WTHolyF? Fox News Hysterically Whines that CNN and MSNBC ‘All Seem to Be Opinion Shows’

Well, we are through the looking glass, folks. Of course, that’s been said so many times in the Era of Donald Trump that most of us have built up an immunity to it. But on this occasion there is real concern that the fantasy (nightmare) weavers at Fox News have abandoned any pretense of reality.

Donald Trump Fox News

In a segment on Monday night’s episode Stuart Varney’s Fox Business program, the host interviewed Fox News’ media correspondent, and host of MediaBuzz, Howard Kurtz. The discussion was a particularly obtuse analysis of the editorial positions on MSNBC and CNN. It began with Varney calling out his competition for “Anti-Trump coverage” that is “wall to wall on those two networks.” And that led to this bizarre exchange with Kurtz (video below):

Varney: What’s your judgment, Howard, when two all news networks carry one single editorial message, which is resist Trump for everything and get him out? I mean, you’re a media guy. You can’t be that pleased that two major networks are going so consistently down that opinion road.
Kurtz: I wouldn’t go quite that far. I think there are some fair reporters at both networks. But certainly when you turn on the primetime shows, and it’s getting increasingly hard during the day, they all seem to be opinion shows. I mean, you know, you’ve got these panels that are six to one anti-Trump. I mean, there’s no secret about it. That’s the way they’re being programmed.

Seriously? That’s a media analyst on Fox News, the network that is best known today as “State TV” due to its unflinchingly adoring coverage of Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party. Fox News has dedicated it’s primetime block to three of the most biased Trump-fluffers on television (Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson), Hannity even shows up to speak at Trump’s cult rallies.

As for panels that are partisanly skewed, Fox doesn’t leave that to just their primetimers. They begin with “Fox and Friends” in the morning. Then “Outnumbered” is aptly named with four (and sometimes five) right-wingers out of five co-hosts. And in the afternoon they have “The Five,” which is another four to one conservative pile-on. So Fox News actually designs their shows to have multiple wingnuts ganging up on a lonely alleged liberal. Neither MSNBC or CNN has such a program.

Kurtz did criticize Trump for advocating a boycott of CNN’s parent company, AT&T, in order to punish CNN. And even Varney acknowledged that MSNBC was doing well in the ratings prior to the release of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Kurtz agreed and made the point that MSNBC’s viewers might have fallen off due their disappointment that Mueller wasn’t more aggressive in his indictment of Trump. That’s actually a pretty good explanation for MSNBC’s recent ratings slump, although it’s still the second highest rated cable news network.

However, for Kurtz to stare into the camera and complain about the partisan tilt of MSNBC and CNN is hypocrisy on an Olympian scale. At least both CNN and NBC have actual news divisions that break stories and win awards. But for him to do that without even the slightest acknowledgement of Fox’s extreme political prejudices, marks him as the same sort of propagandist as Varney, Hannity, and the rest of Fox’s flunkies. If it wasn’t such a serious breach of journalistic ethics, it would make a hilarious sketch for Saturday Night Live.

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

This Is Impeachable: Trump is Now Governing By Secret Initiatives with Foreign Leaders

There is already an abundance of evidence that Donald Trump has broken numerous laws that warrant, at the very least, an impeachment inquiry. They include over 127 communications with Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign, at least ten instances of obstruction of justice, multiple cases of financial and tax fraud, and much more. Many of these criminal breaches were spelled out in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. And even Fox News has stated unequivocally that there is evidence of both collusion and obstruction.

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, it seems that Trump commits new crimes everyday. And the startling part of that is that he often admits on television. Which is precisely what happened on Tuesday morning during one of his now infamous helicopter press conferences. There were many absurdities and lies during this live mental breakdown, but on a couple of occasions Trump actually incriminated himself as something of a dictator and/or traitor.

Both of these confessions involved Trump revealing that he has been secretly engaging in foreign policy affairs and making agreements that have not been vetted, ratified, or even seen by Congress. What’s more, he still refuses to disclose the substance of these agreements to anyone. Take for instance his declaration of a secretly negotiated agreement with Mexico. In a dramatic moment, Trump pulled a single piece of paper from his pocket and said…

“That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have. [Reporter asks to see it] No, because I’m gonna let Mexico do the announcement at the right time. But here’s the agreement. It’s a very simple agreement.

First of all, there’s a reason everybody says he doesn’t have an agreement. It’s because Mexico said so, along with multi-sourced reporting that the terms Trump is celebrating were actually negotiated months ago. It’s also highly suspicious that Trump just happened to be carrying this alleged agreement with him on his way to his helicopter. not to mention that one piece of paper hardly represents what would have to be a complex treaty.

The second item was Trump’s disclosure that he had just received another love letter from Kim Jong Un. This time he didn’t produce a paper prop as proof of the correspondence, but he was clearly moved:

“I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un. I can’t show you the letter obviously. But it was a very personal, very warm, very nice letter. I appreciate it. And I’ll say it again, I think that North Korea has tremendous potential…under his leadership.”

This is the sort of mushy romance that Trump previously revealed when he said last year that he and Kim fell in love.” But why can’t he show it to reporters – and the American people? After all, he is merely our representative, not a king. If he is getting letters from hostile foreign leaders, they are part of the public record of the Office of the President, not his personal stash.

By admitting that he is conducting these negotiations in secret, and committing the nation to agreements that haven’t been seen by anyone but him, Trump is confessing to yet another set of impeachable offenses. He doesn’t have the authority to negotiate in that capacity, nor to obligate the nation to the terms of an undisclosed agreement. Congress needs to put an end to this tyrannical behavior. And the only way to do that is by including these offenses in the Articles of Impeachment that they should already be drafting.

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