Day: 8/10/2016

LOOK! Sitting Behind Trump At Rally Is An Ex-GOP Rep Who Hit On Teenage Congressional Pages

Posted by on August 10, 2016 at 8:37 pm. 2 Comments :

Conservative media has been spending the last couple days hyperventilating about a man in the audience at a rally for Hillary Clinton. Seddique Mateen, the father of the shooter who murdered fifty people at an Orlando night club had come to the public event and was seated behind the stage. Clinton had nothing to do with it and later made it clear that she disavowed his support.

In the meantime, Donald Trump, Fox News, and other right-wing press, turned this into a major flaw that, in some unexplained way, reflected on Clinton. They insisted that there was a correlation between Mateen’s attendance and her administrative competence.

Well, this has now come back to bite them in the ass “big league.” In a rally today a man was spotted sitting behind Donald Trump’s stage who was also recognized by the media. His name is Mark Foley. He was a Republican congressman from January 1995 to September 2006. What makes his presence notable is the reason he left Congress.

Donald Trump Mark Foley

Foley resigned from Congress after he was caught sending sexually explicit instant messages and emails to teenage boys serving as congressional pages, for whom he was the House administrator. Ironically, Foley was coerced into resigning by GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert who last year pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges involving concealed payments to a man whom he had sexually abused decades earlier. Hastert admitted to being a serial child molester, but the cases had exceeded the statute of limitations so he could not be charged with those crimes. In any case, Hastert certainly knew what he had done years earlier when he was forcing Foley out of Congress.

While on stage, Trump was specifically calling out Clinton over the incident with Mateen being in her audience along with 3,000 other people she didn’t know. However, Trump made the whole thing more personal with regard to his own audience (video below). He began by congratulating the people sitting behind him because they were going to be famous as a result of being seen on TV in the background of his speech. He continued:

Wasn’t it terrible when the father of the animal that killed the wonderful people in Orlando was sitting with a big smile on his face right behind Hillary Clinton? And by the way, including a lot of the people here – how many of you people know me [Foley raises his hand]? A lot of you people know me. When you get those seats you sort of know the campaign. So when she said “Well we didn’t know…” They knew.

How did you like that picture? Him sitting – forty-nine people killed – other people will never, ever, ever, be the same. And that guy is sitting back there. And of course he likes Hillary. Because Hillary won’t even say the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”

And all the while, a notorious pedophile was sitting in plain view behind Trump with a big smile on his face. In addition, according to Trump, Foley got that seat because they know each other. Foley confirmed this later saying:

“I’ve been a friend of Mr. Trump’s since 1987. I’ve admired so much of what he’s done. He’s a different breed of leader and a different breed of candidate.”

It will be interesting to see how Trump explains this away, if he can be made to address it all. Will he change his story and say he didn’t know Foley? Will he disavow him? It will also be interesting to see how the media cover this incident. They obsessed over the audience member at Clinton’s rally. Will they spend two days doing the same over Trump’s?

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

Health Scare: Hillary Clinton Is At Death’s Door, According To Desperate Fox News ‘Experts’

Posted by on August 10, 2016 at 5:33 pm. 7 Comments :

The desperate rightists and Donald Trump sycophants at Fox News are continuing to seek a way out from under the political catastrophe they helped to create. They are now suffering with the consequences of having directed Trump’s path to the GOP nomination. While Trump makes thinly veiled assassination threats, the folks at Fox watch dolefully as his poll numbers crater and his lunatic rhetoric becomes ever more unhinged. So Fox News is embarking on a frantic effort to drag down Hillary Clinton instead.

Hillary Clinton

On Fox & Friends today, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes assembled members of their “Medical A-Team” to revel in what they portrayed as Clinton’s sickly prognosis. They rattled off a series of only seven mostly minor incidents dating back nearly two decades. Among these alleged medical crises were a stomach virus and a fractured elbow. Not exactly the sort of dire emergencies for which you would wake up the undertaker. Then they showed a photo where Clinton was being assisted walking up some stairs as if she were feeble. What Fox failed to note was that the stairs were coated with a layer of ice and her aides were merely being cautious.

Nevertheless, these were the foundation for a segment in which the Fox panel exhibited their disingenuous concern for the elderly former Secretary of State. They used their shallow research to assert that Clinton should be required to make available her full medical records. Much of the segment was spent claiming that there was a double standard that favored Clinton. As an example they referred to John McCain’s campaign in 2008. However, McCain was older than Clinton when he ran and had four separate bouts of skin cancer. More worrisome was the fact that Sarah Palin was his vice-presidential running-mate.

While complaining about this supposed double standard, there was scant mention of Donald Trump’s health status or demands for his medical records. He is also older than Clinton. The only medical information he has released was a glowing one page appraisal from a doctor who described Trump’s health as “extraordinary.” He might have added “tremendous, big league” and “the best health of anyone ever, believe me.” (Is anyone else reminded of the time Trump pretended to be his own PR man?). Not mentioned was the fact that Trump had such serious health problems in the past that they resulted in a 4F medical exemption from the draft.

The Fox News medical “experts” are quite right. There is a double standard. And the beneficiary is clearly Donald Trump. Despite the evidence of some severe psychological problems (narcissistic personality disorder, pathological lying, dementia, memory loss, delusions of grandeur, and a peculiar form of Tourette’s Syndrome where he shouts out stupid and/or violent remarks uncontrollably) no one on Fox News has set aside time for segments devoted to his medical transparency. Demands for his medical records are made faintly, if at all. Not that he would provide them. He is still refusing to release his taxes as every presidential candidate has done for more than half a century.

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

It is obvious that Fox News is raising this issue because they have little else of substance to talk about. All of the pseudo-scandals they have promoted (or invented) have fizzled under the light of honest scrutiny. And with Trump being his own worst enemy every time he opens his mouth, Fox is forced to engage in blatant muckraking in order to try to turn the tide against Clinton. Unfortunately for them, they just succeed in making themselves look even more pathetic and desperate. And Unfortunately for us, that won’t stop them from continuing to do it through November and well into the Clinton administration.