Month: June 2019

UNFIT: Trump Okays Strike on Iran Without a Casualty Assessment, and Other Unpresidential Acts

Posted by on June 21, 2019 at 12:08 pm. 3 Comments :

There has been frequent speculation about the shaky temperament of Donald Trump and his mental unfitness for the office of the presidency. This has been observed in his pathological lying, infantile name-calling, nerve-rattling ignorance, affinity for murderous dictators, aversion to American intelligence agencies, and brazen disrespect for the law.

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, Trump continues to provide more evidence of how pitifully incompetent and unprepared he is for the duty he’s assumed. The latest demonstration of that is his response to the charge that Iran shot down an American drone. His first comment on the matter was (naturally) a threatening tweet that said only that “Iran made a very big mistake!” However, he followed that up by suggesting that he literally believes that what Iran did was accidental. Which makes his decision to strike back with military force (for an accident?) somewhat peculiar. But no more peculiar than his reversal of that decision, which he explained in another series of tweets. Let’s examine this tweetstorm:


Obama did not “give” money to Iran. Trump is referring to money that was Iran’s to begin with. It had been frozen in foreign accounts. Obama’s deal released the funds upon completion of the nuclear agreement. Also, Obama did not give Iran a “free path to nuclear weapons.” He secured a decades-long prohibition of further development of their nuclear capabilities which at the time were within a year of completing a functional weapon. Trump’s knee-jerk blaming of Obama is ironic considering that Trump had falsely accused him of plotting to attack Iran nine times before he was president.

Trump complaining about the nuclear agreement with Iran not being ratified by Congress is laughable considering his proclivity for executive orders and appointments of numerous “acting” cabinet officials (ominously including Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, and U.N. Ambassador) who have never been confirmed by the Senate. And Trump’s claim that Iran is now “Bust!” doesn’t jibe with reality. There’s no evidence that their military capabilities have been reduced in any way.


This first tweet contains several notable rhetorical errors. First of all, all drones are unmanned. Secondly, “International Waters” is not a pronoun. Third, it’s “locked and loaded” not “cocked.” Fourth, it’s “sites,” not “sights.”

More importantly, if it’s true that Trump approved a military strike, but only asked for a casualty assessment ten minutes before it began, he is even more disengaged and incompetent as Commander-in-Chief than we thought. However, casualty assessments are routinely given during mission briefings, and reports say this one was no exception. So Trump is likely lying about when he learned of the potential fatalities. Even Chris Wallace of Fox News was curious why Trump didn’t ask that question sooner, prompting him to wonder if Trump “has the stomach to launch this kind of attack.”

Trump often says that he has “rebuilt” the military which he describes disparagingly as having been “depleted.” In doing so, he is insulting every American officer and soldier who served prior to his election. Never mind the fact that his demeaning assertion is wholly unfounded.

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

Taken in total, these tweets are nothing more than Trump seeking to excuse his inadequacies, assign blame to others, and exalt himself as a national savior. They do nothing to advance a solution to rising tensions in the Middle East (which he has exacerbated), or to protect America’s interests. Like just about everything else he does, it was focused solely on glorifying himself and canonizing the image that he wants others to have of him. Unfortunately for Trump, that will only work on the glassy-eyed Deplorables that make up his cult following.

Wag the Dog: Trump’s Threats to Iran Mirror His False Accusations Against Obama

Posted by on June 20, 2019 at 11:12 am. 2 Comments :

If there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump, it’s that he will say anything to exalt himself and slander his opponents. It doesn’t matter whether there is any speck of truth to his ranting. And during times of crisis, this character flaw presents a very real risk to the welfare of the nation. The danger that Trump is putting us in has never been better demonstrated than by his saber-rattling over Iran.

Donald Trump, Barack Obama

The reports about the shooting down of a U.S. drone are still lacking substantive evidence of whether or not it had violated Iranian airspace. And it would foolish to take Trump’s word for anything given his propensity for lying. What’s more, these rising tensions are directly attributable to Trump’s own policies. He thought that by pulling out of the six-nation agreement to denuclearize Iran that Iran would would back down and submit to further, unspecified restrictions. Instead, Iran has become more aggressive and confrontational.

So Trump’s plan backfired badly. And now we are on the brink of a conflict that nobody wanted. Or maybe not. Trump himself has speculated about the benefits of a war with Iran. He has openly expressed his opinion that it would be helpful in a reelection campaign. That would be especially true for a candidate with approval numbers as dismal as Trump’s But he wasn’t talking about himself:

Could Trump have possibly been more wrong, more often? That’s nine times between November 2011 and November 2013 that Trump accused President Obama of plotting to incite a war with Iran. And, of course, none of it was true. However, his belief that such a plan would be beneficial to a candidate in a tough reelection campaign says a lot about what he may be thinking now that he finds himself in that position today. Is he trying to improve his own floundering prospects in the manner that he believed would have been successful for Obama? Will Republicans take his advice to “be careful” now that the political tables have turned?

If so, he’s doing it very badly. After tweeting what appeared to be a direct threat that “Iran made a very big mistake!,” Trump backpedalled saying “I find it hard it believe it was intentional.” In other words, he’s now floating the notion that it was literally a mistake. It’s a weakening that can only serve to embolden Iran.

Trump is pursuing this ill-advised strategy a time when his administration is bereft of experienced, qualified advisors. He currently has no Secretary of Defense, no U.N. Ambassador, no Secretary of Homeland Security, and a war mongering National Security Advisor (John Bolton) with whom he has had painfully public disputes, including on the subject of Iran. This does not bode well for America. And it’s another reason why Trump should have been impeached long ago. It’s not too late – hopefully.

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

WHUT? Fox News Media Hack Says it’s ‘Unfair’ if Networks Don’t Cover All of Trump’s Cult Rallies.

Posted by on June 19, 2019 at 2:55 pm. 1 Comments :

It is well known that Fox News has foraged an uncommonly close relationship between themselves and Donald Trump. In fact, Trump would not be president today but for Fox News. They shamelessly championed his campaign, while simultaneously maligning Hillary Clinton and slandering his critics. Subsequently, they have continued to serve as his private PR operation throughout his presidency.

Fox News, Donald Trump

During the 2016 presidential cycle, Fox News covered every single one of his cult rallies in full and uninterrupted. It amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free TV airtime. And that’s not even counting the dozens of interviews Fox did with adoring Trump-fluffers like Sean Hannity and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. They never did anything similar for Clinton.

Now, Fox’s primary media correspondent and host of MediaBuzz, Howard Kurtz, is weighing in on how Trump is being covered by the cable news networks. And he’s not a happy camper. In an interview with his colleague Bill Hemmer, Kurtz seemed to mimic Trump by raging against CNN and MSNBC for not carrying all of his alleged campaign kickoff rally in Orlando.

First of all, the assertion that this was the kickoff of Trump’s campaign is a blatant lie. He actually filed for reelection on the same day he was inaugurated in January of 2017. And he’s held dozens of rallies since then. This was a charade that was was really just another one of his cookie-cutter cult rallies where he repeated exactly the same tedious themes that he has in all of his other ego-stroking affairs. Just because he calls it a kickoff, doesn’t mean that the media has to obediently buy into that lie.

Consequently, CNN covered the rally just long enough to observe that Trump wasn’t saying anything that he hasn’t said at every other rally. MSNBC monitored the event in case Trump said anything newsworthy. He didn’t, and therefore they didn’t bother interrupting their regular programming for some of Trump’s harshly partisan and hostile rhetoric. And this infuriated Kurtz who said that…

“What I have to say about this is it’s just a lack of class. Now, I’m not saying that the cable networks have to cover every Trump rally, and it did turn into a highly partisan speech in Orlando last night. But this really is sort of networks playing into what Steve Bannon used to call acting like the opposition party. To just simply say we’d rather have our own pundits talking while the president is talking, spending the whole next day analyzing and picking apart what he said, rather than letting our viewers hear from the president as he asks for a second term or begins that process, just seems fundamentally unfair and raises questions about how they’re going to cover this entire campaign.”

A “lack of class”? Kurtz never bothers to explain what was newsworthy about Trump’s speech. But he did associate it with the disgraced former Trump aide and aspiring neo-Nazi, Steve Bannon. Kurtz thinks that people can’t form their own opinions of what Trump said unless they heard it in this address, even though they’ve had the opportunity to hear it dozens of times in the recent past. And he thinks it’s “fundamentally unfair” for news networks not to force Trump down everyone’s throats for the umpteenth time.

It’s interesting to note that Kurtz has never gone to bat like this for any Democrat. He has never whined that it’s unfair or lacks class that Fox News declined to air all of Clinton’s public speeches, or any of those by the current batch of Democratic candidates. No matter how many times they occur. It’s only Trump who is being treated unfairly if his drooling and repetitive rampages are not broadcast 24/7 on every channel.

The one thing that Kurtz said that has some merit, at least with regard to Fox News, is in his closing when he said that this “raises questions about how they’re going to cover this entire campaign.” Although, anyone who has watched Fox for more than few minutes knows exactly how they’re going to cover the campaign – like the loyal StormTrumpers that they are and have always been.

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

WOW! Fox News Lies About Their Lies About Their Own Poll on Whether to Impeach Trump

Posted by on June 19, 2019 at 11:31 am. 3 Comments :

One sign that the 2020 presidential campaign season is in full swing is that Fox News is pulling out all the stops for their State TV approved candidate, Donald Trump. Of course, Fox has consistently supported Trump since his inauguration, even through episodes where he took Vladimir Putin’s side on the election hacking, or declared that he and Kim Jong Un “fell in love.” And Fox News has unflinchingly defended Trump’s unsavory relationship with Russia and flagrant obstruction of justice, as revealed in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller.

BEST FOX NEWS “ALERT” EVER!
Fox News, Impeach Trump

Meanwhile, Trump continues to incriminate himself, as he did during his ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos. And Fox News continues to cover up the impact of his increasingly severe, and often incoherent, meltdowns. Calls for Trump to be impeached are growing rapidly, with more than sixty Democratic members of Congress (and one Republican) voicing that view publicly.

So naturally, Fox News joined other media outlets in polling voters on that question. Their results could not have pleased Trump. The survey found that 43 percent think that Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Another 7 percent favor impeachment without removal. That’s a 50 percent majority versus the 43 percent who say he should not be impeached at all.

However, Fox News reported on these results with a graphic that said 50 percent oppose impeachment or removal. That’s a blatant lie that misrepresents their own poll. It was so egregious that it resulted in Fox issuing a rare “clarification“ to correct their error. Fox and Friends First host Heather Childers said that…

“We would like to make a clarification to a poll we aired earlier this week. The graphic that we showed had responses to the question ‘Do you think President Trump should be impeached OR removed from office?’ Well, the actual question question in the poll was ‘Do you think President Trump should be impeached AND removed from office?’ As seen on your screen right now.”

HUH? The wording was indeed wrong on the graphic, but that was hardly the main problem. Fox is deliberately trying to suppress the fact that most Americans want to see Trump impeached, and most of those want him removed as well. To be clear, there was another question in the poll that didn’t differentiate between impeachment and removal. It did find that 50 percent said “no.” However a follow up question found that 12 percent of them still wanted Trump to be impeached, but not removed.

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

So no matter how you slice it, Fox is mangling the results of their own survey in order to protect Trump from bad news. They are doing this to disinform the public as to how much support there is for Trump’s impeachment. They are also doing this to pacify the fragile ego of the Narcissist-in-Chief. And finally, they are doing this to avoid triggering an onslaught of outrage from their glassy-eyed, cult worshiping viewers. But in the end, they will fail on all three counts, because the American people are not as stupid as the subset of them who watch Fox News.

Sean Hannity Faceplants with Ludicrous Charge that Anti-Trump Protesters are Racist

Posted by on June 18, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the favorite pastimes of right-wing propagandists is to try to deflect the well documented history of their racism by flipping the narrative and falsely accusing liberals of being prejudiced. It’s a futile exercise in deception considering that liberals are the champions of equality for all, while conservatives put up obstacles at every opportunity. It’s liberals who fight for civil rights, and Republicans who suppress everything from voting to jobs to education and more.

Sean Hannity, Fox News

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the primetime block on Fox News is a virtual White Power Broadcasting service. It’s triumvirate of Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity are beloved by America’s confederacy of white nationalists and neo-Nazis. The fact that that doesn’t make them (or Fox) nervous tells you all you need to know about them.

Leading this pack of weasels is Sean Hannity. He is also one of those who most frequently accuses Democrats of the abhorrent behavior that conservatives are known for. And that occurred again on Monday night’s episode of his program. In order to disrupt some anti-Trump rallies, Hannity sent Fox contributor Lawrence Jones to see if he could goad some innocent people into saying things that Hannity could take out of context. But he failed miserably, so he had to bend some comments into absurd misrepresentations of reality (video below). He began by saying that…

“There were some moments, vile, racist, vicious, horrible. Two men actually approached our own Lawrence Jones and one told him to go back to Fox News where there’s ‘more cotton for you to pick.’ [and another said] ‘He’ll tell you to go back to Kenya next.'”

This is what Hannity thinks is vile and racist? Anyone with an elementary grasp of the English language can see that neither of those comments were directed at Jones. Telling someone to “go back to Fox News where there’s more cotton for you to pick,” is a criticism of Fox News as a figurative plantation where African-Americans are exploited. That is, when they aren’t being disrespected, insulted, and belittled. And the comment about going back to Kenya was obviously a sarcastic reference to the Birther movement that Hannity and Fox participated in, wherein they maligned President Obama as an un-American, illegitimate president. The protester who said it was clearly referring to Trump as the person who would tell Jones to go back to Kenya.

So the first comment was directed at the racism of Fox News, and the second was directed at the racism of Trump. How any of that could be construed as racism aimed at Jones is beyond imagination. But departures from reality are what Hannity specializes in.

Hannity further demonstrated that by rattling off a list of phony “accomplishments” that he said Trump had achieved for African-Americans. Then he asks why, with all of that, the black community doesn’t support him. To which Jones had a pretty good response. He said that Republicans haven’t been articulating their message and that “the President can make a turn if he goes into the community.” Which, of course, Trump has never done. Every one of his dozens of cult rallies have been in snow white communities and attended by overwhelmingly white devotees.

Hannity is suggesting that African-Americans who don’t support Trump are stupid and don’t understand what’s in their own best interests. He thinks that they should submit to the nearly all-white GOP to be their paternal caretakers. It’s a condescending attitude that is racist at its core. The reason African-Americans almost universally support Democrats is because they can see that it’s a party that embraces diversity, including in the ranks of their representatives and leadership. But conservatives are devoted to oppressing anyone that doesn’t look and think like them. And these stunts by Hannity only drive home that point with greater emphasis.

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

Fox and Friends Transforms Into the Official Trump Campaign Media Headquarters

Posted by on June 17, 2019 at 4:09 pm. NO Comments :

On Tuesday Donald Trump is “officially” launching his 2020 presidential reelection campaign. But like everything Trump does, it’s a phony stunt with a purpose wholly unrelated to what is advertised. In fact, Trump launched his reelection bid the day of his inauguration in 2017. The rally that Trump is planning in Orlando is just another opportunity to assemble his cult hordes and rant incoherently for two hours about Democrats, the press, and how awesome he thinks he is.

Fox News Friends

It’s no coincidence that this rally is taking place a week before the first Democratic primary debate, also in Florida. Trump is fond of stepping on the political events of others. It’s his campaign equivalent of photo-bombing. And he’s preparing for the big day by enlisting his State TV (aka Fox News) confederates in the promotion effort. To that end, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends booked Trump’s campaign press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany for a few minutes of uninterrupted Trump-fluffing (video below).

The segment began with a “sneak peek” at Trump’s first campaign ad for the 2020 cycle. It was predictably jam-packed with words and pictures that exalted Trump as the returning Messiah. Notably, the clip that Fox and Friends aired prominently displayed a number to send a text message to the Trump campaign. Then they silently re-played the same segment – with the text number showing – in two-thirds of the screen while interviewing McEnany.

Following the campaign video, Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt introduced McEnany, and asked her “What do you think?” That’s right. She asked the spokesperson for the Trump campaign what she thinks about the advertisement produced by the campaign. That’s the sort of hard-hitting “journalism” we’ve all come to expect from Fox News. And naturally, McEnany’s response was the typical snake oil patter of a dedicated StormTrumper. Without even bothering to reply as to what she thinks about the ad, McEnany veered into an attack on “the dozens of socialists running in the Democratic field.” Fill-in co-host Dan Bongino then weighed into to ask a probing question which he prefaced by saying that…

“The tax cuts worked, the economy’s booming, unemployment is at historic lows, red tape is being cut. But when you look at polls – I was reading an article a while ago from the New York Times – a lot of Americans don’t even believe they got a tax cut. Contrary to the data which says they did. Do we as Republicans need to do a better job of getting the message out, that this economy is due to a change from the older Obama liberal ways?”

What we have here is an outright declaration by a Fox “News” host that he and his colleagues are Republicans and are seeking advice from Trump’s press secretary on how to advance their shared political agenda. Not that we didn’t already know that, but they don’t often admit it on the air. The rest of Bongino’s “question” was really a thinly disguised campaign pitch for Trump that was littered with provable lies. Most notably that the American people are somehow ignorant of their own tax burdens. Actually, they know very well that Trump’s Tax Scam has hurt them while helping corporations and the wealthy.

Then Earhardt returned to the video’s text message number. Because, just like any other commercial, you can’t repeat that often enough. At this point Fox and Friends began to sound more like the Home Shopping Network for Trump. She queried McEnany saying…

Earhardt: At the bottom of that video we just saw it says to text “Trump” to [REDACTED]. What happens if you do that?”
McEnany: It’s really important. It allows us to update our data. We have the best data in the business, Ainsley. That means we know what doors to knock on. We’re going to be able to isolate the handful of the few million voters who will decide this election. Because of that text you allow us to update our data. You also get to be a Trump volunteer. What’s better than that?

So now Fox News is participating in refining the Trump campaign’s election databases and recruiting volunteers. What’s better than that? This was followed by co-host Steve Doocy raising the issue of Trump’s floundering poll numbers. He noted that “The story over the weekend was that the President is not doing very well in his internal polls.” That’s true, and after denying that these polls exist, Trump fired the pollsters suspected of leaking the data. McEnany waved it all off with some lazy and transparent spin. But what Doocy didn’t bother to mention was that there was another poll over the weekend with similarly bad news for Trump. That one was by Fox News itself, and it showed Trump losing to all five of the Democrats that they pitted against him.

This is just the beginning of the 2020 election cycle, and already Fox News is fully engaged in their role as the media arm of the Trump reelection effort. If anything, they are even less ashamed of exposing their partisanship than in previous cycles. If there were any justice, Fox News would be forced to declare itself a political operation and report its services as in-kind contributions to Trump’s campaign. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen because integrity at Fox News is as rare as it is in the candidate they are working for.

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

Holy Fox News Poll: Every Democrat Beats Trump, Also Trump Coordinated with Russia

Posted by on June 16, 2019 at 3:56 pm. 1 Comments :

There has been a lot going wrong for Donald Trump lately. Most of it due to his own incompetence and big mouth. He admitted that he would take dirt on on political opponents from hostile foreign governments. He accused his own White House counsel of perjury. He threatened an economic catastrophe if he isn’t reelected. And he even speculated about declaring himself Dictator-for-Life.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

So what more could go wrong for Trump after a week wherein he has made assholery a hallmark of his presidency? Well, he might want to cut back on consumption of his beloved Fox News. That’s because they just released a poll that has almost nothing but bad news for him. It’s funny how Trump rejects polls across the board until one says something nice about him. And that one is often Fox News. But now he will have to lump Fox in with all the other “Fake News” haters trying to destroy him.

It starts with his approval rating that Fox puts at a dismal 45 percent. Even worse, the breakdown of those numbers showed that only 21 percent strongly approve, while 41 percent strongly disapprove. And this comes the day after Trump celebrated the results of a bogus survey by the notoriously disreputable Rasmussen Reports, that showed a ridiculous 51 percent approval.

Additionally, the poll pitted Trump against the top five Democratic candidates and Trump lost to all of them: Biden/Trump: 49/39; Sanders/Trump: 49/40; Harris/Trump: 42/41; Warren/Trump: 43/41; Buttigieg/Trump: 41/40.

Quinnipiac just ran a similar poll with the same results. What’s more, Trump lashed out at reports about leaked results to his own internal polling that also showed him losing. He called both the reports and the polls fake news. But for some reason, he just fired those pollsters.

Fox News included a question in their poll that asked “What would your reaction be if Donald Trump were reelected president?” The answers were Enthusiastic/Pleased: 36 percent versus Displeased/Scared: 50 percent. They also asked “Do you think a politician can have low moral and ethical standards and still be a good leader?” By a 25 percent margin (35/60) they said resoundingly “NO.”

There was plenty of other bad news for Trump in this poll. For instance: Respondents say that Trump’s immigration efforts have “gone too far” (50%); they support the Dreamers (72%); they oppose Trump’s tariffs (52%); they oppose his border wall (55%); a plurality say that Trump’s tax reforms “benefit people with more money” (48%); And on whether Trump coordinated with Russia, 50 percent of voters say that he did.

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

Taken together, this is devastating news for Trump. Not only because the numbers themselves indicate how deeply unpopular he and his ideas are, but because this is from a source that he relies on for sycophantic bootlicking and positive reinforcement. Unfortunately for Trump, he can’t wave off this poll like he does all the others. He can’t accuse the source of being Trump-haters or denizens of the “Deep State.” And he’s going to have a hard time pretending that the 43 percent of American voters in this survey who say that he should be impeached are paid plants by George Soros. He’ll need a whole new level of self-deception to slog through this.

Aspiring Tyrant Trump Ponders Not Leaving White House, Accuses New York Times of Treason

Posted by on June 16, 2019 at 11:29 am. 2 Comments :

If it’s Sunday, it’s time for our regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm by the totally “stable genius” who is currently occupying what he thinks is the White Nationalist House. That’s right, Donald Trump is spending Father’s Day posting hostile attacks on anyone he doesn’t believe is sufficiently adoring. But not to worry, when he’s done he’s going golfing with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Sycophant), so his kids won’t have to suffer his repugnant company.

Donald Trump

In today’s episode of Trump’s Tweet Tirade, he is lashing out at the media, because not having done so since yesterday must be driving him crazy. And he is in a ripe mood that further illustrates the ravages of a mind consumed by paranoia and narcissism:

First of all, Trump’s proposal for a poll comparing his insults toward two nationally respected newspapers doesn’t really make any sense. A more interesting poll would be one that compares the honesty and deceitfulness of the press to Trump himself. Oh wait. Many polls have already been done on that and Trump comes out the loser every single time. The American people repeatedly say that they trust the media – whether it be the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, or any other news source polled – over our notoriously perfidious president.

It’s becoming a bit tedious to have to continually point out every time that Trump invokes Stalin to malign the press as “the enemy of the people.” But that’s just too grotesque an abuse of his position to let it go by. And speaking of abuse, Trump is also speculating about declaring himself Dictator-for-Life, just like his heroes Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un. It’s a sentiment that he has expressed before, and continues to be abhorrent and terrifying. And he is pursuing a common path among despots to assume power by attacking the press, and even accusing it of crimes punishable by death:

For the record, the Times actually consulted with Trump’s national security team prior to publishing their story on U.S. cyberattacks against Russia. They responded to Trump’s tweet saying that:

“Accusing the press of treason is dangerous. We described the article to the government before publication. As our story notes, President Trump’s own national security officials said there were no concerns.”

So they were assured that there was no reason to withhold the story on national security grounds. Apparently Trump didn’t bother to check with his own people before calling the Times treasonous. What’s more, Trump also claims that the story isn’t true. So then how could it be treason to report something that he’s saying didn’t happen?

If these remarks by Trump cause you to be concerned about the welfare of the nation, you aren’t alone. There is a growing movement to have Congress begin an impeachment inquiry. And the more Trump displays this kind of mental impairment and animosity to American principles and institutions (including admitting that he would take dirt on political opponents from foreign enemies), the more people who will demand that he be removed from office and prosecuted for his many obvious crimes. And the sooner the better for the sake of the nation – and the world.

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

Trump’s Narcissistic Delusions: He’s Bragging About Awful Polls and Threatening Armageddon

Posted by on June 15, 2019 at 11:15 am. 9 Comments :

Last week Donald Trump continued down a path of implicating himself in impeachable crimes. During an interview with ABC News he admitted that he would take dirt on a political opponent from a hostile foreign government, which is against the law. He also falsely accused his White House counsel, Don McGahn, of committing perjury, which is obstruction of justice. And he’s asserting that he has secret agreements with North Korea and Mexico, which are illegal if not ratified by Congress.

Donald Trump Messiah

Trump is nearly incapacitated by his fear of being held accountable for the crimes that he knows all too well he is guilty of. And this is causing him to become more desperate with each passing day. So now he is trying to find some comfort by cowering in the slimy warmth of the Trump-fluffing media that he relies on for emotional support. And they are cooperating by telling him he is beloved by the American people.

The only problem with that is that even their reassurances are pitifully weak. They come in the form of reports on polling of Trump’s approval. But those numbers are historically negative. Nevertheless, when they reach what are considered “highs” for Trump, he celebrates, even if they are dismally low in reality:

Two of those tweets cite the One America News Network (OANN), a struggling conservative outfit that is trying to appeal to the right-wingers who think that Fox News is a bastion of liberal propaganda. Trump begins by saying that “The latest polls find 51% of Americans approve of President Trump’s Job Performance.” But there is only one poll that has ever had him that high. It’s the notoriously disreputable Rasmussen poll that Trump hypes on a fairly regular basis. But even Rasmussen shows that Trump cannot sustain that level of support.

Then Trump finds joy in a report that a Democratic pollster said that his polling has been historically steady. That’s actually true. It’s been steadily horrible. He has never cracked 50 percent by any credible pollster and currently resides in the low forties by most surveys. And the report that he’s referring to is not complimentary to him. Which may be why he didn’t link to it. It says essentially that he’s in a rut where no good news helps him and no bad news hurts. In other words, his cult is still a glassy-eyed horde of blind devotees, but everyone else hates him.

Finally, Trump claims that his current polling is “even better than in 2016.” That’s just another lie by the lyingest president in history. His approval ratings in 2016, if anything, were slightly higher than where they are now. But for the most part they’ve been, as he said above, steady. He has lost support among the working class, women, and minorities, and particularly in the states that gave him his electoral college victory.

Consequently, Trump is resorting to fear mongering. In another Saturday morning tweet Trump warned that “if anyone but me takes over in 2020…there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before.” That actually sounds more like a threat than a prediction. But it’s consistent with the malignant narcissism that is ravaging his diseased brain.

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

In his dementia, only Trump can save us from a catastrophic collapse of civilization. Because he’s so beloved by the entire universe. These are the ramblings of a sick mind that can’t cope with the reality that he is the least popular president ever and that he’s very likely to be impeached and imprisoned. And the closer he gets to his inevitable fate, the worse these sociopathic symptoms will become. So buckle up, America. It’s gonna be bumpy ride.

Trump’s Bizarre Reasons for Accusing His White House Counsel McGahn of Lying Under Oath

Posted by on June 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the unique characteristics of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior is that, unlike most other criminals, he actually ends up admitting his wrongdoing in public and insisting that there’s nothing wrong with it. That was surprisingly well demonstrated on Thursday when he told George Stephanopoulos that he would happily accept and disseminate dirt on his political opponents, which is against the law.

Donald Trump

And one of the reasons that Trump is so comfortable making such public confessions is that he knows he has Fox News (aka State TV) to clean up after him. That’s what took place on Friday morning when the President did another call-in interview with the devoted Trump-fluffers on Fox and Friends. It was easily predictable that Trump would book this segment following a gaffe that was essentially an admission of treason.

However, even that brownnosing do-over was stepped on by Trump himself with the release of another clip from the Stephanopoulos interview. In this discussion Trump launched into a familiar and tedious denial that he ever sought to have special counsel Robert Mueller fired. That’s a claim that has been refuted by several of his close aides, including his White House Counsel, Don McGahn. Stephanopoulos noted that McGahn had testified to Mueller that Trump did ask him to talk to the Justice Department and make it clear to them that Mueller “had to go.” Which led to this incriminating exchange (video below):

Trump: I don’t care what he said. It doesn’t matter. That was to show everyone what a good counsel he was.
Stephanopoulos: But why would he lie under oath to Robert Mueller?
Trump: Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer. Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen, including you, including the media, that Robert Mueller was conflicted.

First of all, when Stephanopoulos asked why McGahn would lie under oath, Trump didn’t reject that premise. In fact, he attempted to justify it. So Trump is accusing his White House counsel of committing criminal perjury. It will interesting to see if Attorney General William Barr will now open an investigation into that and issue an indictment for McGahn. (Don’t hold your breath). Because either McGahn is guilty of perjury, or Trump is lying about it.

Secondly, Trump’s first explanation for McGahn’s alleged perjury is that McGahn was seeking to “make himself look like a good lawyer.” How? By lying under oath? How does it burnish his credibility to implicate Trump in a scheme to fire Mueller? Trump is apparently conceding that testimony linking Trump to obstruction of justice is the honorable thing to do. Of course it is. Telling the truth would surely cast a positive glow on McGahn or any other witness. But accusing McGahn of doing the right thing is an odd defense from Trump’s perspective.

Finally, Trump’s other explanation for McGahn’s testimony is that McGahn, and “anybody that would listen,” were deluged with complaints by Trump that Mueller was conflicted. That assertion has always been a deliberate lie on Trump’s part. But his admission here that he has been inundating everyone around him with that allegation could itself be construed as obstruction of justice. He’s trying to materially harm the investigation by falsely impugning the integrity of the special counsel.

So Trump is providing a perverse set of arguments in his defense. On one hand, Trump thinks that his White House counsel is a perjurer for having told the truth about him. On the other, Trump is obstructing justice by lying about Mueller. And if you’re having trouble figuring that out, or why Trump would be asserting such a preposterous defense, it just means that you’re a normal, logical person. Unlike the sociopathic narcissist currently residing in the White House.

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