Day: 3/19/2018

Sean Hannity Lost What Was Left of His Alleged Mind in Bonkers Fox and Friends Spot

Posted by on March 19, 2018 at 3:08 pm. 4 Comments :

Some things just have to be seen to be believed – and even then it’s not always believable. Other times it takes too strong a stomach to even sit through the unbelievable thing. Sean Hannity of Fox News has generously provided examples of all of the above.

Fox News Sean Hannity

On Monday morning Hannity visited his colleagues at Fox and Friends to unload a pile defenses for his beleaguered Messiah, Donald Trump. The world around the President must seem to be falling apart as new revelations concerning his unsavory connections to Russia keep spilling out. Trump himself is in pure panic mode and is posting tweets that affirm his guilty conscience. So he is in dire need of a valiant defender to come to his aid. Unfortunately, all he has is the Doofus Squad on Fox and Friends and Sean Hannity.

Hannity’s segment with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes went off the rails from the start. What follows is his run-on, addled-brain meltdown just as it occurred on the air. Buckle in (video below):

“You’ve got the whole issue of Christopher Steele. You know, all this talk about Trump/Russia collusion, the only person that colluded in that campaign with the Russians, was Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton bought and paid for what turned out to be Russian lies. She fixes a primary election against Bernie. Then Hillary has a criminal investigation fixed for her. She tries to use Russian lies she pays for and funnels through Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS to hire a British foreign outsider who uses Russian contacts. Then the worst part of this whole story is then that unverified uncorroborated dossier is then brought before a FISA court when a FISA application, and three subsequent renewal applications to spy on a campaign associate and ostensibly the Trump campaign. Nobody told that judge, or any of those four judges, how it’s possible that Hillary paid for that. They never told them.”

And inhale. Before anyone hurts themselves trying to absorb that, here is a brief summary: Hillary Clinton bought a dossier on Trump that was mean.

That’s really all there is to it. Hannity just repeated the same issues with different words for two minutes. And none of it was true. Neither Clinton nor her campaign colluded with Russians. They did partially fund research that was started by the right-wing Free Beacon. And the firm that conducted the research hired a respected former British intelligence professional to collect information from Russian sources.

And what Hannity calls “the worst part of this whole story” was a blatant lie. Much, but not all, of the Steele dossier was verified. None of of it was found to be false. The FISA court was, in fact, told that the dossier was partially funded by political partisans. Even Devin Nunes, who chaired the hopelessly biased Intelligence Committee inquiry, admitted that in his Republican report. And it was not the sole – or even main – justification for the FISA warrant. What’s more, Hannity proves that he doesn’t understand the FISA application process. The renewals are required every ninety days and may not use justifications that were cited in previous applications. So the dossier could only have been used once, not four times.

Sadly, the people who watch Hannity and Fox and Friends will never be told about these factual details. They will only hear the rapid-fire allegations that they can’t logically follow, and the fear in Hannity’s voice. And that will be enough for them to be certain that these crackpot conspiracy theories are true. After all, the glassy-eyed disciples of Trump are no more sane than Hannity is.

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

Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst, Judge Napolitano, Calls McCabe Firing ‘Obstruction of Justice’

Posted by on March 19, 2018 at 12:49 pm. 2 Comments :

The President of the United States is trying his best to help his accusers make a case against him. Donald Trump’s relentless tweeting demonstrates what lawyers call “consciousness of guilt.” On Monday morning he posted a message that said nothing more than “A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!” These hollow cries for absolution do nothing to exonerate him, but rather they portray him as pathetic and desperate.

Fox News Judge Napolitano

Now Trump is even losing some his most reliable defenders. While most of Fox News continues to place themselves as human shields to deflect any criticisms, a couple of stragglers have wondered off the track. One of those is Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst for Fox News. He appeared on two Fox broadcasts Monday making remarks that will surely infuriate Trump, if his daycare nurses allow him to see it. The most damning commentary came during an interview with perplexed host Bill Hemmer. They were discussing the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe when Napolitano said this (video below):

“Andrew McCabe is more likely than not to be a witness against the Attorney General’s boss, the President of the United States. I think that firing him in that environment could very well be interpreted as an effort to diminish his effectiveness as a witness. What’s that called? Obstruction of justice.”

Indeed. And obstruction is one of the key facets of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Elsewhere on State TV (aka Fox News) Trump’s sycophants have been fiercely insisting that Trump is innocent of every allegation against him, and that Mueller is a corrupt partisan who is part of the conspiracy to drive Trump from office. So this assessment by Fox’s top legal contributor is a significant departure from their propaganda doctrine.

Also, on the Fox Business Network, Maria Bartiromo assembled a panel of Trump fluffers to defend the firing of McCabe, whom they slandered as a liar. Bartiromo’s introduction falsely stated that McCabe was found to have lied by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). In fact, since the report has not been made public yet, all that is known is that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that McCabe “lacked candor.” There is a reason that Sessions used those weasel words rather than asserting as fact that McCabe had lied. Most likely the OPR’s report didn’t find McCabe to be untruthful. And When Napolitano got a chance to speak he pulled the rug out from under Bartiromo and her pro-Trump panel:

“I have to tell you though, terminating someone a day before their pension kicks in – after twenty-on years of service, the number two person in the FBI – strikes me as spiteful and politically reckless. And it’s reckless because this person, McCabe is about to testify against Jeff Sessions’ boss, the President of the United States. Why would you fire him in this environment?”

To which Bartiromo replied:

“Don’t you think that people started getting upset when they heard that he was set to get a million dollars in his pension … because of some of the broad outcry from the public saying ‘Why is he, after what he just did…'”

“Broad outcry?” What “public” is she referring to? I doubt most Americans – even Fox News viewers – were aware of or upset about anything relating to McCabe’s pension. She is desperately grasping at imaginary straws. And neither Bartiromo nor her panel had any response to Napolitano’s characterization of McCabe’s firing as spiteful and reckless.

The fact that Napolitano is making the rounds at Fox to reinforce the absurdity and vindictiveness of Sessions and Trump should cause the President’s tiny heart to tremor. But he will likely only pay attention to his loyal supporters at Fox and Friends and his pal Sean Hannity. He did, in fact, tweet a promo for Hannity’s guest spot on Fox and Friends Monday morning calling it “great” before it even aired. Somehow he knew what to expect. And his obviously guilty behavior suggests that he also knows what to expect from Mueller, McCabe, James Comey, Michael Flynn, etc., when the special counsel investigation is complete.

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