Day: 12/3/2017

Trump Says Reporters Should Be Punished For Inaccurate Stories – OK, Let’s Start With Fox News

Posted by on December 3, 2017 at 3:07 pm. 8 Comments :

On Friday ABC News correspondent Brian Ross misreported a story about confessed liar, and Donald Trump’s disgraced National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. Ross said that his sources told him that Flynn was prepared to testify that candidate Trump told him to contact the Russians. As it turned out it was during the transition, not during the campaign, that Trump told Flynn to hook up with Vladimir.

ABC News corrected the story, but the mistake cost Ross four weeks of pay and a suspension from duty. Naturally, Trump and his right-wing media mouthpieces wiggled their tails and began blasting out accusations of “fake news.” Never mind that the reaction to the error actually affirms the veracity of the so-called mainstream media. They acknowledged the mistake and punished the reporter. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Even Trump recognized that ABC deserved praise for their professionalism. He tweeted:

Setting aside Trump’s infantile and false characterization of the “Russia, Russia, Russia Witch Hunt,” his suggestion that more networks demonstrate this sort of integrity is on point. And the network that spews more lies than any other is, of course, Trump’s favorite: Fox News. It is a nearly non-stop, 24/7, fiction factory that invents slanderous stories about Democrats and liberals, while fantasizing about Trump’s Messianic reign and defending him from every criticism.

For instance, Sunday morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends set out to smear their competition at MSNBC. Co-host Pete Hegseth began a segment that accused the network of suppressing news about the acquittal of the defendant in the Kate Steinle murder case. Hegseth said that:

“In the days following the acquittal of the illegal immigrant responsible for Kate Steinle’s death, the media has now had a mixed response in their coverage, unsurprisingly. But one network has completely ignored it. MSNBC did not cover the verdict one time on Friday or on Saturday.”

Oh really? Apparently the Foxies don’t get out of their bubble very much. MSNBC did, in fact, report this story beginning on Thursday when it broke. Their coverage continued on Friday. It would be fair to say that it lost the “breaking” aspect after that, especially since that’s when the news of Flynn’s guilty plea was announced. Ironically, it was Fox News that is actually guilty of downplaying a bombshell report. Their primetime programs barely glanced at the Flynn story, while furiously hyping the Steinle verdict.

[Update: A tweet was posted to the Fox and Friends Twitter account acknowledging that MSNBC did cover the Steinle verdict. They subsequently deleted the story and the video, but a copy of the clip can be seen here. They have not issued an on-air retraction on Fox and Friends.]

Fox News

The examples of Fox News deliberately disseminating false information are too numerous to list here. But the fact-checkers at PolitiFact have compiled the data and found that Fox News broadcasts contain at least sixty percent false content. Think about that. Significantly more than half of what you see on Fox News are lies.

Which is why I am in complete agreement with Donald Trump with regard to more networks suspending reporters whose work is found to be inaccurate. Because if Fox News were held to that standard they would go dark for the next couple of years. And that would truly Make America Great Again.

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

Trump Lies On Top Of Lies That He’s Now Lying That He Lied About

Posted by on December 3, 2017 at 11:16 am. 2 Comments :

Confused? That’s exactly the point. Donald Trump is weaving a web of deliberate falsehoods in order to build up a tolerance to official dishonesty so that his gushing output of lies are dismissed as inconsequential and ordinary. But there is nothing ordinary about Trump’s pathological behavior and aversion to truth and decency.

Donald Trump Lies

In another morning tweetstorm, the Liar-in-Chief knocked off a series of embarrassingly ludicrous messages aimed at shoring up the faith of his glassy-eyed disciples. They included swings at the FBI and Hillary Clinton and special counsel Robert Mueller and, of course, the media. The one thing shared in common was a sense of desperation so thick it could stop a bazooka blast. Trump is clearly frightened out of (what passes for) his wits.

Among these tweets was one in particular that represents his brazen assault on verifiable facts. In response to the crushing news that his former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with Mueller, Trump pounded out this absurdity:

This is one of the easiest Trump lies to refute. That’s because he’s on video saying exactly what he is now tweeting that he never said (video below):

“When I decided to just do it [fire FBI Directer James Comey] I said to myself, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.'”

So he told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey specifically because of the Russia investigation at the FBI. An investigation that Comey refused to halt at Trump’s insistence. Flynn, of course, was at the heart of the investigation. And we know now that he lied to the FBI to cover up the involvement of himself and others in the Trump campaign and administration, possibly including Trump.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he fired Flynn because he lied to Vice-President Mike Pence and the FBI. That was a new revelation. It was the first time that Trump acknowledged knowing that Flynn lied to the FBI. And if he knew that when he fired him, that is a confession to obstruction of justice.

Comey testified under oath before Congress that Trump asked him to stop the investigation. Now Trump is calling Comey a liar. But if you look at the record of both men in public life, it’s clear that Trump is the one that it is impossible to believe. He currently has racked up over 1,600 lies just since his inauguration. And this latest tweet is a new lie wherein he is lying about his previous lies. And what’s really sad – and somewhat frightening – is that there are still people who believe him.

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