Month: October 2020

Trump Hails Stock Market Whose Rise is a Rejection of Him

Posted by on October 12, 2020 at 1:21 pm. NO Comments :

The manic frenzy that is displayed daily on the Twitter feed of Donald Trump is especially heated this Monday morning. He posted 75 tweets before 3:00pm in what may break his all time record of 123 tweets in single day. It’s impossible to say at this point whether the reason for this crazed output is his acute panic at the prospect of a landslide electoral loss to Joe Biden in three weeks, or the side effects of the drugs he’s been taking to treat his coronavirus. Or maybe a catastrophic combination of both.

Donald Trump, Stock Market Crash

The flurry of frantic and anxious outbursts that make up this tweetstorm run the gamut of Trump’s paranoid psychoses. For instance, Trump tweeted about a “Big spike in the China Plague in Europe,” in an attempt to compare it to the U.S., which he apparently doesn’t know is suffering from a similar or worse spike. He tweeted that New York and California are “going to hell.” Which is an odd campaign strategy of maligning the biggest states in the country that you’re supposedly leading. He tweeted that he is “winning BIG in all of the polls that matter.” Which I guess are the polls of boaters and maskless bar patrons. But he wasn’t through.

Trump also tweeted that “We will have Healthcare which is FAR BETTER than ObamaCare, at a FAR LOWER COST.” Which is documented in the invisible plan that he has been saying for three years that he will release in two weeks. And as an indication of what is most important to him, Trump posted ten tweets in support of Eric Early, who running a laughably futile campaign against Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff may be the member of Congress Trump despises most after Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That’s more tweets than he posted in support of his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

However, perhaps the most enthusiastic of Trump’s twittery concerned the performance of the stock market. He managed to get something right for once by noting that it was going up. However, he has no idea why it’s doing so. He, of course, thinks he’s responsible for it. And in a way he is, but not in the way he thinks.

Trump has been shouting from the White House rooftop for weeks that a Biden presidency will thrust the nation into a depression. Let’s just set aside the fact that we are already in a recession during the Trump presidency. Trump’s tweets are cheering on the market’s rise along with fear mongering about a collapse if Biden is elected. Never mind that Obama and Biden presided over a much more robust economic recovery and market advance than Trump has. The five tweets he posted on this subject were evidence of nothing more than Trump’s ignorance and ego. For example…

What Trump is missing is that the rise in the market is occurring simultaneously to the rise in Biden’s polling against Trump. The greater the margin of Biden’s lead, the higher the market goes. That’s the market indicating that it is looking forward to a Biden victory. The market is always representative of the future. And this isn’t just a coincidental observation. According to Goldman Sachs, “A Democratic sweep would mean faster economic recovery.”

“…’a blue wave would likely prompt us to upgrade our forecasts,’ Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius wrote in a Monday report.”

Hatzius went on to note that a blue wave would increase the likelihood of a coronavirus relief bill. He also noted the positive impact of Biden’s spending plans on infrastructure, climate, health care and education. But that isn’t all. Moody’s also weighed in saying that…

“Moody’s Analytics found that Biden’s economic proposals, if enacted, would create 7.4 million more jobs than would Trump’s. The economy would return to full employment in the second half of 2022, nearly two years earlier than under Trump’s plan, Moody’s said.”

Of course, none of this is a guarantee that the market will continue going straight up. There are distinct warning signs for a down turn. The market is already over-valued in some analysts opinions. And the overweighting of just a few stocks (more than 20% of the S&P) that uncharacteristically benefit from the current conditions (Apple: 7.3%, Microsoft: 5.9%, Amazon: 5.3%, Google: 2.4%, and Facebook: 2.4%) don’t tell the market’s whole story. And as anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge is aware (which leaves Trump out), the stock market is not the economy. Most Americans do not own stocks.

There is, however, one thing that can’t be denied. If Trump’s fear mongering were correct, the market would have been on a downward trend for at least the past couple of months. Clearly the financial institutions that drive the market don’t agree with Trump. The fact that it’s strong and rising is a testament to the market’s confidence in, and preference for, a Biden presidency.

So keep that in mind when voting. And tell your friends and family. It is Trump who has proven to be an economic imbecile who declared bankruptcy on six separate occasions, lost billions of dollars during the boom times, and currently owes more than $400 billion to – well, we don’t know who because he refuses to release his tax returns. That by itself is reason enough to remove Trump from office. And also to investigate him for criminal activity and crimes against the state.

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

COVID DELIRIUM? Now Trump is Threatening Aliens (UFOs)

Posted by on October 11, 2020 at 1:09 pm. 11 Comments :

The “stable genius” currently occupying the White House is exhibiting symptoms of severe mental distress. That isn’t anything new, however, it is dreadfully apparent that Donald Trump is descending to new and more absurd lows. The most likely reason for this is that it is getting closer to November 3rd and his prospects for reelection continue to hover somewhere between dismal and preposterous.

Donald Trump, Mars Attacks, Alien, UFO

The grievous stench of desperation is enveloping Trump like a dark and low-hanging cloud. It’s manifesting in his clinging reliance on his Fox News pacifiers. Trump has done five “interviews” with Fox hosts in four days, including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Mark Levin, and Maria Bartiromo twice.

The second Bartiromo segment aired Sunday morning and featured Trump making bizarre comments that only offer further proof of his psychoses. For instance, after being asked, he was unable to coherently articulate a second term agenda beyond prematurely opening up the country and bashing Democrats. He claimed he was “cured” of the coronavirus and is now “immune,” neither of which is medically sound. What’s more, he said that he has a “protective glow“ that will protect others from any contagious threat he might pose. He also bragged that there have been “only” 214,000 deaths from the coronavirus, which he characterized as success.

These are the ravings of a madman. But Trump was just warming up for his answer to the final question of the segment. Bartiromo asked him if he could explain “why the Department of Defense has set up a UFO task force […] Mr President, as we wrap up here, are there UFOs?” Trump gave the question serious consideration and replied:

“Well, I’m gonna have to check on that. I heard that. I heard that two days ago. So I’ll check on that. I’ll take a good strong look at that. But I will tell you this, we have now created a military the likes of which we’ve never had before, in terms of equipment. The equipment that we have, the weapons that we have – and hope to God we never have to use them – but we have created a military the likes of which nobody has ever had. Russia, China, they’re all envious of what we have. All built in the USA.”

Isn’t it comforting to know that Trump is going to “take a good strong look at” the existence of potentially hostile UFOs? But more importantly, if those space aliens try anything they are gonna regret it. Trump is saying that he has built the most powerful military, not just on Earth, but in the entire universe. Those aliens, who despite having have mastered interstellar travel, don’t stand a chance against Trump’s Space Force. Never mind that everything Trump said about having enhanced the military is another of his flagrant lies about alleged achievements.

It’s episodes like this that make it impossible to ignore speculation that Trump is suffering from the psychotic side effects of the medications he’s been taking to combat the coronavirus. Steroids and the other immuno-response drugs that he has been prescribed are known to produce mood swings, anxieties, and delirium. And so much of Trump’s recent rantings have all the signals of mental infirmity. In recent days he has been both attacking and embracing Fox News. He accused Nancy Pelosi of being crazy. He claimed, Messiah like, that he got COVID-19 because he was “doing it for us.” And shortly after his visit with Bartiromo, Trump tweeted that…

That, of course, is utterly false. No verifiable study has concluded that having contracted the coronavirus produces immunity from either getting or giving the disease. Trump’s tweet was flagged by Twitter for “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information.” Not that telling obvious lies is out of character for Trump. But he may have to be more careful when he’s dealing with the aliens. They may have truth rays.

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

Trump Bashes Fox News Even While Cowering in His Fox News Bunker

Posted by on October 10, 2020 at 2:16 pm. 1 Comments :

The madness that consumes Donald Trump continues to manifest in bizarre and troubling ways. He’s making public demands that his Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, indict and prosecute Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. He’s holding coronavirus Super Spreader affairs at the White House, which he has already turned into a COVID-19 “Hot Zone.” And he insists that he’s way ahead of Biden in the “real” polls that are published in the crevices of his decaying grey matter.

Donald Trump, Fox News

If that isn’t enough, Trump is also attacking his Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News). This isn’t a new behavioral glitch. Trump has frequently lashed out at Fox News when he didn’t think that they were sufficiently adoring. It’s his way of “working the refs” to ensure constant adulation. But in the past couple of days it has reached a crescendo. For instance, during a marathon radio gabfest with Rush Limbaugh on Friday, Trump whined that…

“It’s a problem. Fox is a problem. […] When Roger Ailes ran Fox, I mean, Roger had a very strong point of view. It’s totally gone. And I think it’s influenced by Paul Ryan. […] They’re going the way of CNN, and they’re going the way of MSNBC, and it’s a shame. I mean, it’s a shame. When I watch it, I look at the people they hire. I mean, I could tell you some of the anchors, they’re so bad.”

First of all, Trump’s fond remembrance of the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes is touching because they share so much in common. Particularly the fact that they are both serial sexual predators. But Trump’s complaint about Paul Ryan, the former GOP House Speaker who now has a seat on the Fox board of directors, reveals that Trump has no idea what a board of directors does. They are part time business advisors who have zero input into programming.

In addition to Trump’s comments on Limbaugh’s radio program, he made similar comments on the radio show of Fox News host Mark Levin. He was attempting to make a point about the differences between his 2016 campaign and the current one:

“One of the biggest differences is Fox. Fox is a whole different ballgame than it used to be. Fox was great. Fox was great. Fox is no longer great.”

Among the reasons that Trump has arrived at this conclusion are the polls that Fox News has recently published. The most recent one shows him trailing Biden by ten points. But trump has been upset with Fox’s pollsters for quite a while. And you can be sure he was driven to new lows by the one that found that a majority of voters say that he doesn’t have the “mental soundness” to serve.

What makes all of this even more peculiar is that while Trump has been amping up his attacks on Fox News, he has also been spending more time there. In the past four days Trump has done interviews on Fox with Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson (with Marc Seigel), and Mark Levin. And he has another “interview” with Bartiromo on Sunday. He apparently has no idea that he’s only reaching people that are already voting for him. It’s all for his ego and the lack of any notion of how he can rescue his floundering campaign.

The many hours Trump is devoting to Fox News is severely cutting into his golf and Twitter time. It also indicates that he has nothing else of importance to do. But most of all it shows that his whining about how disloyal Fox has been to him is just a charade. He knows that Fox News is his official State TV network and is vital to his nefarious schemes for the future. And he knows that Fox won’t punish him for his fake hostility toward them. They have a parasitic relationship wherein they are both addicted to each other. And while that may satisfy their immediate cravings for attention, it won’t keep Trump from circling the electoral drain.

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

In Honor of World Mental Health Day, Invoke the 25th Amendment on Trump

Posted by on October 10, 2020 at 11:41 am. NO Comments :

This week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would consider establishing “an independent commission under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to evaluate a president’s health and oversee the transfer of power to the vice president if the president becomes incapacitated while in office.” This is a long overdue measure that protects the interests of the nation under dire circumstances.

Trump Fear

This also happens to be World Mental Health Day, an annual observation of the need to focus attention on mental health issues and their personal and institutional impact on society. It’s sponsor, the World Health Organization (WHO), notes that…

“This year’s World Mental Health Day, on 10 October, comes at a time when our daily lives have changed considerably as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The past months have brought many challenges: for health-care workers, providing care in difficult circumstances, going to work fearful of bringing COVID-19 home with them; for students, adapting to taking classes from home, with little contact with teachers and friends, and anxious about their futures; for workers whose livelihoods are threatened; for the vast number of people caught in poverty or in fragile humanitarian settings with extremely limited protection from COVID-19; and for people with mental health conditions, many experiencing even greater social isolation than before. And this is to say nothing of managing the grief of losing a loved one, sometimes without being able to say goodbye.”

Unfortunately, Donald Trump withdrew from the WHO after falsely accusing it of being an accomplice to what Trump believes was China’s deliberate spreading of the coronavirus. In fact, that was just Trump’s way of evading his own responsibility for failing to handle the COVID-19 pandemic as it spread across the United States, and even into the White House.

Trump’s delusional attacks on China, the WHO, Democrats, and the media, are all further evidence of the need for Pelosi’s commission. He is an unstable, malignant narcissist and an aspiring dictator. He is the poster child (with an emphasis on “child”) for mental health awareness. He believes the world revolves around him and that he is superior to the other pathetic creatures that inhabit it. Once, when asked who he consults with, he replied that “My primary consultant is myself” because “I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” That attitude, along with an array of other symptoms of mental impairment, are reason enough to worry.

In the nearly four long years since Trump was sworn in as president, his erratic and impulsive behavior has caused broad based concern. He has continued his bromance with Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin, and other brutal authoritarians, while alienating longtime allies. His attacks on the media border on obsession and are aimed at delegitimizing any criticism. He has a perverse fixation on polling and crowd size. He repeatedly makes statements that are easily debunked as lies. And his Twitter feed is a scrolling document of mental instability.

Recently, Trump has taken to demanding that his Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, arrest, indict, and prosecute his political adversaries, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. And after turning the White House into a coronavirus “Hot Zone,” he is holding a rally there and inviting 2,000 people to participate in another Super Spreader event.

What better time to honor World Mental Health Day than while a madman is running rampant in Washington, D.C. and threatening not to leave after he’s voted out? This nation has endured many difficulties, but teetering on the edge of a fascist dictatorship overseen be a certifiably insane cult leader is not one than anyone contemplated. And we must not allow Trump and his army of glassy-eyed disciples to succeed.

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

PROJECTION: Trump and Fox News Attack Nancy Pelosi’s Mental Fitness

Posted by on October 9, 2020 at 1:15 pm. NO Comments :

The mental state of Donald Trump has been questioned for many years, even in the earliest days of his presidency. More recently, however, the signs of his cognitive lapses are impossible to ignore. His frequent incoherent ramblings, blatant contradictions, and unbridled hostilities are clear symptoms of a severe psychological breakdown. And it isn’t helping matters that, due to his COVID-19 diagnosis, he’s on several medications that are known to produce mood disorders.

Donald Trump

Not surprisingly, Trump is attempting to cast his cerebral decay onto his perceived political foes. It’s form of a psychotic response that seeks to “project” ones own faults onto others. Trump has been doing that for months to Joe Biden, but has utterly failed to make any of it stick. In fact, polls show that a majority of voters regard Trump as the one who “doesn’t have the mental soundness to serve.”

On Friday morning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a press conference to announce that she is sponsoring legislation that would codify the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, a key provision of which addresses how Congress can respond if “the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Despite the fact that Pelosi explicitly stated that this bill would not go into effect until after Trump’s term is over, he nevertheless took it personally and lashed out predictably on Twitter:

Trump managed to demean both Biden and Pelosi in that childishly retaliatory tweet. Although he might not have understood exactly what he was he was saying because he’s actually conceding that Biden will be the president to whom the legislation will apply. But that didn’t stop Fox News from quickly agreeing and posting an article on their website with the headline, “Trump and others question Pelosi’s mental fitness after she suggested pres. may not be fit for office.”

Indeed, Pelosi has questioned Trump’s mental fitness, as have many others. However, the “others” mentioned in Fox’s headline as questioning Pelosi’s fitness consist of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and … well, that’s it. No one else is mentioned at all. Trump, however, has worked overtime to disparage Pelosi with another of his infantile nicknames, “Crazy Nancy.” He has used that derogatory label at least 33 times on Twitter just this year. That’s about once a week. But Trump has called many others on his enemies list crazy as well, including Robert Mueller, Bernie Sanders, etc.

Trump’s behavior bespeaks an inherent weakness of character. He is incapable of forming an intelligible argument to reply to his critics, so he resorts to these impotent and immature tactics out of frustration and fear. And these emotional anchors are only going to weigh on him more in the coming weeks as the election, and his impending loss, draws closer. Which might explain behavior like that he demonstrated while co-hosting Rush Limbaugh’s radio show on Friday. While discussing his foreign policy conflicts with Iran, Trump dropped an F BOMB on the national broadcast. And if that aint crazy…

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

Trump Chickens Out of Second Debate While Ranting Incoherently on Fox News

Posted by on October 8, 2020 at 11:11 am. 4 Comments :

Following his disastrous performance during the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, it isn’t surprising that Donald Trump has now declared that he will not participate in the second debate. He knows that every poll has shown him falling even farther behind Biden since the first debate, including the one by his favorite pollster, Rasmussen.

Donald Trump Chicken

Trump’s reelection prospects didn’t improve after Vice-President Mike Pence got creamed by Sen. Kamala Harris in their debate Wednesday night. So when the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced that the next debate would be held with the candidates participating remotely, Trump jumped at the chance to use that as an excuse to bail out. The CPD made the change “In order to protect the health and safety of all involved.” That’s a perfectly reasonable adjustment considering that Trump is currently suffering from COVID-19 and has been recklessly exposing others to it.

There are at least 34 close associates to Trump who have contracted the coronavirus. It would be foolhardy to get anywhere near the SuperSpreader-in-Chief for the foreseeable future. But Trump’s exploitation of this is further evidence of his cowardice. He made his intentions clear on Fox News (of course) during an “interview” with Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, Maria Bartiromo (video below), saying that:

“I heard that the [Presidential Debate] Commission, a little while ago, changed the debate style, and that’s not acceptable to us. I beat him in the first debate, according to the polls that I’ve seen. But I beat him easily. I felt I beat him easily. I think he felt it too. He wouldn’t answer any question and he had the protection of Chris Wallace all night long. I thought Chris Wallace was a disaster. But I beat him in the first debate.”

Trump’s psychotic delusion that he won the first debate is typical of someone suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Every poll taken after the debate found that it was Biden who had beaten his unhinged opponent. Yet Trump continues to imagine himself victorious, while whining that everyone, including Wallace, a 17 year veteran of Fox News, is against him. Following the first debate Trump made the ludicrous assertion that Wallace is “controlled by the radical left.” When Bartiromo sought to affirm that he would not participate in the second debate, Trump replied:

“No. I’m not going to waste my time at a virtual debate. That’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate. It’s ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want. I have a host [Steve Scully of C-SPAN] who I always thought was a nice guy, but I see he’s a Never-Trumper.”

So just to be clear, Trump is saying that he is virulently opposed to doing remote communications in the midst of remotely communicating with Bartiromo for an hour long segment on Fox News. And he does these segments frequently with other Fox Always-Trumpers like Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. But doing essentially the same thing during a deadly pandemic for which he is Patient Zero in Washington, crosses the line for him.

There were some other batty moments deserving of some attention that occurred during his bit with Bartiromo, who has more than proven that she is a fully indoctrinated Trump cultist. For instance…

  • Trump says “I don’t think I’m contagious at all,”
    Which, not being a doctor, isn’t his call to make.
  • Trump suggested that he got Covid-19 from Gold Star families.
    Because why not blame it on the troops that he thinks are “losers” and “suckers”?
  • Trump tells Bartiromo he shut down stimulus talks because he didn’t “want to play games.”
    Which is, in fact, playing games.
  • Trump tells Attorney General Bill Barr that Clinton, Obama, and Biden should be indicted.
    For unspecified (and nonexistent) crimes.
  • Trump whines that his FBI Director Chris has “been disappointing.”
    Because he won’t go along with persecuting Trump’s enemies.
  • Trump lied (again) about getting $28 billion from China in tariffs.
    It was actually zero dollars.

And if that isn’t enough, Trump weighed in on the Harris/Pence debate with his trademark hostility and misogyny. After disparaging Harris as “a monster,” Trump lashed out in a thoroughly deranged frenzy saying that…

“I thought that wasn’t even a contest last night. She was terrible. She was…I don’t think you can get worse. And totally unlikeable. And she is. She’s a communist.”

Adding later that…

“Biden won’t make it two months as president. He’s not mentally capable of being president. You know that. Everybody knows that.”

It’s no wonder that Trump doesn’t want to debate Biden again. He knows that he can’t measure up to a sane, competent, and compassionate public servant who is popular with the American people. Trump knows that he doesn’t have control of the facts or the cognitive ability to engage in a substantive discourse with someone who does.

So Trump is running away. Which is his standard practice for dealing with difficult situations, particularly those that he can’t control. He is the proverbial bully who crumbles like a stale cracker when confronted. But in Trump’s case, unfortunately for America, he will try to leave as big a trail of destruction in his wake as he scurries off to his bunker.

UPDATE: Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, is now asking to move the second debate to October 22, and the third to October 29. But’s just five days before the election and Biden is probably going to be pretty busy then. This is a desperation move by Trump to recover from his cowardly attempt to bail out.

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

Trump’s Favorite Pollster, Rasmussen, Shows Biden Winning By 12 Points

Posted by on October 7, 2020 at 11:57 am. 2 Comments :

In case anyone is wondering why Donald Trump has posted 100 insanely rage-infested tweets since 9:00 PM Tuesday night, it might have something to with how desperate and scared he is. This is how he copes with fear and the burden of a future that holds nothing for him but misfortune and misery.

Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Being infected with the coronavirus is only part of Trump’s tribulations. Although it’s likely a more significant part than he and his handlers are letting on. He hasn’t been seen in public in two days during the period of time when COVID-19 symptoms generally become more severe (7-10 days after first symptoms). And in his last appearance he seemed to be gasping for air as he stood on a White House balcony for a propaganda video.

However, even more troubling to a malignant narcissist like Trump, his reelection campaign is crumbling into dust. He is trailing Joe Biden by double digits in most recent polls. And this isn’t a trend that Trump can dismiss as phony, Democratic polling or “FAKE NEWS” because his favorite pollster, Rasmussen is showing the same dismal results:

“President Trump’s debate performance followed by his coronavirus diagnosis appear to be digging an even deeper hole for him this week. Democrat Joe Biden now has a 12-point lead over the president in Rasmussen Reports’ weekly White House Watch survey. The latest national telephone and online survey finds Biden leading President Trump 52% to 40% among Likely U.S. Voters.”

In the past three weeks Trump went from a one point advantage to one point behind to eight points back, and now a whopping twelve point deficit. His approval rating, according to Rasmussen, has declined eight points (52% to 44%) since September 25. In those intervening days Trump nominated a Supreme Court justice, debated Biden, and contracted the coronavirus. Apparently, none of those things advanced his standing with voters. Additionally, Trump’s approval among his Republican base now stands at a sorry 76%. That’s twenty points lower than the number he frequently boasts about on Twitter.

Trump likes to post the Rasmussen approval survey whenever they put him above the 50% mark, even though he generally falls back below that within a few days. But it’s a safe bet that he won’t be posting these results. He may even resort to attacking Rasmussen for having defected to the Deep State. That’s been his reaction when the Drudge Report has been critical of him, and even Fox News.

Adding to Trump’s polling woes are his abysmal fundraising efforts. While Biden is setting new records each month and expanding his targets, Trump is lagging in both receipts and cash on hand. He has had to pull advertising in key states that he needs to win in November. According to an analysis by Politico…

Joe Biden is set to spend $6.2 million on ads [in Texas] … Perhaps even more astounding: Trump doesn’t have the money to counter the cash-flush Biden on TV. Over the past two weeks, Biden had the airwaves to himself in Iowa, Ohio, Texas and New Hampshire, while Trump went dark.”

That’s not a recipe for any kind of campaign renewal for Trump. And with less than four weeks until election day, there’s little time for him to mount a recovery. There’s even less time when considering the fact that early voting has begun in many states and millions of people have already voted. Which leaves only one avenue available for the floundering Trump campaign: Straight up batshit crazy ranting and incoherent babbling. And in that race Trump already has a huge head start.

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

Business as Usual? Trump Returns Home to Spread Lies Along with the Coronavirus

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

The more that Trump sinks into electoral oblivion, the more desperate and bizarre he becomes. He’s like the wounded mama bear whose psychotic irrationality is triggered and acts out with sociopathic malice and jealous rage. Or something like that.

Donald Trump, White House

Trump’s behavior is further evidence that he should never have been discharged from the Walter Reed Medical Center. Despite his manic and lie-riddled propaganda video on Monday, Trump has learned nothing from his coronavirus adventure. Not only is he still a potentially deadly COVID-19 Super Spreader, he is mentally distancing from reality. A review of his Tuesday morning Twitter rant is all the proof that any competent psychiatrist would need to involuntarily commit to Trump to an institution for his own safety and that of others. For example…

No will be surprised that Trump is lashing out at the press that he so frequently maligns in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” But in this instance he is also insulting the American citizens participating in the NBC town hall with Joe Biden. After all, the people in the audience were undecided voters who were asking their own questions. And contrary to Trump’s whining, they were hardly “softballs.” The topics ranged from everything from Biden’s plans for reopening the country and schools to his age and mental health. He was also asked about defunding the police, domestic terrorism, abortion, and accusations that he’s a secret socialist.

What’s more, it’s hysterical that Trump would criticize this independent town hall as a disgraceful use of the “FREE public airwaves” when his own Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) unloads rabidly biased and partisan commentaries 24 hours a day. And for much of those hours Trump himself is on their air to disseminate his lies. That time should be paid for by the RNC. But Trump was just getting started. He also tweeted that…

First of all, fatalities due to common influenza have averaged about 37,000 a year for the past decade. And the ten year high was 61,000. When asked about this tweet, Dr. Anthony Fauci contradicted Trump’s nonsense rambling, saying that COVID-19 is far more lethal than the flu.

It’s insane for Trump to suggest that we “learn to live with” COVID-19. Doesn’t he realize that the families and friends of the 211,000 Americans who have already died can hear him? And while he’s pretending that he has conquered the virus (it’s way to soon for him to say that), and that we shouldn’t be afraid, he also doesn’t get that he has access to medical care that far exceeds that of anyone else in the country.

Trump also tweeted an outright lie about Biden’s position on reproductive rights and Roe v. Wade. Trump falsely claimed that Biden supports late-term abortions. Then he tweeted that he’s looking forward to the next debate with Biden on October 15. Although Trump should not even be allowed in the studio. He and his entourage should be considered highly contagious and a risk to Biden, the press, and everyone else involved in producing the debate. He complained that the media “refuses to discuss how good the Economy” is doing. But the media only refuses to discuss that because the economy is in recession, more than 10 million people are still unemployed, thousands of businesses have gone bankrupt, and tens of thousands of Americans have been evicted or foreclosed on.

Finally, Trump tweeted that he’s terminating discussions with Nancy Pelosi and Congress for a pandemic relief bill until after the election. He claims that Pelosi is negotiating in bad faith, despite the fact that she has already lowered her proposal by a trillion dollars in a compromise with Republicans who want it to go down a trillion more. Trump says that he’ll resume negotiations after he wins the election. So that, presumably, will be never. Those tweets resulted in the stock market taking a nose dive in the last hour of trading.

Unfortunately, we can expect to see more of this aberrant behavior from Trump as election day draws near and his prospects for reelection continue to dwindle. It may even get worse after he loses. The American people and the press are going to have to be vigilant in order prevent further deterioration of our democracy. Trump is dangerously unstable and would like nothing better than to take the country down with him.

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

Teaching Old Dogs? Trump Has Learned Nothing From Having COVID-19

Posted by on October 5, 2020 at 3:19 pm. 5 Comments :

The surreal Sci-Fi adventure that American is presently stumbling through took another bizarre plot twist on Friday when Donald Trump revealed that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. He subsequently took up residency in the presidential suites of Walter Reed Medical Center. And for the next couple days he pretended that nothing was wrong as his “doctors” brazenly lied to the press.

Donald Trump Red Face

While on his COVID-cation, Trump was uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter. He posted only 14 tweets total in three days. His daily average during September was 55 tweets. Meanwhile, Fox News was promoting Trump’s ordeal as a sort of crucifixon because, as one Foxie said, “He’s doing it for us.”

After less than 72 hours Trump announced that he would be returning to the White House where he can continue infecting the rest of his staff, along with his other primary duties: watching Fox News and tweeting. For the record, the long list of Trump associates already admitting their positive diagnoses can be found here. But we can expect that list to grow. In the meantime, Trump posted this message on Twitter regarding his discharge from the hospital:

So the lesson that Trump has learned from his still ongoing battle with a deadly virus is that people need not be afraid of it. He is once again giving de facto encouragement for people to go out without face masks or social distancing. He’s even claiming that his post-COVID health is better than it was twenty years ago. Some people will conclude that it’s therefore beneficial to get the disease. At the same time, Trump is presuming that all Americans have an army of doctors to cater to every sneeze and bone spur in their private home hospital quarters. And eventually we’ll develop a “herd mentality,” after a mere two million more people die.

These are not lessons that any cognitively stable person would derive from facing a serious illness and potential death. But in Trump World these views are universal. His communications director, Erin Perrine, appeared on Fox News Monday and claimed that Trump’s COVID encounter made him better able to address the pandemic. “He has experience, now, fighting the coronavirus as an individual,” Perrine said. “Those firsthand experiences – Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those.”

So in a perverse reversal of logic, Perrine is attacking Biden for not having contracted the virus. The Trumpian view is that being able to maintain one’s health during a international pandemic is sign of deficiency and weakness. Only those who are “smart” enough to get sick can be trusted to lead.

Trump himself claimed to have “learned a lot about COVID” But if all he has learned is to tell others that they shouldn’t be afraid of a virus that has already killed more than 210,000 people, it’s a stretch to call that education. So “Don’t be afraid of Covid [and] Don’t let it dominate your life.” After all, if Trump, with his access to top-notch socialized medical care, can get through this (which he has not yet), then so can you. Even though he’s currently suing to eliminate healthcare entirely for millions of Americans who are still at risk. MAGA (Make America Grieve Again).

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

Trump’s Reality TV Hospital Video and Dwindling Tweetery Raise More Questions

Posted by on October 4, 2020 at 10:02 am. 4 Comments :

The Reality TV game show host who is currently serving as president likes to criticize Joe Biden for staying in his basement, which hasn’t been true for many weeks. Donald Trump, however, canceled all of his scheduled public appearances and is now holed up in his figurative basement at Walter Reed Medical Center. All of the information coming from Trump, his doctors, or his White House staff is so utterly lacking in credibility that it inspired Michael Che of Saturday Night Live to point out that “It’s a bad sign for America that when Trump said he tested positive for a virus, 60 percent of the people were like, ‘Prove it!'”

Donald Trump, coronavirus

Trump has abandoned his duties as both the president and a candidate for reelection. In a disturbingly incoherent four minute video that Trump posted on Twitter Saturday, he said that he was “feeling much better.” That’s consistent with his desire to always present himself as having a nearly divine invincibility (a ludicrous characterization that is supported and advanced by Fox News). But if that’s so, then it raises questions about why he’s still in the hospital and what he’s doing while he’s there? Prior to his contraction of the coronavirus, Trump spent much of his time watching Fox News and tweeting. He’s probably still glued to his State TV pacifier and the comforting adulation he receives from the network’s devoted Trump-fluffers. However, he has significantly scaled back his Twitter output.

Trump posted an average of 55 tweets per day in the month of September. But since his admission to Walter Reed Friday, Trump has posted a total of 14 tweets in three days. That would be understandable if he were suffering from the symptoms of a debilitating viral infection. But Trump is portraying his symptoms as mild and minimally constraining him from doing his job. The White House even posted photos of him allegedly working while still hospitalized. In the video (posted below) he made a point of discussing his commitment to being productive despite his grim diagnosis:

“I had no choice because I just didn’t want to stay in the White House. I was given that alternative. Stay in the White House. Lock yourself in. Don’t ever leave. Don’t even go to the Oval Office. Just stay upstairs and enjoy it. Don’t see people. Don’t talk to people. And be done with it.

“But I can’t do that. I had to be out front. This is America. This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world. I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say ‘whatever happens, happens.’ I can’t do that. We have to confront problems. As a leader you have to confront problems. There’s never been a great leader that would have done that. So that’s where it is.”

WTF Trump he talking about? He is saying that if he were convalescing in the residence area of the White House it would be tantamount to being “locked in” to a place that he could never leave and never see or talk to anyone. Which, of course, isn’t remotely true. However, it is exactly what being confined to the private rooms of a military hospital is like. Trump is far more restricted at Walter Reed than he would be at the White House. It would be much easier for him to conduct business there, where he has ready access to communications, documents, the vast resources of governing and, of course, his Cabinet, aides, and other support staff.

How can Trump plausibly suggest that by exchanging the comfort and convenience of the White House for the sterile seclusion of a hospital that he is more “out front” or better able to “confront problems”? That makes no sense at all. If anything, it indicates a cognition failure that should warrant more serious examination. And in the end, that may be at least part of the reason he’s still hospitalized and refraining from his all-consuming Twitter habit. Which while curious and out of character, is a welcome relief from the relentless hostility, ignorance, and madness his tweets provoke.

UPDATE I: Late this afternoon Trump briefly left his hospital room to drive by the small crowd of Trump cult disciples worshiping outside of Walter Reed. He waved from the back of a limousine like the Pope blessing his flock. Some reporters suggested that he wanted to demonstrate that he was strong and healthy. But this was the selfish act of a malignant narcissist who craves attention above all else.

An attending physician at Walter Reed described Trump’s behavior as “irresponsible.” A Secret Service source called it “reckless and careless and heartless.”

But none of that mattered to Trump. As a consequence of his contracting the coronavirus he had to cancel his cult rallies. So he needed some other way to soak up the admiring cheers from his most zealous devotees. He chose, therefore, to put the lives of his staff and secret service agents at risk in order to stage this political theater. It was reminiscent of when he deployed the military to assault peaceful demonstrators to clear his way to a photo-op in front of church.

In a video Trump tweeted prior to this dangerous stunt, Trump said that he had learned a lot about COVID-19. Obviously that’s just another lie. Trump’s ego is, as usual, running the show. And to hell with the welfare of anyone else.

UPDATE II: Trump’s Twittering has resumed. On Monday morning he unleashed 19 tweets by 8:00 AM. Although most (15) of them were single line lies about why his cult followers should vote for him. Not exactly the sort of thing that will change the strong trending of support for Joe Biden.

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