Propaganda

Crybaby Trump Obsessively Clings to Bogus 96% Approval

Posted by on June 8, 2020 at 1:43 pm. 4 Comments :

This is a good time to remember the old saying that repeating the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result, is the definition of Trumpism (aka insanity). And Donald Trump is helpfully continuing to affirm the wisdom of that proverb with tedious, all-caps repetitions of moldy oldies like “LAW & ORDER,” “MAGA,” “OBAMAGATE,” and the venerable “FAKE NEWS!”

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

Among Trump’s most often regurgitated banalities is one that he is convinced will juice his popularity by the force of some imaginary crowd appeal. Trump believes that if he can convince people that others are bewitched by his irresistible charm, then they too will fall under his spell. So he tweets ad infinitum…

There are two very serious flaws in Trump’s logic. First of all, He doesn’t have 96% approval among Republicans, and he never has. It’s notable that as often as he tweets this, he has never once included a source or a link to any poll that would confirm it. And he tweets it quite often. He began this BS back in February of 2019, when the number he made up was only 93%. We’ve had some inflation. Just this year Trump has tweeted this phony stat 28 times (more than once a week). On 17 of those tweets the percentage of his GOP approval was 95%. The other 11 were inflated to 96% for no discernible reason other than ego gratification.

Secondly, Trump is placing undue significance on his GOP approval. The percentage of voters who identify themselves as Republican is a paltry 28%. So Trump could have 100% of them and it still wouldn’t amount to much. It certainly wouldn’t be enough to win an election.

For the record, a new CNN/SRSS poll puts Trump’s job approval among his own party members at only 88%. What’s more, the poll also shows Trump’s overall approval at a pitiful 38% (57% disapproval). And in a head to head match up with Joe Biden, Trump comes out behind by 14 points (Biden 55%, Trump 41%). That represents a gain by Biden of four points since last month’s poll, and a loss by Trump of five points.

Trump is desperately trying to dismiss these results. Naturally he condemns them as being the work of “Fake News” CNN, and goes further to add a wildly irrelevant assertion that “The Dems would destroy America!” That, of course, is from the poll in Trump’s diseased brain.

However, Trump wasn’t satisfied with throwing around his own unsupported malarkey. So he later tweeted that he had “retained [a] highly respected pollster” to “analyze” CNN’s survey. Needless to say, Trump’s pollster is a notoriously biased right-winger who mangles the numbers beyond recognition. Trump isn’t interested in conveying an honest presentation of reality. His only objective it to muddy the waters and pacify his anxious cult followers.

The truth is that, not just one, but every single poll, including Fox News and Trump favorite Rasmussen, shows Biden leading significantly. The RealClearPolitics poll of polls shows Biden with an average lead of 7.8%. And Trump’s support is cratering among Republican notables. There are presently eleven generals and/or admirals that have publicly renounced Trump (Mattis, Kelly, Allen, Powell, Myers, Dempsey, Thomas, Hayden, McRaven, Stvridis, and Mullen). And a growing number of former Trump voters are pledging to support Biden this November.

Nevertheless, Trump soldiers on in his belligerent, childish, egocentric way. He has no idea what a fool he’s making of himself as he ignores the tenor of the electorate by becoming ever more hostile. His proclamations of authoritarian rule are only thrusting him further into the abyss of political toxicity. His negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance, is proving to be disastrous with regard to his handling of the social unrest, the coronavirus pandemic, and the recessive economy. And in his narcissistic stupor Trump refuses to see, or at least acknowledge, that for him it’s all downhill from here.

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

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Trump-tanic: Sinking Hopes for 2020

Posted by on June 5, 2020 at 1:38 pm. 12 Comments :

It is abundantly clear that Donald Trump, America’s first reality TV game show host to serve as president, learned everything he knows about communications from his shallow experience in the world of television. Everything he says – whether good news or bad – has the stench of a sleazy infomercial. And Trump pumps out his propaganda as if he’s peddling Sham-Wow rags to the trailer park crowd.

Donald Trump, Republican, GOP

On Friday morning Trump held what he called a press conference, although he left after making a statement and took no questions at all. He greeted the press corps with strange praise saying that “I noticed you’re starting to get much closer together. Looks much better.” What Trump failed to mention was that the chairs were originally arranged in compliance with social distancing guidance, but before the press arrived Trump’s staff rearranged them to put everyone closer together, and more at risk. Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Trump only crawled out from his bunker to crow about a new set of jobs numbers indicating that some of the millions of Americans who became unemployed due his negligent and incompetent mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic had returned to work. Trump presented this data as a “Mission Accomplished” moment, despite the fact that the unemployment rate is still at historic highs (13.1%) and more than 20 million Americans are still not working. And in a bizarre conflation of concepts, Trump praised the economic news as somehow being beneficial to George Floyd, the African-American man who was murdered by police last week. Trump beamed that…

“Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”

Really? Even if the jobs numbers are accurate (and with the Trump administration that’s a risky assumption), the unemployment rate for whites declined from 14.2% to 12.4%. But for African-Americans it rose from 16.7% to 16.8%. What a great day for George.

UPDATE: As it turns out, there was a huge miscalculation in the unemployment rate. The real number is closer to 20%, which is near a record high and is what analysts predicted.

Earlier in the day, Trump displayed a measure of anxiety in his standard way: by firing off a frantic tweetstorm. This is how he lets the world know when he’s scared, planting himself on his Twitter throne and blasting out an incoherent stream of invective and flagrant distortions of reality (aka lies). And on Friday morning Trump was busy not being president as he rattled off a record 131 posts on Twitter. Most of them (115) were retweets of Republican senators. And most of those were promoting 13 of the senators running for reelection in competitive races. Some of the most at-risk GOP senators who got shout-outs from Trump were Martha McSally (AZ), Tom Cotton (AR), Cory Gardner (CO), and Thom Tillis (NC). Eighteen others were either in close races or held safe Republican seats. Democrats only need four seats to flip to take control of the Senate.

For some reason Trump didn’t bother to help out his pals Mitch McConnell (KY) or Lindsey Graham (SC), who are both facing strong Democratic challengers. He also left out Susan Collins (ME), who is struggling survive, and Kelly Loeffler (GA), who is embroiled in an insider trading scandal.

The bottom line is that Trump wouldn’t cough up more than a hundred tweets featuring senators running for reelection five months before election day – and during an ongoing pandemic – and while there is nationwide civil unrest – unless he was worried about losing both the presidency and the Republican majority in the Senate. If he is worried, it may be the first thing he’s gotten right in three and a half years. The likelihood of Democratic victories for the Senate and the White House increase every day as Trump’s failures drive his approval ratings ever lower. and his toxicity is rubbing off on his party confederates. At some point they are going to flee like the proverbial rats that they are. And that will leave Trump all alone and trembling in his bunker.

UPDATE: Today Trump hit a new record of a staggering 195 tweets (including 161 retweets) in a single day. That’s About one tweet every four minutes for 13.5 hours.

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

Breaking Vlad: Trump Resurrects His Russia ‘Witch Hunt’ Whine

Posted by on June 4, 2020 at 1:31 pm. 2 Comments :

Nothing exemplifies the desperation welling up in Donald Trump more than his reversion to a dormant whimper from days past. Trump was impeached (for life) half a year ago. Throughout the entire process he produced a plaintive cry of “Witch Hunt” despite the volumes of documentary evidence, testimony, and confessions that proved his guilt.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

Trump was fortunate to have a compliant cadre of Republican sycophants in the Senate to allow him to escape accountability for his criminality (for now). You have to wonder if they are all still comfortable with their blindly partisan absolution given the devastation over which Trump has presided in the interim. That includes more than 107,000 deaths due to the coronavirus, the collapse of the economy, 42 million Americans out of work, civil unrest on a national scale that is unprecedented, and his militaristic response that mimics the tyrannical oppressiveness of his totalitarian heroes. He is callously maligning the millions of heartfelt protesters in a manner that even his own staff finds nauseating.

However, Trump now finds himself in an environment where he is floundering politically. Every poll shows him losing to Joe Biden nationally, as well as in the crucial swing states. His approval rating is in the gutter. And it has going nowhere but down as the current crises play out. Consequently, Trump is bringing out his golden oldies collection of crapola. In the past few days he has posted dozens of tweets relating to the investigation of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election that resulted in Trump’s impeachment.

Most of Trump’s reanimated hostilities were stirred by the new Senate hearings chaired by venerable Trump-fluffer, Lindsey Graham. These hearings were intended to smear Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, Joe Biden. But they are also providing material for both Trump and Fox News to polish Trump’s sagging public image and to change the subject from his recent string of disasters.

Trump’s contribution to this manufactured narrative has been mostly simplistic sloganeering (such as “This Witch Hunt should never have begun!”), and incoherent gibberish (such as “Mueller should have never been appointed, although he did prove that I must be the most honest man in America!”) And he gratefully showered his appreciation unto bootlickers like Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, and others who obediently tow the Trump Cult line.

By dredging up the Russia story, Trump, Republicans, and Fox News are seeking to rewrite the history of Trump’s unsavory relationships. His fraternization with numerous people (Carter Page, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, etc.) with connections to Russia made the U.S. intelligence community something more than nervous. And by spinning their fictionalized version of events, they are also absolving Russia of any criminal espionage and election tampering, which was previously documented by every intelligence agency with jurisdiction.

Naturally, Trump’s pal Vladimir Putin will be thrilled with this development. And that isn’t an accidental outcome. It is precisely what both Trump and Putin desire. And no one should so naive as to think that it’s just a coincidence that Trump’s agenda and Putin’s are so tightly synchronized. They were similarly aligned in 2016, and they are reuniting for their 2020 tour of deceit and corruption. All the more reason that true patriots need to be vigilant and prepared to defend America’s democracy from these cretins. This isn’t a game. It’s our liberty and our future.

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

Trump Tries to Demonize the Protesters Supported By 73% of the American People

Posted by on June 3, 2020 at 2:56 pm. 6 Comments :

The most consistent principle of Donald Trump’s public relations game plan (if you can call it a plan), is to flagrantly distort reality (aka lie) in order to shape it into a form that doesn’t frighten him. For instance, he insists that thousands more people attend his cult rallies than the venues can actually hold. He claims to have built hundreds of miles of walls along the southern border where there has been no new wall built at all. He boasts about being the best thing that ever happened to African-Americans. He celebrates his “progress” with the coronavirus despite more than 107,000 deaths due to his negligence and incompetence.

Trump Fear

Trump will lie about all things great and small, no matter how easily the truth can be validated proving his obvious dishonesty. These are lies rooted in fear of being seen for the fool that most people know he is. On Wednesday Trump posted a tweet that is emblematic of that behavior in the worst possible way:

This tweet begins by chastising the media (specifically his longtime nemises, CNN and MSNBC) for allegedly supporting a frightful array of evildoers who Trump asserts the media lavished with praise. Needless to say, that never occurred, and Trump doesn’t provide any evidence of his vile assertion. All the media did was to accurately report that those committing acts of violence or vandalism were in the minority, and that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and devoted to positive change. Trump doesn’t want to hear that because it conflicts with his paranoid vision of a dystopian society where villains have taken control of the streets and his enemies are coming after him from every direction

What’s more, Trump is disgustingly maligning the honest, concerned Americans who are protesting real injustices as “killers, terrorists, arsonists, anarchists, thugs, hoodlums, looters, ANTIFA & others.” It’s a nauseating mischaracterization done purposefully to dehumanize good citizens for whom Trump has a deep seated, personal animosity. Notice that he doesn’t allow even a hint of any appreciation for the majority of people who are lawfully expressing their entirely justified anxiety with regard to systemic racism. Trump’s loaded rhetoric that accuses these protesters of being murderers and terrorists is way beyond the pale. And his invention of an Anti-fa(scist) organization is just another figment of his diseased imagination.

All of this is being done out of pure desperation on Trump’s part. He recognizes (or more likely has been told) that his approval ratings are in the sewer. Every poll shows that he is losing to Joe Biden nationally, as well as in most of the swing states. So he has embarked on a campaign of image restoration in order to plug his leaking ship of state. It’s what produced the travesty on Tuesday when he had protesters tear gassed in order to clear his way to a faux-religious photo-op that even some on his own staff found stomach churning.

What makes Trump’s PR plan all the more inept is that he is bucking popular opinion. A new poll by Reuters/Ipsos finds that…

“Three-quarters of Americans report they support the peaceful protests and demonstrations as a response to George Floyd’s death (73%). A majority of Democrats (86%) and Republicans (59%) report supporting the peaceful demonstrations.”

Also revealed in this survey is that those who strongly support the protests (43%) far exceed those who strongly oppose them (12%%). And that “Four in five Americans (82%) report that peaceful protests are an appropriate response to the killing of an unarmed man by police.” And that “Just 33% of Americans approve of how Donald Trump is handling the protests.”

In short, Trump is wrong the wrong side of the American people on everything. Yet, in his delusional stupor, he is still cranking out all-caps tweets shouting about some make-believe “SILENT MAJORITY” that he imagines is on his side. And this is how he thinks he will improve his standing in the polls and his prospects for reelection? Sure. Good luck with that, Bunker Boy.

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

PROOF: Trump is Lying About Vote-By-Mail Fraud to Suppress Turnout

Posted by on June 1, 2020 at 12:26 pm. 2 Comments :

For several weeks Donald Trump has been accelerating his disinformation campaign to delegitimize mail-in voting. Never mind that it has been in practice since the Civil War, is used extensively by members of the military, and millions of people have voted safely for decades with only extremely rare incidents of misuse.

Donald Trump, Vote By Mail

Nevertheless, Trump is obsessed with what he is falsely maligning as a process rife with fraud. He has zero evidence to support that claim, but facts were never very high among his priorities. Instead, he simply tweets his flagrant lies hoping that repetition (such as this and this and this and this and this) will persuade the dimmest of his cult followers to buy into his fictional narrative. Take this one tweet for example:

Notice that Trump is focused solely on the partisan argument that Republicans need to oppose mail-in voting. Ironically, he’s admitting that greater access to the ballot box is detrimental to the GOP, which is actually true. That’s the real reason that Trump and his confederates are so worried about it. They know that they must suppress the vote in order to win.

However, that doesn’t stop Trump from taking advantage of mail-in voting when he determines that it’s in his interest to do so. Recent fundraising letters sent out by his campaign explicitly encouraged his supporters to request mail-in ballots and use them. “For the FIRST TIME EVER,” it reads, “every single eligible voter can now request a primary ballot and safely vote for President Trump from the comfort of their own home.” Well, is that special? It’s safe and so convenient and free of any potential for fraud. What’s more, Trump himself appealed to his glassy-eyed disciples to “Make sure you mail in those ballots before election day..”

So it’s clear that Trump is a flaming hypocrite on this issue. He wants his Klan to vote by mail, but is working furiously to prohibit it for everyone else. His ludicrous claims that Democrats favor it because they intend to cheat fall apart in light of these remarks.

Equally ludicrous are his shills on Fox News who back his lies. On Monday morning Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends suggested that Trump add the words “in my opinion” to avoid making his lies about election fraud controversial. Huh? How does that in any way change the fact that he’s fear mongering about election fraud with allegations he’s made up from thin air?

This is typical of the right-wing effort to suppress the vote and prevent Americans from exercising their most precious right as citizens. It’s what Republicans have been trying to do for decades. They know that the majority of the American people support progressive principles, and if they vote the GOP (Greedy One Percent) will suffer the consequences of their unpopular, self-serving, elitist agenda. But Trump cannot pretend that he’s ideologically opposed to voting by mail after having been caught promoting it. And we the people cannot let him forget that.

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

Trump Threatens to Designate ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization – Again?

Posted by on May 31, 2020 at 12:19 pm. 3 Comments :

In his ongoing attempts to inflame tensions, incite violence, and shift blame for his own failings onto others, Donald Trump took to his Twitter machine to once again divide the nation at a time when it most needs healing. The dystopian nightmare vision of Trump’s MAGA Night at the White House is fueling his latest outbursts of unbridled rage. And he seems oblivious to the fact that there have been more than 102,000 deaths from COVID-19 (coronavirus), 40,000,000 Americans out of work, and an economy that is floundering in depression territory.

Donald Trump, MAGA

With everything else that’s going on, Trump is desperately trying to deflect from his negligence and incompetence by exploiting the nationwide protests against the sort of systemic racism that killed George Floyd. He is purposefully politicizing it by attacking Democratic leaders and making wholly unsupported allegations against liberal activists. His Twitter feed on Sunday morning looked like a screed from a typical white supremacist website.

Trump began by offering “Congratulations to our National Guard” for “shutting down” the mythical “Antifa anarchists.” Although it’s hard to shut down something for which there is zero proof of existing in the first place. That was followed by by his taking a bitterly partisan swipe at “Democrat run Cities and States”And naturally he went after his arch nemesis, the “Lamestream Media” that he accused of “doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy.” Because the giant, multinational, billion dollar corporations that control the media just love anarchy. But perhaps the most bizarre twitticism was this:

There is so much wrong with that that it will require some extended analysis. First of all, there is no Antifa organization. At best it is a loose assembly of unaffiliated activists who are opposed to fascism, as are most patriotic Americans. That alone would rattle Trump whose fascistic tendencies are well documented. Secondly, Trump has no legal authority designate any domestic group as “terrorist.” The law only permits such designations for foreign entities. Thirdly, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security already designated whatever it thinks Antifa is as having engaged in terrorist acts way back in September of 2017:

“Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as ‘antifa’ had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as ‘domestic terrorist violence,’ according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.”

However, Politico also noted that the rise of so-called “extremist” left-wing protests was actually incited by Trump:

“In interviews, law enforcement authorities made clear that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies — first as a candidate and then as president — helped to create a situation that has escalated so quickly and extensively that they do not have a handle on it.”

That’s true as well with regard to the current protests going on around the country. Contrary to the heated blather of Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr, it is right-wing extremists who appear to be responsible for the violence that has marred the protests in recent days. Facts on the ground have shown that…

“…the demonstrations that caused so much damage included provocateurs, likely from outside the area. State officials said around 80 percent of those arrested in the Twin Cities on Friday were from outside Minnesota. Former FBI agent and CNN commentator, Josh Campbell wrote, that Minnesota ‘authorities have been monitoring alleged criminals online, including postings by suspected white supremacists trying to incite violence.'”

That’s consistent with studies on domestic terrorism conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

“There is empirical and anecdotal evidence that far-right hate groups pose a significant threat to public safety. Far-right extremists commit many violent attacks, and some scholars conclude that far-right extremists, especially groups motivated by religious ideology, are strong candidates to commit future acts using weapons of mass destruction”

It is also consistent with studies conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL):

“From 2009 through 2018, right-wing extremists accounted for 73 percent of such killings, according to the ADL, compared with 23 percent for Islamists and 3 percent for left-wing extremists. In other words, most terrorist attacks in the United States, and most deaths from terrorist attacks, are caused by white extremists.”

So all the evidence points to right-wing extremists being responsible for domestic terrorism both generally over many years, and specifically with regard to the Floyd protests. Yet Trump and his confederates are spreading baseless lies to smear the protesters, Democrats, and liberals across the board. It’s a despicable act of disinformation and slander. But it is precisely what we would expect from Donald Trump as he swirls ever lower in the downward spiral of his failed presidency.

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

MAGA Night at the White House: A Dystopian Fan Fiction Fantasy By Donald Trump

Posted by on May 30, 2020 at 12:16 pm. 7 Comments :

There is one thing that the American people can rely upon when it comes to Donald Trump. Any problem he encounters, he will make worse. He hasn’t the foggiest notion how to be a healing force during times of hardship and distress. That’s because he has no capacity for empathy. To the contrary, he is fueled by hatred, vengeance, and self-interest.

Flaming Trump

The nation is enduring historic challenges. In the midst of a global pandemic that has already taken more than 100,000 American lives, and thrust the country into an economic collapse that recalls the Great Depression, we are also coming to terms with the long-simmering consequences of systemic racism.

This is a time that cries out for strong, compassionate leadership. Unfortunately, we are stuck with a former reality TV game show host who hasn’t the experience, knowledge, common sense, or human decency, to lead us out of danger, much of which is the result of his own negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance.

Rather than trying to bring the nation together and resolve the escalating tensions, Trump spent Saturday morning inciting more anxiety and violence. He is not the least bit interested in resolution. His only goal to exacerbate the animosity that he has worked so hard to incite. His Twitter tirade was bursting with a egomaniacal glee at the prospect of hurting his perceived enemies. It reads like a bizarre, bombastic melodrama that could only have emanated from a malevolent mind. It hardly needs commentary. So here it is unabridged:

Great job last night at the White House by the U.S. @SecretService. They were not only totally professional, but very cool. I was inside, watched every move, and couldn’t have felt more safe. They let the “protesters” scream & rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone….

….got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them, hard – didn’t know what hit them. The front line was replaced with fresh agents, like magic. Big crowd, professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence. If they had they would….

….have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many Secret Service agents just waiting for action. “We put the young ones on the front line, sir, they love it, and….

….good practice.” As you saw last night, they were very cool & very professional. Never let it get out of hand. Thank you! On the bad side, the D.C. Mayor, @MurielBowser, who is always looking for money & help, wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved. “Not their job.” Nice!

The professionally managed so-called “protesters” at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble.The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???

These are “Organized Groups” that have nothing to do with George Floyd. Sad!

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis will never be mistaken for the late, great General Douglas McArthur or great fighter General George Patton. How come all of these places that defend so poorly are run by Liberal Democrats? Get tough and fight (and arrest the bad ones). STRENGTH!

It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!

Trump’s prose is reminiscent of the sort of bad fan fiction that reeks of pretentious, incoherent blather. He describes how he “watched every move” from his White House window as if it were a horror marathon on Netflix. He cheers his “heroes” as they “quickly come down on” the bad guys, who are, in fact, protesting citizens. And he is thrilled by how his protectors are “replaced with fresh agents, like magic.” He is virtually drooling at the thought of “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons” being brought to bear on protesters so that they would be “really badly hurt, at least.” It’s a measure of sadism that is frightening in any world “leader.”

It’s hard to even fathom why Trump is perversely titillated by “the young ones” being “on the front line” and loving it. But it isn’t surprising that he would make it political by attacking the Democratic Mayor of Washington, D.C. He also went after the mayor of Minneapolis for not being like a couple of wartime army generals, as if that is that is what mayors are supposed to be like. Everything to Trump is combat.

Trump repeatedly maligned the protesters as being “professionally managed,” “organized groups.” That may be true. Except that it looks like they were managed by right-wing, white supremacists who were present in abundance as agents provocateur. And Trump closed his diatribe with allusions to Antifa, a loose assembly of mostly imaginary anti-fascist activists that Trump opposes, presumably due to his affinity for fascism. That affinity is borne out by his intentions to deploy the military against American citizens. Which is an abomination generally reserved for brutal dictators, like the ones Trump so admires. It’s a nauseating notion that was righteously slapped down by Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics:

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1266727187601936384

Trump is scared and desperate as his polling declines along with his prospects for reelection. He’s even losing many former Republican supporters. He knows his time up and he’s frantically scrambling to preserve whatever sliver of power he can by pandering to his most repugnant cult followers. These tweets are more examples of Trump “glorifying violence,” which led to Twitter tagging previous tweets as violations of Twitter’s standards. And more of the same – or worse – can be expected as he continues to spiral ever more downward into the abyss of his dementia.

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

Trump’s Manic Twitter Tantrum Displays Contempt for the Constitution and Democracy

Posted by on May 27, 2020 at 12:18 pm. 8 Comments :

The United States is currently being tested in a manner that no one could ever have anticipated. During a global pandemic that has been most devastating for the U.S. (100,000+ now dead), the nation is burdened with a “president” who not only couldn’t care less, but is certifiably insane. His malignant narcissism, vicious hostility, infantile conduct, moral depravity, and cringe-worthy ignorance, make him uniquely unfit and dangerous.

Donald Trump

In recent days Trump has upped his crazy with nauseating and morbid attacks, including accusations of murder directed at Joe Scarborough of MSNBC, and sick meme postings of a coffin with Joe Biden’s name on it. Trump’s psychotic behavior has resulted in rapidly declining approval ratings, along with plummeting electoral prospects. Politico’s Morning Consult poll has Trump at 40% approval. Fox News has him at 44%. Even his favorite pollster, the notoriously biased Rasmussen, has his approval at 42%, the lowest in that poll since January of 2018, two and a half years ago. And Trump is trailing Biden in every recent national poll at RealClearPolitics, as well as in most of the crucial swing states.

Reality has taken its toll on Trump’s emotional state. He is becoming more unhinged and uninhibited in his rabid lunacies. That’s precisely what psychological professionals would predict for someone with Trump’s acute mental malfunctions who is trapped in a downward spiral over which he has no control. And naturally, Trump’s derangement is getting flushed out on his Twitter feed. For instance…

This is pure hallucination on Trump’s part. There is no evidence – none – of the election fraud he is asserting. It reads more like his strategy for the his own campaign (“Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed”). Furthermore, California is not sending ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.” Only registered voters will receive them. Trump appears to be laying the groundwork for disputing the election results in November when he loses.

The lies embedded in these tweets were so abhorrent that Twitter was finally moved to act, albeit in baby steps. They attached a link to the tweets that says “Get the facts about mail-in ballots,” and directs the reader to some of the sources debunking Trump’s disinformation. But even this wrist-slapping was too much criticism for the Snowflake-in-Chief. He embarked on a multi-tweet rant whining about Twitter’s fact-checking and making bizarre and frightening threats:

And as if that weren’t enough, Trump continued his threatening outbursts on Wednesday:

Trump still wasn’t satisfied. He followed up these schizoid remarks in another tweet by promising that there would be “Big action to follow!”

UPDATE:What that “big action” turned out to be was a vengeful, retaliatory Executive Order that would make it impossible for sites like Twitter and Facebook to operate. The EO is plainly unconstitutional and will not pass legal muster, but it further reveals Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and his intention to suppress free speech. He also said about Twitter that “If it were legal, if it could be legally shut down, I would do it.” And if that brazenly tyrannical remark doesn’t frighten you, you are so deeply indoctrinated into the Cult of Trump that you no longer value what America stands for.

What all of this bombastry has in common is a distinct contempt for the Constitution. Trump’s assertion that Twitter is “stifling FREE SPEECH” fails to recognize that the First Amendment only applies to governmental censorship. You know, like what Trump is trying to do to Twitter with threats of regulating them or even shutting them down. As a private company, Twitter has the right to moderate the content on their platform. What’s more, Twitter hasn’t censored Trump at all. His tweets are still available and unedited. What Trump is whining about is that actual facts are being place adjacent to his lies. That’s something that someone with more than 18,000 documented falsehoods will surely object to.

Nevertheless, Trump believes that he has the totalitarian authority to command Twitter, and other social media, to obey his orders. When he says that “I, as President, will not allow” Twitter to provide access to truthful information, and that there is “Big action to follow,” Trump is staking a claim to dictatorship. He doesn’t have any such authority and he knows it. When asked to cite this authority on Tuesday, he dissembled and dodged the question.

That, of course, is Trump’s customary method of answering almost any question. But the mere suggestion that he could exert that sort of tyrannical control is an insult to the freedom and democracy that is enshrined in the American ethic. And therein lies the problem. Trump is as utterly devoid of ethics as he is ignorant of, and averse to, American principles. And the American people have had enough!

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

Math-Challenged Fox News Shills Callously Dismiss 100,000 American Deaths

Posted by on May 26, 2020 at 1:16 pm. 5 Comments :

At this point no one is surprised by Donald Trump’s heartless indifference to the tragic loss of nearly 100,000 Americans (so far), not to mention the 1.7 million who have been sickened, some with permanent disabilities. He refuses to acknowledge his direct responsibility for the pain and suffering that has resulted from his negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance. And he continually proves that all he cares about is himself.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

However, it would a grievous mistake to allow Trump’s loathsome inhumanity to become normalized just because of its frequency. But that’s precisely what Trump hopes will occur. And despite his recent vicious attacks of late, his mouthpieces at State TV (aka Fox News) are stepping up their campaign to achieve that goal.

On Tuesday’s episode of Trump’s favorite morning lie-fest, Fox and Friends, co host Brian Kilmeade took a valiant stab at flagrant Trump-fluffing during a segment discussing the death toll of COVID-19 (coronavirus). Naturally, Kilmeade and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes were determined to downplay the catastrophic human consequences of Trump’s ineptitude. When addressing the magnitude of the pandemic’s destruction, Kilmeade launched into his propaganda spiel (video below):

“We definitely noticed the seriousness when almost 100,000 Americans die, but what I took from Dr. Siegel’s math was 0.3%, not even 3%, 0.3% — we’ve shut down an entire country for 0.3% of those who get it, lose their lives.”

It’s bad enough when Trump and his media sycophants purposefully lie to spread their disinformation, but these remarks are pitifully stupid. Let’s begin with the fact that 100,000 deaths is actually about 6% of the total population of infected persons in the United States (1,700,000). So Kilmeade is only off by 2,000%.

What’s more, Kilmeade’s argument is that, because the death toll is so low (according to his fractured math), the nation shouldn’t be subject to restrictions intended to impede the spread of the coronavirus. He is even suggesting that there should never have been such restrictions in the first place since the risks were so minimal. We’ll set aside for now that Fox News regards 100,000 deaths as trivial. Apparently none of the deceased were members of their families. But he actually believes that the mortality rate would be the same even if there were no restrictions at all from the start.

More to the point, Kilmeade is missing entirely the fact that the death toll is “only” 100,000 precisely because there were tough restrictions on risky behaviors, implemented by state governors in spite of Trump’s opposition. Had that not been the case there would have been many thousands of more fatalities. A recent study by Columbia University found that if the mitigation efforts (social distancing, face masks, etc.) were in place even one week earlier, it would have saved 36,000 lives.

The pressure being applied by Trump and Fox News to “reopen” the economy is, by all accounts, premature and dangerous. Every public health expert, including those on Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, are warning that a second wave of infections – and subsequent deaths – is almost certain. That’s particularly true if Trump’s call to stand down is followed by everything from businesses to churches to schools to his own upcoming Republican National Convention (that’s having its own problems getting off the ground).

Consequently, any further loss of life will be directly attributable to the Fox News Ministry of Disinformation that is lying to the American people. And Fox will share that dubious “honor” with Trump and the Republican confederacy that continues to enable what he himself called “American Carnage.”

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

Trump Threatens to Ditch GOP Convention in North Carolina, the Only State that Wanted It.

Posted by on May 25, 2020 at 1:58 pm. 2 Comments :

The United States is witnessing the unprecedented spectacle of a president devolving into total mental collapse right before our eyes. Donald Trump seems to know that America is literally sick to death of him. His prospects for reelection have been squandered by his tragically inept mishandling of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. And his most desperate attempts to recover are sinking in a turbulent sea of his own making.

Donald Trump Walking the Plank

If Trump happens to check his favorite pollster, the disgraced and ultra-biased Rasmussen, he will see his approval at 43%, matching his low point going back two and a half years. Other polls such as Reuters (42%) and even Fox News (44%) affirm that rating. He is losing to Joe Biden in every head to head match up nationally, as well as in most of the crucial swing states.

This grim reality has apparently driven Trump off the deep end. His Twitter feed is dripping with psychotic distress. He’s accusing MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough of murder. He’s feuding with his former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. He’s insulting critics (mostly women) as being skanks (Hillary Clinton), overweight (Stacy Abrams), and stupid (Michigan AG Dana Nessel). He even retweeted Jesse Watters of Fox News saying that President Obama will be in prison soon. And speaking of Fox News, Trump is alternately lashing out at it and embracing it with schizophrenic fury.

On Monday morning, Trump hammered out four tweets that are further evidence of his mental infirmity. He is extremely upset with with the Democratic governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, for not guaranteeing that the state will be fully open for business by the time the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be there. Due to the coronavirus, there may still be restrictions of certain activities and crowd sizes. But Trump is insistent that the convention be permitted to operate at full capacity no matter how many lives could be lost.

That’s no surprise coming from the president who has presided over nearly 100,000 American deaths to date that are directly attributable to his negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance. Trump’s twitter opus whined that…

I love the Great State of North Carolina, so much so that I insisted on having the Republican National Convention in Charlotte at the end of August. Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood & unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed…

…full attendance in the Arena. In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space. Plans are being….

…made by many thousands of enthusiastic Republicans, and others, to head to beautiful North Carolina in August. They must be immediately given an answer by the Governor as to whether or not the space will be allowed to be fully occupied. If not, we will be reluctantly forced…

…to find, with all of the jobs and economic development it brings, another Republican National Convention site. This is not something I want to do. Thank you, and I LOVE the people of North Carolina!

True to form, Trump is demonstrating that he is more concerned about his own welfare than that of the American people, even his own supporters. If he is set on cramming thousands of people into an arena-sized petri dish, then they should be quarantined there for 14 days following the convention to prevent them from spreading the coronavirus as they fan out across the nation to their homes. There have already been numerous reports of spiking infection and death rates in states that have loosened restrictions.

What Trump isn’t addressing in his threat to ditch North Carolina is that there may mot be any alternatives available. When the RNC originally put out the call for cities to host the convention, they ended up with with only Charlotte, North Carolina submitting a bid. That’s unheard of in the convention business. And it wasn’t because of economics, logistics, or security. The Democrats got eight bids to host their convention. So obviously the problem was Trump.

Consequently, there has been some speculation that Trump might move the event to his Doral golf resort in Miami, although he denies it. However, in his denial he accused the New York Times of engaging in that speculation, which the Times didn’t do. This is just Trump’s routine practice of disinformation to muddy the waters around whatever scandalous hole he’s trying to dig himself out of at the time.

Being as it is only about 13 weeks until the convention is to be held, there isn’t nearly enough time to find another host city that could ramp up quickly enough to pull off this large of an event. That’s even if there is a city that wants to, which was not the case when the original opportunity presented itself.

What’s more, the GOP has already invested heavily in the North Carolina site and would have to forfeit those expenditures if they cancel. So the likelihood is that the convention will proceed in Charlotte under whatever conditions the state mandates, and Trump will have to suck it up. Of course that means he will just blame the Democrats in North Carolina for his failures and elevate the hysteria in his tweets.

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