Trump Must Resign: His Own Reprehensible Words Require Immediate Removal From Office

With each new day Donald Trump makes the case stronger for his impeachment. This isn’t a close call. He is acting out in a way that can only be explained by a fearful and guilty conscience. Trump’s Twitter tantrums are getting more hostile and disconnected from reality. And his ravings serve as incitements to his glassy-eyed disciples to resort to violence.

Donald Trump Walking the Plank

For these reasons Trump cannot be tolerated in the White House for any longer than it takes to invoke and complete the legal and constitutional process of impeachment. He represents an imminent danger to the nation that worsens by the hour. And this threat rests on top of the blatant assault on the rule of law by a reckless and self-obsessed aspiring tyrant. Trump’s defenders keep asking what laws he has broken. So for those wingnuts in denial about Trump’s legal jeopardy, the laws he can be charged with violating right now include extortion, campaign finance, witness intimidation, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy against the United States.

As the sinkhole widens around our panicky president, he appears to be determined to use his own shovel dig ever deeper. His Twitter feed is infested with conspiracy theories, personal insults, unbridled hatred, and outright lies. But worst of all are his flagrant attempts to sow national discord and even civil war. His tweets have taken on the persona of a paranoid schizophrenic who shouts gibberish at passing cars. For instance:

  • Trump tweeted that “I want [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.”
  • Trump asked “Was this person [the whistleblower or his source] SPYING on the U.S. President?”
  • Trump alleged that Democrats “are lying & cheating like never before in our Country’s history in order to destabilize the United States of America.”
  • Trump asserted that “the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation.”
  • Trump quoted a “pastor” who predicted that impeachment will “cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”
  • Trump charged that he’s “looking for Corruption and … By the way, the Bidens were corrupt!”
  • Trump repeated the absurdity that “Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine … Arrest for Treason?”

These utterly unhinged outbursts reveal Trump’s severe mental infirmity and unfitness for office. There is simply no rational justification for charging a Democratic congressman with treason, a crime punishable by death. Nor is it rational to claim that Democrats want to “destabilize” and “destroy” the nation. And aligning himself with the opinion that the lawful process of investigating the President is a valid basis for civil war is just plain insane.

However, Trump’s confession that he did indeed illegally solicit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt on Joe Biden was a bit of a surprise. The surprise isn’t that Trump did it, just that he admitted it. And notice that Trump, who often whines about due process for himself, isn’t giving it to Biden who he flatly says – with zero evidence – is corrupt.

Trump’s manic hysteria is producing some of his most dishonest statements to date. And for someone who has been documented as telling over 12,000 lies, that’s saying something. Among his recent falsehoods are that Rep. Schiff purposefully misquoted Trump. In fact, Schiff prefaced a brief portion of his opening statement at a congressional hearing by stating explicitly that he was creatively paraphrasing Trump. There was no effort to mislead anyone.

Trump has also been tweeting that the whistleblower is fake. But he’s ignoring the fact that the whistleblower’s complaint matches perfectly Trump’s own memo summarizing his phone call with Zelensky. And Trump keeps citing Zelensky as saying that there wasn’t any pressure put on him to dig up dirt on Biden. But you don’t ask the hostage if his captor is putting pressure on him. What was Zelensky supposed to say? He obviously feared losing the foreign aid that Trump was withholding from him.

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

This combination of brazen illegality and psychotic breakdown is far more than enough reason to oust Trump from office. And the urgency increases as his mental meltdown accelerates into orbit. Trump can still do an enormous amount of damage to this country and its international reputation. Yes, even more than he’s already done. And we as a nation must not allow that.

Desperation Time: Trump Aims Tweet Tsunami At One of His Biggest Fox News Fluffers

The walls are closing in around Donald Trump and he knows it. With the House of Representatives conducting an official impeachment inquiry, the President is exhibiting clear signs of a psychotic meltdown, the likes of which have never been seen in the Oval Office. He’s suffering from a severe case of Hysterical Impeachment Syndrome and taking on the tactics of the Nazis he admires.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

On Sunday morning this display of desperation reached a boiling point as Trump unleashed a massive tweetstorm against one of his most reliable defenders. Ed Henry of Fox News has become a bona fide Trump-fluffer in his role as a Fox & Friends co-host. But that is apparently not enough to inoculate him from the gnawing animus of a cornered presidential rat. Following a segment of the Trump & Friends program, Henry was mobbed by angry StormTrumpers who were orgasming over what they thought was a takedown by Fox’s Trump attack dog, Mark Levin (video below).

In fact, Levin just spent a couple of minutes screaming at viewers about nonsense that never addressed the substance of Trump’s tribulations. He began by badgering Henry about why he hasn’t asked for the identity of the whistleblower. Of course the answer to that is obvious to those who aren’t infected by Levin’s cult worship of Trump. The whistleblower statute was designed to protect people from retribution and, in this case, violence and potential charges that Trump himself implied could lead to execution.

Levin bellowed that he wants to “know all about the whistleblower … What kind of dogs they’ve had, how many marriages they’ve had, if they had a DUI” Notice that he doesn’t want to know if the whistleblower is telling the truth or has corroborating evidence. He is only interested in irrelevant personal issues that are only useful for smear campaigns. Levin continued by mocking the need for the whistleblower’s anonymity merely because “his life might be in danger.”

Levin also ranted about why the whistleblower wasn’t being questioned by congress. For the record, the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff (who’s resignation Trump has impotently demanded), has already announced that the whistleblower will be interviewed by the Committee. But Levin plowed forward making the absurd assertion that nobody has identified any laws that were broken by Trump’s extortion of the President of Ukraine. For starters, there’s extortion. And there’s campaign finance violations, witness intimidation, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy.

Trump was so aroused by the reactions to Levin’s high-volume tirade that he retweeted twenty (20!) comments by random Twitteristas praising him. They included such brilliant and dignified retorts as “Ed Henry just got his ASS handed to him by Mark Levin,” and “Levin just tore Ed Henry to shreds,” and “Levin sure put that lying shit head Ed Henry in his place,” and “Levin ripped Ed Henry a new one.” Who can argue with logic like that?

So now Ed Henry is among the Fox News untouchables who Trump’s cult followers are ordered to despise. He joins Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace. But what’s peculiar about this is that Henry is a devoted Trump-fluffer himself. Among his glassy-eyed defenses of Dear Leader, Henry has lied about seeing Trump’s non-existent border wall. He falsely claimed that “Hollywood has been threatening to blacklist” Trump supporters.
He celebrated a court ruling against Obamacare that could cause millions to suffer saying that it was “a little gift ahead of Christmas.”

When Trump has reached the point that he is attacking even his most faithful media shills on his favorite Fox News program, you know that he’s gone over the edge. It’s a state of fearful derangement that is only going to get worse as time goes by. And Trump isn’t doing himself any favors by maligning the Fox News protectorate that he needs to continue gaslighting his base. So buckle up, America. Trump is determined to make this a bumpy ride to impeachment.

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

Trump Calling Democrats ‘Savages’ is an Old Nazi Tactic to Dehumanize Critics

The stench of Donald Trump’s desperation is becoming more unbearable by the minute. As the efforts to impeach him gain momentum and the evidence piles up ever higher, Trump is resorting to increasingly more outlandish and repulsive behavior. The fact that he regards these pitiful measures as beneficial to his cause is only further proof that he’s lost what remains of his diseased brain.

Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler

On Saturday morning Trump was uncharacteristically muted. In place of his regularly scheduled tweetstorm he posted only the plaintive, all-caps cries of “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” and impotent regurgitations of his tiresome bumper sticker slogans, MAGA and KAG. That restrained output is curious considering the flood of deranged tweets he’s been unleashing in the past week. But it’s still early, and he’s playing golf. So…

The spectacle of an American president whining so helplessly is an unending embarrassment to this nation. But even worse is the malevolent tone that he is lately exhibiting. Trump has taken to calling his political foes “spies” and implying that they should be executed. And in Saturday’s tweets Trump channeled the ghost of Hitler to vilify the whole of the Democratic Party as “savages.”

It’s notable that the only named victims of this abuse are members of Congress who are either Jewish or women of color. It seems like a stretch to consider that a coincidence. But he did manage to expand the scope of his racist wrath to the rest of the party.

More to the point, Trump’s use of the word “savages” is familiar to anyone who lived through, or has studied, Hitler’s Nazi movement. It was a common common tactic to dehumanize those you were trying to eliminate from society. The theory of the Nazi oppressors was that it would be easier to convince an ignorant and angry populace (i.e. Deplorables) to approve of imprisonment and mass murder if the victims were cast as subhuman.

Apparently Trump has embraced that abhorrent theory. There is no other explanation for why elected representatives of American citizens would be maligned as “savages.” It’s a wholly incongruous description of people who merely have different opinions and perform their lawful, constitutionally mandated duties. Clearly Trump’s objective is to plant this disgusting impression of his perceived enemies in the minds of his cult followers so that they can later be called upon to defend him by any means necessary. And that includes violence and terrorism.

In addition to Trump’s nauseating descent into Hitlerian extremism, he has also taken to calling his political opponents the “Do Nothing” Democrats. For the record, Democrats in the House of Representatives have passed more than 200 bills. They are currently being blocked by Republican Senate Leader, Mitch McConnell, who earlier this year bragged that he would preside as the “Grim Reaper” over a legislative graveyard. Which adds to the ghoulish morbidity of Trump’s Republican Nationalist Party.

Finally, in his tweet Trump also tried to compare how he’s been treated by Democrats to how Republicans treated President Obama. But to date there has not been any effort by Democrats to claim that Trump wasn’t an American citizen, or that he founded ISIS, or that his associates were members of a pedophile sex trafficking ring, or that he was an undercover Muslim terrorist, or that he aspired to be a dictator.

Well, okay … that last one Trump has been accused of. But the difference is there was never any evidence of it with regard to Obama. But Trump has spent the last two and half years cozying up to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Mohammad Bin Salman, and Kim Jong Un. And while Obama tried to create an environment of political unity with the GOP (often to his detriment), Trump has done nothing but vilify Democrats and the media who he repeatedly refers to as “the enemy of the people.” So among the things that Trump is too stupid to learn is that he should never try to compare himself to Obama.

UPDATE: Trump posted another tweet containing a video wherein the big crybaby whined about “the single greatest scam in the history of American politics.” (Wait, wasn’t that the Russia “hoax”?) He didn’t say what the scam is, but presumably it’s his pending impeachment. Then he went full fear monger saying that “Democrats wanna take away your guns…” and healthcare, and vote, and freedom, and judges, and everything. That’s right. He said Democrats wanna take away EVERYTHING! Scary, aint it? Well, he’s obviously scared out of his frizzled mind. And for good reason. He knows what he did. And he knows what the consequences are.

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

Hysterical Impeachment Syndrome: Trump Issues Impotent Demands that Adam Schiff Resign

Donald Trump is previewing his regularly scheduled Weekend Tweetstorm with a special Friday edition. And the lengths he goes to to exalt himself and malign his critics is reaching new levels of hysteria and panic. If Trump thinks this sort of behavior is consistent with that of an innocent man, he is suffering from a deeper case of dementia than anyone previously imagined.

Donald Trump

Trump’s morning rant follows Thursday’s late night flurry of Fox News videos, many of which proposed a bizarre theory that impeaching Trump would hurt Democrats more. It’s clear from their nasty reactions, however, that they don’t really believe that. And Trump’s own response is escalating in animosity – and incoherence – by the minute. For example:

So much derp in one “liddle” tweet. First of all, Trump is outraged that CNN omitted an apostrophe from his infantile prefix to Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s name. So outraged that he forgot the difference between an apostrophe and a hyphen. He also forgot how to spell the word “describing.” And he thinks that this punctuation atrocity somehow changes his meaning in a “dishonest” way.

Trump then moves on to bash the New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker (and for some reason his wife) for writing a story about Trump’s phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that clearly included an extortion threat. Trump has been denying the reality of that even after the incriminating memo summarizing the call was released. But the worst part of this tweet was Trump’s assertion that Baker “should not even be allowed to write about me.”

Trump continues to have the delusional impression that he’s a tyrannical monarch who gets to decide who and what is permitted in the free press that he repeatedly calls, in Stalin’s words, “the enemy of the people.” That burning hatred for the Constitution was further reflected in Trump’s next tweets that continued his attack on Schiff:

Apparently Trump doesn’t grasp the concept of paraphrasing with emphasis to make a point. That’s what Schiff was doing. He even prefaced his remarks (video below) by saying that Trump’s phone call “reads like a classic organized crime shakedown. Shorn of its rambling character, and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the President communicates.” So contrary to Trump’s brazen lie, Schiff was not “supposedly reading the exact transcribed version of the call,”

What’s more, nobody has to make Trump sound horrible or look guilty. Trump does an excellent job of that without assistance. Which makes his demand that Schiff resign all the more pathetic and shimmering with the impotence of a wannabe dictator who doesn’t know that he lacks the authority he imagines he has. But Trump wasn’t through with Schiff.

It’s ironic that Trump would call Schiff “sick” in a tweet where he once again makes an absurd demand that Schiff “must resign and be investigated.” Notice the backwards order that Trump puts those in: resign, then be investigated. Trump followed that up with an all-caps tweet that his conversation with Zelensky was “perfect.” If that was perfect, what kind of horror would mediocre be? (Note: Why does he keep saying “perfect,” a word that is generally reserved for things like hanging pictures or seasoning chicken dinner?) Trump also claimed that Democrats are “now to be known as the DO NOTHING PARTY!” Nevermind that they have passed more than 200 bills that Mitch McConnell is blocking in the Senate.

Finally (well, for now), Trump took a wild swing at the whistleblower, who he said without explanation “isn’t a Whistleblower at all.” That contradicts his own Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, who told Congress under oath that the whistleblower and his account of the events, was credible and made in good faith. Trump, nevertheless, whined that the complaint was inaccurate and speculated baselessly that it was the work of either a leaker, a spy, or a partisan operative.

At this point Trump is just sending conspiratorial trial balloons into the polluted air that he’s making worse with the incessant and toxic exhaust from his own mouth. And the frequency and fury of his Twitter tirades is only exacerbating the public perception of his guilt. A poll on Thursday showed a thirteen point increase in Americans who think Trump should be impeached. And that’s even before many of these latest revelations had time to percolate through the mediasphere.

Long story short: Trump is revealing a measure of fear that is weighing heavily on him. But that may be the most sane response he’s had to any of this controversy to date. Fear would be precisely the right emotion under these circumstances. So if he’s scared it’s because he has good reason to be.

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

Fox News Marches Lock-Step with ‘Impeaching Trump Will Hurt Democrats’ Talking Point

This week just keeps getting worse for Donald Trump. First it was revealed that a whistleblower charged him with serious breaches of national security in a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Then he was forced to release the memo containing an account of that phone call that was disturbing and incriminating. And on Thursday the text of the whistleblower’s complaint was also released after the White House could no longer persist in suppressing it. Simultaneous to this, his Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, was grilled about his conduct with regard to the whistleblower complaint in a pair of congressional hearings.

Fox News, Impeach Trump

In addition to that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House or Representatives would be formally conducting an impeachment inquiry. Much of the work on that had already begun, but this made it official. Trump’s response to these events was to panic-tweet dozens of bootlicking testimonials by worshipful disciples in politics and the press. It was a barrage of sycophantic adoration and utterly dishonest rationalizations for his flagrantly unlawful acts. It was most assuredly not the behavior of an innocent man.

Not surprisingly, Fox News was prominently featured among these tributes to Trump’s treason. Their mission to shield Trump from any and all harm continues as the news gets ever more precarious for his dangling presidency. And what appears to be a coordinated offensive by Fox news is taking shape. Thursday’s messaging was strikingly aligned across many of its programs. What they are pitching is that, regardless of how terrible this all looks for Trump, it’s really much worse for Democrats. For instance:

  • Karl Rove on Fox’s Daily Briefing told host Dana Perino that “Impeachment is a losing issue for Democrats.”
  • Rush Limbaugh warned Democrats that “They’re not thinking about blowback.”
  • Newt Gingrich offered his stale analysis that “When [Pelosi] starts an investigation the person who’s gonna get clobbered is Joe Biden.”
  • Tucker Carlson turned to frightening Democrats, saying that they “have just become so obsessed with destroying Donald Trump, that they’re destroying themselves.”
  • Sarah Huckabee Sanders summed it all up by asserting that “All this is doing is helping [Trump] get reelected.”

WOW! That sounds pretty darn awful for Democrats. And by extension, it sounds like Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party should be celebrating. In fact, they ought to be thanking Democrats and promoting their efforts to impeach Trump at every opportunity. After all, it’s only going to help Trump get reelected and crush the Democrats’ hopes for majorities in Congress. If Republicans really believe what they are saying, then all of this drama over impeachment should be putting them in good mood.

However, for some reason that isn’t the case. Even after insisting that the Democrats are destroying themselves, and that Trump will be the beneficiary, they are still whining incessantly and demanding that all efforts to impeach Trump be halted. Trump himself is threatening legal action, which is not an option with regard to impeachment. And his Twitter feed is blowing up with more tweets and retweets than ever, almost all which are nasty reactions to his pending impeachment.

Apparently, Trump and his minions are not really as happy about him being impeached as they are trying to pretend. The reality is that his violations of law, ethics, and his oath of office, are more than sufficient to warrant impeachment and removal from office. And no one knows that better than Trump. He is aware of what he’s done and what the consequences are. And that is why he – and the Cult of Deplorables he leads – have been scared into incoherence. It’s almost pathetic enough to feel sorry for them. Nah, not really.

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

Lacking Any Coherent Impeachment Defense, Trump Deploys An All Fox News Blitzkrieg

On Wednesday morning Donald Trump released the transcript White House provided, non-verbatim memo of his July phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was somewhat anticlimactic considering that he had already admitted that he pressured Ukraine to smear Biden, and even declared Biden “corrupt” and subject to the electric chair. Still, he has been saying for days that the call was “perfect,” that he had done nothing wrong, and promised that it would exonerate him. What the hell was he thinking!

Donald Trump, Phone, Pacifier

Keeping in mind that several days prior to this phone call, Trump had frozen nearly $400 million dollars in military aid to Ukraine, who were engaged in a conflict with Russian troops on their eastern border. With that as context for Trump’s remarks, here are some relevant and incriminating parts of the memo (full document below):

“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. […] I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance.”

“Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it. […] I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.”

“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

So Trump starts out by asking for “a favor.” That’s precisely how Godfather Don Corleone began his conversations with shakedown victims when he made them “an offer you can’t refuse.” Zelensky knew that the aid his country needs was at risk. This is as close to a quid pro quo as is ever encountered in organized crime. And having that followed up by a request to meet with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and his Attorney General, William Barr – which is a new and troubling revelation – only makes Trump’s clearly unlawful intentions more clear.

The fact that Trump bothered to malign special counsel Robert Mueller is another indication that he is tying this call to his own political tribulations. And directly warning Zelensky that “it’s very important that you do … whatever you can do,” is hardly a subtle nudge. Trump then brings up the Ukrainian prosecutor who he calls “very good” despite being held in disrepute by the U.S. government, the European Union, the World Bank, and other international institutions.

Trump then got to the real point when he brought up Joe Biden and made the objectively false statement that he “stopped the prosecution” of Biden’s son. In fact, the corrupt prosecutor wasn’t even actively pursuing the case. And every investigation into the matter found zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden. Nevertheless, Trump pressed this issue repeatedly in the phone call and kept pressing for a meeting with Giuliani and Barr.

If this is Trump’s idea of an exculpatory document, you have to wonder what he considers incriminating. Trump is seen here explicitly abusing his power by recruiting a foreign leader to interfere with an American election. And he is using funds allocated by Congress to extort the illegal results he wants. There is no defense for this criminal behavior. Trump couldn’t even provide one, so he claimed on Wednesday that it should all be ignored because the stock market went up. Really? For the record, the market today is stagnant at best. It’s exactly where it was in January of 2018, a year and a half ago. Trump is also arguing his innocence based on his leading poll numbers. Except that he’s losing to every top Democrat. In fact, a Fox News poll saying just that was released a week before Trump called Zelensky. Coincidence?

Then Trump turned to his goto protectors at Fox News to vainly try to spin this in his favor. He posted (so far) twelve (12!) tweets of Trump-fluffing sycophants that contained no factual refutation of the damning contents of the White House summary phone call. They included:

  • Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway writing that the whistleblower’s attorney worked for Hillary Clinton and “Schuck” Schumer. That was for short internships nearly twenty years ago.
  • Fox host Mark Levin asserting that the is media trying to protect Biden.
  • Sean Hannity interviewing Attorney Joe DiGenova, whose reputation was so bad that he couldn’t be added to Trump’s staff.
  • Tucker Carlson interviewing Jenna Ellis, a member of the Trump 2020 Advisory Board.
  • Sean Hannity interviewing GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a sellout who once called Trump an idiot and a liar, but who now kowtows to him in the most embarrassing fashion.
  • Lou Dobbs interviewing Harmeet Dhillon from the Republican National Lawyers Association.
  • Sean Hannity (again), this time with Kevin McCarthy, House Republican Leader.
  • Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, another Fox News host and shameless Trump-fluffer.
  • Yet another Hannity reference saying that the whistleblower has a political bias.
  • Fox and Friends asserting that “Democrats have been talking about Impeaching Donald Trump since before he was inaugurated. @SteveDoocy @foxandfriends”
  • Fox host Bret Baier saying that “You don’t see a direct quid pro quo in this.”
  • Fox’s White House correspondent, John Roberts, saying that there was no quid pro quo in the memo.

Someone who has a good argument for innocence wouldn’t have to resort to a cadre of notoriously biased pundits and Fox News propagandists for legal help. But this is Trump’s whole modus operandi. Remember, his preparation for the presidency was hosting a reality TV game show for fourteen years. His entire reference to his job is tied to television and celebrity. So rather than accumulate knowledgeable defenses from intelligent, reputable people, he leans on dishonest TV personalities talking to partisan hacks. You know, people just like himself.

UPDATE: The whistleblower complaint has been declassified and released. It’s available here with a few redactions.

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

Trump’s Ukraine Phone Call Transcript Doesn’t Need a Quid Pro Quo to Impeach Trump

This has been a disastrous week for Donald Trump. With the emergence of a White House whistleblower disclosing that Trump illegally extorted the President Of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, the prospects for his impeachment have escalated exponentially. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just announced that Congress is now “moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.” And Trump’s deteriorating demeanor is showing the intensity of his fear and panic.

Donald Trump Impeach

Trump is so desperate that he has caved into demands that he release the transcript of his July phone call with Zelensky, that he previously refused to do, saying that it would set a bad precedent. While that’s a good start, it is not nearly sufficient to clear up this controversy. For one thing, Trump is still refusing to release the whistleblower’s report that his own National Intelligence Inspector General said contained “serious” and “urgent” allegations that impact national security. Without that report we don’t know what the whistleblower was referring to, or even if it involved this phone call.

As for the question of a “quid pro quo,” there isn’t any requirement that an explicit demand be attached to Trump’s threat in order to constitute a breach of law and/or ethics. The Mafia had a way of insuring that their victims knew what was expected of them without saying so directly. “Nice little country you have here,” Trump might say, “Sure would hate to see something happen to it.” And Trump has plenty of experience with that mobster mentality as a Manhattan real estate developer. In his announcement that he would be releasing the Ukraine phone call transcript he tweeted:

It remains to be seen if any transcript made public by Trump is actually unedited. As a documented pathological liar, nothing he says can be taken at face value. This is especially true on the day that he made remarks about the charges against him wherein he managed to contradict himself within a single sentence (video below). “There was no pressure put on [Ukraine] whatsoever,” Trump began. Then he continued, “but there was pressure put on with respect to Joe Biden.” Well, that’s crystal clear. There was no pressure except that there was pressure of a blatantly political nature.

Trump went on to say that “What Joe Biden did for his son, that’s something they should be looking at.” So even now he is still making improper demands on Ukraine that can still be regarded as ultimatums associated with future foreign aid. What’s more, the accusations aimed at Biden, that Trump is using to deflect from his his own crimes, have all been investigated and there was zero evidence of any wrongdoing. Biden was delivering a message to dismiss a corrupt prosecutor. It was the official policy of the U.S. government, not a personal matter involving Biden or his family. And it was also aligned with the policies of the Ukraine parliament, the European Union, the World Bank and other international institutions.

Trump also made the familiar and tiresome claim that he is the victim of a “Witch Hunt.” He said that Democrats are fixed on impeaching him because he’s leading in the polls and they can’t beat him any other way. That would be an interesting argument if it weren’t for the fact that most polls show him losing to every Democratic opponent, even the polls from Fox News. That’s the sort of “real” news that is driving Trump insane. And it’s another reason why he needs to be impeached as soon as humanly possible.

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

Crazed Trump Declares Biden and Son ‘Corrupt’ and Subject to ‘Getting the Electric Chair’

The scandal over Donald Trump pressuring Ukraine officials to conduct a bogus investigation of Joe Biden just hit a new level of totalitarian barbarity. Trump is sinking rapidly into the Mariana Trench of desperation with his latest outrageous defense for extorting a foreign government to help him steal an election.

Donald Trump Zombie

In a press avail at the United Nations (video below), Trump was asked about the Ukraine affair and lashed out with what has become his robo-response. Building on prompts from Fox News, Trump has been trying to divert attention from his crimes to false allegations that Biden was guilty of what Trump is being accused of. Nevermind that there is zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden, and even Fox News confirmed that in a report on Monday afternoon. But in this exchange Trump crossed over to the most nauseating torrent of slander imaginable. With an evil sneer and deafening hostility in his voice, Trump unleashed this abomination:

“Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. But the fake news doesn’t want to report it because they’re Democrats. If a Republican ever did what Joe Biden did, if a Republican ever said what Joe Biden said, they’d be getting the electric chair by right now.”

Trump is no longer speculating about the already debunked charges against Biden. He is now stating them bluntly as a matter of fact. This is the Commander-in-Chief, to whom the Attorney General reports, asserting absolutely that Biden is guilty of a treasonous act. And he even goes so far as to suggest that Biden be punished by death.

If there’s one thing this insanity reveals it’s that Trump is terrified of what is unfolding in this Ukraine matter. He clearly fears the consequences if the truth about him comes out. These comments about Biden are not his typically childish name-calling and awkward deflections. This is much more destructive and dangerous. And therefore, more illustrative of his panic and mental collapse. There’s nothing subtle about it. It’s a blaring signal that he’s on the brink of a nervous breakdown due to his knowledge that his world is falling apart.

For the record, nothing in his wild-eyed accusations is remotely true and independent analysts affirm that. Biden went to Ukraine to articulate the position of the United States government, not his own personal position or that of his son. Plus, he was addressing a corrupt prosecutor whose dismissal had been demanded by a majority of the Ukraine parliament, as well as the European Union and other international institutions. There is no parallel between that and Trump’s efforts to bully Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, into helping him smear a potential political opponent.

What’s more, Trump has actually confessed to what he’s been accused of. After denying it for days, Trump finally admitted that he did indeed discuss Biden with Zelensky. And on Monday he even conceded that U.S. foreign aid was part of the threat he made to get Zelensky’s cooperation. He went on to argue that “it would probably, possibly have been ok” to use American foreign aid as a cudgel to extract political favors that amount to election fraud.

This is trump being Trump. He routinely denies allegations against him until the evidence is just too solid. Then he accuses others of what he’s been accused of. Then he insists that it would be perfectly fine if he did it. The he blames the media. But in this case it’s hard to imagine any lower rung on this ladder of immorality and illegality. However, if there is one, trust Trump to find it. He will surely not be satisfied with with death threats against Democrats if his legal jeopardy continues to get worse.

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

After a Ludicrous Litany of Lies, Trump Admits He Pressured Ukraine to Smear Joe Biden

The President is drowning in his own flop sweat. What Donald Trump has asked us all to call the “Ukraine Witch Hunt” is boiling over with new revelations of his criminality and his own absurd utterances that, more often than not, just get him into even hotter water. His behavior illustrates how desperate and fearful he is. On Saturday he posted twenty (20!) tweets on this subject alone, including one that completely contradicted his flagrantly false allegations against Joe Biden and the media.

Donald Trump Sweating

Trump’s charges against Biden are widely repudiated by credible journalists and people with inside knowledge of the matter. There have been investigations that found no wrongdoing on the part of Biden or his son, Hunter. Biden’s role in lobbying for the dismissal of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was only to inform the Ukrainians of the official diplomatic position of the United States, as well as that of the European Union and Ukraine’s own parliament. At no time did Biden press for any action that inured to the benefit of himself or his family.

That’s in stark contrast to Trump threatening to withhold foreign aid that was allocated by Congress unless Ukraine complied with his demand to fabricate dirt on Biden. Trump was extorting Ukraine to actively interfere in the U.S. election to help him malign a possible opponent. That violates at least half a dozen laws and is an abhorrent act of betrayal.

However, that hasn’t stopped Trump and his cadre of worshipful defenders in politics and punditry from concocting and disseminating ridiculous conspiracy theories that challenge rational thought. Naturally, Fox News took the lead with surreal presentations from the usual suspects (Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends). For his part, Trump unleashed at least eight different excuses for the Ukraine story on Twitter. And each one is wholly without foundation or any semblance of sanity. For instance:

  • The media is making up facts and sources
  • They’re turning a Biden scandal into a Trump scandal
  • Someone was spying on the president
  • A seditious effort to protect the Obama/Clinton gang
  • The whistleblower was “highly partisan”
  • It’s the “Deep State”
  • The whistleblower wasn’t really a whistleblower
  • It’s a Witch Hunt
  • Trump’s conversations were “perfectly fine”

Notice that none of these wild-eyed rants actually deny that Trump pressured the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on Biden. That should be the first signal that Trump is lying and is conscious of the risk that his lies will be discovered. But we didn’t have to wait long for Trump to out himself. On Sunday morning’s episode of “Chopper talk,” Trump finally admitted that he did indeed talk about Biden with Zelensky. Trump said that…

“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.“

Setting aside Trump’s mangling of the English language, he is unambiguously admitting that the Biden matter was raised in his conversations with Zelensky. So now we have both Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, confessing that they strong armed Ukraine’s leaders into a conspiracy to undermine U.S. democracy.

In Trump’s Sunday morning rant he also made a point of repeatedly saying that he was not looking to hurt Biden or his family. But every time he said that he followed it up with baseless accusations that Biden had done something terrible. It’s the Trump version of a schoolyard bully assaulting his victim and asking “Why do you keep hitting yourself.” And it’s a textbook example of a passive/aggressive personality seeking to distance himself from his own viciousness.

Trump has too many psychoses to enumerate, the most prominent being his malignant narcissism. So we can expect more of this bizarre behavior as Trump finds himself sinking ever deeper into the abyss of his own immorality. We can count on him charging his perceived enemies with the crimes that he is committing. And we can reliably predict his manic meltdowns and infantile reactions whenever he feels threatened. Which will be occurring more frequently as his lies and misdeeds continue to unfold.

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

President Idiot: Trump Posts a Video that Actually Contradicts His Lies About Joe Biden

The revelation that Donald Trump tried to strongarm the President of Ukraine into manufacturing campaign dirt on Joe Biden should be the final chapter of the Trump Horror Story. It doesn’t even matter if the allegations against Biden are true. Trump’s conspiracy to rope a foreign government into his political hit job is impeachable by itself. And using taxpayer funds in an international bribery scheme exacerbates the crime.

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, Trump continues to smear Biden, despite the fact that the allegations against him have already been investigated and no evidence of wrongdoing was found. The allegations against Trump, however, have not been investigated and he’s doing everything possible to suppress any probe into his unsavory communications with Ukraine. He claims that his conversations were “beautiful” and “perfectly fine,” but he refuses to release a transcript. He’s also withholding the whistleblower complaint that is required by law to be turned over to Congress. What’s he so scared of?

Now, in a desperate attempt to deflect from his own abhorrent and unlawful behavior, Trump posted a video on Twitter with the intention of redirecting attention to the already debunked charges against the Biden family (video posted below). The video features a montage of deceitfully edited clips from the media that Trump says make his case. That’s the same media that he calls “the enemy of the people.” The only problem for Trump is that none of the clips offer any evidence that Biden did anything wrong. They simply report that allegations were made. And in many cases they go on to disclose that the allegations were baseless and unproven, but Trump cut those parts out.

The video begins with Biden saying that “Not one single credible outlet has given any credibility to his assertion.” Then it stitches together a bunch of clips, many of which have the source cropped out, so it’s impossible to assess their credibility. And it ends with an out of context clip of Biden saying “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” What Trump is not showing is that Biden was articulating the position of the United States government, not his own personal position. Plus, he was referring to a corrupt prosecutor whose dismissal had been demanded by a majority of the Ukraine parliament, as well as the European Union and other institutions. And as for the money, Biden was referring to loan guarantees, not allocations from the U.S. Treasury.

So Trump’s video not only fails to prove his premise, it actually contradicts it. What’s more, much of his whining has been focused on his complaint that the media has failed to cover the allegations against Biden. But with this video Trump is providing proof that the media has covered this story extensively.

Finally, Trump may be violating election laws by even posting the video. The prominent appeal at the top of the video to send him a text would serve as your consent to receive text messages from his campaign. That’s an improper melding of the presidency with political operations. The video itself says it was produced by Trump/Pence 2020. So Trump is using his official Twitter page to post free advertising for his reelection. But he’s kind of ripping himself off by having produced such an awful, dishonest ad.

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