Month: June 2020

America is Exhausted: Joe Biden Should Embrace Trump’s ‘Sleepy Joe’ Nickname

Posted by on June 11, 2020 at 12:16 pm. 4 Comments :

The presidency of Donald Trump has been marked by failure after failure. His tax scam provided benefits only for corporations and the wealthy. His tariffs burdened American businesses and consumers with higher costs. His foreign policy focused on embracing our enemies (Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un) and alienating our allies.

Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Furthermore, Trump’s negligence and ignorance with regard to the coronavirus pandemic resulted in more than 112,000 deaths (so far). It produced an economic catastrophe that is only just beginning. And his inbred racism is inflaming social unrest throughout the country. Trump’s nauseatingly unpatriotic response to this is to deploy the American military against American citizens.

One of the few skills for which Trump has been recognized has been his instincts for marketing and branding. It comes with having been a reality TV game show host for fourteen years. He has a way of connecting with the most dimwitted demographic in American society with infantile nicknames and insults. It’s important to note that he isn’t impressing anyone with either intelligence or insight. He’s just adept at appealing to the lowest common denominator, a demographic category to which he also belongs.

In the current presidential campaign, Trump has taken to referring to his Democratic opponent as “Sleepy” Joe Biden, a label that Trump hopes will convey some sort of mental infirmity. Unfortunately for Trump, it applies more accurately to Trump himself than to Biden. Trump has been peddling this branding since April of 2019, with no discernible impact on Biden’s campaign. To date he has tweeted it 113 times. Yet every poll still shows Biden with growing leads nationally, as well as in most of the crucial swing states.

Nevertheless, Trump persists with this campaign despite its being about as effective as a flyswatter against a rhinoceros. So this might be good time for Biden to grasp a hold of the moniker and lob it back at Trump. Biden could say something like this…

Am I “sleepy”? Well, I sure as hell am tired of listening to Donald Trump’s lies about virtually everything. Yeah, I’m tired of him lying about me, but more importantly, I’m tired of him lying to the American people about his record of failure, bigotry, and imaginary achievements. I’m tired of him dividing Americans from one another at a time when we need to be united more than ever. I’m tired of seeing thousands get sick and die due to his ignorance total lack of competence or compassion.

And that’s not all. I’m tired of watching our country lose respect internationally and become the laughingstock of the world. I’m tired of seeing our leadership on issues like climate change, nuclear disarmament, and trade, be abandoned to foreign competitors. And if listening to Trump babble on and on about himself doesn’t make you sleepy, you might have a serious sleep disorder.”

That’s just for starters. It should also be pointed out that Trump’s banal and repetitive rhetoric could put a meth addict to sleep. He repeats more often than episodes of Friends. And his cult followers have been asleep from day one, in a hypnotic stupor – a cognitive coma – that shields them from facts, truth and reality.

So yes, Joe is sleepy. America is sleepy. And Trump is the nation’s sedative. But we are developing a resistance (that’s right, resistance) to Trump’s injections of verbal anesthetics. More Americans are waking up every day, and we’re ready to flush Trump down the drain in November.

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

And now for a bit of comic relief:

Apocalypse Wow! Trump is Bleeding Evangelical Support

Posted by on June 10, 2020 at 1:02 pm. 5 Comments :

From the earliest days of Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations he has disingenuously exploited America’s faith community. Never mind that he’s a thrice married adulterer and sexual predator. Or that he robs and cheats without remorse. Or that he is greedy, prideful, envious, wrathful, gluttonous, and profane. His pandering to supposedly devout Christians has been a hallmark of his political persona.

Donald Trump Messiah

America’s evangelicals were all to willing to prostrate themselves before their new Messiah. Not because he represented their spiritual ideals, but because he promised to deliver on their right-wing political agenda. If he could seat some ultra-conservative judges and abolish safe and legal abortions, they would abandon their faith and reward him with their votes.

Well, those days may be behind us. A new poll by Politico has some bad news for Pastor Don. Despite Trump’s success in appointing unqualified, but radical right-wing jurists, his support among the Jesus weasels has fallen into the depths of political Hades. He cannot get a majority of voters to buy his alleged religiosity. Even worse, majorities of the faith community don’t buy it either:

“Only 27 percent of registered voters in a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll said they somewhat or strongly agree that Trump himself is religious, while 55 percent somewhat or strongly disagree. Among subgroups, just over a third of all Christians view the president as religious (50 percent do not), while 23 percent of Catholics and 18 percent of independents see him that way.”

The poll went on to show that among evangelicals, Trump could convince only 40% that he was one of them. In fact, the only demographic groups that did regard Trump as an actual Christian were conservatives (55%) and Republicans (60%). Proving that the whole charade was purely a political strategy that gained no ground outside of the rabidly partisan crowd.

It’s notable that this survey was conducted after Trump’s photo-op outside of St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street from the White House. Obviously, very few people, including believers, were fooled by Trump standing awkwardly in front of a boarded-up church, scowling as he held a bible upside down, and declining to say a single word. And the reports of how he cleared the way for this farce by having law enforcement beat and teargas peaceful demonstrators probably didn’t win any hearts or minds either.

Trump has never been very good at articulating his religious beliefs. He was unable to cite a single passage of scripture when asked. He often mangles the biblical parables he attempts to misappropriate. He frequently displays his utter ignorance of spirituality with bizarre responses to simple questions. For instance, he was once asked if he had ever asked God for forgiveness, which all Christians must do to receive salvation for original sin. He responded by saying that he didn’t need to because he has never done anything wrong:

“I’m trying to lead a life where I don’t have to ask God for forgiveness. […] Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you’re not making mistakes?”

So in addition to referring to himself as “The Chosen One,” Trump sees himself as infallible. What’s more, his orientation to faith is strictly wound around himself. He was recently asked whether he’s “grown in his faith” since becoming president. Trump replied, “I think maybe I have, from the standpoint that I see so much that I can do. I’ve done so much for religion.”

Everything in Trump’s narcissistic world revolves around Trump. So it isn’t surprising that his most reliable base of support is crumbling beneath his feet of clay. Another recent poll found that his support among evangelical voters declined a whopping 20% since March. At this rate the only people supporting Trump will be his family, the white nationalist militias, and a smattering of Deplorables who are still trying to figure out how to peel a banana.

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 Analyst Inadvertently Admits Fox News is NOT Real News

Posted by on June 9, 2020 at 1:28 pm. 6 Comments :

The schizophrenic ravings of Donald Trump continue to be displayed unabashedly to an astonished world. Trump’s love/hate relationship with Fox News is one of the most bizarre symptoms of mental infirmity ever observed in an American “president.” As often as Trump embraces the daily idolatry of Fox’s sycophantic shills, he likewise condemns them when they fall short of the unflinching adoration that he expects and demands.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

Among Fox’s most ardent Trump-fluffers is their senior political analyst, and former chief anchor, Brit Hume. On Tuesday morning Trump initiated a series of domino retweets aimed at rewarding Hume for his brazenly biased and oblivious lack of insight. Trump retweeted the rabidly right-wing Washington Examiner’s Mollie Hemingway, who retweeted Hume, saying that…

What Trump via Hemingway via Hume via Byron York (another Fox News contributor), were referring to was a statement by the chief executive of Axios, Jim VandeHei, who told the New York Times that he “he supported staff members’ right to march in public protests, adding that the publisher would cover bail for any employee who is arrested.” That’s not a particularly newsworthy comment. It simply affirms that staffers are permitted to exercise their First Amendment rights. It does not, as Trump et al imply, authorize them to introduce bias into their articles or to report on the events in which they participated. In fact, VandeHei reiterated that in his response to the Times.

What stands out in this criticism by Hume is his ability to dissociate from realty with regard to his own network. There is no mass distributed “news” enterprise that is as blatantly prejudiced as Fox News. Someone should introduce Hume to Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. The daily on-air performances of these slavish bootlickers is far worse than being a near anonymous individual among thousands at a public demonstration.

Hume should also be reminded that his Fox News colleagues, Hannity and Pirro, did not merely attend Trump campaign rallies, they were featured, on-stage speakers. So Hume is outraged if someone is compelled to express themselves on matters of great social significance, like police brutality and equal justice, but he is silent when his buddies are openly stumping for a political candidate.

This makes Hume’s cranky criticism regarding what constitutes a “real news organization” all the more poignant, especially as it applies to Fox News itself. Open your friggin’ eyes, Brit, and stop feeding Trump false narratives. Real news organizations have usually forbidden that. Which I guess allows Fox to do it since they have never been a real news organization. Thanks for pointing that out.

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

Crybaby Trump Obsessively Clings to Bogus 96% Approval

Posted by on June 8, 2020 at 1:43 pm. 4 Comments :

This is a good time to remember the old saying that repeating the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result, is the definition of Trumpism (aka insanity). And Donald Trump is helpfully continuing to affirm the wisdom of that proverb with tedious, all-caps repetitions of moldy oldies like “LAW & ORDER,” “MAGA,” “OBAMAGATE,” and the venerable “FAKE NEWS!”

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

Among Trump’s most often regurgitated banalities is one that he is convinced will juice his popularity by the force of some imaginary crowd appeal. Trump believes that if he can convince people that others are bewitched by his irresistible charm, then they too will fall under his spell. So he tweets ad infinitum…

There are two very serious flaws in Trump’s logic. First of all, He doesn’t have 96% approval among Republicans, and he never has. It’s notable that as often as he tweets this, he has never once included a source or a link to any poll that would confirm it. And he tweets it quite often. He began this BS back in February of 2019, when the number he made up was only 93%. We’ve had some inflation. Just this year Trump has tweeted this phony stat 28 times (more than once a week). On 17 of those tweets the percentage of his GOP approval was 95%. The other 11 were inflated to 96% for no discernible reason other than ego gratification.

Secondly, Trump is placing undue significance on his GOP approval. The percentage of voters who identify themselves as Republican is a paltry 28%. So Trump could have 100% of them and it still wouldn’t amount to much. It certainly wouldn’t be enough to win an election.

For the record, a new CNN/SRSS poll puts Trump’s job approval among his own party members at only 88%. What’s more, the poll also shows Trump’s overall approval at a pitiful 38% (57% disapproval). And in a head to head match up with Joe Biden, Trump comes out behind by 14 points (Biden 55%, Trump 41%). That represents a gain by Biden of four points since last month’s poll, and a loss by Trump of five points.

Trump is desperately trying to dismiss these results. Naturally he condemns them as being the work of “Fake News” CNN, and goes further to add a wildly irrelevant assertion that “The Dems would destroy America!” That, of course, is from the poll in Trump’s diseased brain.

However, Trump wasn’t satisfied with throwing around his own unsupported malarkey. So he later tweeted that he had “retained [a] highly respected pollster” to “analyze” CNN’s survey. Needless to say, Trump’s pollster is a notoriously biased right-winger who mangles the numbers beyond recognition. Trump isn’t interested in conveying an honest presentation of reality. His only objective it to muddy the waters and pacify his anxious cult followers.

The truth is that, not just one, but every single poll, including Fox News and Trump favorite Rasmussen, shows Biden leading significantly. The RealClearPolitics poll of polls shows Biden with an average lead of 7.8%. And Trump’s support is cratering among Republican notables. There are presently eleven generals and/or admirals that have publicly renounced Trump (Mattis, Kelly, Allen, Powell, Myers, Dempsey, Thomas, Hayden, McRaven, Stvridis, and Mullen). And a growing number of former Trump voters are pledging to support Biden this November.

Nevertheless, Trump soldiers on in his belligerent, childish, egocentric way. He has no idea what a fool he’s making of himself as he ignores the tenor of the electorate by becoming ever more hostile. His proclamations of authoritarian rule are only thrusting him further into the abyss of political toxicity. His negligence, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance, is proving to be disastrous with regard to his handling of the social unrest, the coronavirus pandemic, and the recessive economy. And in his narcissistic stupor Trump refuses to see, or at least acknowledge, that for him it’s all downhill from here.

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

HUH? White House Lawyers Tell Court That Trump is Afraid Reporters Will ‘Moon’ Him

Posted by on June 7, 2020 at 1:27 pm. 3 Comments :

Donald Trump has a well-established and all-consuming hatred for the media. That’s despite his fierce embrace of it when he needs to disseminate his lies and propaganda. It’s further affirmation that he is an unstable heap of contradictions and logical short-circuits. One day he is bellowing in Stalinist terms that “the media is the enemy of the people.” The next day he’s retweeting the Washington Post or Fox News (about which he has an abundance of other acute cognitive lapses.

Donald Trump, Subway

Trump’s aversion to media is rooted in two character flaws that dominate his warped persona: dishonesty and fear. With regard to his ceaseless deceit, Trump is a pathological liar who has been documented as having told more than 18,000 lies since his inauguration. With regard to his snow-flakiness, Trump trembles like a reed in a hurricane whenever the press dares to tell the truth about him. For an alleged “leader of the free world,” Trump whines like a colicky infant in the face of ordinary scrutiny by the media. His obsession exceeds the standard parameters of paranoia.

Last year Trump’s White House press office blew a gasket when Brian Karem, a report for Playboy Magazine, engaged in banter with Nazi-apologist, and Trump shill, Sebastion Gorka. Afterward, press secretary Stephanie Grisham suspended Karem’s White House press pass. Karem sued to get his credentials restored and won a court judgment on the basis that his constitutional rights of freedom of the press (1st Amendment) and due process (5th Amendment) were infringed. The White House appealed the ruling and Karem once again prevailed. But in the course of the proceedings we learned something peculiar about Trump and his regime. The ruling in the case admonished, and even mocked, White House attorneys saying that…

“Raising the specter of the absurd, the White House argues that it cannot be the case that ‘the Press Secretary would be powerless to take action even were a reporter to “moon” the President, shout racial epithets at a foreign dignitary, or sexually harass another member of the press corps.’” […] “The White House can rest assured that principles of due process do not limit its authority to maintain order and decorum at White House events by, for example, ordering the immediate removal of rogue, mooning journalists.”

That’s right, in seeking to censor a journalist, Trump’s lawyers argued that there was some risk that reporters would bare their behinds to the President and they sought legal relief from that terrifying prospect. Of all the things that Trump is afraid of, this may be the most delectably bizarre. Perhaps this fear played a role in Trump retreating to the White House bunker this week when protesters where gathered across the street at Lafayette Park. And one cannot help but wonder if this contributed to Trump’s decision to deploy the military against American citizens, each of which is armed with a possibly loaded derriere.

It gives a hole new meaning to the threat of assassination. Butt, to be fair, Trump has never been able to deal with other people’s wise cracks. And it would get confusing if he weren’t the only arsehole in the room. So getting rid of Karem and the other potential mooners is a policy that he could really get behind. In fact, that’s something everyone can drink to. So bottoms up, America!

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

Fox News Forced to Apologize for Grossly Racist Graphic

Posted by on June 6, 2020 at 12:18 pm. 2 Comments :

This is one of those days when you need to check the weather report in Hell. If it hasn’t frozen over, there is at least a severe polar vortex bearing down on Satan’s lair. The storm warning came in the form of an announcement by Fox News that they were sorry about having aired a graphic so drenched in bigotry that even they couldn’t tolerate it.

Fox News Sad

On the Friday episode of Fox’s signature evening “news” program, Special Report, (not an opinion show like Sean Hannity), they did a segment on the economy and the recent gains in the stock market. Seeking to contextualize these gains, Fox produced a graphic that compared past market increases with particular events in history.

The problem was that each of the historical events they selected was the murder of an African-American. The only feasible conclusion to draw from this presentation was that Fox News regards the killing of black men in America as a positive factor in economic growth. They seem to be saying “Just think how much higher the market would be if more black men were murdered.”

It is not coincidental that they did this the same day that the Racist-in-Chief, Donald Trump, tried to conflate the stock market with what he said is “a great day” for George Floyd. But in a rare gesture of journalistic remorse (only after an avalanche of crushing criticism) Fox News later issued a tepid apology:

That’s a big concession for the network that has never apologized for backing conspiracy theories like Barack Obama being born in Kenya. Or that a Democratic aide was murdered by Hillary Clinton associates. Or that Russia didn’t interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Or that the fictional Antifa(scist) “organization” is orchestrating civil unrest at protests over the killing of George Floyd by police. Or that Joe Biden is mentally unfit. Or that Donald Trump IS mentally fit.

Still, Fox is only apologizing for not having put the data in context. Although, it’s hard to imagine a context that wouldn’t have made this flagrantly racist. There is no framing for which this information would have been useful. The stock market rises and falls on a variety of triggering factors that include corporate earnings, international trade, employment statistics, federal legislation, and even gut feelings about speculative future economic environments. But nowhere is there any evidence of violence against African-Americans being the cause of any market activity.

In fact, it’s easy to make the case for virtually any activity producing some market movement based on one week’s worth of data. For instance, the market rose 1.5% in the week following Trump’s impeachment. Is that an indication that Wall Street was celebrating Trump’s political demise? The week after racist GOP icon George Wallace died the market rose 2.4%. And of particular interest to Fox News, the week following the death of their founder and CEO Roger Ailes, the market leapt 3.2%. Is that telling us something about bigoted, sexual predators who run propaganda machines?

With all of the naked racial prejudice that airs on Fox news on a daily basis, it is not nearly sufficient that they put out a perfunctory “apology” for this sort of behavior that is so consistent with their noxious conduct in their past. They need to demonstrate that they have a grasp of the consequences of their broadcasts by censuring their repeat racist offenders: Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, for starters. Absent that, they can take their apology and shove it.

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

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Trump-tanic: Sinking Hopes for 2020

Posted by on June 5, 2020 at 1:38 pm. 12 Comments :

It is abundantly clear that Donald Trump, America’s first reality TV game show host to serve as president, learned everything he knows about communications from his shallow experience in the world of television. Everything he says – whether good news or bad – has the stench of a sleazy infomercial. And Trump pumps out his propaganda as if he’s peddling Sham-Wow rags to the trailer park crowd.

Donald Trump, Republican, GOP

On Friday morning Trump held what he called a press conference, although he left after making a statement and took no questions at all. He greeted the press corps with strange praise saying that “I noticed you’re starting to get much closer together. Looks much better.” What Trump failed to mention was that the chairs were originally arranged in compliance with social distancing guidance, but before the press arrived Trump’s staff rearranged them to put everyone closer together, and more at risk. Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Trump only crawled out from his bunker to crow about a new set of jobs numbers indicating that some of the millions of Americans who became unemployed due his negligent and incompetent mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic had returned to work. Trump presented this data as a “Mission Accomplished” moment, despite the fact that the unemployment rate is still at historic highs (13.1%) and more than 20 million Americans are still not working. And in a bizarre conflation of concepts, Trump praised the economic news as somehow being beneficial to George Floyd, the African-American man who was murdered by police last week. Trump beamed that…

“Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”

Really? Even if the jobs numbers are accurate (and with the Trump administration that’s a risky assumption), the unemployment rate for whites declined from 14.2% to 12.4%. But for African-Americans it rose from 16.7% to 16.8%. What a great day for George.

UPDATE: As it turns out, there was a huge miscalculation in the unemployment rate. The real number is closer to 20%, which is near a record high and is what analysts predicted.

Earlier in the day, Trump displayed a measure of anxiety in his standard way: by firing off a frantic tweetstorm. This is how he lets the world know when he’s scared, planting himself on his Twitter throne and blasting out an incoherent stream of invective and flagrant distortions of reality (aka lies). And on Friday morning Trump was busy not being president as he rattled off a record 131 posts on Twitter. Most of them (115) were retweets of Republican senators. And most of those were promoting 13 of the senators running for reelection in competitive races. Some of the most at-risk GOP senators who got shout-outs from Trump were Martha McSally (AZ), Tom Cotton (AR), Cory Gardner (CO), and Thom Tillis (NC). Eighteen others were either in close races or held safe Republican seats. Democrats only need four seats to flip to take control of the Senate.

For some reason Trump didn’t bother to help out his pals Mitch McConnell (KY) or Lindsey Graham (SC), who are both facing strong Democratic challengers. He also left out Susan Collins (ME), who is struggling survive, and Kelly Loeffler (GA), who is embroiled in an insider trading scandal.

The bottom line is that Trump wouldn’t cough up more than a hundred tweets featuring senators running for reelection five months before election day – and during an ongoing pandemic – and while there is nationwide civil unrest – unless he was worried about losing both the presidency and the Republican majority in the Senate. If he is worried, it may be the first thing he’s gotten right in three and a half years. The likelihood of Democratic victories for the Senate and the White House increase every day as Trump’s failures drive his approval ratings ever lower. and his toxicity is rubbing off on his party confederates. At some point they are going to flee like the proverbial rats that they are. And that will leave Trump all alone and trembling in his bunker.

UPDATE: Today Trump hit a new record of a staggering 195 tweets (including 161 retweets) in a single day. That’s About one tweet every four minutes for 13.5 hours.

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

Breaking Vlad: Trump Resurrects His Russia ‘Witch Hunt’ Whine

Posted by on June 4, 2020 at 1:31 pm. 2 Comments :

Nothing exemplifies the desperation welling up in Donald Trump more than his reversion to a dormant whimper from days past. Trump was impeached (for life) half a year ago. Throughout the entire process he produced a plaintive cry of “Witch Hunt” despite the volumes of documentary evidence, testimony, and confessions that proved his guilt.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

Trump was fortunate to have a compliant cadre of Republican sycophants in the Senate to allow him to escape accountability for his criminality (for now). You have to wonder if they are all still comfortable with their blindly partisan absolution given the devastation over which Trump has presided in the interim. That includes more than 107,000 deaths due to the coronavirus, the collapse of the economy, 42 million Americans out of work, civil unrest on a national scale that is unprecedented, and his militaristic response that mimics the tyrannical oppressiveness of his totalitarian heroes. He is callously maligning the millions of heartfelt protesters in a manner that even his own staff finds nauseating.

However, Trump now finds himself in an environment where he is floundering politically. Every poll shows him losing to Joe Biden nationally, as well as in the crucial swing states. His approval rating is in the gutter. And it has going nowhere but down as the current crises play out. Consequently, Trump is bringing out his golden oldies collection of crapola. In the past few days he has posted dozens of tweets relating to the investigation of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election that resulted in Trump’s impeachment.

Most of Trump’s reanimated hostilities were stirred by the new Senate hearings chaired by venerable Trump-fluffer, Lindsey Graham. These hearings were intended to smear Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, Joe Biden. But they are also providing material for both Trump and Fox News to polish Trump’s sagging public image and to change the subject from his recent string of disasters.

Trump’s contribution to this manufactured narrative has been mostly simplistic sloganeering (such as “This Witch Hunt should never have begun!”), and incoherent gibberish (such as “Mueller should have never been appointed, although he did prove that I must be the most honest man in America!”) And he gratefully showered his appreciation unto bootlickers like Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, and others who obediently tow the Trump Cult line.

By dredging up the Russia story, Trump, Republicans, and Fox News are seeking to rewrite the history of Trump’s unsavory relationships. His fraternization with numerous people (Carter Page, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, etc.) with connections to Russia made the U.S. intelligence community something more than nervous. And by spinning their fictionalized version of events, they are also absolving Russia of any criminal espionage and election tampering, which was previously documented by every intelligence agency with jurisdiction.

Naturally, Trump’s pal Vladimir Putin will be thrilled with this development. And that isn’t an accidental outcome. It is precisely what both Trump and Putin desire. And no one should so naive as to think that it’s just a coincidence that Trump’s agenda and Putin’s are so tightly synchronized. They were similarly aligned in 2016, and they are reuniting for their 2020 tour of deceit and corruption. All the more reason that true patriots need to be vigilant and prepared to defend America’s democracy from these cretins. This isn’t a game. It’s our liberty and our future.

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

Trump Tries to Demonize the Protesters Supported By 73% of the American People

Posted by on June 3, 2020 at 2:56 pm. 6 Comments :

The most consistent principle of Donald Trump’s public relations game plan (if you can call it a plan), is to flagrantly distort reality (aka lie) in order to shape it into a form that doesn’t frighten him. For instance, he insists that thousands more people attend his cult rallies than the venues can actually hold. He claims to have built hundreds of miles of walls along the southern border where there has been no new wall built at all. He boasts about being the best thing that ever happened to African-Americans. He celebrates his “progress” with the coronavirus despite more than 107,000 deaths due to his negligence and incompetence.

Trump Fear

Trump will lie about all things great and small, no matter how easily the truth can be validated proving his obvious dishonesty. These are lies rooted in fear of being seen for the fool that most people know he is. On Wednesday Trump posted a tweet that is emblematic of that behavior in the worst possible way:

This tweet begins by chastising the media (specifically his longtime nemises, CNN and MSNBC) for allegedly supporting a frightful array of evildoers who Trump asserts the media lavished with praise. Needless to say, that never occurred, and Trump doesn’t provide any evidence of his vile assertion. All the media did was to accurately report that those committing acts of violence or vandalism were in the minority, and that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and devoted to positive change. Trump doesn’t want to hear that because it conflicts with his paranoid vision of a dystopian society where villains have taken control of the streets and his enemies are coming after him from every direction

What’s more, Trump is disgustingly maligning the honest, concerned Americans who are protesting real injustices as “killers, terrorists, arsonists, anarchists, thugs, hoodlums, looters, ANTIFA & others.” It’s a nauseating mischaracterization done purposefully to dehumanize good citizens for whom Trump has a deep seated, personal animosity. Notice that he doesn’t allow even a hint of any appreciation for the majority of people who are lawfully expressing their entirely justified anxiety with regard to systemic racism. Trump’s loaded rhetoric that accuses these protesters of being murderers and terrorists is way beyond the pale. And his invention of an Anti-fa(scist) organization is just another figment of his diseased imagination.

All of this is being done out of pure desperation on Trump’s part. He recognizes (or more likely has been told) that his approval ratings are in the sewer. Every poll shows that he is losing to Joe Biden nationally, as well as in most of the swing states. So he has embarked on a campaign of image restoration in order to plug his leaking ship of state. It’s what produced the travesty on Tuesday when he had protesters tear gassed in order to clear his way to a faux-religious photo-op that even some on his own staff found stomach churning.

What makes Trump’s PR plan all the more inept is that he is bucking popular opinion. A new poll by Reuters/Ipsos finds that…

“Three-quarters of Americans report they support the peaceful protests and demonstrations as a response to George Floyd’s death (73%). A majority of Democrats (86%) and Republicans (59%) report supporting the peaceful demonstrations.”

Also revealed in this survey is that those who strongly support the protests (43%) far exceed those who strongly oppose them (12%%). And that “Four in five Americans (82%) report that peaceful protests are an appropriate response to the killing of an unarmed man by police.” And that “Just 33% of Americans approve of how Donald Trump is handling the protests.”

In short, Trump is wrong the wrong side of the American people on everything. Yet, in his delusional stupor, he is still cranking out all-caps tweets shouting about some make-believe “SILENT MAJORITY” that he imagines is on his side. And this is how he thinks he will improve his standing in the polls and his prospects for reelection? Sure. Good luck with that, Bunker Boy.

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

Senior White House Official: ‘I’ve Never Been More Ashamed, I’m Sick to My Stomach’

Posted by on June 2, 2020 at 10:25 am. 20 Comments :

On Monday afternoon Donald Trump took another step toward his aspirational goal of imposing fascism on America. He began by ordering that peaceful protesters be tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets so that he could have a photo-op in front a church that he wouldn’t bother to enter. It was a grotesque sight and an insult to everything that America stands for. But that was just for starters.

Donald Trump, White House

Following the sweep by police and National Guard soldiers, Trump marched across the street from the White House and stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church for a couple of minutes. He held a bible up as if it were burning his tiny hands. He never entered the church, nor said a word. Then he marched back across the street to the safety of White House bunker.

Prior to that cheesy photo-op, Trump delivered a statement (here if you can stomach it) that could have been transcribed from speeches by his Third Reich heroes. It was littered with phony expressions of machismo as he advocated deploying the military against American citizens. He cited the Insurrection Act of 1807 to justify his blueprint for brutality. And he maligned the nation’s governors who were principled enough to ignore his addled rants.

The American people are repulsed by this antagonistic grandstanding. Most polls already show that Trump’s approval rating is in decline and that he is losing to Joe Biden by double digits. But there is also some opposition within the Trump camp that is bubbling to the surface. As reported by Axios…

“One senior aide was exuberantly telling friends the photograph of him holding a Bible in front of the church that had been attacked by vandals was an ‘iconic’ moment for the president. But a senior White House official told Axios that when they saw the tear gas clearing the crowd for Trump to walk to the church with his entourage: ‘I’ve never been more ashamed. I’m really honestly disgusted. I’m sick to my stomach. And they’re all celebrating it. They’re very very proud of themselves.'”

The majority of the American people can surely relate to that sentiment. However, it’s not enough for this insider to whimper about being sickened under the cover of anonymity. This person should come forward immediately and publicly and resign from the White House staff. Otherwise it is just another enabler who is too cowardly, or addicted to power and privilege, to act with integrity and decency.

On Tuesday Joe Biden delivered a speech on the same subject (video below). The contrast between the two is like night and – the supernova of the sun. Biden spoke compassionately about the need to address the systemic racism and injustice that resulted in the murder of George Floyd and many others. And he offered actual solutions, rather than just bellicose babbling and allusions to tyrannical strong-arm tactics.

It is long past time for any Republican who is uncomfortable with Trump’s toxic animosity, ignorance, incompetence, and even deliberate malfeasance, to step up and condemn him. Trump’s malice can no longer be dismissed as quirks of a diseased character, or lack thereof. He is an imminent danger to the nation and the world. And anyone who doesn’t forthrightly denounce him is complicit with immorality, corruption, and crimes against humanity.

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