Propaganda

Lock Him Up: Trump’s Ties To Steve Bannon and the Border Wall Fraud

Posted by on August 20, 2020 at 11:29 am. 7 Comments :

Another day, another Donald Trump associate arrested. The Confederacy of Felonious Trumpsters keeps growing with such dubious luminaries as Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Cohen. And now we can add Trump’s senior White House advisor, Steve Bannon. Not bad for an impeached president who routinely demonstrates his contempt for the law.

Donald Trump, Prison

Steve Bannon served Trump both in his campaign and on his White House staff. Prior to that he eagerly fluffed Trump as the executive chairman of the ultra-rightist Breitbart News. Bannon was taken into custody Thursday morning after being arrested on multiple charges of fraud. As reported by CNN…

“New York federal prosecutors on Thursday charged Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon and three others with defrauding donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump’s border wall.”

The private effort to build a border wall along the southern border of the United States was never a particularly good idea. It had no legal basis and it’s principals were shifty characters with prior records of legal misconduct, including being banned from Facebook.

When asked about Bannon’s arrest, Trump immediately deployed his standard (and nearly incoherent) defense when tied to scandal: Deny, deny, deny. By Trump’s account he has never met any of the people, with whom he clearly had close relationships, after they were brought to justice. In a statement Thursday morning (video below), Trump said that…

“I feel very badly [for Bannon]. I haven’t been dealing with him for a long period of time as most of the people in this room know. He was involved in our campaign…and for a small part of the administration, very early on. Haven’t been dealing with him at all. I know nothing about the project other than I didn’t like when I read about it, I didn’t like it…It sounded to me like showboating. And I think I let my opinion be very strongly stated at the time. I didn’t like it. It was showboating and maybe looking for funds, but you’ll have to see what happens. I think it’s a very sad thing for Mr. Bannon. I think it’s surprising…I didn’t know any of the other people even. But it’s, it’s sad it’s very sad.”

Poor Steve. But Trump wishes him well, just like he did for his good friend, pedophile sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump’s rambling and manically repetitive statement was a vain attempt to distance himself from Bannon and the bogus border wall project. However, despite his claim, there is no record of Trump ever expressing his opposition to the project, nor referring to it as “showboating.”

On the other hand, there is a video record of Donald Trump, Jr effusively praising the project and its founder, sycophantic Trump disciple Brian Kolfage. Trump spawn Little Don raved that the scam was “what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is pretty amazing.”

It never fails. Every time a Trump flunky gets caught, Trump runs for cover. It’s emblematic of the cowardice that is an all too obvious component of his character (or lack thereof). But the evidence quickly emerges that proves his guilt. Most of the time, Trump will try to deflect by squeezing in an entirely irrelevant swipe at Barack Obama. However, with so many people getting indicted, convicted, and sometimes pardoned (which is a de facto confession of guilt) by Trump, no sane person can still say these are coincidences. But then, “sanity” has never been a word used in connection to Trump or the cult that worships him.

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

Trump and Fox News Invent Fake Opponents Because They’re Afraid of Biden

Posted by on August 19, 2020 at 1:26 pm. 6 Comments :

As this extraordinarily unprecedented election season rattles on, Dona;d Trump continues to lag behind Joe Biden in every national poll, as well as in most of the crucial swing state polls. It must be humiliating to be losing so badly to someone you characterize as a mentally deficient socialist

Joe Biden, Donald Trump Baby, Fake News

The truth is that Trump is terrified about his abysmal reelection prospects. And he’s even more terrified of Joe Biden, a bona fide, old school moderate with bipartisan credentials. Given Trump’s hardcore wingnuttery, it’s impossible for him to present any kind of marketable image to a nation that already knows him as an extremist with totalitarian tendencies. He openly advocates for aggressively fascist, police-state tactics to muzzle free speech. He craves the sort of lifetime rule that his heroes Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un enjoy. To that end he has implemented initiatives to suppress voting and refuses to respect the democratic process. He has called for the persecution, and even execution, of his political foes, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Having no path to rehabilitate his abhorrent personality and horrendous record, Trump has embarked on a campaign to bring Biden down to his level. But even that is utterly implausible. Consequently, Trump is employing a desperation strategy aimed at trying to persuade voters that a Biden presidency would be subservient to the most radical leftist fringe of the Democratic Party.

Trump, with help from Fox News, has been hammering on a preposterous theory that Joe Biden is a puppet of the radical left. They are elevating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris as the real leaders who will drive the policy of a Biden administration. As appealing as that sounds, it just isn’t remotely true.

Biden won an overwhelming number of votes in the Democratic primaries. That doesn’t mean that progressives won’t advocate for their agenda, just as activists of all stripes do. but it does mean that a center-left agenda will dominate the Biden White House. What Trump and Fox News are doing is substituting who they prefer to run against because they are afraid to run against the solidly moderate Biden. But what these radical rightists don’t get is that if a progressive agenda gets enacted it will be because that’s what the American people want. And that’s a concept that Republicans can’t comprehend and have never pursued.

The problem with Trump’s strategy, other than how it’s cutting against reality, is that it does nothing to soften his own jagged edges. He isn’t even trying. This week he congratulated a QAnon crackpot, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won a GOP congressional primary. He followed that up with congratulations for Laura Loomer, whose bigoted hostilities got her banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Uber and Lyft. Then on Wednesday morning Trump tweeted this:

Seriously? Trump is actually calling for a boycott of an iconic American company that is headquartered in the swing state of Ohio and employs 64,000 people. Brilliant! And why? Because they sent out a memo asking employees not to promote political candidates of any party on company time. Or more accurately, because his fee fees were hurt that some Deplorable might have to wait until after work to put on his MAGA hat.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has attacked an American company and it’s American workers. It isn’t the second or third or fourth time either. Here are at least ten times that Trump has expressly ordered his cult disciples to boycott U.S. workers and the companies that employ them, including Harley-Davidson, CNN, Apple, Macy’s, Fox News, Univision, HBO, Rolling Stone, AT&T, and now Goodyear.

As for Fox News, they have taken this Trump campaign theme and blown it up across their network. Every host has parroted the “Biden is a radical leftist who will be controlled by other radical leftists in the party” line ad infinitum. On Laura Ingraham’s White Nationalist Hour, she tried to paint Biden as “pretending” to be a “faith and family candidate.” That’s what this campaign has come to. Fox News is actually comparing Biden’s life of reverence and fidelity to Trump’s life of phony piety, vulgarity, adultery, greed, pride, and lies. The right has tried on the Antichrist for size, and it fits like a glove.

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

Desperately Dumb Trump Embraces ‘Fake News’ CNN Poll

Posted by on August 17, 2020 at 2:00 pm. 1 Comments :

On the first day of the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump has embarked on his “Narcissistic DNC Disruption Tour“ in order to satisfy his relentless compulsion to always be the center of attention. Unfortunately for Trump, the more attention he gets, the more people are disgusted by him and his infantile, dishonest, and hostile antics.

Donald Trump

Trump began his Monday morning with an embarrassingly bad interpretation of a new poll by CNN/SRSS. The survey found that Joe Biden continues to lead nationally by a 50-46% majority. Taking comfort in what appears to be a narrower margin of Biden’s lead, Trump giddily hammered out a tweet saying…

As with nearly everything that Trump says, this is a starkly shallow analysis that ignores reality on multiple levels. First of all, Trump begins by asserting that there is something wrong with a poll that he regards as favorable to him. There’s probably a name for that sort of psychosis, but I’ll leave that to the mental health professionals.

Secondly, Trump is encouraged that the poll seems to be “increasing me by 10 points in a short period of time.” What he doesn’t seem to know is that this CNN poll has been all over the map in the past few months. The previous poll had Biden ahead by 14 points. Before that it was 5 points. And before that it was 11 points. For some reason CNN’s numbers are bouncing around without any evident reason. As for Trump’s claim that the alleged increase took place in a short period of, that’s only true if you think two months qualifies as short.

Finally, Trump takes a swipe at his own Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News). But it’s hard to figure out what he’s whining about. It appears he’s saying that CNN wants to “take over” from Fox as the network most biased in his favor? But then why does he characterize that as being wrong? And which network does he believe is “fake” news now? Does he even know what he’s talking about anymore? There is clearly a problem if he’s praising CNN and bashing Fox (although he has been bashing Fox with some frequency lately).

For the record, Trump’s polling is dreadful. He has good reason to be frightened. After all, he is losing to someone that he says is a mentally deficient socialist. What does that say about him? Of the 122 polls tracked this year by RealClearPolitics, Trump has led in a grand total of one. That was way back in February. The average Biden lead for the whole year of polling is 7 points. Biden’s average lead for the past week shows an acceleration of support to 8.3 points.

No wonder Trump is frantically trying to suppress the vote and subvert democracy. He knows his prospects for reelection are slim to none. What’s more, he knows the legal jeopardy he is likely to face when he returns to civilian life. Consequently, he’s spending most of his time preparing to contest the election results and diminish confidence in democracy overall. It’s a path that is not only unpatriotic, it’s dangerous. And it’s up to the American people to make sure he doesn’t get away with it.

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

According to Trump, He’s Losing Bigly to a Mentally Deficient Socialist

Posted by on August 15, 2020 at 1:29 pm. 5 Comments :

Desperate politicians have been known to make monumental mistakes. And in the case of Donald Trump, numerous mistakes and even purposeful malfeasance. This often occurs when they observe their campaign circling the drain and everything they try to reverse the trend fails miserably. They end up in a downward spiral that only accelerates their descent into madness. It’s ultimately a self-destructive, but unyielding compulsion.

Donald Trump Circling the Drain

As Trump’s fortunes continue to disintegrate, he resorts to the most infantile and hostile components of his character, or lack thereof. He lashes out with insults, flagrant lies, and attempts to tarnish the reputations of his perceived enemies. He knows he can’t rehabilitate his abhorrent public image, so he tries to bring his opponents down to his level. That’s a long walk.

What we are seeing from the Trump campaign these days is the manifestation of that strategy. He is devoting virtually all of his campaign rhetoric to maligning Joe Biden as “sleepy,” “corrupt,” and/or “a far-left radical socialist” who will “destroy America.” But how Biden can be both mentally deficient and an evil genius has not been explained.

There is, however, an unintended consequence of this tantrum throwing tactic. If Trump defines Biden as a wild-eyed leftist radical, as well as suffering from cognitive decline, Trump is admitting something devastating about himself. After all, he is losing to Biden in most national polls by double digits. He is also losing in almost every crucial swing state. And it isn’t just the popular vote where Biden has a commanding lead. Electoral College estimates are currently predicting a landslide victory for Biden.

So Trump’s fantastical fictions about Biden’s ideology and psychological state have the effect of humiliating himself for not being able to prevail over such an allegedly pathetic opponent. If Trump can’t beat a commie with dementia, he might as well drop out of the race. He’s already been reduced to a previously unthinkable act: praising Hillary Clinton:

If the biggest difference between 2016 and 2020 is how much “smarter and sharper” Clinton was, then why is Trump still getting crushed by Biden? What’s more, while the enthusiasm for Trump among his cult disciples is pretty good, he isn’t counting the the enthusiastic opposition to him that is powering Biden’s campaign. And the numbers aren’t in yet for the boost Biden will get from selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate.

Finally, Trump takes another swipe at Fox News, something he has been doing with frequency lately, despite simultaneously running to Fox for cover every few days. But he does have a point. Even some reliable Trump-fluffers on his State TV network are noticing his weaknesses. Fox’s political editor, Chris Stirewalt just published an op-ed that made the case that “Trump is starting to sound desperate.” Starting to?

Trump himself is falling off the far side of the sanity fence, and the American people can see it. He is embracing the QAnan conspiracy. He’s plotting to heckle the democrats during their convention next week. And his defiling of democracy – and the Constitution – by sabotaging the Postal Service is Trump’s most brazen step toward tyranny to date.

Yet this brand of perverse politicking can only prove to be futile. The American people don’t support such anti-patriotic, power hungry, viciousness. And they certainly won’t get behind a loser who can’t compete with someone he claims is worse than Stalin with Alzheimer’s. Not only is the accusation preposterous, it highlights how impotent Trump is going into the final days of the campaign.

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

Trump’s Egomaniacal Plot to Upstage the Democratic Convention

Posted by on August 13, 2020 at 1:20 pm. 9 Comments :

There is nothing that irritates Donald Trump more than when he is not the center of attention. His malignant narcissism kicks in bigly if something in the news cycle is deemed more important than his promulgation of lies, undeserved boasts, infantile insults, or relentless hostility and petulant whining. After all, this is the man-baby who once bragged that he is “the most fabulous whiner.”

Donald Trump, Subway

The Democratic National Convention will begin on Monday, August 17, and run until Thursday August 20. This is the quadrennial event where the Party’s nominee is officially designated and the campaign’s themes are rolled out as the election season gears up for the last lap to Election Day. Ordinarily, both parties suspend their political activities during their opponents’ convention. It’s a courtesy that allows each to present their best case to the American people without belligerent interruptions.

Of course, nothing about the Dystopian Era of Trump is ordinary. And his arrogance and vanity won’t allow him to shut his mouth for a few days to honor the respectful traditions of a functional democracy. Trump is succumbing to his unique brand of snotty conceit with the announcement that he intends to spend his time during the Democratic convention heckling them and otherwise making an ass of himself. USA Today reports that…

“President Donald Trump will hit the road next week while Democrats rally around Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris during the Democratic National Convention. […] A week-long series of events will include a visit to the city where Biden was born — Scranton, Pennsylvania — on Thursday, Aug. 20, the same day the former vice president is scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech.”

Trump has a long history of trying to manipulate the media to upstage Democrats or grab attention for himself from whatever else the press deems newsworthy. He has been doing this at least as far back as the Republican presidential primaries in 2016, Trump bowed out of a Fox News debate because he was afraid to face moderator Megyn Kelly. Then he scheduled his own media event at the same time, pretending it was a benefit for veterans. However, he later lied about and failed to disburse the funds he raised until after he was caught by the press.

More recently, Trump tried to upstage the first joint appearance of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris by scheduling another of his pointless coronavirus briefings (which the media should not be covering at all). And today Trump attempted to grab the spotlight again by announcing a phony “peace” agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Trump even employs this tactic by saying something outrageous and despicable to deflect the outrageous and despicable thing he said the day before.

If Trump goes through with this cynical and self-serving charade during the Democratic convention, Democrats need to reciprocate during Trump’s Republican convention the following week. They should schedule newsmaking affairs during Trump’s most engaging events. Which should be easy to counter-program considering that the GOP’s speakers are likely to be less than compelling. They haven’t released a list yet, but in 2016 they featured such luminaries as Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson, has-been Scott Baio, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz.

If Democrats place Barack Obama’s first public appearance with the Biden/Harris ticket during Trump’s acceptance speech on the 27th, how many people do you think will be watching Trump? We already know what he’s going to say: Democrats are radical leftists who want open borders, crime in the streets, gun confiscation, and Satan worship.

Plus, Democrats will give healthcare to all citizens, pursue racial justice, seek income equality through fair taxation and corporate responsibility, and reverse the perils of climate change. Oh wait, those are all things that the American people favor overwhelmingly. Along with restoring America’s reputation internationally, and taking steps to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

So bring it on, Don. The American people already despise you. Trump has never reached 50% in approval polling, a feat that no other president can claim. He is currently losing to Biden in every national poll, as well as in most polls of the crucial swing states. His desperate antics are not likely to rescue his floundering campaign now. All he has left is cheating and Russia. But those are indeed serious threats and Democrats need to be vigilant and determined to overcome them. While things are looking pretty good for Biden and the Democrats, this is not the time to stand down.

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

Scaredy Trump Flees to Fox News After Biden Chooses Kamala Harris

Posted by on August 12, 2020 at 1:25 pm. 3 Comments :

On Tuesday Joe Biden announced the selection of Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate. The choice was universally acclaimed by all those not affiliated with the Trump Cult or Fox News. For his part, Donald Trump – the KKK’s favorite president – slandered Biden as a racist for choosing a Black woman to join his ticket. And he’s trying on “phony” as his latest infantile nickname for Harris.

Donald Trump, Fox News

The stench of fear and desperation coming from the Trump camp is unmistakable. He is getting crushed by Biden in every national poll, as well as all of the crucial swing states. He has no substantive criticism of either Biden or Harris, so he resorts to elementary school taunts, shameless lies, and pitiful whining.

Naturally, the first place Trump went after getting the bad news about Harris was his safe place in the arms of coronavirus spreader, Sean Hannity at Fox News. He knows that Harris is unquestionably a strong, experienced woman with a sharp intellect and tongue. And there is nothing that scares Trump more. He also knew that Hannity would comfort him in his hour of need, and feed him potential attack lines for the days ahead as the Biden/Harris ticket rolls out.

In fact, that’s exactly what Hannity did with his opening wet kiss to Trump on the subject of race (video below). Unfortunately, Trump is too unfocused and mentally infirm to concentrate on anything for more than ten seconds. Consequently, his response lurched manically into unrelated topics, ignoring the far more relevant subject matter that Hannity hoped he could corral Trump into. Trump’s meandering reply touched on the few topics that his fractured mind is capable of retaining. Remember, these are responses to a question about race:

“Well, first of all, what you said about Russia, the New York Times is fake reporting. And the Washington Post likewise. I always try to figure out which is worse. And then you have CNN and, frankly, ABC, CBS, NBC. […] But you know the sad thing is you [Hannity} have so many incredibly talented writers, journalists, frankly, including yourself, cause I consider you really a journalist to the largest extent.”

“They got it [the Russia “hoax”] wrong and they got Pulitzer prizes. The Pulitzer Prize is worthless as far as I’m concerned.”

“Now it finds out that we caught Obama, Biden. That’s why I didn’t think that Susan Rice could get it because she’s part of this whole illegal thing that happened.”

“Look at Hillary Clinton where she paid for the fake dossier.”

Huh? These are just a robotic recycling of Trump’s Lamest Hits. He’s on auto-play, rewinding through the nightmares that have lodged like neuro-parasites in his diseased brain, feasting on what’s left of his frontal lobe. Even Hannity – who Trump considers a journalist – was utterly incapable of guiding Trump into a coherent cognitive dialogue.

The remainder of this “interview” weaved through a soggy morass of subject matter that had little to do with Biden or Harris. Trump shoveled nonsense about windmills lowering property values, rigged mail-in voting, and his paranoid obsession with Obama’s “crimes” against him. However, he only managed to address the coronavirus pandemic for about thirty seconds at the close, and only to lie about nonexistent vaccines and therapies.

This is the current state of America’s political leadership. It’s resting in the tiny hands of a sociopathic narcissist who can’t complete a thought, or stay on topic, even when guided by a bootlicking sycophant. It would be hysterical if there weren’t already so many tragic consequences for so many suffering Americans.

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

Why is Trump Doing (and the Media Covering) His Newsless Coronavirus Briefings?

Posted by on August 11, 2020 at 1:44 pm. 2 Comments :

Last April Donald Trump fired himself as the Coronavirus Task Force spokesmodel. It was a termination necessitated by the obvious harm he was doing to his already floundering reelection campaign and the campaigns of his fellow Republicans. No one lamented his three month absence considering the fact that, due to his ignorance and ego, he had nothing of value to contribute anyway.

Donald Trump TV Set

Trump himself complained that the briefings served no purpose and were a waste of time. “The American people are getting nothing but Fake News,” he whined about an event where he was the dominant speaker. That’s quite a confession.

So it was with some surprise that Trump renewed his canceled broadcasts last month. The new version of the Trump Virus Show was recast with only the eponymous star. The supporting cast of doctors, epidemiologists, and other experts were sacked, presumably because their knowledge and ability to communicate upstaged Diva Donald.

So now we are, once again, witnessing the absurdity of the President of the United States being reduced to the daily recitation of dry statistics that could be easily read by an intern or an elementary schooler, either of whom would do a better job. Trump’s stodgy, emotionless oratory couldn’t possibly be more annoying.

This ought not to be dismissed as just another peculiarity of the Trump Era. There is, of course, a deadly pandemic ravaging the nation and the world. The economy is in shambles with a record number of people unemployed, high rates of evictions and foreclosures, business bankruptcies increasing, and more Americans seeking assistance from welfare agencies and food banks.

Yet somehow Trump finds the time to stand before the press – who he repeatedly maligns in Stalinist terms as the “enemy of the people,” – and performs his reality TV shtick. He disseminates provable lies, yells at and insults reporters, shamelessly lavishes undue praise on himself, and viciously attacks Democrats – and even Republicans – that he perceives as adversarial or disloyal.

Most of the time consumed in Trump’s “briefing” is wasted on matters having nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. He regales in the performance of the stock market, which his policies are artificially propping up for the benefit of the wealthy and is a poor indicator of the economy that is currently in recession. He weaves fictions about his alleged legislative achievements. And he desperately invents electoral news that casts him as the victor in contest that exists only in his demented mind.

These charades are actually poorly disguised alternatives for the campaign rallies and other blatant politicking that he can’t pull together. Trump is reported to be despondent after weeks of not getting his ego stroked by worshipful disciples. So he demands attention by pretending to stage news conferences that are devoid of any actual news.

For that reason, the media should show some integrity and decline to service Trump’s pathetic and narcissistic neediness. He has proven repeatedly that he has nothing newsworthy to convey. So by showing up, the press is acting as his campaign’s communications staff. They are giving him free airtime and allowing him to spread his propaganda, lies, and hate speech.

If Trump wants to rant about Democrats and pay tribute to himself, he can pay for ads like any other candidate. In the meantime, the press can send junior reporters with cameras to document Trump’s meltdowns and then air whatever turns out to have some substantive news value, if anything. Short of that, the media needs to step back and stop helping to further Trump’s electoral aspirations.

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

‘Shocked’ Fox News Host Gets Schooled on Trump’s Lies about the Coronavirus

Posted by on August 10, 2020 at 1:10 pm. 6 Comments :

The endless stream of lies emanating from Donald Trump on a daily (hourly) basis continue without pause as the number of Americans infected by the coronavirus exceeds 5,000,000, and the fatalities surpass 163,000. Unmoved by these horrifying statistics, Trump persists in deflection and trivializing the suffering that the nation is enduring due to his negligence, incompetence, and egomaniacal refusal act responsibly.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

On Monday morning Trump took time away from his golfing regimen to express his desire to see more young people placed in danger by compelling them to participate in collegiate sports programs. Never mind that colleges around the country have already had to shut down due to spikes in coronavirus cases. Trump doesn’t care about kids, or anyone other than himself. As Trump told Fox News last week…

“My view is schools should reopen. This thing is going away. It will go away like things go away. And my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost – and I would almost say definitely, but almost – immune from this disease.”

Exactly! COVID-19 will “go away like things go away.” Things like bone spurs and cancer and senile dementia. My view is that Trump is almost – and I would almost say definitely, but almost – completely insane. Trump’s view, though, is shared by his bootlickers on Fox News. In a segment on Fox and Friends (video below) discussing how the coronavirus affects children, co-host Ainsley Earhardt revealed her surprise that kids were affected at all:

Earhardt: 97,000 kids have tested positive? That was such a shock to me because we heard kids really don’t get it. If they do they’re all going to be okay. Do you have any details about that percentage of kids that do get it? Are they all doing okay? Do they have any deaths?
Dr. Natasha Kathuria: I don’t know about the mortality or morbidity right now in that group. That was just in two weeks. So about 100,000 new cases in pediatric kids just in two weeks. And I can guarantee you that number is much higher. We don’t really test kids that often. They’re usually asymptomatic, they have very mild symptoms, But they’re still shedding this virus.

This was a “shock” to Earhardt because she “heard kids don’t really get it” from her fellow propagandists on Fox News, where that lie has been a regular part of the disinformation that they disseminate every day. The data about the virus’s impact on children was revealed in a new study that tracked such cases and found a total of nearly 340,000 children have been infected to date. The number for the past two weeks (97,000) represents a 40% increase just as schools were reopening in some states, and includes at least 611 child fatalities.

Earhardt, however, wasn’t finished trying to shape the discussion to frame it more positively to align with Trump’s lies. Her follow up for Dr. Kathuria was couched in a false assumption that was quickly shot down:

Earhardt: We’re just going to have to be extremely careful. Most Americans want their kids back in school, but we want to do it safely. But it is true though that when the kids get it, they don’t have the – you said – it’s just minimal side effects, right? If they even see those at all.
Dr. Kathuria: That’s a majority of them. The likelihood of death and the likelihood of critical illness is lower. But it’s possible. A seven year old just died in Georgia with no medical problems. We hear about this and we see it all the time. Kids get sick.

Nice try, Ainsley. But reality demands recognition that children are not only susceptible to illness, they are also carriers who can bring the virus home to their parents, grandparents, and others in their community. The good doctor deserves credit for not buckling to Earhardt’s leading and biased questions. And if Earhardt was shocked to learn about kids getting sick, think how shocked she must have been that some morsel of truth managed to leak out onto the air at Fox News.

UPDATE: At his coronavirus briefing (aka 2020 reelection event) Trump was asked if he was concerned about 97,000 kids getting the virus. He replied that it didn’t concern him and then reiterated his false belief that kids are immune.

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

Trump Rips Obama’s Executive Orders as ‘Major Power Grabs of Authority’

Posted by on August 9, 2020 at 1:58 pm. 4 Comments :

Nobody is surprised anymore by the rank hypocrisy of Donald Trump and his sociopathic aversion to the ethical principles that most Americans hold dear. He has repeatedly revealed himself to be utterly devoid of the personal qualities that define human interactions: goodwill, empathy, charity, and compassion. In his world there is only Trump and what’s best for him.

Barack Obama, Donald Trump

As further evidence of his twisted and sadistic psychoses, Trump endeavored to brazenly politicize the debate over relief for a nation that is suffering the consequences of his incompetent mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. It began with him ignoring the fact that Democrats had passed a relief bill in the House of Representatives three months ago that GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell stubbornly refused to allow a vote on. So Trump decided to follow his tyrannical aspirations and unilaterally impose his solutions by dictatorial edict.

Trump characterized his proposals as “Executive Orders” intended to bypass the lawful jurisdiction of Congress. But what Trump actually signed were one executive order and three presidential memoranda, none of which have the force of law. However, they still pose threats to the welfare of the American people and the stability of constitutional governance.

To Trump the law is just an inconvenient obstacle that makes him struggle to figure out ways to defy, disregard, or twist it cynically to his advantage. His attempt to peddle these phony executive orders is a perfect example of his contempt for the ethical administration of the law. In fact, when President Obama was in office, Trump had an entirely different opinion of the use of executive orders:

So when his arch nemesis, Barack Obama, uses executive orders, they are an affront to freedom, an embrace of tyranny, and an admission that you’re a failure at “the art of the deal.” Trump elaborated on this in an interview on Fox News. When the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends asked Trump if Obama could be impeached for his executive orders, he replied…

“Well, he certainly did something that was unconstitutional […] I mean, I think certainly he could be impeached and certainly they could shut down the government.”

Elsewhere on Fox News there were additional assertions of Obama’s alleged tyrannical leanings, here and here.

This is the same Donald Trump who just signed an executive order mandating that all insurance policies must cover preexisting conditions. Apparently no one bothered to tell Trump that Obamacare already does that and has been law for the past ten years. In the meantime, Trump is still trying to repeal Obamacare, including the protection for preexisting conditions, with a lawsuit that is headed for the Supreme Court.

If your head is spinning at this point, just sit down and strap yourself in, because it’s only going to get worse between now and November. We are all witnesses to this blatantly political charade by a demented president whose future is circling the drain, and whose hypocrisy is wildly out of control.

For the record, here’s a quick primer on Trump’s political trickery:

One memorandum purports to provide a $400.00 enhancement to unemployment benefits. That represents a $200.00 cut from the previous benefit. But it is also deceptive in that Trump is only offering $300.00 and asking states to make up the $100.00 difference, which they cannot afford during these pandemic times. And if the states don’t contribute, it’s possible that the federal contribution is voided.

The second memorandum claims to defer student loan payments. But a deferral still means that the students will be required to make up those payments in the still uncertain future.

The third memorandum is especially grotesque. Trump calls it a “payroll tax holiday.” Which means that this will also result in a massive balloon payment next year. Although Trump tries to soften the blow by attempting to blackmail Americans into voting for him with an unfulfillable promise to waive the payroll taxes and terminate any in the future. What’s more, payroll taxes are the sole funding source for Social Security and Medicare. Consequently, terminating them would kill those programs entirely.

Finally, the single actual executive order in the bunch addresses assistance to renters and protection from eviction. However, this “order” merely instructs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to look into the matter with no guarantee of any benefit being delivered to the people.

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

HOAX: Trump’s Endless Obsession with Politicizing the Coronavirus

Posted by on August 7, 2020 at 1:49 pm. 2 Comments :

So far this election cycle, Donald Trump has been asked four times to describe his agenda should he be reelected to a second term. And four times – most recently two days ago – he failed to articulate a coherent vision for the future or even a compelling reason to vote for him. That might have something to do with why he’s trailing so badly in every poll.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

How hard could it be for Trump to lay out a plan for finally getting the coronavirus pandemic under control, restoring the jobs lost due to his incompetence, advocating for the welfare of working Americans, and repairing the nation’s relationships with international allies? Not that Trump is capable of doing any of that, but you would think that his press operatives ought to be able to craft an image makeover for PR purposes. You would think.

What makes this task so difficult for Trump is that he can’t be relied upon to focus his increasingly feeble mind on anything that isn’t either directly beneficial to him personally or injurious to his perceived enemies. Evidence of this mental fetishism that consumes Trump was provided in a Friday morning tweet that raised an old issue seemingly out of thin air:

The likely trigger for Trump’s latest tantrum was a “Trump Hoaxed America” Twitter ad that featured a string of his paranoid “hoax” accusations. It covered matters that he has repeatedly dismissed as hoaxes, such as climate change and the investigations into his unsavory connections to Russia during the 2016 election. More to the point, the ad also included Trump’s infamous outburst that the coronavirus was just another Democratic spawned hoax. Hence his enigmatic tweet. Here’s the ad that Seems to have gotten under Trump’s thin skin:

For the record, What Trump said at his cult rally on February 28, in Charleston, South Carolina, (video below) was that…

“Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus, you know that right? … Think of it, And this is their new hoax. But you know we did something that’s pretty amazing. We’re fifteen people in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that. We’re doing great.”

Trump’s complaint that he wasn’t referring to the pandemic as a hoax is specious at best. He included it in a list of other alleged hoaxes, not flimsy assertions about political rhetoric. And the notion that “politicizing the coronavirus” was the actual hoax doesn’t even make sense unless he means to say that it wasn’t politicized.

However, for the sake of argument, let’s concede the point and move on to the rest on Trump’s comment. Immediately following his hoax assertion Trump bragged that there were only fifteen people in the United States who were diagnosed with the coronavirus. Then he praised himself for the number being so low and insisted that “We’re doing great.” That was nearly 5,000,000 cases and 160,000 deaths ago.

So whatever fictions Trump wants to sell to Fox News and his cult disciples, there is still the unmistakable presence of a deliberate hoax. It’s the one that Trump and his Republican confederates have manufactured for five months pretending that he has everything under control, that the virus isn’t harmful, and that it’s going to disappear magically any day now. And this isn’t just a garden variety hoax. It’s a hoax that is killing people. And it’s a hoax that, at this late date, no one in their right mind still believes.

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