Month: December 2017

Roy Moore’s Alabama Trainwreck Was a Disaster for Fox News and a Big Win for MSNBC

Posted by on December 14, 2017 at 9:25 am. 1 Comments :

Alabama’s senate race became a national event due the the unique circumstances that marked the election. Roy Moore’s campaign was emblematic of a new movement to hold sexual predators accountable. And his anachronistic racial and religious rigor was reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition. Donald Trump also figured into the southern soap opera. Despite his sudden amnesia with regard to Moore, the outcome would be a referendum on the President whether Fox News liked it or not. And they really didn’t like it.

Fox News Sad

You’ll never guess who else didn’t like it. Fox News viewers voted with their remotes Tuesday. As the election returns came in, the ratings for Fox News fell off a cliff. And by the time the race was called for Doug Jones they had lost more than half their audience. In the 9:00 hour Fox’s coverage of the race was pretty strong with about 3.8 million people watching (831K in the 25-54 demo). For much of that time Moore was still leading. Rachel Maddow wasn’t far behind with 3.1 million viewers (760K in the demo).

However, the race was called (first by Fox News, oddly enough) at about 10:30. And that saw a drop off for Fox to about 3.5 million (889K demo). But, Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC took off scoring 3.745 million (1.0M demo). And CNN also spiked with 3.5 million (1.5M demo). And by the 11:00 hour, when it was clear that Jones was victorious, Fox News was pitifully defeated. They ended primetime with just 1.8 million viewers (470K demo). That’s less than half the total audience they had before the returns were in That compared to MSNBC’s 3.7 million (947 demo), about twice Fox’s numbers, and CNN’s 3.2 million (1.4M demo).

Clearly Fox News viewers were too upset to continue watching television. Seeing the pedophile they supported lose to an honorable Democrat was just too painful. Never mind that by the next morning most of them were insisting that Moore was never a viable candidate, they never really liked him, and that they are better off without him in the senate making the GOP look bad. That’s pretty much the view taken by Fox News and, not coincidentally, many Republicans and Donald Trump. Not to worry. They still have sexual predator and Russian collaborator (allegedly) Trump and his devoted Deplorables to make them look bad.

On the other hand, Doug Jones’ victory inspired viewers to tune into MSNBC and CNN en masse at the conclusion of the race. This isn’t because the Democrat won. Americans tuned in to the networks where they thought they would get truthful reporting of the results, without the desperate spin of losers trying to make excuses. That’s why the numbers didn’t increase for Fox News even when there was actual news to report. And the Fox cultists who had tuned in early weren’t going to subject themselves to what they considered bad news. A few more nights like this and Fox News will have to cease broadcasting.

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

Watch Fox News Freak Out Over Doug Jones Victory, Pretend They Never Wanted Roy Moore Anyway

Posted by on December 13, 2017 at 10:42 am. 7 Comments :

The good people of Alabama came through on Tuesday and elected the decent senate candidate (Doug Jones) rather than the racist, crackpot, pedophile (Roy Moore). That doesn’t absolve the a-holes in Alabama who voted for Moore, but it’s an encouraging sign that positive changes are coming. The only way to characterize this outcome is as a monumental transformation for a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator for a quarter of century.

Fox News

But leave it to Fox News to find other ways to characterize such an obviously anti-Trump, anti-Republican event. And it only took a matter of seconds for Fox to try to recast the Jones win as something positive for the GOP. Anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum were plainly unhappy with the call. Less than a minute after announcing that Jones would win the senate seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Fox went into hyper-spin mode saying this (video below):

MacCallum: “You know there was a lot of discussion about whether a Roy Moore win would be a win, really, for the GOP. And there’s some questions tonight about whether or not there’s some silver lining, perhaps, for Republicans tonight. A victory by Moore, who was embroiled in a sex scandal, might have made it more difficult for the GOP to have gained control of the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.”

There’s so much to unpack here. Let’s start with the eagerness of Fox News to abandon Moore, the candidate they have been pimping for months. They are pretending that his loss is actually what they wanted all along. If they think this will be taken this seriously, it is a bitter insult to their dimwitted viewers. However, they know their viewers best, and they are probably right. The Fox audience would need a “silver lining” or a security blanket and a binky after what happened last night.

What’s more, by virtually conceding that Moore’s “sex scandal” would have been a major obstacle to the GOP’s electoral prospects next year, they are validating the very same case against Donald Trump. Actually, not quite the same. Trump has been accused by more women of more repulsive acts of harassment and abuse. If Fox News thinks that Moore’s loss will make those crimes go away they are deeply delusional. They will surely work hard to bury Trump’s reprehensible behavior, but in the comment above they have recognized that it cannot, and will not, be dismissed.

Finally, MacCallum’s phrasing is curious. The GOP does not have to “gain control” of the Senate next year. They currently have control. What she might be worried about is the growing possibility of Democrats assuming control of both houses of Congress. And once again, whatever difficulty she thinks the GOP would have had with Moore in the Senate isn’t going to be resolved as long Trump is in the White House.

Speaking of Trump, he also made an effort to distance himself from Moore after the loss. He tweeted that:

There is no record of Trump ever saying that Moore would “not be able to win.” What record there is of Trump’s endorsement was deleted from his Twitter feed (here and here and here). He also deleted a tweet congratulating Moore and cheering him on to victory. Ever since Moore won the GOP primary, Trump has been behind him. He even recorded a robo-call and staged a rally just across the Alabama border in Florida to whip up support. But following Moore’s loss, Trump has unceremoniously kicked him to the curb and proclaimed the he was right all along (as he always is in his sociopathic, narcissistic imagination).

These weren’t the only kicks Moore suffered. Other Fox News hosts were equally as dismissive. Ainsley Earhardt on Trump’s favorite show, Fox and Friends, said that “This was not a referendum on Trump. I feel like it was a referendum on Harvey Weinstein.” Her fellow “Curvy Couch” potato, Todd Piro, added that he didn’t want to be a “Pollyanna,” noting that the Republicans still have a one seat majority in the senate. Isn’t that a little too obvious an expression of Republican bias, even for Fox News? And Laura Ingraham giddily opined that “Jones is a lame duck from day one. He has zero chance of winning in 2020. This state loves Trump. This is not an anti-Trump result.”

For the record, Trump’s approval rating in Alabama, according to exit polls, was a 48-48 percent split, with “strongly approve” at 32 percent and “strongly disapprove” at 41 percent. Those are catastrophic numbers for Trump and Republicans in Alabama. And Trump’s approval nationwide is even worse. But don’t expect Fox News to acknowledge that. They are on a mission to implant happy-talk in the minds of their glassy-eyed viewers who need some cheering up. That, however, won’t last long. Fox has already segued to renewed outrage over Hillary Clinton’s emails and denigrating special counsel Robert Mueller as treasonous abomination of justice. Just another day of shrill propaganda for Fox News.

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

PolitiFact 2017 Lie of the Year: Trump Calling Russia’s Election Interference a ‘Hoax’

Posted by on December 12, 2017 at 11:52 am. 7 Comments :

PolitiFact has just announced the winner of their annual “Lie of the Year” honors. It must have have been an excruciating task to whittle down the contenders from the plethora of brazen, purposeful truth manglers. They could have just given up and called 2017 “The Year of the Lie.”

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, PolitiFact persevered and came up with a worthy recipient. Donald Trump’s near inability to ever say anything truthful was bound to score a victory one way or another. The rest of the political liars stood little chance against someone who is certifiably pathological. The Washington Post has documented more than 1,600 lies told by this record-breaking prevaricator.

In 2015 Trump won his first Lie of the Year award for “The campaign misstatements of Donald Trump.” They were so numerous the fact-checkers couldn’t settle on a single lie. He didn’t take that well and, in a typically lame Trump tantrum, he responded on Fox News. Trump even got an honorable mention of sorts in 2016’s Lie of the year, “Fake News,” because he was such a frequent contributor to the fakery. However, this year PolitiFact managed to narrow down Trump’s gushing geyser of bullshit to one lie that is particularly significant in terms of its bald-faced dishonesty and its potential for severe harm: “Russian election interference is a ‘made-up story‘.” They began their analysis by saying that:

“A mountain of evidence points to a single fact: Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election of 2016.

“In both classified and public reports, U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered actions to interfere with the election. Those actions included the cyber-theft of private data, the placement of propaganda against particular candidates, and an overall effort to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process.”

Achieving this “honor” may be consolation to Trump after not being chosen as Time Magazines’s Person of the Year. PolitiFact noted that virtually every assessment of Russia’s activities concluded that Vladimir Putin and Company did interfere with the U.S. election in a multitude of ways. It was not a partisan observation. Republicans and Democrats alike recognized that Russia was deeply involved in election hacking and propaganda. And as PolitiFact put it, “After all this, one man keeps saying it didn’t even happen.” Indeed, Trump stood alone in denying the obvious and defending his pals in the Kremlin.

“This Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt. “It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.” And he tried desperately to shift the blame elsewhere, including to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, China, or some fat guy in a New Jersey basement. Anyone but Vlad. In fact, Trump explicitly let Putin off the hook because the Russian dictator assured him that he didn’t do it. And Trump believes Putin over his own American intelligence agencies.

PolitiFact spent little time addressing whether or not Trump colluded with Russia to impact the outcome of the election. But it’s hard to separate the two. Especially when every utterance by Trump supports the Russian version events. What’s more, Trump and his associates repeatedly denied any encounters with Russians during the campaign and after. However, they later had to admit that many of them had many meetings that they all somehow forgot for some reason. There can’t be that many blatant misstatements by that many people without there being some intent to hide something.

And just to top off this Christmas tree with a distinctly Trumpian ornament, the President tweeted about this very issue this morning:

He is still calling the Russia investigations fake news. And despite the indictments (and two guilty pleas) of four of his accomplices (so far), he stubbornly asserts that the investigations are a waste of time and money. Then he shifts from that to his desperate denials of sexual misconduct and crimes. This may be his first bid for 2018 Lie of the Year. And he’s off to great start by claiming that he doesn’t know, or never met, any of his victims. The only problem with that is that one of his accusers was a contestant on The Apprentice. Another participated in his beauty pageant. And another was placed at the scene of his abuse by his own witness.

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

PolitiFact may have to exempt Trump from any future recognition in this competition. No one else can possibly challenge such an accomplished liar and skilled reality distortion machine. Perhaps they should rename the whole affair “The Donald Trump Lie of the Year Awards” and let some other sham merchants have a chance to win.

Hannity Asked Twitter for the ‘Worst Recent Example of Fake News’ and Got Mercilessly Scorched

Posted by on December 12, 2017 at 8:45 am. 9 Comments :

No one is ever going to mistake Sean Hannity for a Rhodes Scholar. His Fox News program is nothing more than an hour of misplaced rage interspersed with unrelenting Trump-fluffing. He relies on insipid arguments embellished by goofy mugging and sycophantic guests.

Sean Hannity Fox News

So when he gets the bright idea to post a question on Twitter, it’s not surprising that he forgets that it isn’t just his equally clueless followers who are online. And the question Hannity proffered was ripe for ridicule and acute mockery. This is what he asked:

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/940415667651584000

Really? The face of Fox News, America’s premiere source for unadulterated bullshit, is asking the public at large to provide examples of the media disseminating misrepresentations and outright lies? What on Earth did he expect would be the result of that idiotic inquiry? Did he actually think that Twitter would respond with the sort of baseless blather that Trump belches out every day? If so, he must be terribly disappointed. Here are some of the typical replies that Hannity received:

The winner of Hannity’s “Worst Example of Fake News” derby was, by a landslide, Sean Hannity. Most of the Twitter responses contained the single word “You.”. Coming in second was the Seth Rich story that Hannity himself propagated for weeks, even after his comrades at Fox News admitted that it wasn’t true and deleted their story about it. That sort of admission is something that Fox has trouble doing. Even though they have no trouble with airing false reports. It will be interesting to see what Hannity does after this failed effort at crowd sourcing his research. But don’t look for him to do a penetrating exposé on the fake news he discovered emanating from the Hannity show.

AND SPEAKING OF FAKE NEWS: Today PolitiFact announced their 2017 Lie of the Year. You’ll never guess who won: Trump Calling Russia’s Election Interference a ‘Hoax’

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

Donald Trump: Stain on America! Fox News Accidentally Tells The Truth For Once

Posted by on December 11, 2017 at 9:44 am. 4 Comments :

This weekend Donald Trump was busily engaged in what he seems to think is job as president: Posting embarrassing, ignorant, and untrue comments on Twitter. He spends more time tweeting and golfing than he does governing, which is actually to the benefit of the nation and the world. We are all better off with him on the golf course than in the Oval Office where he does real harm.

Nevertheless, his obsessive twittering often leads to domestic and international crises stemming from his utter lack of knowledge and decency. The main thrust of his comments generally hit on two main subject areas: Bragging about himself and his imaginary achievements; or childish insults directed at his perceived enemies and the media. And Sunday was no exception when Trump disgorged this deranged bit of rage:

That’s a hefty barrel of bullshit that requires a detailed rebuttal. Let’s start with his lament that the media is “out of control.” That’s actually a good thing. It isn’t supposed to be under control, especially by wannabe dictators like Trump who advocate for the suppression of the free press.

The rest of his tweet is weighted down by obvious lies. First of all, there was plenty of discussion of media errors on all of the weekend news shows. For someone who watches four to eight hours of TV a day, he has abysmal comprehension and retention skills. [Note: Trump predictably disputed reports of his television habits in a tweet Monday morning]. Secondly, contrary to Trump’s blind outburst, there were several corrections made when legitimate errors were discovered. That’s something Trump never does for the literally thousands of lies he spews. And his characterization of the errors as being “purposely false” is unfounded and slanderous.

Shortly after Trump’s Twitter tantrum, Fox News came to his aid, as usual, with a story atop their website. The headline blared out “‘Stain on America!’ Trump denounces ‘Fake News Media’ after string of major reporting errors exposed.” You have to wonder why Fox News thinks that Trump denouncing the media is news after all these months. It’s actually so common it’s becoming tedious. But it’s the visual presentation of this story that stands out. It clearly wasn’t thought through very carefully, resulting in this unintentionally accurate image:

Fox News Donald Trump Stain

Well done, Fox News. The story itself, however, was terribly done. It enumerated a few minor mistakes by media outlets that Trump famously despises. But the story completely left out any mention of Fox’s own blunders, which were far worse and deliberate.

For instance, Fox News had to correct a story that falsely accused a Roy Moore victim of forgery. A week earlier they deleted and apologized for saying that MSNBC had not reported on the Kate Steinle verdict, which was untrue. On Sunday they mistakenly reported that Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel had been fired for making a mistake. And if reporting that falsehood wasn’t embarrassing enough, they did it twice twice during a discussion about – you guessed it – the media making mistakes. The reporter uncharacteristically acknowledged his error and apologized after the commercial.

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

While mistakes are to be expected in any human activity, the way that Fox News accounts for them is not a mistake. They deliberately ignore their own failures most of the time and they don’t hold people accountable for lying when those people are Fox’s ideological allies. That’s what makes the network thoroughly untrustworthy as a source for news. And worse, with regard to their relentless fluffing for Trump, they have become no better than any other authoritarian style, state-run TV operation that exists solely to disseminate propaganda. Fox News, as well as Donald Trump, are indeed stains on America. A point that Trump agreed with just last year:

Fox News = The Astrology of Journalism: Cries ‘Fake News’ While Burying Their Own Fakery

Posted by on December 10, 2017 at 12:15 pm. 2 Comments :

On Sunday morning Fox News has a program that ostensibly covers what’s happened in the media during the prior week. MediaBuzz is hosted by Howard Kurtz, a reliably right-wing shill who spins almost every story in favor of Donald Trump and conservative Republicans. The latest episode had plenty of red meat to chew on, but Kurtz predictably managed to shift the focus to the so-called “liberal” news outlets while letting his own network off the hook.

Fox News Howard Kurtz

The program began by dedicating the whole A-block to Trump flunkies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. They spent several minutes bashing Democrats with provably dishonest statements. Kurtz never once challenged them or questioned the phony basis for their remarks. And when he eventually wrapped up this Trump Lovefest, Kurtz moved on to devote much of the rest of the program to comparatively minor media mix-ups.

In the first instance Kurtz pressed his panel to discuss a CNN story that misstated the date of an email (September 14 rather than 4). The main point of the story was to reveal a communication with the Trump campaign about Wikileaks and Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails. That was little changed by the differences in the date. It’s still significant that Trump and his associates were alerted to the Wikileaks data almost immediately after it was posted. Nevertheless, several minutes were spent discussing the story that CNN had quickly corrected.

Kurtz also featured a tweet of a photo that showed low attendance at Trump’s Pensacola rally for Roy Moore. Dave Weigel, a Washington Post reporter retweeted the photo on his personal account, not as a WaPo item. He later apologized saying that the photo was taken before Trump’s arrival (although other photos seem to confirm that the venue was not “filled to the rafters”. as Trump said). Trump also addressed this tweet and, in a tweet of his own that breaches the constitutional protections of a free press, he called for Weigel to be fired.

A date mix-up and a reference to Trump’s crowd size are typical of the trivia that Fox News seems to be perpetually obsessed with. They blow up stories like these into major catastrophes because they haven’t got any legitimate criticisms to report. And they conclude from these trite examples that the media is hopelessly biased and infested with fakery. Trump himself lied about these mishaps being “vicious and purposeful,” when there is no basis whatsoever for that hyperbolic and delusional reaction.

What makes the focus of Kurtz’s program all the more troubling is that Fox News also had a problem this week with a report that they had to correct. Of course, they have lots of problems every week that they never bother to correct. But this story resulted in Fox News editing their story and headline because it was too dishonest even for them.

The story was about Roy Moore, the GOP senate candidate in Alabama who has been accused of sexual assault on a minor (among other atrocities). Fox’s headline falsely asserted that “Roy Moore accuser admits she forged part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama Senate candidate.” There was just one little problem with that. The accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, never admitted any such thing. All she did was reveal that she made a notation, next to Moore’s yearbook message and signature, to recall the date and location it was signed. Nothing was forged, and there was no attempt to deceive anyone into thinking the notation was Moore’s handwriting.

Fox News changed the headline (although not the URL) to read “Roy Moore accuser admits she wrote part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama Senate candidate.” But that’s also untrue. She did not write Moore’s inscription and she did not attribute the notation to Moore. Fox’s correction fell beneath ethical standards expected of professional journalists. And the magnitude of the mistake was far more serious than those of CNN and the Weigel. In fact, Fox News literally accused Ms. Nelson of the crime of forgery, something she could sue them for.

That seems like it would be an excellent story for a program that reports on the media to cover. But Kurtz gave the Fox News story a whopping three seconds. He mentioned it in passing as he immediately segued back to other alleged media faux pas. He didn’t criticize Fox for the error or allow his panel to discuss it. He quite obviously and deliberately buried the story. And that’s pretty much his mandate for the program he hosts. It’s a regularly scheduled propaganda machine to make all other media look bad, while sweeping Fox’s far more blatant problems under the rug.

Most intelligent media consumers are aware that mistakes happen. Reporters are human. And the presence of errors does not translate into “fake news.” To the contrary, when a mistake is made an ethical news operation will acknowledge and correct it. That’s actually evidence of their honesty and dedication to the truth. Conservative David Frum put it perfectly Sunday morning on CNN’s Reliable sources when he said:

“These mistakes are precisely why people should trust the media. Astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is the process of the discovery of truth. Astrologers never make mistakes, or at least they never own up to them. Because what they are offering is a closed system of ideology and propaganda.”

And that could not be a better description of the difference between Fox News and responsible journalism. Fox is the astrology of news. They report what they believe their audience wants to hear. And it doesn’t matter if they have to make it up or bend it to fit a preconceived viewpoint. It’s purpose is not to inform, but to make the audience feel better about themselves and to affirm what they already believe (or hope) is true. And the way Fox News reads the stars somehow always divines good news for Trumpians and bad news for Democrats and liberals. Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

And this just in: Leland Vittert of Fox News was having a discussion this morning about fake news when he interjected that Dave Weigel had been fired from the Washington Post. That is fake news.

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

All Foxed Up: The Humiliating Attempt By Fox News to Credit Trump for Obama’s Economy

Posted by on December 9, 2017 at 4:28 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s no secret that Fox News is the official PR division of Donald Trump’s administration. They relentlessly defend the President from any and all criticism and attack his political opponents in the most vile and dishonest terms. Fox News is worse than state-run TV. They are fully involved co-conspirators to the criminal enterprise operating out of the White House.

Fox News

Another example of just how far Fox News will go to fluff Trump occurred on his favorite TV show, Fox and Friends. This episode featured a feverishly biased “economist” who managed to get through an entire interview without citing a single economic fact. The segment began with co-host Pete Hegseth introducing a thoroughly false premise (video below):

“Under President Trump the U.S. economy continues to surge. Last month alone saw 40,000 new manufacturing jobs. Big number. And that’s just one example. But a familiar face is trying to steal President Trump’s credit.”

Hegseth’s opening was hardly fair and balanced (a slogan that Fox doesn’t use anymore). Besides cherry-picking data regarding the state of the economy, he states as a matter of fact that credit is being stolen from Trump. And the thief is, predictably, an unemployed black man. Then he plays a clip of President Obama:

“As we took these actions we saw the U.S. economy grow consistently. We saw the longest streak of job creation in American history, by far. A streak that still continues, by the way. Thanks Obama.”

Upon completion of the clip Hegseth abandons any editorial independence and asks “Shouldn’t we be thanking President Trump?” That question was thrown to University of Maryland Professor Peter Morici, who unhesitatingly agrees with Hegseth that Trump deserves all the credit for the current state of the economy. His scholarly justification for that assessment is that:

“President Obama reads from a very simple textbook of economics. All the problems in the world are caused by Republicans and when Republicans are in they cause nothing but problems.”

What’s missing from that economic analysis is anything remotely related to economics. It’s a brazenly political insult that completely avoids any factual basis. In other words, Morici has done his job as a Fox News analyst perfectly. Never get bogged down with facts when smear tactics are available.

Morici went on to concede that “during the Obama administration they created jobs, for sure,” but then he falsely asserted that it was at a slow pace. He compared Obama’s record to that of Ronald Reagan. Which makes you wonder why he didn’t bother to compare it to Trump’s. Perhaps because in the past ten months of Trump’s presidency job growth has significantly slowed. In fact, it has been the slowest ten months in over five years.

Hegseth interrupted Morici to provide additional ammunition for the argument that Trump is the savior of the American economy. He cited the thirty percent growth of the stack market (but left out that it more than doubled during the Obama years). He noted that GDP had grown in a couple of quarters by three precent (which also happened during Obama’s administration). And he praised Trump for the 4.1 percent unemployment rate (a figure that was an extension of Obama’s jobs policies).

What both Hegseth and Morici ignored is that there isn’t any Trump economy. He has done literally nothing that might have impacted any economic metrics. There has been no legislation passed relating to jobs, budget, debt, or anything else economy related. Consequently, the nation is still running on the programs put in place during Obama’s administration. The only thing that Republicans can cite as evidence of their impact is a vague claim to a “mood” in the country that has allegedly advanced the economy. So their whole argument is based on a feeling. How cute.

Morici’s closing argument was rooted firmly in typical “trickle-down” economics that have been proven repeatedly to be a right-wing hoax. And he had the gall to assert that after eight years of record growth, a continuation of the Obama plan would reduce America’s economy to that of North Korea’s. Of course, he never bothered to substantiate that bit of ultra-nonsense. And then he rattled of some of the Trumpian things he said help the economy, including tax cuts, infrastructure spending, immigration reform, and cutting entitlements. None of which have been implemented.

So in the end, Morici and Hegseth relied solely on emotional irrelevancies and their political biases to celebrate Trump’s successes that don’t exist. And somehow from that they conclude that Obama was the one stealing credit. But at least they can rest easily that their audience will believe whatever unfounded crap they dish out. That’s the benefit of having Fox News around to spread propaganda to the gullible yokels who are dumb enough to watch.

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

Is He Bragging or Confessing? Donald Trump Rants that ‘We Have a Rigged System’

Posted by on December 9, 2017 at 11:16 am. 2 Comments :

When Donald Trump showed up in Pensacola, Florida on Friday, he arrived wrapped in a lie. After insisting that he would not campaign for the pedophile GOP candidate for senate in Alabama, Trump held a big rally a few miles away in the same media market as Mobile. Then he exhorts this crowd of supposed Floridians to vote for Roy Moore.

Donald Trump

And that lie was only the beginning, The speech was jam-packed with provable falsehoods that were too numerous to bother with. It’s just his standard mode of operation. He lies about everything, whether it’s important or not. And he especially lies about things that affect his ego-soaked impression of himself. For instance, he bragged that the auditorium was filled to the rafters when almost half of it was empty.

However, perhaps the most striking remarks Trump made were in reference to what he views as the sorry state of America. That’s a subject he has been obsessed with ever since he launched his campaign declaring that “This country is a hell hole.” He relentlessly disparages every institution that Americans value, including law enforcement, education, the military, freedom of speech and of the press, etc. And he continued on that theme of America bashing in Pensacola saying that:

“It’s being proven we have a rigged system. Doesn’t happen so easy. But this system, there will be a lot of changes. This a rigged, this is a rigged system. This is a sick system from the inside. And, you know, there’s no country like our country, but we have a lot of sickness in some of our institutions. […] Terrible, terrible.”

To be clear, Trump has been president for ten months. No one is more “inside” than he is. He frequently (and falsely) brags that he has done more than any president before him in history. If he’s talking about more damage, or more treasonous collusion with Russia, or more sexual abuse, most Americans would agree with him. Unfortunately, our delusional, narcissistic, wannabe dictator actually seems to believe his own bullshit.

Which makes it all the puzzling that he can make comments like those above. If he is the massively successful leader he pretends to be, then how could the system that he has been in charge of for nearly a year be so sick? There really is only one explanation for this outburst. Trump is clandestinely trying to absolve himself by secretly confessing to being the failure that everyone else already sees. It’s a pathetic attempt to grasp at salvation that he will never realize.

What’s really sad is that his glassy-eyed disciples don’t see that he is an Olympic-grade loser. Even when he literally admits. They continue to cheer and march in lock-step adoration of their Dear Leader who has conned them so completely they can’t tell lies from reality anymore. That’s what enables them to support a pedophile for the senate; or to support taunting an unstable nuclear-powered tyrant in North Korea; or to support policies that are demonstrably against their own best interests. All of which suggests that Trump is right (in the most wrong way) that the system is rigged and sick. What he doesn’t say is that he is the cause.

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

Here’s How Donald Trump’s ‘Fake News’ Smears Have Emboldened the World’s Tyrants

Posted by on December 8, 2017 at 2:46 pm. 1 Comments :

The campaign to discredit the media has been a prominent part of Donald Trump’s mission for several months. He is an avowed foe of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press. He said that the media is “the enemy of the American people,” and has called for revoking the licenses of press organizations he doesn’t like. Setting aside the fact that he has no power to do that, just the desire exposes his dangerously tyrannical aspirations.

Donald Trump

By attacking the press so relentlessly, and without foundation, Trump has demonstrated that his words have an impact on the glassy-eyed disciples who worship him. Forty-six percent of Republicans now agree with Trump that he should be allowed to shut down any media that isn’t unquestioningly adoring. That’s the effect a loudmouthed wannabe dictator can have on the gullible masses.

However, this presages an even a bigger and more ominous problem. Politico has aggregated some of the evidence that Trump’s suppressive rhetoric is capable of damaging freedom of speech and the press around the world. The article quotes numerous foreign leaders with authoritarian tendencies adopting Trump’s anti-media philosophy. They are joining in the chant of “fake news” to demean any criticism they receive from the press. For instance:

  • Syrian President Bashar Assad: You can forge anything these days, we are living in a fake news era.
  • Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte: has complained of being “demonized” by “fake news.”
  • Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro: This is what we call ‘fake news’ today, isn’t it?
  • A state official in Myanmar: There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news.
  • The Chinese government-run People’s Daily: Trump is right, fake news is the enemy.
  • Polish President Andrzej Duda: Let’s FIGHT FAKE NEWS.

All of these adopters of Trump’s “fake news” language are notoriously oppressive leaders known for their mistreatment of the media. Their tactics include threats, imprisonment, and even assassination. The article also highlights Libya’s reference to Trump to dismiss reports about their slave trade. And of course Russian media has taken to labeling stories they dispute with a big red “Fake News” stamp.

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

Trump may not be having much of an impact on Americans, who continue to oppose him and his policies by large majorities. But internationally, the world’s worst tyrants are finding comfort in the words of America’s anti-media president. And they are following his example in order to embark on a reign of terror against journalists and journalism.

Sean Hannity Attacks President Obama as Sick, Pathetic, and Twisted for Telling the Truth

Posted by on December 8, 2017 at 11:54 am. 2 Comments :

Poor Fox News has suffered greatly in the past year or two. They launched the #MeToo movement when their CEO, Roger Ailes, was fired for sexual harassment and abuse. Then their biggest star, Bill O’Reilly, was terminated for the same reason. Their primetime schedule was thrown into chaos with the departure of O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly, who left partly due to harassment by Ailes.

Fox News Obama Hannity

Consequently, the current primetime roster for Fox News depends on newcomer Laura Ingraham (who is regularly beaten by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell), Tucker Carlson (who has been fired from every other cable news network), and the excruciatingly annoying Trump-fluffer, Sean Hannity (who was moved into the time slot opposite Rachel Maddow and quickly descended to second place).

Hannity is an unabashed sycophant for Donald Trump, even to the point that he has bitterly renounced the Republican Party in favor of his reality TV cult leader. He will defend Trump for any and all criticism, no matter how definitive the facts against the President. And he will attack Trump’s foes with a fury that is beyond hysterical. Which is precisely what he did on Thursday’s program when he went after President Obama:

“No class Barack Obama back again. What is he doing? Launching a new, far left attack against President Trump warning that America could turn into Nazi Germany.”

Indeed. Obama did articulate such a warning, and with good cause. He told an economic conference in Chicago that:

“[The danger is to] grow complacent. We have to tend to this garden of democracy or else things could fall apart quickly. That’s what happened in Germany in the 1930s, which despite the democracy of the Wiemar Republic, and centuries of high level cultural and scientific achievements, Adolf Hitler rose to dominate…Sixty million people died. So you’ve gotta pay attention. And vote.”

It’s difficult to figure out what Hannity objects to in those remarks. Vigilance in the defense of democracy has always been considered patriotic. And Hannity is often the first to accuse Democrats, including Obama, of radical political extremism. Even Trump has invoked the risk of rising totalitarianism, although his warnings were baseless and delusional:

Note that Obama’s warning was generalized to refer to a broad slate of potential risks, while Trump was attacking his own law enforcement apparatus. Hannity continued his tirade by engaging in accusations that far exceed what he is accusing Obama of:

“Very cute, very clever comparing the president in a subtle way to Hitler and Nazis. Obama, by the way, how are your unrepentant domestic terrorist buddies Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn doing? Oh and by the way, please send our best wishes to the “Church of GD America” and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Now the former president is obviously sick, pathetic, and twisted in this obsession with President Trump. He’s kind of like everybody in the media.”

By bringing up fake allegations against Obama that date back nearly a decade, Hannity proves that he has completely run out of tricks from his anti-Obama playbook. But calling Obama sick, pathetic, twisted, and obsessed, is classic projection. It’s actually Hannity who is sick, pathetic, twisted, and obsessed with an unnatural infatuation for Donald Trump. His program is 100% state-run TV propaganda. But his sagging ratings and fleeing advertisers are proof that this strategy is failing. Meanwhile, Stop Hannity movement continues to gain momentum.

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