Day: 3/24/2018

Fox News Turns on Donald Trump for the Worst Imaginable Reason

Posted by on March 24, 2018 at 2:12 pm. 5 Comments :

On Friday Donald Trump invited the press to an announcement that he was signing the spending bill just passed by the Republican controlled Congress. The President spent more time castigating the bill and his GOP comrades in Congress than he did explaining why he was bothering to sign it at all. It was clearly a distasteful burden that he was undertaking with great reluctance. And he isn’t the only one who felt that way.

Fox News Sean Hannity

Trump whined about having to sign a bill that was so chock-full of crap he didn’t like. Or more accurately, that it didn’t contain things that are even crappier. He said that he would never sign another bill like this one, and most Americans probably hope that’s true. Then he complained that Congress won’t give up more of their power by granting him a line-item veto. Of course, our idiot president doesn’t know that the Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional twenty years ago.

The spectacle of Trump lambasting a bill as he was signing it is actually a rather good depiction of his pitiful proclivity for failure. Not only was he incapable of making the sort of deals that he constantly boasts would be so easy, he was admitting that Democrats beat him at every stage of this bill’s passage. If this is “winning” in his mind, let’s see more of it.

In addition to being bitterly unsatisfied with the bill, Trump also has to endure the scorn of his biggest fans – Fox News. There was a starkly atypical response by many of those who he usually relies on for blind, slobbering support. The entire primetime roster (and more) is angry that Trump signed this bill, and they said so on the air:

Sean Hannity: I personally wish the president vetoed this bill, made them stay in Washington. Make them keep their promises. What happened to the Republican party. Whatever happened to the party that believed in fiscal responsibility?

Tucker Carlson: We’re told we need this bill because of national security. But how secure is a nation that has no borders? Well about as secure as a political party that has no rationale for existing.

Laura Ingraham: It pains me to say this, but the president did have a choice. He could have called Congress back to town and make them pass a continuing resolution until his priorities were funded and we explain this mess to the American people.

Jesse Watters: This was a huge defeat for the President on a signature issue. It’s really, really bad. There’s no way to spin it.

Pete Hegseth: This is a swamp budget. A Mitch McConnell special. Democrats control the process. If Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are happy, the American people shouldn’t be.

[Late Addition] Jeanine Pirro: The omnibus bill that Republicans gave President Trump yesterday is a total betrayal of him and those who elected him.

The opposition to Trump’s approval of the spending bill was nearly unanimous among the Fox News regulars. But what makes this even more ridiculous is that they didn’t oppose the bill for what many would think were the obvious right-wing reasons. They didn’t complain about the 1.3 trillion dollar price tag. Or the expansion of the federal debt. Or the funding for Planned Parenthood. Or the additional sanctions on Russia. Or the many other budgetary increases for government agencies that Trump and Republicans have long promised to shut down.

Nope. What the Fox News critics are upset with is that Trump didn’t veto the bill due to its lack of funding for the border wall. They are actually livid that Trump didn’t keep his campaign promise to construct a ridiculous wall that would accomplish nothing. They would prefer that he had shut the government down until congress allocated funds for his precious wall. A wall that is opposed by the majority of Americans.

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

It’s actually pretty funny that the most fervent Trump-fluffers are hammering him over this stupidity. And you can bet that he is worried about it. He wouldn’t care if some experts in finance or economics were critical of his signing this bill. But if Fox and Friends and his pal Sean Hannity are slamming him for it, he’s gonna lose some sleep at Mar-A-Lago this weekend. And when he gets back to Washington it is a certainty that he will make some horrible decisions in an effort to regain their adulation. That is if he doesn’t have a stroke after watching Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes.

Fox News Covers the March For Our Lives By Fixating on the One Parkland Student Who Supports the NRA

Posted by on March 24, 2018 at 12:50 pm. 3 Comments :

On Saturday there was a historical, nationwide demonstration in support of gun reforms and protecting the lives of America’s children – and adults too, for that matter. The demonstrators represented a broad swath of the American public, including Democrats, Republicans, young, old, NRA opponents and members. Millions of marchers turned out for this protest in 800+ cities, with more than half a million in Washington, D.C. alone.

Fox News

It is inspiring to see the passion and determination of the young people who are the catalyst for this movement. Many of them are students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the site of a shooting that took the lives of seventeen students and adults. Their efforts are having a bigger impact than most of the previous attempts to force our ineffectual congress to act on behalf of the majority of their constituents rather than the National Rifle Association and their campaign bribes.

But leave it to Fox News to deliberately distort the public discourse on these critical issues. While most other news networks are reporting continuously and live from demonstrations around the nation, Fox News “reporters” are remaining in their studios and delivering infrequent updates and interviewing opponents of those marching.

One of those opponents is Kyle Kashuv, a Stoneman Douglas student who supports the position of the NRA. That’s fine, and it’s his right to have and express his opinion. But Fox News is plastering their airwaves with this kid who represents a tiny minority of his peers – and the nation. Apparently Fox News couldn’t find any other kids who share his opinion, so they’ve been inviting him on repeatedly and hyping his appearances without interviewing anyone whose views are more consistent with the majority. For instance:

It can hardly be called “fair and balanced” to promote the views of a single individual whose views are decidedly outside of the mainstream. Yet Kashuv has been featured on just about every Fox News program throughout the day. That includes Donald Trump’s favorite show, Fox and Friends, where Kashuv and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes whined about his not being included on a recent Time Magazine cover (video below). NOTE: There were only five students on that cover so many others, including prominent movement leaders, were not in that photo. That fact notwithstanding, Fox’s Steve Doocy had the answer for why Kashuv was allegedly snubbed:

Doocy: I know why you weren’t included. I think, and according to what I’ve read, you support the Second Amendment. And the people who were featured on the cover have a different political point of view.
Kashuv: Well it’s clear that the people on the cover are pushing for gun reform. And they’re pushing for they don’t want to see weapons of war on the streets, like the AR-15. I mean, on the march itself, the march’s website, they listed how they want to ban AR-15s and I don’t agree with that.

First of all, the advocates for gun reform are not against the Second Amendment. They want the sort of common sense regulations that apply to other items in the Bill of Rights. Secondly, Kashuv reveals his own absurd position by saying that he doesn’t agree with those who want weapons of war off the streets. So he wants them on the streets?

They went on to discuss the role of the NRA in this debate. Kashuv was adamant that people who were pointing their fingers at the NRA were not helping to solve the problem. But he concluded by saying that:

“We can have all the legislation we want, but if the legislation isn’t actually being enacted or going through or doing what we should be doing, then what’s the point of legislation.”

Fox’s Pete Hegseth complimented Kashuv on making “a great point” and, in fact, he did. But what neither of them seem to grasp is that the reason legislation isn’t going through is because of the hold that the NRA has on weak, mostly Republican, politicians. You cannot have this debate without observing the toxic interference of the NRA.

This is how Fox News is filling its schedule on the day of the March For Our Lives. For them to hype a conservative opinion, to the exclusion of all other opinions, is not surprising. That’s what they do. But in this case they couldn’t even find a second source for the propaganda they want to disseminate. So they book the one source they have to the point of sheer tedium. What’s more, many of Fox’s pundits and hosts have spent the past several weeks demeaning the opinions of the kids who have been speaking out about gun violence. However, when they found one kid who has their bias, he is treated like a prophet and given an inordinate amount of airtime. It’s the same sort of hypocrisy that Fox News uses when they disparage celebrities who express themselves – except when its right-wing celebrities.

Expect to see more of Kashuv on Fox News in the coming days and weeks. And if their exploitation of this young man is carried to its logical conclusion, then expect to see him hosting his own Fox show or maybe becoming Trump’s next ATF director or even Attorney General.

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