Month: June 2016

Donald Trump Eavesdropped On Staff And Guests At His Florida Resort, Sources Say

Posted by on June 30, 2016 at 3:28 pm. 3 Comments :

The multitude of ethical lapses exposed during Donald Trump’s campaign for president could fill the Mariana Trench. From his fraudulent Trump University, to his charity scams, to his bankruptcies, to his pathological lying, Donald Trump has repeatedly proven that he has little use for the morality that guides most decent people, much less what would be required of a national leader.

Donald Trump

Now Buzzfeed is reporting that Trump may have engaged in a deplorable act of privacy invasion at his exclusive Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. The report details the accounts of former Mar-A-Lago employees who witnessed Trump listening in on the phone calls of his staff and guests:

“At Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort he runs as a club for paying guests and celebrities, Donald Trump had a telephone console installed in his bedroom that acted like a switchboard, connecting to every phone extension on the estate, according to six former workers. Several of them said he used that console to eavesdrop on calls involving staff.”

Four of the former staffers who revealed Trump’s bedroom phone follies spoke to Buzzfeed on the condition of anonymity due to their having signed non-disclosure agreements. Trump is famously obsessed with binding his associates with such gag orders. His recently fired campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was similarly restrained from commenting about Trump (which, for some inexplicable reason, didn’t stop CNN from hiring him as a commentator). One source said he had “direct knowledge that Trump ‘could pick up the phone in the bedroom and listen to any conversation that was going on.'”

Not surprisingly, Trump’s spokesperson, Hope Hicks, denied that he had ever eavesdropped on anyone saying simply that “This is totally and completely untrue.” Another Trump supporter who rejected these charges was his former butler, Anthony Senecal, who may be better known for a Facebook posting calling for President Obama to be shot, and adding that he would personally participate in a hanging.

For anyone who may be reluctant to accept that Trump would behave this atrociously, it should be noted that this isn’t the first time that Trump has been suspected of tapping the phones of his staff. Just last month, following the dismissal of his national political director, the New York Times reported that…

“A sense of paranoia is growing among his campaign staff members, including some who have told associates they believe that their Trump Tower offices in New York may be bugged, according to three people briefed on the conversations.”

There appears to be a disturbing pattern forming. Trump is displaying the combination of authoritarianism and paranoia that was emblematic of the Richard Nixon White House. Nixon, of course, was notorious for recording his conversations with White House staff and guests, a breach of ethics that eventually led to his downfall. And if past is prologue, this an ominous portent of the future should Trump manage to emerge victorious in November.

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

Donald Trump’s Sick Response To Terrorist Attacks: Be More Like Terrorists

Posted by on June 29, 2016 at 1:51 pm. 2 Comments :

The tragedy of another terrorist attack on innocent people is once again stirring fear and sympathy as the world struggles to find a solution to this seemingly intransigent problem. And despite the fact that the tactics of these murderous swine proves that they are desperate and losing, the consequences are no less painful.

Donald Trump

The responses to terrorist attacks are almost always insufficient. There is little one can say to comfort the victims and their families for their suffering and loss. There is, however, one thing that these events do not need, and that is more bellicose demagoguery of the sort that Donald Trump is wont to engage in. His post-Istanbul comments (video below) were typical of his impulse for impetuous violence and his embrace of ignorance. It’s a study in how a cranky child might react to not getting its way. But when seen in an adult who aspires to lead a great nation and a massive army it is downright frightening. Trump began his tantrum with an appeal to the infantile nature of his base saying…

“Folks, there’s something going on that’s really, really bad. Alright? It’s baaaad. And we better get smart, and we better get tough. Or we’re not gonna have much of a country left, OK? It’s bad.”

Apparently the key to Trump’s analysis is that terrorism is “bad.” What a revelation. If he had more time he might have added “icky” and lambasted the terrorists as “poopyheads.” It’s hard to know whether Trump was speaking down to the level of his followers or if this is just the limits of his intellectual capacity. In any case, it offers nothing useful to the discourse. But he was just getting started. He continued…

“Their laws say you can do anything you want and the more vicious you are the better.”

First of all, who is the “they” to which he is referring? That’s important in order to confirm the status of their laws. To my knowledge there is no legal entity that grants the right to “anything you want,” nor grants unrestricted viciousness. Certainly terrorists have shown that they are willing to be vicious, but rhetoric like this serve no purpose and appeals only to blind emotion. Trump proceeded by saying that…

“So we can’t do waterboarding which is, it’s not the nicest thing but it’s peanuts compared to many alternatives. So we can’t do waterboarding but they can do chopping off heads, drowning people in steel cages. They can do whatever they wanna do.”

The jealousy in Trump’s voice is palpable. Clearly he is miffed that the terrorists can act more heinously than he can. It’s not fair. He is so upset that he veers off into a fantastical imaginary scenario involving a terrorist family supper:

“And you know they eat dinner like us. Can you imagine them sitting around the table, or wherever they’re eating their dinner, talking about ‘the Americans don’t do waterboarding and yet we chop of heads.’ They probably think we’re weak, we’re stupid, we don’t know what we’re doing, we have no leadership. You have to fight fire with fire.”

I’m sure that’s exactly what terrorists discuss while dining. What could be more appetizing than a discussion of decapitation with the kids while enjoying a tasty siniyah kebab?

Setting aside the cognitive breakdown of Trump’s storytelling, he does actually get to the heart of his philosophy at the end: fight fire with fire. He believes that the United States should adopt the tactics of the terrorists. He is literally calling for Americans to decapitate our enemies or burn them alive because that’s just so American.

It is that brand of vengeful mindlessness that really defines Trump’s idiocy. Not only would it be a violation of our principles, it would be against international law. What’s more, it would validate the tactics of those we are fighting. It would give them permission to continue, and even escalate, their brutality while simultaneously indicting us for crimes against humanity.

Finally, Trump’s rash and irrational proposals would remove any moral authority we have in this struggle and bring into question whether what we are fighting for is any better. Had Trump been around during World War II he would have advocated gassing the Japanese who were being unjustly held in concentration camps. That isn’t the legacy that America hopes to project. It is an abhorrent policy of hatred and vengeance that does nothing to advance our goals. It is the core of the Trump Doctrine and must be rejected in huge numbers. In fact, recent polling indicates that it is already being rejected:

“Clinton leads Trump 50% to 39% on who would best handle terrorism […] Those surveyed also believe presumptive Democratic presidential nominee showed better temperament than her Republican counterpart in response to the attack, 59% to 25%, respectively. Clinton is also favored in confidence that she can handle a similar attack as president compared with Trump (53% to 34%) and that she has better proposals for preventing future attacks (44% to 35%).”

That’s a hopeful sign that the American people are not falling for Trump’s vile campaign of hate. But we must do more than hope that this endures until November. We must unite and work our asses off to avoid the nightmare of a Trump presidency.

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

With Nothing To Pin On Hillary Clinton, Fox News Furiously Spins The Benghazi Panel’s Pointless Report

Posted by on June 28, 2016 at 8:00 pm. 1 Comments :

After two years and seven million dollars, the Republican Committee on Politicizing Benghazi finally issued a report on their findings. And, to no one’s surprise, the result of this lengthy and expensive charade reveals absolutely nothing of significance that wasn’t already known or reported by one of the seven other congressional committees that wasted taxpayer dollars on this transparently political witch hunt.

Almost immediately following the release of committee’s report Fox News shifted into offense in an effort to hurl mud at Clinton. The absence of anything substantive to report didn’t deter them from their mission. As an indication of how the media reported this news event, take a look at the on-screen graphics of the three cable news networks:

Fox News

Both CNN and MSNBC correctly reported that committee failed to deliver on their promises of criminality by Clinton. Fox News, on the other hand, tweaked their reporting to refer to the GOP’s press conference rather than the contents of the actual report. So their graphics faulted the Obama administration because that’s what the Republicans at the press conference were predisposed to discuss. Never mind that their own committee’s report did not support their criticisms. Even the Fox News crawl, during this segment, noted that “Clinton never personally denied requests for added security.”

Fox News spent much of the day slandering Clinton with innuendos that had nothing to do with the report. On Outnumbered Jedediah Bila said that “It doesn’t bother her that people died.” Fox’s national security analyst, K.T. McFarland, said that Clinton has “blood on your hands.” Dana Perino of The Five inexplicably called for yet another Benghazi investigation. Notice that none of these comments addressed any of the report’s actual findings, preferring instead to fling insults and malicious opinions.

Republicans had long ago exposed themselves as the perpetrators of a partisan assault on Hillary Clinton in advance of her campaign for the presidency. Their Speaker-in-Waiting, Keven McCarthy, bragged about his anti-Clinton plot to Sean Hannity saying that “Everybody thought that Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today?” Well, since you asked, Clinton’s numbers today put her twelve points ahead of Donald Trump, and McCarthy was bumped from his speakership path and replaced by Paul Ryan.

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

The Benghazi investigation lasted longer than any previous congressional investigation, including the JFK assassination, the Nixon Watergate affair, and 9/11. It’s budget exceeded that of the House Intelligence Committee and the Veterans Committee combined. Yet it found not a single bit of evidence of any wrongdoing by Clinton or the Obama administration. So Fox News chose to ignore the report’s conclusions and instead engage in ad hominem smear tactics. That is, after all, what they were created to do.

Donald Trump Is Winning In Every Poll – In His Delusional Mind, That Is

Posted by on June 27, 2016 at 3:02 pm. 3 Comments :

In 2012 there was a mini-movement by Republicans to “unskew” all of the polls that were showing Mitt Romney losing to President Obama. They were convinced that the vast left-wing conspiracy in the media was distorting survey results that would otherwise have shown Romney in the lead. It was an act of self-deception that resulted in their being shocked when Obama actually won reelection just like the polls predicted.

Trumpzilla

The same thing is happening in 2016 as Donald Trump and his PR department (aka Fox News) cherry-pick polls that elevate his standings and ignores, or baselessly slams, those that show him where he actually stands – badly trailing Hillary Clinton. So reading polls is just one more thing at which Donald Trump sucks. As an example of this cognitive lapse take a look at what Trump said about a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll that has him behind Clinton by twelve points: “The @ABC poll sample is heavy on Democrats. Very dishonest – why would they do that? Other polls good!”

That’s funny. Trump had no problem last month with the very same poll when it showed him leading by two points. Back then he retweeted a link heralding the results without any mention of the pollster’s dishonesty.

The past month has seen Trump suffer through an avalanche of horrible failures, including: he repeatedly insulted the Latino judge in his Trump University fraud lawsuit with racist comments; after the Orlando massacre he praised himself and implied that Obama sympathized with the terrorists; he had a dismal financial report showing him with only $1.3 million; he fired his skeevy campaign manager; his GOP colleagues have been abandoning him in droves. And in the meantime Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination and has been enjoying success at unifying the party. No rational person would be surprised by Trump’s declining poll numbers.

But no one ever accused Trump of being rational. In the tweet above he also put forth the fiction that “Other polls good!” Which other polls he was referring to is a mystery. Here is every poll followed by RealClear Politics for the month of June. Notice that Clinton is ahead in every one of them. On second thought, that is good.

Trump polls

This is fairly typical for Trump. When he has a momentary spike by in popularity he declares victory and lavishes himself with praise. He is utterly blind to anything less than unqualified acclaim. And when neither is handy he latches onto laughably phony sources that he can count on for partisan drivel. Take for instance his promotion of a ludicrous poll that said he “Leads Big With Latinos.” And just as absurd was this one reporting that “Minorities Line Up Behind” him. And then there was the time that a Wall Street Street Journal/NBC poll showed him behind Ted Cruz in the primary. Trump whined that “I never do well” with that poll. Except that he was ahead in five of the six previous polls by the Journal. Only someone with a deeply corrupted view of reality could believe this nonsense.

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

Unfortunately, the reality-challenged demographic to whom Trump appeals actually exists. They are small, but annoyingly loud. And they will believe whatever their Orange Lord tells them. As he said himself, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any support. He’s frighteningly right about that. It’s the Kool-Aide chugging wing of the Republican Party and they must not be allowed to prevail in November.

Donald Trump Dines With Fox News Boss: Just Two Billionaire Plutocrats Chewing The Fat?

Posted by on June 26, 2016 at 3:00 pm. 1 Comments :

While in Scotland pimping his golf course and making idiotic statements about the United Kingdom quitting the European Union (#Brexit), Donald Trump set aside time to meet with the patriarch of the Fox News empire, Rupert Murdoch, for dinner. The dinner date was reported by Katy Tur of NBC in deliciously snarky tweet: “His eyes twinkling and a smile cracking his lips, Trump slowly mouthed the word Ruu-Pert when he told me he was dining with @rupertmurdoch.” (Cue the violins).

Donald Trump

Under other circumstances this might be just another opportunity for a couple of wealthy elitists to chow down and laugh at the tribulations of the little people. But, make no mistake, what happened here is unprecedented and ominous. The extraordinary nature of this high society supper becomes apparent by asking a couple of simple questions: 1) What other presidential candidate has Murdoch met with during this campaign? (None). And 2) What other media mogul has dined with any presidential candidate during this campaign? (None).

It is unseemly for anyone in the news business to have such cozy relations with candidates for high office. And it is particularly sleazy when those relations are blatantly one-sided. The “journalists” who work for Murdoch are keenly aware that their boss is signaling his preferences and that can have a chilling effect on how their reporting is conducted. Fox News is already heavily slanted with a starkly pro-Trump, anti-Clinton bias. By making such a public display of partisanship, Murdoch is making matters worse by dropping the full weight of his authority onto the weak-willed minions he employees.

Murdoch’s opinion of Trump has not always been so positive. Last year Murdoch tweeted this question that is still relevant today: “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?” Without ever answering that question, Murdoch let it be known that he is supporting Trump anyway. And he must have struggled mightily with that endorsement considering how fiercely Trump has maligned Fox News over the course of his campaign.

For example, Trump has burned just about everyone on the network. He said of Megyn Kelly that she “is the worst” and has a “terrible show.” He called Karl Rove a “total fool” and “a biased dope.” He said that George Will is a “broken down political pundit” and “boring.” Chris Stirewalt was deemed “one of the dumbest political pundits on television.” Trump laughed off Charles Krauthammer as “a totally overrated clown,” “a loser,” and “a dummy.” And wrapping up the whole network for his disapproval, he tweeted that he was “having a really hard time watching Fox News.” Then he called on his followers to boycott the network. And for good measure, Trump took a swipe at the Fox family’s newspaper saying that the writers at the Wall Street Journal are also “dummies.”

I can’t argue with much of that, but then I’m not coming out in support of someone who has been so disparaging toward my most cherished business enterprise. Murdoch either has the forgiveness of a saint (unlikely), or he is so obsessed with defeating his good friend Hillary Clinton that he is willing to ignore these childish tantrums and embrace Trump, warts and all. There is one other intriguing possibility: Trump has some damaging information on Murdoch, Roger Ailes, or Fox News generally, and is blackmailing them. That would explain a lot.

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

In any case, it remains inappropriate for a media mogul Big Cheese to be feasting with The Big Cheeto. Their secret conversation is of far greater concern than anything that might have been said by Clinton in a speech to Wall Street. The potential for coordinating a media strategy between Fox News and the Trump campaign should make every American suspicious – and not a little nervous.

Chickenhawk Republican Climate Deniers Just Killed Critical Military Funding

Posted by on June 25, 2016 at 3:42 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party has distinguished itself for its shameless, knee-jerk opposition to anything with even a faint fragrance of liberalism. Their robotic rejection of any policy proposed by President Obama, or any other Democrat, is evidence of their acute aversion to critical thinking – or thinking period. And now they may have demonstrated that their assholiness even extends to weakening America’s national security.

Chickenhawk GOP

The Pentagon has long regarded Climate Change as a credible risk factor for international affairs. It is predicted that it will cause more severe natural disasters like hurricanes and drought, and multiplying refugee crises. All of this will profoundly increase the sort global tensions and conflict for which the United States must be prepared.

In response to these risks the Pentagon implemented a strategy (Department of Defense Directive 4715.21) for dealing with the consequences of a warming world. It was a fairly innocuous plan that mainly called for assigning specific people the responsibility of insuring that necessary measures were being taken to address potential problems. But even that plan was too much for the anti-science GOP, as reported by Politico:

“Last week, however, House Republicans voted to block it. By a 216-205 vote Thursday, the House passed an amendment prohibiting the department from spending money to put its new plan into effect. Not a single Democrat voted for the amendment, which was attached to the defense spending bill.”

The amendment was authored by Colorado Republican Ken Buck, who has no experience in either science or the military. His ignorance on the subject led to a defense of his amendment that makes little sense:

“The military, the intelligence community [and] the domestic national security agencies should be focused on ISIS and not on climate change. The fact that the president wants to push a radical green energy agenda should not diminish our ability to counter terrorism. […] The president has talked about an increase in the climate temperature on the planet. It is a fraction of a degree every year. How that is a current threat to us is beyond me.”

Indeed, this entire subject is beyond Rep. Buck. Apparently he thinks that the Defense Department, with 3.1 million employees and a budget of more $600 billion is incapable of concentrating on more than one thing at a time. Buck also believes that being prepared to respond to future military threats is part of a “radical green agenda.” His absurd position suggests that the U.S. should also drop any projects related to Russia, North Korea, NATO, cyber-warfare, or anything else not directly concerning ISIS.

Republican fear mongers, and their PR division at Fox News, are heavily invested in fighting a narrowly defined war on “radical Islamic terrorism” that mainly consists of reciting those three magic words and watching the bad guys dissolve into the ether. They have no affirmative suggestions for achieving victory, but they are overflowing with pointless criticisms. They mock those, including President Obama, who correctly assert that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than Climate Change.”

Conservatives who dispute the looming danger of a world with declining resources like water and arable land dismiss the warnings of 97 percent of the scientists who study the matter. They believe the whole crisis is a hoax that was invented to enrich greedy professors or, as Donald Trump laughably claimed, by the Chinese. However, the issue was laid out in stark detail by a Republican administration with an icon of modern conservative national security taking the lead:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

And Rumsfeld is not alone among security professionals in warning about Climate Change. The Politico article quotes several, with decades of military experience, who regard Buck’s amendment as foolish and more costly in the long run. In fact, four of the past Secretaries of Defense (Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that Climate Change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And three of the four are Republicans. Those are the people Ken Buck and his fellow Republicans are overruling with this ill-considered budget cut.

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

So why would the GOP advance this nonsense that is contrary to the non-partisan opinions of most experts? Because conservatives don’t really care about national security. What they want is to terrify people by focusing on the immediacy and bloodshed of incidents like the recent massacre in Orlando. Which is, ironically, the same thing the terrorists want. And that purely political, self-serving objective overrides any genuine interest in the welfare of the American people or the world.

Fox News Host Uses #Brexit Vote To Call For A New Civil War In The U.S.

Posted by on June 24, 2016 at 3:35 pm. 9 Comments :

The pseudo-patriots at Fox News are constantly waving the Stars and Stripes as they espouse a philosophy of American Exceptionalism (aka American Supremacy). They consider themselves to be the palace guards of a near fetishistic nationalism. They pounce on President Obama for any slight that their imaginations perceive and berate those they feel have not been sufficiently deferential to their brand of jingoism.

Fox News

For some reason, however, when it comes to honoring the unity of the United States, Fox News is often less than loyal to the country. Yesterday’s vote in the United Kingdom on whether to remain in the European Union has brought out some of that anti-American fervor that is always just slightly below the surface of the Tea Party StormTrumpers at Fox News. Todd Starnes, host of Fox Radio’s News & Commentary program, was so exhilarated by the U.K.’s vote to leave the EU that he rushed to tweet his response to Brexit saying, “Hey Texas — did you see what the British just did? #freedom.”

https://twitter.com/toddstarnes/status/746328594343993348

The unmistakable message of that tweet was that Texas ought to follow in the U.K.’s footsteps and secede from the U.S. It’s a message that isn’t particularly original. There has been a Texas secession movement (now being called Texit) going on for many years, led by groups like The Republic of Texas and the Texas Nationalist Movement. Former Governor Rick Perry was not averse to hinting at the idea while he was in office and running for president. But being advocated by a the host of a major “news” network is a new wrinkle.

Given a shallow analysis, one could find some compelling reasons to let Texas go, including the immediate loss of millions of right-wing crackpots and two wingnut senators. Governing the remaining forty-nine states would become noticeably easier without the largest red state mucking things up. Republicans would lose their largest source of electoral college votes.

But with closer scrutiny you would also have to be concerned about the millions of other rational, progressive Texans who would suffer undeservedly. What’s more, the conservative utopia about which the secessionists fantasize would not likely be forthcoming. For the past several years the population of the state has been trending more liberal with a growing community of Latino citizens. That’s probably not the demographic profile that the mostly white secessionists have in mind.

What Fox News and these anti-patriots fail to grasp is that there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution for secession. About a hundred and fifty years ago some southern states, including Texas, had sought to set up their own government separate from the United States. That turned out badly for them, and it wasn’t so great for anyone else either. It was the bloodiest war in the nation’s history. How Texas would achieve a separation today is not explained by the proponents.

For a Fox News host to advocate for what would be another bloody civil war is beyond irresponsible. It is insane. It’s the advocacy of once again pitting Americans against one another with no hope for successfully attaining their goal. It would result in untold fatalities and economic catastrophe as demonstrated by the response of the world’s financial markets today. Clearly there is very little optimism about the prospects for England’s future by those who are most affected by it.

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

Just the suggestion of pursuing Texit inflames the same sort of bigotry and division that has fueled the campaign of Donald Trump who, after an embarrassing moment when he revealed that he didn’t know what Brexit is, he came out in favor of it. He literally announced his support for one of the most consequential events in history just moments after saying “I don’t think anybody should listen to me because I haven’t really focused on it very much.” And that pretty much sums up the low level of thought that has gone into the issue by Trump and his ilk. It’s an embrace of ignorance that is both mind boggling and frightening. And it is being furthered by irresponsible propagandists on Fox News.

WTF Are They Thinking? CNN’s New Hire Is Trump’s Ex-Manager And Press Abuser

Posted by on June 23, 2016 at 4:37 pm. 6 Comments :

Donald Trump has been boasting about his ability to create jobs despite never having explained exactly how he would do so. Well, now it appears he may have created one at CNN for the campaign manager that he fired just a few days ago.

CNN

Corey Lewandowski was escorted out of Trump Tower by security guards when the campaign decided that his services were no longer needed. He was criticized for the campaign’s negative and hostile tone, for failing to raise money, for not building a campaign infrastructure, and for infighting between various factions within the Trump camp. Recent polls showing Trump losing to Hillary Clinton also weighed on Lewandowski’s shoulders as he battled with the Trump kids and strategist Paul Manafort for control of the campaign.

Now CNN has rewarded Lewandowski with a job and a paycheck as a political commentator for the network. It’s not as if CNN didn’t already have a stable of partisan Trump sycophants on the air every day. Jeffery Lord, Scottie Nell Hughes, Kayleigh McEnany, among others have been shilling for Trump on CNN for months. And that’s in addition to the frequent appearances by Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson and Trump himself.

There are few, if any, examples of a news network scooping up a high-level campaign operative in the midst of an election, particularly one with the resume of Lewandowski. This is the first campaign that Lewandowski has ever managed, if you want to call it that. None of the traditional trappings of a campaign were evident in his work. He maintained a tiny staff of insiders and relied on free media for attention. He presided over a candidate who avoided substantive debate while resorting to childish insults and name-calling to bring down his opponents.

Lewandowski also had a terrible relationship with the press. While Trump was calling them sleazy and scum, and fantasizing about killing them them, Lewandowski was herding them into pens like cattle and threatening them if they were disobedient. He revoked the press credentials of people or organizations he didn’t like, including the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, Fusion, Univision, the Des Moines Register, and the New Hampshire Union Leader.

Lewandowski was the subject of an unprecedented meeting between the television news networks (including CNN) to address what they considered “harsh and restrictive behavior.” In one case Lewandowski told another campaign staffer “Hey: Tell Noah [Gray of CNN], get back in the pen or he’s f—ing blacklisted.”

And then there was the incident when Lewandowski was alleged to have physically assaulted a reporter from the conservative Breitbart News website. Michelle Fields claimed that Lewandowski had grabbed her by the arm and nearly threw her to the ground. He was briefly under indictment for the assault, but the authorities decided not to prosecute.

This is the caliber of man that CNN has just chosen to provide analysis of the election. He is overtly hostile to the press of which he is now becoming a part. His peers in the business are both stunned and outraged that CNN would grant this cretin one of a very few on-air positions available.

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

What’s worse, it is well known that Donald Trump requires his people to sign a nondisclosure agreement that prohibits them from saying anything negative about Trump, his businesses, or his family. So how can CNN justify hiring a commentator who is contractually bound to bite his tongue if anything unflattering to Trump occurs during the campaign? He’s a commentator who can’t comment. What does that say about a free press at CNN?

Update: The backlash is growing as a “near revolt” at CNN is reportedly under way:

“CNN is facing a near internal revolt over the Corey hiring,” said a TV insider, who described many in the newsroom as “livid.” “Female reporters and producers especially .?.?. They are organizing and considering publicly demanding” that Lewandowski be let go.

MUZZLED: House Republicans Kill Live Camera Feed Of Democratic Gun Reform Sit-In

Posted by on June 22, 2016 at 1:30 pm. 2 Comments :

Democratic congress members of the House of Representatives launched an unprecedented protest in the chamber by staging a sit-in. The purpose of the protest is to force Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership into scheduling a vote on gun safety reforms (video here).

CSPAN Blackout

Shortly after the protest began, the Republicans who control the House called a recess saying that the House is not in order, and then shut off the chamber’s cameras to prevent the American people from seeing their representatives actually doing something worthwhile and in agreement with the majority of the people. It is a brazen act of censorship intended to make the courageous demonstration disappear and to help the GOP in their efforts to kill reform at the behest of their NRA masters.

By taking the unprecedented step of shutting off the cameras, CSPAN went dark. They later had to resort to broadcasting video from mobile phones in the chamber, which continues as of the writing of this article. And as if that weren’t bad enough, Rep. John Yarmouth just tweeted that “The Sgt at Arms is asking us to stop taking photos and video from House floor. Republicans should turn the cameras back on.”

These GOP authoritarian tactics are nothing less than government suppression of free speech. This is the people’s house, not the private broadcast facility of the Republican Party. And despite the GOP’s tyrannical usurpation of power, Democrats are united in persisting with this protest. Participants include party leaders like John Lewis and Nancy Pelosi, and they have promised that everyone who wants to speak will be able to.

Republicans will have to shut down the building and evacuate everyone if they hope to end this. Which I wouldn’t put past them. Two years ago the GOP held a hearing on the alleged IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the committee, delivered a five minute opening statement, asked a few leading questions, then gaveled the hearing adjourned without allowing anyone else to speak. The ranking Democratic member, Elijah Cummings, objected to the adjournment, but Issa cut off his microphone and stomped out of the room. Cummings continued without the mic calling Issa’s conduct “absolutely un-American.”

This is pretty much what we can expect from the Republican Party if it is allowed to remain in control of Congress, or worse gain the White House with a victory by Donald Trump (who has revoked the press credentials of several media organizations and whose camp has advocated revoking the broadcast license of CNN). Democrats have to be united in voting out Republicans in every jurisdiction if the nation hopes to preserve its constitutional freedoms.

WARNING: Donald Trump #Scampaign is Using Your Money To Line His Own Pockets

Posted by on June 21, 2016 at 3:21 pm. 4 Comments :

Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president he has bragged about his alleged self-financing of his campaign. That was never actually true since he has been soliciting donations from the start and the funds from his own accounts were loans for which he could repay himself from his campaign treasury. But now ABC News is reporting that Trump’s deceit is much worse than merely misleading donors about the source of his funding.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been using his campaign as a marketing scheme to enrich himself and his eponymous business enterprises. By using Trump properties and products for campaign goods and services Trump has funneled more than six million dollars back into his own pocket. The services include transportation provided by his famous Trump jet ($3.7 million), office space at his Trump Tower in Manhattan ($915,000), rent and catering at his Mar-a-Lago Club in South Florida ($423,000), dining at Trump restaurants ($135,000), end even purchases of Trump branded water and wine.

If anyone is thinking that this is just good business and a normal practice in politics, you could not be further from the truth. Other wealthy candidates with far-flung business interests made certain that their personal finances were not intermingled with their campaigns. Examples provided by ABC include these fellow billionaires:

“Trump isn’t the first high-profile politician to run a campaign while managing large corporate assets. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and presidential contender Steve Forbes both ran companies bearing their name.”

Both took great care to carefully separate their businesses and their campaigns, their former aides said, citing the complex maze of campaign finance regulations about using corporate resources.”

What this means for Trump’s prospective donors is that they will effectively be paying the tab for Trump to buy his own products and rent his own office space. His campaign is acting as a sort of shell company through which Trump can funnel money to his other businesses. Small donors would have to wonder whether that is a worthy investment of their limited funds. Large donors ought to be even more skeptical of giving thousands of dollars to Trump’s for-profit businesses.

This is particularly troublesome for donors when they consider Trump isn’t spending his campaign funds in a manner that would advance his candidacy. Recent campaign filings show that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has spent about $20 million on advertising in key swing states compared to Trump’s total spending of zero dollars. Additionally, Clinton currently has about $42 million of cash on hand, while Trump is comparatively broke with only $1.3 million. He says that all he needs to do is write a check, but while we’re waiting for that to happen he is still hitting up the usual suspects in the GOP millionaires club.

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

Given Trump’s peculiar approach to campaign spending, and his predilection for feathering his own gold-encrusted nest, donors will likely think twice before throwing cash at The Donald. And his rapidly deteriorating relationship with the Republican National Committee (RNC) only exacerbates the problem. Why should RNC donors dig into their wallets when Trump keeps insulting them and threatening to go it alone? The only parties who are helped by any of this are the #NeverTrump activists who still hope to keep him from becoming the Party’s nominee.