Media Bias

Fox News Shills Parrot Trump’s False and Peculiar ‘Praise’ of a New York Times Campaign ‘Spy’ Story

Posted by on May 3, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 1 Comments :

For most his presidency, Donald Trump has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for failing to understand the simplest matters that unfold in current events. Either that or he is deliberately distorting reality to conform to his preconceived delusions. This is evident in everything from his confused grasp of the economy, to his embarrassing belief that stealth fighters are actually invisible.

Fox News, Spying on Trump

On Friday morning Trump took another step into the cognitive void. He posted a tweet that offered backhanded praise to the New York Times for an article about the FBI’s investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia. But his comprehension of the Times article was indicative of a diseased mind:

It was thoughtful of Trump to suggest that the Times should get a Pulitzer Prize. Especially since they already got one this year for “an exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges.” But Trump’s tweet missed the whole point of the story. He also missed the headline, which his tweet falsely quoted as “Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign.” The actual headline was “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016.”

Notice that what Trump called a “spy,” the Times referred to as an “investigator.” And that’s precisely how Fox News helpfully sought to elaborate on Trump’s glitchy characterization. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends did a segment on the story by the Times that led with a gleeful Steve Doocy completely misrepresenting it (video below):

“So it’s a big story in the New York Times. Remember a couple of years ago when Donald Trump said the government was spying on him? Turns out the New York Times, in this morning’s edition, right here on the front, we’re gonna show you the headline, ‘FBI Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet with Trump Aide in 2016.'”

First of all, can anyone explain why Fox put that MAGA sign in the graphic, other than as a free advertisement? More to the point, Doocy went on to describe the story as involving Trump’s foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, who the FBI was indeed investigating to ascertain his links to Russia. Doocy even acknowledge that, although he repeated Trump’s rhetoric about spying, which is not what happened. But co-host Brian Kilmeade agreed and then went full conspiracy crackpot by accusing the FBI of “covering their tracks” due some to imaginary exposé that Kilmeade wouldn’t reveal.

In reality, this was part of an investigation that had already begun. It was initiated after an Australian diplomat told the FBI about a meeting he had with Papadopoulos in a London bar. Papadopoulos revealed that he had access to damaging information about Hillary Clinton obtained by Russian hackers. That meeting took place in May of 2016. The meeting referenced in the New York Times story took place in September of 2016, several months later. So, since the investigation was already in progress, what exactly were Trump and Fox News so excited about? The Times story merely affirms prior reporting that Trump’s campaign had unsavory associations with Russia that were worthy of scrutiny.

Trump has been whining incessantly about what he calls a “Witch Hunt” and a “hoax” for much of the past two years. But his contention that he was the subject of spying is ludicrous. When law enforcement assigns officers to engage in surveillance it is routine and legal investigative work, not spying. And in Trump’s case, it was all conducted with strict oversight and lawful warrants issued by independent judges. Nevertheless, Trump managed to twist the Times’ story into something it wasn’t, and then declared some sort of deranged victory.

This is just another sorry attempt by Trump – with Fox’s help – to malign the FBI and American intelligence agencies. That’s something that he has been working hard at because he knows what he is guilty of and, therefore, needs to discredit the police agencies who are protecting the nation from criminals. Criminals like Donald Trump, who also tweeted that he spoke with Vladimir Putin Friday morning. His tweet indicated that they spoke about the “Russian Hoax.”

So now Trump is talking to our enemies about his attacks on American law enforcement? Is he still colluding with Putin to coordinate their stories that there was “no collusion, no obstruction”? Doesn’t he realize that Putin is a subject of the investigation by the FBI, and it’s entirely inappropriate for him to discuss the case with Putin? And given all of that, do we really need any more reasons to impeach Trump?

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

Fox News Host Shines a Light on The Dishonest Trump-Fluffing of AG Barr and the Fox ‘Opinion People’

Posted by on May 1, 2019 at 2:58 pm. NO Comments :

The highly anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing with Attorney General William Barr provided all the sparks and melodrama that was advertised. While the Republican members of the committee wasted their time flattering Barr and calling for ridiculously unwarranted investigations of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democrats effectively revealed just how devoutly wedded to Donald Trump the Attorney General is.

Fox News, Chris Wallace

Barr was unashamedly protecting Trump from any potentially negative perceptions he might have earned due to his flagrantly unlawful activity and obstruction of justice. Barr refused to concede some obvious failures on his part to be an objective servant of the American people, rather than a personal criminal lawyer for Trump.

Even so, Barr couldn’t remember whether or not Trump ever asked him to open an investigation into Trump’s political opponents or critics. He admitted that he didn’t review the evidence in the Mueller report before deciding that Trump was innocent. He denied that directing someone to change their testimony (as Trump did to White House Counsel Don McGahn) was witness tampering and obstruction of justice. He defended his use of the loaded, Trumpian term of “spying” during his previous congressional testimony. He couldn’t even say whether the President’s actions were consistent with his oath of office. So Barr is not just another Trump lawyer, he’s as bad at it as the rest of Trump’s legal team.

Many of these revelations were discussed immediately after the hearing by Fox News anchors Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace. Smith delivered a remarkably straightforward recap of the proceedings with all of the brutal – for Trump – truths included. He then turned to Wallace, whose assessment was equally candid, but also included some peremptory criticisms of his Fox News colleagues. He began by addressing the letter from Mueller to Barr after Barr’s bastardization of the special counsel’s report (video below):

“I know there are some people who don’t think this March 27 letter is a big deal, and some opinion people who appear on this network who might be pushing a political agenda. But we have to deal in facts. And the fact is that this letter from the special counsel … was a clear indication that [Mueller] was upset, very upset, with the letter that had been sent out by the Attorney General.”

Wallace noted that Mueller’s letter was intended to express his view that Barr was misleading and confusing the public. It would have been extraordinarily uncommon if Mueller had simply expressed those views in a personal phone call to Barr. But his decision to go further by documenting them in writing demonstrates how seriously he felt that Barr had crossed ethical lines. Mueller’s letter clearly stated that he wanted Barr to correct the record publicly.”

“He felt the Attorney General’s letter was inaccurate. He says in the conversation he was talking about media coverage. But that’s not what it says in the letter. He says in the letter that you didn’t reflect what we found in the report … Those aren’t opinions. That’s not political agenda. Those are the facts.”

Wallace is making it abundantly clear that he is concerned about how Fox’s “opinion people” are likely to distort reality when they get their turn in primetime. He’s being deliberate in his remarks to emphasize that what he’s presenting are the facts, as opposed to what shills like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are expected to say later on.

It’s amazing that a so-called “news” network can operate this way. They have people they identify as journalists openly maligning their network confederates as disreputable purveyors of rumors, distortions, and lies. There would seem to be no point to watch a program hosted by State TV mouthpieces who spew fantasy fiction that the network’s straight news reporters refute.

Yet that’s the business model of Fox News. And millions of dimwitted Deplorables tune in every night to be lied to by shameless Trump PR flacks posing as journalists. It’s the behavior of cult members who obediently believe only what the cult leaders permit them to believe. However, with the reporting by Smith and Wallace, some of these poor souls might come into contact with some actual truth. That could result in their being released from the spell of the Fox News charlatans. Or it might cause them to suffer an aneurysm that turns half of the brain into mush. Well, the half that wasn’t already mush.

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

Fox News Scolds Bernie Sanders for ‘Praising Dictators’ – Ignores Trump ‘Falling in Love’ With Them

Posted by on April 29, 2019 at 2:57 pm. 2 Comments :

As the Democratic primary season ramps up, we can expect it to be hectored by cranky Republicans and Fox News shills who are desperate to shift attention from their candidate, Donald Trump. More often than not, Trump is his own worst enemy for incessantly posting embarrassing tweets the run the gamut of political pontification from infantile to incoherent.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

Consequently, Fox News takes seriously its role in misdirecting their glassy-eyed, Trumpified audience away from his babbling and boorishness, and toward what they consider shocking and harmful revelations about the Democrats who want his job. A frequent target of Fox News is Bernie Sanders, whose lefty views are ripe for attack by the rightists at Fox. Never mind that those views are also favored by majorities of the American people. But that isn’t something that Fox News cares about.

The featured article on the Fox News website Monday morning had an incendiary headline stating that “Socialist Dem 2020 hopeful could be haunted by past praise for dictators.” That eye popping allegation appeared below a picture of Bernie Sanders flanked by inset photos of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the current Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega. Clearly Fox was insinuating that Sanders was a supporter of these two repressive tyrants.

In reality, Fox was going back thirty years to twist some out of context comments by Sanders that don’t represent anything he believes today. For instance, Sanders related some memories of his youth that involved impressions he had of Castro:

“I remember, for some reason or another, being very excited when [former Cuban dictator] Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba,” he said, while speaking at the University of Vermont in 1986. “I was a kid … and it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people.”

Setting aside the reference to Castro, that’s actually consistent with Sanders’ lifelong advocacy for the poor and working classes. And at the time, many Americans were hopeful that Castro’s revolution against the totalitarian Batista regime would bring freedom and fairness to all Cubans. The same was true for the remarks Sanders made about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. They were being illegally attacked by the Contras, a band of American sponsored terrorists who were the beneficiaries of the criminal Iran-Contra operation run by Ronald Reagan and Oliver North. Sadly, in both cases, the hopes for democratic reforms were betrayed by leaders who made themselves into tyrants.

What’s most peculiar (and epically hypocritical) is how Fox is chastising Sanders for an alleged affinity to dictators. Sanders never actually praised them without simultaneously offering significant criticisms. And he was adamantly opposed to their authoritarian tendencies.

However, Fox failed to mention the much more obvious (and current) infatuations that Trump has with murderous tyrants around the world. He literally slobbered all over North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, saying that they “fell in love.” Earlier this month Trump asked “Why shouldn’t I like him?” And he praised him as “honorable” and a “real Leader.” This is a man who has killed thousands of his own people. Yet Trump even expressed a note of jealousy saying that he wants to be worshipped by Americans the way Kim is by North Koreans.

Trump has also made numerous adoring commentaries about his BFF, Vladimir Putin. He often affirms that they have a “great relationship.” He says that Putin is a “strong leader” who he “respects.” He takes Putin’s word over that of the U.S. intelligence community about the Russian hacking and election interference. He advances the interests of Russia on nearly every issue. To this day Trump has never said a negative thing about Putin.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Trump has also been complimentary toward brutal tyrants like Xi Jinping of China, Duterte of the Philippines, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Erdogan of Turkey, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Bin Salman, to name a few.

Meanwhile, Trump is constantly maligning Americans – politicians, journalists, FBI agents, celebrities, and his own cabinet and staffers – as corrupt, dishonest, sleazy, and even treasonous. He says worse things about Saturday Night Live than he does about white nationalists or neo-Nazis. But to Fox News, some vague, decades-old distortions of remarks by Sanders are breaking news and worthy of leading their reporting. Expect more of this atrocious bastardization of journalism by Fox and their ilk as the election cycle proceeds.

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

Fox News Emails Sound Like ‘White Supremacist Chat Room’ – Have They Ever Watched Fox News?

Posted by on April 26, 2019 at 12:39 pm. 3 Comments :

Donald Trump spoke at the annual convention for the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday. Despite the organization’s unrepentant support for terrorists and felons and spousal abusers having unfettered access to guns, Trump felt it was necessary to help prop up their sagging approval ratings (and his own) with hias Deplorable base.

Fox News, KKK

These are the same sort of cretins who attended the white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, VA, that Trump also defended as “very fine people.” In the aftermath of those repugnant remarks, Fox News struggled mightily to protect Trump from the fallout for having praised neo-Nazis. And apparently, they are still doing it. Trump is also still defending those remarks with new distortions of reality.

Friday morning it was revealed that an internal email exchange between some Fox News reporters devolved into a flagrantly pro-Trump brainstorming session. They were discussing how to respond to charges made by Joe Biden in his campaign announcement wherein he reminded people of Trump’s affection for torch-carrying racists.

The fact that they were brainstorming Trump defenses is bad enough. That isn’t the job of legitimate reporters. But their rationalization of such hatred makes matters worse. So much so that even one of the reporters in the email chain got fed up with what he was reading. After Fox’s Doug McKelway implied that Biden was lying, he drew this response from Fox News Radio’s Jon Decker:

“I really don’t understand the point you are making. Jarrod Kuhn was one of those individuals in Charlottesville holding a tiki torch while the mob chanted “Jews will not replace us. […] Your posts read like something you’d read on a White Supremacist chat room.”

While it’s admirable that Decker had the courage to forthrightly renounce McKelway and his other colleagues, there is a bigger problem that is left unchanged. It isn’t just that email thread that sounds like a “White Supremacist chat room.” It’s much of the programming on the air at Fox News. Tucker Carlson has become the voice of America’s white nationalists with nearly every show advancing their rhetoric and agenda. Laura Ingraham frequently launches brazenly racist diatribes, particularly against minority celebrities and sports figures. And the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends take every opportunity to smear politicians of color.

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

So if an email exchange sounds like a “White Supremacist chat room,” the Fox News Channel sounds like the Aryan Broadcasting Network. More of Fox’s reporters need to take a lesson from Decker and call out their racist confederates. The network is already suffering an exodus of advertisers who don’t want to be associated with such hate speech. Now the anchors and guests need to step up and denounce the racist culture that permeates Fox News. Will they have the courage to do publicly what Decker did in an email that he thought was private?

Fox News Senior Legal Analyst: Trump’s Obstruction is ‘Unlawful, Defenseless and Condemnable’

Posted by on April 25, 2019 at 2:34 pm. 5 Comments :

Ever since special counsel Robert Mueller began investigating the President, Donald Trump has been adamant that there has been “no collusion, no obstruction,” and no other illegal or unethical activity on his part. Trump made sure to drive that point home to his Deplorable followers on Twitter nearly every day. And backing him up all the way on this was his State TV affiliate, Fox News.

Donald Trump, Andrew Napolitano

But now the bottom appears to be falling out of Trump’s defense strategy. In recent weeks a few lonely voices on Fox News have displayed some measure of independence and honesty. They are still a minority, and they are often castigated by their own network colleagues, but they are there and they are beginning to be more outspoken.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is one of those expressing views that are decidedly un-Foxian. Last month Napolitano told Fox host Neil Cavuto that he agreed with the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, that there is evidence in the public record of Trump engaging in both conspiracy with Russia and obstruction of justice. He previously said that Trump’s firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was obstruction of justice. And now Napolitano is going even further with some hard and detailed facts:

“Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump — from asking former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland to write an untruthful letter about the reason for Flynn’s chat with Kislyak, to asking Corey Lewandowski and then-former White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and McGahn to lie about it, to firing Comey to impede the FBI’s investigations, to dangling a pardon in front of Michael Cohen to stay silent, to ordering his aides to hide and delete records.”

These remarks might not get much attention were they made by Rep. Schiff, or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. They would be be dismissed by right-wingers as partisan and political. But those criticisms cannot be credibly leveled against Napolitano who is a devoted conservative and a long-time fixture on Fox News. And he wasn’t done:

“The president’s job is to enforce federal law. If he had ordered its violation to save innocent life or preserve human freedom, he would have a moral defense. But ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behavior is unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.”

That’s the sort of unambiguous statement of guilt (and from a judge no less) that you might expect from a partisan Democrat. But coming from a conservative legal expert on Fox News, it’s damn near conviction. It’s certainly justification for proceeding with impeachment hearings.

Napolitano also took Attorney General William Barr to task for wrongly defining obstruction of justice as only being applicable when it is successful or when there is an underlying crime committed by the obstructor. That’s nonsense and not rooted in the law. It is still obstruction if one attempts to interfere with the the judicial process and fails. If you try to rob a bank and don’t pull it off, you are going to jail. Likewise, it’s still obstruction if one attempts to interfere with a case that involves someone else. If you lie to the police about a crime you know you’re cousin committed, you are going to jail.

Barr’s absurd misinterpretation is a blatant attempt to cover for Trump and could be considered obstruction of justice itself. And it’s so egregiously conspicuous that even a Fox News legal analyst can see it and felt compelled to react. When this sort of blowback comes from the network that Trump regards as his own media division, it can’t be long before the damn breaks and others on Fox, along with Republicans who can no longer pretend that Trump isn’t an un-American charlatan, conclude that it’s time to put country before party – or before the naked emperor routine that Trump is trying to pull off.

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

UPDATE: Here’s video of Napolitano’s remarks. It is really worth watching.

UPDATE II: And naturally, Big Baby Trump lashed out at Napolitano in a pair of tweets that also slammed Shepard Smith, while praising Trump-fluffer Alan Dershowitz’s utterly imbecilic argument that there can be no obstruction of justice without a conviction of an underlying crime. No reputable lawyer believes that.

Snowflake Trump is Morbidly Afraid of MSNBC, CNN, While Democrats Hold Town Halls on Fox News

Posted by on April 24, 2019 at 1:57 pm. 2 Comments :

In the week since the redacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller was released, Donald Trump has clearly demonstrated what he really thinks of it. Although he said that it “totally exonerated” him, his actions belie his words. He has done nothing but criticize it and try desperately to discredit it and its authors. That’s not what an innocent person does to a report that he believes vindicates him.

Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow, Shepard Smith, Anderson Cooper

Trump’s reaction affirms his overall state of mind, which is an all-consuming fear of what his future holds. He knows what he did and is terrified that everyone else is going to find out. Consequently, he has receded into his bunker and refuses to deal with anyone other than loyal subjects, cult rally attendees, and of course, Fox News.

This strategy of hiding under the Lincoln Bedroom bed reveals that Trump and his Deplorables still languish in a fantasy world where they believe that he is a pillar of strength. There has been relentless criticism of the Democratic Party’s decision not to allow Fox News to host a Democratic primary debate. The StormTrumpers say that Democrats must be afraid of Fox. To the contrary. They are aware that Fox News is an overtly hostile environment that only exists to denigrate them.

Nevertheless, several Democratic candidates for president have either already agreed, or are holding talks, to appear on a Fox News hosted town hall. There are big differences between town halls that are aimed a broad audience, and primary debates that are more narrowly intended for voters of that particular party. And every survey shows that there aren’t very many Democrats watching Fox News.

The list of Democrats looking at Fox town halls includes Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Eric Swalwell, Tim Ryan, John Delaney, and Michael Bennet. They would follow Bernie Sanders, who already did one and was immediately castigated by Trump for doing so. That’s a clue to what the others should expect.

What’s interesting about this is that while Republicans are quick to attack Democrats for avoiding Fox News (which obviously isn’t true), the same Republicans never bother to note that Trump is petrified of MSNBC and CNN. He has never permitted these networks to interview him as president. Trump’s abject fear is palpable. It’s why he constantly maligns the media in Stalist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He will not allow himself to be in a situation where he can’t control the dialog.

So Trump and his GOP cohorts in politics and punditry should STFU about Democrats going on Fox News. At least until Trump appears in a town hall hosted by Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, or even “Morning Psycho” Joe Scarborough. Or maybe Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, or Jake Tapper.

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

But don’t hold your breath. Trump won’t even sit for an interview with Fox’s Shepard Smith, Bret Baier, or Chris Wallace. That pleasure (?) is reserved exclusively for Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. These are Trump’s safe spaces where he knows he won’t be challenged or met with anything other than adoring sycophancy. And the contrast between the relationship between Democrats and Fox News, to Trump’s panic-stricken dread of MSNBC or CNN, shows who the real snowflake is.

Trump ‘Congratulates’ CNN for Having Low Ratings, Even Though His Are Much Worse

Posted by on April 22, 2019 at 2:05 pm. NO Comments :

Having a healthy ego is a requirement for anyone who aspires to be President of the United States. But there has never been a president with the kind of psychotically twisted self-image as Donald Trump. He has explicitly declared himself as the best in the world at whatever subject he happens to be babbling about at the time. Whether it’s taxes or war or energy or finance or women, Trump is adamant that he knows more than anybody else (see the video below). It’s rather impressive that he can be so self-aggrandizing and so wrong at the same time.

Donald Trump, Loser

So naturally Trump is obsessed with rankings and ratings and other measures of ability that he can exploit to make himself feel like he isn’t the miserable failure that he knows he is deep inside. And since he regards Fox News as an extension of himself, the cable TV ratings are a big part of Trump’s notion of self-worth. That’s why when he saw some ratings data (from the Daily Caller, the ultra-rightist website run by Fox News host Tucker Carlson) that noted the poor performance of CNN, he leaped at the chance to sarcastically congratulate the network as if these results were specifically heralding him.

Of course, anyone who follows the cable news business already knows that CNN has been lagging behind both Fox News and MSNBC. So it’s hard to figure out why Trump got so excited. But more interesting is the fact that Trump’s joy seems to ignore an important part of reality: Trump’s approval is even worse than CNN’s ratings. In fact, as disclosed in a recent poll, the American people trust CNN more than they do Trump or Fox News:

“Attacks on the ‘fake news’ media have been a staple of President Donald Trump’s messaging as both a presidential candidate and commander in chief, but new polling from Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter suggests that when it comes to credibility, that rhetoric really only resonates with Republicans.”

This poll shows that a majority of 53 percent regard CNN as “credible.” The same goes for another target of Trump’s, the New York Times. And all three broadcast networks came in higher than 60 percent. Fox News was below all of them at 52 percent. And that’s with 70 percent of Republicans believing it’s credible (a number that affirms the cult nature of their relationship with both Fox and Trump). Numerous other polls have been conducted on the question of trust, and in every single case the American people said that they trust the media more than they do Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump’s own ratings have achieved a dubious distinction as being lower than any president in history. So Trump is right about being the best – at least at being hated. Even the disreputable, right-wing, pro_Trump pollster, Rasmussen, has Trump down five points (to 47%) since the release of the redacted Mueller report less than a week ago. The more reliable Reuters poll shows that Trump has declined to a dismal 37 percent.

So to shore up his faltering standing with the public, Trump has spent Monday morning frantically posting clips of Fox News slobbering all over him. No less than five such clips were tweeted featuring crackpots like Lou Dobbs and Mark Levin. It’s the only way he can manage to salve his wounded and fragile ego. He is a man consumed by fear. And every tweet wherein he lambastes special counsel Robert Mueller, and the “witch hunt,” and the “Angry Democrats,” and the media, just reinforces his guilt and his desperation to suppress it.

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

Jeanine Pirro of Fox News Unleashes a Bizarre Trump Defense with the Clintons as Bonnie and Clyde

Posted by on April 21, 2019 at 1:09 pm. 3 Comments :

There is no one on Fox News that makes life harder for Saturday Night Live than “Judge” Jeanine Pirro. Her cartoonishly feverish harangues are nearly impossible to satirize. Pirro herself seems to be doing a mock impersonation of a paranoid schizophrenic on acid. The best way to translate that into comedy is just to yell the already incoherent excerpts from her actual commentaries.

Donald Trump, Jeanine Pirro

On the latest episode of her Saturday Trump-Fluffing Hour (video below), Pirro outdid herself with an extended diatribe addressing the release of the redacted Mueller report by Trump’s disgraced Attorney General, William Barr. She began the program by asking an ironically self-owning question:

“Are you fed up yet? More than two years of non-stop, unprecedented maligning by the mainstream media, high level Obama administration officials, and disappointed, disgruntled and deranged Democrats, of the commander in chief as the ‘agent of a foreign government,’ a ‘Putin puppet,’ a ‘treasonous dictator,’ all because they despise the outsider president WE put in the Oval Office.”

Anytime a Fox News shill to mentions Trump in the same sentence with descriptives like “agent of a foreign government,” “Putin puppet,” and “treasonous dictator,” you’ve got to consider that a win. But Pirro’s take on conclusions of the Mueller report are indicative of a mind infected by cult worship. For one thing, her assertion that the alleged “maligning” of Trump was unprecedented ignores Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office where he was accused of being a gay, terrorist-sympathizing, communist Muslim, who was born in Kenya. And most of those attacks were by Pirro herself.

What’s more, Pirro’s characterization of Trump as the “outsider president WE put in the Oval Office,” begs the question: Who is “WE”? Fox News? The Deplorables? Vladimir Putin? It certainly wasn’t the American people who favored Hillary Clinton by a margin of three million votes. Nevertheless, Pirro has had enough:

“Enough already. The system worked. The process is over. No collusion. No obstruction. Full cooperation. Enough lives have been damaged. Enough reputations ruined. Enough families destroyed. They took down people with process crimes having nothing to do with Russia.”

So what Pirro regards as a working system is one that makes the election’s loser president. But that doesn’t mean the process is over if there were irregularities such as Trump exploiting Russian interference in the campaign by disseminating stolen data. That’s collusion whether or not he did it via direct interactions with Putin. As for “full cooperation,” that’s not something you can claim when you refused to to talk to the special counsel for fear of being caught in a lie. But Pirro was far from through bloviating:

“I’m not gonna dwell on the fact that the real collusion with Russia was with the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics – Bill and Hillary – who sold our uranium to Russia and pocketed a quick $145 million dollars through their trusty charity.”

There is that textbook passive aggressive attack by saying you aren’t going to dwell on something even as you’re dwelling all over it with frothy saliva dripping from the corner of your smarmy, sarcastic smile. Never mind that there is zero evidence that Hillary engaged in any with any Russian operatives. Or that she profited in any way from the sale of any uranium to Russia. Even Pirro’s Fox News colleague, Shepard Smith, debunked that flagrant lie.

Perhaps the most nauseating part of this mental unraveling is Pirro’s comparison of Bill and Hillary Clinton to Bonnie and Clyde. She didn’t bother to actually include any explanation for why she associated two American public servants with a couple of murderous bank robbers. She probably just thought it would arouse the nether regions of her dimwitted viewers to spill out some unintelligible insults. Which Pirro continued to do as this tedious program dragged on:

“They will seize on the language that you cannot indict a sitting president. Which is simply the law. Yet Mueller comes out and says he cannot exonerate the President of obstruction. There was not sufficient evidence to bring a charge. If there’s not sufficient evidence to bring a charge that should have been the end of it. But no. In a show of political whore-manship – that’s what I said, political whore-manship – Mueller left crumbs for Congress. He added he couldn’t exonerate Trump to give the Democrats something to work with.”

First of all, there is no law that prohibits indicting a sitting president. Pirro is outright lying about that. Also, Pirro complains that a finding that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to bring a charge should be “the end of it.” Which is exactly what Mueller did. He ended his investigation and wrote a report that the Attorney General still won’t allow the American people to see.

However, even the parts that we were allowed to see are filled with evidence that Trump engaged in activities that were either unlawful or immoral. And he clearly left these questions open for Congress to deal with, as is appropriate for his role as special counsel. And for that Pirro calls him a “whore” – twice! And on that note it’s impossible to resist acknowledging that Pirro just dived into a subject that she knows all too well.

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

Game Over? Trump’s Post-Mueller Panic-Tweets Exalting Fox News Reveal his Fear and Desperation

Posted by on April 19, 2019 at 8:37 am. 2 Comments :

Apparently the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s shill Attorney General, William Barr, wasn’t the ultimate vindication that he hoped it would be. Of course that didn’t prevent him from posting multiple tweets frantically insisting that the report showed there was “no collusion, no obstruction” – which it definitely didn’t do.

Donald Trump, Fox News

Trump went on a vindication binge featuring the usual Confederacy of Sycophants who routinely defend his every word and deed no matter how loathsome. He quoted a phalanx of Fox News fluffers like Tucker Carlson, Martha MacCallum, and Jesse Watters. And he posted some hokey propaganda videos and a Game of Thrones meme that said it was now “Game Over.” That was followed by a couple of rants about the “Crazy Mueller Report” that contained “total bullshit” even though he previously insisted that it “totally exonerated” him.

These are further signs of dementia that should not be ignored. And amidst this flaming ego eruption was one peculiar tweet (since deleted, but preserved here) that was nothing more than a promo for Fox News that said:

“It was a really great day for America! A special evening tonight on @TuckerCarlson, @seanhannity & @IngrahamAngle Will be very interesting!”

Sure, what a great day. America learned that their president fraternized with numerous Russian operatives in an effort to get dirt on his political opponent, and then repeatedly lied about it and pressured others to lie for him. He gleefully exploited stolen data and brazenly obstructed justice in order to avoid the legal and political consequences. And to celebrate, Trump suggested plopping yourself down for several hours of mindless and false propaganda provided by his favorite Fox News collaborators.

However, after tweeting and then retweeting it, for some reason Trump deleted it (it lives on here). He later posted several comments quoting some portions of those programs, but his free ad urging his Deplorables to tune in was exorcized from his feed. Did Fox News miss a payment?

Trump doesn’t have much to worry about though. Fox News will continue to prop up his presidency until news of his child cannibalism is revealed – and maybe even after that. All of Fox’s primetimers devoted their programs to parades of Trump’s innocence. Sean Hannity spent much of his show attacking the “hate-Trump media.” Tucker Carlson declared that the White House press corps had been humiliated. And Laura Ingraham went even further:

“To those who branded the primetime hosts on this network as ‘State News,’ for daring to tell the truth – not just our truth – but THE truth. You owe us an apology.”

Yeah, that’ll happen. Especially since the Mueller report actually validated most of what the media has been saying for the past two years about Trump’s nefarious and criminal activities. Everything from the press reports that Trump directed the lies about his son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, to accounts of his angry rampages when his staffers refused to break the law for him, was affirmed in the Mueller probe.

Perhaps what ticked Trump off were the instances where some Fox News personalities had the audacity to allow some real news to slip though. For instance, the time that Fox’s senior legal analyst agreed with Rep. Adam Schiff that there was evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice. Or when Fox’s chief news anchor, Shepard Smith, described as “patently false” Trump’s whining about the Mueller probe as a “witch Hunt” and a “hoax.” These are the sort of incidents that caused Trump to nervously instruct his aides to “keep an eye” on Fox News to make sure it stays loyal to him. That’s what life in the bunker feels like to Hair Trump in these dark days.

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

Fox News is Referenced in the Mueller Report Four Times, and Each Makes Trump Look Worse

Posted by on April 18, 2019 at 2:39 pm. NO Comments :

With the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, there is going to be a flurry of furious spinning by Trump’s devoted martinets in the right-wing press. Trump himself will continue his frantic robo-rant of “no collusion, no obstruction,” as he has been doing for months.

Fox News, Robert Mueller

Naturally, Fox News will assume its predictable role as the main line of defense for Trump. They will focus exclusively on any positive angles among the vague interpretations of Mueller’s report offered by Barr or other Republican partisans. And they will brazenly ignore anything in the report that is remotely detrimental to Trump, of which there is a significant amount. Even Chris Wallace of Fox News noted that “There is a lot of stuff in here that is damaging to the president, politically embarrassing to the president.”

However, Fox News itself had a place in the Mueller report with four references to Trump’s State TV affiliate. The following passages from the report illustrate just how deeply integrated Fox is with Trump and his associates. For instance:

Page 70:

“That night, the White House Press Office called the Department of Justice and said the White House wanted to put out a statement saying that it was Rosenstein’s idea to fire Comey. Rosenstein told other DOJ officials that he would not participate in putting out a ‘false story.’ The President then called Rosenstein directly and said he was watching Fox News, that the coverage had been great, and that he wanted Rosenstein to do a press conference. Rosenstein responded that this was not a good idea because if the press asked him, he would tell the truth that Comey’s firing was not his idea.”

What we have here is Trump keeping tabs on the investigation by watching Fox News, and then trying to get Deputy AG Rosenstein to lie for him about FBI Director James Comey’s firing. That’s obstruction of justice right there. The fact that Rosenstein refused doesn’t make Trump’s attempt any less illegal. And then there’s this:

Page 99:

“[Reince] Priebus recalled learning about the June 9 meeting from Fox News host Sean Hannity in late June 2017. Priebus notified one of the President’s personal attorneys, who told Priebus he was already working on it. By late June, several advisors recalled receiving media inquiries that could relate to the June 9 meeting.”

It’s rather remarkable that Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, found out about the infamous Trump Tower meeting (with Don Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and some Russian operatives) only by watching Fox News. That’s how out-of-the-loop Trump’s closest White House aide was, but also how integral Fox News is to Trump’s affairs. And that’s not all:

Page 126:

“In a Fox News interview on August 22, 2018, the President said: ‘[Cohen] makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else. And one of the reasons l respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial-you know they make up stories. People make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, they call it, I know all about flipping. The President said that flipping was ‘not fair’ and ‘almost ought to be outlawed.'”

In this “interview” with the unabashedly pro-Trump “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, Trump is laying the groundwork for threats directed at his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, while simultaneously praising his more loyal campaign chairman, Manafort. This is a fairly clumsy attempt at witness tampering. Which he did some more of here:

Page 151:

“In January 2019, after the media reported that Cohen would provide public testimony in a congressional hearing, the President made additional public comments suggesting that Cohen’s family members had committed crimes. In an interview on Fox on January 12, 2019, the President was asked whether he was worried about Cohen’s testimony and responded:

‘[I]n order to get his sentence reduced, [Cohen] says “I have an idea, I’ll ah, tell-I’ll give you some information on the president.” Well, there is no information. But he should give information maybe on his father-in-law because that’s the one that people want to look at because where does that money-that’s the money in the family.'”

Trump made these accusations during an interview with his adoring acolyte, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. They were directed against Cohen’s family as a flagrant attempt to scare him into keeping his mouth shut.

It’s hard to see why Mueller didn’t think he had sufficient evidence to indict Trump, or at least to recommend that Congress take up an inquiry that could lead to impeachment. And as guilty as Trump now appears to be, it’s plain that Fox News was a willing accomplice every step of the way. It is not insignificant that Fox was referenced four times in the report. They were further included in twenty-seven footnotes. No other national news network was referenced in the body of the report even once. What does that tell you?

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