Day: 8/18/2021

WTF? Trump Tells Fox News that Booster Shots Are a ‘Money Making Operation’ and Not Needed

Posted by on August 18, 2021 at 5:31 pm. 11 Comments :

It appears that having lost more than 600,000 Americans from the coronavirus still isn’t enough for Donald Trump and his Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News). Despite having known about the severity of the pandemic early on (but deliberately downplaying it), Trump is continuing to lead his glassy-eyed cult disciples astray with flagrant falsehoods about the current state of affairs.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

Trump is on a media spree this week with two visits to Fox News, one to Newsmax, and he’s hosting another of his super-spreader cult rallies, this one in Alabama where the percentage of people vaccinated is the lowest in the nation. [Late additions: Joe Pags, Rick & Bubba]

During his second Fox News “interview” with shameless Trump-fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, Trump unleashed a torrent of lies related to his negligent and incompetent mismanagement of the pandemic and where things are going from here. What follows are a few excerpted – and poignantly annotated – highlights from the segment (video below):

“I’ve taken the vaccine. I’m very, very proud of it.”
If Trump is so proud, why has he refused to mount a public service campaign to persuade his devotees (who comprise the bulk of the resistors) to get vaccinated?

“When I was president, you didn’t have this problem with people not wanting to take it.”
First of all, the vaccine was not available until December 14, 2020, after Trump was voted out, and just a month before Joe Biden was inaugurated. As for people wanting the vaccine, it was a time when demand was strong from the majority of Americans who weren’t deceived by Trump and Fox News propaganda.

“They don’t take it because they don’t trust Biden.”
That’s Trump’s psychotic projection kicking in. Any scarcity of trust was due to the deliberate anti-vax agitprop by Trump and Fox News.

“When I was president, you didn’t have people protesting the vaccine.”
Again, the vaccine had only just become available. However, you had plenty of people protesting – sometimes violently – the existence of the virus and refusing to take simple steps to mitigate its spread, like wearing masks.

“When I left it was virtually gone. It was over.”
Oh for chrissakes! The death rate was peaking in January of 2021. But Trump’s lies still seem to have much farther to go.

[On the need for a booster] “That sounds to me like a money-making operation from Pfizer. […] You wouldn’t think you would need a booster.”
Because everything that a grifter like Trump does has to have greed as a motive, he thinks that’s true for everyone else.

More troubling is Trump’s dismissal of the need for a booster shot that has been verified by actual scientists. Just as he has spent most of the last year and a half downplaying the tragic and deadly risks that people are facing, Trump still seems determined to kill off more Americans by convincing them that there isn’t any real threat and they don’t need need to take simple steps to insure the safety of themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation. And naturally, Bartiromo adoringly goes along with everything Trump says.

Trump would rather let more people suffer and die so that he can blame it all on Biden and continue his fundraising pitches to enrich himself and finance his next insurrection and attempted coup. Ironically, the number of suckers available for him to exploit with this lethal scam will decline in corresponding proportion to the number deplorables he can swindle with his self-serving lies.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Trump-Fluffing Network OAN Loses Appeal of Defamation Lawsuit Against Rachel Maddow

Posted by on August 18, 2021 at 11:31 am. 2 Comments :

In September of 2019, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was sued by the network that is America’s most worshipful mouthpiece for Donald Trump and radical right politics, One America News (OAN). The suit charged Maddow with defamation because she accurately reported the network’s association with Russian connected media. From the start it was a meritless case that had no hope of success.

Donald Trump, OAN

OAN’s lawsuit was triggered by a segment on Maddow’s program that revealed that an OAN correspondent, Kristian Rouz, also reported for the Kremlin owned and operated network, Sputnik. Maddow correctly observed that…

“In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda. Their on-air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government.”

In May 2020, the case was thrown out by a U.S. District judge who ruled that “there was no set of facts that could support a claim for defamation based on Maddow’s statement.” In support of that opinion the judge noted that OAN never actually alleged that the facts were defamatory or even that they were in dispute. The ruling affirmed Maddow’s protections under the Constitution’s First Amendment, stating that her commentary consisted of allowable opinion based on truthful and verifiable information.

Now OAN has lost their appeal of that ruling in a federal appeals court. What’s more, OAN has been ordered to pay $250,000 to MSNBC for legal fees. According to the Daily Beast…

“Fringe right-wing network One America News lost the appeal of its defamation suit against MSNBC and star host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, with a panel upholding a previous federal court ruling against OAN that required them to pay $250,000 of the defendants’ legal fees.

“OAN, owned by Herring Networks, initially sued Maddow for $10 million in July 2019 after the MSNBC star said on her show that the Trump-boosting network is “paid Russian propaganda,” calling her remarks ‘malicious and utterly false.'”

Why OAN ever sought to file this suit in the first place is curious. They knew that their “reporter” was a Russian Sputnik stooge. They knew that Maddow merely reported that fact. And considering the torrent of falsehoods that are broadcast on OAN everyday, you would think they they would be hesitant to draw attention to their unsavory relationship with Russian shills.

Furthermore, OAN has been disseminating Russian propaganda in their regular programming by latching on to Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him. That’s precisely the same narrative that Russia uses to undermine faith in American democracy. Their extremism has gone so far as to actually call for the execution of Trump critics.

This failed lawsuit by OAN is not their only legal tribulation. They are also being sued by Dominion voting Systems for defamation in a multibillion dollar case that includes Fox News as a defendant.

OAN is well aware of the legal jeopardy they face, as they demonstrated when they ran a hysterical “disclaimer” prior to a program featuring the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, asserting that he had “Absolute Proof” of election fraud. He didn’t. And yet, OAN is still embracing Lindell and Trump and their election lies. This is going to cost them bigly before it’s through.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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