Month: December 2018

Fox News End of Year Poll Has Bad News for Donald Trump on Nearly Everything

Posted by on December 13, 2018 at 1:14 pm. NO Comments :

This year has seen a mountain of scandal and embarrassment for Donald Trump both at home and abroad. His foreign junkets have been opportunities for him to demonstrate his ignorance of the world and how little respect our allies have for him. And domestically Trump is being buried in legal dilemmas driven by the testimony of his closest associates.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

Consequently, it isn’t difficult to see why the American people regard him so poorly. Even as recorded by the latest survey conducted by Trump’s favorite cable “news” network, Fox News, the outlook is affirmatively negative. Perhaps that’s one reason that Trump told Fox’s Harris Faulkner in an infomercial (aka interview) Thursday morning that “Fox has always given me a bad poll.” In this one Trump’s overall approval numbers are in the toilet. The poll had forty-six percent approval for the President, and fifty-two percent disapproval. That includes forty-two percent strongly disapproving with only twenty-seven percent strongly approving.

Nevertheless, the Gaslighter-in-Chief pretended to be thrilled with these results. He told Faulkner they were “amazing” considering all the bad press he gets. The poll also showed Trump underwater on most specific issues, including border security (46-49), immigration (43-53), trade (40-47). and on the issue voters cited as most important, healthcare, the President is behind by twenty-three points (33-56).

In addition, a whopping sixty-seven percent of respondents said that they believe that “Trump puts his personal business interests ahead of the interests of the American people” always, often, or at least sometimes. Compared to only twenty-eight percent who said rarely or never. And when asked if they would vote to reelect Trump in 2020, thirty-eight percent said they would, while fifty-five percent said they would vote for someone else.

By nineteen points those polled said that they approve of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation (56-37). So Mueller’s approval is ten points higher than Trump’s. What’s more, they say that the Trump campaign did coordinate with the Russian government during the 2016 election (48-37).

These numbers are certain to be troublesome for Trump when the new year brings a new congress wherein Democrats control the House of Representatives. And the rapidly unfolding investigations by both Mueller and the New York Attorney’s office are sure to bring more indictments and legal peril for Trump. As the evidence pours in that Trump is guilty of significant criminal activity during the campaign and his presidency, the likelihood that he won’t finish out his first term in the White House becomes stronger every day.

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

Fox News (and Ann Coulter) Pile On Trump for Lying About His Border Wall Being Built Already

Posted by on December 12, 2018 at 3:06 pm. NO Comments :

On Tuesday Donald Trump insisted that a meeting between himself and congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer be televised. That turned out to be a bad move for the President who behaved like a petulant child demanding that he get funds for his idiotic, useless border wall or he would shut down the government. He actually agreed to accept full responsibility for what Pelosi termed “the Trump Shutdown.”

Fox News, Laura Ingraham

In addition to the whining from Trump about Congress not submitting to his divine will, he repeated a flagrant lie that has been part of his stump speeches for months now. Trump wants to convince people that his wall is already being built and is near completion in some areas. That, of course, is pure fiction. He has never had funds allocated to it, and there has been no construction whatsoever. But he keeps saying this because he knows his glassy-eyed cult followers will believe whatever he says.

On this occasion, however, Some of the ordinarily loyal Trump-fluffers in the conservative media are falling off the wagon. Most notably, Laura Ingraham of Fox News, who addressed the subject on her program and told her Republican guests that…

“I must have missed the wall being built. What wall? That’s not a wall. Stop saying it’s a wall. There’s no wall … you gotta stop saying that.”

Coming from a primetime Fox News shill, that was rather surprising. Ingraham didn’t mince words either. And it was all the more significant since one of her guests was Steve Scalise, the third highest ranking Republican in the House. Of course, most of her other remarks during the segment were straight out of the Trump playbook (build the wall; stop the caravan; immigrants are criminals, drug dealers and disease carriers). But on the question of Trump lying that “A lot of wall has been built … big sections of wall,” she was spot on and uncharacteristically honest.

Ingraham was joined by another right-wing blowhard who usually shovels Trump propaganda by the barrel. Ann Coulter wondered whether Trump thinks his supporters are dumb in a tweet that called out his border wall lie:

Let’s just leave that business about what Trump thinks of his followers alone. It’s too easy. The important part of Coulter’s tweet is that she is not falling for Trump’s gaslighting of America with false claims that “People do not yet realize how much of the Wall … has already been built.” Coulter even posted a link to the Washington Post fact-checker who covered this issue earlier this year. Although, like Ingraham, Coulter swung back to her customary wingnut position. On the same episode of Ingraham’s show she unleashed a nauseatingly racist tirade against Democrats:

“We’re gonna be seeing a lot of these disputes in the Democratic Party base because they all hate one another. I mean you have the Muslims and the Jews and the various exotic sexual groups and the black church ladies with the college queers. The only thing that keeps the Democratic base together is for them to keep focusing on white men are the ones keeping you down. You must hate white men. It’s the one thing they have in common.”

So while these devoted sycophants for Trump can be relied on to spew hatred and lies on behalf of their Dear Leader, it’s nice to see that once in awhile they can recognize the inconvenient truth that Trump is a bald-faced liar. Although they have the luxury of knowing that Trump isn’t going to tweet nasty epithets at them, or make up infantile nicknames, the way he does if Maxine Waters or Hillary Clinton says the exact same thing.

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

Trump Saying ‘People Would Revolt’ if He is Impeached is Not His Opinion, It’s an Instruction

Posted by on December 12, 2018 at 11:02 am. 4 Comments :

The walls are continuing to close in around Donald Trump. And they aren’t border walls. With the sentencing of his former associates, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, there is more information being released that unambiguously implicates Trump in federal crimes. And, as is his customary practice, the more he feels threatened, the more hysterical he gets. He is transparently consumed by fear and desperation.

Donald Trump Revolt

That response was in effect Tuesday when Trump was interviewed by Reuters. The whole interview was woven with lies and nonsense. But one particular part is worthy of notice. When Trump was questioned about talk that he could be impeached for crimes related to his campaign and and his unsavory connections to Russia, he blew up:

“It’s hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and who’s created the greatest economy in the history of our country. “I’m not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened.”

Let’s set aside – after laughing uncontrollably – the patently untrue assertions that Trump has done nothing wrong, or that he’s responsible for the “greatest economy” in history. What is stunning about his comments is his warning that there would be a revolt if he were held accountable for his criminal activities. In fact, this is less a warning than it is instructions to his cult followers. He expects them to resort to violence on his behalf in the event he is impeached by the representatives of the American people.

There are lots of reasons to consider Trump’s impeachment. He shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to his mistresses in order to keep them quiet before the 2016 election. He failed to disclose those expenditures. He has received millions more from foreign operatives funneling money to him through his hotels and other businesses. He and his closest associates have lied repeatedly about his conspiracy to steal the election with his Russian partners. So impeachment is not much of a stretch for such a flagrant law violator, and a bad one at that.

Even more troubling is the fact that this isn’t the first time Trump has threatened violence directed at his critics. Even during his campaign Trump threatened the outbreak of riots if he was denied the nomination. Almost daily he refers to the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He has accused the press of “creating violence by your questions […] The fake news is creating violence.” He accused Democrats in Congress of treason for not applauding him at the State of the Union address. “Can we call that treason?” he said. “Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.” He suggested that the media also committed treason with its coverage of his summit with Kim Jong Un, saying that “It’s a shame the fake news covers it the way they do. It’s really, it’s almost treasonous, you want to know the truth.” Do you detect a pattern?

If you think that this sort of hostile rhetoric is petty trumpery (“worthless nonsense” according to Merriam-Webster), you might want to refer to the polling that shows that one-third of Trump voters say Democrats who didn’t applaud during the State of the Union were “treasonous.”

And you might also note Trump’s obsession with maligning his critics as anti-American. For instance, there was the time he responded to an op-ed in the New York Times by an anonymous White House staffer who called Trump “amoral,” “unstable,” “erratic,” “ill-informed,” and “reckless.” The author further worried that the President has “a preference for autocrats and dictators.” And that other staffers were “working diligently … from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” In response to that article Trump blasted off four tweets attacking the Times, one of which contained a single word:

And that pretty much sums up the position of this wannabe dictator in the White House. He truly believes that any dissent is tantamount to treason, and the consequences of that is death. That’s the message that Trump is sending out to his glassy-eyed cult disciples. And this latest message raising the prospect of “revolt” is another escalation in his war against America, democracy, and freedom.

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

President Pathological: Donald Trump Dominates PolitiFact’s 2018 Lie of the Year Readers’ Poll

Posted by on December 11, 2018 at 11:18 am. 1 Comments :

If there is one thing that thrills Donald Trump more than anything else, it’s being “Number One” at whatever he is being judged for. So he will undoubtedly be writhing in ecstasy when he hears that the readers of PolitiFact have, once again, singled him out for tribute as America’s most unconstrained liar, even if he isn’t really very good at it.

Donald Trump

PolitiFact’s editors’ choice for Lie of the Year was the “Online Smear Machine” that viciously maligned the Parkland students who survived the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. The story of the conspiracy theorists who invented horrific tales of “crisis actors” was surely worthy of being featured as the year’s worst lie. PolitiFact noted that:

“The students and the country were about to learn a hard lesson about participating in democracy in 2018. That you don’t have to be a politician to be on the receiving end of the internet’s worst hoaxes. That the lies don’t vanish after being debunked. That the same hoaxes will spread again after the next attack.”

However, the site’s readers had a somewhat different take. They clearly saw Trump as the undisputed fountain of untruths that he is now world renowned for. And this isn’t the first time Trump has been “honored” in this manner. He previously won the 2017 Lie of the Year award for repeatedly calling Russia’s election interference a “hoax.” He got an honorable mention of sorts in 2016’s Lie of the Year, “Fake News,” because he was such a frequent contributor to the fakery. And in 2015 Trump won his first Lie of the Year award for “The campaign misstatements of Donald Trump.” They were so numerous the fact-checkers couldn’t settle on a single lie.

However, in PolitiFact’s 2018 Readers Poll, Trump’s lies dominated the contest by taking five of the top ten spots. Here are those five flagrant and deliberate lies that Trump is even now continuing to disseminate:

  • “The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan of illegal aliens into our country. And they want to sign them up for free health care, free welfare, free education, and for the right to vote.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 26, 2018, at a rally – False
  • A “horrible law” requires that children be separated from their parents “once they cross the Border into the U.S.” – Donald Trump on May 28, 2018, in a tweet – False
  • Saudi Arabia has ordered $450 billion, “$110 billion of which is a military order,” producing “over a million jobs.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 20, 2018, to reporters – Pants on Fire
  • “Democrats let him (cop killer Luis Bracamontes) into our country,” and “Democrats let him stay.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 31, 2018, in a tweet – Pants on Fire
  • “U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills.” – Donald Trump on July 31, 2018, at a rally – False

Plus, two others on the list are closely related to Trump and express views that he also holds:

  • “The Russian state has never interfered … into internal American affairs including election process.” – Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018, in a press conference – Pants on Fire
  • “The deficit … is coming down, and it’s coming down rapidly.” – Larry Kudlow on June 29, 2018. in an interview – Pants on Fire

In addition to those, PolitiFact also posted Trump’s Top Ten Falsehoods of 2018. They included some of those chosen in the Readers’ Poll above, plus these flaming whoppers:

  • Says 3,000 people “did not die” in two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico.
  • People “went out in their boats to watch” Hurricane Harvey.
  • “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”
  • “In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say ‘oh that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.”
  • “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records, so okay, they’re at a record level.”
  • “U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills.”
  • Saudi Arabia has ordered $450 billion from the United States, “$110 billion of which is a military order,” producing “over a million jobs.”

The volume and frequency of Trump’s dishonest blathering is not exactly breaking news. The Washington Post has documented more 6,400 instances of his lying since his inauguration in January 2017. But it’s useful to have this compendium of his compulsive aversion to the truth for history’s sake. Plus, it gives him something to brag about since he’s to addle-brained to realize that this isn’t complimentary recognition. It won’t be long before he tweets “Take that Fake News. I’m #1 on PolitiFact.”

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

Fox News Host Pushes Trump-Fluffing Fox Contributor for the President’s Chief of Staff

Posted by on December 10, 2018 at 11:23 am. 2 Comments :

The State TV propagandists at Fox News are starting the week out with some profoundly self-serving commentaries. On a segment of Donald Trump’s favorite show, Fox and Friends, the hosts went out of their way to advance the White House careers of a couple of their colleagues. This is further evidence of the tightly integrated relationship between Fox and this Reality TV administration. And coming so soon after Trump nominated former Fox News reader Heather Nauert to be the ambassador to the United Nations, it’s particularly troubling.

Fox News, Donald Trump

Beginning the segment (video below), co host Steve Doocy set out to make the case for Trump firing his current Chief of Staff, John Kelly. Doocy said that “It’s no secret that John Kelly and the President were not on the same page.” So Kelly is just becoming another reject from the Trump fold (see Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Reince Priebus, etc.) who was previously touted as “the best.” Doocy went on to explain why Republican Nationalist Party congressman (and wingnut Freedom Caucus leader), Mark Meadows, “would be a smart pick.” But that wasn’t smart enough for co-host Brian Kilmeade, who immediately jumped in to suggest someone else:

“I think David Bossie, not on that list, would be perfect. I think he understands politics, understands the President, he understands investigations because he was on the offensive side against Hillary Clinton with great success. He also understands how the President got to be president because he was there from day one.”

For the record, Bossie is a political activist who was responsible for the Citizens United case wherein the Supreme Court allowed unlimited donations to political candidates without disclosure. He also produced several ultra-conservative films, including one that viciously slandered Hillary Clinton. He was a deputy campaign manager for Trump’s Russia-infested 2016 election operation. And most recently he co-authored “Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency,” with Corey Lewandowski. So obviously he’d make a great gatekeeper for a president mired in scandal and criminality. And just imagine how effective he would be working with the Democrats who now control the House of Representatives.

And if that weren’t enough, a Fox News reporter, Kevin Corke, later did a segment during a “news” cast wherein he floated another former Foxie for the chief of staff post:

“Our old colleague, White House Communications Director and former Fox News co-president, Bill Shine, could be a name to keep in mind.”

Prior to his former job as president of Fox News, Shine was the producer of Sean Hannity’s show. The same Hannity who is now reported to have nightly phone calls with Trump, and who campaigned with him during the midterm election. He is virulently anti-Democratic, which makes him suitable for a job in the Trump administration, but wholly unfit to be supported by American taxpayers as their employee in the Oval Office.

The spectacle of Fox News urging their bought-and-paid-for president to hire one of their own should make every American cringe. The bonds between Fox News and Trump (who himself once did a weekly “Mondays with Trump” segment on Fox and Friends) are outside the boundaries of ethical government or media. There has never been such a relationship in this country’s history, and it should not be tolerated now.

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

Trump Says Comey Set Record for Lies at 245, So He’s Only 6,000 Short of Trump’s Record

Posted by on December 9, 2018 at 11:03 am. 1 Comments :

The latest display of Donald Trump’s frantic fear and desperation appeared Sunday morning on Twitter (as usual). He is getting more unhinged with every passing day. Especially when those days include filings from special counsel Robert Mueller and the New York Attorney’s office sentencing Trump’s former close associates. The walls closing in on the President have driven him to make delusional assertions as to his innocence, and infantile, vulgar references about his critics.

Donald Trump

However, it’s the substance of his own analyses of his legal status that really stretch the boundaries of credulity. He simply blurts out nonsense in his defense that is steeped in panic and only serves to make him look even more guilty. That’s what occurred when Trump took to his Twitter machine and blasted out these messages:

First of all, it’s important to note that Trump’s information came from his usual unreliable source: Fox News. He was watching when ultra-rightist GOP congressman (and alleged pedophile enabler) Jim Jordan made the allegations of lying against former FBI director James Comey. How Jordan came up with the number “245” is unclear, but Trump repeated it blindly.

A search of the transcript of Comey’s testimony finds a total of 218 instances of “don’t know,” “recall,” and “remember.” But many of those were uttered by the Republican questioners (i.e. “Do you remember…”). Many others were Comey using the words positively (i.e. “Yes, I do remember that.”). Still others were Comey repeating his answer to identical questions. And of course, many were responses to immaterial questions like what job title someone held on a particular date or what a document said that he had never seen. There nearly 800 questions asked.

Trump can’t cite a single instance of an actual lie by Comey. He’s just making blanket statements with no basis in reality. For instance, it is not disputed by anyone that Comey and Christopher Steele did not know each other. Steele had limited dealings with the FBI, and always at levels below the Director. This is similar to Trump’s frequently stated falsehood that Comey and Mueller are best friends. Trump has even said that “there are hundreds of pictures” of them “hugging and kissing” (actually, there aren’t any). Comey did address that in his testimony, pointedly noting that, while he admires him, they are not friends. He elaborated saying that “I don’t know his phone number, I’ve never been to his house, I don’t know his children’s names. I think I had a meal once alone with him in a restaurant.”

Trump is also violating the tenets of Due Process that he previously whined was nonexistent. But the most hypocritical part of Trump’s tweets was his claim that Comey “set a record for who lied the most.” But even if you agree to use the 245 number that Jordan and Trump are falsely asserting, Comey is still far short of Trump’s 6,000+ lies that he’s told just since his inauguration.

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

For Trump to even criticize anyone else for alleged falsehoods is laughable. His pathological compulsion to deceive in all things great or small is well documented. And considering his utterly untrustworthy reputation, you would think he would avoid any such comparisons. But that’s just another of Trump’s psychoses. He really thinks he can do say anything – no matter how absurd or provably false – and get away with it. And at least with regard to his glassy-eyed cult followers – he may be right. Unfortunately for him, that’s a tiny (although still too large) minority of the country.

Be Best? Infantile Trump Follows Up His Crass ‘Adam Schitt’ Vulgarity with ‘The Dick’ Blumenthal

Posted by on December 8, 2018 at 2:05 pm. NO Comments :

A few weeks ago, Donald Trump got a court order that prohibited him from banning CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House. Trump’s response to that was to issue a bizarre and unconstitutional decree governing the rules of behavior for journalists in the press corps. He claimed it was an effort to restore “decorum” in the White House.

Donald Trump

On its face that is an absurd proclamation from a president who has made boorishness and bullying a hallmark of his public life since even before he entered politics. Trump engages in relentless insults of the most infantile variety and hangs nicknames on his critics that a seven year old would be embarrassed to use. For example, in an attack on Rep. Adam Schiff, who will become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee next month, Trump tweeted this:

There were some who speculated whether “Adam Schitt” was intentional or a typo. But it’s entirely consistent with Trump’s perverse personality, and it’s still there. So there is no question that he meant it. And if you need further evidence, On Saturday Trump tweeted a similarly vulgar message to Sen. Richard Blumenthal:

First of all, Trump just making up the scenario in those tweets. Blumenthal never made any reference to his bravery or to “bullets whizzing by.” He did misrepresent his service once by implying that he served in Vietnam, when he was an enlisted Marine who spent his time in the States. He apologized for that. and in any case, his Marine duty was far more patriotic than Trump’s five phony deferments for alleged “bone spurs.” But for Trump to descend into the crassness of calling a Senator “the Dick” is just nauseating. Or it would be for anyone else. For Trump it’s typical. Plus, the spectacle of a pathological liar like Trump criticizing anyone else for their veracity is hysterical.

For the record, Trump was triggered by comments made by Blumenthal on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews (video below). So apparently Trump was watching MSNBC. Unless a Fox News program played a clip from Hardball to bash the network and the Senator. Which seems more likely than the notion that Trump would change the channel from Fox.

Blumenthal was giving his analysis of the latest news from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump was surely not pleased by Blumenthal’s view that Trump can be indicted. He also said that “the walls are closing in on Donald Trump and his inner circle, including his family” and that Mueller’s report “will be extraordinarily damning.” That’s the report that Trump is delusionally saying now that he is “very happy” about. Yeah, right.

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

Trump Dementia? Says He’s ‘Very Happy’ with the Latest Mueller Filings, But Blames Hillary Clinton

Posted by on December 8, 2018 at 12:34 pm. 2 Comments :

This week saw what may the most significant developments to date stemming from the investigation of Donald Trump by special counsel Robert Mueller. In filings related to sentencing for Trump confidants Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, Mueller and the New York Attorney’s office disclosed unambiguous evidence that Trump engaged in criminal activities connected to both his campaign finances and his collusion with Russia.

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, Trump emerged from the White House to greet reporters on Saturday morning with what he presented as good news. Included in this gaggle was his announcement that Chief of Staff John Kelly will be leaving that post by the end of this year. That news comes after reports that the two are not even talking to each other. It also follows Trump’s previous insistence that Kelly would be around until 2020.

However, the real meat of this press avail was Trump’s assertion that he’s “very happy” with Mueller’s filings. That is either another one of his blatant lies designed to gaslight his cult followers, or he is suffering from delusions that are the product of his acute fear and desperation. He told the reporters (video below):

“On the Mueller situation, we’re very happy with what we are reading because there was no collusion whatsoever. There never has been. The last thing I wanted is help from Russia on a campaign.”

Of course the “Mueller situation” doesn’t clear Trump of any crimes or collusion. Quite the opposite. Cohen explicitly testified that Trump was involved in and directed the criminal acts that he pleaded guilty to. And the Russian connection that Trump has been lying about for two years is clearly outlined in the filings. The redacted parts are likely to provide even more detail of Trump’s culpability. So it isn’t surprising that he then shifts to assigning blame to his favorite scapegoat, Hillary Clinton:

“You should ask Hillary Clinton about Russia, because she financed the fake dossier which I understand they tried to get some information and help from Russia. But you ought to ask them about that. A very one-sided situation, but i think it’s all turning around very nicely. But as far as the report that we see – according to everybody I’ve spoken to, I have not read it – there’s absolutely no collusion, which is very important.”

There is so much wrong in that brief comment. Clinton didn’t finance the dossier. And she didn’t try to get help from Russia. The dossier was originally contracted by a conservative website. The Clinton campaign later supported that research, which never sought assistance from Russia. In fact, the author, Christopher Steele, got most of his information from dissident Russians who were working against the Kremlin, not for it.

It should also not be overlooked that Trump began by stating that he was “very happy with what we are reading,” but finished with “I have not read it.” This is, sadly, all too typical of Trump’s failing mental capabilities, and his ever-increasing fear, paranoia, and desperation due to Mueller’s investigation getting closer to him and his crime family every day. It’s the sort of delusional psychosis that results in him tweeting that the Cohen/Manafort filings:

You’re welcome. And if you like these legal proceedings, just wait until Mueller comes out with his final report that ties you directly to treasonous collusion with Russian and brazen financial corruption. Although when you see that you’ll probably tweet “Thanks for the Nobel Prize and for canonizing me as Saint Donald.” It must be really nice in that world of rainbows and unicorns and worshipful cult disciples that you live in.

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

Trump’s Pick of Fox News Alum Heather Nauert for the UN is More Proof that He’s Anti-American

Posted by on December 7, 2018 at 10:10 am. 3 Comments :

It seems that every time Donald Trump does something, he reminds the country – and the world – that he is incurably idiotic, self-absorbed, and uninterested in the welfare of America or its citizens. How else could he nominate Heather Nauert, formerly of Fox News, to become the United States Ambassador to the United Nations?

Fox News, Heather Nauert

Just a little over a year ago Nauert was reading news headlines on Trump’s favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends. She has a degree in journalism which may have been an overqualification for her job at Fox News, but it is decidedly under-qualifying for the UN post. She has zero credentials in any diplomatic field. She hasn’t studied foreign policy, government administration, or international history. She has never held any position in diplomacy or where she would learn about the diplomatic processes of the UN.

And yet, Trump is putting her in position to negotiate with career professionals from around the world. To illustrate just how serious a hole this puts our country in, note that Russia’s UN Ambassador has thirty years of experience in the diplomatic corps, five of which were at the UN. But now she’s supposed to be able to play in the big leagues with foreign adversaries who are far superior at their jobs? That’s like making Steve Doocy Secretary of Defense. Or like making Donald Trump president of the United States.

If Nauert had any sense of duty or patriotism she would decline the nomination. She should know that her inexperience would disadvantage the U.S. in a body that is full of people who are more capable. A patriot would insist that the U.S. be represented by someone with comparable skills, knowledge, and experience. By taking the position she is willfully damaging the welfare of America’s status in the world.

But ultimately, it’s Donald Trump who is responsible for this travesty. He couldn’t care less about the prospects for the nation achieving its diplomatic goals. All he wants is a sycophant who will praise him and obey his directives. And if she’s a young blonde who used to brighten the lives of Fox’s geriatric male viewers, so much the better.

It should not be dismissed that Nauert is taking exactly the same path to her high level government job that Trump did. He was also a talking head on Fox News prior to running for president. He had a weekly segment on Fox and Friends called Mondays with Trump. And they aren’t the only two former Foxies in the White House. She joins National Security Advisor John Bolton, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and worst of all, Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine. Shine was fired as Fox News president for having covered up the sexual misconduct of CEO Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. So he’s a natural for Trump’s inner circle.

So Nauert is joining a team that is historically ill-equipped to perform the jobs they’ve been given. Her association with former Fox News colleagues (Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, etc.) only makes things worse. They are now acting as Trump’s “Shadow Cabinet,” giving him media support and advice on policy. It’s a sick joke of an administration that is mirroring Trump’s own experience as a reality TV game show host. And it’s not in America’s interest. If Trump had any sense of duty or patriotism, he would resign.

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

OUCH! Tucker Carlson of Fox News Flips on Trump for ‘Breaking Promises,’ Being ‘Incapable’

Posted by on December 6, 2018 at 3:39 pm. 3 Comments :

There has been an emerging trend of ordinarily worshipful Fox News shills mustering up the gumption to be mildly critical of Donald Trump. This may be because the boorish behavior, jaw-dropping ignorance, and off-putting narcissism of Trump might finally be starting to produce the same sense of nausea in these otherwise devoted cult followers that the majority Americans feel. Or maybe they just see the writing on the impending indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

The latest apple to fall from the Trump tree is Tucker Carlson. This is significant because no one on Fox News is more supportive of Trump’s white nationalism and his hatred for non-European immigrants than Carlson. And Carlson is the favorite pundit of the neo-Nazi website, Daily Stormer. He has even ranted about his aversion to diversity in America and the need for leaders to “love the people you’re leading,” including the white supremacists. So it’s somewhat surprising to see him criticize Trump in an interview with a Swiss publication. As reported by the Washington Post:

“Carlson said he cannot stand Trump’s self-aggrandizement and boasting. Then, when asked whether Trump has kept his promises, the usually quick-witted and long-winded Carlson had just one word: ‘No.'”

“His chief promises were that he would build the wall, defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn’t done any of those things. […] He knows very little about the legislative process, hasn’t learned anything, hasn’t surrounded himself with people that can get it done, hasn’t done all the things you need to do, so it’s mostly his fault that he hasn’t achieved those things.”

It’s good to know that Carlson can’t stand Trump’s “self-aggrandizement and boasting” (as demonstrated this week following the Bush funeral). But it would more helpful if he said it on his primetime Fox News program than in a Swiss magazine that his viewers have never heard of and would never read. It’s also nice to see that Carlson recognizes that Trump is an idiot who can’t learn. So he might want to let his viewers know that.

Of course, the reasons for Carlson’s disappointment are that Trump hasn’t successfully implemented the campaign of right-wing bigotry and suppression of the poor that Carlson is hungering for. What Carlson really wants is a more competent leader to clamp down on the people that he doesn’t like who are ruining America for his elite class mates. The one saving grace of Trump’s presidency is that he’s too stupid to get much done. And that’s what’s irking Carlson.

It will be interesting to see if Trump responds to this display of disloyalty with an anti-Tucker tweetstorm. After all, Trump has been generous with his accolades for Carlson. He even tweeted a promotion for Carlson’s book (along with 30+ promotions for other rightist authors).

However, it will be difficult for Carlson to defend himself, at least on Twitter. A month ago Fox News began a self-imposed boycott of Twitter to protest the social media platform’s failure to punish some lefty activists who went after Carlson. But even after the offenders were booted off the site, Fox still hasn’t posted a tweet since then. And neither has Carlson. Resulting in a Twitterverse that is just a little bit more pleasant for everyone else.

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