Propaganda

REALLY? Fox News Blames Low Vaccination Rates on Biden and Black Americans

Posted by on September 7, 2021 at 3:05 pm. 6 Comments :

For more than a year and a half, Fox News has been doing everything in its power to aid and abet the unimpeded progress of the coronavirus. They have been working feverishly to undermine the efforts of responsible health professionals and government agencies. When they weren’t downplaying the severity of the virus, they were spreading lies that the vaccines don’t work and “they” aren’t telling you.

Fox News, Vaccine

This long running Fox News narrative is closely aligned with Donald Trump’s COVID disinformation. He admitted early on – in private, just like how he got his vaccination – that he was aware of how deadly the pandemic could be, but deliberately downplayed it in public. He is still trying furiously to steer his cult disciples away from getting vaccinated. And so is Fox News.

On Tuesday Fox News did a segment with Liz Peek, a Fox contributor and business consultant. When the discussion turned to the status of vaccinations in the U.S., Peek launched into a spiel that sought to lay the blame for America’s unvaccinated on President Biden and the nation’s African Americans:

“The situation wouldn’t even exist if Joe Biden had brought the country together as he promised to do in a common single cause of getting everybody vaccinated, I think this is part of a bigger story, which is the failure of the President to get Americans to take the shot. Only 62% of American adults have been vaccinated.” […]

“The Biden administration, and Joe Biden himself, politicized this effort. This hardens attitudes when you start pointing fingers at Republicans, saying, ‘Oh, it’s these loony right-wingers that are refusing to take the shot,’ and not acknowledging that there are a lot of people, including a lot of African-Americans, who have been resistant and doubtful of these vaccines, you’re really making a big mistake. I really put this on the White House.'”

Huh? It was the Biden administration that succeeded in getting record numbers of people vaccinated. At its peak there were upwards of four million vaccinations a day. That’s four times what was achieved during the Trump administration.

What’s more, the Washington Post reports that “there are about four times as many Republicans as Black people in the ranks of the unvaccinated.” And the vast majority of the unvaccinated population are Republicans and Fox News viewers. An NBC News poll last month found that a whopping 91% of Biden voters are already vaccinated, as compared to only 50% of Trump voters.

For Fox News to point fingers at Biden and Black Americans as being responsible for those who have not been vaccinated is profoundly dishonest and downright racist. And then they have the audacity to accuse Biden of politicizing the issue. However, this isn’t the first time they’ve pulled this malarkey. Last month Laura Ingraham of Fox News invited Texas’ GOP Lt. Governor Dan Patrick to spread more pandemic disinformation. Patrick also ventured into the low vaccination rates saying that…

“Democrats like to blame Republicans on that. Well, the biggest group in most states are African-Americans who have not been vaccinated. And the last time I checked, over 90% of them vote for Democrats.”

That was also an easily provable – and grossly racist – lie. The truth, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is that “unvaccinated White Texans outnumber unvaccinated Black Texans roughly three to one.”

This is standard operating procedure for Fox News and their Trump Republican benefactors. They take every opportunity to shift blame for anything that reflects poorly on them to Democrats and Blacks. Never mind the facts. Their audience isn’t going to check them or care. They prefer to be lied to and to have their prejudices affirmed. That’s what keeps them coming back to Fox for more.

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.

Twitter Trolls are Lying About Rachel Maddow Spreading COVID Misinformation

Posted by on September 5, 2021 at 1:12 pm. 6 Comments :

Donald Trump and his Republican Party have embraced lying as an indispensable tool in their political tool chest. Their brazen disregard for honesty is demonstrated with nearly every public utterance they make. Trump alone has racked up an appalling record of more than 30,000 lies during his single term as president. All of which is obediently disseminated by their Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News).

Rachel Maddow

So naturally, these Olympic-grade truth manglers are anxious to project their reality warping antics onto the Democrats and liberals they so fervently despise. And, unsurprisingly, one of their primary targets would be MSNBC’s star host, Rachel Maddow.

On Sunday morning Maddow’s name was trending on Twitter. However the reason was typically devoid of facts or logic. The conservative Twitter trolls were all a flitter because they thought they had caught Maddow in a gross misrepresentation of coronavirus information. The subject concerned the dangerously inappropriate use of a horse dewormer, Ivermectin, to “cure” COVID. That’s a subject that Maddow has covered in detail. But the latest melodrama all sprung from this tweet by Maddow and the right-wing’s knee-jerk rebuttal:

The tweet by Maddow linked to a story by KFOR, a local Oklahoma television station. So right off the bat, she was not making any statements for which she could be blamed if they were inaccurate. And spoiler alert: They were not inaccurate. The station’s newscast interviewed a rural Oklahoma doctor who gave his account of how the state’s health systems were holding up during the COVID Delta variant surge that has been ravaging mostly Republican led states like Oklahoma. KFOR reported that…

“Dr. [Jason] McElyea said patients are packing his eastern and southeastern Oklahoma hospitals after taking ivermectin doses meant for a full-sized horse, because they believed false claims the horse de-wormer could fight COVID-19.

“‘The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated. […] All of their ambulances are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so they can take the patient in and they don’t have any.'”

While all of that is easily verifiable, the Twitter trolls latched unto a statement released by a hospital network with which Dr. McElyea was affiliated. The statement said that…

“Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room. With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months. NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin.”

From that statement the wingnut contingent immediately started blasting Maddow as the great falsifier. They charged that the entire story was sham because the doctor was not an employee of the NHS. They demanded that Twitter punish her with a suspension or a total ban for allegedly disseminating COVID disinformation. Glenn Greenwald was among those clamoring for Maddow’s head. GOP Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance ranted that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source” than Maddow. Trump crony Sebastian Gorka railed “Hey Maddow you lie.”

There’s just one problem. The statement by the NHS was completely irrelevant. Neither KFOR nor Dr. McElyea ever mentioned the NHS or the circumstances at that particular hospital. The doctor did not claim to be speaking as an NHS employee, but instead as an observer of Oklahoma’s health system. And multiple sources affirm what Dr. McElyea said. for instance…

“Oklahoma health officials are choosing to keep hospital capacity data under wraps as some of the state’s major health systems announce they have zero ICU beds open.”

“According to Oklahoma Hospital Association President Patti Davis, ‘We know that patients are being transferred out of state for beds.'”

The situation in Oklahoma is unquestionably dire, despite the Republican governor’s efforts to hide the facts. The medical professionals in the field know exactly what’s going on, and they aren’t afraid to talk about it. That includes Dr. McElyea.

But reality has never stopped conservative deceivers from muddying the water and misleading their dimwitted followers who will never do their own research. Which is how they get roped into ingesting poisons like Ivermectin in the first place. And as usual, Fox News couldn’t care less if they live or die. And neither does Donald Trump.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Fox News joined the Twitter Trolls who falsely claimed that the KFOR story was false. They relied heavily on tweets by Drew Holden, an independent, right-wing “reporter” who ironically chastises Maddow and “the left” for not researching the story, when obviously he didn’t. Fox News didn’t either.

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.

Fox News CRUSHED that the Media is ‘Moving On From Afghanistan’ to Cover Actual News

Posted by on September 4, 2021 at 5:50 pm. 4 Comments :

The past week has been one of profoundly significant world events. The United States finally ended a twenty year long war in Afghanistan. The COVID pandemic surged to record levels due to the Delta variant. The Supreme Court declined to block a draconian abortion rights law in the state of Texas. And a hurricane ravaged many parts of country from the Gulf Coast to New England.

Fox News Sad

Each of those stories are important to the American people and deserve coverage by the media. Unless you’re Fox News where the only stories that warrant being told are those that reflect poorly on President Biden or Democrats in general.

Which explains why Fox News posted a story on their website giddily proclaiming that “Liberal media blasted for moving on from Afghanistan crisis.” Yes, Fox News couldn’t have been happier about this criticism of what they regard as the “mainstream media.” The article griped that…

“The liberal media seems to be moving on from President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, skipping key details and largely ignoring a bombshell report of a leaked July phone call between President Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. […] Hurricane Ida, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the Texas abortion law have seemingly pushed Afghanistan aside.”

That’s right. Fox News is appalled and saddened that the media is covering actual news. To Fox News Afghanistan should be still be the dominant story, despite the fact that there hasn’t been any breaking news from there in a week. The press was all over Afghanistan a week ago when thirteen service members, and an estimated 150 Afghans, were tragically killed in a terrorist bombing. And the press was there when the last of the American troops were evacuated from the country, along with 120,000 Afghan allies, in an unprecedented and successful airlift.

However, in the past week there have been other events that warranted coverage. The COVID pandemic was taking the lives of more than 1,000 Americans every day. The Supreme Court handed down a ruling that effectively overturned the fifty year old Roe v Wade precedent on reproductive rights. And Hurricane Ida tore a path across the Eastern United States that resulted in more than 60 American deaths (nearly five times those in Afghanistan) reported so far. But to Fox News, those are mere distractions from Afghanistan.

The reason that Fox is so obsessed with Afghanistan is that it is a “crisis” that they think they can blame on Biden. Surely Biden isn’t responsible for a hurricane, the surging pandemic that is largely due to unvaccinated Fox News viewers, or the laws coming out of Texas. Consequently, those other stories need to be set aside in favor of finding more ways to attack the President.

With that in mind, Fox set about to contrive tales to tell that would cast mud on Biden. But the only ones that they could find were stories about the few Americans still in Afghanistan, and an utterly unnoteworthy phone call between Biden and Afghan President Ghani.

Undeterred, Fox news devoted most of the article to the “blasting” they claimed that the “liberal” media was taking. However, the article quoted only five alleged blasters, all of whom were staunchly right-wing propagandists. For instance…

  • Fox News contributor Joe Concha who wrote about the media “serving at the pleasure of the White House communications team.”
  • Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor whining that “Their bias is disgusting.”
  • Former Daily Caller columnist, Jackson Richman who prefaced his comments with “The Biden-friendly mainstream media…”
  • Federalist columnist Eddie Scarry lamenting because “The media will wound [Biden] but they will not kill him.”
  • White House press secretary-turned Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany bragging that “You can guarantee at Fox News we’ll cover when an American president tells a foreign leader to change the perception.”

Poor Fox News is very upset that the story they want to hype because they can use it to bash Biden has been overshadowed by other more urgent and current stories. They think that a week old story – while still important and still being covered – should take precedence over a national weather emergency that killed dozens of people and is still posing extreme hardships for millions of Americans who are displaced from their homes and without power, water, or food.

What’s more, Fox News was so disinterested in the Texas abortion law story that they hardly covered it all in the first few hours. And consistent with their reporting for the past year and a half, the coronavirus barely merited a mention, unless it was to applaud Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for making his state the national Hot Zone for the pandemic.

We can expect this sort of biased coverage to continue at Fox News. They have never been interested in journalism. Their foundational mission was to manufacture “news” to boost their right-wing agenda. And nothing illustrates that better than how they are covering current events this week.

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.

Super Spreader Trump Says He ‘Probably Won’t’ Get a COVID Vaccine Booster Shot

Posted by on September 3, 2021 at 7:27 pm. 5 Comments :

America’s foremost promoter of the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump, has an unmatched record of dispensing disinformation about COVID-19. It began in the earliest days of the pandemic when he deliberately downplayed of the severity of the virus, despite knowing full well how potentially deadly it was. And it continued through his promotion of quack cures like hydroxychloroquine and bleach injections.

Donald Trump, coronavirus

Throughout the past year and a half Trump has also held numerous cult rallies with his maskless, vaccine-averse followers. And when he got vaccinated himself, he did it secretly. As a result of this anti-vaccine attitude by Trump and conservative media like Fox News, a new NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll shows that only 62% of Republicans say that they have already been vaccinated or will get vaccinated. That compares to 95% of Democrats.

Recently there has been talk of a booster shot to enhance and elongate the efficacy of the vaccines. And on Friday the Wall Street Journal asked Trump whether he intended to get a booster shot when it is available. Trump replied…

“I feel like I’m in good shape from that standpoint, I probably won’t. I’ll look at stuff later on. I’m not against it, but it’s probably not for me.”

First of all, given Trump’s penchant for lying about everything, there’s a pretty good chance he’s already had his booster shot, or will get one and not tell anybody. Meanwhile, Trump is continuing to downplay the common sense methods of mitigating the harm of the coronavirus. When he was asked last month about booster shots he told Fox News that it “sounds to me like a money-making operation from Pfizer. […] You wouldn’t think you would need a booster.” Elaborating, he added…

“Think of the money involved. Tens of billions…how good a business is that? If you’re a pure businessman you’ll say, ‘You know what? Let’s give them another shot. That’s another ten billion dollars of money coming in. The whole thing is just crazy.”

To Trump everything is about the grift. That’s how he ran his business (and his political operations), so he assumes that it’s how everyone business is run. Even though he has tried to take credit for the vaccines, he learned recently at a rally that he can’t talk about them in a positive light. When he told the crowd that vaccines were safe and recommended them, he got booed. He then quickly backpedaled adding “I believe totally in your freedoms, I do, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

Just as he has spent most of the last year and a half downplaying the tragic and deadly risks that people are facing, Trump still seems determined to kill off more Americans by convincing them that there isn’t any real threat and they don’t need need to take simple steps to insure the safety of themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation. It’s a selfish and dangerous message that will undoubtedly cause more suffering and grief. But Trump never cared about that before, and apparently, he still doesn’t care about it now.

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.

Tucker Carlson of Fox News Advocates Getting Fake Vaccination Cards – Which is a Felony

Posted by on September 3, 2021 at 12:33 pm. 7 Comments :

Fox News has been at the forefront of the pro-COVID, anti-vax movement for more than a year and a half. Their callously political aversion to common sense methods of mitigating the harm of the deadly coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the latest surge that can be accurately attributed to the “Fox News Variant” that is infecting and killing Americans at record levels.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Coronavirus

While most of the Fox News roster is spreading disinformation about COVID, no one is more committed to propagating lethal lies than Tucker Carlson. He has promoted the use of quack cures, espoused paranoid conspiracy theories that the vaccines don’t work, and even exhorted his viewers to make false police reports of child abuse against parents whose children wear face masks.

On Thursday’s episode of Carlson’s White Nationalist Hour on Fox News, he went farther over the cliff of sanity than ever before (video below). In a border line criminal tirade, Carlson appeared to advocate that his dimwitted audience commit felony counterfeiting, fraud, and unlawful use of a government seal. He was triggered by the news that “[New York District Attorney Cyrus] Vance has just charged thirteen Americans with felonies for buying fake vaccination cards.”

“Fifteen people are facing charges connected to a fake Covid-19 vaccination card conspiracy involving the sale of forged cards and the fraudulent entry of people into New York’s vaccination database, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced in a news release Tuesday. […] They are each charged with one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree. One of those people is also charged with offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree — for paying to be entered into the state’s vaccine database.”

Naturally, Carlson regards these alleged crooks as innocent victims of political persecution and even heroes. He effusively praised the felonious lunks saying that…

“In good conscience, they’ve risked their careers to preserve their right to bodily autonomy and now they’re in jail for that. Now these arrests will be used to justify digital health passports for the entire American population. That is true. Save this tape.”

Of course, Carlson’s support for “bodily autonomy” doesn’t extend to women who seek to exercise their constitutional rights to reproductive choice. Nor to children who would prefer not to be riddled with bullets while attending school. Nor to humans who like their planets to have inhabitable climates.

Furthermore, those arrested are not in jail for seeking to preserve any “rights.” They were charged with purchasing fake documents and falsifying government records. But Carlson has decided on his own that those aren’t crimes. He continued his rant by dismissing the charges by Vance that…

“‘Making, selling and purchasing forged vaccination cards are serious crimes, with serious public safety consequences,’ end quote.

“Except that’s a lie. Buying a fake vaccination card is not a, quote, ‘serious crime,’ It’s not even close to a serious crime. Buying a fake vaccination card is an act of desperation by decent, law-abiding Americans who have been forced into a corner by tyrants. You know what’s a serious crime? Forcing Americans to take drugs they don’t need or want. That’s a very serious crime. And let’s hope, in the end, someone is punished for it, severely.”

Note that Carlson began his harangue by saying that those arrested were charged with felonies. But here he’s saying that “It’s not even close to a serious crime.” Rather, Carlson is sympathetic toward these criminals because they’re “desperate.” And despite their having committed actual crimes, they are also “law-abiding.” And to Carlson, the real criminals are those who are trying to save lives by preventing the spread of the pandemic. And Carlson hopes that they are punished for it.

Carlson needs to be advised that no one is forcing anyone “to take drugs they don’t need or want.” If somebody doesn’t want to take the vaccine, they don’t have to. But there are consequences for every choice made by free people. And access to places where an unvaccinated person could infect others may be prohibited.

This isn’t unusual. If you don’t pass a driver’s test, you don’t get to drive a car. In many states, If you don’t provide identification, you don’t get to vote. If you don’t submit the proper forms to the government tyrants you can[‘t hunt or fish. If you don’t complete the school curriculum, you don’t get a diploma or a job that requires one.

Maybe Carlson would encourage you to just buy counterfeit versions of those documents as well. In one way or another they are all state or state-affiliated institutions controlling an individual’s access to certain societal privileges. But in Carlson’s world, that sort of regulatory red tape is tantamount to authoritarian oppression.

Maybe someone should examine Carlson’s vaccination card (which is required at Fox News), and his driver’s license, and his college diploma. Judging by his remarks, there’s a pretty good chance that they are all forgeries.

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.

LOL: Trump Resurrects His ‘Perfect’ Phone Call, that Got Him Impeached, to Bash Biden

Posted by on September 2, 2021 at 1:28 pm. 6 Comments :

You have to give Donald Trump credit for blind persistence. No matter how ludicrous his behavior, or how damaging to what’s left of his tattered reputation, he continues to remind everyone of just how ignorant and criminally culpable he is, even when he’s trying to chastise his enemies.

Trump Penthouse Phone

On Thursday morning Trump released another one line statement via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban). On this occasion he was jumping on a wingnut bandwagon circling the conservative media drain. He said simply that…

“Biden pressed Afghan president to change ‘perception’ that Taliban was winning, ‘whether true or not’

What Trump was regurgitating was flotsam from the right-wing echo chamber about a phone call President Biden had with President Ghani of Afghanistan. Biden was conveying the importance of projecting strength in the battle against the Taliban prior to its take over of the nation. He wanted to encourage Ghani to carry on the fight, which showed the promise of success at the time. The full context of Biden’s remarks bear that out:

“You clearly have the best military. You have 300,000 well-armed forces versus 70-80,000 and they’re clearly capable of fighting well. […] We are going to continue to fight hard, diplomatically, politically, economically, to make sure your government not only survives, but is sustained and grows.” […]

“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

That was an entirely appropriate effort to motivate the Afghans to recommit to victory against their foes. But Republicans and their conservative media lackeys saw it differently. Fox News lashed out at Press Secretary Jen Psaki for declining to respond to reports about the Biden/Ghani phone call because it was unlawfully leaked to the press by an anonymous source. She told reporters that “I’m not going to get into private, diplomatic conversations or leaked transcripts of phone calls.”

Psaki’s response was immediately taken up by partisan politicians and pundits including Fox News, Newsmax, the Daily Caller, Kellyanne Conway, and GOP reps Elise Stefanik, Jody Hice, and Lauren Boebert. They all frantically tried to compare Biden’s phone call to the infamous one that Trump had with President Zelensky of Ukraine. That was the allegedly “perfect” phone call (quid pro quo) wherein Trump illegally threatened to withhold U.S. funds unless Zelensky agreed to dig up dirt on Biden.

The right-wingers pointed to a two year old tweet by Psaki that said “It is not just the call transcript. The whistleblower complaint would likely have more details. We need both. And not just the call.” They said that this request for a transcript of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky was a contradiction of her refusal to give more details about Biden’s phone call with Ghani.

There are, however, enormous and obvious differences. First of all, the information Psaki sought about Trump’s call was contained in a properly executed whistleblower complaint that went through all the appropriate channels. But the information in Biden’s phone call was illegally leaked and the sources were unknown and unvetted.

Furthermore, what Psaki was asking for was evidence of criminal activity to be considered in the impeachment of Trump. But there was nothing remotely illegal, or even improper, about Biden’s phone call. So this dust up over dueling phone calls is just a charade by Trump and his minions designed to sow confusion and lies.

For Trump to participate in this utterly dishonest media hype of a pseudo-scandal is further proof of his disreputable and deceitful intentions. But even worse, from his perspective, he is reminding people of his own crimes that got him impeached in the first place. It really does appear that Trump is committed to making a fool of himself. And at least in that pursuit, he is surprisingly adept.

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.

Fox News, Trump, and the GOP Are Openly Threatening the Constitution and Democracy

Posted by on September 1, 2021 at 1:05 pm. 4 Comments :

From its inception twenty-five years ago, Fox News was a malignancy on the media. The motto that launched the network – “fair and balanced” – was intended to imply that the rest of the media was neither. It was more than an advertising slogan that criticized its competitors. It was borrowed from cult doctrine that taught disciples to trust only them and no one else.

Fox News, Constitution

Donald Trump embraced the same indoctrination tactics as he drummed into his followers heads that “the media is the enemy of the people.” He literally instructed them in Orwellian terms that they couldn’t believe their own eyes and ears, saying that “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Consequently, the results of a new study by the Pew Research Center shouldn’t surprise anyone. It found that…

“In just five years, the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half – dropping from 70% in 2016 to 35% this year. This decline is fueling the continued widening of the partisan gap in trust of the media.”

On the other hand, an overwhelming majority (78%) of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the national news media. The difference between Democrats and Republicans is a whopping 43%. So while Democrats rely on credible outlets with verifiable sources and documentation, Republicans are slaves to Fox News, Breitbart, OAN, and other professional propagandists. And the echo chamber linking those propaganda merchants and Trump completes the right-wing media circuitry.

On Tuesday the Republican Party went even further off kilter by making threats against telecom companies should they comply with legal requests by Congress for information. The House Select Committee on the January 6th insurrection asked the companies to preserve data in the event that the Committee might later request it as part of their investigation. That set off the House GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy who warned that…

“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States, If they pursue this path a Republican majority will not forget.”

McCarthy was unable to cite what law the companies would have violated by complying with a request from Congress. But that’s only because there is no such law. To the contrary, it would be unlawful obstruction of justice if they did not comply, as pointed out by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). In addition, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene joined McCarthy’s mob-style threat and made one of her own. “These telecommunication companies,” she warned, “if they go along with this, they will be shut down. That’s a promise.”

Green made her threat on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program. And Carlson was quick to agree. He told her that “That sounds like a threat, and we fervently hope it is. […] You should shut them down. I mean you should take those companies down.”

Carlson, McCarthy, and Greene were appropriately criticized and ridiculed on social media for their ignorant, and ultimately impotent, threats. However, something has been missing from those critiques. What no one seems to have noticed is that these were actually attacks on the Constitution and its protection of freedom of the press. Two of the biggest telecom companies are AT&T and Comcast. AT&T is the parent corporation of CNN. And Comcast owns NBCUniversal.

So the threats by McCarthy and Greene to “shut down” these press operations are blatant violations of the First Amendment that states that “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” And the collusion with Fox News and Donald Trump turns this into a cabal of anti-constitutional conspirators who seemed determined to sabotage democracy and the principles upon which this nation was founded. They are not fit to serve in either government or media. And the American people should should shut them down before they cause even more harm.

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.

Tucker Carlson Warns of ‘Revolt’ if Biden Doesn’t Apologize for Ending the Afghanistan War

Posted by on August 31, 2021 at 4:22 pm. 5 Comments :

Incendiary commentary has become a daily ritual at Fox News. When they aren’t justifying Donald Trump’s delusional allegations of an allegedly “stolen” election that already incited insurrectionist riots on Capitol Hill on January 6th, they are fomenting fear of a “socialist” take over that will put an end to freedom in America once and for all.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, STFU

No one on Fox News has been more determined to spread dread to his dimwitted viewers than Tucker Carlson. He has fear mongered about “dirty” immigrants “invading” the United States and overwhelming “traditional” Americans (the White Replacement Theory). Carlson has also stirred paranoid panic with dangerously false disinformation about the COVID pandemic and the common sense methods of mitigating harm via masks and vaccines. He even went so far as to encourage his followers to report parents whose children wear face masks to the police as child abusers.

On Monday night Carlson took another step over the cliff of crackpottery by arguing that violent revolution is justified if President Biden doesn’t apologize for successfully ending the twenty year long war in Afghanistan. Carlson was terribly disturbed that he hadn’t seen anybody in the Biden administration take responsibility for the sometimes messy evacuation from a war zone that was entirely predictable.

Of course, Biden himself had explicitly told the American people that he assumed full responsibility for anything that happens on his watch. But that clear and concise message was too complicated for Carlson to grasp. So he unleashed this bit of asininity:

“This can’t go on. When leaders refuse to hold themselves accountable over time, people revolt. That happens. We need to change course immediately and start acknowledging our mistakes. The people who made them need to start acknowledging them or else the consequences will be awful.”

For Carlson to raise the specter of revolt is irresponsible in the extreme. He appears to be lusting for violence, and it doesn’t matter what the reason is. So even though Biden has been open and honest about the tragic circumstances in Afghanistan, Carlson still thinks his viewers should resort to the savagery of an irrational rebellion just on his say so.

Never mind that Biden pulled off one of the most remarkable military operations in U.S. history. He managed the largest personnel airlift ever, safely evacuating more than 120,000 people in less than a month. The one unfortunate incident was a terrorist bombing, but Biden retaliated swiftly and successfully within hours. And for this Carlson thinks Biden should apologize or be subject to a revolt of right-wing barbarians like those who stormed the Capitol last January 6th.

What makes this all the more preposterous is that Carlson’s rant could have been written by a progressive activist and directed at Donald Trump. Read it again and see if it doesn’t apply much more accurately to the explicit denials of responsibility by Trump for everything from the January 6th insurrection, to the 620,000+ deaths due TO COVID-19, to the horrific immigrant family separations, to the unprecedented national debt and income inequality due to his tax cuts for corporations and the rich, to the exacerbation of the climate crisis, and to so many more catastrophic consequences of his ignorance and/or deliberate malfeasance.

Trump has never taken accountability for any of the disasters over which he presided. Nor has he ever acknowledged making a single mistake. So by Carlson’s reasoning, If anyone has the right to revolt it’s America’s Democrats and progressives. And hopefully they will do just that by means of the ballot box in 2022, 2024, and beyond.

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 Slobbers All Over OAN in a Crazed Rant Against the ‘Evil, Corrupt Media’

Posted by on August 31, 2021 at 11:34 am. 2 Comments :

A couple of weeks ago Donald Trump had his spokes-shill post a tweet for him that asked a simple question: “Do you miss me yet?” To which the majority of Americans would resoundingly reply, “How can we miss you if you won’t go away?” In the eight months since he lost so decisively to Joe Biden, Trump has been unable to keep his yap shut for a single day. Just like when he was still occupying the White House.

Donald Trump, OAN

Trump has been a non-stop outrage gusher whose inflammatory remarks pose a real threat to domestic tranquility of the nation. He has also been making the rounds of wingnut media with stops at his favorite fluffing stations (Fox News, Newsmax, etc.), and hosting his Coronavirus Superspreader Cult Rallies. One of his frequent media destinations is the One America News Network (OAN) where he appeared on Monday to gripe some more about what a victim he is. For a wannabe political messiah who tries to present a facade of strength, Trump sure whines an awful lot.

On this episode of Trump’s OAN bitch-fest, Trump continued his familiar and tedious attacks on the media with renewed vigor saying that it is “an evil, corrupt media, it’s corrupt as can be.” This is just Trump’s way of expressing his wrath for the press because they insist on telling the truth about him. But on this occasion he he also felt compelled to lavish praise on his OAN host:

“You guys are amazing. Your numbers are far better – I have to say this. OAN, your numbers are far better than anybody knows. They don’t do the Nielsen’s on your network. So many people are watching what you’re doing. The election fraud of 2020 is the single biggest thing they want to watch, and other networks don’t put it on because they’re afraid to put it on. Because they’ve been silenced.”

At this point it is useful to recall that Trump spent eleven years as the host of a reality television game show. So it is puzzling that he still knows less about how the Nielsen ratings work than a TV business apprentice.

The reason that OAN isn’t included in the Nielsen ratings isn’t because Nielsen is discriminating against them. It’s because OAN’s audience is too small to register any measurable numbers. But Trump’s Nielsen illiteracy shouldn’t surprise anyone considering that he repeatedly brags that his show was #1, when, in reality, it never rose higher than #7 (the premiere), spent most of its run out of the top 30, and languished at #113 by the finale.

What’s more, Trump’s delusion that most TV viewers are anxious to watch him grumbling about imaginary election fraud is downright deranged. The American people are bored to tears by his raving antics and polls show that they believe that Biden won the election fair and square and they want to move on. Trump previously tried to pressure Fox News to embrace his “Big Lie” about election fraud as a “ratings bonanza” without any success.

However, Trump may have a point that some networks are afraid of stories involving election fraud. Although, that is not because they are concerned about upsetting some omnipotent, status quo, authoritarians controlling the world. It’s because the claims are so transparently false that it makes them liable for multibillion dollar lawsuits like those already filed by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems.

Trump loves OAN because they are one of the few outlets that continue to propagate the “Big Lie” that led to the January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C., and threatens to incite more violence. In February OAN ran the crockumentary by the MyPillow Guy, Mike Lindell, that promised to provide “Absolute Proof” of election fraud (albeit with a hysterical disclaimer).

Needless to say, that promise went unfulfilled. But the promise of Trump’s relentless tantrums, slander, conceit, and flagrant lying is, unfortunately, still being carried out by Trump and his confederates at propaganda dispensers like OAN. If only he would go away so that at least his brain damaged cult disciples could finally miss him.

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 Turns to Notorious Right-Wing Fake ‘News’ Website to Push His Election Fraud Lies

Posted by on August 30, 2021 at 5:47 pm. 1 Comments :

America is undergoing a trifecta of tribulations. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, we have also had a category 4 hurricane, and we are struggling to extricate ourselves from a twenty year long war in Afghanistan. But leave it to Donald Trump to awkwardly shift the topic back to his own delusional and narcissistic self-interests.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

That’s right. Trump has waived off COVID (which he never really cared about), Afghanistan, and Hurricane Ida, to whine about his having lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden eight months ago. On Monday afternoon Trump released a statement via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban), asserting yet another bogus claim of election fraud. It’s just another branch of his “Big Lie” that incited the January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C.

In Trump’s latest claim he yowls that “Georgia has been caught,” covering up some utterly unfounded discrepancy with 43,000 mail in ballots. As usual, there is no credible evidence of anything improper with the vote in Georgia that has been recounted three times under the supervision of all Republican officials, including the Governor and Secretary of State.

Another good indicator of the illegitimacy of this claim is Trump’s source, the Georgia Star News. National Public Radio investigated this organization in February and reported that…

“[The Georgia Star News] looks like a regular news website [but] It’s part of the Star News Network — an expanding network of pro-Trump sites seeking to influence local politics with conservative opinion by mimicking the look and feel of local newspaper sites.”

In other words, it’s a sham run by right-wing propagandists to put out politically partisan disinformation. They have a track record that already includes a fact check by Georgia Public Broadcasting that found a previous article about allegedly missing ballots was entirely false. Another article asserting problems with ballot drop boxes was given “4 Pinocchios“ by the Washington Post. Trump thanked and praised the Georgia Star News for that pack of lies in a tweet at the time.

Trump routinely links to articles by disreputable news manglers like Newsmax, OAN, Breitbart, Daily Caller, and Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post (all of which he did today). But the Georgia Star News is a new low in shameless media hackery. It is literally “fake” news. And it says something about the level of desperation that Trump is sinking to in order to continue peddling his lies.

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.