Propaganda

The October Demise: Trump’s Frightful Halloween Election Surprise

Posted by on October 31, 2020 at 10:26 am. 4 Comments :

It’s Halloween, and the season of fears is in full effect. Americans are holed up in the homes, eating piles of candy, and wearing masks, as an orange pumpkin-headed monster terrifies them. But then, they’ve been doing that for months now. This All Hallows Eve features a full blue moon, an approaching asteroid, and an invisible enemy. The only thing more frightening is the enemy we can actually see who has been haunting that big old house on Transylvania – I mean Pennsylvania Avenue.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Halloween

Donald Trump has turned much of the nation into the Land of the Living Dead. Unfortunately, far too many have become the literally dead. And while the scourge of the coronavirus is hitting new peaks, Trump is gathering his hordes of glassy-eyed disciples together into COVID-Paloozas that serve as Super Spreaders for the viral threat which, contrary to Trump’s manic raving, is not “rounding the turn.”

As Election Day draws nearer, Trump is escalating the sense of horror that is the hallmark of his “American Carnage” presidency. He laughs at our suffering and mocks our efforts to remain safe and healthy. And he is determined to instill ever more shivers of terror, especially with regard to what he fears most himself – Losing the election to “Sleepy Joe Biden,” a beast so ghastly it has Trump muttering chilling fables of the dire dystopia that awaits us all if the sleepy, yet somehow fiercely aggressive, Biden should prevail. On the day before Halloween Trump broke out his most horrific stories about the foreboding foe that is tormenting him, including spine tinglers like this:

OMG! STOP THE MADNESS! And if that isn’t scary enough for you, Trumps warns that Biden “has pledged a staggering 700% increase in refugees from the most dangerous and violent terrorist hot spots on earth.” He wants to “open the floodgates to terrorists, jihadists, and violent extremists.” He will “make you a prisoner in your own home, and a prisoner in your own Country. Biden’s plan will kill the American Dream.” And “If Biden wins, the rioters in the streets will be running your federal government. No city, no family, and no community will be safe.”

HOLY CRAP! Is there any hope left for us? Or more importantly, for the Trump Thing. He’s mortified that the media is covering “COVID, COVID, COVID” more than his tedious and baseless allegations against Hunter Biden. Someone should tell him that, unlike his himself and his callous negligence and incompetence, Hunter hasn’t killed 280,000 Americans. But that still wouldn’t stop Trump from whining about Twitter allegedly censoring his dishonest tweets on the subject.

But there is hope. In a few days we can join together to free America from the nightmare it’s been enduring for four long years. And we do that by taking the simple step of voting our hearts out. We are the October Surprise that will stifle Trump’s lies. And if we rise up, we can safely surmise that the American majority who despise Trump will not disguise their feelings but reprise the Blue Wave that washed out Republicans in 2018 and will do so likewise in 2020. VOTE!

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

Closing Rant: Fox News Publishes Trump Op-Ed Filled with Flagrant Lies

Posted by on October 30, 2020 at 12:48 pm. 2 Comments :

With four days left before election day, Donald Trump somehow managed to get Fox News to publish his closing arguments in an op-ed on their website. That should really juice his reelection prospects by putting his views in front of an audience that has heard them a thousand times and is already committed to voting for him.

Donald Trump Fox News

The article is precisely what you would expect from Trump and Fox News. It is riddled with self-serving lies and preposterous allegations against his opponent, Joe Biden. The article is headlined “Donald Trump: Reelect me and I will continue to deliver safety, prosperity and opportunity for all Americans.” So if you are a voter who wants more of the “safety” (280,000 dead), “prosperity” (a nation in recession), and “opportunity” (15 million still unemployed and thousands of businesses bankrupt), then read on. What follows is a collection of some of the ludicrous appeals Trump is throwing at his brainwashed disciples, with brief rebuttals:

“Four years ago, Americans elected me president to go to Washington, drain the swamp and produce real results for them. Now they have a choice: continue the record of prosperity that my administration delivered or return to the old Washington status quo, where Beltway insiders enriched themselves at the expense of hardworking Americans across the country.”

Trump’s idea of prosperity is putting more Americans out of work than ever before. And while his accusation that “the old Washington status quo” sought to enrich themselves has some truth to it, they had nothing on him and his corrupt family of grifters.

“In my first three years in office, our country added more than 7 million new jobs.”

What Trump is leaving out is that in his first three years he presided over the loss of 22 million jobs. So we are still suffering a net loss of 15 million, many of which are permanent.

“My administration’s policies put America in a position to recover quickly from the unforeseen and unprecedented pandemic from China.”

Trump’s policies – or more accurately, lack of policies – have resulted in the world’s worst expansion of the coronavirus pandemic measured by cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Contrary to a recovery, we are currently getting worse, and healthcare experts predict that the worst is yet to come. This is happening as Trump keeps repeating that we have “rounded the turn.”

“Thanks to my emergency economic relief legislation, more than 159 million Americans received direct financial assistance during the pandemic.”

For the record, that emergency economic relief legislation was produced by the Democrats in Congress and was opposed by Trump and the Republicans for most of the time it was being debated. They continue to block new legislation for additional, much-need relief.

“The American economy grew at an annualized rate of 33.1 percent in the third quarter, another example of the economy beating expectations under my leadership.”

Once again, Trump is leaving out the most important part. The economy shrunk by more than 36% prior to this quarter. So we are still in a financial hole, and worse off than before the pandemic hit.

“The largest threat to our great American comeback is a Joe Biden presidency. Biden is running on a platform that would destroy all our economic progress.”

That’s not what most economists are saying. Goldman Sachs recently wrote that “a blue wave would likely prompt us to upgrade our forecasts.” Moody’s wrote that “Biden’s economic proposals, if enacted, would create 7.4 million more jobs than would Trump’s.”

“Joe Biden has openly pledged to eliminate my tax cuts for middle-income Americans, implement radical environmental regulations that would bring our domestic energy revolution to an abrupt halt, and bring back Obama’s disastrous health care calamity.”

Indeed, Biden has pledged to reverse Trump’s Tax Scam for the Rich, which didn’t help the middle-class. Biden also favors an environmental agenda and a healthcare package that Trump is actively opposing, but which the majority of Americans support.

“Biden’s scare tactics extend to America’s seniors with false claims about my record on Social Security.”

The claims about Trump’s record on Social Security come straight form his own lips. He is trying to eliminate the Payroll tax that funds Social Security, and without which it would go bankrupt by 2023.

Trump closes his op-ed with a familiar promise that “we will make America great again.” But if he hasn’t done that in the past four years, why would anyone think he’s going to do it in the next four? In fact, it’s an admission that he’s failed, which is abundantly clear even without his admission. The American people know that the only way to make America great again is to throw Trump out of office let Biden try to fix the problems Trump created. And that’s precisely what they are preparing to do next week.

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

Trump Whines: Twitter Won’t Allow Me to Tweet Bogus Biden Story that I’m Tweeting

Posted by on October 28, 2020 at 11:45 am. 11 Comments :

The closing arguments for Donald Trump’s floundering reelection campaign are focused narrowly on two subjects, neither of which the American people consider relevant to their lives. Nevertheless, Trump is spending the last week before election day hammering away repetitively at these non-issues in a desperate attempt to claw his way out of the abyss he created for himself.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

One of the topics that tops Trump’s list is his impression that the media is obsessed with the coronavirus pandemic and is reporting on it solely to hurt him. Never mind that more than 226,000 Americans have died due to his negligence, incompetence and deliberate malfeasance. Nor that he himself, his family, and numerous members of his White House staff have been infected. Trump insists that “we are rounding the turn,” despite the fact that cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are at all time highs. And he doesn’t believe that that merits media coverage.

The other closing argument of the Trump campaign is the one that he does want to see more media coverage of. It concerns debunked allegations of some vague misbehavior by Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump is ranting that both are are criminals, but he has yet to provide any evidence or even identify any law that was violated. Even GOP chair Ronna McDaniel was unable to defend the charges during an interview on Fox News.

Which brings us to Trump’s latest tweetstorm. On Wednesday morning he unleashed several tweets assailing the media for “suppressing” the Hunter Biden story. He led off with this one:

What’s amazing is that Trump can complain that Twitter won’t allow him to mention something that he is actually mentioning while he’s complaining about not being allowed to mention it. And while Trump insists that Twitter “isn’t allowing a word to be said about it,” he says even more in three subsequent tweets.

Trump desperately wants to change the subject of the campaign coverage from issues that matter, like COVID-19, unemployment, the recession, and Trump’s failure to manage any of it competently. He’d prefer to discuss an issue that the media – including the Wall Street Journal and Fox News – declined to cover when Rudy Giuliani tried to pitch it. To Trump this is “the biggest story.” But to honest journalists and the American people it’s a shameless attempt to disseminate badly fabricated propaganda.

In another of Trump’s morning tweets he said that “Calls grow louder to get special prosecutor to investigate Hunter Biden.” Those calls are coming from inside the shrunken head of Trump and his bootlicking sycophants. He also tweeted that “The USA doesn’t have Freedom of the Press, we have Suppression of the Story.” In Trump’s diseased mind, freedom of the press is when they print exactly want he says they should. Which, of course, is the opposite of a free press.

Trump continued his twit-opining by asserting that “Media and Big Tech are not covering Biden Corruption!” However, Trump hasn’t identified any corruption by Biden. He is simply ranting wildly about fictional “crimes” and joining chants at his cult rallies of “Lock him up.” The media can’t be faulted for not covering something that only exists in the paranoid delusions of a bitter and partisan presidential loser.

LATE ADDITION: Trump weighed in again on this subject asking “Why isn’t Twitter trending Biden corruption? It’s the biggest, and most credible, story anywhere in the world. Fake Trending!!!” The reason it isn’t trending, of course, is that it is neither a big story, nor a credible one. But Trump is still nursing his fetish with this bullcrap.

Trump’s deranged rage at being prohibited from doing something that he’s currently doing is just further evidence of his mental infirmity and unfitness to serve. His psychosis is consuming him, and will likely get worse in the days to come as he is less able to fool himself with regard to his losing campaign. These will be perilous days for the nation. But with vigilance and a steadfast commitment to our principles, we will weather this storm and emerge stronger for it.

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

While Trump Whines Media is All ‘COVID, COVID, COVID,’ Fox News Gets Hit Hard

Posted by on October 26, 2020 at 12:31 pm. 6 Comments :

As the coronavirus pandemic surges to ever new highs in infections, hospitalizations, and fatalities, Donald Trump desperately wants to change the subject. He thinks the American people should be more interested in vague emails stolen from a laptop that allegedly belonged to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. That’s a “crime” that the Wall Street Journal debunked and even the chair of the GOP couldn’t confirm during questioning by Fox News.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

More than 225,000 Americans have already died due to Trump’s negligence, incompetence, and deliberate malfeasance. And more than 8.5 million have been infected, many of who will suffer permanently disabilities. The media is, therefore, well justified in featuring this story prominently in their coverage. It is news that people require as they seek to protect themselves and their families. But it is also news that Trump rightly believes is detrimental to his reelection prospects. Consequently, he is frantically pounding out numerous tweets like these…

Suffice to say that the claims of progress made handling the Trump virus are flagrant and dangerous lies. So is his delusional electoral analysis. He is losing to Joe Biden in every national poll, as well as in most of the crucial battleground states. But his obsessive whining about the media covering the pandemic is a self-serving and futile ploy to suppress news that he doesn’t like. And if he thinks his yelping will achieve that goal, he probably suffered more neurological damage from his own bout with COVID-19 than his doctors have let on. In fact, he his rants are actually ensuring more coverage.

The charge that the press is devoting substantial time to a deadly, out of control pandemic in order to hurt Trump’s campaign could only be thought up by a severely paranoid narcissist. But what makes this all the more ironic is that Trump’s own media Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) is among the pandemic’s victims. A “Dear Colleagues” memo went out on Monday morning to Fox News employees from its CEO, Suzanne Scott, and President, Jay Wallace. It said in part that…

“We wanted to inform you about recent developments of a few positive COVID-19 cases at FOX News Media. This is a reminder that any employee who has tested positive will be quarantining and following all of our mandatory guidelines before they enter any of our buildings. Please know that we stay in close contact with those employees who have been affected and offer our complete support.”

The memo didn’t mention that the “few employees” impacted by this included the president, Jay Wallace, as well as anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and two of the hosts of The Five, Dana Perino and Juan Williams. They were reportedly exposed to someone on a private flight, chartered by Fox News to bring staffers back from the presidential debate in Nashville, who later tested positive for the coronavirus. The memo also didn’t mention that many of Fox’s programs are disseminating the same lies about the virus that Trump is.

The memo went on to reaffirm that the network has been “operating under the strictest health and safety protocols throughout the pandemic.” And yet that didn’t protect them from this exposure. Additionally, the memo said that “we will be further reducing some of the workforce in our buildings and operating virtually wherever possible throughout the week.” It is important to note that “the week” referenced here isn’t just any week. It’s the week prior to the most important and hotly contested presidential election in modern times. And Fox’s president, along with the two anchors assigned to cover the returns, are going into quarantine.

So while Trump is babbling that “COVID, COVID, COVID” is a “fake news” media conspiracy against him, his pals at Fox News are hunkering down in their basements due to the surging spread of a virus that Trump says is “totally under control.” And never mind that his Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said that they aren’t even trying to control it.

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

GOP Chair Forced to Admit to Fox News There’s No Evidence of Wrongdoing By Biden

Posted by on October 25, 2020 at 3:02 pm. 4 Comments :

In the closing days of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump has decided that the big issue dominating the minds of the American people is emails that Trump and Rudy Giuliani and the Republican Party have dubiously attributed to Joe Biden’s son. They aren’t worried about the coronavirus pandemic that is hitting record highs in infections and fatalities, or the unemployment rate, or passing a relief bill.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump Baby, Fake News

In their desperation to find a way to dig out of the electoral ditch they dug for themselves, the Trump regime is reprising the phony email scandal that they fabricated about Hillary Clinton four years ago. What they haven’t figured out yet is that 2020 is not 2016. And their efforts are falling flat.

A prime example of that is the interview that aired Sunday morning on Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace questioned the chair of the Republican Party, Ronna McDaniel, about the manufactured controversy surrounding a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden. There are numerous flaws in this story that was first brought to light by the star of the new Borat movie, (and Trump’s personal attorney) Rudy Giuliani. During the interview there was an exchange wherein McDaniel was forced to admit that she had zero evidence of any wrongdoing by either of the Bidens (video below):

Wallace: I want to ask you one question. Do you have any proof – because he’s denied it – do you have any proof that Joe Biden ever took one penny from either a foreign country or a foreign company?
McDaniel: I think that’s incumbent upon the press to start investigating. I think what’s frightening is we should have a free and fair press that should be looking at a laptop that has not been disputed by the Biden campaign to be authentic. These emails are deeply troubling as it looks like Hunter Biden is negotiating with a Chinese energy company to profit, not just for himself, but for his father. But it warrants an investigation. That’s not my job. That’s the press’ job. That’s the FBI, those who have this laptop to look into it.

Actually, It is not the job of the press to validate wild and unsubstantiated allegations by partisan political hacks. McDaniel shouldn’t be making these charges if she admittedly has no evidence to support them. McDaniel says that it’s the duty of “those who have this laptop to look into it.” Well, Giuliani has the laptop and hasn’t provided any evidence. The FBI has it and they haven’t found anything either. And if McDaniel wants the press to investigate the laptop, why doesn’t she get Giuliani to give it to them so they can do so? Is she afraid that it will come out that there isn’t any evidence of wrongdoing? Wallace also addressed the the FBI’s role:

Wallace: The FBI has had the hard drive since December. Why haven’t they come up with any evidence?”
McDaniel: I don’t know! I’m not in the internal aspects of that investigation. But what’s more disturbing, Chris, is Twitter is censoring these stories. The press is saying this has been debunked without even investigating it. Why are they doing that? Why are they covering for this story?

So first McDaniel insists that the FBI should be the source of any credible allegations. But when reminded that the FBI hasn’t found anything, she pivots to an imaginary and paranoid assertion that Twitter is censoring the story. Of course, Twitter can’t tell any news enterprise what to publish or broadcast. Her complaints just add more noise to the debate without shedding any light on it. She knows the press doesn’t have the laptop and that Giuliani won’t give it to them.

McDaniel is just stirring up dust to cloud the eyes of the ignorant Trump cult disciples who are desperate for something to cling to. That’s probably in her job description. But she isn’t doing it very well. If she can’t even give coherent answers to questions by Fox News, she really should just hang her head and slink away to nurse her shame. Expect more of these embarrassing failures from McDaniel and her confederates for at least the next week prior to election day.

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

Partners in Grift: GOP Spent a Million Dollars on Hannity’s Trump-Fluffing Book

Posted by on October 24, 2020 at 12:04 pm. NO Comments :

The Mutual Benefit Society that is comprised of Fox News, the Republican Party, and Donald Trump is marching lock-step forward to advance their totalitarian dystopia. And the funds that flow freely between them continue to grease the skids for a criminal president, an unprincipled political party, and a shameless media purveyor of flagrant propaganda.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

With the last presidential debate (which Trump pitifully lost) tucked away in the history books, the opportunities for him to rescue his floundering reelection campaign are dwindling to nil. That may be the reason that he is refocusing his efforts on a post-presidency future that he vainly hopes will keep in him in the public eye. Above all else, Trump is desperate to maintain a link to the ego-stroking hordes who make up his cult following.

To that end, Trump is directing the resources of the Republican Party that he leads toward one of his most rabid supporters, Sean Hannity of Fox News. A new book by Hannity recently made the New York Times bestseller list. But it didn’t get there because of fervent public demand. According to Salon…

“This week the RNC reported $492,308 in expenditures on “donor mementos” at book retailers, all of it spent on Sept. 16. Salon has confirmed that at least $159,000 of that amount went for bulk retail purchases of Hannity’s book, “Live Free or Die,” which have been offered to GOP donors who gave $75 or more. […] evidence suggests that all of the $492,308 in expenditures went to Hannity’s book. Combined with August receipts, it is possible that the RNC has spent more than $900,000 on Hannity’s book over the last three months.”

So The GOP is shelling out loads of scarce cash to reward Hannity for his worshipful coverage of Trump on Fox News. The people who donated those funds probably didn’t intend for them to be used to further enrich an already wealthy media hack. But Trump’s donors have been a lost cause for weeks, blindly throwing their money away on a futile campaign.

Trump himself has promoted Hannity’s book, as he has at least 79 other books that effusively praise him, but which he surely hasn’t read. The whole enterprise was built to generate cash and manipulate it into the pockets of Trump and his confederates. Much like the missions of just about every other Trump business from his bankrupt casinos to his fraudulent “university.”

Simultaneously, this syndicate serves to buttress the messiah mythology that the Trumpists seek to promote to their glassy-eyed disciples. These are the unethical and lawless tactics that a cult employs to ensure order and reverence (and wealth) for its Dear Leader. And we can expect it to continue after Trump returns to civilian life. That is if he doesn’t end up in prison for life.

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

Trump is Aiding and Abetting Russian Propaganda to Smear the Biden Family

Posted by on October 19, 2020 at 1:17 pm. 5 Comments :

There is a new “scandal” brewing in Trump World as they desperately search for a way dig Donald Trump out of his political abyss. The recent rash of feigned outrage stems from an interview by Senior Fox News Trump-fluffer, Maria Bartiromo. She gifted her platform to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, a Trump appointee who has no experience in intelligence. And the the result was a made-for-State-TV segment intended to rescue a floundering campaign.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

The gist of the so-called scandal concerns a mysterious laptop computer that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden. The New York Post reported that it was left with a computer repair shop in Delaware where the owner claims to have found “incriminating” e-mails that he passed on to Rudy Giuliani and the FBI.

The whole story was rife with contradictions, unverifiable claims, and outright falsehoods. It was so bad that when Giuliani first brought it to Fox News, they declined to air it with sources saying that…

“…the lack of authentication of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop, combined with established concerns about Giuliani as a reliable source and his desire for unvetted publication, led the network’s news division to pass.”

Fox anchor Bret Baier called the story “sketchy,” and Chris Wallace said it was “suspicious.” Nevertheless, the primetime Ministers of Trump Propaganda (Sean Hannity, et al) were more than happy to jump feet first into the bogus hit piece.

During the Bartiromo interview, Ratcliffe sought to rebut the debunking that threatened to defuse the budding scandal. He insisted that there was no evidence that the information about the laptop, and the data supposedly found on it, were the product of Russian disinformation. He blamed the allegation of Russian involvement on Rep. Adam Schiff, but in fact, it came from the FBI that is currently run by Trump appointee Chris Wray:

“Federal authorities are investigating whether a Russian influence operation was behind the disclosure of emails purporting to document the Ukrainian and Chinese business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, a person briefed on the matter said Friday.

“The FBI’s examination is tied to the New York Post’s reporting this week on the contents of a computer hard drive it obtained from President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.”

What’s more, the associates who Giuliani relied on for his smear campaign have been positively identified as Russian intelligence operatives by Trump’s Treasury Department:

“Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, declared, ‘[Andriy ] Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.’ Previously, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told Congress that Derkach is ‘spreading claims about corruption’ as part of the Kremlin’s effort to undermine Biden’s campaign. And he worked with Guliani to do so.”

The New York Post’s story has been the talk of the Trump Cult. Trump himself has tweeted about it repeatedly since its publication. He called it the “smoking gun” proof that Biden is “a corrupt politician,” and that it’s “the second biggest political scandal in our history!” But the actual reporters were less convinced by the material they had assembled themselves. They wouldn’t even allow the Post to attach their names to the story:

“On Sunday night, the New York Times reported that the New York Post had a difficult time finding a reporter to put their byline on the story amidst internal concerns about its dubious sourcing. The Times reported that the staff writer who mostly wrote the story, Bruce Golding, refused put his name on the report because he doubted its credibility.” […]

“The story’s bylines eventually went to Emma-Jo Morris, a former associate producer on Fox News show Hannity, who joined the Post as an editor this year and had yet to publish a story with her byline, and Gabrielle Fonrouge, a Post reporter since 2014. According to the Times, Fonrouge only learned her name was on the story after it was published.”

So this story is so untrustworthy that its own authors don’t believe it. It is filled with contradictions and implausible allegations that were sourced to Russian intelligence operatives. And this is what Trump and Fox News and the rest of the Confederacy of Deplorables thinks will bring about the end of Joe Biden. But it isn’t quite working out that way. In fact, they’re about to learn something about how the boomerang effect works.

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

Fox News Boss Rupert Murdoch Predicts Biden Will Beat Trump in a Landslide

Posted by on October 15, 2020 at 12:55 pm. 5 Comments :

In the closing weeks of the 2020 presidential election, the bad news for Donald Trump just keeps piling up. Every new poll that is published shows him falling farther behind Joe Biden, including those that are devotedly biased toward Trump. He’s losing in most of the critical battleground states. His crazed rhetoric keeps descending into an abyss of dementia. He’s even threatening to go to war against aliens (from Mars, not Mexico).

Rupert Murdoch Donald Trump

Now the chairman of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, is predicting that Trump is going to lose to Biden in a landslide. This is an election year defection that should rattle the rafters of Trump’s campaign operation. Murdoch has been a reliable supporter of Trump for years (even if that support has been reciprocated). And his cable network is Trump’s de facto Ministry of Propaganda. According to the Daily Beast (via Talking Points Memo)…

“Media magnate Rupert Murdoch has predicted privately that Democratic nominee Joe Biden will defeat President Donald Trump in the presidential election in a landslide victory, the Daily Beast reported Thursday.

“The Australian-born billionaire who has been an influential supporter of the President in the past has remarked to close associates that Trump is his own worst enemy, according to the Daily Beast. Murdoch suggested to at least three Daily Beast sources that Trump has handled the COVID-19 pandemic poorly and ignored advice on how to better manage it, which has created a never-ending crisis for his administration.”

The suggestion that Trump has “handled the COVID-19 pandemic poorly” is a gross understatement. The deaths of more than 216,000 Americans, along with 7.5 million infected, many of whom will have permanent disabilities, is better described as mass murder. And it is Trump’s negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance, that is directly responsible. And Trump’s newly adopted position on “herd immunity” would guarantee more than two million fatalities according to epidemiology experts.

Murdoch’s opinion on the likely outcome of the presidential race does not immunize him from criticism for his years of disseminating lies aimed at Democrats. He is not endorsing Biden. He is merely expressing his analysis of the direction of the campaign. But the harm that Fox News has done to the nation under his direction is immeasurable.

That’s especially true with regard to the coronavirus pandemic that Murdoch is suddenly so worried about. Fox News has been relentlessly supporting and advancing Trump’s tragically misguided view that COVID-19 is nothing to be concerned about. They say that it’s no worse than the flu and will disappear like magic (never mind that thousands are still dying every week). And they continue to air, and positively comment on, Trump’s Coronavirus Super Spreader Rallies wherein he recklessly repeats these lies that will undoubtedly bring more suffering and grieving.

What’s more, instead of reporting on the health crisis, Fox News is deflecting to ludicrous conspiracy theories about Biden and his family. Most recently they are obsessing over a baseless story in Murdoch’s New York Post that purportedly connects Biden to some sort of chicanery in Ukraine. Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that the story has no evidence of any wrongdoing, or even that what they allege is unlawful. The Post’s story has been documented to be aligned with Russian propaganda aimed at disrupting the U.S. election. So Murdoch, Fox News, and Trump (who has been tweeting about this and raising it during his cult rallies) are now actively abetting Russia’s efforts to interfere with our election. As reported by David Corn in Mother Jones:

“The key point of the article was predicated on false information that [Rudy] Giuliani has been spreading for a long time—and that appears to be linked to a Russian disinformation operation that the Post neglected to note in its article. That is, the Post piece, based on an unproven smear, is in sync with Moscow’s ongoing effort to influence the 2020 election to help President Donald Trump retain power.”

Corn poignantly notes that “The New York Post has provided all reporters a wonderful tutorial on how to be a useful idiot for Russia.” And the same goes for Fox News since they are plastering this story all over their air. Which makes Murdoch’s lament about Trump’s floundering reelection campaign utterly meaningless. It doesn’t immunize him from the guilt of having helped Trump to spread lies along with a deadly virus. He is as responsible for the tragic consequences as Trump, because he’s been right by his side as Trump led America down a deadly path. And if Trump does lose in a landslide, Murdoch can take at least half the credit for it. As well as the blame for all the harm that Trump’s has caused in the past four years.

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

NBC Joins Trump PR Team By Staging Town Hall Opposite Biden

Posted by on October 14, 2020 at 12:06 pm. 4 Comments :

Two weeks ago Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off in their first presidential debate. However, Trump managed to succeed only in thoroughly embarrassing himself by repeatedly interrupting with incoherent and hostile remarks. So it came as no surprise that Trump subsequently chickened out of the second debate when the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced that it would be held remotely in the interest of health and safety.

Donald Trump TV Set

Trump undoubtedly noticed that every post-debate poll showed him falling even farther behind Biden after the first debate, including the one by his favorite pollster, Rasmussen. So Trump jumped at the chance to use the CPD’s remote format as an excuse to bail out.

Shortly after Trump’s cowardice forced the cancelation of the second debate, Biden quickly accepted an offer by ABC News to have a town hall at the time the debate was originally scheduled. That has been promoted extensively and will air Thursday. Unfortunately, Biden is not being given the courtesy of speaking to the American people without Trump once again interrupting, this time with the help of NBC.

NBC has announced that they will be hosting a town hall at the same time and date as ABC’s Biden program. NBC had plenty of time to find another time slot, but appears to have made a deliberate decision to compete directly with Biden’s broadcast. This is a dreadful disservice to viewers and the American people as it forces them to choose between the two programs, rather being able to see both in order to make an informed judgment.

There are only two possible explanations for NBC’s abhorrent programming decision. They are either acting out of pure greed and self interest, or they have joined the Trump campaign’s PR team and are acting on their behalf. Or, of course, a combination of both. Either way, it exposes their utter disregard for the fair conduct of the election, the welfare of the nation, and the best interests of voters.

It’s worse than just the obvious gift that NBC is presenting to Trump as he uses them for his nefarious purposes. They are actually rewarding Trump for being a wimp and fearfully fleeing the Commission’s debate. NBC couldn’t be advancing Trump’s campaign objectives any better if they were on his payroll. And this should make people wonder if they are.

Every television news enterprise that uses public airwaves has a legal obligation to serve the public interest. NBC is affirmatively harming the public interest in order to boost Trump along with their bottom line. The American people should be appalled by this partisan counterprogramming. There are reports that even insiders at the network are angry and ashamed by their employer. As any journalist with an ounce of integrity should be.

The result will likely be that more television viewers will tune in to the Trump Hour of Lies and miss the more substantive discussion with Biden. That’s not because they support Trump, but because it holds the promise of a melodramatic meltdown that is the meat and potatoes of TV entertainment. It’s why people watch police car chases. It’s why more people watch the Kardashians than C-SPAN! And this is happening at a time when even Fox News has shown some restraint in declining to air Trump’s rallies live and uninterrupted as has been their practice in the past. Brian Stelter of CNN reports that…

“The president held a campaign rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania Tuesday night, but Fox News only showed small portions of it. Fox took the same approach on Monday. So, for the second night in a row, Trump urged his Twitter followers to watch on OANN, Newsmax or C-SPAN – which indicates that he is aware of Fox’s snub.”

And now Trump can point his glassy-eyed cult disciples to NBC as well. NBC is taking it’s place alongside the ultra-rightist conspiracy crackpots of OANN and Newsmax. Is that really the company they want to keep? It’s despicable, unethical, and contrary to the principles of professional journalism.

The American people should loudly object to this media manipulation. And those of us who are offended by this programming stunt should boycott the Trump show on NBC Thursday and get their friends and families, and even strangers online, to join the boycott of NBC’s cynical, self-serving assault on journalistic integrity. Trump must not be rewarded for his cowardice. And NBC must not be rewarded for their partisanship and greed.

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow brought up this subject during an interview with Kamala Harris and indicated that a lot of people were mad.

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

Trump Hails Stock Market Whose Rise is a Rejection of Him

Posted by on October 12, 2020 at 1:21 pm. NO Comments :

The manic frenzy that is displayed daily on the Twitter feed of Donald Trump is especially heated this Monday morning. He posted 75 tweets before 3:00pm in what may break his all time record of 123 tweets in single day. It’s impossible to say at this point whether the reason for this crazed output is his acute panic at the prospect of a landslide electoral loss to Joe Biden in three weeks, or the side effects of the drugs he’s been taking to treat his coronavirus. Or maybe a catastrophic combination of both.

Donald Trump, Stock Market Crash

The flurry of frantic and anxious outbursts that make up this tweetstorm run the gamut of Trump’s paranoid psychoses. For instance, Trump tweeted about a “Big spike in the China Plague in Europe,” in an attempt to compare it to the U.S., which he apparently doesn’t know is suffering from a similar or worse spike. He tweeted that New York and California are “going to hell.” Which is an odd campaign strategy of maligning the biggest states in the country that you’re supposedly leading. He tweeted that he is “winning BIG in all of the polls that matter.” Which I guess are the polls of boaters and maskless bar patrons. But he wasn’t through.

Trump also tweeted that “We will have Healthcare which is FAR BETTER than ObamaCare, at a FAR LOWER COST.” Which is documented in the invisible plan that he has been saying for three years that he will release in two weeks. And as an indication of what is most important to him, Trump posted ten tweets in support of Eric Early, who running a laughably futile campaign against Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff may be the member of Congress Trump despises most after Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That’s more tweets than he posted in support of his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

However, perhaps the most enthusiastic of Trump’s twittery concerned the performance of the stock market. He managed to get something right for once by noting that it was going up. However, he has no idea why it’s doing so. He, of course, thinks he’s responsible for it. And in a way he is, but not in the way he thinks.

Trump has been shouting from the White House rooftop for weeks that a Biden presidency will thrust the nation into a depression. Let’s just set aside the fact that we are already in a recession during the Trump presidency. Trump’s tweets are cheering on the market’s rise along with fear mongering about a collapse if Biden is elected. Never mind that Obama and Biden presided over a much more robust economic recovery and market advance than Trump has. The five tweets he posted on this subject were evidence of nothing more than Trump’s ignorance and ego. For example…

What Trump is missing is that the rise in the market is occurring simultaneously to the rise in Biden’s polling against Trump. The greater the margin of Biden’s lead, the higher the market goes. That’s the market indicating that it is looking forward to a Biden victory. The market is always representative of the future. And this isn’t just a coincidental observation. According to Goldman Sachs, “A Democratic sweep would mean faster economic recovery.”

“…’a blue wave would likely prompt us to upgrade our forecasts,’ Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius wrote in a Monday report.”

Hatzius went on to note that a blue wave would increase the likelihood of a coronavirus relief bill. He also noted the positive impact of Biden’s spending plans on infrastructure, climate, health care and education. But that isn’t all. Moody’s also weighed in saying that…

“Moody’s Analytics found that Biden’s economic proposals, if enacted, would create 7.4 million more jobs than would Trump’s. The economy would return to full employment in the second half of 2022, nearly two years earlier than under Trump’s plan, Moody’s said.”

Of course, none of this is a guarantee that the market will continue going straight up. There are distinct warning signs for a down turn. The market is already over-valued in some analysts opinions. And the overweighting of just a few stocks (more than 20% of the S&P) that uncharacteristically benefit from the current conditions (Apple: 7.3%, Microsoft: 5.9%, Amazon: 5.3%, Google: 2.4%, and Facebook: 2.4%) don’t tell the market’s whole story. And as anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge is aware (which leaves Trump out), the stock market is not the economy. Most Americans do not own stocks.

There is, however, one thing that can’t be denied. If Trump’s fear mongering were correct, the market would have been on a downward trend for at least the past couple of months. Clearly the financial institutions that drive the market don’t agree with Trump. The fact that it’s strong and rising is a testament to the market’s confidence in, and preference for, a Biden presidency.

So keep that in mind when voting. And tell your friends and family. It is Trump who has proven to be an economic imbecile who declared bankruptcy on six separate occasions, lost billions of dollars during the boom times, and currently owes more than $400 billion to – well, we don’t know who because he refuses to release his tax returns. That by itself is reason enough to remove Trump from office. And also to investigate him for criminal activity and crimes against the state.

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