Month: December 2018

Fox & Friends Co-Host Brian Kilmeade Leaps Off the Trump Train, Says He ‘Refounded ISIS’

Posted by on December 21, 2018 at 9:55 am. 1 Comments :

Things are getting really bad for Donald Trump. His secretary of Defense quit with a stinging rebuke of his policies and leadership. He’s heading for a prolonged shutdown that he took credit for in advance, even claiming to be proud of it. And all for a border wall that no one but his Deplorable cult followers want. The economy is in a tailspin with the markets negative for the whole year. And even his pals at Fox News are getting antsy about supporting his inane, reckless, and impulsive outbursts.

Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

Nothing is more representative of the trouble that Trump is in than when his favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends, gets weak-kneed about backing up his latest idiocy. They have a record of supporting nearly anything he’s done, no matter how ludicrous or destructive or even illegal. But these remarks by co-host Brian Kilmeade during an interview with Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, really hits a low note for Trump at Fox (video below):

Kilmeade: He’s giving Russia a big win. Vladimir Putin praised him. He also is doing exactly what he criticized President Obama for doing. He said President Obama is the founder of ISIS. He just refounded ISIS. They’ve got 30,000 men there, and they’re already striking back.

That gets pretty much everything in there but an apology to Hillary Clinton for all the Benghazi and email bashing. Kilmeade noted that Putin is on Trump’s side regarding the Syria withdrawal. He compared Trump to his nemsis, Barack Obama. And he hung the founding of ISIS around Trump’s turkey neck.

For her part, Sanders acted like a deer already run down by the bus with the headlights in her face. She “respectfully, but vehemently” disagreed with Kilmeade’s analysis. But her defense of Trump was pitifully weak and devoid of any factual basis. She tried to turn the whole ISIS fight into a personal one between them and Trump saying that “If ISIS wants to pick a fight with somebody, they sure as hell don’t want to pick one with Donald Trump.” Something tells me that they really do. He’s a coward who can’t concentrate on anything for more than half a minute, unless it’s a mirror.

Then Sanders emulated her boss by making up numbers to glorify him. “We’ve wiped out 99.9% of ISIS in Syria,” she blurted out nonsensically. Where she got that figure from is – well it’s dark and ugly. Since there are estimated to be 30,000 ISIS fighters in Syria today, that means that before having allegedly wiped out 99.9% of them there were 30,000,000. That’s nearly twice the population of Syria.

Sanders also parroted Trump’s own assertions that he has done more damage to ISIS than anyone. She insisted that he surely never did anything to help them. To which Kilmeade replied “Leaving is helping.” And he actually called her out for lying saying that “The word on the ground is different from what you just said.” That may be the first time that Sanders has been called a liar by a Fox News host on the air. And if it’s any indicator of what’s to come, Trump might as well start packing his bags for Mar-A-Lago – or prison.

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

How Stupid Are Trump’s Border Wall Supporters? Their GoFundMe Page Reveals a Mountain of Derp

Posted by on December 20, 2018 at 1:34 pm. 4 Comments :

The United States Congress is currently embroiled in one of the most ridiculous debates in its history. The government is about to be shut down for lack of a routine spending bill because Donald Trump is afraid of his critics on Fox News. Seriously. He was fully prepared to sign the Continuing Resolution until Foxies like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Steve Doocy told him to keep his promise to shut the government down if he doesn’t get funds to build his idiotic vanity border wall.

Donald Trump

Setting aside the circus in Washington, Trump’s dimwitted Deplorables are mounting their own independent effort to pay for the useless, ineffective wall. And unless they are all from south of the border, Trump is still reneging on his most prominent campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the concrete joke. The Trump cultists have embraced an effort to raise money themselves to finance the wall’s construction. Their GoFundMe page for that purpose has already hit $6.2 million in just three days.

On the surface, that sounds pretty impressive. However, the numbers simply don’t work. First of all, the wall is estimated to cost about $25 billion. The page has a goal of $1 billion. So they have raised only 0.6 percent of their goal, which is less than 0.002 percent of the actual cost. If they continue to take in donations at the current rate (which is highly unlikely), it will take them five hundred days to hit a billion. They would have to have 16.4 million people donating an average of $61.00. They can never reach the total cost of the wall which would be twenty-five times more.

For 2018, the top ten GoFundMe pages raised a total of $58 million for all ten pages. The top fundraiser was for Times Up, a legal defense fund for survivors of sexual assault and harassment. They raised $22 million from 21,000 donors. That’s a far cry from a billion dollars or sixteen million donors. So the goal appears to be utterly unrealistic. And the page says they will refund all donations if they don’t reach their goal. Which makes the whole project appear to be nothing more than a PR gimmick.

What’s more, in the nearly unimaginable event that they reach their goal, what exactly do they intend to do with the money? They could donate it to the U.S. Treasury. However, they cannot earmark it for border wall building purposes. There is no government facility for citizens to offer to pay for specific federal infrastructure of any kind. If they simply turn it over to the Treasury, the government must spend it according to the legislation passed by Congress. The House of Representatives initiates all spending bills. That would be the House that Nancy Pelosi will be the Speaker of, and that is run by a Democratic majority. It’s doubtful that they would allocate those funds for the Deplorables’ wall.

Other than that, there is no plausible avenue for allocating those funds toward a border wall. They cannot build the wall with private resources and commercial builders. They couldn’t secure the land to build on or the rights to construct international barriers. And yet, Trump’s glassy-eyed followers continue to donate to this scam.

Somebody is probably making some money on the float (interest earned on the funds while being held for distribution). But none of this will result in a wall or a fence or even artistically designed steel slats (as Trump recently described his vision of the wall). And after wasting their time and money on this boondoggle, will they be willing to donate to Republican campaigns for 2020? We’ll see.

In the meantime, a counter offer is being pursued in the form of a GoFundMe page to raise money for Ladders to Get Over Trump’s Wall. They already have 25 percent of their more realistic $100,000 goal.

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

UPDATE: Media Matters is now reporting this about the border wall GoFundMe page: The guy behind the GoFundMe account for Trump’s border wall used a Facebook page network connected to fake news sites to boost his campaign. Brian Kolfage’s previous Facebook page network was banned for spammy behavior in October.

A Tale of Two Foundations: Trump’s Sham is Shutdown, George Soros is FT’s ‘Person of the Year’

Posted by on December 19, 2018 at 11:10 am. 1 Comments :

The real picture of Donald Trump’s relentless pursuit of self-serving corruption got another section colored in on Tuesday. The New York Attorney General found that his Trump Foundation was a criminal enterprise devoted to enriching himself with other people’s donations (Here’s a quick primer on Trump’s scam foundation). Trump was forced to agree to shut it down under the supervision of the court.

George Soros, Donald Trump

Despite Trump’s concession to the indisputable facts, Trump lashed out in fit of conspiracy mongering, blame-shifting, and paranoia on Twitter. However, he never rationally refuted what the NY Attorney General, Barbara Underwood, called “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation.” The ruling went on to declare that Trump’s sham included…

“…unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more. This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests.”

What’s more, the lawsuit Trump faces continues to seek millions in restitution and prohibits Trump and his evil spawn from serving on the boards of other New York charities. Imagine that: Trump is barred from running a charitable foundation, but not from serving as president. There’s something horribly wrong with that picture.

And naturally, while making lame excuses for himself, Trump had to interject his obsessive animus toward his long-standing foes by taking a swing (and a miss) at the Clinton Foundation. There is really no comparison since the Clinton Foundation is a model for philanthropic enterprise and has received the top ratings from charity watchdog groups.

Meanwhile, another Trump nemesis, George Soros, was named “Person of the Year“ by the Financial Times. Soros is a true self-made billionaire (as opposed to Trump’s accident of birth and incompetent business skills), who is also renowned worldwide for his philanthropy. The Financial Times opened their tribute to Soros saying:

“The Financial Times’s choice of Person of the Year is usually a reflection of their achievements. In the case of Mr Soros this year, his selection is also about the values he represents. He is the standard bearer of liberal democracy and open society. These are the ideas which triumphed in the cold war. Today, they are under siege from all sides, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia to Donald Trump’s America.”

Indeed, Trump’s America is a regression toward the authoritarian regimes of the past that he openly admires. Trump abhors open societies wherein wannabe dictators like himself are denied the power they crave. And while Trump strives to use his position for personal gain, Soros has suffered as a result of what FT says is his “long commitment to openness, media freedom and human rights.” That suffering recently hit an extreme when he received a mail bomb from a right-wing domestic terrorist. But if that weren’t enough, he has also been falsely accused of collaborating with Nazis, although he was just fourteen years old when they occupied his native Hungary.

Fox News has been a major contributor to the coordinated hate campaigns against Soros. Their top hosts frequently portray him as something akin to the Antichrist, and as someone who is responsible for everything they regard as evil. Trump himself has exacerbated the hate-mongering aimed at Soros. Just a couple of months ago he tweeted a blatant lie that Soros was funding “very rude elevator screamers” who were protesting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He has also been accused of funding the Central American refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. That charge was cited as a possible motive in the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in October. Even Facebook’s CEO went after Soros in a despicable, anti-Semitic disinformation campaign.

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

However, through it all Soros has remained a steadfast champion of freedom and charity. His Open Society Foundation is the beneficiary of $32 billion of his own money. Those funds are being put to work in more than 100 countries to support democracy, transparency and freedom of expression. Thats a striking contrast to the corruption and greed of Trump’s phony charitable efforts. And it’s fitting that the recognition of Soros by the Financial Times comes the day after Trump is fingered as a crook by the NY Attorney General.

Bonus Tweet from Clinton Foundation executive:

Shepard Smith Slaps the ‘Defenders’ of Flynn on Fox News, While Trump is Witness Tampering

Posted by on December 18, 2018 at 2:43 pm. 2 Comments :

Tuesday morning saw a particularly voluminous tweetstorm from Donald Trump for a weekday. And naturally, it was mainly lying about about how innocent he is. But it was also a morning for finding out what penalty former Trump advisor, and confessed felon, Michael Flynn, would pay for his crimes. For some time now the Trump-fluffers on Fox News were belittling the charges and maligning law enforcement for what they alleged was persecution and entrapment. But on Tuesday Flynn’s sentencing was postponed after the judge told him that he might face prison time for “selling out his country.”

Fox News, Shepard Smith, Donald Trump

The amen chorus on Fox News has been relentlessly attacking special counsel Robert Mueller and the prosecutors in New York as corrupt, conflicted, and biased against the President. They had nothing to prove any of these claims, but when has that ever mattered to Fox News? Everyone from Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham to the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends have belted out in unison that Flynn was a victim of overzealous prosecution and was entrapped by unscrupulous defilers of the law. Flynn hinted at the same complaints briefly, which may be what angered the judge, who regarded that as a potential withdrawal of his guilty plea.

However, in court on Tuesday Flynn backtracked and fully accepted responsibility for his criminal activities. That unambiguous affirmation of his guilt contradicts everything that Fox News has been saying for weeks. And at least one person at Fox noticed:

Shepard Smith: “You heard the theory floated by the White House and its defenders here and elsewhere. That all blew up today.

“Michael Flynn himself said that he is not challenging the circumstances of the interview. That he knew lying to the feds was a crime when he lied to the feds. That he was not entrapped. That he was guilty.”

That’s a pretty sharp criticism of the Trump shills on Fox News. Smith explicitly calls out the “White House and its defenders here (i.e. on Fox) and elsewhere.” You have to wonder how Hannity is gonna take that. Never mind the rest of the story that proves Hannity’s sycophancy has been for naught. Flynn himself effectively threw Hannity et al under the Trump Train. Can they continue to advance the “Deep State” conspiracy theory that Flynn was “ambushed” (as Sarah Huckabee Sanders said today) if even Flynn doesn’t believe it?

Meanwhile, Trump took another stab at witness tampering. He tweeted his best wishes to Flynn, a confessed felon, because what president doesn’t have friends who are admonished in court as being disloyal to their country? But Trump’s tweet had another purpose as well:

Trump saying that it “Will be interesting to see what he has to say,” is his way of sending a message to Flynn. Just clam up and shield Trump from any possible legal accountability and there might be something in it for you. Like maybe a pardon? This message could hardly be more clear without attaching a “Get Out of Prison Free” coupon to it. The President is dangling favors in front of Flynn that Michael Cohen (the RAT, according to Trump) isn’t getting. It’s just another example of his self-incriminating behavior. Trump knows that Mueller can see these tweets, doesn’t he?

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

The combination of Trump throwing out a life preserver to Flynn, while Flynn is admitting all of the dastardly charges against him is cringeworthy. But it provides a small measure of comfort to see Shep lay some truth on these cretins. Not that it will do any lasting good. Hannity and his ilk blithely ignore any facts that get in the way of their propaganda.

Trump Blatantly Lies About Russian ‘Witch Hunt’ According to the Journalist He Misquoted

Posted by on December 18, 2018 at 12:18 pm. NO Comments :

With each new day Donald Trump demonstrates evermore fear and desperation due to the mounting evidence of his collusion and conspiracy with Russia to undermine an American election. He behaves precisely the way one would expect a guilty man to behave, by distorting facts, distracting from the issues, and maligning his critics. It would be pathetic if it weren’t so troubling and dangerous.

Donald Trump

On Tuesday morning Trump went to new extremes to absolve himself of any liability for his felonious actions. In a series of frantic tweets, Trump presented what he said was a case for his innocence made by journalist Michael Isikoff, co-author with David Corn of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. Isikoff was interviewed by John Ziegler, however, Trump got his analysis of Isikoff’s remarks from Fox News, as usual. But what Trump tweeted (here, here, and here) was far removed from reality:

“Russia Dossier reporter now doubts dopey Christopher Steele’s claims! “When you get into the details of the Steele Dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them. There’s good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations…..”

“….WILL NEVER BE PROVEN AND ARE LIKELY FALSE.” Thank you to Michael Isikoff, Yahoo, for honesty. What this means is that the FISA WARRANTS and the whole Russian Witch Hunt is a Fraud and a Hoax which should be ended immediately. Also, it was paid for by Crooked Hillary & DNC!”

“Michael Isikoff was the first to report Dossier allegations and now seriously doubts the Dossier claims. The whole Russian Collusion thing was a HOAX, but who is going to restore the good name of so many people whose reputations have been destroyed?”

There is a whole lot of wrongness in there to unwrap, starting with Trump’s typically childish insult of Steele as “dopey.” More to the point. Trump falsely asserts that the FISA warrants are a fraud even though none of this addresses them. What’s more, the Steele dossier was not a primary source of evidence for granting the warrants. Also, Hillary Clinton didn’t pay for the dossier. Her campaign paid Fusion GPS to do research and they hired Steele.

So Trump is attempting to use Isikoff’s comments as absolution for his crimes. But Trump left out the most critical parts of the interview. Those omissions were pointed out by the interviewer, the interviewee, and his co-author. Isikoff had plenty to say about Trump’s adventures with Russia that the President failed to mention. For instance:

“In broad strokes, Christopher Steele was clearly onto something. That there was a major Kremlin effort to interfere with our elections. That they were trying to help Trump’s campaign. And that there were multiple contacts between various Russian figures close to the government and various people in the Trump campaign. That much, I think, has been established by the public records.”

And also that:

“The Trump campaign and its campaign operatives, Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, were active in ways that was clearly inappropriate and that they shouldn’t have done. And that they concealed this from the voters.

“And the Moscow Tower project going on in June of 2016, with direct conversations between Michael Cohen and an assistant to Dmitri Peskov, a press secretary to Vladimir Putin, was incredibly significant, concealed from the voters, and gives the lie to Donald Trump’s repeated statements during the campaign that he had nothing to do with Russia. That nobody connected to his campaign had any contacts with anybody in Russia.

“I mean, the President during the campaign, as a candidate, seriously mislead the American public about what was a very important issue. And that was the questions about what the Russians were up to and his own dealing with the Russians. So all of that is true.”

What more needs to be said? Isikoff clearly stated that Trump was deeply involved with Russian figures and that he lied about it repeatedly. But Trump ignored all of that and distorted Isikoff’s words to say the opposite, and ironically, thanked him for his honesty. That tells you all you need to know about Trump’s aversion to honesty and his determined intent to mislead and spread falsehoods at every opportunity. It’s in his nature, and we can expect it to continue until he is removed from office. Hopefully in handcuffs.

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

Trump Wants to ‘Work with Democrats’ on Healthcare After Calling Them ‘Crazy’ and ‘Treasonous’

Posted by on December 17, 2018 at 12:37 pm. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party got exactly what they wanted for Christmas: A federal court ruling that the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is unconstitutional. Trump’s PR division at State TV (aka Fox News) literally celebrated the decision as a Christmas “gift.” And although many legal experts predict that the ruling will be overturned, The Trump administration is giddily slopping it up and basking in the afterglow of millions of Americans losing their healthcare coverage.

Medicare For All

In the meantime, Trump is gloating at what he mistakenly believes is a final victory in his war against all things Obama. His immediate responses to the ruling were to brag about having predicted it, followed by totally disingenuous calls for the two parties in Congress to work together to craft a brand new healthcare bill from scratch:

Never mind that Republicans had eight years to offer a replacement healthcare bill but could never do so. Now, to these insensitive remarks that ignore the suffering that millions of Americans would be forced to endure if ObamaCare were to actually be revoked, Trump added another on Monday morning:

The notion that Trump really wants to work with Democrats is laughable on its face. He has been the most hostile president to the opposing party in modern times. He has not simply disagreed with Democrats on policy or advocated for the positions of Republicans. Trump has lashed out with malicious and personal insults aimed at the party and individual members. More than two years after the election he is still shrieking at Hillary Clinton over matters that have long been resolved. And his seething hatred for Democrats still dominates most of his thoughts. For instance:

  • Trump declared that Democrats “…want Open Borders and Unlimited Crime.”
  • Trump said that “Anybody that votes for a Democrat now is crazy.”
  • Trump inexplicably claimed that “The Democrat plan would obliterate Obamacare – It will destroy Medicare.”
  • Trump even accused Democrats of being traitors for not applauding him at the State of the Union address: “Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

So now that Democrats have won majority control of the House of Representatives, Trump is feeling harmonious. Now that whatever leverage Trump had has been eroded due to the multiple criminal investigations encircling him and his crime family, he is pretending that he wants to work with Democrats to restore healthcare benefits that he and his GOP accomplices have deliberately sabotaged. Yeah, right. And this is all going down simultaneously with his threats to shut down the government over his idiotic and useless border wall.

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

There is one thing in Trump’s latest tweet that has a ring of truth to it, although not in any way that he intended. When he says that “A confirming Supreme Court Decision will lead to GREAT HealthCare results for Americans,” he may be right. Because it could lead to the implementation of Medicare-for-All. It’s already a program whose popularity is growing by the day. And with the GOP putting ObamaCare in jeopardy, more Americans, and their representatives, are going to insist on the protection of their rights and the pursuit of what’s best for their families. So we may owe Trump and his comrades some thanks for advancing universal healthcare and pushing the United States into the ranks of the rest of the civilized world.

Sunday’s Trump Tweetstorm Calls First Amendment Illegal, ‘Should Be Tested in Courts’

Posted by on December 16, 2018 at 10:13 am. 3 Comments :

If it’s Sunday, this Donald Trump’s regularly scheduled Twitter tantrum. Like clockwork, the President is firing off nearly incoherent messages that attack his critics, lie about easily verified matters, and promote his favorite source of propaganda, and the PR division of the Trump White House, Fox News. It’s a display of desperation that only serves to make him appear more guilty and afraid of the coming consequences of his criminal acts.

Donald Trump

Leading off Trump’s parade of polemics is a tweet that reinforces Trump’s long-held aversion to free speech and the First Amendment of the Constitution. We are all familiar with Trump’s denouncement of the press in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” and his projectile vomiting of invectives at journalists who have the audacity to report what he actually does and says. And now we have Trump literally threatening to legally censor the media for doing its job:

Does Trump really think that Saturday Night Live is a news program that can be put alongside NBC News as a provider of coverage of his administration? Apparently any media entity that fails to kiss up to the Snowflake-in-Chief is subject to his hostile harangues. But this tweet goes even further to demand that the press be constrained by some legal authority to prostrate itself to what he believes is fair. Every president has had to undergo criticism from both journalists and satirists, but Trump’s skin is way to thin to take it. That’s common for cowards and tyrants who feel the need to control society and suppress those who don’t sufficiently worship Dear Leader.

The rest of Trump’s morning meltdown was equally disturbing. He babbled nonsensically about text messages by former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. His rant was lifted from the ultra-rightist webzine The Federalist, which failed to understand the agency’s report regarding the disposition of those texts:

Trump agreed with the Federalist’s phony assertions that the messages were deleted and lost. They weren’t. The agency recovered and preserved them after a temporary tech glitch. But this triggered his knee-jerk outcry of “Witch Hunt” which he continued in another tweet:

What Trump calls “breaking in” is more commonly referred to as the accumulation of evidence by law enforcement. And the subject of the investigation, Trump’s lawyer, complimented the FBI as “extremely professional, courteous and respectful,” and later pleaded guilty to the charges against him. What’s more, Cohen unambiguously fingered Trump as being the facilitator of the crimes in his case. That’s surely what Trump is really mad about.

As for the bit about Hillary Clinton’s server, she voluntarily gave the FBI a complete copy of it, so they had no need to take physical possession. But having no legal ground to stand on, Trump resorted to dredging up old stories about his nemesis, President Obama.

Trump is falsely claiming that Obama’s immigration policies were “far worse” than what the Trump administration has done by grotesquely seperating children from their parents (which he’s still doing, and even justifying it). That’s demonstrably untrue. It was only Trump’s policy to charge every asylum seeker with felonies that resulted in the separations. And if that obvious attempt at misdirection wasn’t sufficient to deflect attention from his problems, Trump also tried this one:

Really? Ken Starr? He headed up the persecution of the Clintons twenty years ago, and after finding no evidence of any crime, started to dig into Bill Clinton’s sex life. He’s hardly a credible source for anything having to do with Trump’s criminal behavior. And naturally, Trump saw Starr’s comments while watching Fox News.

This frantic outburst on Twitter is just the latest example of a mind that is utterly warped by the trepidation of being caught having committed a historic crime spree. And in utter distress due to the gloomy fate that awaits him, Trump is lashing out like the wounded vermin that he is. And while every untrue utterance he made is bad enough for the nation to be worried about his mental degradation, his calls to punish the press are the most troubling.

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

Trump is acting out the behavior of a fallen dictator desperately trying to hang on to whatever power he has left. But with the walls of justice closing in around him, he has nowhere to hide. A recent report notes that every entity that he has headed – the Trump Org, Trump Foundation, Trump campaign, Trump transition team, Trump inaugural committee, and the Trump White House – are under investigation. When he does go down, he’s going to go down hard.

LATE BREAKING: Trump must not be very busy presidenting today because he posted four more tweets this afternoon (so far).

One was a demand to watch a Fox News interview of conspiracy crackpot Jerome Corsi.

Then two more (here and here), also triggered by Fox News, were about former Trump advisor, and confessed felon, Michael Flynn being “persecuted” by Robert Mueller. Of particular note was Trump saying that Jeff Sessions “should be ashamed of himself” for allowing the “HOAX” to get started. So should Trump’s new Acting AG Whitaker also be ashamed for not stopping it?

And finally, Trump added a tweet that was just boilerplate “Witch Hunt” bashing and denying his collusion. You know, like all innocent people do obsessively.

An Ugly Celebration: Fox News Cheers the ObamaCare Ruling that Will Cause Millions to Suffer

Posted by on December 15, 2018 at 11:47 am. 5 Comments :

On Friday evening an ultra-conservative judge in Texas handed down an obtusely argued ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. His reasoning hinged on the fact that Republicans in Congress, who have long aspired to kill the popular legislation, amended the law in a manner that rendered it invalid. This was a well orchestrated plot to kill a program that has helped millions of Americans and saved lives.

Fox News Donald Trump

So what was the reaction on Fox News? Well, it began with an early morning episode of Fox and Friends (video below) that should put to rest forever any doubt that these cretins are sadistic, uncaring, and filled with hatred for their fellow citizens. The program that Donald Trump watches religiously began with this exchange by co-hosts Ed Henry, Pete Hegseth, and Jedediah Bila:

Henry: Today, a little gift ahead of Christmas.
Hegseth: I already got a gift today. I got a gift last night.
Henry: It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Hegseth: Well, I don’t know what your gift was but …
Henry: I know what you meant. Obamacare is unconstitutional. That is what a federal judge is ruling in Texas. He said the Affordable Care Act is invalid as open enrollment closes today. What’s fascinating about it this is that the judge is saying that the whole law, the entire Affordable Care Act should in fact be torn down because the individual mandate demanding that you buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
Bila: It’s about time. I mean we’ve been having this debate for a long time. I was so happy to see this. This was completely unconstitutional from the start.

This is their idea of a Christmas “gift” that “keeps on giving”? This is something that they are “so happy to see”? Do they realize that millions of Americans depend on this program for critical healthcare? That means medical services and pharmaceuticals for people with potentially lethal illnesses. It means care for sick children and pregnant women. If ObamaCare is struck down then everyone with a preexisting condition will once again be shut out of the insurance market. It means that young people on their parents’ insurance plans will lose their coverage. It means the return of discriminatory pricing and the elimination of preventative care. And even for those who don’t have serious medical problems, it means much higher premiums.

Republicans have chanted “repeal and replace” for eight years, but in all that time have failed to offer their “replacement” for ObamaCare. Now the ACA could be lost with nothing to protect those who rely on it. And this makes the Foxies shiver with glee. Of course, it wasn’t just the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox News who threw a party for this ruling. Donald Trump tweeted his own holiday joy at seeing millions of people thrown into healthcare nightmare, calling it “Great news for America.”

Watching these grotesquely inhumane gasbags laugh about this ruling as a gift for Christmas is painful in itself. It almost makes one wish that they would have to go through this hardship themselves, or with a loved one. They have no concept whatsoever of empathy or concern for other Americans. But if there is any silver lining to this, it’s that there will be stronger demand for Medicare-For-All than ever before, and for the Democrats who support it.

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

https://twitter.com/EastTNVol/status/1073897774691876865

Scared Bro? Trump is Featuring Rachel Maddow in His Phony ‘Media Accountability’ Come-Ons

Posted by on December 14, 2018 at 11:58 am. 3 Comments :

Throughout his public life – and especially while president – Donald Trump has demonstrated what an awful poker player he would be. He has what pros call a “a tell” that gives away what cards he’s holding. And for the most part, Trump is holding a hand that is panic full of fear. He displays that on a nearly daily (hourly?) basis with his insipid “Witch Hunt” tweets and his frantic attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller.

Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow

Of course, Trump is also squarely focused on the media that he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” His frightened reaction to every new disclosure of wrongdoing by him or his crime family is obvious to anyone paying the least bit of attention. And the more he attacks CNN or the New York Times or whatever reporter happens to ask him the probing question of the day, the more he reveals what’s scaring him the most at that moment.

So what’s clearly scaring Trump now is MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” reelection committee just posted an ad Facebook that asks his dimwitted cult followers to take a survey, and Rachel Maddow is featured in the ad’s graphic, although not in the video to which it links. She’s the bait for this campaign that implores his fans to “Take the Survey.”

The alleged “survey,” however, is an old marketing trick aimed at getting respondents to sign up and divulge personal information, including their email addresses. These are later used to beg for donations and organize political events. The results of the fake survey are never published, and if they were they wouldn’t have any real value due to the smarmy tactics used to lure respondents. Like everything else Trump does, it is hardly scientific.

So what’s the news that has triggered Trump’s assault on Maddow, someone he rarely even mentions? Right now Maddow is perhaps the most insightful and effective commentator on Trump’s exploding legal problems. She is dissecting them in a coherent and relatable manner. But is that enough to set him off. After all, he has never tweeted about her since becoming president. Although he did retweet his son Eric once, nearly a year ago. And that retweet contains a clue:

Trump is very concerned about his friend, and “shadow” chief of staff, Sean Hannity. Lately Maddow has been beating the pants off of Hannity. She has dominated him in the ratings ever since the election last month. So far in December she has beaten him every single day in both total viewers and the all-important advertising demo of 25-54 year olds. So it looks like Trump is rushing in to rescue the floundering Hannity. Or maybe someone at Fox News reached out for this aid.

Let’s not forget that the former president of Fox News, Bill Shine (who was fired for mishandling the sexual misconduct of Fox CEO Roger Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly) is now Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications. Or that Shine was Hannity’s producer before being bumped up to the executive suites. So it isn’t particularly surprising that Maddow would suddenly appear as the face of the “Mainstream Media … out to bring down [his] Administration.” In reality, he’s doing that pretty much on his own. Maddow is merely providing a factual chronicle of the criminal path that Trump chose for himself. But consistent with his warped character flaws, he’s determined to blame it on someone – anyone – else.

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

Is Paris Burning? Donald Trump’s Flaming Lunacy Abounds in Bonkers Fox News ‘Interview’

Posted by on December 13, 2018 at 7:41 pm. 2 Comments :

The Big 4-0. That’s what Donald Trump has hit with his latest infomercial (aka interview) on Fox News. It’s his fortieth since becoming president. As usual it was a slobbering love-fest with Fox host Harris Faulkner hand-holding Trump through a series of softball questions. And when he wasn’t filibustering with barely comprehensible blather, he was interrupting with almost relevant filler (video below).

Donald Trump Climate Change

The Oval Office affair covered a few pertinent subjects with the thinnest veil of substance. Harris asked about Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen and his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, but she never pressed him to answer for their criminal activities or how they implicated him. Nor did she challenge any of his meandering obviously deflecting replies.

However, she did bake up some sweet questions that displayed her sincere devotion to her guest. Faulkner never once challenged any of Trump’s dishonest answers. She prefaced a question about the disclosures in Michael Cohen’s sentencing by quoting a former anti-Clinton special counsel saying that “he couldn’t see grounds for impeachment over that.” Then she described Cohen as “someone who has surreptitiously recorded you and is now known as a criminal liar.”

It seems every question was waterdown with platitudes before Trump even had to answer. When referencing a new Fox poll showing that Trump is still underwater at 46-52 percent, she spun it as being “just a couple tics off your highest point.” Which means, of course, that he has never risen above fifty percent. But she wouldn’t say that. Although she did let him get away with bragging about how well he did with women in 2016 (he lost women).

When he lied about how well he’s doing with China and trade, Faulkner chimed in that “that takes the pressure off the economy a little bit.” She did note that all of the gains for 2018 in the market are gone, but then added with a big smile that the market is still up since his inauguration (due to the record bull market that began in 2009 under President Obama). While discussing the economy and jobs, Faulkner got nearly teary-eyed about her impression of Trump going after companies that have had to impose layoffs, saying “I love this, cause I hadn’t planned to ask this, but your you’re calling out companies and what not. And the nation got to see you.” After his incoherent non-response she praised him saying that “This is your wheelhouse. Everybody knows this. I mean, to see the energy and the electricity as you talk about these issues.” Does anyone else need a towel?

As Faulkner wrapped things up she couldn’t help but show more unconditional love by asking him “What do you love about being President?” Trump’s reply was a vague “I love getting things done for the people,” but that it’s “a nasty job because I get hit so hard.” And Faulkner closes by sucking back the drool and telling Trump that “You have such energy for this.”

But perhaps the most disturbing part of this extended fluffing session was Trump’s insistence that he’s been a fantastic steward of the environment. His justification for that delusional self-appraisal was this disjointed nonsense:

“The Paris Accord is not working out too well for Paris. Take a look at what’s happening over there. Because of the Paris Accord that whole country is burning down, OK? And I was the one that kept us out of the Paris Accord. If I was in the Paris Accord we would be paying trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars for nothing.”

It’s somehow appropriate that Trump would come so close to the question that Adolf Hitler reportedly asked about Paris after ordering his troops to destroy the city rather than let it be re-captured by the Allies: Is Paris Burning? Well, no. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. While there is some civil unrest, the city is not a charred wasteland. And the protests have nothing to do with climate change, despite Trump’s deranged attempt to conflate them. Also, the trillions of dollars he said would have been spent are a figment of his diseased imagination.

Sadly, this is the sort of warped dialogue that America is forced to engage in with a president who is too demented to grasp any subject that might come across his desk – or reality. And it doesn’t help when an alleged “news” network acts like the propaganda arm of a White House determined to mislead the public and work against the interests of the nation.

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