Month: March 2018

Devin Nunes To Fox News: Stephen Colbert is ‘The Danger That We Have in This Country’

Posted by on March 4, 2018 at 1:07 pm. 1 Comments :

The first year of Donald Trump’s presidency has seen innumerable crises develop domestically and throughout the world. There have been several shootings on school campuses. Our elections have been tampered with by Russia, and they’re still doing it. Trump is threatening nuclear war with North Korea. And his proposal to impose tariffs (mostly on our allies) sent the stock market into a tailspin.

Stephen Colbert & Trump Baby

So what does Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee, consider to be one of the most serious hazards facing America? Well, of course, it’s late night television comedy, and specifically Stephen Colbert. Nunes was interviewed on Fox News by their resident Financial Distortion Anchor, Neil Cavuto (video below). The segment had nothing to do with the economy, but it did get to the bottom of the frightening assault on America by radical satirists. It began withe this probing exchange:

Cavuto: You mention that the media doesn’t present a fair case of [Trump/Russia]. Maybe the indication of that is that you’ve recently become the butt of late night comic jokes. Particularly Stephen Colbert was up on Capitol Hill. I think making you the butt of some jokes. What did you think of that? Did Colbert make any effort to talk to you?”
Nunes: Well, I think that this is the danger that we have in this country. The left controls not only the universities in this country, but they also control Hollywood in this country, and the mainstream media. So conservatives in this country are under attack and I think this is a great example of it.

Exactly. Stephen Colbert absolutely is “the danger” that America faces. And kudos to Cavuto for bringing up this looming peril. Where else but on Fox News could this travesty be exposed? Nunes points out that the reason the nation is undergoing such unprecedented turmoil is that leftists have seized control of the most powerful institutions in the country – universities and Hollywood – and are using them to enslave the minds of decent citizens. However, he doesn’t explain why these scurrilous lefties allowed Republicans to control the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.

Also unexplained is how the special counsel, Robert Mueller, managed to get (so far) nineteen indictments and five guilty pleas connected to his investigation of Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia. But rest assured, somehow it’s the fault of universities, Hollywood, and Colbert. And Nunes isn’t taking it laying down. He doesn’t intend to be the butt of anyone’s joke, no matter how much he deserves it. In fact, he likes it:

Nunes: So I hope they continue to do it. Because on the one hand you’ll see the left and the media running out there saying “OMG, this is the end of the world. The Russians attacked our democracy. And we have evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” However, they can’t show it. They have no proof […] they resort to going to their friends in Hollywood to make fun of people and attack people who are trying to get to the truth. I enjoy the attacks. If they want to continue to attack me, that’s fine.”

Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would we? Although it’s puzzling that he says he enjoys it while simultaneously complaining that it’s an unfair attack and a danger to the country. Is he an unpatriotic masochist?

Nunes’ remarks were rife with allegations as to the identity of the real colluders – naturally, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. And when Cavuto asked him about allegations that he was “doing the President’s bidding,” he curiously replied “I don’t know.” Then quickly stammering to add “I mean, we don’t get any orders from the White House.” Which makes perfect sense. They are probably coming from Mar-A-Lago, where the President spends most of his time.

Nunes went on to praise his committee’s work and insisted that he “follows the facts where they lead.” So long as they lead to Clinton and the Democrats. He refused to allow his Democratic committee colleagues to call witnesses. And he wouldn’t hold White House witnesses accountable when they refused to answer questions. Nunes falsely claimed that “no one would know … that Fusion GPS was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party’ but for his efforts. In fact, it was reported by the (fake?) media long before he ever got around to it.

Once again, Fox News uncovers the atrocities in Washington that are neglected by the “mainstream” media (which, for some reason doesn’t include Fox News). And heroes like Devin Nunes are permitted time to inform the American people about what is really going on in this gawd-awful country. With journalism like this we will hopefully soon be rid of fake reporters like Colbert who are working tirelessly to destroy America.

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

Here is the Fox News segment with Cavuto and Nunes:

And here is video of Colbert’s trip to Washington, D.C.:

Trump Salivates Over China’s Xi Becoming President for Life: ‘Maybe We’ll Give That a Shot Some Day’

Posted by on March 3, 2018 at 5:46 pm. 6 Comments :

File this one under “HOLY SH*T” – if there’s still any room in that file. At a Republican fundraiser at his Mar-A-Lago resort, Donald Trump gave a speech that firmly establishes his not-so-thinly-veiled aspirations to be become America’s dictator. This was an event where the press was locked out, but a recording of Trump’s remarks manged to make its way to CNN. Here’s part of what he said per CNN (video below):

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

“Trump also praised China’s President Xi Jinping for recently consolidating power and extending his potential tenure, musing he wouldn’t mind making such a maneuver himself.

“‘He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great,’ Trump said. ‘And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day.'”

No, we f**king won’t! And if that weren’t horrendous enough, the audience of GOP fat cats cheered wildly. They actually think it would be a good idea. At the very least they weren’t offended by the wholly inappropriate humor (if that’s what the White House tries to excuse it as tomorrow).

Trump also ran through his “greatest hits,” with complaints that Hillary Clinton hasn’t been locked up for whatever imaginary crimes Trump thinks she committed. He whined about the “rigged system” that sent him to the White House. And he lashed out again at his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions for not obeying his tyrannical whims and prosecuting whoever he regards as an enemy. He may want to be careful about that because it might just come back to chew off a chunk of his fat ass.

For someone who has been repeatedly castigated for behavior that emulates tyrants like Xi, Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte, and even Hitler, it is astonishing and disgusting that he would say anything like this, even in jest. But it nevertheless fits his reprehensible character (or lack thereof) and affirms that he has no sense of decency. However, the reaction from his comrades in the ballroom may be even worse. Their positive response is the sort of thing that results in narcissistic bullies transforming into full fledged dictators. They are the forward flank of the Trump cult, and are enabling his deranged, power hungry, madness.

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

Could Trump’s Persistent Attacks Drive Jeff Sessions Right Into Robert Mueller’s Arms?

Posted by on March 3, 2018 at 12:52 pm. 2 Comments :

Let’s be clear from the outset, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a repugnant, racist individual who should never have a role in public service. He rose from the Klan-infested South where he fit right in with the bigots of Alabama. He was rejected by the Senate for a federal judgeship due to reports of his prejudice and use of the “N” word. He was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump for president. During the campaign he he met twice with Russians and lied about it to congress. It’s a resume that ought to disqualify him from any position of respect or power.

Donald Trump Jeff Sessions

That said, Sessions is in a unique position. In one of his first appointments, Trump made him the Attorney General of the United States. But ever since then the President has lambasted him in an embarrassingly public way. The insults have flown from Twitter, as well as deliberate leaks from within the White House’s inner circle. Most recently Trump has been referring to Sessions as the blind and bumbling cartoon character, Mr. Magoo. But that’s just the latest humiliation that Sessions has had to suffer. Some of Trump’s attacks on Twitter include:

In addition to these, Trump’s state-run TV division (aka Fox News) has predictably adopted his animosity toward Sessions and piled on with fierce denunciations. Anchors like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs have called for the Attorney General to resign or be fired. They regard his recusal from the special counsel’s investigation as treason. Consequently, Fox News and right-wing Republicans are demanding that Sessions appoint a second special counsel to look into bogus claims of FISA abuses and FBI violations of law.

There has to be a point at which a normal human being will cease to take such constant and demeaning abuse. The question is whether Sessions has reached that point already.

It’s notable that, despite Trump’s persecution, Sessions has failed to bend to his will, at least with regard to Robert Mueller. In fact, Sessions has taken several opportunities to support Mueller and the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein. The pressure from the White House and the pro-Trump media has been intense, but Sessions has not been moved. To the contrary, it was just announced that the FBI has begun an investigation into Ivanka Trump’s business deals.

The legal action against the President’s daughter cannot be dismissed as routine. Particularly from an administration that has been so criminally partisan. Along with Sessions’ firm support for the special counsel and refusal to resign under pressure, there is reason to believe that he may have some form revenge in mind. He has been in politics a long time and may be tougher than he looks.

If Sessions retains any semblance of humanity he may be building up some resentment and smoldering rage. He might want to show Trump that he won’t tolerate such abuse. And if that’s true it would be disastrous for Trump. Sessions has the whole weight of the Justice Department to throw around. That includes the FBI and some oversight (handled discreetly) of the special counsel. He could even switch sides and start spilling what he knows about Trump to Mueller’s team. And with all of the potential legal vulnerabilities hovering over Trump’s head there’s plenty of fuel to burn the Trump Crime Family to a crisp. In other words, Trump better watch his step or he’ll piss off the one person in his administration that can do him the most harm.

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

To be sure, there is a lot speculation in this theory. Sessions’ reprehensible past and demonstrated loyalty might make him reluctant to move against his boss. But his ego and aspirations for a halfway decent legacy might take precedence. Especially if he sees Trump’s downfall as inevitable and doesn’t want to go down with the ship.

UPDATE: The Washington Post is reporting that there is “Pure Madness” and “Dark days inside the White House.” And this excerpt is particularly relevant:

“Aides tell WaPo ‘Trump seethed with anger’ over the photo of Sessions at dinner with Rosenstein and the Solicitor General. The next morning, Trump was still raging about the photo, venting to friends and allies it was an intentional show of disloyalty.”

Rachel Maddow Guides MSNBC to a Strong February 2018 – Fox News and Hannity are Scared

Posted by on March 2, 2018 at 10:40 am. 3 Comments :

In another embarrassingly weak performance, Fox News has suffered a ratings fall-off in February 2018 that signals more trouble ahead. Fox’s declining fortunes are becoming a regular event. In January the network dropped fourteen percent in primetime. Now February has topped that with an additional fifteen percent decline. Meanwhile, MSNBC gained significantly in both months of this new year.

Fox News Sad

In January Rachel Maddow outperformed Hannity, and all other cable news programs, in the key audience demographic of 25-54 year olds. She came just short of repeating that performance in February with an average of 635,000 viewers per night. Hannity edged her out with 643,000. However, of the twenty days in February, Maddow won a majority (eleven) of them.

Maddow’s practice of covering breaking news and the unfolding scandals of the scandal-ridden Trump administration has proven to be an unqualified success. Her deep dive into research and expert analysis continues to draw devoted viewers. Two years ago no one would have predicted that Fox would be a second place news network. Fox actually moved Hannity into a direct time period competition with Maddow in an attempt to blow her out with his top rated program. That didn’t go exactly according to plan and must be gnawing at Hannity and his Fox bosses.

Consequently, Hannity’s program is sinking into ever more ludicrous conspiracy theory territory. He is challenging Alex Jones as the right-wing’s most unhinged crackpot. On almost every show Hannity ignores actual news of Trump’s daily failures. Instead, he features topics exploring Hillary Clinton’s ancient and baseless controversies, or some version of the alleged “deep state” takeover of America. And of course, Hannity is serving his master in the White House with constant attempts to slander special counsel Robert Mueller and the FBI.

These subjects are also spread across the Fox News schedule. It’s why Fox viewers are so often shown to be more uninformed (or ill informed) than viewers of any other news network. And it is probably contributing to the overall audience decline at Fox as people seek out actual news and information relevant to their lives. But it is consistent with the Fox News commitment to defend Trump at all costs.

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

The Fox News mission has always been to prop up the conservative, Republican agenda. But it’s more immediate objective is to discredit the investigations into Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia (and other financial corruption). And flagrant propagandists like Hannity, Tucker Carlson (who just called Democrats anti-American), and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, are focused intently on smearing America’s law enforcement and intelligence institutions. They are putting their rancid partisanship before the interests of the country. And America’s television viewers are reacting with disgust and seeking out more credible reporting. Which is good news for Maddow and MSNBC.

The Democratic Party is Anti-American: Deconstructing Tucker Carlson’s Noxious Trump-Fluffing

Posted by on March 2, 2018 at 8:38 am. 1 Comments :

There are plenty of repugnant cretins on Fox News who devote themselves to distorting reality and misinforming their dimwitted audience. No one is more of a sycophantic disciple of Donald Trump than Sean Hannity. And Steve Doocy’s portrayal of an imbecile infatuated with the President is spot on. But Tucker Carlson has carved out his own domain as the master of indignant arrogance stewed in hypocrisy and logical dysfunction.

Fox News Tucker Carlson

On Thursday’s program Carlson set out to express a rare disappointment with his hero in the White House. It stemmed from Trump’s boneheaded assertion that guns should be confiscated from certain individuals without due process of law. That’s a position that was quickly denounced by all sides of the gun reform debate, including most fiercely by the NRA. But Carlson’s lecture (video below) was especially convoluted and managed to make Democrats the villains for what Trump said. What follows is an annotated transcript of the highlights.

“The alternatives to what we have now are scary and getting scarier. The Democratic Party is completely irresponsible and increasingly anti-American. They prefer illegal aliens to our middle-class. That’s true and it’s terrifying. Someone needs to defend the country from these people. Trump mostly does that.”

So Trump advocates violating the Constitution, but it’s Democrats who are anti-American? And Carlson’s deranged and insulting assertion that Democrats “prefer illegal aliens to our middle-class” is baseless and purposefully inflammatory. What’s true and terrifying is Carlson’s anti-American suggestion that the country needs to be defended from people he disagrees with.

“At one point the President said ‘The government should take the guns first, go through due process second.’ How honest do you want to be. Imagine if Barack Obama had said that. Just ignore due process and start confiscating guns. Obama would have been denounced as a dictator. We would have denounced him first. Trust me.”

Well, to be fair, Carlson and Fox News did denounce Obama as a dictator with predictable frequency, but never with justification. But his point was that Trump’s proposal for gun confiscation should receive the same criticism. Let’s see how that went.

“It’s important to remember that nobody should be tied to a person, but instead to principles. So with that in mind, do you think it’s worth just reminding the President – as we all need to be reminded sometimes – that there are deeper principles here?

How generous. Carlson won’t denounce Trump’s dictatorial raving, but politely remind him of the principles that he’s certain Trump has anyway. What happened to being the first to denounce dictatorship? That must not apply to your ideological crush with the long, flowing, golden locks (vainly covering his crusty bald spot). However, Carlson’s presumption of Trump’s true inner feelings were proven correct overnight as Trump tweeted that he’d made up with the NRA in an Oval Office tryst:

Here’s the video of Carlson’s Democrat-bashing, love letter to dictator Trump, if you can stomach it.

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

Putin Unveils ‘Invincible’ New Nuclear Missiles – And Of Course, There’s an Old Trump Tweet for That

Posted by on March 1, 2018 at 2:28 pm. NO Comments :

February was a month that saw more unsettling scandals from Donald Trump’s White House than even his biggest critics could have imagined. They run the gamut from Jared Kushner’s bank loans, to insulting his Attorney General Jeff Sessions as “disgraceful,” to contradictory positions on gun control, to Hope Hicks telling “white lies,” to 13 new indictments by special counsel Robert Mueller. And I could go on.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

Consequently, March has a lot to live up to. And it’s coming in roaring like a lion. The big news on Thursday, March 1, was Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Russia has developed a class of new nuclear weapons that make the West’s defenses “useless.” NBC News reports that…

“To rapturous applause, Putin said the new technology had been developed despite skepticism from other countries about Russia’s capabilities.

“‘I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country’s development … you have failed to contain Russia,’ he said.

‘He accused the West of ‘ignoring us. Nobody listened to us. Well listen to us now.’

“He boasted that Russia’s new ICBM is ‘powerful and modern and defense systems will not be able to withstand it,’ he said. ‘Missile defenses will be useless against it.'”

Putin said that he is prepared to retaliate against any aggression directed at Russia or its allies. And he insists that he isn’t bluffing. All of this bluster comes at a time when American’s president has given Russia wider latitude than ever before. Trump viciously attacks Democrats, Republicans, and even his own staff, but has never criticized Putin in any substantive way. And despite the fact that Russia engaged in blatant election tampering against the U.S., Trump refuses to impose sanctions or otherwise punish them. Which make this tweet, posted almost exactly one year ago, especially significant:

That’s right. Trump is complaining that Obama wasn’t tough enough on Putin. Never mind that Obama did impose sanctions on Russia, ejected more than thirty Russian operatives, shut down two Russian facilities, and sought a bipartisan agreement on additional measures that was shot down by GOP senate leader Mitch McConnell. And if Trump was so upset by Obama’s response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, then why hasn’t Trump done anything about it in the past year? And with Putin’s announcement of adding new, more advanced missiles, Trump’s tweet seems to apply more to himself than to Obama. It’s Trump who is even worse than weak, he’s submissive.

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

So once again Trump has proven that he is an empty suit that has no idea what he’s doing or saying. He will lash out at anyone who piques his ire at a given point in time, but forget all about it after the next scandal erupts – or after watching Fox and Friends. His ineptitude and limited attention span make him an imminent danger to the nation. And there always seems to be a tweet wherein he affirms everything that everyone worries about with regard to his flagrant incompetence.