Art/Culture

Stephen Colbert Honored with Robert F. Kennedy ‘Ripple of Hope’ Award for Social Justice Efforts

Posted by on September 25, 2025 at 2:24 pm. 0 Comments :

The eternal vigilance required to maintain America’s promise as a haven for free speech and a free press has been staggered by recent assaults delivered by Donald Trump and his censorious MAGA movement. The Constitution’s First Amendment protections are being actively challenged by the Trump regime’s seething animosity toward any criticism or expression of an opinion that is less than unflinchingly adoring of him.

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Stephen Colbert & Trump Baby

Case in point, Trump has been attacking late-night talk show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel, who was recently taken off the air by ABC/Disney at the behest of Trump in order to grease the wheels for their pending corporate business deals. And Stephen Colbert has had his program canceled by CBS, which is also seeking government favors from the Trump regime. What’s more, Trump has banished several news organizations from covering him, and is trying to turn the White House press corps into an Association of Slobbering Trump-Fluffers.

SEE THIS: Trump Declares Himself King of the White House Press Corps, Will Now Decide Who Can Question Him

After the news of Colbert’s cancelation, which is effective at the end of the current season in May of 2026, Colbert won this year’s Emmy for Best Talk Series. That’s gotta gnaw at Trump who has never won an Emmy, or any other notable award. And now it was just announced that Colbert is being honored with the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy “Ripple of Hope” Award. According to their website…

“The Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award honors exemplary leaders across government, business, advocacy, and entertainment who have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to social change and worked to protect and advance equity, justice, and human rights. […] This year’s laureates—Martin Cabrera, Jr., Stephen Colbert, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Stefano Lucchini, and Darren Walker—will be honored at the annual Ripple of Hope Gala on December 9 in New York City.”

This is just another thing that will drive Trump crazy(er). Not only is Colbert being recognized for his generous contributions to social justice, the honor is the name of the father of the utterly unqualified nutcase that Trump put in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

While Trump shamelessly begs for such honors for himself, that he doesn’t deserve, Colbert gets them unsolicited simply because he’s a good human being. Something Trump has never bothered to try or cared about. The announcement of the award for Colbert in USA Today gave some more details…

“Fresh off an Emmy win earlier this month, late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert is now being awarded for his social justice efforts.

“The nonprofit Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights on Sept. 24 named the 61-year-old comedian as one of the organization’s 2025 Ripple of Hope Award laureates. In its announcement, the center lauded ‘The Late Show’ host as ‘one of the most influential satirists of his generation,’ employing his signature wit ‘to challenge injustice.’

“‘Humor can be a catalyst for change. Stephen Colbert stands as a shining example of how speaking truth to power, boldly, wisely, and with heart, can ignite change and send ripples of hope far beyond the stage,’ RFK Human Rights President Kerry Kennedy said in the announcement.”

There is a a bittersweet irony in Colbert receiving this honor. In recent weeks another Kennedy, RFK Jr, has been besmirching the family name as a fully indoctrinated member of the Cult of Trump. And Trump has taken over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., defiling its reputation and severely hampering its ability to function.

Trump suffers from an acute case of malignant narcissism. So it’s questionable if he even knows that he is despised by millions. But he surely knows that he has not received any recognition from reputable honors societies. Meanwhile, Colbert has three Peabody Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, and the third highest honor within the Department of the Army, the Outstanding Civilian Service Award.

No matter how many fake awards that Trump creates, he will never match the legitimate honors that Colbert has received on his merit. And that’s likely one of the reasons Trump is so determined to bring Colbert down. It aint gonna work.

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Egomaniacal Trump Hires Himself to Host (and Disgrace) the Kennedy Center Honors

Posted by on August 13, 2025 at 11:22 am. 1 Comments :

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is an institution that was built to honor extraordinarily talented members of the entertainment industry. For half a century it has lived up to its reputation for excellence and pride in the creative pursuits that have defined American culture.

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Donald Trump

For all of that time the Kennedy Center has avoided politics and the taint of partisanship. Until now. In February, just two weeks after his inauguration, Donald Trump announced that he was terminating much of the Center’s board and appointing “an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” Because as president he didn’t have anything else to do.

SEE THIS: Trump is Busy Doing the People’s Work: Pushing for Plastic Straws and Firing Journalists?

Now Trump is expanding his role at the Center by hiring himself to host the annual Kennedy Center Honors. It is a another job that any competent and rational president would never consider taking. But Trump’s massive yet fragile ego drives him to steal the spotlight at every opportunity. And since the ceremony is telecast on television, Trump could not contain himself.

In his announcement Trump pretended to have been recruited for the hosting duties against his will. Does anyone believe that? What he told the press was a jumble of ego stroking incoherence and fictional accounts of his having been persuaded to host. He said that…

“I’m delighted to be here as we officially announce the incredibly talented artists who will be celebrated later this year at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors. It’s gonna be a big evening.

“I’ve been asked to host. I said ‘I’m the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?’ ‘Sir, you will get much higher ratings.’ I said ‘I don’t care. I’m president of the United States. I won’t do it.’ They said ‘Please?’ And then Susie Wiles said to me ‘Sir, why can’t you host?’ And I said ‘Okay Susie. I’ll do it.’

“That’s the power she’s got. Do you believe what I have to do? And I didn’t want to do it. They’re gonna say ‘He insisted.’ I did not insist. But I think it will be quite successful actually.”

Trump announces he's hosting the Kennedy Center Honors

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-13T15:39:27.933Z

Yeah. that all happened just like he said. The guy who disbanded the Center’s board and made himself chairman had to be convinced to be the host. And that’s not all. He had an even bigger role in the selection process. The honorees this year are George Strait, Michael Crawford, Gloria Gaynor, Kiss and Sylvester Stallone. And while there can be plausible arguments for these individuals, they were not selected for merit. When Trump was asked what percentage of the selection process he was involved in. He replied…

“I would say that I was about 98% involved. They all went through me. They came over Rick [Grennel] and Sergio [Gor] and everybody. I turned dowm plenty. They were too ‘woke.’ I had a couple of ‘wokesters.’

Trump says that all of the choices for Kennedy honorees "came through me" and adds that he turned down "some wokesters"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-13T16:16:51.144Z

For the record, in past years the selections were made by previous honorees and others in the entertainment field. But this year the decisions were up to the guy who hosted a reality TV game show and had a one-line cameo in “Home Alone 2.” So he chose a country singer, the star of his favorite Broadway musical, and a rock band whose lead singer is a longtime supporter. And by his own admission, Trump rejected people with whom he has political differences.

Remember, Trump has a hostile opinion of some of the most popular entertainers in the world, He famously declared that “I hate Taylor Swift.” He insulted Bruce Springsteen as “a dried up old prune.” He threatened to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship. He called Charlamagne Tha God “a racist sleazebag.” And he has relentlessly attacked Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon as having “no talent.” Meanwhile his own popularity is at record lows.

It’s a sad for the Kennedy Center. But an even sadder day for America as the Malignant-Narcissist-in-Chief once again places himself at the head of the line for recognition, even diverting attention from the honorees. And that obsession with diversion is also applicable to Trump’s efforts to deflect from his unsavory relationships with child sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Unfortunately, we have not yet found an effective diversion from Trump.

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What’s Keeping Snowflake Trump Awake at Night? Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Oprah, Oh My!

Posted by on May 19, 2025 at 9:31 pm. 0 Comments :

Poor crybaby Donald Trump is spending sleepless nights massaging his wounded ego that can’t handle the fact that he is unloved by America’s most admired and talented celebrities. He is suffering terribly with having to console himself with losers like Kid Rock and Roseanne Barr. What a pity.

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Donald Trump, Snowflakes

In the deepest recesses of his lonely nights, Trump is still sobbing into his MyPillow over the results of the 2024 election that he waged against Kamala Harris. Even though he won (by a historically small margin), he is inconsolable that he failed to get every vote, or to avoid any criticism. He is still whining over contrived complaints that no one buys except his cult devotees.

SEE THIS: 60 Minutes Interview of Kamala Harris that Drove Trump to Sue CBS is Nominated for an Emmy

So early on Monday morning, Trump was awake and posting pathetic comments on his failing Twitter rip off, Truth Social. At 1:34 AM Trump lashed out at some of the beloved Americans that had the audacity to reject him and endorse Kamala Harris. He bleated that…

“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO???”

We now interrupt this yowling to state for the record that none of what Trump is grousing about is true. PolitiFact and others researched these baseless allegations last October when Trump first raised them about Beyoncé and “found no credible reporting that Beyoncé was paid for her endorsement or comments at the rally.”

Trump has offered no new evidence of any payments since then for Beyoncé, or Springsteen, or Oprah, or Bono. The only thing he’s offered is his relentless sniveling. And on the basis of that he is threatening to have Harris and/or the celebrities who supported her, investigated for some unspecified crime…

“I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,’ this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system.”

Once again, Trump is trafficking in imaginary improprieties. Harris didn’t pay for endorsements or for entertainment. She did pay for certain production costs that the law stipulates must be paid for. Those payments went to the contractors who did the production work, not the artists. But Trump still wasn’t satisfied. At 9:11 AM the same morning he posted another tantrum saying that…

“According to news reports, Beyoncé was paid $11,000,000 to walk onto a stage, quickly ENDORSE KAMALA, and walk off to loud booing for never having performed, NOT EVEN ONE SONG! Remember, the Democrats and Kamala illegally paid her millions of Dollars for doing nothing other than giving Kamala a full throated ENDORSEMENT. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! IT IS AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, OPRAH, BONO AND, PERHAPS, MANY OTHERS, HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!!”

Naturally, Trump didn’t bother to post links to any of the alleged “news reports” that he said reported that “Beyoncé was paid $11,000,000.” But in his defense, he had a good reason for not posting those links. They don’t exist. There is likewise no video of anyone booing Beyoncé, so he didn’t post that either. But he did repeat his preposterous charge that something Harris did was “AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL!”

Trump has always been fond of accusing others of violating the law. It’s called projection. He is the only president who has earned 34 felony convictions. And he is the candidate who had billionaires like Elon Musk contributing millions of dollars to his campaign. And he is the one who launched a meme coin that could serve as a virtual depository for untraceable bribes from conflicted persons, including foreign operatives.

Unfortunately, Trump is also the one who yells the loudest to deflect from the criminal activities that he regularly engages in. And that deflection also draws attention away from his abhorrent policies, such as deporting migrants to foreign gulags without due process, shutting down critical government agencies that save lives in the U.S. and internationally, cutting programs that Americans rely on like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and trashing the Constitution’s protections for the free press.

But at least he’s on top of the scandalous affairs of which pop stars are backing which politicians. Someone else will take of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the coming recession. Trump has his tiny hands full with fantasies about Springsteen and Beyoncé.

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Tucker Carlson Exposes His Perverse Obsession with Hillary Clinton and Women’s Sexuality

Posted by on September 16, 2022 at 2:03 pm. 1 Comments :

The list of things that Fox News gasbag Tucker Carlson hates is long and disturbingly sociopathic. It includes immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ, Democrats, and with aberrant emphasis, women. He is, after all, the network’s senior televangelist for testosterone doping and testicle tanning.

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Fox News, Tucker Carlson, M&M

When Carlson isn’t accusing Democrats and immigrants of plotting a “white replacement” campaign to overturn America’s Christo-Caucasian supremacy, or sucking up to fascists like Viktor Orbán (and Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump), he’s whimpering about the loss of masculinity among the nation’s male folk.

RELATED: Macho Poser Tucker Carlson’s Journey from ‘Dancing With the Stars’ to ‘The End of Men’

On Thursday night’s episode of Carlson’s “60 Minute Hate Fest,” he unleashed a particularly nauseating harangue aimed at Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea (video below). He began his perverse prattle by complaining falsely that Hillary Clinton was “talking about the female pudenda.” He elaborated fantasizing that…

“Hillary Clinton likes to talk about that. We’re not gonna speculate as to why. And so she does. And she did it recently in her brand new TV show called “Gutsy” [Carlson laughs maniacally]. It’s an amazing cliché fest. And she immediately zeroes in on the one thing you really don’t want to hear too much about. Which is some rap queen singing about her genitals. But here’s Hillary Clinton complimenting a rap queen for singing about her genitals. It’s one of the creepiest things ever recorded.”

Gutsy is TV program produced by the Clintons and based on their book of the same name. It features their conversations with inspirational women who had “the courage to stand up to the status quo.” Naturally Carlson was offended. He played a brief video clip of Hillary and Chelsea talking with rapper, Megan Thee Stallion…

Hillary: Chelsea follows rap music ever since she was a little girl. But I kind of came to awareness of you with Cardi B “WAP.”
Megan: Men, they seem so confident in what they’re saying. And they don’t have no problem talking about their sexuality and how they’re gonna have sex with you. So I was like, I can do that. And it’s gonna sound fire coming from a woman.
Chelsea: It’s great to see women be so fierce.

So according to Carlson, that’s “one of the creepiest things ever recorded.” To most other rational, intelligent people it’s an insightful observation about sexuality in popular culture. Carlson reacts to Chelsea’s appreciation of female fierceness by sarcastically grumbling…

“Yeah, it’s great. The concern here, of course, is that Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are complimenting that woman for talking in public about her sexuality. There’s a very short hop from that to Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton talking about their sexuality. And America, frankly, can’t handle that. We’re not strong enough right now.”

To be clear, it’s just Carlson – and his feeble viewers – who can’t handle it. Apparently in Carlson’s deviant mind it is short hop from a successful and respected rapper talking about the influences in her music, to the sexuality of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. That says so much more about Carlson’s carnal depravity than it does about anything related to the Clintons. But then, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. He recently confessed his sexual fixation on cartoon candy characters. So it’s not exactly a revelation that he’s a twisted, lecherous, perv with a Clinton fetish.

RELATED: OH NO! Tucker Carlson is Turned Off By ‘Less Sexy,’ ‘Unappealing’ Cartoon M&Ms

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Attends the Met Gala in a Dress that Really Makes a Statement

Posted by on September 13, 2021 at 5:49 pm. 6 Comments :

It’s that time of year again. It’s time for the “Met Gala,” an annual charity event held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The event is known for inspiring attendees to adorn themselves in unique, and often bizarre, costumes that frequently create a stir on the red carpet.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Tax the Rich

According to Wikipedia…

“The Met Gala, formally called the Costume Institute Gala or the Costume Institute Benefit and also known as the Met Ball, is an annual fundraising gala for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City. It marks the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibit.”

RELATED: AOC and Democrats Rush Aid to Texas, Fox News Calls it ‘Capitalizing Off Storm Devastation’

This year the gala was graced with the presence of the representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And she arrived in an outfit that is as much a political statement as it is a fashion statement: Tax the Rich!

This should give Fox News something to talk about for the rest of the month, at least.

RELATED: Big Baby Trump Says AOC has ‘the Mind of a Child’

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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WTF? Nikki Haley Slams the Grammys Because She ‘Loves Music Without the Politics’

Posted by on January 28, 2018 at 9:41 pm. 5 Comments :

The 60th Annual Grammy Awards show aired Sunday night with the customary pomp and circumstance that accompanies these galas. New stars and legends took the stage to celebrate the music industry’s creative achievements of the last year. It will certainly be viewed by millions of fans for whom music is as necessary as air.

Hillary Clinton

One viewer out there, however, is no longer a fan. Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was not pleased by a humorous sketch (video below) that featured a number of big stars reading from Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury. The book caused a stir by revealing some of the inside dirt at Donald Trump’s White House. That political comedy was too much for Haley who tweeted:

Is she friggin’ kidding? Music and politics are hardly a new combination. In fact, the social condition has been the subject of music compositions for centuries. And particularly with regard to contemporary music, political themes have inspired some of the greatest music and artists of all time. If Haley were to have her way, the artists whose music was fiercely political that she would do away with would include:

  • Rage Against the Machine
  • Eminem
  • The Clash
  • James Brown
  • U2
  • Crosby, Stills & Nash
  • Neil Young
  • Public Enemy
  • Dead Kennedys
  • Green Day
  • Frank Zappa
  • Marvin Gaye
  • Bruce Springsteen
  • The Beatles
  • Bob Marley
  • The Sex Pistols
  • Bob Dylan
  • Kendrick Lamar

And that’s not nearly a complete list. Haley’s ignorance of the importance of expressing real life issues in the musical arts is really just her own aversion to free thought and creativity. She never complained when her idiot boss, Donald Trump, attacked Jay-Z, John Legend, Cher, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, or the cast of Hamilton.

But read a few lines from a book critical of Trump for a comedy sketch and Haley is outraged. And another thing that makes her whining absurd is that the bit didn’t have any music in it. So how could any music have been “ruined” by this brief segment? The truth is that Trump’s night was ruined by some some artists making fun of him, which he richly deserves. And Haley had to defend her crybaby master’s ego. It’s just plain pathetic, but so very typical.

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

Trump Asked to Borrow a Van Gogh From the Guggenheim, They Offered a Gold Toilet Instead

Posted by on January 25, 2018 at 1:35 pm. 3 Comments :

Once again it is the art world that contributes the most poignant insights into human culture and condition. The state of the American and world economy is teetering on the brink of collapse due to the inequality and massive differential in wealth. The gap between the rich and the poor is at a historically wide level. It was recently reported that the richest one percent in the world possess eighty-two percent of the world’s wealth.

Donald Trump Toilet

Emblematic of that disparity, the United States elected an alleged billionaire to its highest office. Donald Trump represents the worst of this elitist class by his gross worship of materialism and his pandering to his upper crusty friends of the penthouse society. He exudes a sense of entitlement and undeserved reverence, despite his failure to display any knowledge or experience that would warrant even a modicum of respect.

The Washington Post is now reporting that Donald and Melania Trump asked the Guggenheim Museum in New York to loan them a Van Gogh painting for their private residence in the White House. It reeks of the selfishness you’d expect from the Trump family that they would want to remove such a treasure from public view for their exclusive pleasure. But fortunately, the Guggenheim declined the loan and offered something else far more appropriate: An 18K gold toilet. According to WaPo, the museum said that…

“We are sorry not to be able to accommodate your original request, but remain hopeful that this special offer may be of interest.”

This unique extravagance is the work of Maurizio Cattelan, and is a fully functioning bathroom appliance that was installed at the Guggenheim for nearly a year before the exhibit closed last September. The museum described it as a “sculptural performance of interactive art.” Their website further states that:

“The gold toilet – a cipher for the excesses of affluence – was available for all to use in the privacy of one of the Guggenheim’s single-stall, gender-neutral bathrooms. More than one hundred thousand people waited patiently in line for the opportunity to commune with art and with nature.”

Trump’s notorious opulence has been on display in his nauseatingly gold-plated Manhattan apartment. And now, if he accepts this offer, he can enjoy the same gauche tastelessness in his White House quarters. Plus, it will give him a place of luxury to pound out his morning tweets (a golden Tweet Seat), which have pretty much the same value and stench of whatever else he pounds out.

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

Fox News Whines Pitifully: Isn’t Country Music Supposed To Be Conservative?

Posted by on November 9, 2017 at 12:39 pm. 2 Comments :

Wednesday night saw the return of The annual Country Music Awards. It was a star-studded affair that featured the best and brightest of the genre. The program was a huge success in the ratings, topping the primetime lineup for the evening and hitting a three year high.

Fox News CMA

One of the highlights of the program was a duet between Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. Their rendition of “Before He Tweets” was a lighthearted mockery of Donald Trump and his fetish with Twitter (video below).

So guess what? The “Curvy Couch” potatoes at Fox and Friends were bitterly distraught at the prospect of having lost country music to the evil liberals and anti-Trump media. They lamented over the unspeakable act of disrespectfully taunting their Dear Leader with a comical farce. The whine-fest began with a plaintive moan from co-host Steve Doocy:

“Remember the olden days when football wasn’t political, and so many things weren’t political? Well now, as it turns out, the CMAs have gotten very political.”

Brian Kilmeade made the painful observation that maybe “new country is a lot less conservative than old country.” And Ainsley Earhardt wondered “Where’s Dolly? Where’s Garth Brooks? They don’t get political.” Then she added wistfully “Really? It’s hitting country music now? Isn’t country music supposed to be conservative?”

These pop culture authorities apparently think that musical genres have a God-given political affiliation. Any divergence from that is sacrilege. And just the thought of it sends them into nostalgic yearnings for a bygone era that only existed in their imaginations. Don’t these new country heathens know that right-wingers own their musical biases? Hell, if they’re gonna act like liberals they should just go to MTV and play the Devil’s rock music.

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/Xu5K1s6zJsA

George Clooney Bursts the ‘Hollywood Elite’ Bubble BS and Trump’s ‘Gold Toilet’ Hypocrisy

Posted by on September 28, 2017 at 3:59 pm. 2 Comments :

The Daily Beast just published an extensive interview of George Clooney. While the article is part of the rollout for his new film “Suburbicon,” it covered a variety of other subjects. Not surprisingly, many of them were about politics and politicians.

George Clooney

Clooney was asked about the 2016 presidential campaign and the flaws in Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. He talked about race and the overt bigotry embedded in Donald Trump’s campaign. The incident in Charlottesville, Virginia, came up, along with the Confederate flag controversy. When asked whether Trump was emboldening white nationalists, Clooney responded without mincing words:

“Well, think about it this way: if I was President of the United States and David Duke is praising me and the white nationalists were talking about how I was on their side, the first thing I would do is I would come out and say, ‘Fuck these guys. Anyone who believes this is not in my camp, I don’t believe it, and I completely reject it.’ Don’t play coy and claim that you don’t remember who David Duke is.”

Clooney went on to talk about political villains of the present (Steve Bannon) and the past (Richard Nixon). And he addressed the failings of the press that “abdicated their duty in the run-up to the election,” by catering to Trump’s media manipulation and sensationalism. But Clooney really hit his stride when the subject turned to the right’s demonization of so-called Hollywood elites. He shot down the idiotic talking point and lambasted the hypocrites who employ it. And he set his sights on one “coastal elitist” in particular:

“Here’s the thing: I grew up in Kentucky. I sold insurance door-to-door. I sold ladies’ shoes. I worked at an all-night liquor store. I would buy suits that were too big and too long and cut the bottom of the pants off to make ties so I’d have a tie to go on job interviews. I grew up understanding what it was like to not have health insurance for eight years.”

“So this idea that I’m somehow the “Hollywood elite” and this guy who takes a shit in a gold toilet is somehow the man of the people is laughable.”

But Clooney wasn’t finished. He had a few more things to say on the subject and a personal message for Trump:

“People in Hollywood, for the most part, are people from the Midwest who moved to Hollywood to have a career. So this idea of ‘coastal elites’ living in a bubble is ridiculous. Who lives in a bigger bubble? He [Trump] lives in a gold tower and has twelve people in his company. He doesn’t run a corporation of hundreds of thousands of people he employs and takes care of. He ran a company of twelve people!”

“When you direct a film you have seven different unions all wanting different things, you have to find consensus with all of them, and you have to get them moving in the same direction. He’s never had to do any of that kind of stuff. I just look at it and I laugh when I see him say ‘Hollywood elite.’ Hollywood elite? I don’t have a star on Hollywood Boulevard, Donald Trump has a star on Hollywood Boulevard! Fuck you!”

I have absolutely nothing to add to that.

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

Fox News Wants You to Believe That Trump-Bashing Killed the Emmys – It Didn’t

Posted by on September 18, 2017 at 3:34 pm. 1 Comments :

The preliminary Nielsen ratings for the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast are in and they aren’t particularly good. The program drew about 11.2 million viewers, which is down slightly from last year’s show. But leave it to Fox News to turn this minor slippage into a political catastrophe caused by the relentless liberalism of Hollywood elites.

Emmys Stephen Colbert

An op-ed on the Fox News website trumpeted the ratings results with a speculative headline asking “Emmys ratings crater; Trump-bashing to blame?” The argument presented by Fox’s Brian Flood was that criticism of Donald Trump sunk the broadcast to new lows. He writes that:

“It looks like the 69th annual Emmy Awards are heading into sub-basement territory in terms of ratings after host Stephen Colbert spent much of Sunday’s event attacking President Trump. It turns out American viewers may not have been as into Trump bashing as Hollywood would like them to be.”

For the record, host Stephen Colbert didn’t spend much of the night attacking Trump. In all he spent less than three minutes out of a three hour program. But the real absurdity of this analysis is that it proposes something that’s impossible. Fox News thinks that viewers chose not to watch the program based on their clairvoyant observation of the Trump-bashing before it even began. Obviously, without such ESP skills they would not have known not to tune in.

In fact, the Emmy broadcast has been scoring lower numbers for several years. Trump wasn’t president when the ratings began a falling trend. The reasons knowledgeable people attribute to the decline are that television doesn’t have the popular appeal of the Oscars and the Grammys. What’s more, many of the winning programs are now airing on services like Netflix and Hulu that have fewer viewers than broadcast TV. Consequently, the stars are not as familiar or compelling. And airing against Sunday Night Football didn’t help either.

That didn’t stop Fox News from setting up their biased perspective and interviewing political partisans to support it. Flood first sought the opinion of Dan Gainor of the ultra-conservative Media Research Center. Predictably, Gainor slammed the event as “a Hollywood bubble show.” He further castigated television’s creative community as out-of-touch with America and unqualified to express an opinion. That’s a point of view that disappears from right-wingers when the TV personality is one of theirs. Case in point: Donald Trump (or Ronald Reagan, Ted Nugent, Clint Eastwood, Scott Baio, etc.).

The argument that Americans might have tuned out the Emmys because they objected to jokes about Trump also fails logically. Trump is currently sitting on record low ratings himself. And that’s from the American people, not a select groups of show business professionals. With his approval numbers wallowing in the mid-thirties, it’s unlikely that the program lost many viewers who were loyal to Trump. If anything, the fact that most Americans are repulsed and embarrassed by him might have drawn in a bigger audience. There is substantial appetite in the country for the Trump-bashing that Fox News is lamenting. An example of that is the fact that Colbert has become the top rated late night talk show host largely due to his nightly mockery of the President.

The program did feature some sharp jabs at Trump’s expense. Veep’s Julia Louis Dreyfus noted that her show had considered an impeachment plot line, but abandoned it because they were worried that “someone else” might beat them to it. Alec Baldwin, who’s portrayal of Trump on Saturday Night Live won him an Emmy, consoled Trump by giving him partial credit for an award he never won himself. But the most cutting comedy came from the reunited stars of 9-to-5 who said:

Jane Fonda: Back in 1980 in that movie, we refused to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.
Lily Tomlin: And in 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.

Those are the sort of comments that Fox News and their conservative disciples regard as intolerable attacks against their White House Messiah. And for some reason they get away with calling liberals “snowflakes” for being too sensitive. Yet it doesn’t bother them when Trump himself posts tweets that show him assaulting Hillary Clinton. Apparently joking about physically attacking women is perfectly acceptable to these Deplorables. But Fox News finds it necessary to write op-eds that lie about the Emmys just because they can’t handle a few harmless jokes.

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