Propaganda

Blindered Trump Flunky Larry Kudlow Doesn’t See a Recession Now, Or in 2007 Either

Posted by on August 18, 2019 at 11:25 am. 1 Comments :

The past week has generated considerable concern about the state of the economy. And among the most anxious observers is Donald Trump, who knows that his reelection is dependent on being able to tout a positive outlook. However, due to his own ignorance and incompetence, the real world isn’t cooperating. The stock market is down for the third consecutive week. The dreaded “yield curve inversion,” a fairly reliable signal of an imminent recession, took place. And there’s a global slowdown in manufacturing and consumption.

Donald Trump Rally Trash

So how is the Trump White House responding to these warnings that will impact every American? They are sending out their most accomplished liars to peddle utterly false impressions of the health of the economy. Topping that list is Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow. He’s a notorious failure whose record for accurate predictions is almost comical. The President hired him after watching his Trump-fluffing performances on Fox News.

On Sunday morning Kudlow made the news talkies circuit to blatantly mislead the nation about their economic future. His performance was notably ineffective, at least partly because he appeared to be stinking drunk, which the Internet couldn’t help but notice. More importantly, his summary of the rosy scenario that the White House is pitching could not have been more deliberately deceitful. In an exchange with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Kudlow engaged in this fantasy (video below):

Todd: The private sector seems to be concerned about the trade war with China, that there are some rough waters ahead. Maybe a recession, that those odds have risen. What do you see?
Kudlow: Well, I tell you what. I sure don’t see a recession. […] Most economists on Wall Street towards the end of the week have been marking up their forecasts for the third and fourth quarter. That echoes our view. What we’ve got here, consumers are working at higher wages. They are spending at a rapid pace. They’re actually also saving while they’re spending as an ideal situation. So actually I think the second half of the economy is going to be very good in 2019. No, I sure don’t see a recession.

First of all, it is patently untrue that “most economists on Wall Street … have been marking up their forecasts.” To the contrary, many have been sending up flares to warn of what they see as an inevitable decline. To be sure there are those with more optimistic views, but those types of Pollyannas have always been around just prior to the sky actually falling. Case in point…Larry Kudlow in 2007, who insisted that “The pessimistas were wrong…There’s no recession coming.” That was just a few months before the worst recession in nearly a century:

Kudlow went on to justify his horribly missed call by lying that “Every other forecaster” was saying the same thing. While he was not alone, there were some more accurate predictors, including current presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. And Warren is cautioning people to be aware of another similar downturn. Some of the indicators are economists’ estimates of third-quarter GDP growth at about two per cent, way short of the four percent that Trump promised. Also, the manufacturing sector is slumping with output that has fallen 0.4 percent in July. Plus, the University of Michigan’s survey-based index of consumer confidence fell sharply in August, reaching its lowest level since 2016.

Meanwhile, Trump is telling his glassy-eyed disciples attending his cult rallies that “You have no choice but to vote for me, because your 401(k), everything is going to be down the tubes. Whether you love me or hate me, you have got to vote for me.” So did Trump just admit that voting for him would result in an economic catastrophe? That would be uncharacteristically honest of him.

Of course, he didn’t actually mean that. He was engaging in his classic brand of fear mongering to make sure his cult followers stay frightened and in line. But the truth is that Trump couldn’t care less about the financial prospects of the American people. He is solely focused on his own interests – either personal finances or reelection – and that is what’s driving everything he does and says. His Deplorables won’t learn that until it’s too late. But hopefully they will be spared that suffering, which can be avoided if citizens come together to vote Trump out or back Congressional efforts to impeach him.

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

Is Trump’s Obsession with Crowd Size Masking His Latent Insecurity and Impotence?

Posted by on August 17, 2019 at 1:30 pm. 4 Comments :

On Thursday Donald Trump held the latest of his White Nationalist Cult Rallies in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was a routine outing wherein he regaled his disciples with the same old playlist of rancor and lies that comprise every Trump event. Apparently the StormTrumpers never tire of hearing him call Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, promise to build a an idiotic wall on the southern border, lie about Democrats, and brag about himself for things he never did.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Another staple of Trump’s rally protocol is to deliver post-event reports about how awesome and beloved he is. The size of his crowds has been an obsession since the pitiful attendance at his inauguration. Judging by the attention that he continues to pay to this self-flattery, it’s more important than anything he says in his rambling, mostly incoherent speeches. And the aftermath of this address was no different. In an attempt to create a false impression of his indomitable popularity, it was not sufficient to post a single boastful tweet. No, it took five frantic tweets for Trump to hail the worshipful adulation of his cult followers.

The tweets covered a variety of egocentric obsessions including: a general thanks for showing up; a specious claim to record breaking attendance; another false assertion that the “Placed (sic) was maxed out”; a command to look at what he vainly called “tremendous overflow“; and finally, he reiterated, without evidence, that he had drawn the “Biggest crowd EVER,” while also whining about the media coverage, which he said was “fake” and the work of “the enemy of the people.”

Needless to say, Trump was lying about his “maxed out” crowd. And the proof of that was in video images on Fox News of empty seats directly behind him as he was speaking. Another notable problem with these tweets is that they violate federal law. While Trump is allowed to hold campaign rallies, his Twitter feed is an official platform of White House business. As such it cannot be used for politicking. Not that federal law would deter a recidivist criminal like Trump.

There is good reason for a sick braggart like Trump to be plagued by – and over-compensating for – his own inadequacies. A recent poll by his pals at Fox News found that the top four candidates for the Democratic nomination for president (Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Harris) handily beat Trump in 2020 general election match ups. In fact, Trump doesn’t even break 40 percent. He’s also trying to avoid the reality that his failed economic policies are leading the nation into the Trump Recession. All of this portends disaster for the Trump reelection effort.

Still, with the abundance of bad news that surrounds him, you have to wonder what sort of deranged mind is so singularly focused on persuading everyone that he is the subject of undying adoration. Rather than present himself as a competent steward of the government who is working hard to make things better, Trump is singing his own praises as a public attraction. This is a holdover neuroses from being a reality TV personality. Even worse, it’s Trump’s malignant narcissism that drives him to such humiliating gestures of self-acclaim.

A garden variety egotist would be satisfied with others paying him tribute. But Trump surpassed that level of psychosis decades ago. He’s a knotted ball of insecurities who knows deep down that he’s an incompetent failure. And that suppressed knowledge dooms him to an existence of flaccid impotence as a leader and a man. The problem is that it’s also hurting an entire nation of innocent victims of his ignorance and misdirected vengeance. Hopefully, we won’t have to stand for that much longer. If Trump isn’t impeached, he is likely going to suffer the ultimate humiliation when he’s voted out of office and indicted for crimes against America.

UPDATE: On Saturday afternoon Trump added fourteen (14!) more self-congratulatory tweets, mostly from random, anonymous fans slobbering over him. He’s even sicker than I thought.

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

The Propaganda Pact Between Fox News and Trump Revealed in Disturbing New Emails

Posted by on August 16, 2019 at 1:25 pm. 1 Comments :

The parasitic relationship between right-wing Republicans and Fox News has been well documented for most of the network’s existence. Few people were fooled by their original tagline (which they have since abandoned) that declared the network “fair and balanced.” The partnership of an ultra conservative Australian media mogul (Rupert Murdoch) and a Republican media consultant (Roger Ailes) was enough to paint a clear picture of the political bias built into the operation.

Donald Trump Fox News

Nevertheless, it is still worthwhile to make note of significant confirmations of Fox’s deceitful intentions, especially when it comes from within the organization itself. That’s what happened when Jeremy Barr of the Hollywood Reporter published emails that were acquired by a non-profit group through the Freedom of Information Act. The correspondence shows just how tightly integrated Fox News is with Donald Trump and his administration. The network was caught red-handed doing the bidding of the White House and its executive branch departments.

“A trove of Treasury Department emails released to the non-profit organization Democracy Forward and provided exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter this week paint a picture of a close, friendly bond between the Trump administration agency and two news organizations, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.

“The 270 pages of email correspondence were obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and detail conversations that took place in 2017 and 2018.”

Among the brazenly inappropriate interactions were several that occurred between Fox News anchor David Asman and Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh, who is also a former Fox News contributor. Asman actually gave Sayegh policy advice prior to Trump’s massive tax scam reform. “Take the BIG TAX CUTS NOW,” Asman suggested, “a long-term deal with small cuts is useless.” A few days later Asman told Sayegh that the network would be airing a segment on Trump’s tax policies and promised Sayegh that “You’ll like it.”

On another occasion, Treasury aide Jason Chung contacted Fox to ask that they make changes to a Fox Business Network article. The author of the article was only too happy to comply, responding
“Jason, I just did exactly what you asked me to do.” And last year emails were uncovered that show that Fox News allowed the White House to approve a script for a segment with Scott Pruitt, the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency at the time. That was such an egregious breach of journalistic ethics that Fox even addressed it, but only with a vague statement that they had “disciplined the employees involved.”

The marriage of Trump’s White House and Fox News is as strong as ever. They share numerous personnel who have worked for both entities. Fox can always be counted on to savagely malign Trump’s critics and political foes. And Trump-fluffers like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Tucker Carlson, and Lou Dobbs can be depended on for endless epistles of adoration. These and other network shills will predictably rise to defend Trump no matter how repulsive his words or deeds, as demonstrated by how they turned baby cages into summer camps. On Thursday Fox was the only cable news network to air Trump’s New Hampshire cult rally live. We can expect that sort of special treatment to continue, while any bad news for Trump (and there has been a lot lately) is suppressed.

Fox is even muzzling reports of its own poll that showed Trump disapproval at a near record high. The poll also showed that all four of the Democratic candidates tested in the poll (Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Harris) beat Trump in 2020 matchups. Trump never even broke forty percent. The poll’s respondents gave a much higher favorability rating to the Democratic Party (51/45), than the Republican Party (41/54), which they rated as significantly unfavorable. And in a searing rebuke of Trump’s assessment of his own ability to unify the nation, 59 percent of voters said that he is “tearing the country apart.” No wonder Fox News isn’t giving much airtime to these poll results. And again, this is their own poll.

We can expect this sort of deliberate disinformation to persist throughout the upcoming presidential election cycle. Fox News will bury anything they deem to be negative for Trump, while lashing out viciously – and dishonestly – at Democrats and what they regard as their “fake” news competitors. They will continue to collude with Trump to produce flattering coverage of him and the state of the union, even if the nation plunges into recession, which seems increasingly likely. In fact, they will collude with anyone who seeks the same rightist objectives as they do. So as Trump said in the 2016 election: “Russia, are you listening?”

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

Trump is Panic-Tweeting Fox News Denials of Imminent Threat of the Trump Recession

Posted by on August 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump has failed at nearly everything he promised to accomplish. There is no wall on the southern border. HIllary Clinton has not been locked up. He has no denuclearization deals with Iran or North Korea, no trade deals with China or Mexico or the EU, no infrastructure bill, and Obamacare has neither been repealed nor replaced.

Donald Trump, Stock Market

The one key issue that Trump has been clinging to for two years is his argument that the economy is booming. Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that that isn’t true. Many critical indicators such as wage growth and job creation are lagging (and trailing Obama’s record). But Trump has been using the stock market as his evidence of a strong economy. That, of course, demonstrates his ignorance of economics. The stock market only reflects the value of equities that are mainly traded by giant financial institutions. It is not a gauge of the economies health.

However, now even Trump’s misapplied measuring stick is biting him in the asinine analyses he’s been peddling. On Wednesday the market has fallen off a cliff, and specifically due to Trump’s ill-considered policies on trade and taxes. And the site of this downturn has thrown him into a tizzy of excuse-making. If he doesn’t have this to brag about, he’s got nothing but his racism left to hold his cult together.

Consequently, Trump unleashed a series of tweets intended to shore up the catastrophic financial news of the day. And they leaned heavily on his top economic advisers at the White House – er, I mean at Fox News. Trump’s Shadow Cabinet was busily papering over the bitter truth that everyone can plainly see. And Trump embraced it frantically for fear of having to take any responsibility. Rest assured that he will greedily steal credit for the economic boom times from 2010 to 2017, during the Obama administration, but blame Obama for the crash of 2019.

The tweetstorm began with a familiar Trump whine: “The Fed has got to do something! The Fed is the Central Bank of the United States, not the Central Bank of the World.” Indeed. And the Fed is doing its job. But that job is not to save the stock market. It is to manage inflation and to promote monetary and financial system stability. Trump only wants the Fed to cut interest rates for his own selfish interests. First, he hopes that it would artificially stimulate further over-exuberance in the stock market, boosting his reelection prospects. And secondly, it would reduce his own interest payments on over $350 million dollars of outstanding variable interest loans.

The next tweet was another Fox News reference wherein they blindly praised Trump’s tariffs saying that “you can’t tell me that it has hurt our economy.” That’s obviously true. Not the part that tariffs haven’t hurt the economy (they have), but the part where he says you can’t tell him that. And you can’t tell Trump that (or anything) either. It’s like yelling a non-existent border wall. He will continue to tell the same lies, even after he’s been proven to have lied.

Trump then tweeted that “Tremendous amounts of money pouring into the United States,” because “People want safety!” That completely contradicts the movement in the markets. Then Trump quote-tweeted another Fox flunky who said that Fed Chair Jay Powell was making mistakes by, among other things, being “data dependant.” Because why would anyone want to rely on actual data to make important decisions? That’s goes against the core philosophy of the Trump Doctrine of Alternative Facts.

LATE ADDITION: Trump squeezed out another couple tweets on this subject in the afternoon. One declared defensively, and without foundation, that “We are winning, big time, against China,” before deciding that “China is not our problem … Our problem is with the Fed.” That led into the second tweet that lashed out at “clueless Jay Powell” and the “CRAZY INVERTED YIELD CURVE!” This was not only a display of Trump’s wildly unbalanced mental state, but further evidence that he doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.

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

So as the stock market descends, Trump grasps for support from his State TV fluffers who he knows will always prop him up, no matter how ludicrous and desperately they have to revise reality. There is no coherent argument that justifies Trump’s failures but, fortunately for him, Fox News is adept at spinning lies for any occasion. And the glassy-eyed Deplorables will believe anything that Dear Leader tells them.

Daft Trump: Comedians and Conspiracy Nuts are More Credible than the New York Times

Posted by on August 13, 2019 at 12:49 pm. 3 Comments :

The wild speculation surrounding the death of pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein continues to unravel. Unfortunately, most of the unraveling is occurring in the tangled mash of broken synapses in what remains of Donald Trump’s scattered and paranoia-racked brain. The fact that an American president has sunk into such an abyss of madness is both embarrassing and frightening.

Donald Trump

The latest evidence that Trump has stepped off the sanity train is his defense for having retweeted a preposterous rant by a lunatic conspiracy crackpot. The tweet alleged that Bill and/or Hillary Clinton were conspirators in the death of Epstein. To add fuel to that fire, Fox News embraced this lunacy in an effort to provide cover for Trump. But on Tuesday Trump rushed to his own defense with a bizarre tirade that was littered with lies and appalling foolishness (video below). Speaking of the original tweeter, Terrence K. Williams,Trump said:

“He’s a very highly respected conservative pundit. He’s a big Trump fan. And that was a retweet. That wasn’t from me. That was from him. He’s a man who has half a million followers and he’s respected. And as you know, Bill Barr wants to do an entire investigation of the whole Epstein Matter.”

First of all, Williams is neither highly respected, nor a conservative pundit. He’s an aspiring comedian and devoted Trump cultist. So he is indeed a “big Trump fan,” which speaks to his poor judgment. Secondly, Trump seems to think that having retweeted Williams’ idiocy relieves him of any responsibility for it. But Trump himself affirms his agreement with the tweet, so whether he wants to admit it or not, he owns it. Trump then goes on to suggest that Williams’ 500,000 Twitter followers is some sort of validation for his blather. If that’s true, then Stephen Colbert – with 18.6 million followers – should be the next Secretary of State. This just shows that our reality TV president is still obsessed with ratings.

Finally, Trump says that his disreputable Attorney General, William Barr, is investigating all of this. Really? Barr is investigating the Clinton murder allegations? That would be a troubling signal that our justice system has completely collapsed. To be fair, at least, Barr would also need to probe the possibility that Trump was the mastermind behind Epstein’s death. After all, Trump had much greater access and opportunity, as well as far more to lose if Epstein talked.

Also on Tuesday morning, Trump was asked outright if he thinks the Clintons were involved in Epstein’s death. He replied, “I have no idea.” Let that sink in. The President of the United States is allowing for conjecture that a former president, and political foe, committed murder. He went on to implicate Clinton with allegations about trips on Epstein’s plane. What Trump isn’t saying is that those trips were often to attend charitable events, and there is no evidence of any hanky panky. Unlike what we know about Trump’s pussy-grabbing, porn star chasing, and Miss Teen America dressing room invading.

Trump also isn’t saying how many times he flew on Epstein’s plane and partied with Epstein in New York and Florida. There may not be as many plane rides because Trump has his own plane. But their relationship is well documented and much of it revolved around affairs with young women.

While the President regards Trump-fluffing comedians as “highly respected” pundits, he continues to malign professional news enterprises. He quote-tweeted a notorious wingnut from Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post saying that the New York Times is “no longer a news organization. It is now an agenda driven organization out to change the Country (for the worse!).” What’s more, Trump retweeted several posts from Breitbart, felon Dinesh D’Souza, and the disgraced and pathetic hack, James O’Keefe. So what we have residing in the White House is a psychotic conspiracy theorist who values cheesy comics and propagandists over experienced journalists. Is it any wonder why the nation is so ashamed of Trump?

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

HOLY CRAPOLY: Trump Retweets Deranged ClintonBodyCount Epstein Murder Conspiracy BS

Posted by on August 10, 2019 at 5:09 pm. 2 Comments :

Just when you think that it couldn’t get any worse, Donald Trump proves that there is no bottom to the abyss of his loathsome cretinism. On a day that has been consumed by reports of the “suicide” of Trump’s long-time pal and pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, the president sinks lower than even his staunchest critics might have imaged.

Donald Trump

The Twitter feed of the President of the United States of America currently features a posting that promotes a disgusting conspiracy theory about Bill and Hillary Clinton that accuses them – without any evidence – of multiple murders. The post goes on to baselessly suggest that the Clintons are also responsible for the alleged suicide of Trump’s wingman, Epstein. The tweet that Trump has blasted out to his 62 million glassy-eyed followers was composed an alleged “comedian” named Terrence K. Williams, and asserts that “#JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead. I see #TrumpBodyCount trending but we know who did this!” It also features the hashtags “#ClintonBodyCount” and “#ClintonCrimeFamily.”

This would be horrendous if it were a posting on the account of Alex Jones’ Infowars (which has been banned from Twitter for advocating violence and other violations of the site’s terms and conditions), or some other crackpot who regularly spews ludicrous and imaginary bullshit. But it’s unbelievably nauseating that the President is so lacking in integrity, decorum, and decency. It’s further evidence (as if any more were needed) that Trump is unfit to serve in this office, or to even clean its toilets.

It’s also notable that Trump is not the only person to sink to these noxious depths in his administration. Lynne Patton is a regional administrator at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (and former wedding planner for Melania). She posted on Instagram that Epstein had been “Hillary’d,” with a hashtag that read “#VinceFosterPartTwo.” So apparently this is a coordinated effort on Trump’s part.

For the record, Epstein has had relationships with numerous prominent people, including politicians and business moguls. But the nutcases who are trying to smear the Clintons and others on the Democratic side are having to reach back decades for those angles. Yet they ignore that the person who is currently occupying the White House was close to Epstein for years and partied with him frequently. So while there is plenty of slime to spread around, only Trump is currently in a position of power that could have had both motive and opportunity to commit some foul deed.

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

Nevertheless, I’m not accusing him of anything other than being a slime bucket who gives credence to the nastiest unproven allegations. And as president he is not only demonstrating his own repulsive character (or lack thereof), he is staining the office that he was never fit to hold. There simply aren’t words strong enough to convey what an odious waste of flesh he is and how urgent it is that he be removed from office and sent to prison. And fortunately, there is a cell that just became available.

Trump Says Hollywood is Racist Because of Alleged Bias Against – Conservatives?

Posted by on August 9, 2019 at 1:08 pm. 4 Comments :

The rise of white supremacy and openly bigoted white nationalist groups has been going on for many years and has intensified since the election of Donald Trump. It’s so obvious that even Trump’s own FBI Director, Christopher Wray, gave congressional testimony warning that homegrown violent terrorism is the single biggest threat to the country. “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated,” Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

Donald Trump, MAGA

Tragic confirmation of that was evident in the massacre of innocent people, mainly Latino, in El Paso, Texas, last weekend by an avowed anti-immigrant Trump supporter. But the determination by Trump and the Republican Party to address this problem cannot be taken seriously. Neither Trump, nor his political confederates, have made any substantive effort to mitigate the violence and hatred that flows freely in right-wing circles. On Fox News, host Tucker Carlson actually devoted a segment to his theory that white supremacy is a hoax.

It’s hard to imagine that any solutions will be forthcoming from the Trump camp considering that he has been the chief spokesperson for the white nationalist movement and that most of their leaders – and followers – have endorsed him. They are his base and he has demonstrated his loyalty as well as his fear of offending them.

What’s more, Trump can hardly take a position against racism when he doesn’t even seem to understand what it is. In a response to a reporter’s question on Friday morning about political bias on Twitter, Trump awkwardly twisted his response into an attack on Hollywood. He began with a threat that “We’re gonna be very tough with them.” And it just got worse from there (video below).

“They’re treating conservatives very unfairly. Hollywood … is really terrible. You talk about racist … Hollywood is racist. What they’re doing with the kind of movies they’re putting out is actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country. We have now, in a little while, all of the heads of the biggest companies coming in and we’re gonna talk to them. They treat conservatives, Republicans totally different than they treat others. And they can’t do that.”

This is representative of the paranoia that Trump and his GOP crybabies commonly exhibit. Everyone is always out to get them: Hollywood, Twitter, Facebook, the press, etc. Any form of media that exercises their First Amendment rights is regarded as dangerous. And their solution is bullying and intimidation. Where Trump gets the idea that he can dictate what Hollywood can and can’t do is pretty obvious. He gets it from his heroes Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, whose unrestricted totalitarian control of their respective countries is something that Trump envies.

What makes Trump’s whining especially disturbing is that he’s flatly asserting that Hollywood is racist because they are allegedly biased against conservatives. What does that even mean? How would a bias against conservatives be racist? Is he suggesting that such a bias is a racial attack because conservatives are predominantly white and, therefore, any discrimination against them is due to anti-whitism?

Notice that Trump never bothered to provide any examples of the alleged racism he’s accusing Hollywood of engaging in. Perhaps he’s just upset that whenever there’s a racist character in a movie he is portrayed as a villain. Trump would probably like to see some balance where there are some racist heroes on the big screen. That would be consistent with his support for Confederate generals and the statues honoring them.

See? Trump is just a civil rights advocate who seeks equality for people who hate black and brown Americans. And he’s going to take measures to achieve that end. If it means forcing Hollywood to produce only certain types of movies, so be it. After all, If Vlad and Kim can do it, why not Trump?

[UPDATE:] Trump posted a couple of tweets on this subject:

The movie Trump is referring to (but refused to name) is “The Hunt,” a satire that Trump, and the knee-jerk conservative pundits and politicians railing against it, clearly doesn’t understand. The plot features a group of wealthy, entitled liberals who hunt right-wing hicks for sport. But it’s not glorifying the liberals. Rather, they are portrayed as evil nutcases and their right-wing “prey” as the victims. The movie’s hero is one of the hunted who fights back.

But Trump’s tweets are pitifully stupid for another reason. He resists the label of “elites” being assigned to the movie’s rich villains. That’s because he considers himself elite and wants to retain that “privilege” for himself and his ilk. He seems to be more aligned to the wealthy villains in this movie than the poor conservatives he panders to. Also, there is absolutely no racial component to any of this.

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

https://youtu.be/bBnCrSLGu8I

Serious Question: Is Donald Trump the Nastiest Phuckwit to Ever Stain the Presidency?

Posted by on August 8, 2019 at 9:06 am. 9 Comments :

On Wednesday Donald Trump defied all of of his critics – and coherent rationality – to visit the grief stricken cities of El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. These communities have already suffered unbearable tragedy and loss of life. The prospect of hosting a president who is best known for the obsessive self-interest of a malignant narcissist seems like an unfair additional burden. Particularly since it’s his own reckless ravings that contributed to the slaughter.

Donald Trump Red Face

Unfortunately, Trump lived up to his loathsome billing. On a day when all he had to do was plaster a concerned look on his mango-tinted mug, shake a few hands, and wish people well, Trump failed utterly to fulfill his temporary duty as Consoler-in-Chief. He turned every stop on his self-serving photo-op tour into either a wholly inappropriate political harangue or an exaltation of himself and his perception of the universal love that he thinks he deserves.

Trump apparently already forget his own words from a White House address to the nation two days prior when he said that “Now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion, and love.” And in the spirit of turning that sentiment into the disingenuous bunk that he surely believed it to be, Trump lashed out in barrage of bombastic and belligerent tweets that reeked of callous insensitivity and conceit. He began with a typically immature swipe at Joe Biden:


As an affirmation of his increasing senility, Trump’s nicknames for his opponents get more childish and unconnected to reality as he ages. Here he was reacting to what may be Biden’s most passionately delivered speech since he announced his candidacy. It was an accurately critical review of Trump’s fatally flawed character, but all Trump saw was an enemy being mean to him, so he went haywire. Shortly following that he began sputtering about some slight he imagined by elected officials in the cities he supposedly came to comfort:


Notice that his recollection of the visit was entirely limited to how beloved he thinks he is. From there he found it necessary to whine about not being sufficiently flattered. Of course, this was another affair that he warped into an unrecognizable mush in his mind. Neither Sherrod Brown nor Mayor Whaley ever said anything remotely similar to what Trump alleged. Now his paranoia has him inventing criticisms that never happened. Not to worry though. Trump still had plenty of wrath to dispense. And this time it was aimed at Fox News anchor Shepard Smith.


The line that Smith crossed was to forcefully condemn white supremacy and the culture of hate. That irked Trump because he is still trying to pretend that none of that exists, even while he is it’s national spokesman. This led to yet another assault on a local Texas Democrat, Joaquin Castro.


This is one of those times that Trump pounces on someone without ever telling anyone why. It’s just a blind scattershot of bile. In this case Trump was upset that Castro had posted a graphic on Twitter that identified some Trump’s donors. It’s telling that being pegged as a Trump supporter is so distressing to those supporters, and to Trump, that it requires this sort of counterpunch. They’re acting like they were outed for supporting Hitler (and that’s not too far off). As the day wore down, Trump found it necessary to again remind everyone how much he is adored:


To top off his day of vitriol and egomaniacal vanity, Trump posted a tweet that could only be regarded as his determination to kill the bipartisanship he recently pretended to advocate, along with an overt threat:


Calling the Democrats “disgusting” isn’t going to help him get support for his legislative agenda. But it isn’t any worse than when he retweeted a meme a few days ago that said that “Democrats are the true enemies of America.” What was that he said about bipartisanship a couple of days ago?

When Thursday morning rolled around it found Trump still in an ornery mood. But it also revealed a measure of distress and fear so intense that he actually admitted to watching MSNBC and CNN. Of course it was in the process of whining impotently about their coverage, but not citing a single thing that was wrong. It was just an eruption of pure mentally unbalanced malice toward the free press.

In addition to the above examples of Trump’s nauseating lack of character, diplomacy, and decency, he posted a trio of cheesy propaganda/campaign videos compiled from his visits with grieving families and victims. This is not only a corrupt misuse of taxpayer funds for political purposes, it is an abuse of the trust and decency that the suffering people of El Paso and Dayton deserve. They should not be exploited as extras in Trump’s self-promotional PR videos where he is seen smiling inappropriately throughout as they grieve.

It is quintessentially Trumpian to not be able to control his worst impulses for one damn day in order to allow some healing to occur. Rather, he made his own vileness the story of the day again. But why should any of that bother Trump, who is focused so intently on retaining his crown as the nastiest phuckwit to ever stain the U.S. presidency. But he needn’t worry. If it makes him feel any better, he’s got that prize locked up.

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

Donald Trump Jr Admits on Fox News that Daddy’s Rhetoric Can Incite ‘Fringe Crazies’ to Kill

Posted by on August 7, 2019 at 2:53 pm. 2 Comments :

Most objective people recognize that the language used by national leaders can profoundly influence their followers. That’s especially true of cult-like movements wherein the leader is regarded as infallible and claims to be an omnipotent figure who know more than anyone about everything and is the only one who can fix every problem. Sound familiar?

Donald Trump Jr

Nevertheless, Donald Trump’s apologists have been frantically trying to absolve him of any responsibility for the hostilities that erupt from his careless rhetoric and hate speech. His Republican colleagues, and the fluffers on Fox News, refuse to concede that ranting endlessly about immigrants and refugees as rapists and invaders will have any impact on Trump’s glassy-eyed disciples. That’s true even after the El Paso massacre where the shooter left writings that were indistinguishable from Trump’s public tirades.

Among the diversions used by Trump’s defenders is that the gunman in Dayton, Ohio, might have had some more liberal leanings. Even if that’s true, it’s a bizarre effort to draw a false equivalency between the two events. Unlike the El Paso situation, the Dayton shooter never even hinted that he was motivated by any political person or ideology.

This is where Donald Trump Jr comes in. He appeared on his father’s favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends (video below), to commiserate with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes about how the President is the real victim in all of this. The TV bitch session repeatedly portrayed Trump as a good-hearted, well-meaning uniter who only wants everybody to get along. But at the same time Junior went out of his way to malign Daddy’s critics. He focused particularly on Rep. Joaquin Castro, chairman of Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the brother of Julian, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president. Castro had posted a graphic on Twitter that listed some of the San Antonio area’s donors to Trump’s campaign. So Junior lashed out in huff saying…

“That list sort of screams like the Dayton, Ohio, shooter’s list. When a radical, left-wing politician, who’s polling at about zero percent, does this for either attention or a call to action, it’s pretty scary. I mean, that was the same thing that the Dayton, Ohio shooter did.”

The same thing? Not quite. The President uses abhorrent language that was intended to make weak Americans fear migrants as potential assailants who are out for blood. He characterizes them as subhumans assembling to either take over America or destroy it. The only thing Castro’s tweet did was identify people who support Trump. Apparently they aren’t especially proud of that decision. To the contrary, Junior and the Fox hosts agree that merely being associated with Trump’s reelection effort is so reprehensible that it makes them potential targets for murder. That says more about what they think of themselves than anything else.

Think about that. People in Texas – IN TEXAS – are worried that being a supporter of Trump will cause them harm. There don’t appear to be any Biden (or Sanders, or Warren, or Harris or…) supporters that have that fear. And to be fair, neither do most of Trump’s supporters. This expression of fear by Junior and Fox is an utterly dishonest charade intended to disparage Castro and some nebulous conspiracy of allegedly hostile lefties. But when Junior was asked whether the list of Trump donors might really cause someone to hurt any of them, he conceded that it wouldn’t, except under certain circumstances:

“Perhaps not to reasonable people, but the fringe crazies on both sides – and we saw that in the last week, right? You have fringe crazies on all sides. They see that.”

Wow! This is exactly what people have been saying makes Trump’s racist harangues so dangerous. The possibility that some of his Deplorables would act out violently, believing that they were fulfilling his wishes. And Junior is now admitting that unstable people could take the words of his father as an inspiration to commit unlawful and violent acts. It’s precisely the charge that has been leveled at Trump. And it’s the same charge that Junior, Fox News, and the rest of Wingnutia, have been been so fiercely denying. Now, despite the fact that it doesn’t fit their narrative, it is being forthrightly validated.

Junior went on to whine (just like Daddy) about the tribulations of politics. “Our people,” he said, “don’t weaponize the political system the same way. We don’t do the organized boycotts that the left does.” He obviously isn’t paying much attention to his father who has called for numerous boycotts. But then there isn’t really much reason to listen to Trump when he lies so frequently and brazenly, In fact, just this morning, when asked by reporters if he regrets any of the harsh and divisive rhetoric he uses, he said that “No, I think my rhetoric brings people together.” Umm…nevermind. There is simply no satisfactory response to that degree of delusion.

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

False Equivalencies: Trump Tries to Smear Others with His Rancid and Inflammatory Rhetoric

Posted by on August 6, 2019 at 1:09 pm. NO Comments :

In the wake of multiple episodes of horrific gun violence over the weekend. Donald Trump has scrambled to find, not solutions, but shelter from the well-deserved criticism crashing over him like a tsunami. His defenders in politics and punditry deployed in formation to praise their infallible Dear Leader and smear those who dared to question his radiant presence.

Donald Trump

Leading the charge was Cadet Bone Spurs himself. He posted a tweet that sought to deflect from his deliberately hostile language that incited the El Paso shooter. And he drew support from Fox News by quoting the Trump-fluffers on Fox and Friends who asked “Did George Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook?”

Well, no. President Bush never did that. But that’s only because Obama never did or said anything that could remotely be interpreted as incitement to commit any violent act. Trump, on the other hand, does that nearly every day. And this was typical of the charges that have been levied against anyone who sees a rational connection between Trump’s tirades and the murderers who take up his call to arms. Among the StormTrumpers attempting to shield him from censure is his Senior Alternative Fact Dispenser, Kellyanne Conway, who has had just about enough:

“I’m hopping mad this morning because I see very little, scant coverage of the fact that this Dayton shooter has been confirmed as having a Twitter feed that was supportive of Antifa, that was supportive of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders.”

First of all, the Twitter account in question has not yet been confirmed as belonging to the Dayton shooter. But more to the point, there has been significant of coverage of this Twitter feed by every major news outlet, including Trump’s nemesis, CNN.

However, the budding narrative that Sen. Warren, or any other Democrat, should bear any responsibility for the shooting is absurd. It’s proof that the right has exhausted any substantive arguments they might have had to defend Trump, so they’re resorting to this lunacy. Trump’s inspiration for the El Paso shooter is evident in his own words and deeds. He has called immigrants “criminals” and ‘rapists.” He leads his cult rallygoers in chants telling elected representatives – women of color who are American citizens – to “go back” to where they came from. He refers to refugees as “invaders.” And the writings of the shooter explicitly refer to Trump as an inspiration. But none of that is the case for the Dayton shooter and any connection to any liberal politician or media personnel.

The Republican rightists have also tried to compare murders in Chicago or Baltimore to the mass shootings in El Paso. That is another blatantly false equivalency that ignores reality. The Chicago area crimes are generally gang-related and inspired only by rivalry and/or greed. But the El Paso shootings are acts of terrorism with specific goals to invoke fear as a weapon to make social change. What’s more, local officials and law enforcement work vigorously to reduce the incidents of violence in their communities and to enact reforms when available. But the Republicans in Congress have spent decades obstructing any efforts to reduce the incidence of domestic terrorism by white nationalists.

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

These efforts by Trump and his media mouthpieces to introduce bogus comparisons between obviously disparate crimes are evidence of their callous disregard for the truth and for finding real solutions. It’s proof that Trump’s call for unity is an insincere charade intended only for media consumption. And until they can take responsibility for their words and actions, and renounce the inflammatory rhetoric that they have used so often, it will be impossible to take their pleas for bipartisanship seriously.