Censorship

WHUT? Tucker Carlson of Fox News Boldly Refuses to Verify that His Disinformation is Reliable

Posted by on October 14, 2021 at 12:24 pm. 2 Comments :

The Olympic grade hypocrisy at Fox News continues to shine through everything they do. And nowhere is that more evident than with matters related to the coronavirus and the tragedies it has wrought on America, largely attributable to the lies and disinformation disseminated by Fox and Donald Trump. Studies show that the nation is currently suffering through what can accurately be described as The Fox News Pandemic.

Fox News. Tucker Carlson

Leading the way down to the depths of viral hell is Fox’s Senior Deceiver, Tucker Carlson. He has already peddled dangerous and flagrant falsehoods such as his promotion of quack cures, his paranoid conspiracy theories that the vaccines don’t work, his support for the unlawful use of fake vaccination cards, and his urging of viewers to make false police reports of child abuse against parents whose children wear face masks.

Despite that record of deliberate and deadly deception, Carlson is now complaining about social media sites trying to encourage the accurate and honest sharing of information upon which lives may depend. Because who would want that? On Wednesday night’s episode he delivered a diatribe against Instagram for what he falsely said was censorship. He was triggered by a message he received when he tried to post a video that was lousy with lies:

“When we put that video on Instagram the following message appeared: “Make sure the information is reliable before sharing!” And then it attempts to redirect you to a site, “Get Vaccine Info.” From some approved site. I guess info about policies at a company they don’t work at? So if you’re not allowed to explain information that you have first hand, credible knowledge of, like your own employer’s own policies, then what rights do you have?”

So Carlson is outraged that Instagram politely asked that he be certain of the reliability of what he was about to post. How dare they care about the accuracy of critical health data? Especially when they are asking someone who is so renowned for spreading lies that his employer, Fox News, argued in court that he couldn’t be guilty of defamation because “no reasonable person” would believe him.

Carlson falsely characterized Instagram’s message as censorship, claiming that he was not allowed to post his dishonest video. He also put his complaint in a chyron that read “Big Tech Tries to Censor this Show Once Again.” However, there was no censorship because Instagram allowed him to click through the message and post his video, which he did.

Another chyron in this segment told another lie regarding the video that he did, in fact, post on Instagram. This one read “There is no Vaccine Mandate at Fox News.” The truth is that Fox News has a policy that does mandate that their employees get vaccinated. It’s a conditional mandate that requires them to be tested daily if they are not vaccinated. That’s almost exactly the same as the policy that President Biden recently announced, except that Biden’s policy is actually less strict. requiring only weekly tests for the unvaccinated.

Apparently Carlson doesn’t know the Fox News position on vaccinations, despite having “first hand” knowledge of his “own employer’s own policies.” And in his ignorance he has slandered Biden as a tyrant for “forcing” people to get vaccinated. But if Biden is “waging war” on the American people, than Fox News has escalated it. Yet, as was scathingly pointed out by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Carlson is too cowardly to call out his bosses, or demonstrate an iota of integrity by quitting. And that goes for the rest of the Fox News roster of hypocrites who are nearly as bad as Carlson.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Trump Whines that ‘We Don’t Have Free Speech’ as He Literally Calls for Banning Speech

Posted by on October 10, 2021 at 11:59 am. 4 Comments :

Saturday night in Des Moines, Iowa, there was yet another coronavirus super-spreader cult rally featuring the twice impeached, former reality TV game show host, and America’s Biggest Loser, Donald Trump. The event lived down to its hype as a couple of ear-bleeding hours of a malignant narcissist complaining that the election he fairly and decisively lost was “stolen” from him.

Donald Trump, Constitution

Among the innumerable absurd laments that excreted from the oral orifice of the blockhead who brags that he is the most fabulous whiner, were some commentaries on the sanctity of the First Amendment. Trump’s yammering (video below) addressed, in particular, free speech, which he claimed there isn’t any more of:

“There is no free speech, we don’t have free speech anymore. You know, it used to be automatic, free speech. We don’t have free speech. We have the opposite of free speech. And this is the beginning of communism when you hear that. This is the beginning of communism.”

In that brief rant Trump uttered the phrase “free speech” five times. Psychiatric professionals say that in some cases “this is because of problems with short-term memory caused by dementia.” Whatever the cause in Trump’s case, it is also a significant departure from reality. First of all, he is asserting that there is no free speech while he is freely speaking to an audience of his cult followers at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

Trump has never been an especially ardent defender of First Amendment rights. He has relentlessly lambasted the free press as “the enemy of the people.” He has expressed regrets that he didn’t ban Facebook and Twitter when he had the chance. He has threatened that “Something has to be done” about CNN.

However, what makes this latest assault on free speech so preposterous is what he said immediately afterward. In another repetitive rant, Trump vilified critical race theory, a field of study that he has displayed his pitiful ignorance of before. At this rally he harangued that…

“We will ban critical race theory in our classrooms. We will ban that horrible, crazy critical race theory in our military. We will ban it from our workplaces. We will ban it from our federal, state, and local government. It will be banned. Permanently banned. And will never be allowed to come back again.”

Apparently Trump doesn’t like critical race theory. He does not like it in a house. He does not like it with a mouse. He does not like it in a box. He does not like it with a fox (News?).

What Trump does like is the notion of banning free speech with respect to teaching the history of race on America and the impact of systemic racism. And he explicitly expresses his intention, should he have the opportunity, to ban it permanently from every public forum that he could think of.

This should be of concern to every American who values the Constitution and the liberties it protects. If Trump would so openly admit that he would “cancel” the First Amendment, it goes without saying that the would do the same to any other part of the document that he regarded as obstructing his authoritarian aspirations. He’s already trying to subvert the democratic process, with the help of his Republican Party confederates. But he – and they – must never get the chance to carry out their defiling of America’s constitutional republic.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

SCAREDY FOX: Why Did Fox News Censor Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Rant? Pending Lawsuits?

Posted by on August 8, 2021 at 5:10 pm. 5 Comments :

A startling event occurred on Sunday that may be unique in modern times. Donald Trump’s spokes-shill, Liz Harrington, posted a tweet that exposed a bona fide case of media censorship. But this assault on free speech was not the work of the usual suspects among the “fake news” purveyors. It wasn’t CNN or the New York Times that clipped Trump’s officious oratory.

Donald Trump, Fox News, White House

Nope. Harrington caught the thought police at Fox News in the act of making unauthorized edits to Trump’s divine discourse during an interview with Fox News host Dan Bongino. Most of this segment was filled with the typical Trumpian adoration by the Fox host and hysterical incoherence by Trump. But Harrington noticed something terribly wrong when she went to post Trump’s sermon on Twitter (which is a flagrant violation of their terms of service. Feel free to report it). She tweeted her discovery saying…

“WOW. So I went to post a clip from President Trump’s great interview on @dbongino last night, and lo and behold, Fox News EDITED and CHANGED what President Trump said, censoring out 45 accurately describing the Fake Election.”

First of all, it’s “former” President Trump. Secondly, it was more of a love-fest than an interview. Thirdly, what was edited out was not accurate. That said, she was quite right that some editing took place. What was excised was Trump lying again about the 2020 presidential election being “stolen” from him. He said that…

“You have a Fake Election, you have an election with voter abuse and with voter fraud like nobody has ever seen before and based on that and based on what happened they are destroying our Country.”

So the question is why would Fox News cut out this 14 second portion of a 16 minute interview? It could hardly be due to time constraints.

There are, however, a couple of plausible reasons to expunge this particular commentary. Fox News is already the subject of two multibillion dollar lawsuits (one by Dominion Voting Systems, and another by Smartmatic) for defamation as result of the network’s dishonest assertions, on Trump’s behalf, that that the election was “rigged.”

So Fox News has a strong self-interest in avoiding exposing themselves to further legal liability by providing additional evidence that supports the case against them. That would be sufficient reason to cut Trump’s incessant whining about voter fraud for which he he has never been able to provide any proof in the 60-plus court cases he lost.

What’s more, by posting Trump’s lies, Fox News could be placing themselves at risk of being banned by Twitter – just like Trump – for posting false and potentially harmful misinformation. It is Trump’s lies about the election that incited the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th.

Fox News has already shown that they are worried about being associated with Trump’s “Big Lie.” Last month Fox refused to air an ad by the MyPillow conspiracy crackpot, Mike Lindell. The ad was to promote his “cyber symposium” that he said would “prove” that Trump won the election. Needless to say, the “proof” exists only in his diseased mind. However, Fox News wasn’t going to take the chance of getting further into legal jeopardy, so they nixed the ad. And in retaliation, Lindell pulled all of his ads from Fox News. And since MyPillow is Tucker Carlson’s biggest advertiser, that leaves his show with hardly any major ads at all.

It will be interesting to see how this censorship melodrama plays out. Currently Trump’s cult disciples are in a tizzy online, lambasting Fox News as the “enemy of the people,” and pledging to boycott the network forever. Harrington is appearing on whatever mousy Fox News wannabe that will book her to bad mouth Fox for caving in to the “Deep State.” And Trump is still stuck with with his thumb in his mouth, unable to get his malicious messaging out. Could this be any more fun? Stay tuned and have plenty of popcorn ready.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Crybaby Trump Files Asinine ‘1st Amendment’ Lawsuit Against Twitter, Facebook, and Google

Posted by on July 7, 2021 at 12:00 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week Trump’s spokes shill tweeted that Trump would “make a huge announcement” on Wednesday, July 7, 2021. That day has come and the announcement is living down to the expectations that most people have for the one-term, twice-impeached, former reality TV game show host who is indisputably America’s biggest loser.

Donald Trump, Constitution

From his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort, Trump delivered a nearly hour long address to reveal his intention to file a lawsuit against “Big Tech” companies, Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Make no mistake, this alleged litigation (there is no evidence yet that it’s been filed) is driven purely by Trump’s voracious ego and thirst for revenge.

After having his accounts on social media suspended for blatant violations of their terms of service, Trump is proposing to exploit the courts to punish the private companies who took responsible actions to stem his inflammatory rhetoric. He already incited a deadly insurrection in Washington, D.C., on January 6th, and he is continuing his bellicose “Big Lie” rants that drove his glassy-eyed disciples to riot and storm the Capitol.

Trump’s tedious dissertation on his pending lawsuit was filled with bizarre and legally preposterous assertions. He starts off describing this suit as the beginning of a much bigger initiative. “We will take this battle,” he promises, “to state legislatures, to Congress, and to the ballot box.” But the whole premise of the action is ludicrous. Trump thinks that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which protects free speech) makes social media liable as “government actors” and subject to First Amendment prohibitions against censorship:

“Once they got Section 230 they’re no longer private companies anymore in a lot of views. […] These companies have been coopted, coerced and weaponized by government and by government actors to become the enforcers of illegal, unconstitutional censorship.

Not only is Trump’s interpretation of Section 230 completely off, he is articulating a paranoid, crackpot conspiracy theory that social media companies are in cahoots with the feds to silence him. Like his unhinged raving about election fraud, there is no evidence of these allegations either. But that doesn’t stop him from spouting off incoherently (video below) Some excerpts follow:

“Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I’m filing as the lead class representative a major class action lawsuit against the big tech giants, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as their CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey. Three real nice guys. We’re asking the district court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American. We all know that. We know that very, very well. Our lawsuit also seeks injunctive relief to allow prompt restitution.”

Trump didn’t cite a single legal principle to support his claims. That’s because he can’t. The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits government censorship. Hence the wording that “Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Trump actually undermines his case by bragging about all the avenues of speech he has available to him that he insists are successful (they aren’t).

“We’re in a fight, we’re in a fight that we’re going to win. So many people have said to me, ‘Please sir, do something about big tech. Sue them, sir. Sue them.’ And they’ve been saying it to me for a long time. But there has never been a better time to do it. Polling released by Scott Rasmussen, highly respected, shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that big tech companies should be required to abide by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.”

Trump always has a “sir” story wherein some beleaguered soul begs him to do something that really only benefits Trump. And his reliance on the notoriously disreputable Rasmussen for polling data doesn’t advance his legal interests. Even reputable polls are not legal arguments. Cases are decided by statute and precedent, not popularity.

“Social Media has given extraordinary power to a group of Big Tech Giants that are working with government, the mainstream media, and a large segment of a political party to silence and suppress the views of the American people. And they’ve been very, very successful at that. Not in all cases, but in many cases totally successful.”

This is more conspiracy mongering that now includes a cabal comprised of the government, tech companies, the media, and Democrats. If you ask him, Trump would probably add academia, banking, the judiciary, liberal churches, and the Girl Scouts of America.

Following his prepared, TelePrompTer remarks, Trump took questions from what was obviously an exclusive club of ultra-conservative media. Every question was framed positively for Trump, or prefaced with adoring commentary. That’s just more proof that Trump can’t be taken seriously that he cares about a free press. Which, you recall, he has repeatedly maligned in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the People.”

It’s impossible to set aside Trump’s flaming hypocrisy in all of this. After all, he’s the first one to “cancel” anyone who dares to contradict him. He is the undisputed King of Cancel Culture. He has called for dozens of boycotts of American companies. He even expressed his regret that he didn’t ban Facebook and Twitter when he mistakenly thought he could have as president. And now his buddy, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, is pushing a state law that would make it illegal for private companies to monitor their own website comments.

It’s from that perch of police state prohibition that Trump is heralding his campaign for free speech. So not only is Trump on swampy ground legally, he’s up to both of his chins in hypocrisy. This lawsuit, if it is ever actually filed, is going nowhere in hurry, according to most legal experts.

However, let’s hope that this suit isn’t dismissed before the defendants can conduct discovery. There is a wealth of information that can be acquired regarding Trump’s activities prior to, and during the insurrection, his relationships with right-wing media (Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, etc.), and efforts to unlawfully damage the commercial interests of private companies against whom he holds grudges. That should be fun.

UPDATE: It’s All About the Grift! David Corn of Mother Jones spells out the latest con.

“In typical Trumpian fashion, the cases were amateurishly cobbled together, with arguments and contentions that legal experts immediately derided. […] Trump has a long history of both threatening suits that never materialize and filing bogus cases that go nowhere.” […]

“Other than ginning up the Big Lie believers, there is another strong reason for Trump to proceed with this case: money. Lots of money. No sooner had Trump’s lawyers filed when his grift-machine kicked into action. A text message was sent to Trump supporters hitting them up for donations. “President Trump is filing a LAWSUIT against Facebook and Twitter for UNFAIR CENSORSHIP!” it proclaimed.”

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

GOP Bill Would Force Twitter to Allow Trump’s Inflammatory Lies and Disinformation

Posted by on April 30, 2021 at 11:36 am. 4 Comments :

The Republican Party has been engaging in a full court press to cripple democracy across the country. They tried to obstruct and/or overturn the 2020 presidential election (and Trump is still doing so). They passed bills aimed at suppressing and disenfranchising voters, particularly those of people of color. They are disseminating the racist “white replacement theory” to frighten their base that “others” are conspiring to replace them in the electorate.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Now they are upping the ante by advocating trashing the Constitution in order to impose totalitarian control over social media companies who fail to comply with their demands. NBC News is reporting that…

“Florida is on track to be the first state in the nation to punish social media companies that ban politicians like former President Donald Trump under a bill approved Thursday by the state’s Republican-led Legislature. […] the proposal appears destined to be challenged in court after a tech industry trade group called it a violation of the First Amendment speech rights of corporations.”

Let’s be clear about this. Florida Republicans are seeking to force private companies to bend to their partisan political will. Social media services like Twitter and Facebook took the extraordinary step of suspending the accounts of Donald Trump after his reckless and dishonest posts led to deadly riots in Washington, D.C. by insurrections for whom he professed his love. The sole purpose of the new law is to placate Trump and make it easier for him to advance his self-serving, anti-democratic crusade. The article went on to note that “Republicans have called social media bans unfair censorship,” and that…

“The Florida bill would prohibit social media companies from knowingly ‘deplatforming’ political candidates, meaning a service could not ‘permanently delete or ban’ a candidate. Suspensions of up to 14 days would still be allowed, and a service could remove individual posts that violate its terms of service.

“The state’s elections commission would be empowered to fine a social media company $250,000 a day for statewide candidates and $25,000 a day for other candidates if a company’s actions are found to violate the law.”

The state has absolutely no legal authority to force private companies to provide a platform for any individual. The constitutional protection against censorship applies only to the government. But Florida’s Republicans argue that the wide influence of social media is cause for increased regulation. If that’s true, then shouldn’t the same principle apply to television and newspapers that also enjoy wide influence? By that standard, shouldn’t Fox News be forced to carry my stories and opinions, and be fined if they refuse?

Republicans used to believe in something called a “free market.” They insisted that business should be free of government intervention and that the marketplace should decide the winners. Trump even made that argument recently when he predicted that Twitter and Facebook would fail without him and he floated a proposal to start his own social media company.

That’s competition. And while Trump’s alt-Twitter would likely suffer a humiliating defeat, at least it would be decided in the free market. Florida’s bill upends all of that and puts the boot of autocracy on businesses that they regard as disobedient. Which is further proof that Republicans are flaming hypocrites who will discard any and all principles when they don’t adhere to their advantage.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Dr. Fauci Tells Rachel Maddow How the Trump Admin ‘Blocked’ Him From Her Show

Posted by on January 23, 2021 at 10:30 am. 2 Comments :

The differences between the negligent, incompetent, and wantonly corrupt administration of Donald Trump, and that of the incoming Joe Biden administration have been evident in just the few hours that Biden has been President. The stench of ego-driven criminality has been replaced by the refreshing fragrance of experience and compassion. And America has heaved a massive, collective sigh of relief.

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Donald Trump, Anthony Fauci, Censored

Among those relieved by the passing of the Trump era is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the widely respected expert on infectious diseases. His presence on Trump’s phony Coronavirus Task Force – that was nothing more than a thinly veiled reelection campaign operation – was awkward, to say the least. He frequently had to cover his face in shame as Trump dispensed pure idiocy and flagrant falsehoods. Often he was ignored or even uninvited to the press briefings altogether.

Those times are over. Dr. Fauci was interviewed Friday for the first time on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. It was the sort of enlightening hour of useful information that the public sorely needs during these troubling times. And Dr. Fauci was clearly pleased to have the opportunity to communicate with Maddow and her audience. In fact, he addressed his prior absence from the show during this exchange:

Maddow: Dr. Fauci…The country really trusts you in particular, but we’ve seen this sort of disappearance of, and sort of muzzling of, these other senior folks within the government. Do you think that we’ll have more access to you, both the press and the public?

Fauci: I’m positive of it. I’ve been wanting to come on your show for months and months. You’ve been asking me to come on your show for months and months, and it’s just gotten blocked. Let’s call it what it is: It just got blocked because they didn’t like the way you handle things, and they didn’t want me on. I mean it was just so clear when we sent it down. “Why would you want to go on Rachel Maddow’s show?” “Well, because I like her and she’s really good.” “It doesn’t make any difference. Don’t do it.”

I don’t think you’re going to see that now. I think you’re going to see a lot of transparency. You might not see everybody as often as you want, but you’re not gonna see deliberate holding back of good people when the press asks for them. We were assured that that’s the case. And that goes along with what you were mentioning before about different types of pressures that were put on. It was a tough situation. It really was.

Those gracious and honest remarks also reveal the dangerous censorship by Trump of critical information necessary for the preservation of life during a deadly pandemic. Trump never cared about the welfare of the American people, particularly if it contrasted with his own narcissistic self-interest. Dr. Fauci said as much in another interview on CNN (where he had also been barred by Trump from appearing) when asked…

John Berman: Did the lack of candor over the last year and lack of facts, in some cases, cost lives?
Fauci: You know, it very likely did… When you start talking about the things that make no sense medically and no sense scientifically, that clearly is not helpful.

In the weeks, months, and years to come, we are going to learn more and more about how unconscionably destructive Trump was for the nation and the world. And the damage he’s done will not be repaired overnight. But at least we won’t be seeing the sort of suppression and deliberate disinformation going forward that was so painfully prevalent while Trump was occupying the White House.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. And you can follow this surrogate Twitter account here. Thanks for your support.

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

Study Proves that Banishing Trump From Twitter Improved the Internet 73%

Posted by on January 17, 2021 at 10:21 am. 5 Comments :

On January 8th, two days after the Donald Trump Insurrectionists assaulted Congress, Twitter finally suspended his account. It was a long overdue action to prevent him from inciting further violence and disseminating ever more preposterous and self-serving lies. Unfortunately, it came after five deaths and the desecration of America’s seat of democracy.

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Donald Trump, Twitter

Trump got away with exploiting social media for years, where he recklessly radicalized an intellectually challenged and emotionally vulnerable confederacy of conspiracy crackpots. He deftly manipulated them to serve his own brazenly selfish and nefarious purposes. It culminated in the riots in Washington that Trump’s deliberately inflammatory rhetoric triggered.

However, that is not the end of the story. Trump will surely continue to advance his egomaniacal aspirations. And he will be aided and abetted by Fox News. On Saturday evening, Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, “Judge” Jeannine Pirro, hosted the Republican’s leading propagator of political cowplop, Jim Jordan. This excerpt from their discussion is illustrative of the deranged mindset on the right:

Pirro: To limit those who are Republicans, to literally get them off the Internet, Facebook and Twitter. I mean there is basically, not just a removal of free speech, but it is a removal of our freedom.
Jordan: Yeah. This cancel culture is dangerous. It’s the most dangerous thing going

That’s right. Removing Trump from Twitter is “the most dangerous thing going.” Clearly more dangerous than the deadly rioters that Trump incited with his incendiary and delusional tweets about election fraud. And far more dangerous than the coronavirus that Trump downplayed and allowed to spread unchecked, killing 400,000 Americans.

Fox News would never engage in that sort of “cancel culture.” Well, except that they have totally refused to give me any airtime to reveal how dishonest and dangerous they are. I mean, what’s up with that? They are removing, not just my right to free speech, but my freedom.

And it’s not like Trump deserves this online suppression. Has he ever “cancelled” anyone? Well, you know, other than cancelling Fox News whenever they have been less than unconditionally adoring or insufficiently flattering for his elephantine ego. If Fox ever permits a Trump critic to speak – even if just momentarily so they can prepare an attack – Trump immediately whines that “Fox News is dead“ and insists that everyone stop watching and switch to even more worshipful channels like OANN or Newsmax.

What Jordan, Pirro, and Fox News continue to fail to understand is that the free speech protections in the Constitution only prohibit government censorship. Twitter is a private company with stated rules that users must comply with. They include refraining from advocating violence and disseminating falsehoods that could result in harm. Trump violated those rules regularly.

The evidence of the harm Trump caused was recently documented in a study that found that after Twitter banned Trump, “online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent.” That’s a pretty revealing statistic that attests to the hypnotic influence Trump has on his cult disciples. It isn’t just an accounting of his Twitter activity, but the combined effect of the retweets and other regurgitation on the part of Trump’s followers.

The fact that Trump’s absence from Twitter and Facebook can have this profound an impact on the disinformation that circulates online is justification for removing him and any other party that seeks to mislead the public in ways that produce violence and tangible trauma to society at large. And that being the case, how about we do Fox News next?

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. And you can follow this surrogate Twitter account here. Thanks for your support.

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

Trump Seeks ‘Common Ground’ With Racist, Seditionist, Violent, Conspiracy Crackpots

Posted by on January 14, 2021 at 11:21 am. 8 Comments :

Donald Trump is fond of bragging about being the bestest “whatever” he happens to be ranting about at any particular moment in time. Well now he can honestly say that he is the most impeached president ever – by far! I know it. You know it. Everyone knows it. He has twice the impeachments of any other president. He has impeachments like no one has ever seen before. So much impeachment that you’ll get tired of him getting impeached (doubtful).

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Donald Trump, MAGA

There should be automatic deportation, or at least incarceration, for anyone impeached more than once. How many assaults on the country should be tolerated before there are tangible consequences? So far, Trump is getting a pass for his treason and is attempting to whitewash his crimes.

In response to his record setting impeachedness, Trump released a video in which he claimed to be shocked by the violence that he purposefully incited (and continues doing so). He is now calling for the tensions he recklessly inflamed to be calmed. It will be interesting to see if his glassy-eyed cult disciples comply with this request, or if they are now an autonomous mob of anti-American Trumpian insurrectionists who defy even their Dear Leader’s pathetic and disingenuous appeals.

In addition to Trump’s desperate grasping at legal absolution in his video, he couldn’t resist lashing out (again) at social media for finally taking action against him and his supporters who have been advocating and orchestrating violence. It’s telling that Trump couldn’t just admonish those committing violence in his name and leave it at that. Nope. His ego raised up to interrupt this message and whine about being deservedly banned by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, et al. However, his crybaby tirade only made things worse. He asserted that he was “calling on all Americans to overcome the passions of the moment, and join together as one American people.” Elaborating, he said that…

“I also want to say a few words about the unprecedented assault on free speech, we have seen in recent days. These are tense and difficult times. The efforts to censor, cancel, and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong and they are dangerous. What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another. All of us can choose by our actions to rise above the rancor and find common ground and shared purpose. We must focus on advancing the interests of the whole nation.”

Don’t be fooled. Trump, who has repeatedly maligned the free press as “the enemy of the people,” is not suddenly concerned about some generalized “assault on free speech.” He is only concerned about himself and is upset that he can’t tweet anymore. However, his self-serving invective is revealing when you know who he is so anxious to find “common ground and shared purpose” with.

The parties Trump is coming to the defense of are predominantly the perpetrators of violence and disseminators of dangerously dishonest conspiracy theories. They are QAnon, Stop the Steal, and other deviant purveyors of lies, and agitators like Alex Jones. You cannot “rise above the rancor” if those for whom you are advocating are the most vile and rancorous instigators.

What’s more, Trump’s criticism of “efforts to censor, cancel, and blacklist,” can’t be taken seriously. He is the King of Cancel Culture. He will demand that any person or company or organization that doesn’t unreservedly worship him be banished from society. He has explicitly called for boycotts of “offenders” at least ten times, mostly against American businesses such as Harley-Davidson, CNN, Apple, Macy’s, Univision, Mexico, HBO, Rolling Stone, AT&T, and even Fox News.

It is most definitely not the time to listen to the racists, seditionists, and conspiracy crackpots with whom Trump is so closely aligned. To the contrary, they must be driven out of the public discourse. Trump’s efforts to prop them up in the midst of a speech that is allegedly calling for peace is further proof of his unapologetic hypocrisy and/or severe dementia.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. And you can follow this surrogate Twitter account here. Thanks for your support.

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

Twitter Says Civilian Trump Will Be Subject to Suspension for His Lies and Abuse

Posted by on November 8, 2020 at 1:54 pm. 5 Comments :

Elections have consequences. And one of those that could be surprisingly significant is the position that Twitter is taking toward the Tweeter-in-Chief, Donald Trump. Now that Joe Biden has succeeded in deposing Trump, he will no longer have the special status that has shielded him from the rules that the rest of have been subject to on social media.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Trump has been a notoriously abusive presence on Twitter. He lies without shame, invents alternative facts, promotes bizarre conspiracy theories, and attacks anyone who has the audacity to be less than worshipful. Just in the few days since election day, Trump has posted 25 tweets that Twitter had to flag for being untruthful and/or misleading. Anyone else would have been banned from posting with that record of violating the terms of service for the site. And now, according to The Guardian…

“Donald Trump could lose more than just the presidency this January. Twitter has confirmed that, if Trump leaves office, he will no longer receive special treatment as a ‘newsworthy individual.’

Twitter’s policy around newsworthiness protects certain people – such as elected officials with more than 250,000 followers – from having their accounts suspended or banned for rule infractions that would otherwise lead to severe penalties.”

The wrist-slapping that Trump has been given in the past by Twitter has had little to no effect on his illicit behavior, other than to stir his bitter anger for having been held accountable at all. In fact, he has threatened to alter laws related to user comments online in an attempt to punish Twitter and other Internet media for trying to establish standards of civil discourse.

However, the prospect of being suspended or banned in the future should he continue being a boorish sleazeball is a step forward in compliance with community standards. Whether that will rein in Trump’s natural tendencies to offend might be a stretch. But it’s a start.

News Corpse has a vested interest in this policy directive. My Twitter account is currently suspended for allegedly violating Twitter’s rules. Twitter didn’t reveal what the violation was, so it’s impossible to know the reason for the suspension. But I can affirm with confidence that there have been no comments that were misleading, untruthful, abusive, or otherwise in violation of Twitters rules. My best guess is that some right-wingers who disagreed with my point of view sought to censor me by maliciously filing false reports causing an automated suspension.

An appeal of the suspension was filed, but Twitter doesn’t give any indication of how the appeal process is carried out. So I have no idea if there will be resolution in the next few days or months or ever. If anyone has any pull with the Twitter Gods, feel free to intervene on my behalf. Also, feel free to post links to my articles on Twitter, as well as tweets beseeching the site (@Twitter, @Jack) to free me from this unfair suspension.

It’s ironic that Twitter gives special treatment to high profile, “newsworthy” individuals. Because people like that have much greater influence. When they tweet lies or abuse it goes out potentially to millions. If I were to do that it would go out to a much smaller audience. So Trump’s abusive tweets have a far more destructive impact than anything I could do, if I had that intention.

Nevertheless, I’m suspended and Trump is still tweeting lies like “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!“ and “This was a stolen election.”

The good news is that, with Trump’s defeat, he will become another civilian user who will be subject to the same rules as the rest of us. Or at least that’s what Twitter is saying now. That won’t help me get my account (and my ~7,000 followers) back, but it may protect the American people from the avalanche of atrocious falsehoods and attacks that have been gushing from Trump for so many years.

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

WTF? Bill Barr Told Rupert Murdoch to ‘Muzzle’ a Fox News Trump Critic

Posted by on August 22, 2020 at 2:48 pm. 4 Comments :

The creeping fascism of the Donald Trump regime continues to unfurl as the criminal accomplices in his cabinet carry out his nefarious agenda. Chief among them is Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, who doesn’t even bother anymore to disguise his desecration of the Justice Department into a pseudo-legal cabal that works solely as Trump’s personal defense team.

Donald Trump, Bill Barr

A new book by CNN’s media correspondent, Brian Stelter, is set to be released next week, and excerpts are starting to make the rounds. “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth“, has already created quite a stir with revelations about how insiders at Fox News privately admit that they think Trump is “crazy,” even while they exalt him worshipfully on the air.

The toxic, codependent relationship between Trump and Fox News has been the source of incalculable damage to American media and democracy. It is an unprecedented political/press partnership that benefits both. Fox News gets an audience with cult-like devotion that they can brainwash with blatant scare tactics and the darkly unifying force of racism. While Trump gets an aggressive assault team to attack his critics and political opponents, and a constant defense for his unending stream of unsavory conduct and outright crimes. It’s a marriage whose foundation rests on lies and ignorance.

Another excerpt from the book was just published by The Guardian. This one describes a meeting that took place last October between Barr and Fox News Overlord, Rupert Murdoch. News Corpse speculated at the time that the meeting resulted in the resignation of Fox host Shepard Smith, which was announced the next day. But Stelter’s book reports that there was another topic of discussion on their agenda:

“The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to ‘muzzle’ Andrew Napolitano, a prominent Fox News personality who became a critic of Donald Trump, according to a new book about the rightwing TV network. […] Trump ‘was so incensed by the judge’s TV broadcasts that he had implored Barr to send Rupert a message in person … about ‘muzzling the judge’. [Trump] wanted the nation’s top law enforcement official to convey just how atrocious Napolitano’s legal analysis had been.'”

Just to be clear, intimidating and manipulating the media is not a part of the Attorney General’s job. In fact, it isn’t a part of any government official’s job. It is a totalitarian tactic to control speech and clampdown on the free press. And this sort of suppression of the constitutional rights of journalists is part and parcel of the Trump Doctrine that has designated the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.”

Napolitano, the Senior Legal Analyst at Fox News, has been known to criticize Trump. And for that heresy he was entirely excluded from Fox’s coverage of Trump’s impeachment. A few notable examples of his well-reasoned critiques include…

Napolitano has a right to his opinions, and quite often he agrees with Trump. But none of that is relevant here. It was grossly inappropriate for Trump to seek to censor a legal news commentator. And it only makes matters worse that Trump recruited his attorney general to deliver that message. And Barr, of course, should never have agreed to take the assignment. It’s not only improper, and a violation of the Constitution, it has absolutely nothing to with his duties at the Department of Justice.

It is, however, consistent with Trump’s flagrant disrespect for the law, his relentless abuse of power, and his frighteningly obvious tyrannical aspirations. And it’s further proof that neither Trump nor Barr are fit to serve in any position of government authority. They have both proven that they are utterly untrustworthy and the sooner they are deposed, the better for America.

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