Month: December 2019

Smoking Gun? Trump Ordered Pentagon to Delay Ukraine Aid Shortly After Zelensky Phone Call

Posted by on December 21, 2019 at 3:41 pm. 3 Comments :

The fact that Donald Trump has now been impeached (despite what the loons on Fox News say), hasn’t slowed the discovery of new evidence of his guilt. This is one of the reasons that it’s so important to ensure a comprehensive consideration of the Articles of Impeachment when they get transmitted to the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows this, and so do the vast majority of Americans who favor a full and fair hearing, including witnesses and document production.

Donald Trump

The impeachment controversy has sparked as epic battle between Pelosi and the Senate’s GOP majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who has already announced that he has no intention of conducting a fair hearing and will be “taking his cues” from White House lawyers. In the meantime, new evidence has already emerged that appears to be profoundly damaging to Trump:

That’s right. Less than two hours after Trump got off the phone with President Zelensky of Ukraine, he ordered the Defense Department to withhold military aid to a country that was being invaded at the time by Russia. The order included a directive to keep it quiet due to it’s “sensitive nature.”

Trump is fond of telling everyone to “read the transcript” of his phone call with Zelensky. He’s tweeted that demand 29 times in the past few weeks. Most recently, yesterday. He is referring to reading the notes made in a memo that describes his conversation with Zelensky. And he is apparently too oblivious to recognize that the memo actually confirms that he conditioned military aid on Zelensky’s promise to help him smear Joe Biden. What Trump said, in response to Zelensky’s inquiry about the aid, was…

“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.”

That’s a textbook quid pro quo. Trump then talks about getting some information related to a debunked conspiracy theory about a computer server that belonged to the Democratic National Committee. But he quickly segues from that to explicit requests for dirt on Joe Biden:

“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 [Rudy Giuliani and] the Attorney General [William Barr] would be great … so if you can look into it.”

This new memo was acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Public Integrity. It is among the documents that the White House had previously refused to surrender to congressional investigators. There are many more that Trump continues to withhold. And he is still refusing to allow his staff to give testimony.

But if there’s one thing this memo proves, it’s that there is a real need to continue probing this criminal president and the accomplices in his administration. And when the Senate takes up the impeachment, they must permit the introduction of new evidence and testimony from relevant witnesses. The truth will likely come out eventually, anyway. But if Republicans in Congress allow Trump to deny access to it at this stage, they will be held accountable by both the courts and the voters.

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

The Chosen One: Trump Attacks Christianity Today’s Call to Impeach Him for Gross Immorality

Posted by on December 20, 2019 at 3:19 pm. 7 Comments :

One of the most perplexing subplots of Donald Trump’s Soap Opera Presidency is the devotion he is shown by Christian evangelicals for a pathological lying, serial adulterer and sexual predator, who is greedy, lazy, prideful, gluttonous, profane, vengeful, and stuffs all of those faults into a wrapper of infantile egocentrism.

Donald Trump Messiah

The religious right has long demonstrated that they are way too eagerly willing to abandon their principles in exchange for some rewarding political bone to chew on. But even so, Trump seemed like too long a stretch for people who allegedly aspire to higher morals. That turned out not to true. The evangelical community found ways to ignore Trump’s failings and embrace him as one of their own, despite his life of public irreligiosity.

However, there may now be a small crack opening up in the spiritual dam. The popular evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, (founded by Billy Graham) just published an opinion piece calling for Trump to impeached and removed from office. They did not mince words either. Addressing the recent impeachment of Trump, CT’s editor in chief Mark Galli wrote that…

“…the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

Galli went on to enumerate some of Trump’s more egregious sins, such as his association with “people who are now convicted criminals,” as well as his “immoral actions in business and his relationship with women.” Galli described Trump as “a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused,” with a “grossly immoral character.” And Galli implored his readers to…

“Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?”

Well, Trump didn’t wait long to condemn the magazine in stark, personal, and as always for Trump, dishonest terms:

No honest, objective person would ever describe Christianity Today as a “far left” or “progressive” magazine. And typical of Trump’s wrath, he blindly and falsely demeans the success of his perceived foe, just as he has done with CNN, the New York Times, Alec Baldwin, and others. Trump feels he needs to make his critics look small in order to feel big himself.

Then Trump insults every person of faith by asserting that they are not capable of assessing his behavior during his fateful phone call with the president of Ukraine. Trump repeats his contention that the call was “perfect,” even though his own transcript reveals that he conditioned foreign aid on Ukraine’s agreement to help him smear Joe Biden.

Naturally, Trump also lashed out at his political rivals, accusing them of wanting to “take your religion & your guns,” which is an odd juxtaposition. Needless to say, the Democrats that Trump is maligning have all been strong advocates for freedom of religion. But he seems to have forgotten that if he is removed from office, they wouldn’t be moving into the White House. It’s his devoutly Christian vice-president, Mike Pence, who would be sworn in.

Worst of all, Trump, as he has done many times before, exalts himself as the world’s foremost agent of Christ. As with everything else for which he rates his performance, he insists that no one “has ever done what I have done,” in this case “for Evangelicals, or religion itself!” Let that sink in: “for religion itself.”

This is coming from someone who once described himself as “the Chosen One.” It’s coming from someone who has said that he doesn’t need to ask God for forgiveness because he’s never done anything wrong. This is a man that who,, like many cult leaders before him, preaches to his disciples that he – and only he – can be believed. So while Trump may like to call himself the “Chosen One,” there are other names for what Trump really is.

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

HUH? Fox News Trump-Fluffers Float Bizarre Theory that Trump Hasn’t Been Impeached

Posted by on December 20, 2019 at 11:49 am. 2 Comments :

The capacity for total delusion on the part of Donald Trump and his Fox News defenders has never been, and can never be, overstated. However, there are times when they exhibit such utterly ludicrous behaviors that it astonishes even the most jaded media observers. And on Thursday evening we passed that threshold once again.

Fox News, Laura Ingraham

On an episode of Laura Ingraham’s White Nationalist Hour, our intrepid host attempted to impart her version of wingnut intellectualism by presenting a theory so devoid of reason that it sucked all the remaining grey matter from her already nearly vacant skull. It’s a theory that Trump’s White House is also entertaining.

Ingraham delivered a monologue (video below) that began with the absurd contention that “I think one can make a decent argument that the President wasn’t really impeached.” Her explanation sprung from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to delay sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate until Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer finalized the rules under which they would be debated. Ingraham thinks that an impeachment hasn’t really taken place until the House transmits it to the Senate.

To support her silliness, Ingraham mocks Pelosi’s grasp of the Constitution and attempts to cite it saying that “the Senate has the sole power of impeachment.” That, however, is not what the Constitution says. What it actually says is that “The House of Representatives…shall have the sole power of impeachment.” So Ingraham got it completely wrong. It later says that “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” Which is something else entirely. Pelosi, therefore, was right and Ingraham was making a fool of herself.

This disinformation then spread to other Fox News programs. On Friday morning it was regurgitated by anchor David Asman who said that “We may not have an impeachment if it hasn’t been passed to the Senate.” But as we now know, that isn’t true. It’s just part of an ongoing campaign by Fox News to keep their viewers mired in ignorance and falsehoods.

Additionally, this baseless theory relies on the assumption that the House will never transmit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. Nobody is betting on that. Pelosi is wisely insisting that the Senate trial be conducted fairly and that relevant witnesses to presented. That’s a critical demand considering that McConnell has already publicly stated that he has no intention of being impartial and that he will “take his cues” from White House lawyers. Eventually McConnell will have to concede because Trump doesn’t want the impeachment hanging over his head without at least an attempt to exonerate him by the Senate. Although, exoneration is not something that is actually achievable.

Like or not, Fox News, and Trump’s congressional bootlickers, have to accept that Trump has indeed been impeached. They cannot pretend otherwise. It is a disgrace that will follow him and the GOP throughout history. And clinging to these nonsense notions and wishful thinking only makes them look desperate and dumb. Well, more desperate and dumber.

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

Vladimir Putin Joins the Trump Impeachment Defense Team

Posted by on December 19, 2019 at 1:37 pm. 3 Comments :

Now that Donald Trump has been impeached and his name goes down in history as only the third president to have achieved that dishonor, the Trump loyalists are assembling en masse to figure out how to scrub that stain from both him and themselves. It’s a vain exercise that is only going to spread the dirt around more.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

However, Trump does have his defenders. There’s Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has pledged that he will be “taking his cues” from Trump’s lawyers rather than provide a fair trial. There’s Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has already announced that he will not “pretend to be impartial.” There’s Rudy Giuliani, who continues to visit Ukraine to dig up dirt. And there’s Fox News, where Trump-fluffing has become the core principle of their editorial mission.

And then there’s Vladimir Putin, who just signed on to the Trump Impeachment Team and immediately declared that Democrats have “invented reasons” to impeach Trump and remove him from office. Never mind the abundant evidence proving that Trump extorted the Ukrainian president, withheld congressionally appropriated aid, sought to recruit foreign interference in an election, and obstructed justice in order to cover it all up. The case is so clear cut that even the Senior Legal Analyst on Fox News says that Impeachment “is acutely needed.” Despite all of that, Putin now says he is all-in with the Trump regime’s criminal enterprise:

“It needs to go through the Senate where as far as I know the Republicans have a majority. It’s hardly like they will want to distance themselves from power on account of — in my view— some absolutely invented reasons,” he said. […]

“It is simply a continuation of an internal political battle,” Putin continued. “And the party that lost the elections, the Democrat party is trying to achieve results with other ways, with other means. Bringing accusations against Trump of a conspiracy with Russia, later it becomes clear there was no conspiracy. It cannot lie at the basis of impeachment.”

These remarks could have been taken verbatim from the GOP Talking Points Bulletin. But Putin tacked on the baseless and blatantly self-serving assertion that there was no conspiracy by Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. That is not, however, the conclusion of the GOP-run Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, or Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or the U.S. intelligence agencies.

Trump is fond of saying that he is “much tougher on Russia” than his predecessors. But the facts don’t bear that out. He has been steadily loosening sanctions on Russia that were imposed following their invasion of Crimea. He has advocated on Russia’s before for their inclusion in the G7, the international intergovernmental economic organization. He has harshly criticized NATO, the allied nations formed to counter Russian aggression. He pulled troops out of Syria, leaving Russia to expand their influence. And he has praised Putin effusively as a great leader and friend.

UPDATE: Trump has now re-tweeted Putin’s criticism of Trump’s impeachment. Trump is apparently proud that his co-conspirator is supportive of their joint effort to blame Russia’s crimes on Ukraine. How convenient.

You only have to ask one simple question to understand this support from Putin: Who benefits? Do you think Putin likes Trump because he’s tough on Russia? Or is it more likely because Trump weakens America? And of course, Putin could not have asked for a more deferential and flattering American leader than Trump. What’s more, Trump’s financial interests in Russia (loans, real estate, etc.) add another level of bonding by Trump to his Russian benefactors.

So while Trump is going berserk over his impeachment, Putin is answering the call for backup. And by doing it in such a public way, he is also making Trump look small and dependent, and reminding the world who is really in charge in this relationship. After all, Putin isn’t being impeached. Which is a state of affairs that wannabe dictator Trump openly envies.

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

Fox News Senior Legal Analyst on Trump: ‘The Remedy of Impeachment is Acutely Needed’

Posted by on December 18, 2019 at 2:59 pm. 4 Comments :

The impeachment of Donald Trump is finally being debated in the House of Representatives. The outcome is not expected to surprise anyone. Trump will be be impeached and will wear that mantle of disgrace for the rest of his life. Even if the Senate fails to remove him from office, the stain of impeachment is an indelible affirmation that Trump breached his constitutional duties and betrayed his country.

Donald Trump Walking the Plank

The partisan players in this battle are easily recognizable in most instances. Republicans and Fox News pundits are staunchly devoted to Trump regardless of what laws he has been shown to have broken. But every now and then someone steps out from behind the curtain of political prejudice to act as an advocate of truth and justice.

Now, as Trump’s impeachment looms, a lone voice from Fox News is standing up to the right-wing group-think that the network so rigidly enforces. Andrew Napolitano is Fox’s Senior Legal Adviser. And on Wednesday morning, as Congress was weighing Trump’s fate, Napolitano penned an op-ed with the headline: “Trump impeachment: Undisputed evidence that he abused his power.”

The article was published in the arch-conservative Washington times. For some reason, Fox News has been spiking Napolitano’s commentaries that support Trump’s impeachment. And this article had some blunt opinions on the matter. For instance…

“In Mr. Trump’s case, we have undisputed evidence that he abused his power by inviting a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 presidential election and then compounded this by directing subordinates to refrain from giving congressionally commanded evidence of his behavior.”

“It is undisputed that Mr. Trump withheld the delivery of the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine that Congress authorized and ordered and that Mr. Trump himself signed into law. He said he withheld that aid because he first wanted “a favor” from the president of Ukraine. The favor, requested by others on Mr. Trump’s behalf, was the announcement of a Ukrainian government criminal investigation of Mr. Trump’s potential political adversary, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“In the language of the streets, this is a shakedown; it sought to enhance Mr. Trump’s personal political needs and bears no relationship to American foreign policy.

Napolitano went on to describe the criminal violations Trump committed. They included the federal prohibition on soliciting campaign aid from a foreign government, and bribery. He also explained that these acts are crimes whether or not they are consummated by the exchange of money or services. It is the solicitation that triggers the offense.

And that’s not all. Napolitano also noted the criminal obstruction of justice by Trump for having “directed his subordinates to disregard congressional subpoenas, lawfully issued and validly served.” And he was troubled by Trump’s apparent belief that he is above the law. Napolitano made clear that this was dangerous, and that there is something that the Founders had in mind for just such a problem:

“Everyone who believes in the rule of law should be terrified of a president who thinks and behaves as if it does not apply to him. As the DOJ has stated repeatedly, impeachment is the proper constitutional remedy for that.”

Trump has been frantically trying to dodge accountability for his clearly impeachable activities. But his legal basis is virtually nonexistent, and he has refused to even defend himself before the committees of jurisdiction in Congress. Instead, he relies on bootlicking Fox News hacks like Gregg Jarrett and Alan Dershowitz (each of which he retweeted six times on Wednesday) for legal advice. Even worse, his idea of “legal scholars.” is Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

Former federal judge Napolitano, on the other hand, says that “the remedy of impeachment is acutely needed.” But you can rest assured that Trump will dismiss that as fake news and malign Napolitano (who was a close friend of Trump’s for decades) as a Never-Trumper. That’s just how the mind of a paranoid narcissist works.

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

Trump’s Unabomber Manifesto-Like Letter to Pelosi is Just a Regurgitation of His Deranged Twitter Rants

Posted by on December 18, 2019 at 12:57 pm. 2 Comments :

Merry Impeachmas. It seemed like it took forever, but on Wednesday morning the House of Representatives finally took up the Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump. The debate is expected to last throughout the day with fairly predictable speeches by both Democrats and Republicans, culminating with a vote to impeach Trump that will forever mark him in disgrace as only the third president ever to be impeached.

Donald Trump

Trump is displaying a false bravado, saying that he isn’t worried about being impeached. But his behavior belies that facade. His Twitter feed is drowning in panicky outbursts and dozens of retweets by his glassy-eyed sycophants in Congress and the press. But the most harebrained commentary on this historic affair is a letter Trump wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It’s contents are beyond bizarre, and bear little resemblance to reality.

Trump believes that this letter will serve as a “permanent and indelible record” for those looking back on these times a hundred years from now. And it will, but not in the way he hopes. It’s going to go down in history as his version of the Unabomber Manifesto that reveals his madness, anger, paranoia, victimhood, and manic dissociation from the real world. Historians and psychologists will both be busy for decades.

The most striking thing about this letter is that doesn’t introduce a single new thought or argument in Trump’s defense. It is nothing more than a verbose rehashing of every tweet that Trump has posted for the past several months. In fact, you could almost have written the whole letter using only Trump’s tweets.

So I did. You can follow along with his actual letter here.

And there you have it. Needless to say, nearly everything Trump tweeted was riddled with lies. That accounts for how he just won – for the third time – the PolitiFact “Lie of the Year“ award.

No one is likely to find any value in this frenzied correspondence. It’s intended recipient was asked what she thought and Pelosi said that “It’s ridiculous. I mean, I haven’t fully read it. We’ve been working. I’ve seen the essence of it. It’s really sick.” And with that excellent and concise summation, everyone else can save themselves the time and trouble of reading it also. The bottom line is that, if you’ve seen Trump’s tweets there is no reason to bother with his crackpot manifesto. It’s just Trump retweeting in long-form.

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

Lie of the Year: Pathological Liar Trump 3-Peats as PolitiFact’s Foremost Fibber for 2019

Posted by on December 17, 2019 at 1:13 pm. 1 Comments :

Donald Trump likes to boast about imaginary achievements that he pretends to have accomplished. No, he has not built any new border wall. Nor has he presided over the best economy ever, or rebuilt a crumbling military, or completed any new trade treaties, or destroyed ISIS, or fulfilled any of the other fallacies he spews to his Deplorables. But there is one thing he can honestly brag about.

Trump Lies

For the third time, Trump has been awarded the un-coveted “Lie of the Year” from PolitiFact. It was a competitive year in which Trump was vying against … well, mostly himself. But he couldn’t possibly find a more formidable opponent. After all, he has the distinction of having been documented for telling more than 15,000 lies since he took office.

Trump previously won PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” in 2015 for his collective campaign “misstatements.” Then again in 2017, for his repeated denials of Russia’s interference in the presidential election. In 2016 PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year went to “Fake News,” so you might say that Trump deserved a share of that as well. But the falsehood that took the dishonors this year was his brazenly untrue and incessantly repeated assertion that “the whistleblower got my phone conversation with Ukraine almost completely wrong.”

As the detailed analysis by PolitiFact shows, the whistleblower actually got Trump’s phone conversation completely right in every respect. Trump never even tried to cite whatever inaccuracies he purported to see. He simply cried “fake news” and relied on the willful blindness of his supporters to believe him.

However, the enormity of this lie is magnified by the fact that Trump himself actually admitted to doing what the whistleblower alleged. Responding to a reporter’s question about what he wanted from Ukrainian President Zelensky during the phone call, Trump said that “It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens.” What’s more, Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, also confessed to a quid pro quo from the podium of the White House press office.

And if that isn’t enough, the transcript that Trump is constantly berating everyone to read quotes Trump plainly affirming the whistleblower by conditioning military aid on Zelensky’s help to smear Joe Biden. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution,” Trump extorted, “So if you can look into it.” Which is the core allegation by the whistleblower.

So the Trump provided “transcript,” his chief of staff, and his own words, attest to the accuracy of the whistleblower’s complaint. Nevertheless, Trump has denied that obvious truth more than 80 times. And his persistence has paid off, at least with the glassy-eyed members of his cult who faithfully attend his rallies. The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper proved that by asking the StormTrumpers if they had read the “transcript.” Not a single one said that they had. And even with repeated prodding, they couldn’t grasp why that was so hysterically hypocritical.

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

The Great Whiner: Aspiring Tyrant Trump Thinks He’s the Great Decider of All Things

Posted by on December 16, 2019 at 3:25 pm. NO Comments :

Another day, another opportunity for Donald Trump to exhibit his perpetual state of fear for all to see. Trump regularly displays how scared he is via relentless and invariably false attacks on his perceived enemies. These dastardly foes include Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, the “fake” news, the “Deep State,” and anyone who dares to show him anything less than undying adoration.

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

The tone of Trump’s tweets is more untethered to reality – and even decency – as he sinks further into the abyss of the legal jeopardy that is weighing so heavily on his alleged conscience. Some recent rants have taken a decidedly low road as he mocks Pelosi’s teeth, Schiff’s name, and even cyberbullied 16 year old climate activist, Greta Thunberg.

In recent weeks Trump’s trepidation has been squarely focused on the threat of his imminent impeachment. This week the House of Representatives will make that final with a vote convicting him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. But Trump still managed to find time to expose his inherent cowardice by criticizing the Commission on Presidential Debates and signalling his possible refusal to participate. In a starkly passive-aggressive fashion, he began by saying that he looked forward to debating the eventual Democratic nominee and he bragged about what a formidable opponent he would be. But that bravado quickly faded into snowflakey paranoia:

The Commission has been producing these debates for more than thirty years without a hint of bias or partisanship. It’s officers are an evenly balanced array of Democrats, Republicans, journalists, and academics. But to Trump, any organization that he can’t control is viewed as hostile and “stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers.” His charge that he was the victim of a deliberate “modulation” of his microphone is just another Trumpian falsehood, like the claim that his inauguration crowd was the biggest ever, or that China is paying billions to the U.S. in tariffs, or that his border wall is being built, or that … well, there are 14,000 more of these lies. Let’s just note that Trump is lying again. And he has no evidence that the Commission is anti-Trump or biased in any way. It’s just the paranoid voices in his head telling him that everyone is out to get him.

However, the most absurd claim in this tweet tantrum is Trump’s contention that “As President, the debates are up to me.” There is absolutely no rational basis for that delusional opinion. The only thing that’s up to him is whether he chooses to participate or not. If he bails, it won’t be the first time his cowardice has set his agenda. Trump refused to participate in a Republican primary debate in 2015 because he was afraid of Megyn Kelly of Fox News who was one of the moderators. So he staged a campaign stunt instead that he said would benefit veterans. It was later discovered that he failed to disburse the money that he raised.

Like most bullies, Trump is actually a shivering bundle of nerves who avoids any situation that triggers his fears. As President, Trump has declined to appear at the annual conventions of the NAACP. He has also chickened out of attending the charity fundraising dinners for the White House Correspondent’s Association.

But Trump’s dismissal of the independent Commission debates has ominous overtones. He really believes that, because he’s the President, he gets to decide when and how these events are done. That’s the mindset of a totalitarian who seeks to subvert democracy. It’s a theory he might have picked up from his pals Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, who control elections in order to retain power. And it’s totally in character for Trump to pursue this path wherein he tries to assume powers he doesn’t have, while whining about how he’s such a victim – the poor baby fuhrer.

If Trump doesn’t want to show up for the debates, that’s fine. Democrats will get over his absence. But he cannot pretend that he’s running them. And America will see that he’s just afraid to face any challenge in the same way that he was afraid to be interviewed by Robert Mueller, and is afraid now to testify at his impeachment. The boy who had his father invent “bone spurs” to get him out of military duty, grew up to be a world-class wimp.

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

Fox News Poll: Voters Want to Impeach Trump, Who They Say is a Deceitful Crook

Posted by on December 15, 2019 at 12:08 pm. 7 Comments :

The mental state of Donald Trump has been precarious for years. He is a diagnosed malignant narcissist with megalomaniacal tendencies. He clings to ignorance and a distorted, fantastical perspective that reinforces his self-delusion. And his stunted, prepubescent emotional maturity only exacerbates the severity of his behavioral problems.

Donald Trump, Fox News

Trump’s infantile antics are routinely displayed in his name-calling and frantic Twitter outbursts. But there are deeper and darker examples of how far he has declined into a psychotic abyss. He is now firmly entrenched in the “bunker mentality” defined by one’s inability to associate with reality. Thus, every word and deed – by himself and others – is assessed by how closely it hews to his derangement. And this manifested in a recent tweet about the media that he fears and despises:

So it’s all there. Childish taunts, nicknames, and wild declarations that his perceived foes will “all die together,” while only his defenders will survive. It’s an embarrassing blast of blather that is hostile, demented, and patently false.

First of all, MSNBC frequently beats Fox News in the ratings. Fredo, Trump’s name for CNN’s Chris Cuomo, has increased viewing since taking over that time period. And former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is probably doing just fine. He’s waiting out his non-compete clause and will then likely be courted by every network.

But of course, Trump singles out Fox News as his most favored media martinet. And he insists that “only pro-Trump Fox shows do well.” That would mean all Fox shows, because they are all pro-Trump, and always there to shield him from his persecutors. Well, almost always.

A new poll just published by Fox News contains some very bad news indeed for Donald Trump. It begins by revealing that a majority of Americans (53%) have an unfavorable view of his job performance. That, despite his relentless self-praise wherein he takes credit for the economy, jobs, make-believe trade and foreign policy treaties, a variety of legislation he had little to do with, and a border wall that hasn’t added a single foot.

The Fox News poll also asked if Trump should be impeached. A solid majority of 54% said that he should be impeached, with 50% saying that he should also be removed from office. That debate is currently raging in the House of Representatives, and will shortly be sent to the Senate. Although the Senate’s role has been largely invalidated by the Republicans who are running the show and have admitted that they are colluding with the White House.

The poll also found that a majority of voters (53%) say that Trump abused his power as president. And significantly more respondents say that Trump also obstructed Congress (48%) and committed bribery (45%), than say that he didn’t. Drilling further into the details, a plurality of voters said that they believe Trump held up military aid to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rivals (47%). And when asked if that was proper for a president to do, they resoundingly said “NO” by a 60%-24% margin.

And that’s not all. The poll found that a majority of 52% said that Trump is not cooperating with the Congressional impeachment inquiry. As for whether the Democrats presiding over the hearings in the House were conducting them fairly, a plurality of voters (45%-42%) said that they were. Voters also regard Republicans as being more partisan. By a 16-point margin they say that Republicans just want to protect Trump rather than believe that what he did is not impeachable. Conversely, they say that Democrats genuinely believe that Trump is guilty, rather than just being interested in hurting him politically.

Here’s some additional poll potpourri: 64% say they are the same, or worse off, since Trump’s election. Which does not bode well for his reelection. 68% favor a wealth tax. 66% want some version of Medicare-for-all. 52% oppose Trump’s border wall. And every candidate the poll pitted against Trump in 2020 beat him.

To be sure, Trump will attack this poll as being biased against him. He has attacked Fox News polling in the past, saying that they “have always been terrible to me.” But that is not only untrue, Trump has frequently praised Fox’s polling when it was positive. This is just another example of Trump’s dissociation from reality. If he encounters something negative, he will criticize it and insist that they’ve always been against him. But when he comes across something positive, he embraces it as irrefutable proof of his awesomeness. That isn’t a sane expression of opinion. It’s an illness. And Trump is getting sicker by the day.

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

UPDATE: As I predicted…

Trump’s Impeachment in the House is All that Matters – The Senate Cannot Acquit

Posted by on December 14, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 4 Comments :

The United States House of Representatives is set to impeach Donald Trump next week, making him only the third American president to suffer this indignity. However, many pundits and pro-Trump media bootlickers are misrepresenting the gravity of this affair. There is a contingent of excusers who seek to dismiss its significance if the Senate doesn’t vote to remove Trump from office.

Donald Trump, Impeach

Trump himself has been making noises that he is anxious to have the impeachment move from the House to the Senate where he believes he will be coddled by sycophantic Republican loyalists. That, however, is a thinly veiled facade of bravado that is betrayed by his frantic tweetstorming (hitting a record of 123 in one day). Clearly Trump is consumed with fear and anxiety at the thought of being branded for life with impeachment.

The argument circulating the GOP drain is that a failure to oust Trump from office is tantamount to an acquittal. But that relies on the false analogy that the House impeachment vote is akin to an indictment, after which the Senate conducts a trial. But a more accurate analogy would be to cast the House as the de facto courtroom and impeachment there is a conviction. After all, the language of the Articles of Impeachment state flatly that “President Trump has abused the powers of the Presidency in a manner offensive to, and subversive of, the Constitution.” Note that it doesn’t say he is charged with abuse of power, but that he “has abused” his power. Consequently, a “yes” vote is a finding of guilt.

The Senate’s role is, therefore, not one of a trier of fact, but more that of a sentencing hearing. The House establishes the facts and will shortly rule that Trump is guilty. The Senate decides if he should be punished by removal from office, or pardoned and allowed to complete his term. But the conviction stands.

Trump knows this and it is eating him up. That’s why he is putting so much pressure on his Senate defenders. It’s why Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told Sean Hannity of Fox News that “I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers.” McConnell went on to say that…

“Everything I do during this I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this […adding that he’ll be in…] total coordination with the White House counsel’s office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate.”

What’s more, the GOP Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Lindsey Graham, told CNN that “I will do everything I can to make it die quickly […] I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.”

So the chairman of the Committee of jurisdiction and the majority leader have both stated publicly that they have no intention to conduct a fair, impartial hearing. In fact, they are openly conspiring with the defendant (Trump) to allow him to escape any punishment for his crimes. Which means they are admitting in advance to violating the oath that they will be taking prior to commencement of the hearing, which states that…

“I solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.”

This tells you precisely what these Republicans think about the Constitution, the law, and even God. That they are willing to brazenly and shamelessly breach this oath is evidence that their word is meaningless. And in taking this position before they begin deliberating, they are effectively cancelling any validity that their role in this might otherwise have had. As a result, the outcome of the Senate hearing is irrelevant. Which leaves the House vote to impeach as the final word on what will become Trump’s tarnished legacy. And if yo think that isn’t driving Trump nuts, see his Twitter feed.

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