Month: November 2019

PROOF: Trump Flagrantly Lied About the Quid Pro Quo He Already Publicly Admitted

Posted by on November 20, 2019 at 11:27 am. 8 Comments :

The testimony of Ambassador Gordon Sondland during Wednesday’s impeachment hearing is already being described as a “bombshell.” Sondland not only further incriminated Donald Trump, he also implicated senior members of Trump’s team including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and even Vice-President Mike Pence. Be careful Trumpsters. The bus is running over everyone.

Donald Trump, Chopper Talk

However, perhaps the most damning comments of the morning came from Trump himself as he staged his latest performance of “Chopper Talk” on the White House lawn. Trump stopped to read from his hand-written notes a portion of what he characterized as exonerating testimony by Sondland. It was a mere two sentences, out of context, from over two hours of questioning. But Trump presented it as if it wrapped up the whole case against him. It surely did not.

Trump was allegedly quoting Sondland’s recollection of a conversation they had. Sondland said that he asked Trump what he wanted from Ukrainian President Zelensky. And Trump says he replied that…

“I say to the Ambassador in response, ‘I want nothing, I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky, President Zelensky, to do the right thing.'”

First of all, saying that “I want nothing,” immediately followed by an order to “do the right thing,” is by definition a quid pro quo whether you say so or not. Particularly when “the right thing” was previously established as a demand that Zelensky make a public statement that he would investigate the 2016 election and Burisma/Biden, if he wanted U.S. aid. To deny the obvious conditionality of that is like denying that water is wet.

What’s more, in a previous episode of “Chopper Talk,” Trump himself told a national television audience exactly what he wanted from Zelensky:

REPORTER: Mr. President, what exactly did you hope Zelensky would do about the Bidens after your phone call? Exactly.

TRUMP: I would think that if they’re honest about it they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens.

The bottom line here is that Trump did seek Zelensky’s agreement to investigate the Biden’s, and he did make U.S. aid contingent on that. But now Trump wants people to believe Sondland’s out of context soundbite, rather than what he plainly said himself. If we accept Trump’s presentation of Sondland’s testimony as complete and factual, then we have to conclude that he’s calling himself a liar. Which, ironically, would be the first truthful thing that Trump has said in a very long time.

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

Terrified Trump Lies and Lashes Out at Nancy Pelosi, Calling Her ‘Grossly Incompetent’

Posted by on November 19, 2019 at 1:40 pm. 3 Comments :

The impeachment hearings continue on Capitol Hill with the testimony of Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman and others from the administration. Their depositions already reveal incriminating evidence against Donald Trump and his efforts to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That isn’t expected to change during the live testimony, although Republicans will surely try to assassinate their characters and change the subject.

Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi

As for Trump, he began the morning with his customary hostility toward Democrats and the legal and proper process that is underway. It is the duty of Congress to ascertain the facts about an unlawful bribery conspiracy intended to benefit Trump’s reelection prospects. And since the facts are all aligned against him, he is wholly consumed with defaming his perceived foes, Democrats and the press. That objective was neatly summarized in his remarks during a White House press avail wherein he unleashed a tirade that was completely devoid of any substantive defense of his actions. It was pure venom and wrath (video below). He began…:

“The woman [Nancy Pelosi] is grossly incompetent. All she wants to do is focus on impeachment, which is just a little pipe dream she’s got. And she can keep playing that game.”

Naturally the first inclination of Trump is to throw insults at his enemies. And of course they are completely lacking in any factual basis. Trump is well known for spewing whatever vile nonsense comes into his hollow head at any given moment, so his attack on Pelosi as “grossly incompetent” is just an empty slur. In fact, he had a very different opinion of her when Democrats won control of the House in 2018:

However, Trump was far from finished with his morning malice. He continued by introducing an imaginary scenario that he pulled straight from his asinine fantasies of how he thinks the world should be:

“I’ve been told – who knows if this is so, but I think it’s so. I have pretty good authority on it – that she’s using USMCA (United States, Mexico, and Canada Trade Agreement) because she doesn’t have the impeachment votes, so she’s using USMCA to get the impeachment vote. And it doesn’t matter because right now you have a kangaroo court headed by little shifty Schiff, where we don’t have lawyers, we don’t have witnesses, we don’t have anything.”

To be clear, Trump was told this by the voices in his head. There is absolutely no evidence of Pelosi associating the USMCA with the impeachment vote. What’s more, it’s already been established that she has the votes of a significant majority of Democrats for impeachment. But Trump couldn’t help himself and had to pound out another insult aimed at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Trump has previously displayed his rank childishness by insulting the Chairman as Adam “Schitt.”

And still Trump wasn’t through. His whining about not having his lawyers or witnesses at the hearing could be resolved by him agreeing to testify. He tweeted that he would consider that, but anyone holding their breath waiting for it to happen better have a soft place to fall when they pass out. Also, not having Rudy Giuliani there can only be seen as a positive.

Finally, Trump exhibited the depth of his delusion by claiming that “The Republicans are absolutely killing it” at the hearing. He apparently hasn’t heard any of the incriminating testimony. Then he rattled off his routing ranting about the whole thing being a hoax and how the Founders, who deliberately wrote impeachment into the Constitution, would have nevertheless opposed it. And he has the bizarre impression that he’s a beloved leader who is doing well in the polls. Perhaps so, if he thinks that having a majority of Americans favor his impeachment and removal from office is “doing well.” In his diseased mind the Democrats are are simply out to get him, but…

“It’s had the opposite effect, because you’ve seen the polls and I’m the highest I’ve ever been in the polls. You don’t hear that on television because the news and the Democrats are one and the same.”

The reason you don’t hear that Trump is high in the polls is because it isn’t true. But that’s just another of the fallacies that Trump is disseminating. On Monday he tweeted with shock that Nancy Pelosi said “It is dangerous to let the voters decide Trump’s fate.” Which would be shocking if she actually said that. In reality, Pelosi only said that not conducting the impeachment inquiry would be dangerous “because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.” That’s very, very different, and true. Trump’s “quote” actually came, not from Pelosi, but from Mike Emanuel of Fox News. Is anyone surprised?

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

Self-Gaslighting? Frightened by Reality, Trump Keeps Posting Fake Approval Ratings

Posted by on November 18, 2019 at 2:23 pm. 9 Comments :

The walls are closing in around Donald Trump as the impeachment hearings proceed. More witnesses from within his own administration are coming forward this week to provide incriminating testimony. Consequently, Trump is frantically tweeting attacks on non-partisan career public servants, along with testimonials from disreputable congressional supporters and Fox News shills.

Flaming Trump

Trump’s ego won’t allow him to face the reality that his presidency is coming apart at the seams. In what appears to be an effort to persuade himself, as well as his glassy-eyed cult followers, that he is uncommonly popular, Trump repeatedly posts that he has an approval rating of 95% among Republicans. While he has tweeted this at least 29 times this year, he has never once provided a source for that wildly implausible number. Recent polling from the real world shows that his Republican support is at a career low of 74 percent. Nevertheless, Trump tweeted this bizarre commentary Monday morning:

Let’s set aside the awkwardly comical phrasing in this tweet wherein he appears to say that his own claim of party unity “is a great fraud.” Trump is clinging desperately to a delusion of wide scale GOP adoration. Even if it were true, it would represent a tiny sliver of the electorate which is only about 29% Republican, compared to 31% Democratic and 38% independent. There is no rational argument that he is well-liked by any constituency beyond his worshipful Deplorables. So he resorts to some tiresome sloganeering about the “fake” this and the “do nothing” that.

Trump was recently humiliated by the loss of Republican gubernatorial candidates in the bright red states of Kentucky and Louisiana. And that was after he had campaigned vigorously for them, rallied for them, and even tied his personal reputation to their electoral fates, begging voters to elect the GOP candidates for his sake. And subsequent to those embarrassing defeats, Trump boldly ignores objective truth to tweet that “we are winning.”

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll has even more bad news for Trump. They found that a majority of 51% of the American people favor his impeachment and removal from office. That number goes up to 67% when asked just of those following the hearings closely. So the better informed one is, the more they want Trump out. Plus, an overwhelming 70% think Trump’s extortion of Ukraine’s President Zelensky to dig up dirt on Biden was wrong. These results are consistent with other recent polls on the impeachment question.

Trump Delusional Impeach Polls

Trump’s misrepresentation of the public mood is nothing new. The question is: Does he know his claims are false and he’s brazenly lying to the American people, or has he managed to fool himself into believing that he’s the nation’s most beloved hero? Either way, Trump’s fear of the future has pushed him into ever more noxious assaults on his perceived foes.

Last week he blasted House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff with a profane warping of his name as Adam “Schitt.” Even worse, he failed to defend America’s honor after North Korea launched an attack on Joe Biden that included an overt death threat. Which affirms what has been obvious for far too long. The only person Trump will ever defend is himself, even if it means neglecting the welfare of the nation and purposefully ignoring reality.

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

HOLY KRAP: Trump Sucks Up to North Korea as They Call for Joe Biden’s Death

Posted by on November 17, 2019 at 12:06 pm. 5 Comments :

We have encountered yet another “Just when you thought Trump had hit rock bottom” moment. These moments seem to be more frequent and more nauseating with every iteration. Donald Trump simply has no lower boundary as to how disgusting and repulsive he can be. In fact, he appears to be proud of his ability to consistently sicken the decent people of this nation and world.

Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Trump’s capacity for hostility and vulgarity is astonishing. On Saturday he tweeted about House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, of whom he is in mortal fear and, true to his infantile nature, called him Adam “Schitt.” Following up on that, in his regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm (which has surpassed three dozen tweets before mid afternoon), Trump posted a response to a tweet by a little known Trump-fluffing hack with the little known wingnut network, One America News (OANN). The tweet by Graham Ledger linked to a British tabloid that quoted North Korea’s state-run news agency attacking Joe Biden:

In addition to North Korea advocating that Biden be “beaten to death with a stick,” it also said that Biden was showing signs of “the final stage of dementia,” and that the “time has come for him to depart his life.” But as horrifying as that is about a former Vice-President of the United States and candidate of president, Trump’s reply was even more horrifying.

Rather than standing up for a fellow American being disparaged by a hostile foreign tyrant, Trump could only manage to say that Biden is “somewhat better” than a rabid dog. That’s like someone calling your mother a dirty whore and you defending her by saying, “Hey, she’s not dirty.” And in the same response Trump actually joined with North Korea to insult Biden by calling him “Sleepy and Very Slow.” And nowhere in this reply did Trump bother to condemn North Korea’s official pronouncement that Biden should be violently murdered and that his death was overdue.

It’s hard to even come up with adjectives that sufficiently describe how appalling, abhorrent, loathsome, etc., Trump’s response is. It is nothing short of traitorous to side with Kim Jong Un and his brutal dictatorship in such attacks on an American citizen and statesman. And political affiliation has nothing to do with it.

What’s more, Trump’s tweet went on to state that only he “can get you where you have to be.” Which is ludicrous on many so levels. First of all, it reaffirms his position as a malignant narcissist who delusionally regards himself as the one and only savior (The Chosen One as he calls himself) for America. Secondly, Trump is saying that he will work to get North Korea to a place that they want to be, as opposed to what’s in America’s best interest. Thirdly, It presumes that he has the ability to conclude a deal, despite having utterly failed at every previous attempt.

Finally, Trump closed his tweet by telling Kim that he would “See you soon!” So he’s rewarding the tyrant who is asserting a death wish on Americans with another in-person meeting. It’s an abomination. But sadly, it’s no less than what we have come to expect from Donald Trump, whose ignorance and hatred are the hallmarks of his presidency. It’s why he must not be allowed to remain in office. Well, that along with the myriad crimes he has committed: Extortion, campaign finance violations, witness intimidation, emoluments breaches, perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy against the United States.

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

BULL SCHITT! Trump Resorts to Infantile Profanities to Sell His Lies About the Economy

Posted by on November 16, 2019 at 1:46 pm. 6 Comments :

Remember when Donald Trump was elected and pundits speculated about when his raw and rancid campaign persona would transition into something more presidential? Yeah, that was great. The naivete of the media persisted for months, and some stubborn holdouts are still expecting Trump to pivot from his bombastic bullying to something closer to a statesman. Good luck with that.


On Saturday morning’s regularly scheduled Trump Tweetstorm, the Crybaby-in-Chief unleashed a typically dishonest tirade. It was plainly intended to thrust the nation into fear of the Democrats’ efforts to hold Trump accountable for his cornucopia of impeachable crimes. Nevermind that a majority of the nation favor his impeachment and removal from office, even according to polling by Fox News. The recent impeachment hearings in Congress have clearly flustered the President, as members of his own administration are testifying to his illegal conduct. Consequently, he is reaching for far flung fantasies to frighten his glassy-eyed disciples into propping up his rapidly deflating ego. He tweeted that…

“Pelosi & Schitt”? Is anyone else concerned that our president has the emotional maturity of six year old who was dropped on his head ten or twenty times? And for those who might try to excuse this as an unfortunate typo, be aware that this isn’t the first time that the Trumplet has sunk to this level of asininity. He is merely expressing himself at the level that is natural for him. And coincidentally, it’s the same level as his cult worshiping followers.

As for his stock market prognostications, Trump could not be farther from reality. Consistent with his recent relentless lying about the economy, his fear mongering that the market would crash and thrust the nation into a depression if he were impeached has no factual basis. Particularly because all the evidence shows that the stock markets have performed better during Democratic administrations than when Republicans were in charge.

What’s more, Trump’s motivations with regard to the economy are uniquely personal. All he is looking for is a short-term stimulative effect on the stock market. That’s partly because he wants to artificially boost the market in advance of the 2020 presidential election to enhance his own reelection prospects. But Trump is also a failed businessman who has racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, much of it with variable-rate loans. When he took office in 2017 he was the most indebted president in history, owing more than $350 million to Deutsche Bank alone. That debt is expensive to service. But when interest rates go down, as he has been prodding the Fed to do, so do the costs of servicing that debt, and he saves literally millions of dollars.

To be sure, there is a recession on the horizon. It is unarguably the Trump Recession that is the result of his reckless policies. Among them, there was the tax scam reform bill that cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy while throwing crumbs to everyone else. That has produced the biggest annual deficit in the nation’s history, reaching into the trillions for the first time. That, in turn, has resulted in the highest federal debt ever, exceeding $22 trillion. Other signs of the recession include…

  • Equity outflows into the relative safety of bonds
  • Interest rate cuts that are generally done when the economy is weak
  • Trump’s tariffs causing bankruptcies and job losses
  • Tepid GDP growth of 1.9% (well short of the 4% to 6% Trump promised)
  • Manufacturing declines
  • Weak wage growth
  • The highest income inequality ever

So Trump’s boasting of the Dow hitting 28,000 doesn’t really mean much. In fact, it’s really just a Wall Street head fake that occurs prior to almost every downturn. Institutions are buying equities to drive prices up so that they can sell high into the rising market. When they do the rest of the market – and most citizen investors – will be stuck holding stocks worth half as much. Smart investors are getting out now, as indicated by the inflows into bonds noted above.

No one can predict with precision when the recession will hit. But when it does you can rest assured that Trump will blame it on Democrats. That’s true whether he’s impeached or not. His story changes to fit the circumstances. In recent weeks Trump has tweeted that his impeachment is a drag on the stock market:

However, now that the impeachment hearings have gone public and are much bigger news than ever, he’s celebrating new highs in the market. So that must mean that impeachment is boosting the markets. Right? Well, only if you expect Trump’s babbling to be honest or consistent or logical. And if you do, you’re probably already headed for a severe depression.

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

It’s a Crime! Fox News Anchors Tell the Truth About Trump’s Witness Intimidation

Posted by on November 15, 2019 at 11:39 am. 7 Comments :

On Friday the Congressional hearing on Donald Trump’s impeachment continued with the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch, the former Ambassador of the United States to Ukraine. Most observers have noted that Yovanovitch is a respected diplomat whose decades of service to the country reflect her honor and honesty. That opinion, however, is not shared by the President, whose nasty animosity is starkly contrary to the consensus of those who know her and her work.

Fox News, Impeach Trump

While the hearing was in progress, Trump demonstrated his deep-seated fear of the consequences of Yovanovitch’s truthful and credible testimony. True to form, Trump grabbed his Twitter machine and lashed out savagely at her in a loathsome attempt to discredit an honorable public servant. Trump tweeted that…

First of all, the fact that Yovanovitch voluntarily served in “hardship” posts (or what Trump might call “shithole countries“) is evidence of her patriotism and commitment to the advancement of our national interests. She was not responsible for the adversity in those countries. To the contrary, she could be credited with mitigating the chaos and suffering they endured over many years prior to her tenure.

Trump’s tweets can only be interpreted as intending to intimidate this witness and discourage other witnesses from coming forward. It is a corrupt and potentially illegal act that exposes his consciousness of guilt and further incriminates him. That view is surprisingly shared by the principle “news” anchors at Fox News. Bret Baier was asked for his assessment immediately following the first session on the hearing. He said that…

“This whole hearing turned on a dime when the President tweeted about her real time. And during the questioning Adam Schiff stopped the Democratic questioning to read the President’s tweet to her and get her response. That enabled Schiff to then characterize that tweet as intimidating the witness, or tampering with the witness, which is a crime. Adding, essentially, an article of impeachment real time as this hearing is going on.

https://twitter.com/BretBaier/status/1195370139623010307

Not only did Baier identify the potential criminality embedded in Trump’s disparaging and threatening tweet, but he recognized that having tweeted while the hearing was still in progress was an unusual interruption that had a profound and improper impact. And he wasn’t alone. Fox’s Chris Wallace also commented on Yovanovitch’s testimony saying that “if you are not moved… by the testimony of Marie Yovanovich, you don’t have a pulse.” He went on to deliver a brief history of her sterling career with the State Department. And then he added that…

“I agree with Bret here that the really dramatic moment is that this wasn’t just testimony about the past. This played out in real time with the president attacking her and saying that every place that she served went bad. And she was asked by Adam Schiff, ‘Do you see that as an effort to intimidate you and other witnesses?’ And she said that ‘I feel that is quite intimidating.’ And that does raise the possibility of witness intimidation and witness tampering as a new charge here.”

It was not, however, all hearts and flowers at Fox News. Yovanovitch has been bitterly attacked by the usual suspects during Fox’s primetime (Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham) and their morning propaganda block (Fox and Friends, Outnumbered). Wallace alluded to this when he spoke of the “smear campaign that came from Rudy Giuliani and some of his cohorts and was repeated in some of the outlets in right-wing media.” What Wallace didn’t acknowledge is that Fox News is the most prominent of those right-wing media outlets that smeared her. And we can expect that to continue despite these rare and candid comments from Baier and Wallace.

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

UPDATE: As Fox took a break from the hearing, their senior Capitol Hill producer made the utterly irrelevant observation that “When we look at the U.S. Constitution and look at Article 2, Section 4, it doesn’t say anything about witness intimidation.” Of course it doesn’t. It also doesn’t say anything about murder, rape, bank fraud, perjury (see Bill Clinton), tax evasion, child pornography, cannibalism, etc. The Constitution never intended to itemize every possible illegal act that would warrant impeachment.

REALLY? Trump Complains About ‘TV Lawyers’ While Clinging to His Own TV Lawyers

Posted by on November 14, 2019 at 12:39 pm. 1 Comments :

No one is ever going to mistake Donald Trump for someone who can construct coherent analyses of current events. He has enough trouble pronouncing words with more than two syllables. Any sentence he utters risks contradicting itself before he reaches the period. And that’s not even considering the sheer volume of lies that flow from his infantile rhetoric and hostile bombast.

Donald Trump TV Set

Far too often Trump manages to express himself in ways that generate exasperated groans from people who remember when presidents were intelligent and articulate. And Wednesday was one of those days. Following the congressional hearings on his impeachment, Trump held a press conference with President Erdogan of Turkey. Naturally, there would be questions about the hearings, so you might assume that he would be prepared. Instead, Trump demonstrated that his thoughts on this critical and historic subject have the depth of an abandoned bird bath (video below).

The first question went to the friendliest of Trump-fluffers, a reporter from the rightist propaganda outfit, One America News Network (OANN). Her profoundly probing question inquired as to how Trump felt about how the hearings went. Gee, can anyone guess his answer?

Trump dished out every typical talking point that has fueled his robo-defense for the past several months. He sarcastically asked her if she was referring to “the witch hunt.” Then he said that “I haven’t watched for one minute,” despite having tweeted more than thirty times about it (although that wasn’t his his record). In true wannabe dictator form, he called it “a sham and shouldn’t be allowed.” He falsely asserted that “The Whistleblower gave a lot of incorrect information.” Nevermind that it was corroborated by Trump himself, as well as his Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney. He insisted that “All they have to do is look very, very simply at the transcript,” which explicitly affirms his guilt.

But even after all of that, Trump still had it in him to astound with his flagrant hypocrisy. Earlier that morning, Trump lashed out at Daniel Goldman, the lawyer that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee appointed to question the witnesses. He whined that “I see they’re using lawyers that are television lawyers. They took some guys off television. I’m not surprised to see it because Schiff can’t do his own questions.”

First of all, Goldman may have been a legal analyst for a while with MSNBC, but he was also an assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York for 10 years. The GOP’s lawyer (I guess they can’t do their own questions either) was Steve Castor, whose work has been limited to the Republican staff on the House Oversight Committee for the past fourteen years. More to the point, though, Trump is unleashing a bizarre complaint considering what he said in his press avail with Erdogan:

“If you read the transcript, this was analyzed by great lawyers. This was analyzed by Gregg Jarrett. It was analyzed by Mark Levin. It was analyzed by everybody. They said the call that I made with the president of Ukraine was a perfect one.”

Jarrett and Levin are both Fox News “lawyers” whose jobs are to appear on television as dedicated Trump-fluffers. They do not do any legal work at all. In other words, they are “TV lawyers.” And they are the only lawyers Trump could cite when looking for affirmation of his allegedly “perfect” telephone skills. What’s more, his personal attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, are frequent guests on Fox News. That’s where Trump saw them and subsequently hired them. So … more TV Lawyers. And all of them either working for, or closely affiliated with, Fox News.

As an aside, another pair of Fox News lawyers, the husband and wife team of Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing, were briefly considered by Trump as additions to his personal legal team, but ultimately did not join up due to undisclosed “conflicts.” On Wednesday diGenova appeared on Fox News and made some of the most repulsive and bigoted remarks ever aired on Fox.

This is what you get when you elect a reality TV game show host with zero experience in government. Trump has no idea how to manage a large bureaucracy. And he doesn’t know any reputable attorneys other than those he sees on Fox News. The same goes for the secretaries in his Cabinet and the advisors on his White House staff. Trump is about as capable of putting together a competent team as your uncle in Alabama who watches Fox all day in his trailer park. And he’s even less aware of his own hypocrisies and ignorance.

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

https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1194729526623911937

Translating Trump’s Impeachment Video Wherein He Whines About What a Victim He Is

Posted by on November 13, 2019 at 11:11 am. 5 Comments :

On the morning that Congress began their impeachment inquiry, Donald Trump went bonkers with a frantic flurry of furious and fearful tweets. There were 24 of them – including 17 retweets from Fox News and other worshipful Trump-fluffers in the Congress and the press – all before 9:00 AM. It demonstrates a mindset of total desperation in advance of what he must know is serious legal and political peril.

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

Among these Twitter tantrums was a brand new video that Trump produced to summarize his defense (see below). It’s typical of his whining that is such a painful embarrassment to the nation as its president – commonly regarded as the most powerful man on Earth – wallows in his victimhood and prostrates himself publicly in an attempt to avoid accountability.

Trump has shown an astonishing inability to comprehend the process that he’s entangled in. He could really use a remedial course in impeachment to even begin to grasp the situation. He still thinks that he’s entitled to due process during the impeachment’s investigative phase, which no investigation permits. And he has an intense yearning to expose the identity of the whistleblower, whose testimony is no longer needed because Trump publicly admitted to what the whistleblower alleged. His Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, also admitted it.

It’s in that state of open confession and willful ignorance that Trump put out his video. So let’s take a look at at it and translate his self-serving disinformation into what he was really thinking.

TRUMP: What’s going on now is the single greatest scam in the history of America politics.
REALITY: What’s going on now is likely to land me in prison and I don’t have a single substantive response. So I’ll lash out with a vague and vacant allegation for which there is no factual basis.

TRUMP: The Democrats want to take away your guns.
REALITY: The Democrats need to be absurdly accused of things that they have never advocated.

TRUMP: They want to take away your healthcare.
REALITY: And those accusations must include allegations that are better directed at me since all I’ve ever done is try to sabotage the healthcare of millions of Americans.

TRUMP: They want to take away your vote.
REALITY: Democrats want to take away my ability to steal elections by cutting off access to voting and conspiring with foreign dictators.

TRUMP: They want to take away your freedom.
REALITY: Democrats want to take away my freedom to lash out with bizarre and irrelevant outbursts stemming from my incoherent rage.

TRUMP: They want to take away your judges.
REALITY: And I might as well throw in exactly what I’ve been doing with the help Senate GOP Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell.

TRUMP: They want to take away everything.
REALITY: Oh hell, I’ll just throw in the friggin’ kitchen sink. None of what I’m saying makes any sense anyway.

TRUMP: We can never let this happen. We’re fighting to drain the swamp.
REALITY: We can never let people catch on that I’m the King of the Swamp.

TRUMP: And you see why we have to do it. Because our country is at stake like never before.
REALITY: I must be sure to fear monger so that my cult disciples will be suitably scared and blindly loyal.

TRUMP: It’s all very simple. They’re trying to stop me because I’m fighting for you. And I’ll never let that happen.
REALITY: It’s all very simple. I’m fighting for myself and any challenge to my aspirations to tyrannical authority will never be allowed.

Trump is residing in fantasy world that he desperately wants to invite his followers to move into. There is nothing in this video that even remotely refutes the allegations against Trump. But even worse, it is loaded with flagrantly untrue assertions and insults to his political foes. And this is his final retort as these historic hearings commence. That doesn’t bode well for his future if this is his best argument on his own behalf. But it’s good news for patriotic Americans who believe that people in power are not above the law.

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

Flaming Fail: Trump Fires at DACA and Makes a Total Ash of Himself

Posted by on November 12, 2019 at 11:32 am. 5 Comments :

On Tuesday morning the Supreme heard oral arguments on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case. They are determining whether or not to uphold the decisions by lower courts to overturn Donald Trump’s ruling to terminate the program and put the immigration status of hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers” in jeopardy.

Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child

Dreamers are undocumented residents who were brought to the U.S. as children. Most of them grew up here and have never known any life in the native country of their parents, and don’t speak any language other than English. In order to be eligible for DACA status they must have no criminal record and must be productie residents who are either working, in school, or in the military. But despite these criteria, Trump has been attacking them for years with flagrant lies and defamation. And on the morning that the Supreme Court took up this case, Trump tweeted this atrocity:

It’s rather impressive how Trump can get so much wrong in 280 characters or less. Let’s dive into his staggeringly hateful and blatantly erroneous blather.

First of all: Trump leads off by insinuating there is some significance to the fact that some of the Dreamers have grown up and are no longer young. So what? That doesn’t negate the fact that they were brought here as children and know no other home. Trump’s only purpose in injecting this diversion is to imply that there is something untoward about them being adults. But it is entirely irrelevant to the discussion of whether they should be allowed to stay and earn citizenship.

Secondly: Trump falsely asserts that some Dreamers “are very tough, hardened criminals.” However, the program expressly requires that they have no criminal record. Trump is simply lying about this to smear the reputation of law abiding, patriotic, aspiring Americans. It’s not only dishonest, it’s repulsive and inhumane.

Third: Trump’s assertion that President Obama said he “had no right” to initiate the DACA program is another provable lie. PolitiFact reviewed previous claims by Trump on this subject and declared them “Mostly False.” Obama never said that he didn’t have the “legal right” to sign a DACA executive order. He merely said that he couldn’t unilaterally overturn existing laws. And he went on to state that, therefore, there was no legal impediment to DACA because it wouldn’t do that.

Fourth: Trump declares that if the Supreme Court rules against DACA, he would make a deal with Democrats to achieve the same objectives. But that’s a brazenly disingenuous offer. There is no reason he couldn’t have crafted a legislative solution with Congress long before this. He didn’t need a Supreme Court decision to do that. But instead, he personally killed every attempt by Congress to pass such legislation. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said that he wouldn’t advance any immigration bill unless Trump agreed to sign it in advance, which he never did.

Finally: Trump’s tweeted offer to support an immigration bill that allows Dreamers to stay in the U.S. is bizarre given his complaints in the same tweet. He is asserting that if the Supreme Court rules against DACA, he will support a bill permitting DACA recipients, who he says include “very tough, hardened criminals,” to stay in the country permanently. Really?

That is typical of the raging incoherence that infects virtually every policy position taken by Trump. He is profoundly ignorant and incapable of forming rational arguments. And that’s just another reason why he is utterly unfit to serve as president. He is not just an embarrassment to the nation, he is an imminent danger. But at least he is adept at cramming loads of gooey nonsense into his half-witted (at best) tweets.

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

Impeachment for Dummies: Trump, the Whistleblower, and Quid Pro Quackery

Posted by on November 11, 2019 at 2:10 pm. 8 Comments :

This week the House Intelligence Committee will begin holding public hearings on the impeachment of Donald Trump. They will interview witnesses who have inside knowledge of the administration’s efforts to extort the government of Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden. And the pressure this is putting on the President is evident in his frantic and fearful reactions.

Donald Trump Impeach

On Saturday Trump disgorged a record 82 tweets, most of which were self-exalting tributes to himself and his personal perspective of his purity and innocence. And he spent much of last week wallowing in victimhood and delusional outbursts that, for the most part, worked against him in public approval polling. His tantrums are continuing into this week with more tweeted whining about the impeachment hearings and his congressional nemesis, Adam Schiff, about whom he tweeted 104 times last month. His latest attack was dripping with animosity and fictional accusations:

Trump is now boldly calling for Schiff to be “investigared,” despite the fact that Schiff has nothing that even warrants being investigated, much less investigared. Trump is so “investi-scared” he can’t communicate coherently. Which may explain why he thinks that “doctored transcripts” are a thing. All congressional transcripts are signed off on by the witnesses for accuracy. So there is no such thing as Democratic or Republican transcripts. What Trump must be thinking of are doctored summary memos of transcripts, like the ones that he and his Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, have disseminated.

However, Trump’s obsession with the whistleblower is a peculiar diversion. He has been howling about it for weeks. So this might be a good time to school the Resident on whistleblowers in general, and this one in particular.

The whistleblower statute provides for confidentiality expressly to prevent the sort of retaliation and witness intimidation that Trump is engaging in. His tactics, and those of right-wing media including Fox News, have a very real possibility of resulting in serious harm to the whistleblower and his/her family. That’s something that Trump and his political and press cohorts don’t appear to care about.

What’s more, the whistleblower’s testimony in this affair has become entirely irrelevant. Since making the first complaint, Trump released his summary memo of the phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. In it Trump admitted that he had made foreign aid contingent on Ukraine helping him to smear the Bidens. That’s a textbook example of quid pro quo. He also admitted this on national television, as did his Chief-of-Staff, Mick Mulvaney.

Following that, witnesses whose identities are public (National Security Council Russia advisor Fiona Hill, NSC Ukraine expert Alexander Vindman, Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sonderland, Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, and Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch) have all corroborated this attempted extortion. So why would the whistleblower – whose account was second hand – need to testify at all?

In addition to that, there is no requirement that a quid pro quo exist for Trump’s behavior to be impeachable. It is the request itself that breaches the protocol and ethics of the presidency and constitutes an improper abuse of power, as well as conspiracy to solicit foreign interference in an election. So even if there was no promise of any reciprocal action, it would still be improper. And the attempt doesn’t have to be successful either in order to be impeachable.

These simple facts are all that are necessary to understand the current legal jeopardy that Trump finds himself in. But they are apparently still to complex for him to grasp. So he lashes out repeatedly with the same bogus gripes as if repetition will make them true. And his enablers in Congress and the media are either equally as ignorant or deliberately dishonest when they pursue these red herrings as defenses for Trump. But the American people understand and that’s why a majority of them favor Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. And the sooner the better.

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