Month: November 2017

Fox News Flack Donald Trump Tries to Save Sean Hannity’s Fast Sinking Program

Posted by on November 15, 2017 at 12:07 pm. 2 Comments :

Following an embarrassing “Make America Gag Again” tour of Asia, Donald Trump slinked back into the White House and immediately took up his Twitter machine to regale in his own wonderfulness. Having achieved nothing of significance, while kowtowing to foreign adversaries, the President needed to sing his own praises because no one else with any credibility was going to do it.

Trump Hannity

However, he has not neglected his primary role in public service since pretending to engage in it. As a candidate and an alleged president, Trump has spent more time promoting his PR department (aka Fox News) than any other “official” duty. Fox News has benefited greatly from this arrangement, scoring millions of dollars worth of free advertising. For example, for just one program, Fox and Friends, Trump has tweeted or retweeted 142 times since the beginning of his campaign. And the “Curvy Couch” potatoes were among his first tweets upon returning to the U.S. Note that most of Trump’s Twitter activity is to promote something he recently saw on Fox. This one is promoting something that has yet to air. Apparently they are sharing their programming schedule with him in advance of broadcast:

Trump also wanted his Twitter followers to know how much he suffered while travelling the world. The itinerary that he pitifully regarded as “almost physically impossible” had the added torture of having to watch something other than relentlessly fawning Fox News coverage (i.e. real news):

What’s more, Trump gave a bigly shout out to his most devoted cheerleader on Fox, Sean Hannity. He retweeted this celebration of Hannity’s ratings:

This is the clearest sign that Hannity is big trouble. He has been losing advertisers at a rapid clip since coming out in support of the pedophile Republican running for the senate in Alabama, Roy Moore. The seventeen percent ad revenue slump at Fox News is evidence of the disastrous impact Hannity is having on the network. Consequently, Trump was called in to help plug the leak. But there are some serious problems with the help he’s providing.

First of all, the positive ratings tweet that Trump retweeted is two weeks old. It doesn’t represent the whole picture of Hannity’s ratings performance. He has been frequently beaten by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. The most recent ratings for this past Monday show Maddow trouncing Hannity. No wonder Trump didn’t post something more timely.

Furthermore, the Twitter user Trump retweeted identifies himself as a media analyst, but his account was created less than three months ago and has only sixty-nine tweets. He follows only two Twitter accounts: Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow. He’s also a writer for the ultra-rightist web rag, American Thinker. And somehow Trump found a rotting two week old tweet from this nobody and saw fit to relay it to his glassy-eyed disciples.

Hannity must be hanging by a thread. When Fox News fired Bill O’Reilly it wasn’t because of the tens of millions of dollars that they had to pay out to multiple women who O’Reilly harassed and/or abused. Fox was cool with that. It was because his advertisers had ditched the program and it was no longer financially viable. That’s what Hannity is facing now. That’s why Trump is contributing, in his lame way, to Hannity’s rescue. Even Hannity recognizes that he’s sinking fast. Tuesday night he did a double back flip to throw Roy Moore under the bus:

Trump’s post-Asia tweetstorm was typical self-promotion and lies. It conveyed nothing of value to the American people. As usual he is just consumed with himself and fails to do any of the hard work of governing. He complains about being forced (by whom?) to watch CNN and spews endless praises for his pals at Fox. Yet he insists that he doesn’t have time to watch TV (which he also did five months ago). And in all of that Tweeting he left out any updates to this tweet from two days ago:

He must have forgotten what his “major statement” was. Maybe he’s picked up whatever virus caused Jeff Sessions to forget so much of his recent past with Russians. Or Maybe Trump’s aging and distorted memory is just incapable of functioning anymore.

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

Pathetic: Trump is Relying on His Warped Imagination to Convince Himself That He’s Popular

Posted by on November 14, 2017 at 1:50 pm. 2 Comments :

The historically low approval ratings for Donald Trump are no longer news. It is a state of affairs that is cemented in the public zeitgeist as this President continues to flounder. The American people have made up their minds that he is an offensive blowhard whose policies reek of bigotry, ignorance, greed, and narcissism. That’s a recipe for catastrophe and given his obstinance and inability to learn or repent, there is little hope that anything will change.

As an illustration of just how blinded Trump is to reality, he just posted a tweet bragging about his approval ratings. That’s right, he’s managed to find something positive about being the worst president in history. However his tweet reveals signs of a mental collapse on several points:

Let’s break that down. First of all, Trump is praising Rasmussen Reports as “One of the most accurate polls.” Anyone with knowledge of Rasmussen knows that his reputation as a pollster is toxic. His results are notoriously over-weighted in favor of Republicans and conservatives. The experts at FiveThirtyEight give him a C+, which is generous. Rasmussen polls are conducted by robocalls, a methodology that is widely discredited amongst statisticians. The only reason for his survey company to exist is to provide biased data to wingnut “news” operations and pundits.

Secondly, Trump dismisses all other polls as “fake news.” It’s his typical way of avoiding any facts that don’t exalt him as the beloved Messiah he envisions himself to be. The fact that almost every poll taken by reputable survey organizations place Trump in the thirties is an affirmation of their accuracy. But Trump pulls his MAGA hat down over his eyes and plugs his fingers in his ears to prevent any exposure to the sad truth that he’s universally despised.

Thirdly, Trump drops one of his famous “some people” diversions into the mix. If there is any poll putting Trump’s favorability in the fifties he should be able to cite it. Not even the ultra-right Rasmussen goes there. The only voices articulating those numbers are in Trump’s head.

Finally, if Trump is so pleased with Rasmussen’s survey results he should probably make a more complete presentation of them. Then people would know that his forty-six percent approval rating has already dropped two points to forty-four. His disapproval is at fifty-four percent, hardly anything to boast about. Even worse, Rasmussen tracks his ‘Strongly Disapprove” rating which sits at forty-five percent. That compares to his “Strongly Approve” rating at a pitiful twenty-eight percent. According to Rasmussen, that gives him a negative seventeen percent approval index.

Donald Trump

These are the dismal numbers that got Trump so excited he had to get on the Twitter machine and rejoice. But the only thing these numbers reveal is the depths of his psychological impairment. And his celebration of how much America hates him is just another reason he needs to be removed from office and confined to a padded cell.

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

Desperation in Trump Land: AG Considering a Special Counsel to Investigate Hillary Clinton

Posted by on November 14, 2017 at 9:50 am. 2 Comments :

There is now definitive proof that Donald Trump is stomping around the Oval Office in a white-hot panic. Whether it is Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a newly energized media, or pressure from his Kremlin handlers, Trump is clearly nervous that the truth is getting closer to daylight. Or at least that someone is getting closer to the truth that Trump wants to conceal.

Jeff Sessions Hillary Clinton

We know that Trump’s anxiety is at fever pitch because of the news just out about what’s going on at the Justice Department. His bootlicking attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has heard the call from his master and is giving consideration to a long sought objective of the President. Specifically the realization of the glassy-eyed rally chant “Lock Her Up.” According to reports:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is leaving open the possibility that a special counsel could be appointed to look into Hillary Clinton, Clinton Foundation dealings and a uranium deal during the Obama administration among other matters.”

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, a Justice Department official says Sessions has directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate concerns raised by Republican lawmakers. The letter says the prosecutors will recommend whether an investigation is merited.”

The whole initiative is the manifestation of delusions harbored by right-wing scam mongers. There have already been numerous investigations into these matters that found no hint of wrongdoing. Despite years of baseless allegations, the Clinton Foundation remains a respected charity that has received the highest scores from philanthropic ratings organizations. The Uranium One matter has been repeatedly debunked by fact checkers.

Trump undoubtedly is buoyed by the ultra-conservatives that dominate the Republican Party and hunger for Clinton’s blood. Many have tried to push the DOJ and Trump to punish the former Secretary of State (and current grandma in Chappaqua). And of course Fox News is contributing to the lynch mob mentality. Sean Hannity has virtually given up his entire show to it. And he isn’t alone. Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends are all in. Fox’s Jeanine Pirro even met with Trump to urge him to proceed with a Clinton prosecution.

But there are other reasons that consideration of persecuting Clinton is ludicrous and brazenly dishonest. For one thing, if Sessions intends to direct his staff to recommend whether an investigation is merited, he will be violating his statement made under oath to Congress:

“Sessions said he had made comments during the ‘contentious’ campaign about Clinton’s use of the email server and her family’s charitable foundation that could place his objectivity in question.”

“‘I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Hillary Clinton,’ the Alabama Republican told senators on the Judiciary Committee.”

That’s an unambiguous promise by Sessions to recuse himself from any Clinton investigations. But his stated consideration of appointing a second special counsel overtly breaches that promise. In addition to Sessions’ prior statements, Trump also expressed his disinterest in pursuing any Clinton queries. this what he said last year on the subject:

However, like pretty much everything Trump says, it will eventually be contradicted by something else that Trump says. More recently he has frantically returned to his obsession with Clinton and has been behaving like the tin-horn dictator he aspires to be. Here he is openly and improperly beseeching his Justice Department to go after Clinton despite not feeling strongly about it.

Legal experts will note that Trump’s pressuring the Justice Department violates long-standing protocol to insure the independence of the department. He has no more business asking for investigations or special counsels than he does firing them. It is a blatant abuse of power and potentially impeachable obstruction of justice.

The fact that Sessions now appears to be caving to Trump’s demands to abuse his legal power and prosecute a former political rival speaks to the fear that must be enveloping the White House. He must feel the warm breath of justice on his neck. And he thinks it’s a proper response to attack his political adversaries with the full force of the government he so incompetently leads. That’s what happens in authoritarian regimes ruled by self-absorbed tyrants. The United States must not allow that to happen here. Donald Trump must be impeached before he’s allowed to inflict more harm on the nation – and the world.

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

Does Fox News Defense of a Pedophile Surprise You? It Shouldn’t, and Here’s Why

Posted by on November 13, 2017 at 2:50 pm. 5 Comments :

Under ordinary circumstance, the senate campaign in Alabama would never have been elevated into a national news story. But almost everything that has happened in the era of Donald Trump has been strikingly abnormal. That makes Alabama’s election to replace Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, an unlikely media phenomenon.

Donald Trump

Republican candidate Roy Moore is engulfed in a sex scandal involving multiple women, including a girl just fourteen years old. He is denying all the charges, but his denials don’t come close to assuaging the graphic claims of his accusers. A generation ago this campaign would have been shut down in a hot minute. But what Moore has going for him is a well-heeled propaganda machine that masquerades as a news network: Fox News.

On first blush, it may seem beyond the pale that even a devoted practitioner of media bias would hesitate to defend a sexual predator and pedophile. However, we are talking about Fox News here. They have a history with sexual deviants who were shielded, and even promoted, within their own dysfunctional corporate family. With that record of toxic behavior, it’s no wonder that Fox News can so fiercely support someone like Moore. Take a look at who they built their reputation supporting:

  • CEO Roger Ailes
  • Star host Bill O’Reilly
  • President Bill Shine
  • Host Eric Bolling
  • Fox Business host Charles Payne
  • Fox Sports President Jamie Horowitz
  • Vice-President of Fox News Latino, Francisco Cortes

All of these people were powerful and prominent Fox News big shots who were touched by scandals involving sexual harassment and/or abuse. Most of them were terminated in disgrace, although even then some were rewarded by Fox with rich severance packages. And in addition to the loss of those sleazeballs, Fox News also said farewell to some of the female talent who resigned after being victimized. They include Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Laurie Dhue, Andrea Tantaros, Rudi Bakhtiar, and Julie Roginsky.

And let’s not forget the most notorious Fox News pervert: Donald Trump. The President was himself a Fox News attraction before joining with Vladimir Putin to steal an election. Trump was featured in a regular segment of Fox and Friends called “Mondays with Trump.” Now he is the White House affiliate of the Fox News propaganda factory. And his past is fraught with credible allegations of sexual abuse that is equal to, or worse than, any of that committed by the offenders above. He should be driven from office on those grounds alone, never mind the evidence of treason. Yet he’s getting a free pass from Fox News as well as all the other news organizations.

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

As for Fox, with its abundant experience it is the perfect place to go for reputation rehabilitation if you’re caught soliciting minor girls. And shills like Sean Hannity have already had plenty of practice in this nauseating field of public relations. So it’s no surprise that Moore has burrowed into the protective arms of his Fox News protectors. And there he will reside until his sleazy past becomes impossible to escape. But even then Fox will be be frantically proclaiming his innocence and victimhood while blaming it all on Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. It’s what they do.

WTF? Trump’s Treasury Secretary Says GOP Tax Plan Restores Great Depression Policies

Posted by on November 12, 2017 at 12:14 pm. 2 Comments :

When Donald Trump returns from his “Humiliate America Tour” of Asia he will be greeted by politics and scandals that he cannot continue to avoid. His embrace of Vladimir Putin, the ongoing investigation into his collusion with Russia, indictments of his campaign and administration staffers, sexual abuse by GOP senate candidate Roy Moore, and the already floundering Republican attempt at tax reform.

Donald Trump

Trump has dived hair first into the tax debate with his customary aversion to the truth. On multiple occasions he has referred to the still stewing tax legislation as the “biggest tax cut in history.” It isn’t. But that didn’t stop his Treasury Secretary (aka the Foreclosure King), Steve Mnuchin, from lying to CNN’s Jake Tapper on behalf of his pathological boss (video below). In this exchange Mnuchin attempts a shady two-step to relocate the goalposts to another county. Tapper addresses the falsehood that Trump is proposing the biggest tax cut in history:

Tapper: We’ve tried to find a way that this is true, but it’s not.
Mnuchin: This will be the largest change since President Reagan.

A large change since Reagan is not the same thing as the biggest cut ever. Tapper displayed several different ways to calculate the tax impact of the Trump bill, but none of them achieved the ludicrous claims of Mnuchin and the President. So Mnuchin reloads and aims to move the goal posts even further by pointing out that just the corporate tax rate would drop from thirty-five percent to twenty. That, of course, has no impact on the tax bills of average Americans. And it still doesn’t support Trump’s gross exaggerations.

Undeterred, Mnuchin followed that up with perhaps the worst defense of fiscal policy imaginable. He bragged that the pass-through tax rate (which mainly benefits large corporations) “is gonna be the lowest rate since the 1930’s.” So Mnuchin is expressing outright pride that his plan matches the one in effect during the Great Depression. Really?

The big lie that Mnuchin, Trump, et al, relentlessly propagate is that our current tax system makes the U.S. uncompetitive. And they say this at the same time that they brag about how great the American economy is doing. Trump praises himself regularly for the historic performance of the stock market (although he has nothing to do with that). But if that’s true, why would we need to give more tax breaks to the very people and businesses who are already disproportionately prospering? Especially at a time when there are so many other critical demands for resources, including natural disaster relief, healthcare, infrastructure, and deficit reduction.

The goal of the Republican Party has always been to restore the economic principles that benefit their primary constituency and donors – corporations. These are the same principles that brought about the Great Recession of 2008, and most other financial disasters. And that includes the Great Depression. However, we do not often hear them so openly admit that this is their objective. It’s bad enough that these robber barons are constantly trying to steal from the American people to enrich themselves. But when they are so comfortable that they feel no need to disguise what they’re doing, it’s a sure sign of trouble ahead.

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

In His Own Words: Trump is a Traitor Who Believes Putin Over His Own Intelligence Agencies

Posted by on November 11, 2017 at 10:22 am. 5 Comments :

Thousands of miles from America Donald Trump is shooting off his ignorant mouth and putting the country and the world in peril. This could not be a clearer case of treason against the United States. And the fact that it is committed by someone with the title of president makes it all the more disturbing and dangerous.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

While in Vietnam, a country Trump avoiding visiting as a young man by seeking five draft deferments, the President was asked about the well documented attack on American democracy by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. His responses are bone-chilling and demonstrate just how far he has deviated from his patriotic duty and common sense. Here are some choice excerpts from his remarks:

  • “Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that [hack our election],’ and I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”
    That’s comforting. Except that every time his own intelligence agencies tell him that Putin DID interfere with our election, apparently they don’t mean it and he doesn’t believe them.
  • “I can’t stand there and argue with him.”
    Why the hell not? He’s the leader of a hostile foreign nation that has always wanted to bring down the U.S. You are a coward if you can’t stand up to that.
  • “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”
    So you can’t insult our enemies, but you can insult fellow Americans, including our veterans? Is that a good thing for our country?
  • “Everybody knows there was no collusion. I think it’s a shame that something like this can destroy a very important potential relationship between two countries that are very important countries. Russia could really help us.”
    You might want to check the facts (and Robert Mueller) before you make absurd claims about what “everybody knows.” And if you think Putin’s aim is to help us you are certifiably insane.
  • “He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.”
    Why are you even asking him? We have the answer and he’s a liar. What’s more, you are again contradicting the entire U.S. intelligence community. And that includes the people you appointed (not some so-called “deep state” Obama holdovers): CIA chief Mike Pompeo, DNI Dan Coats, FBI director Christopher Wray, NSA head Mike Rogers, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Counterterrorism adviser Thomas Bossert.
  • “This artificial Democratic hit job gets in the way and that’s a shame because people will die because of it.”
    Is that a some kind of veiled threat?

It’s hard to find the words to react to this frighteningly stupid and treacherous rhetoric. Luckily, the above linked article from Politico supplied a quote from an expert that sums it up perfectly:

“The worst part of this is not that Trump takes Putin’s word over the evidence based analysis of his own intelligence agencies. It is not even that he plays the role of a useful idiot as he kowtows to Putin yet again. The worst part, by far, is that a hostile power is engaged in an ongoing attack on America’s political system and Trump is deliberately stripping the nation’s defenses bare and leaving us exposed to future assaults. It is unilateral disarmament plain and simple,” said Thomas Wright, Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and an expert in national security. “We have never seen this type of weakness in a U.S. president before.”

Sadly, we have never seen this type of weakness, idiocy, narcissism, corruption, blindness, cowardice, treasonous, childishness, vengefulness, greed, and hatred, in a U.S. president before. Hopefully we will not see it for very much longer. He needs to be driven from office by either law or shame. And our Congress must finally take a stand for what’s right and fulfill the oath they took to defend the Constitution.

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

Fox News is So Desperate They’re Hyping an ‘Implausible’ Discrimination Lawsuit Against CNN

Posted by on November 10, 2017 at 3:29 pm. 4 Comments :

The current news cycle is jam-packed with stories that reflect badly on Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Trump is bumbling his way through an embarrassing junket to Asia. Among other things, he has already flipped on his hard-line stance against China trade deals. In fact, he insulted American leaders and praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for taking advantage of their “incompetence.” In addition, The GOP’s candidate to fill Jeff Sessions’s senate seat in Alabama, Roy Moore, is mired in a pedophilia scandal. And last Tuesday Democrats swept the elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Washington, and more.

Fox News Lies

This puts Fox News in a difficult position. They have virtually nothing positive to report about their Dear Leader in the White or his flailing party. They’ve already been swinging wildly at bogus and irrelevant Hillary Clinton hogwash to the point where it’s just tiresome. And the must-pass Republican tax bill is faring no better than their much despised attempts to kill ObamaCare.

So Fox News is hitting the shelves for some ripe fiction they can disseminate. What they found was a lawsuit against their arch rival CNN for racial discrimination. Fox News giddily latched onto that and posted a wholly dishonest article on their website. The headline is a brazen lie that screams “CNN faces another racial discrimination lawsuit.”

The first thing to note is that CNN is not facing “another” lawsuit. The first paragraph reveals that it is the same lawsuit that was filed previously and thrown out of court for being inadequate. The judge ruled that “it doesn’t meet a plausibility threshold.” He also said that it was “unsupported by factual allegations sufficient to support the inferences claimed by Plaintiffs,” and that it was “littered with conclusory assertions, rank speculation, confusing statements, and generalized allegations.”

However, in the Fox News story the attorney for the alleged plaintiffs is confidant that the suit will prevail the second time around. He claims that he will refile sometime this year, ignoring the judge’s admonition that “any amendment would be futile.” So Fox News based the entire story on a failed lawsuit that has not been, and might never be, refiled. Fox didn’t bother to interview the plaintiffs to try to validate their claims, or do any thing else that resembles journalism.

What Fox News did do was was plant this totally unrelated landmine in the article: “The news comes as CNN continues to cause problems for parent company Time Warner as it tries to complete an $84.5 billion deal with AT&T.”

For the record, CNN isn’t causing any problems with regard to the merger. It’s Trump’s Justice Department (and possibly Trump himself) who are threatening to prohibit the merger unless the new company divests of CNN. There are plenty of reasons to oppose this merger, but CNN isn’t one of them. AT&T has no news division that would raise anti-trust concerns. This is clear case of abuse of power as the Trump administration seeks to punish a media outlet they despise.

If any news operation is causing problems for their parent company, it’s Fox News. They are making it unlikely that Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox will be able to acquire the European SKY satellite network. The U.K.’s Ofcom regulatory agency is studying whether Murdoch’s business is a “fit and proper” owner, and whether it would comply with local rules on broadcasting standards. Given the history of Fox’s overt political biases, it’s tight embrace of Trump, and the terminations of multiple senior staff (Roger Ailes, Bill, O’Reilly, etc.) for sexual harassment and abuse, that’s gonna be a high bar to hurdle.

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

Finally, for some reason the Fox News article left out any mention of the lawsuits against Fox for racial and sex discrimination. Over two dozen current and former Fox News employees now suing the network. These are actual suits that are proceeding, not imaginary ones that were previously tossed out of court. But why would Fox include these facts in an article that was only published as a diversion from all of the bad news that is currently staining Trump and the right-wing cabal he is leading? As noted above: Desperation.

And remember: Racism is an integral part of the business model of Fox News. So this hypocritical and false story is almost funny (almost).

Watch Breitbart Editor Defend Roy Moore’s Sexual Encounters With Teenage Girls (Hannity Too)

Posted by on November 9, 2017 at 3:18 pm. 6 Comments :

Alabama’s Republican candidate for the senate, Roy Moore, has been accused of criminal sexual contact with multiple teenage girls. The youngest of them was only fourteen years old when Moore was a thirty-two year old assistant district attorney. These allegations are serious and profoundly disturbing. And while Moore is denying the charges, some of his GOP colleagues are already calling for him to drop out of the race. They include John McCain and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Breitbart Joel Pollak

Among those not seeking Moore’s withdrawal is Joel Pollak, senior-editor-at-large for Breitbart News. Pollak was interviewed by Ali Velshi on MSNBC and had some startling defenses of Moore’s aberrant behavior (video below). Pollak began by falsely claiming that the story in the Washington Post wasn’t accurate:

Pollak: You said yourself at the start of the segment that he’s being accused of relationships with teenagers. Now to me that’s not accurate. In fact it’s following in the narrative that the Post tried to set up.
Velshi: It is teenagers. It’s a fourteen year old, a sixteen year old, and two eighteen year olds. They’re teenagers.
Pollak: The sixteen year old and the eighteen year old have no business in that story because those are women of legal age of consent. […] There’s only been one relationship – that’s been alleged – that’s problematic.

What Pollak is asserting is that only the relationship with the fourteen year old is of concern. Therefore, he doesn’t think that a thirty-two year old public servant engaging in sexual conduct with sixteen year olds is any problem at all. That’s a position that most decent people will disagree with. Even if the age of consent in Alabama is sixteen, it doesn’t excuse Moore’s behavior. He’s still a much older man with the experience and power to dominate a girl that much younger. Anthony Weiner is jail right now just for texting a teenager.

Pollak’s knee-jerk defense of Moore is not surprising coming from Breitbart News. The website has been supporting Moore since the earliest days of his campaign. In addition to Pollak, Sean Hannity of Fox News has also come to Moore’s defense. He dismissed the charges as a mere “he said, she said” situation. Never mind that the Post cited dozens of sources.

The allegations against Moore also reveal something troubling about the Republican Party. They are quick to condemn liberals or Hollywood or Democrats for similar behavior. But when it comes to their own, Republicans and right-wing media circle the wagons. That’s why they can continue to back someone like Moore. And it also explains their continued support for Donald Trump, whose history of sexual harassment and abuse is well documented.

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.

Bill O’Reilly Has Totally Lost His Feeble Mind with this ‘Price of Freedom’ Rant on Guns

Posted by on November 8, 2017 at 3:19 pm. 2 Comments :

Being a notorious sexual predator who has paid out tens of millions of dollars to victimized women is taking its toll on Bill O’Reilly. Now that he’s sequestered to his chintzy weblog since Fox News fired him, O’Reilly is exhibiting signs of acute mental distress. Among other humiliations, he has been making guest appearances on Sean Hannity’s radio show despite having hated him when they were Fox News colleagues.

Bill Reilly

On Tuesday O’Reilly posted a mini-rant on Twitter (video below) to complain about criticism he received for his remarks on gun regulations. Following the Las Vegas massacre, O’Reilly wrote on his website that:

“This is the price of freedom. Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are. The Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection. Even the loons.”

Gee. Why would anyone criticize that? O’Reilly is just quoting from the Constitution’s “Even the Loons” clause of the Second Amendment. Never mind that he is expressing a perverse comfort with potentially violent miscreants obtaining guns at will without any public safety oversight. Even worse, he is justifying the carnage as an acceptable consequence of making sure that every American has unfettered access to assemble a personal armory. And so O’Reilly takes to Twitter to double down on his lunacy, posting this belligerent response to his critics:

“The last time the Vegas thing happened I said this is the price we pay. This is the price of freedom. And all the left – ‘Oh O’Reilly, arrgh – [blubbering sounds].’ Look you pinheads, our freedom dictates that police cannot intervene unless a crime is committed.”

So O’Reilly is cool with dozens of people being slaughtered at a country music concert so long as psychopaths can still buy AR-15s. Then he asserts that “everybody knew this guy was bad news.” He was referring to the shooters in both Las Vegas and Texas. He went on to say that the price of freedom demands that the rights of people like these to buy guns supersedes the rights of the rest of us to live. And while he notes that there is an exception for people with felonies, he apparently forgot that the Texas shooter’s criminal record had not been properly recorded. But here is where O’Reilly slipped off the rails:

“In the Reagan years there was a downgrading in getting people institutionalized. So it used to be a lot easier, in this country, to put people who are misbehaving, or behaving in an aberrant way, under observation and to take them off the street. But then the ACLU stepped in, the civil liberties people, and ‘Ah, no no no.’ So now you’ve got people walking all over the place and the authorities can’t do anything. [Raising his voice} The Price of Freedom!”

First of all, there was no “downgrading” of criteria to institutionalize someone in the Reagan years. What Reagan did was to close institutions in order to cut his budget as governor of California. That meant that thousands of people who were previously being treated for mental illness – voluntarily in many cases – were put on the streets. It was a budgetary decision, not a medical one.

Secondly, WTF is he talking about? He starts off reminiscing about the good old days when it was easier to lock up people for psychological reasons. He even takes a swipe at the ACLU for protecting the rights of the mentally impaired. And he bitches about all the free-roaming nutcases who can’t be involuntarily incarcerated. Apparently, freedom doesn’t mean that people with mental problems should be allowed to actually be free. However, he then reasserts his premise that freedom does mean they should all be able to arm themselves to the teeth.

If O’Reilly got his way, and the “authorities” were allowed to pick up “people who are misbehaving,” O’Reilly would have to be at the top of the list. Anyone with his decades long history of sexually harassing and assaulting women ought not to be “walking all over the place.” And his clear inability to articulate a coherent thought makes his case all the more troubling. He’s obviously a very sick man, in more ways than one. And in the final analysis, his “price of freedom” was $32 million (and more) paid to silence his victims.

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