committed to accuracy and editorial independence: Our news organizations carefully vet sources and check facts, and we maintain strict separation between revenue sources and our news and opinion content.”

That’s especially laughable considering what was recently disclosed in the billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News that revealed the extent of the brazen lies told by Fox’s executives and hosts regarding their phony allegations of election fraud on behalf of Trump and his “Big Lie” the election was “rigged and stolen” from him.

SEE ALSO: IT’S A CULT: Most Fox News Viewers Are Still Loyal After Dominion Lawsuit Discloses Their Lies

What’s more, the war against woke isn’t even an effective political strategy. A recent poll by USA Today/Ipsos found that a majority of Americans have a positive impression of the term. According to the poll…

“Fifty-six percent of those surveyed say the term means ‘to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.’ That includes not only three-fourths of Democrats but also more than a third of Republicans.

“Overall, 39% say instead that the word reflects what has become the GOP political definition, ‘to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.’ That’s the view of 56% of Republicans.”

The only reason that Republicans latched onto the term in the first place was that it originated in the Black community as a call to be conscious of oppression and discrimination, and to work to overcome the inequities of society. So naturally right-wingers sought to appropriate it and attempt to turn it into a pejorative. It is as unambiguously racist as the right’s dishonest efforts to brand Critical Race Theory (CRT) as advocating hatred of White people, when it’s simply a fact-based educational program about the systemic racism in American institutions.

None of that, however, has deterred Republicans from pushing their woke narrative. And we can expect them to continue to do so despite its ineffectiveness as a political message. Likewise, we can expect them to ignore the hypocrisy of chastising liberals for their woke-ocity, while ignoring the very same traits at Fox News and other right-leaning entities. Because all that they really have are their lies, hypocrisy, and associated – although mostly feigned – outrage. It’s what they do.

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Fox News Host On Civil Rights Movement: ‘We’ve Seen the Enemy and It’s White People’

Posted by on June 9, 2021 at 5:11 pm. 1 Comments :

Fox News suffered a profound loss when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump for the presidency. And despite the messianic beliefs held by Trump and his cult disciples that he actually won and that his political resurrection is imminent, he remains an embarrassingly irrelevant and pathetic apostle of pity and lies.

Fox News Racist

This leaves Fox News in the desperate position of having to manufacture controversies that might satiate the voracious appetites of their scandal-starved audience. They’ve already run through preposterous stories involving Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. they’ve tried to dampen Biden’s broad based popularity with nonsense like whether or not he wears a face mask, or blaming him for a sauce shortage at Chick-fil-A, or mocking the romance in his marriage. All to no avail.

Among the contrivances at Fox News has been a relentless assault on the academic study of Critical Race Theory, which is defined as an “attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race.” Not that anyone on Fox News could define it – or cares. They are just exploiting it to trigger the racist tendencies of their viewers. And that mission led to a segment on Wednesday’s episode of Fox and Friends where co-host Brian Kilmeade launched into a rancid rant against the Civil Rights movement (video below). He began by demanding credit for white folks having made some progress with their bigotry:

“They’re not acknowledging any improvement in our culture, and the gains made, and how we are more equal, even despite our faults, than any other country.”

Congratulations Brian, You and yours aren’t shackling Black people and forcing them to work for nothing anymore. That’s hardly something to brag about when there is still a significant amount of prejudice in America with regard to education, jobs, and housing. And there’s also that little matter of how Black men and women – and children – keep getting killed by police officers. But don’t let me interrupt. Please continue:

“The other thing is, they’re not only trying to raise up minorities and trying to make sure the playing field is even, they’re trying to take down the white culture. And this generation of Americans wondered why aren’t we all Americans? Why are we all being marginalized on a daily basis on our gender, our sexuality, and the color of our skin? And it’s not even subtle. It is actually out there. It is written in black and white.”

Just as we always thought. It’s white people who are the victims of culture take-downs and marginalization. It’s a good thing that we have Fox News and Kilmeade to remind us of this. But he still wasn’t finished:

“This is the big difference between other civil rights movements in our past. One, the first big one was a war. The second big one we saw in the streets, especially in the South. And this one we’re seeing in the classroom. And we’ve seen the enemy and it’s white people.”

WTHF? Kilmeade is now asserting that today’s Civil Rights movement has declared war on white people. That’s because he sees the struggle for equality as a fight to deprive the white population of the privilege that they believe is their divine right. Any progress toward leveling the playing field means taking away from whites the advantages that have been accustomed to for generations.

What’s especially nauseating about this is that Kilmeade isn’t the least bit shy about saying all of this out loud on his nationally broadcast television program. And his co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt nod along in complete agreement.

That’s how far down the Mariana Trench of racism that Fox News has descended. And Trump has made it acceptable to unapologetically parade prejudice around in Right-Wing World. But given the realities of demographics, they will soon be toppled from their hilltop. Deep down they know that, and that’s why they’re so afraid.

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

Ted Cruz Attacks Democrats for Holding Hearing on Racist ‘Jim Crow’ Laws that He Supports

Posted by on April 19, 2021 at 5:05 pm. 3 Comments :

Once again it has become necessary to set the record straight as to which American political party supports civil rights and which party is devoted to racial prejudice and oppression. It shouldn’t be that difficult to make the distinction considering that every prominent hate group in America is composed of people who are steadfastly Republican.

Ted Cruz, Racist

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is now helping to make the case that the Republican Party is the home of American bigotry. Upon learning that his Democratic Senate colleagues had scheduled a hearing to explore the rash of racist “Jim Crow” laws aimed at suppressing the vote of people of color in Texas, Georgia, and other red states, Cruz rushed out this tweet:

The problem with Cruz’s tweet is that he is clinging to a historical fallacy that bigots are fond of disseminating. He is pretending there was never a “realignment” of parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that saw Democrats embrace civil rights and Republicans embrace the Ku Klux Klan:

“The political realignment of black voters that began at the close of Reconstruction gradually accelerated in the early 20th century, pushed by demographic shifts such as the Great Migration and by black discontent with the increasingly conservative racial policies of the Republican Party in the South.”

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, with the vigorous support of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, was the nail in the coffin for Southern racists who then abandoned the Democrats and registered with the Republican Party, where they still reside. Three of the four notorious racists Cruz cites in his tweet became GOP heroes. The one exception was Robert Byrd, who renounced the Klan and became such a dedicated fighter for civil rights that he was honored by the NAACP:

“‘Senator Byrd reflects the transformative power of this nation,’ stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. ‘Senator Byrd went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country.'”

So Ted Cruz is not only demonstrating his pitiful ignorance of the history of his own party, he’s lashing out at Democrats who are seeking to advance equality and shine a light on those who are trying to clamp down on the Constitutional liberties of all Americans.

This is typical of a Republican bigot like Cruz, whose only concern is retaining power for himself and his kind. It’s made all the worse by how openly and shamelessly he engages in this campaign of oppression. And it’s all a byproduct of the Trump era’s efforts to mainstream racism and empower the hate mongers who comprise the Cult of Trump.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Trump’s Feeble Effort to Reform Policing Validates the Protests He Condemned

Posted by on June 16, 2020 at 12:21 pm. 2 Comments :

Three weeks after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, America’s streets are still teeming with outraged citizens who are no longer willing to tolerate such injustices. It’s an unprecedented and sustained demand for change that has been fueled by a string of atrocities and populated by a truly diverse cross-section of Americans.

Donald Trump, Police

Conspicuously absent from this nationwide (worldwide) outpouring of grief and determination is the President of the United States, Donald Trump, whose only contribution has been to malign the protesters as “rioters,” “looters,” “thugs,” and even “terrorists.” Trump has repeatedly assaulted both the protesters and local governments with noxious threats of deploying the military against the American people. In Trump’s view these concerned citizens are enemies of the state simply because they oppose police brutality and are willing to act on their constitutional rights.

So for three weeks the people have clearly stated their intentions to compel meaningful change. And during that time, despite (or because of) his stubborn and bellicose opposition, Trump has seen his approval ratings decline into record low territory. The American people overwhelmingly support Black Lives Matter and the ongoing protests lobbying for reform.

Consequently, Trump has pivoted in an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging of his 2020 reelection campaign. He has apparently been convinced that he needs to grab onto this whirling tornado of dissent and score some undeserved points for himself. To that end he has hurriedly patched together a pitifully weak policing reform initiative that fails to address many of the core issues and solutions.

Trump’s latest exercise in hypocrisy comes in the form a unilateral move that Republicans regarded as an act of dictatorship when President Obama did it. His new executive order (EO) – the 162nd of his presidency – is an attempt to upstage congressional efforts to legitimately reform police practices by appropriating initiatives proposed by Democrats. However, this EO will be less comprehensive and will not have the force of law behind it. It can also be reversed or watered down by another executive order.

Additionally, Trump’s EO is a blatant contradiction of nearly everything he’s said about “law and order” since the Black Lives Matter demonstrations began. Virtually every public comment he’s made has condemned Americans who have taken to the streets to protest police brutality and unequal justice. He has never acknowledged the systemic racism that permeates many institutions, and this EO doesn’t do so either. But the fact that he felt it necessary to take this step is actually a validation of the demonstrations and proof that they were required to force forward movement on these issues.

Trump’s Rose Garden speech, before a nearly totally white audience, spent far more time praising the police than criticizing the injustice and violence that his EO was supposedly drafted to address. And of course, he politicized the event by applauding himself as the great emancipator. He also heralded imaginary achievements with the economy, the coronavirus, and other matters that have nothing to do with law enforcement reform. And only Trump could say that “We’re fighting for school choice, which really is the civil rights of all time in this country,” during a speech meant to ease concerns about racist cops. It was a painfully obvious screed of propaganda aimed at boosting his floundering reelection prospects and nothing more.

Simultaneously, Trump falsely asserted that President Obama and Joe Biden “never even tried” to do anything about systemic racism. In truth, every time Obama tried to advance those matters he was blocked by Republicans and accused of being racist himself. The Trump administration actually repealed Obama’s reforms by executive fiat, slashed funding for community policing, and refused to enforce consent decrees won in court by Obama’s Justice Department. Obama also impaneled a task force to study the problems plaguing policing in December of 2014. In March of 2015, they issued a detailed report with specific policy recommendations. At the time, Trump was tweeting about how Obama was anti-police:

That tweet was in response to Obama’s remarks criticizing the failure of grand juries to indict police officers for the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York. Five years later Trump is still avoiding the real issues, and still doing nothing to prevent future tragedies because he only cares about how he can further his own personal and political interests. And anyone who fails to recognize that now is a fully indoctrinated disciple of the Cult of Trump and, sadly, beyond help.

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

Trump Threatens to Designate ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization – Again?

Posted by on May 31, 2020 at 12:19 pm. 3 Comments :

In his ongoing attempts to inflame tensions, incite violence, and shift blame for his own failings onto others, Donald Trump took to his Twitter machine to once again divide the nation at a time when it most needs healing. The dystopian nightmare vision of Trump’s MAGA Night at the White House is fueling his latest outbursts of unbridled rage. And he seems oblivious to the fact that there have been more than 102,000 deaths from COVID-19 (coronavirus), 40,000,000 Americans out of work, and an economy that is floundering in depression territory.

Donald Trump, MAGA

With everything else that’s going on, Trump is desperately trying to deflect from his negligence and incompetence by exploiting the nationwide protests against the sort of systemic racism that killed George Floyd. He is purposefully politicizing it by attacking Democratic leaders and making wholly unsupported allegations against liberal activists. His Twitter feed on Sunday morning looked like a screed from a typical white supremacist website.

Trump began by offering “Congratulations to our National Guard” for “shutting down” the mythical “Antifa anarchists.” Although it’s hard to shut down something for which there is zero proof of existing in the first place. That was followed by by his taking a bitterly partisan swipe at “Democrat run Cities and States”And naturally he went after his arch nemesis, the “Lamestream Media” that he accused of “doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy.” Because the giant, multinational, billion dollar corporations that control the media just love anarchy. But perhaps the most bizarre twitticism was this:

There is so much wrong with that that it will require some extended analysis. First of all, there is no Antifa organization. At best it is a loose assembly of unaffiliated activists who are opposed to fascism, as are most patriotic Americans. That alone would rattle Trump whose fascistic tendencies are well documented. Secondly, Trump has no legal authority designate any domestic group as “terrorist.” The law only permits such designations for foreign entities. Thirdly, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security already designated whatever it thinks Antifa is as having engaged in terrorist acts way back in September of 2017:

“Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as ‘antifa’ had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as ‘domestic terrorist violence,’ according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.”

However, Politico also noted that the rise of so-called “extremist” left-wing protests was actually incited by Trump:

“In interviews, law enforcement authorities made clear that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies — first as a candidate and then as president — helped to create a situation that has escalated so quickly and extensively that they do not have a handle on it.”

That’s true as well with regard to the current protests going on around the country. Contrary to the heated blather of Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr, it is right-wing extremists who appear to be responsible for the violence that has marred the protests in recent days. Facts on the ground have shown that…

“…the demonstrations that caused so much damage included provocateurs, likely from outside the area. State officials said around 80 percent of those arrested in the Twin Cities on Friday were from outside Minnesota. Former FBI agent and CNN commentator, Josh Campbell wrote, that Minnesota ‘authorities have been monitoring alleged criminals online, including postings by suspected white supremacists trying to incite violence.'”

That’s consistent with studies on domestic terrorism conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

“There is empirical and anecdotal evidence that far-right hate groups pose a significant threat to public safety. Far-right extremists commit many violent attacks, and some scholars conclude that far-right extremists, especially groups motivated by religious ideology, are strong candidates to commit future acts using weapons of mass destruction”

It is also consistent with studies conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL):

“From 2009 through 2018, right-wing extremists accounted for 73 percent of such killings, according to the ADL, compared with 23 percent for Islamists and 3 percent for left-wing extremists. In other words, most terrorist attacks in the United States, and most deaths from terrorist attacks, are caused by white extremists.”

So all the evidence points to right-wing extremists being responsible for domestic terrorism both generally over many years, and specifically with regard to the Floyd protests. Yet Trump and his confederates are spreading baseless lies to smear the protesters, Democrats, and liberals across the board. It’s a despicable act of disinformation and slander. But it is precisely what we would expect from Donald Trump as he swirls ever lower in the downward spiral of his failed presidency.

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

MAGA Night at the White House: A Dystopian Fan Fiction Fantasy By Donald Trump

Posted by on May 30, 2020 at 12:16 pm. 7 Comments :

There is one thing that the American people can rely upon when it comes to Donald Trump. Any problem he encounters, he will make worse. He hasn’t the foggiest notion how to be a healing force during times of hardship and distress. That’s because he has no capacity for empathy. To the contrary, he is fueled by hatred, vengeance, and self-interest.

Flaming Trump

The nation is enduring historic challenges. In the midst of a global pandemic that has already taken more than 100,000 American lives, and thrust the country into an economic collapse that recalls the Great Depression, we are also coming to terms with the long-simmering consequences of systemic racism.

This is a time that cries out for strong, compassionate leadership. Unfortunately, we are stuck with a former reality TV game show host who hasn’t the experience, knowledge, common sense, or human decency, to lead us out of danger, much of which is the result of his own negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance.

Rather than trying to bring the nation together and resolve the escalating tensions, Trump spent Saturday morning inciting more anxiety and violence. He is not the least bit interested in resolution. His only goal to exacerbate the animosity that he has worked so hard to incite. His Twitter tirade was bursting with a egomaniacal glee at the prospect of hurting his perceived enemies. It reads like a bizarre, bombastic melodrama that could only have emanated from a malevolent mind. It hardly needs commentary. So here it is unabridged:

Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService. They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe. They let the “protesters” scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone….

….got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard – didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would….

….have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and….

….good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice!

The professionally managed so-called “protesters” at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble.The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???

These are “Organized Groups” that have nothing to do with George Floyd. Sad!

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis will never be mistaken for the late, great General Douglas McArthur or great fighter General George Patton. How come all of these places that defend so poorly are run by Liberal Democrats? Get tough and fight (and arrest the bad ones). STRENGTH!

It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!

Trump’s prose is reminiscent of the sort of bad fan fiction that reeks of pretentious, incoherent blather. He describes how he “watched every move” from his White House window as if it were a horror marathon on Netflix. He cheers his “heroes” as they “quickly come down on” the bad guys, who are, in fact, protesting citizens. And he is thrilled by how his protectors are “replaced with fresh agents, like magic.” He is virtually drooling at the thought of “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons” being brought to bear on protesters so that they would be “really badly hurt, at least.” It’s a measure of sadism that is frightening in any world “leader.”

It’s hard to even fathom why Trump is perversely titillated by “the young ones” being “on the front line” and loving it. But it isn’t surprising that he would make it political by attacking the Democratic Mayor of Washington, D.C. He also went after the mayor of Minneapolis for not being like a couple of wartime army generals, as if that is that is what mayors are supposed to be like. Everything to Trump is combat.

Trump repeatedly maligned the protesters as being “professionally managed,” “organized groups.” That may be true. Except that it looks like they were managed by right-wing, white supremacists who were present in abundance as agents provocateur. And Trump closed his diatribe with allusions to Antifa, a loose assembly of mostly imaginary anti-fascist activists that Trump opposes, presumably due to his affinity for fascism. That affinity is borne out by his intentions to deploy the military against American citizens. Which is an abomination generally reserved for brutal dictators, like the ones Trump so admires. It’s a nauseating notion that was righteously slapped down by Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics:

Trump is scared and desperate as his polling declines along with his prospects for reelection. He’s even losing many former Republican supporters. He knows his time up and he’s frantically scrambling to preserve whatever sliver of power he can by pandering to his most repugnant cult followers. These tweets are more examples of Trump “glorifying violence,” which led to Twitter tagging previous tweets as violations of Twitter’s standards. And more of the same – or worse – can be expected as he continues to spiral ever more downward into the abyss of his dementia.

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

Who Was Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Why Would Donald Trump Have Hated Her?

Posted by on February 19, 2018 at 11:05 am. 5 Comments :

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Parkland, Florida school, where fourteen kids and three adults were murdered by a maniac with an AR-15 assault weapon, has become a flash point in the debate for gun safety. That debate has been driven mainly by the student survivors themselves. Their passionate and articulate commitment to finally making change happen is one of the few signs of hope in the aftermath of yet another massacre.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

However, little has been reported about the namesake of the school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas. As it turns out, she was an inspiring woman who was a fierce advocate for speaking out on matters of importance. During a life of activism and personal sacrifice she was quoted as saying “You have to stand up for some things in this world.” She lived those words throughout her life and inspired others to do the same. In 1993 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton. And while in the White House that day she was invited to witness the signing of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill).

But that isn’t the only eerie coincidence about Douglas and the specific focus of her activism. According to a biography on the National Park Service website:

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, born April 7, 1890 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, graduated from Wellesley with straight A’s with the elected honor of “Class Orator.” That title proved to be prophetic.

In 1915, following a brief and calamitous marriage, she arrived in Miami, working for her father at the Miami Herald. She worked first as a society reporter, then as an editorial page columnist, and later established herself as a writer of note. Here she took on the fight for feminism, racial justice, and conservation long before these causes became popular.

So Douglas began her professional career as a journalist. Or as Donald Trump would say “an enemy of the American people.” She went on to champion women’s rights, something Trump has ridiculed and whose personal history of sexual harassment and assault demonstrates extreme disrespect and misogyny. Douglas was also a proponent of civil rights and racial justice. That contrasts with Trump’s overt bigotry and that of his base, which includes KKK and Nazi leaders and organizations. And finally, Douglas was best known for her environmental activism and her work to conserve the Florida Everglades. She wrote a landmark book on the subject titled, The Everglades: River of Grass.

Trump surely doesn’t know anything about Douglas or her lifelong dedication to service and social change. But if he did he would certainly despise her and attack her with a flurry of furious and derogatory tweets. He would insult her and make up stupid nicknames. And he would express his opposition to everything she stood for. All of this adds a rather somber poignancy to the tragedy in Parkland. But it may explain the stirring and righteous reaction from the students who probably do know Douglas and her work. They are likely inspired by quotes like this one: “I believe that life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary.”” And it may explain the heartrending intensity of their oratory as exemplified in this speech by student Emma Gonzalez:

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

Mr. Trump, Can We Put An End to the ‘Rights Come From Our Creator’ Nonsense?

Posted by on February 8, 2018 at 6:37 pm. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump made an appearance at the annual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday to deliver a typically wooden, TelePrompted speech (video below). Most notable from a style perspective was his awkward, overly coached pauses for applause after nearly every sentence. But just his presence is peculiar. As a thrice-married, confessed sexual abuser, who doesn’t think he needs to ask God for forgiveness, he becomes emblematic of this evangelical organization’s hypocrisy.

Donald Trump Messiah

The President’s speech was a basket of pseudo-spiritual cliches that represent the whole of what he has learned about religion. But if he can’t read a ten page document from the Intelligence Committee, he surely has never read through the bible. So he mechanically recites platitudes about “the Lord’s grace,” about faith being “central to American life,” and about how “blessed we are to be Americans” then he unloads one of the oldest tropes about what our Founding Fathers intended for this nation at its birth:

“Our founders invoked our Creator four times in the Declaration of Independence. Our currency declares ‘IN GOD WE TRUST.’ And we place our hands on our hearts as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance and proclaim that we are ‘One Nation Under God.'”

Whoever wrote this tripe for Trump was as ill-informed as he is about both religion and history. First of all, the Founders very deliberately referenced a “Creator” to avoid any appearance of favoritism. That’s something our Muslim-banning president couldn’t care less about. Secondly, the references to God on currency and in the pledge of allegiance are relatively recent additions that have little significance in our nation’s traditions.

However, the most annoying rhetorical rubbish in this simpleton sermonette is the hoary affirmation that “our rights are granted to us by God.” Sure. And storks bring babies, and fairies shell out cash for used teeth. These childish notions can only be believed by the sort of incurious and dependent minds that populate cults. Which explains why Trump’s followers applauded this line so enthusiastically.

If our rights were actually granted by God, there would be no use for the Constitution at all. Why bother to write down protections for free speech or privacy or speedy trials if those rights were already assured by an omnipotent power? And did God actually ordain from on high the bearing of arms by well-regulated militias? He must really be a stickler for detail.

It’s a sad testament to human progress that so many people still rely on such intellectually thin concepts. This is not an indictment of religion per se. There are plenty of deep thinkers among the faithful of all flavors. But those who fall for dimwitted drivel like this are not in that group. It is obvious to any thinking person that if we value our rights we must make certain that we grant them to ourselves and document it with specificity. Otherwise, they do actually exist, no matter what any particular God says.

Trump’s Prayer Breakfast speech was just his latest performance art, pretending to be pious before an audience of blind worshipers. And on a side note, that audience also welcomed some of Trump’s Russian pals. In fact, as CNN reported, “As many as 60 representatives from Russia” attended the affair. That’s more than three times the number who attended last year. Now why do you suppose that was?

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

Fox News Fear Mongers Over Fake News Claim That Illegal Immigrants Are Voting

Posted by on January 24, 2018 at 1:45 pm. 1 Comments :

Attorney General Jeff Sessions just announced that he will begin to issue subpoenas to sanctuary cities. It’s an effort to force Donald Trump’s racist federal immigration policies down the throats of local jurisdictions. This obsession by Republicans to dehumanize immigrants has overtaken almost every other item on their agenda. It’s what derailed the budget negotiations last week and led to the shutdown of the government.

Fox News Ann Coulter

Last year Trump’s phony voter fraud commission was disbanded because state election officials refused to participate with the blatantly biased operation that couldn’t find a scintilla of evidence that any voter fraud had occurred. The whole charade was launched because Trump wanted to invalidate the fact that he lost the popular vote by three million votes.

Undaunted, the right’s determination to sow distrust in democracy continues. And Fox News leads the way. They are orchestrating a well coordinated campaign to blame undocumented immigrants for imaginary voting irregularities. The latest salvo in this contrived war was fired on Tuesday night’s episode of the Laura Ingraham Angle (video below). The segment was introduce by Ingraham asserting that:

“Under new California law people will be allowed to vote, and it will happen actually automatically when they obtain old or new drivers licenses regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens. As leftist politicians import voters they still don’t seem to understand that there are actually dangers when this happens.”

Oh No! People will be allowed to vote? What’s next, a representative democracy? Surely that is against the long-held principles of Fox News, Ingraham, and her guest Ann Coulter. But make no mistake, Ingraham’s dismay over improper voting is entirely a figment of her deliberate deception. Democrats are not, and cannot, “import voters.” The law is clear that only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote. The law referencing voter registration through driver’s licenses accounts for that and does not send registration data to the Secretary of State unless the applicant is eligible.

This fact is even stated in an article on the Fox News website. Although the article also falsely states that a “New California Policy Opens the Door to Illegal Immigrant Voting,” buried near the end is this errant factoid:

“Undocumented immigrants obtain a special driver’s license that notes on it ‘Federal limits apply.’ […] “They’re asked if they’re 18, if they’re U.S. citizens. They don’t move on to the voter registration if they’re not eligible.”

That ought to have settled the debate and eliminated the need to even bring this up. Undocumented immigrants get a different license than U.S. citizens, and they do not get automatically registered to vote. The same is true for legal, non-citizen immigrants. And the same is true for sixteen and seventeen year olds, who are old enough to drive but not to vote.

So Fox News knows that the system is set up to only send registration information for applicants who are eligible. But they are nevertheless hyperventilating over massive illegal voting that isn’t occurring now and never has. Their only objective is to incite fear among their bigoted viewers and exacerbate the hatred and division that has become the primary political strategy of the Trump Republican Party.

But this tactic will surely backfire. That’s because there really are millions of Latino citizens who see this overt prejudice and will be motivated to show up at their polling places and throw the bigots out of office. And although it may be several years away, the legal immigrants who eventually become citizens aren’t going to be any more likely to vote for racist Republicans. So good work, Fox News. And good luck when those Southwest red states like Arizona and Texas turn bright blue.

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