Media Bias

Fox News Flat Out Lies that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Compared Climate Change to 9/11

Posted by on March 30, 2019 at 2:56 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s never exactly breaking to news to report that Fox News has broadcast something that is blatantly contrary to reality. In fact, it would be easier to point out when they say something that’s even marginally true. Nevertheless, it’s important to set the record straight lest we allow their lies to linger and get a foothold on the weaker minds that populate their audience of Deplorables.

Fox News, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

On Saturday morning, Donald Trump’s favorite breakfast club, Fox and Friends, put together a segment that was obviously intended to deceive. The target of their dishonesty was a familiar one: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), for whom they have developed a perverse obsession. The subject of the segment was emblazoned on their chyron which read “Ocasio-Cortez Compares Climate Change to 9/11.” There’s just one little problem with that. AOC never did anything of the kind.

The “Curvy Couch” potatoes began the segment with a clip (video below) of AOC making a point about the of the Trump administration’s utterly incompetent response to the tragic hurricane in Puerto Rico. She said that:

“On the events on September 11, 2001, thousands of Americans died in the largest terror attack on US soil. Our national response was war in one, then eventually two countries. Three thousand Americans died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria. Where is our response?”

So AOC did make some mention of 9/11, but it had nothing to do with climate change. And it wasn’t even a comparison to the devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico. She was only observing that this country can devote resources to a disaster when it has the will to do so. She was comparing the response, not the event. But the hosts of Fox and Friends were more committed to attacking AOC than to reporting what she actually said. Not that she didn’t address climate change in the hour long town hall she did with Chris Hayes of MSNBC. She did, and in a very profound and compelling manner. But Fox News never played that part:

“Our greatest existential threat is climate change. And to get us out of this situation – to revamp our economy, to create dignified jobs for working Americans, to guarantee healthcare, and elevate our educational opportunities and attainment – we will have to mobilize our entire economy around saving ourselves and taking care of this planet.”

The producers of this Fox program also appended a bit of video to the end of their clip that was unrelated to the rest of it. It showed her commenting about the critics of the “Green New Deal,” saying that she “didn’t expect them to make total fools of themselves.” That comment was actually a response to a video montage of Republicans and Fox News shills (which is redundant, I know) attacking her. And after maligning and misrepresenting her for the whole piece, the Fox hosts suggested that she should come on their show. Yeah, right. At least Fox didn’t compare her to Hitler and Stalin like it did a couple of months ago.

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

Poor Fox News is Pathetically Bragging About a Few Days of Beating MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow

Posted by on March 29, 2019 at 2:49 pm. 1 Comments :

Fox News was once the dominant news network on cable TV. It was so far ahead of its competition that it seemed unthinkable that it could be challenged. That’s mainly because they corralled all of the Deplorable right-wingers into one barnyard pen, while the rest of the television news was dispersed across many other channels. But it was still a marketing angle they could use as a cudgel against their competitors.

Fox News, Rachel Maddow

In recent years that domination has has dissipated substantially. And particularly in the past few months, MSNBC has caught up, and quite often surpassed Fox news in the ratings. Rachel Maddow’s program has been crushing Sean Hannity, her direct time period competitor, on a nearly nightly basis ever since the midterm elections last November.

In what seems to be a reaction to the surging performance of MSNBC, Donald Trump took measures to prop up Fox News which acts as his personal, state TV mouthpiece for propaganda. He’s has fervently promoted his fave hosts including Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Jeanine Pirro. He even did so on Thursday night at his latest cult rally in Michigan. It’s often hard to tell whether Trump thinks he’s working for the American people or for Fox’s PR department.

Fox News has also started to boast about their ratings. They featured a story on their website’s home page that celebrated what they called “Maddow’s Deep Dive.” What makes this extraordinary is that this isn’t the sort of thing that any network does. When was the last time anyone has seen CBS or CNN make a story about their ratings a news item? That’s generally reserved for the TV trade press. But even more embarrassing for Fox is that they have to do this at all. They are effectively conceding that they have been the big losers of late and now are proud that they’ve had a few days where they aren’t in the ratings cellar. It’s an admission that they are underperforming MSNBC and it is therefore cause for joy that they came out on top for a while.

It should be noted that this “success” for Fox News is occurring just after the release of a four page letter by Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. The letter purports to be a summary of the 400+ page report by special counsel Robert Mueller. But it is a gross misrepresentation of that document by all accounts. And that includes the account of Fox’s senior legal analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, who says that there is evidence of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the full report. So it’s natural for Maddow’s viewers to take a break from what can be considered a slow news cycle, while Fox’s viewers pile in to get their pro-Trump fantasies gassed up.

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

Whether or not this constitutes a trend in the ratings, or is a temporary blip remains to be seen. But the fact that Fox News was compelled to throw a party simply because they edged out Maddow – who rose from nowhere to become a giant killer – just proves that Fox is worried and has to brag about briefly beating a show that they used to ignore as unworthy of their attention. Maddow and MSNBC are clearly making Fox so nervous that they can’t even hide it. That’s great news for MSNBC.

Trump Pumps Fox News Ratings Despite Their Primetime Shows Losing to MSNBC Four Months Straight

Posted by on March 27, 2019 at 11:01 am. 1 Comments :

There is a stench of desperation in seeing a president so brazenly genuflecting to a sycophantic “news” enterprise. Especially one that serves as his personal State TV mouthpiece. But that’s what has transpired between Donald Trump and Fox News. It’s gotten to the point where he appears to be acting more like the president of Fox News PR and Marketing than of the United States. Just last week he posted ten videos of Fox programs touting his eminence.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

Trump’s devotion to Fox News is so all-consuming that it takes up more than half of his Twitter feed. He tweets more about Fox News than about “witch hunts,” although many of his tweets combine both of those subjects thanks to Fox’s own obsession over that particular conspiracy rant. But on Tuesday Trump took the additional step of bragging on Fox’s behalf about their ratings:

There’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, Trump already declared that the media has lost its credibility many times, going back nearly two years. Secondly, the Mueller investigation that he calls a “witch hunt” has produced dozens of indictments and seven convictions, so far. And with the release of the Barr Letter (allegedly summarizing the Mueller Report), Trump even praised special counsel Robert Mueller as “honorable.” Thirdly – well, we don’t really need to go into the absurdity of Trump’s self characterization as “your all time favorite duly elected President, me!” His historically low approval polling settles that question.

Finally, Trump leaped into the TV marketing and promotions game by hyping what he thinks are good numbers for Fox News. It needs to be noted that that is NOT his job! But he persists in boasting as if Fox’s performance reflects on him personally, which in many ways it does. But his analysis is pitifully ignorant. His assertion that the Mueller news affected the ratings race is based solely on the steam emanating from the various orifices in his head (and perhaps other body parts as well). But more importantly, Mueller has been in the news all month and the ratings over the course of more than just the one day that Trump is focused on tell a completely different story.

For the month of March so far, Rachel Maddow has beaten her competition, Sean Hannity, in the all-important advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. And in total audience they are separated by a miniscule fifty thousand viewers, with both coming just short of three million on average per night. Longer term, though, Maddow has crushed Hannity for the past four months straight.

So Trump is going out of his way to celebrate the ratings on a single night that has no bearing on the overall ratings picture. It’s what losers in the media do when they haven’t got a real story of success to pitch. And Trump is going all out to help his pals at Fox. He has scheduled his first post-Barr Letter interview for Hannity’s program Wednesday night. Although it’s a stretch to call these love fests interviews since they mainly consist of Hannity feeding Trump narratives he can brag (and lie) about. Undoubtedly the faithfull MAGA cultists will tune in for more of their regularly scheduled propaganda. But the real test will come in the days and weeks following these staged, reality TV style events.And if the past four months is any indicator, we won’t be seeing any more of these Trump pumps on his Twitter feed.

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

HAH! Trump Campaign Memo Makes Strong Case for Banning Lying Trump Surrogates from TV

Posted by on March 25, 2019 at 2:38 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s was just two days ago that special counsel Robert Mueller completed his investigation of Donald Trump and the nefarious connections to Russia by the President and his close associates. And it’s been less than twenty-four hours since Attorney General William Barr released his deliberately distorted letter that misrepresented even the few sentence fragments from Mueller’s report that Barr bothered to cite.

Donald Trump

However, that was plenty of time for the Republican Political Machine to contrive their propaganda offensive and to craft a brazenly false narrative that Trump has been exonerated and that his critics are witch hunting liars. The project they rushed to implement included a bizarre memo from Tim Murtaugh, the Director of Communications for Trump’s 2020 campaign. Murtaugh’s memo echoed what most of the GOP Surrogate Squad has been saying: Barr’s letter is “a total and complete vindication of President Donald Trump.” Of course, Mueller’s actually words dispute that. He literally wrote that his report “does not exonerate” Trump, at least with regard to obstruction of justice.

The rest of the memo consisted primarily of a list of Democrats who made truthful statements about Trump and Russia. They included Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Eric Swalwell, DNC Chair Tom Perez, and former CIA Director John Brennan. Each of them correctly noted that there is abundant evidence that Trump did in fact conspire with Russians to advance his election prospects. Murtaugh sent the memo to TV producers in an effort to poison the media trough by baselessly accusing the Democrats of lying.

Notice that the only argument that Murtaugh makes to support his allegations is what Barr wrote in his highly partisan interpretation of the Mueller report, which he has so far refused to make public. And on the basis of that he asks TV bookers to reconsider inviting Democratic guests for interviews. It’s a familiar dictators’ ploy to silence their opponents by starving them of media exposure. But perhaps the most ludicrous paragraph in the Murtaugh memo was the question that he proposed for TV bookers to ask themselves:

“Does this guest warrant further appearances in our programming, given the outrageous and unsupported claims made in the past.”

That’s a darn good question. The only problem for Trump’s whiny comms director is that if the media takes his advice, and uses that criteria for future bookings, it would be the end of all television appearances for Trump’s senior counsel Kellyanne Conway, his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, his campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany, his son Don Jr., and pretty much anyone else who works for Trump. They are a team of recidivist liars who, when they aren’t mangling the truth, are feverishly trying to deflect and divert from the topic at hand. And of course, Trump’s record breaking 9,000+ lies would make him off limits for TV bookings.

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

So, come to think of it, this is a pretty good idea. Television news would be far better off without these tale-spinners butchering what should be an informative public discourse. Most of the time their interviews devolve into shouting fits wherein they cravenly try to filibuster the limited time available for their segment and avoid giving any substantive answers. So while Murtaugh meant to impose a thinly disguised demand for censorship, he ended up offering a solution to the pollution on the airwaves by dishonest Trump-fluffers and sycophants. We owe him our thanks.

Whut? Fox News Joins Donald Trump in Promoting the Deranged QAnon Conspiracy Crackpottery

Posted by on March 22, 2019 at 12:53 pm. 1 Comments :

The husband of Donald Trump’s senior counsel, Kellyanne Conway, recently posted a tweet with the psychiatric definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The nine enumerated criteria are a frighteningly perfect match for the obvious character flaws of our mentally infirm president. But can a cable television “news” network also suffer from this mental illness?

Fox News, Pepe

Fox New seems to be trying its darndest to prove that it is just as psychologically diseased as Trump, the president they created and adore. A recent poll revealed that Republicans who watch Fox News are mind-melded to Trump with near unanimity on policies and opinions. It’s an ideological embrace that exists only in cults wherein the followers are forced to believe everything – and only the things – that their leader tells them to.

There have been numerous examples of Fox News adopting flagrantly dishonest conspiracy theories such as the PizzaGate nonsense that alleged that Hillary Clinton and her accomplices ran a child sex/slavery ring from the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria. And there was the Seth Rich matter that fantasized that Rich was a “Deep State” operative who leaked Clinton’s hacked emails and was later murdered by her assassination squad.

These are the sort of ludicrous myths that have sprung up around the Internet cesspools of right-wing hysterics like Alex Jones of InfoWars. But they were also embraced by the hosts of Fox News primetime programs like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. And now Fox has taken another leap into the abyss of wingnuttery that proves they can never be considered a legitimate news network.

On Friday morning’s episode of Fox and Friends First, “reporter” Carley Shimkus read a tweet from the anonymous Twitter account of QAnon76. The tweet itself was rather innocuous, defending Trump’s Executive Order that ostensibly protected free speech on America’s college campuses (it doesn’t actually do anything, except to divert the news cycle from all the other bad news Trump generates). However, QAnon76 is part of the larger “QAnon” movement that believes there is a secret society, headed by Trump, that is organizing to destroy the anti-Trump “Deep State” factions burrowed into the U.S. government. The Twitter account has more than 160,000 delusional followers.

It is not plausible that Fox News didn’t know who this was when they filled the screen with a graphic clearly showing the name of the tweeter. So it has to be presumed that they did it deliberately to advance their screwy, cartoon agenda. And they would be aligning with their Dear Leader, Trump, in this endeavor. Just this past weekend, Trump retweeted a video that was originally posted by the Twitter account of “Deep State Exposed,” another confirmed QAnon disciple who also posts manufactured videos of Trump assaulting journalists. And Trump actually met with a QAnon figure in the Oval Office last August.

So for anyone who wasn’t convinced that the metamorphosis of the Trump White House into a full blown conspiracy theory factory wasn’t complete, we can put those doubts to rest. And the same goes for Fox News, who are now unashamedly coordinating their message and mission with the craziest freakazoids on the InterTubes. This could pass for one of the most hilarious bits from The Onion if it weren’t all true – and bone-chillingly scary.

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

POLL: The Fox News Audience is a Fanatical, Irredeemably Warped Cult of Right-Wing Extremists

Posted by on March 21, 2019 at 1:47 pm. 4 Comments :

A few weeks ago the Democratic National Committee chair, Tom Perez, announced that there would be no Democratic primary debates hosted by Fox News. There was considerable debate over whether this was a constructive policy, even though Fox News itself virtually validated it by repeatedly demonstrating their abject hatred for Democrats and their all-consuming adoration of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

Now a new survey affirms the decision to banish Fox News from the Democratic primary schedule. Navigator Research interviewed 1,000 voters to ascertain the ideological gaps between members of both parties and their viewing of Fox News. The results were published in their paper: “Stepping Inside the Fox Hole, The Media Echo-Chamber of Fox News,” It revealed stark differences that were directly attributable to frequent exposure to the propaganda on Fox. According to Navigator Research:

“There is an alternate reality in American politics, and it plays an outsized role in the way many experience and form opinions on the most important issues facing the country. Progressives should be mindful of the challenge from the Fox News echo-chamber and how it skews public perceptions. […] The influence of Fox News Channel is undeniable: from their audience to their biggest promoter, President Trump.”

The report went on to note that there was “near unanimity” between the Fox News viewing Republicans (what they call the “Fox Hole”) and the Trump world of “alternative facts.” These voters have opinions that are “vastly different from the rest” of the American people, and even from other Republicans who don’t watch Fox. For instance:

  • 90% of the Fox Hole approve of Trump’s job performance. Compared to only 71% of the non-Fox GOP and 10% of non-GOP, non-Fox viewers.
  • 89% of the Fox Hole approve of Trump’s tax reform. Compared to only 62% of the non-Fox GOP and 6% of non-GOP, non-Fox viewers.
  • 84% of the Fox Hole approve of Trump’s national emergency declaration to fund a border wall. Compared to only 50% of the non-Fox GOP and 7% of non-GOP, non-Fox viewers.
  • 89% of the Fox Hole agree with Trump’s claims of “fake news.” Compared to only 76% of the non-Fox GOP and 11% of non-GOP, non-Fox viewers.
  • 78% of the Fox Hole agree that Trump accomplished more than any other president in two years. Compared to only 49% of the non-Fox GOP and 4% of non-GOP, non-Fox viewers.
  • 78% of the Fox Hole that think that Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation should be shut down. Compared to only 60% of the non-Fox GOP and 12% of non-GOP, non-Fox viewers.

What this tells us is what many of us have already known for years. Fox News viewers are a segment of the electorate who are almost completely unpersuadable on political matters. They are no more open to debate than members of a cult. Democrats appearing on Fox News have practically no opportunity to change the minds of anyone in their audience. It’s a total waste of time and resources.

That’s not to say that there aren’t minds in the country that can be changed, even among Republicans. However, Republicans who are not Fox News viewers can be reached on broadcast networks, local TV, or online news. And Fox News viewers who are not Republicans also watch other cable news sources and can be reached there.

But the Republicans watching Fox News – The Fox Holes – are cemented into their Trumpist mindset and are unavailable to Democratic arguments or ideas. So the DNC was right to reject Fox News as a primary debate host (although the general election debates are another matter). And Democrats should feel no need to accept invitations to be cannon fodder for biased and bigoted Fox News interrogations.

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

Hannity Worries as Fox News Insiders Complain ‘We’re Being Defined By the Worst People on Our Air’

Posted by on March 20, 2019 at 12:34 pm. 3 Comments :

There has been much speculation about the future direction of Fox News following Disney’s acquisition of most of the Fox entertainment assets. Rupert Murdoch remains at the helm of the cable “news” network, while his son Lachlan runs the new, shrunken Fox Corporation. Insiders are wondering about whether the network will continue to be the State TV division of the Donald Trump administration.

Fox News Sean Hannity

Now Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair is reporting that some changes may be in store for Fox News. Sherman has been a reliable source about what goes on behind the curtains at Fox. He wrote the definitive biography of the late, disgraced Fox CEO Roger Ailes, The Loudest Man in the Room. In his new article he sheds some light on the rumblings within an organization that has widely come to be seen as a propaganda mouthpiece for an authoritarian style White House regime:

“Donald Trump’s alliance with Fox News has been one of the few constants throughout his shambolic presidency. But in recent days, that bond has shown signs of fraying. […] Fox journalists, bristling at being branded an arm of the Trump White House, are lobbying Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace to rein in Fox & Friends, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and Pirro. ‘Reporters are telling management that we’re being defined by the worst people on our air,’ a frustrated senior Fox staffer told me.”

Actually, most Fox News reporters are doing much of that branding themselves. While the primetime StormTrumpers set the tone for the network (with few signs that they are being reined in), the other hosts and contributors either back them up or decline to repudiate the lies and insults that are the red meat of Fox’s editorial mission.

Trump recently took a gentle swipe at Fox News for briefly suspending one of his favorite fluffers, Jeanine Pirro due to her virulently racist comments about Muslim representative Ilhan Omar. He also propped up Tucker Carlson following his offensive remarks on a shock-jock radio show, and gave what he must believe is the ultimate insult to Shepard Smith by saying that he belongs on CNN.

Sherman writes that the alleged “civil war” at Fox will be decided by Lachlan Murdoch, who is described as a “Libertarian conservative, not a MAGA diehard.” He suggests that the hiring of former DNC chair Donna Brazile signals a change in direction for Fox. That’s a weak argument considering that they also just hired the radical wingnut former congressman Trey Gowdy, who led the GOP-controlled committee that wasted years and millions of dollars on Benghazi hearings that produced nothing but ridicule for the Republican Hillary fetishists.

One of the most compelling disclosures in Sherman’s reporting concerned Sean Hannity, Trump’s shadow chief-of-staff:

“Sources said Hannity is angry at the Murdochs’ firing of Ailes and Bill Shine, Hannity’s close friend and former producer. Hannity believes the Murdochs are out to get Trump. ‘Hannity told Trump last year that the Murdochs hate Trump, and Hannity is the only one holding Fox together,’ a source who heard the conversation told me. Hannity has told friends that he intends to leave Fox when his contract expires in early 2021, two people who’ve spoken with him said.”

You have to wonder where Hannity would go if he left Fox News. Other Fox alum have not fared so well outside that fortress of rightist disinformation. For instance, where are Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly, and Megyn Kelly today? What’s more, Hannity’s egotistical opinion that he’s the glue binding Fox together is laughable. For one thing, he’s losing his time period to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. For another, his Fox stablemate, Tucker Carlson, is outperforming him on Fox. And the network still has Laura Ingraham, Neil Cavuto, Jesse Watters, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends slobbering all over Trump.

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

Finally, Sherman’s sources tell him that Fox News could be on the auction block. That would be an interesting development that would leave the Murdochs with just the broadcast entertainment network, their station group, and some cable sports channels. But even if Rupert were willing to let go (doubtful), who would buy Fox News? What media enterprise would benefit from owning a disreputable news outlet whose advertisers are fleeing in droves? Would the Murdochs (who are still the majority shareholders) allow a sale to Jeff Bezos? Or would they look for a conservative billionaire to ride up on a white (nationalist) horse? Time will tell.

Is Donald Trump the President of the United States, or of Fox News Marketing and PR?

Posted by on March 19, 2019 at 2:49 pm. NO Comments :

The torrid love affair between Donald Trump and Fox News has never been exactly secret. Fox has given him more free airtime than any other public figure. And he has granted them more interviews (40+) than all other news networks combined. And all of the exposure has been unceasingly adoring. Trump even had a weekly segment on Fox and Friends (Mornings with Trump) long before his presidential aspirations.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

The recent article in the New Yorker by Jane Mayer neatly sewed together much of the evidence proving that Fox News is not merely a conservative leaning network, but a blatantly biased propaganda mouthpiece for the President. And to demonstrate that it isn’t a relationship they are ashamed of, both Fox and Trump have escalated their fetishistic fondness for one another since the article was published. Trump, in particular, has unleashed a rash of promotions of Fox News and the shills who call it home. Just in the last four days Trump has posted ten videos from Fox:

  1. Lou Dobbs on Trump’s phony national emergency
  2. Lou Dobbs with cartoon pundits Diamond and Silk
  3. Outnumbered ranting about a “Witch Hunt”
  4. Jason Chaffetz exhibiting his undying Hillary Clinton fetish
  5. Fox and Friends pushing Trump’s idiotic vanity wall
  6. Maria Bartiromo obediently maligning the FBI
  7. Mark Levin spending seven minutes fluffing Trump with Bill Bennett
  8. Tucker Carlson doing the fake history of the Russia “hoax”
  9. Sean Hannity lying about a Democratic conspiracy against Trump
  10. Sean Hannity succumbing to his ludicrous “Deep State” dementia

Remember, this is the president who says that he doesn’t have time to watch TV because of all the documents that he has to read (as if he can read). But not only does he have plenty of time to watch TV, he even has time to feverishly post tweets of his viewing. And this doesn’t even count the numerous textual tweets that reference things he just saw on Fox News.

Last week Trump’s viewing was sufficiently disturbed that he plaintively pleaded with Fox News to return Jeanine Pirro, who Fox briefly suspended due to her flagrantly racist comments about Muslim representative Ilhan Omar. He also stood up for Tucker Carlson whose past bigotry, and boorish profanity, was revealed in recordings from his radio guest spots with Bubba, the Love Sponge.

These promos for Fox News are pure puffery on behalf of the President for his favorite bootlicking broadcaster. It is wholly unprecedented in American politics. And the marketing executives at Fox News must be thrilled. The question is whether Trump is volunteering this assistance to Fox, or if Fox is directing it.

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

Flip-Flop: Glenn Beck Now Says that Not Reelecting Trump Would Be ‘The End of the Country’

Posted by on March 19, 2019 at 11:34 am. 4 Comments :

Rising from the ashes of his failing media dung heap, Glenn Beck has reemerged to prove that nobody is better at hyperbolic inanities than the once and future master of the blackboard arts. Best known as a conspiracy crackpot, Beck has faded into the ether while grasping desperately at straws to revive his joke of a career.

Glenn Beck

However, Fox News, the one platform that still honors the brand of idiocy that Beck excels in, has thrown him an anchor in the hopes of inflating the prospects of Donald Trump’s reelection. What could go wrong?

Beck appeared with Sean Hannity on Monday night and was characteristically Beck-ish. The key take-away from this love fest between two Trump-fluffers was Beck’s frantic assertion that “If the Republicans don’t win in this next election, I think we are officially at the end of the country as we know it.”

That’s a bold statement. Especially coming from someone who said that ObamaCare would be the country, and that Obama’s reelection would be the end of the country, and that gay marriage would be the end of the country, and that Common Core education reform would be the end of the country, and that fluorides poisoning our vital fluids (h/t Dr. Strangelove) would be the end of the country. Virtually everything that Beck ever mentioned would produce the onset of an apocalypse that would be unavoidable. Including Donald Trump.

Glenn Beck, November 2016: “This guy [Trump] is dangerously unhinged. And, for all the things people have said about me over the years, I should be able to spot Dangerously Unhinged.”

So what might have brought about this 180 degree flip-flop on the part of Beck, who is ordinarily so stable and consistent (that’s sarcasm, btw)? Could it have something to do with the fact that his media empire is floundering? The guy who previously tried to rescue his sinking career by admitting that “So much of what I used to believe was … a sham,” has suffered an economic Armageddon of his own. His Blaze Media enterprise, which once boasted aspirations of being the next Disney, has run through a throng of executives and pallets of cash. Recently it agreed to a desperation merger with CRTV, a puny right-wing video blog run by Fox News’ Mark Levin.

Apparently, that wasn’t enough to save his sorry arse either. So he shows up Sean Hannity’s Trump Suck-Up Hour to try to reinvent himself once more in the mold of the neo-fascist demagogue he originally sought to be. But with an even more pathetic and subservient demeanor that kowtows to both Hannity and Trump. It would sad if it weren’t so gratifying that these jerks eventually get what they deserve.

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

Trump Confirms that Fox News is State TV in Bonkers Defense of Bigotry, Pirro, Carlson, et al

Posted by on March 17, 2019 at 12:07 pm. 5 Comments :

Now there can be no further dispute. Donald Trump has made it absolutely clear that Fox News is unambiguously State TV, and that the Trump White (Nationalism) House is inextricably intertwined with the network’s mission of propaganda and right-wing tyranny.

Donald Trump

During Trump’s regularly scheduled Sunday Tweetstorm, the President unleashed one of his most deranged outbursts of all time. It was a sustained assault on the free press, freedom of speech, the First Amendment, and a democratic government that honors individual freedom. While Trump has always been an opponent of the media – which he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people” – he has taken his hostility to a new low that provides incontrovertible evidence that his regime and Fox News are conjoined partners in undermining the free society principles that the United States were founded on.

Trump began his Sunday sermonizing with an attack on Saturday Night Live, which he seems to be unaware was a rerun:

That’s right. The flailing Snowflake-in-Chief is now spending his time barking at comedians, even though there supposedly a “national emergency” in progress. But even worse, he thinks that his government agencies should have the power to investigate these comics due to their having the audacity to make fun of him. If he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t give them so much material. But his inclination to use oppressive state measures to silence them should worry every patriotic American. And it wasn’t the first time he’s done this either.

What’s more, his impotent swings at SNL also include crazy allegations that the funny folks on late night TV are the ones colluding with Russia, a nation not well known for its sense of humor. And he follows that up with the false assertion that he enjoys a fifty-two percent approval rating. He got that from an ultra-biased Rasmussen poll that is now a moth old. Rasmussen currently has him at forty-eight percent, while most other polls put him the thirties.

However, if you think any of that was proof that Trump has lost his mind, you might want to sit down. Because he was just getting warmed up. His next tweets contained more of his psychotic whining about a “Witch Hunt,” followed by a personal attack on John McCain’s intelligence. How utterly repulsive for Trump to go after a dead senator/veteran who can’t defend himself. Especially for something that Trump is notably lacking in. Trump even had his “fixer” threaten his schools to keep his records secret.

Finally, Trump disgorged himself with a what could only be described as a slobbering suck-up to Fox News, the network that defends his every atrocity and maligns his critics with outright lies. What triggered Trump was the news that one of his adoring bootlickers, Jeanine Pirro, was bumped Saturday for a rerun of a tabloid documentary. While Fox wouldn’t comment on the preemption, it has been credibly speculated that they didn’t want her program to air so soon after the massacre at Muslim mosques in New Zealand, because of her recent Islamophobic comments. Based on that, Trump went to work on behalf of his bosses at Fox News:

Holy Crap! Trump is totally confirming that he and Fox News are locked in a political/governmental embrace that this country has never seen before. Not that we didn’t already know that, but Trump is shedding any pretense of independence that either of them might have sought to convey. And this comes at a time when Fox News has been trying to convince people that they are a legitimate news network capable of hosting a Democratic Party primary debate. Well, that’s blown all to hell now, isn’t it?

Trump has taken on the role of chief PR and marketing president for Fox News. And he’s offering advice that they “stay strong and fight back with vigor. Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct.” When exactly have they ever done that? Trump implores Fox to “fight for our Country,” by which he clearly means to fight for him. And he warns them to “Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!” Obviously Trump sees this as a war, and he expects casualties.

As with his own delusional perception of his approval, Trump thinks that America is on the side of Fox News. But MSNBC has been beating them regularly for several months. Rachel Maddow is crushing her competition, Sean Hannity, nearly every night. And because of the obsessive bigotry of hosts like Pirro and the disgusting Tucker Carlson, Fox News is losing audience, advertisers, and revenue at an alarming rate.

If it wasn’t enough that Trump is virtually drooling over his Fox sycophants, he also found it necessary to bash the few people on the network that have a modicum of integrity:

For the record, Shepard Smith just won a First Amendment award from the Radio Television Digital News Association. And in his speech he gave a backhanded slap at the “opinion” hosts on the network that he fervently tries to disassociate himself from. But if you aren’t a fawning Trump-fluffer you can expect him to bring his tiny “mushroom” hammer down on you.

This Twitter tirade is the best evidence yet that Fox News cannot be taken seriously as a news network. They certainly cannot be trusted to host a Democratic primary debate. They shouldn’t even be considered as a platform for interviews by anyone but devout Trumpists. If Trump thinks that crazed outbursts like this are helpful to Fox News, he is, as usual, pitifully mistaken. It only certifies that Fox is a brazenly partisan mouthpiece for Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party.

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

If Fox had any integrity they would repudiate Trump’s comments and insist that they don’t support such media bias. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Fox News knows that their audience is comprised mainly by loyal Trump cultists and they aren’t going to do anything that might alienate them or the racist white nationalists and neo-Nazis who wallow in this filth. These are the core components of their wretched business model.