Month: October 2018

LIARS: Trump and Fox News Pretend to Be Against Political Violence and the MAGABomber

Posted by on October 24, 2018 at 2:35 pm. 2 Comments :

When an otherwise pleasant fall morning is interrupted by heinous acts of political terrorism, there is a tendence for public figures and the press to rush out statements of sympathy and determination to confront and eliminate such threats. That’s understandable and appropriate under the circumstances. But when certain people and organizations prior bad behavior is considered in the mix, it’s impossible to ignore the hypocrisy.

Fox News

That’s what we are facing with the statements released by Donald Trump and Fox News in response to the mail bombs sent to the Clintons, the Obamas, CNN, and others. We can expect fringe characters like Alex Jones to whine about “false Flag” operations (which he did – And Rush Limbaugh too). Let’s begin with the statement by Fox News that sought to empathize with the threat to CNN. Fox said that:

“We condemn all attempted acts of violence against media organizations and our thoughts are with CNN for the safety of all of their employees.”

Really? Why didn’t Fox News condemn the act of violence committed by Republican congressman Greg Gianforte, who body slammed a reporter for merely asking a question at a public event? And why didn’t Fox condemn Trump when he praised Gianforte and said that “Any guy who can do a body slam, he’s my guy”? If Fox News were sincere about their condemnation today, they would be more consistent in their expression of it.

What’s more, Fox wouldn’t tolerate their contributors making statements that dismiss the seriousness of these mail bombs. And they wouldn’t allow them to blame the victims. Like their FBI expert saying that “It could be someone who is trying to get the Democratic vote out and incur sympathy.” Or their contributor Candace Owens whose tweet (now deleted) said that:

“I’m going to go ahead and state that there is 0% chance that these ‘suspicious packages’ were sent out by conservatives. The only thing ‘suspicious’ about these packages, was their timing. Caravans, fake bomb threats – these leftists are going ALL OUT for midterms.”

As for the President, he spoke briefly at a White House affair (video below) where he said that “In these times we have to unify. We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.” Once again, this is the same person who heartily endorsed a candidate who pleaded guilty to assaulting a journalist. And that’s only the tip of Trump’s iceberg of incendiary hate speech.

If either Trump or Fox News really want people to believe they mean it when they condemn political violence, they will have to demonstrate that their opposition isn’t given only when it is politically convenient. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. It’s a pretty safe bet that Trump will resume his toxic dialogue at his next cult rally. And it’s similarly safe to presume that Fox will defend him after the fact.

That’s because they don’t really care about toning down their inflammatory rhetoric so long as they think there is a political advantage in it. That’s the core principle of their campaign strategy. And if they think it’s working two weeks before an election, they’ll keep using it. No matter how many more people might be put in danger as result of their recklessness.

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

Surprised? Donald Trump is 100% Responsible for the Bombs Sent to the Clintons, Obamas and CNN

Posted by on October 24, 2018 at 10:22 am. 2 Comments :

The news on Wednesday morning is the sort of thing you might expect from a third world country or a war torn region like Afghanistan. Suspicious packages have now been found targeting George Soros, the Clintons, the Obamas and CNN. It’s a concerted attempt to sow fear in order to influence political behavior. That is the textbook definition of terrorism.

Trump Charlotsville

With this sustained and persistent attack there will be much analysis and speculation as to the perpetrators and their reasons. But there is one cause that is unmistakable to anyone who has been paying attention. Donald Trump has been the source of constant hate speech of the most extreme nature. He repeatedly maligns the media as “the enemy of the people.” And he characterizes his political opponents as not merely Americans with whom he disagrees, but as mortal foes who aim to “destroy” the country. He even did that today in a tweet attacking Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia. But that’s just the latest example. Here are a few more:

Let that sink in. Trump is asserting that his “very dangerous & sick” enemies in the media and the Democratic Party are going to cause war. How hard is it is to project from that the sort of violence that we’re witnessing today? Trump casts Democrats as arsonists. He celebrates a GOP congressman who body slammed a reporter. He refuses to condemn the brutal murder of a Washington Post reporter by his Saudi Arabian pals. He idolizes murderous dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. And he has recently taken to calling Democrats a “mob” – nine times in just the past week.

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

What the hell does he expect? He is inflaming a glassy-eyed cult following that worships him and guns. He just proudly proclaimed that he is a “nationalist,” a term that he acknowledged he is “not supposed to use.” That’s because it is associate with racism and the blind loyalty demanded by Hitler’s regime. But Trump doesn’t care about any of that. Or more accurately, he deeply cares about putting forward the philosophies of the fascists and racists that he has been representing since he first occupied the White House. So anyone who didn’t anticipate these events – including his accomplices at Fox News – as the inevitable result of Trump’s purposefully bloodthirsty and bellicose bombast, are terminally naive and equally responsible.

UPDATE: Add to the list of targets John Brennan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Eric Holder.

Fox News Gushes Over Trump, then Mocks Obama for Saving the Economy from GOP Recession

Posted by on October 23, 2018 at 11:58 am. 3 Comments :

The defenders of Fox News like to pretend that there is a difference between their hard news programming and the Trump-fluffing suck ups who host their primetime shows. That has never been true. The ultra-rightist dogma that spews from the likes of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson overflows into their daily “news” casts without any editorial barrier.

Obama Fox News

Another good example of that occurred on Tuesday morning when the news reader on Fox and Friends First, Carly Shimkus, sought to report on the public appearances by both Donald Trump and Barack Obama on Monday. There was a decidedly unfair and unbalanced overtone to the segment that began with a glowing description of the boundless, adoring crowds that greeted Trump in Texas for his cult rally with Ted Cruz. Shimkus was effusive in her praise for the turnout and even displayed a couple of random, pro-Trump tweets to support her “reporting.”

Then came the Obama portion of the segment. She introduced a brief video clip of Obama’s speech by belittling his role in rescuing the U.S. economy from the recession caused by George W. Bush and the Republican Party:

Shimkus: Former President Obama also hit the campaign trail to rally support for Democrats in Nevada yesterday and he, once again, took credit – some partial credit at least – for the booming economy. Watch.
Obama (video): When you hear all this talk about economic miracles right now, remember who started it.
Shimkus: I believe he was referring to himself there.

Oh really? And why shouldn’t Obama refer to himself when talking about the nation rising from the worst recession since 1929 due to his stewardship of the economy? The same recovery that Trump is constantly trying to take credit for, despite the fact that almost every economic indicator has slowed since he took office two years ago.

Shimkus went on to display a response by the Republican Party that baselessly called Obama’s presidency “some of its darkest days.” And then she read a few more random tweets, this time about Obama’s economic achievements in office. The first one falsely maligned Obama as “the guy that said 2% growth was the new normal.” That was followed by one that must have been written by a man in a coma for Obama’s presidency, that said “Obama’s economic success only kicked in after nine years, and was nowhere to found in the fist eight, when he was actually the president.” And lastly, a tweet that pretty much repeated the nonsense from the one that preceded it, saying “Looks like it took him 10 years to get it started.” So Fox News offered up three tweets that were all anti-Obama, all the opposite of reality, and left it at that.

For the record, Obama’s speech, that Fox played only a few seconds of, provided a concise summary of how the recovery actually played out. But there was no way that Fox News would allow any of these facts to get on their air (video below):

“We got the economy growing again. We started the longest streak of job creation on record. We covered another 20 million people on health insurance. We brought housing back. We cut our deficits by more than half. Partly by making sure the wealthiest Americans – folks like me – paid their fair share of taxes.

“So by the time I left office wages were rising, uninsurance rate was falling, poverty was falling. And that’s what I handed off to the next guy. So when you hear all of this talk about economic miracles right now, remember who started it.”

There is no problem with Fox’s memory. They surely remember who started it. But they are going out of their way to insure that their willfully ignorant viewers forget, or that they mis-attribute the recovery to the Ignoramus-in-Chief who is currently occupying the White House and making everything worse. That is the mission of Fox News, and they are going to pursue no matter how far-fetched or dishonest.

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

Trump Mindlessly Parrots Fox News Lies About ISIS Mixing with Migrant Refugee Caravan

Posted by on October 22, 2018 at 12:41 pm. 2 Comments :

One of the most frequent personal observations expressed by Donald Trump is his insistence that he is a bottomless vessel of boundless knowledge. He claims that he knows more about defense than his generals; more about climate than scientists; and more about the law than his army of lawyers. He may be right about the latter considering that Rudy Giuliani is the head of his laughably inept legal team.

Donald Trump Fox News

However, the evidence of Trump’s brilliance must be buried deeper than the Mariana Trench. He is wrong more often than a chimpanzee predicting the stock market. Although it’s hard to know whether his mistakes are due to common ignorance or, more likely, to flagrant lying. And so much of what he professes to know absolutely is just stuff he heard on Fox News, another disseminator of poorly manufactured fabrications. It’s a sign of his acutely shallow intellect that he relies so heavily on the alternative facts of a TV network staffed by proud foes of intelligence.

Nevertheless, that’s where Trump got his latest bit of bullpucky regarding the nearly 7,000 migrants marching toward the United States in hopes of escaping the poverty and violence in their home countries. Trump posted a tweet on Monday morning that was chock full of falsehoods with racist overtones:

Trump is so enamored of his ability to invent cute nicknames for the objects of his wrath that he came up with one for imposing crises. But the “National Emergy” that he’s panicking about is a figment of his overactive imagination. Especially the part about the “unknown Middle Easterners” allegedly mixing in. Trump appears to have absorbed this non-fact from the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Co-host Pete Hegseth ranted incoherently about the migrant “caravan” in a segment that backed up Trump’s asinine proposal to deploy the military to confront peaceful, unarmed, refugee families. But the centerpiece of this nonsense was the allegation that members of ISIS were infiltrating the marchers (video below):

Hegseth: You got the president of Guatemala saying to a local newspaper down there just last week, they caught over a hundred ISIS fighters in Guatemala trying to use this caravan or other processes.
Steve Doocy: Are we sure that’s true?
Hegseth: He talked to their local newspaper, we don’t know it, it hasn’t been verified. But even one poison pill is too many in a caravan.

Virtually none of that is true. To begin with, President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala didn’t talk to a local newspaper. He made remarks at the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America, an event whose attendees included Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Secondly, President Morales was not talking about ISIS fighters caught in conjunction with the migrant caravan. In fact, the caravan had not even begun when Morales spoke at the Conference. Thirdly, there is no evidence whatsoever that any apprehensions of terrorists were ever made. And finally, in his remarks Morales said that the alleged terrorists had all been deported, in which case they would no longer be in the country or able to sneak into the caravan. Therefore, no National Emergy.

From that basket of nothingness, the ultra-conservative shills at Judicial Watch published a thoroughly false report that implied that Morales had revealed an ongoing effort by ISIS to clandestinely enter the U.S. by disguising themselves as migrants. That work of fiction was picked up by Fox News, and then blasted out by Trump to his millions of Deplorable Twitter followers. And to reiterate, none of it was true. But that didn’t stop Trump from doubling with another inane tweet:

Let’s just set aside the fact that Congress had drafted a comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform bill, but Trump’s stubborness to compromise killed it. Now he’s imploring his cult followers to “think of and blame the Democrats” whenever they see refugees seeking asylum in America. Note that he doesn’t want you to think of the hardships they’ve suffered, or even the impact on the U.S. by their being granted asylum. He sees this a purely political matter and he’s exploiting these human tragedies to try to offset the expected Republican losses in the upcoming midterm election.

What’s worse is that Trump’s response to this is to threaten to cut off aid to the countries these refugees are fleeing. So the inhumane conditions that led to their exodus will now get exponentially worse and more of them will take the risks to escape. That’s the sort of thinking that can only come from someone steeped in ignorance and hatred. It’s the thinking of television pundits whose expertise is in celebrity gossip. And sadly, it’s typical of what America has been having to tolerate for as long as Trump has occupied our White House.

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

Trump Calls All Democratic Voters ‘Crazy’ Which After Whining About ‘Deplorables’ is Really Crazy

Posted by on October 21, 2018 at 10:44 am. 1 Comments :

There has never been a more divisive president of the United States than Donald Trump. He wakes every morning with the intent to demonize his fellow Americans and dehumanize those with whom he disagrees. Trump embraces the tactics of his fascist heroes who perfected the use of projected hate to marginalize his opponents and unite a rage-filled base of cult followers. And he employs infantile insults, nicknames, and the coarse rhetoric of bullies to achieve his ends.

Donald Trump Crazy

If you criticize Trump you don’t just have political differences with him. In his diseased brain you are a destroyer of everything virtuous, and are in league with Satan to destroy him personally. This is evident in the acutely hyperbolic extremes he goes to when describing any person or event. It’s always the “worst ever in history” rather than merely a different point of view. And it was evident in Trump’s recent cult rally in Arizona where he typically went berserk over the presence of Democrats in the country that he thinks should only be occupied by his most zealous fanatics (video below):

“Anybody that votes for a Democrat now is crazy. When you look at what’s coming up, you gotta be crazy.

Note that Trump isn’t talking about just some Democrats that he believes might have gone over some ambiguous line. He explicitly maligned as mentally defective “anybody that votes for a Democrat.” That’s an awfully broad condemnation for someone who lost the popular vote to 65 million Democratic voters. He’s saying that more than half the nation is insane. And judging by the expectations for the upcoming midterm election, that number is going to increase significantly. What’s more, this was a planned attack as is obvious by the pre-produced signs in his crowd.

What’s interesting is that there has been so little push back on these comments. Especially considering the heat that Hillary Clinton took when she characterized only a portion of Trump’s supporters negatively. In her now famous remarks tagging some of Trump’s most fervent devotees as “Deplorables,” she said that:

“You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. […] But that other basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they’re just desperate for change.”

She was actually being generous. The true percentage of Trump’s Deplorables is way more than half. But Clinton was sensitive to the fact that she was talking about fellow citizens and deliberately avoided painting them all with a broad, disdainful brush. That’s the sort of thoughtful consideration that Trump is incapable of. But he is fully capable of rank hypocrisy when it comes to slandering his foes and exalting himself. Take, for instance, his swipe at Clinton shortly after the Deplorable remarks:

So does Trump think that being a president for everyone means contemptuously disparaging more than half the country as crazy? Let’s face it, he never intended to be a uniting figure in the presidency. His entire campaign was built on hatred and bigotry. And he has carried that over into the White House. In his remarks immediately following the “crazy” talk he said that:

“The Democrats don’t care about what their extremist immigration agendas will do to your communities, your hospitals. How ’bout your hospitals are being overrun. Your schools. California, they wanna give you free education, free healthcare, open borders. I mean we’re gonna have ten million people move to California. This is the craziest thing. So here’s what we do. Let’s get these people out of there. There’s something wrong. They’re cuckoo.”

Oh my. Democrats are in favor of the American people having access to healthcare and education. Lock them up! Quick, before they become too healthy and smart to ever vote for a Republican again. But Trump wasn’t finished. He felt the need to make sure that his insults were directly aimed at the most vulnerable people, who he belittled in the racist manner to which he is accustomed:

“That’s why Democrats want to give illegal aliens free welfare, free health care and free education. Give them a driver’s license, next thing you know, they’ll want to buy them a car. Then they’ll say the car’s not good enough – how about a Rolls Royce. Democrats want to give illegal immigrants the right to vote.”

And Trump says that Democrats are crazy? This is all nonsense of the most ludicrous variety. None of what he’s saying is remotely true. It’s the blather of a reality TV reject who can only think in terms of childish smears. And Trump topped it all off by saying that “The Democrat Party has become too extreme and too dangerous to be trusted with power.” So Trump concludes his petulant tantrum by asserting the aspirations of a wannabe dictator who conserves all political power for himself. And the audience cheered. Talk about extreme and dangerous.

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

GOP Party Hacks are Feeding at the Fox News Trough in Advance of 2018 Election

Posted by on October 20, 2018 at 12:09 pm. 1 Comments :

With only seventeen days left until the 2018 midterm election, Donald Trump is keeping his promise to campaign heavily for his Republican pals – almost. His actual promise was to “go six or seven days a week when we’re sixty days out.” It hasn’t been quite that much, but it’s been enough to make Fox News stop covering his cult rallies live.

Fox News, Republican, Donald Trump

Including his latest GOP Revival Meeting in Nevada, Trump has made fifteen of these trips in September and October, much of it being paid for by the very same clueless chumps who are cheering him on for his determination to cut government spending (like Social Security and Medicare). Which might be seen as somewhat hypocritical of Trump, who previously smacked President Obama for doing far less politicking:

It hardly seems necessary for Trump to get out of bed for these junkets. After all, he is preaching exclusively to his most devoted disciples who are going to vote Republican anyway. And his message isn’t getting any further exposure due to the fact that none of the news networks are carrying it any more. The only reason he continues to do these tedious, repetitive stand up routines is for the ego boost he gets from the slobbering masses of Deplorables.

However, that doesn’t mean that Trump isn’t getting significant public exposure prior to the election. Fox News (of course) is fulfilling its role as State TV by hosting Republican campaign operatives on a near constant basis. The Hollywood Reporter notes that:

“For the Republican National Committee, top-rated Fox News Channel and sister network Fox Business Network have given massive exposure and a few million dollars in expected publicity to chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany at a time when the party is struggling to maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

“In the months of September and October, McDaniel has appeared across the networks 18 times, watched by an estimated audience of more than 18.4 million viewers. McEnany, a former CNN pro-Trump contributor and polished television personality, has been even more prolific – she’s appeared 34 times before an estimated audience of 29.9 million people.

“Combined, McDaniel and McEnany’s 52 appearances have an estimated publicity value of $2.62 million, according to media monitoring service Critical Mention.”

What’s more, these are not the only GOP shills that are camped out at Fox News. There are numerous right-wing contributors spewing the party line. And even their hosts are brazenly campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates. Sean Hannity actually solicits his audience to make donations to GOP hopefuls.

This is what Democrats are up against. They have no equivalent media partners to offset this unethical marriage between Fox News and the GOP. Plus, Democrats are already facing unlawful efforts by Republican office holders to suppress the votes of minority citizens and to make voting more difficult, or impossible, in Democratic leaning districts. We aren’t just fighting against a conservative political machine that will tell any lie to retain their grip on power. We are also fighting a media assault that is frantically pushing the interests of the Republican Party and the Trump regime.

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

So if you value this nation’s small “d” democratic principles like freedom of speech, accountability to the law, compassion and equality for all, a sustainable environment, and fair elections, you cannot sit idly by. This year it is more important than ever that everyone who is concerned about having rational checks and balances on the criminal administration currently occupying the White House be diligent about getting to the polls, and getting all of their caring, progressive friends and family to do the same.

Fake Story on Clinton 2020 Campaign Tops Fox News, Russian Election Indictments Buried

Posted by on October 19, 2018 at 3:11 pm. NO Comments :

There are plenty of important domestic and international events unfolding in this mid-October news cycle. There is, of course, the midterm election which is less than three weeks away. There is the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the details of which are still being withheld. The economy and the environment and immigration and healthcare are all vying for space in the media.

Fox News, Hillary Clinton

So naturally Fox News has nailed the most significant story that impacts the lives of every American and elevated it to the top of their editorial agenda. Their headline bleats out that “Clinton aide won’t rule out ‘Hillary 2020,’ sparking glee from White House.” That’s right. Fox News managed to scoop the rest of the press with this earth shattering investigative report on the real world of politics in America today. And the profound importance of this journalist coup is revealed in the opening paragraphs:

“A longtime Hillary Clinton adviser is hinting that the former secretary of state may have one more presidential run brewing — a statement greeted with glee from the White House.

“‘It’s somewhere between highly unlikely and zero,’ Philippe Reines told Politico about the possibility that Clinton runs again in 2020, ‘but it’s not zero.'”

Kudos to Fox News for securing an on-the-record statement from a 2016 Clinton staffer who disclosed the shocking news that the chance of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2020 is “somewhere between highly unlikely and zero.” Ironically, those are exactly the same odds of me running for president in 2020. In other words – and in those of Hillary Clinton – she is NOT running. And this is what Fox News saw fit to put at the top of their Internet platform for Trump-fluffing and right-wing propaganda.

The stories immediately following that scoop were not much more newsworthy (see screen-grab here). There was one story about Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s husband that had already been reported nearly two decades ago. Another story was about Trump’s felonious campaign manger, Paul Manafort, arriving in court for sentencing in a wheelchair. That was followed by the breaking news about a CNN reporter who sent a nasty text. And then there was the news of some “mysterious” space debris that landed on a ranch. Stop The Presses!

After all of these vital pieces of information were unveiled, Fox News got around to reporting that a Russian national was just charged with interfering in the upcoming 2018 election. It’s fair to say that this is the only story out of all of these that has any relevance whatsoever. It shows that Russia has not stopped their election tampering, and will likely continue straight on through 2020. And why shouldn’t they when the Trump administration and the Republican controlled Congress have done absolutely nothing to punish them for their past interference or to deter them from doing it more in the future.

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

Fox News deserves equal blame for whatever damage is done to our democratic processes because of their purposeful dissemination disinformation like this. They deliberately play down Russia’s current criminal activities and worse, they cover them up with puff pieces that are irrelevant or bogus or both. It’s a disgraceful display of subservience to their political masters and it’s the reason that Fox News is so often referred to as State TV.

UPDATE: Now on the Fox News website their top story is “Migrants Defying Trump’s Warning” Like they are bound to obey him? And another story about a lame, right-wing street artist who put up a racist picture of Maxine Waters. Followed by a piece on Eric Trump on Fox News opining about the election. The Russian story is buried even deeper.

Khashoggi Who? Trump Delivers Disgusting Praise for Montana Rep Who Assaulted Reporter

Posted by on October 18, 2018 at 8:34 pm. 1 Comments :

This may be one of the most disgraceful, nauseating things Donald Trump has ever said. Of course, that sentence could have been written a thousand times over the past two years. And it will surely be written again in the future. But for right now this is the moment to be repulsed by what an abhorrent creature is inhabiting our White House.

Donald Trump

At another one of Trump’s now frequent cult rallies, our Cretin-in-Chief took a moment to promote the campaign of Greg Gianforte for Congress. For those who don’t recall, Gianforte is the Republican representative who attacked a reporter who had the audacity to ask him a question about the campaign. Gianforte later pleaded guilty to the assault. But none of that persuaded Trump to hold back in his effusive support for Gianforte’s reelection. Trump even lauded the assault (video below):

“Any guy who can do a body slam, he’s my guy. I shouldn’t say this because – oh there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. […] I had heard that he body-slammed a reporter. [crowd cheers] And he was way up. And I think this was like the day of the election or just before. And I said ‘Oh, this is terrible. He’s gonna lose the election.’ Then I said wait a minute. I know Montana pretty well. I think it might help him. And it did.”

This would be an appalling comment under any circumstances. But coming so soon after the barbaric murder of a journalist at the hands of Trump’s Saudi friends, it is damn near unthinkable. Has Trump already forgotten about the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a United States resident with four children, three of whom are American citizens? Is he so enamored of the tyrannical privileges of his foreign dictator pals that he’s trying to emulate them? Or is he just this unbelievably loathsome? And what are we to make of the cheering from the audience of glassy-eyed Deplorables who think this is appropriate?

Whatever the explanation, the result can only be a signal to all other despotic leaders who aspire to assassinate troublesome journalists. Trump is sending an unmistakable message that he isn’t going to respond to such hostility. In fact, he clearly approves of it. And the blood of any other journalists – abroad or at home – is on hands. At least we know that he really means it when he says that the media is “the enemy of the people.” And therefore, in his warped mind, they can be assaulted and even murdered without consequence.

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

In One Tweet Trump Reveals Why No One Should Vote for Any Republican, Unless They Support Tyranny

Posted by on October 18, 2018 at 2:31 pm. 1 Comments :

It’s becoming a fairly routine part of America’s morning. Donald Trump awakes and takes to his Twitter machine to babble incoherently on subjects he knows nothing about. Or more accurately, subjects that he is deliberately lying about. This Thursday morning is no exception. In fact it’s one of the best examples of Trump’s dishonesty and repulsiveness to date.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

Now you might think I’m referring to Trump’s tweets about Democrats “leading an assault on our country” by central American refugees. But that isn’t it. Nor is it his threat to deploy the military to the border to confront these unarmed and frightened refugees. It’s not even his re-posting a video originally posted by crackpot GOP Rep. Matt Geatz that alleged that these refugees were paid by George Soros. Neither Trump nor Gaetz provided any evidence that the video was of refugees, or that they were being given money, or anything else that they claimed. Trump didn’t even make a claim, he just re-posted the video without any explanation.

Those tweets would be bad enough by themselves, but Trump posted something even more disturbing. It reflects his proclivity for lying at every opportunity, regardless of the subject matter. And it shows that he clearly recognizes that he and his fellow Republicans are headed for a massive defeat in November. Trump himself is the main reason for the GOP’s electoral troubles, but recent polls also reveal that healthcare is the top issue for most voters. So Trump tweeted this blatant lie:

This is one of the easiest of Trump’s lies to debunk. His administration is currently supporting a lawsuit by twenty GOP-led states to end insurance plans that offer coverage for pre-existing conditions. And Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell recently promised to take another stab at repealing ObamaCare. What’s more, Trump’s alleged defense of Medicare is laughable. He and Congress are currently proposing to cut Medicare, along with Social Security due to the exploding budget deficit they created by giving a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthy.

However, the most grotesque part of Trump’s tweet may be a little something that he probably thought was a throwaway line to demonstrate how strong and persuasive he is. He qualifies his lie that all Republicans support coverage for pre-existing conditions by saying that “if they don’t, they will after I speak to them.” Of course, that means nothing since he doesn’t support it himself. But he’s also suggesting that his unchallenged power will force every Republican to do exactly what he tells them to do. He believes that there is only one branch of government, with him at the helm. He thinks that Congress is, and must obediently act as, his servant. That’s the behavior of an unabashed dictator.

What’s especially frightening about this is that Trump is actually correct in declaring that Republicans will do whatever he tells them to. They have proven that repeatedly over the past couple of years. And that’s what you’re voting for when you vote for any Republican. They have shamelessly abandoned their constitutional duty to be a check and balance on Trump and to exercise oversight of his breaches of ethics and law. In fact, they help him to cover up his crimes by refusing to investigate or leading sham investigations. They have supported him unquestioningly on every policy, no matter how unwise or unpopular. Even those who were critics have become slobbering sycophants. For instance Ted Cruz, who once said Trump was a pathological liar. And Lindsey Graham who called Trump a kook who is unfit for office (video below).

Trump is certifying his desire to rule like the kinds of tyrants he most admires: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, etc. And he regards it as a symbol of strength. But what it is not, is American. This country cast off the bounds of tyranny when we overthrew the British monarchy. Trump wants to bring back an even worse version of it. And his Deplorable cult followers are so blind and ignorant and filled with prejudice and rage that they are fully on board. If you’re a patriot who values freedom, that ought to be sufficient to get you vote Democratic and to get to the polls this November 6. And to get as many of your friends and family to join you.

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

Delusional Washington Post Op-Ed Calls Trump ‘The Most Honest President in American History’

Posted by on October 17, 2018 at 1:17 pm. 1 Comments :

There is one thing that most fair-minded observers can agree on with regard to Donald Trump: He lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. He lies about things both big and small. He lies about matters political and personal. It is often said that he is a pathological liar, but isn’t fair to people who suffer from that psychological syndrome and can’t help themselves. Trump lies deliberately and knowingly.

Donald Trump

Which makes the opinion column by Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post especially absurd. The title of the screed is all you need to know about how preposterous the rest of it is: “Trump could be the most honest president in modern history.” Thiessen is a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a reliably off-kilter wingnut. But in this article he has devolved into a full blown Trump cultist who is willing to contort reality to fit his ludicrous premise. The piece begins with this bit of self-contradiction:

“Donald Trump may be remembered as the most honest president in modern American history.

“Don’t get me wrong, Trump lies all the time. He said that he ‘enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history’ (actually they are the eighth largest) and that ‘our economy is the strongest it’s ever been in the history of our country’ (which may one day be true, but not yet). In part, it’s a New York thing — everything is the biggest and the best.”

So Thiessen holds the implausible opinion that a president who “lies all the time” will be remembered as the “most honest” ever. That’s the sort of logic that runs rampant in the Trump Cult, where Trump, and only Trump, must be believed, no matter how ridiculous his baseless outbursts are. Thiessen justifies his slobbering praise by saying that “when it comes to the real barometer of presidential truthfulness — keeping his promises — Trump is a paragon of honesty.” But there is a big difference between honesty and promises. For instance, if Trump promised to stop the Martian invasion, he could not later claim that he was honest because there aren’t any Martian soldiers surrounding the White House. (Although we probably shouldn’t give him any ideas- Space Force!)

The fact that Trump has kept some of his campaign promises has no bearing whatsoever on his honesty, or obvious lack thereof. But even worse for Thiessen, Trump’s record of keeping promises is abysmal. According to the PolitiFact Trump Meter, the President has has kept a paltry 13.7 percent of his promises to date. The examples itemized by Thiessen are mostly promises that were previously made by the Republican congress. And it was Congress that fulfilled them. Some of Thiessen’s examples of Trump’s promises kept have not been. Like his pledge “to open China’s markets and stop its theft of intellectual property.” All Trump has done about that is implement tariffs that are hurting American companies and workers more than China.

Among the unkept promises are the ones that Trump pushed the hardest for. He has made no progress on the border wall (although he lies that he did), or getting Mexico to pay for it. He has failed to repeal ObamaCare. Although he has tried to sabotage it on the margins. There has been no appointment of a special prosecutor to “lock up” Hillary Clinton. He is reneging on his pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare. He has not enacted, or even proposed, an infrastructure bill. Not only has he failed to eliminate the deficit, he is growing it to record numbers. And, of course, he still hasn’t released his tax returns.

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So by Thiessen’s “real barometer” of promises kept, Trump is a miserable failure. Of course, the barometer that everyone else uses to determine honesty is whether or not someone makes statements that are true or false. And by that measure Trump is way beyond being a miserable failure. It’s interesting to note that Thiessen’s op-ed was published by the Washington Post, which also publishes an ongoing catalogue of Trump lies. To date they have documented more than 5,000 of them. Apparently Thiessen doesn’t read the Washington Post.