Here’s Why The Fed Rate Cut Makes Trump ‘Very Happy’ But Signals Trouble For America

Posted by on March 15, 2020 at 6:14 pm. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump joined his Coronavirus Task Force for their press briefing on Sunday. He took the podium and began his remarks by saying that “I think we have some great things to talk about.” That’s a bizarre opening for a briefing where medical experts are about to disclose how many more Americans are infected and dead, and how much worse it’s going to get before it gets better.

Donald Trump, Stock Market

The reason Trump could start off so upbeat is that he wasn’t there to talk about the coronavirus. He immediately launched into the news that the Federal Reserve Board just announced an emergency cut in the interest rate and the intention to purchase up to &700 billion of treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities (quantitative easing). For much of his presidency, Donald Trump has been railing against the Fed for not being a mindless functionary that obeys his every command (like his incompetent Cabinet and the GOP jellyfish in Congress). What he obviously doesn’t understand is that there is a reason that the FED was designed as an independent agency that is insulated from pressure by the White House. Their objectives are often not aligned. Nevertheless, he was giddy about this rate cut and burst into celebration (video below):

“I’ll start by discussing the Federal Reserve. As you know, it just happened ten minutes ago, but to me, it makes me very happy. And I want to congratulate the Federal Reserve. For starters, they’ve lowered fed rate from what it was, which was 1 to 1.25 and it’s been lowered down to 0 or 0.25. […] That’s really great for our country. It’s something that we’re very happy, I have to say this, I’m very happy.”

Trump has good reason to be happy. Contrary to his thoroughly bogus branding, Trump is failed businessman who has racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, much of it with variable-rate loans. When he took office in 2017 he was the most indebted president in history, owing more than $350 million to Deutsche Bank alone. That debt is expensive to service. But when interest rates go down, so do the costs of servicing debt. Bloomberg reports that prior rate increases “may raise President Donald Trump’s cumulative cost from the U.S. central bank’s hikes since his inauguration to $6 million per year.”

So Trump has a distinct personal financial benefit when interests rates decline. He also seeks a political benefit due to rate cuts artificially (and temporarily) goosing the stock market. That’s something he has been relying on to advance his reelection prospects. He often uses the market as a gauge for the health of the economy. That’s a viewpoint that only someone utterly ignorant about these matters could hold. The performance of the stock market only tells you what institutional investors think about the valuation of equities, which fluctuate independent of the broader economy. The economy, on the other hand, is comprised of many other factors such as consumption, employment, wages, trade, and inflation.

Along with his joyful reception for the rate cut, Trump also made a prediction that “People in the market should be very thrilled.” Maybe not. Shortly after the announcement was made the Dow Jones futures took a dive, forecasting an opening decline of more than 1,000 points on Monday morning. That’s because investors recognize that the Fed’s decision to make this emergency cut is confirmation that there is economic trouble on the horizon. [UPDATE: Trump’s foolish craving for a rate cut and quantitative easing didn’t produce the results he hoped for or predicted. The market opened sharply down Monday, dropping as much 2,500 points]

Trump’s slaphappy elation notwithstanding, professionals understand that rate cuts are a reaction to negative economic conditions. It could mean that we are headed downhill. Home sales, wage stagnation, depressed treasuries, illiquid credit, and the exploding debt, are all indicators that generally forecast a recession or worse. Which explains why futures have cratered in the few hours since the announcement. And little of this has anything to do with COVID-19. These economic realities were in place before the virus began to spread. It was just a trigger and an accelerant.

As usual, the people who would be hurt most by that would be the lower and middle income families whose savings would deplete and whose jobs would disappear. The rich would suffer a decline in their net worth, but would remain rich and well positioned to profit when the economy turns around. That is a built-in inequity in our economic system that advantages the wealthy by design. And Trump is purposefully exploiting it for personal financial and political gain, without the least bit of consideration for the harm it will cause to millions of working Americans. Even worse, he’s celebrating it.

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

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WTF? Trump-Fluffer Devin Nunes Tells Fox News that ‘It’s a Great Time to Go Out’

Posted by on March 15, 2020 at 11:43 am. 1 Comments :

For several months now, Donald Trump has been downplaying the seriousness of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. He has said that it would miraculously disappear; that it was just one guy from China; that there was nothing to worry about; and that it was totally under control. The facts, medical experts, and common sense all tell us that none of that is (or was) true.

Donald Trump, Devin Nunes

Throughout the same period of time, Fox News has supported Trump’s reckless and self-serving negligence. While most American are taking precautions to avoid infecting themselves and others, Fox News is continuing to promote activities that will not only put people’s lives at risk, it will exacerbate the severity of the health crisis that is sweeping the nation and the world.

Another example of Fox’s irresponsibility was on display during a segment of Maria Bartiromo’s program. She interviewed the utterly corrupt Trump bootlicker, Rep. Devin Nunes, wherein he gave this ill-considered advice to Fox News viewers and the American people:

“I will just say, one of the things you can do — if you’re healthy, you and your family, it’s a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant — Likely you can get in easily.”

That could not possibly be more ignorant and dangerous at this perilous time for our country. And it is completely contrary to what the healthcare professionals are saying. Even those who are leading Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force like renowned immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci:

“I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing.”

It appears that Nunes and Fox News are deliberately trying to get Americans killed. And they are doing it to advance the political interests of Trump. It has already been observed that his trivialization of this crisis was intended to help his reelection prospects. And these harmful remarks by Nunes come just one day after Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt told Fox News viewers that “It’s actually the safest time to fly.”

As if that weren’t enough, Trump himself tweeted this on Sunday morning:

So now the President is happily recounting his gathering of sycophants at the White House. Never mind that he is also contradicting the advice by doctors to engage in “social distancing,” something that Trump bizarrely tweeted on Saturday in all-caps.

Furthermore, there is significant risk of contracting the coronavirus by being in close proximity to Trump and his entourage. While he just announced that he tested negative for the virus, his record of rampant, pathological lying causes many people to have reasonable doubts that anything he says is true.

What’s more, it has just been reported that a third person has tested positive for COVID-19 who was a guest at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. That means that there are more confirmed cases of coronavirus at Mar-a-Lago than in seven states. Perhaps they should consider shutting it down. And then maybe the White House as well. You can’t be too safe.

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


Fox News Warns Their Employees About COVID-19, While Lying to Their Viewers

Posted by on March 14, 2020 at 11:03 am. 6 Comments :

After nearly two months of rapidly growing infection rates, anxiety, and fatalities, Donald Trump has finally declared a national emergency due to COVID-19 (the coronavirus). This declaration is both an acknowledgement that the problem is far more serious than he has previously let on, and an inadvertent confession that he was wrong to trivialize the all too apparent risks in the first place.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

However, Trump’s press conference continued to paint an unrealistically rosy scenario wherein everything would soon be fine due to the “perfectly” implemented response by his administration. Trump spent much of the presser praising himself and falsely smearing his predecessor, President Obama. Never mind that the Obama administration quickly declared a health emergency at the outset of the H1N1 (swine Flu) virus, and tested a million Americans the first month. It’s been two months since the first reported case of COVID-19, but Trump just got around to declaring an emergency and only about 10,000 Americans have been tested.

RELATED: Trump’s Flagrant Coronavirus Lies Are Turning His Supporters Into Carriers

The coverage of Trump’s declaration by his State TV news outlet (aka Fox News) was predictably sparkling with unflinching adoration and praise. This required a significant turnabout in their editorial stance considering that Fox News had been staunchly supporting Trump’s prior insistence that the coronavirus wasn’t a really a problem at all. For weeks Trump lied (video below) about there being only a handful of cases and that the number was going down. He assured the public that the whole thing would miraculously disappear in short order. And Fox News backed him up a hundred percent. But now that Trump has conceded that this situation requires an emergency declaration, Fox News has flipped their position in tandem with the President’s.

That position, however, is confusing, and perhaps deliberately so. While Trump did declare a national emergency, he continued to speak optimistically about how quickly his “flawless” management of the crisis would result in its timely conclusion. In other words, there is still nothing to worry about. Naturally, Fox News parroted that positivity. On many of its programs the slant was toward how confident the American people should be that Trump would would guide us all to safety. There was little of the caution that the rest of the media is encouraging.

For instance, Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt told viewers that “It’s actually the safest time to fly.” This, while medical experts are advising people to avoid non-essential travel such as long plane trips. And that’s especially true for those over 65, which is the bulk of Fox’s audience. Additionally, Trish Regan said that it’s all a Democratic hoax to impeach the President. That’s similar to Trump’s “shadow” chief of staff Sean Hannity’s take that pegged Democrats as the real threat, rather than the virus:

“Since the beginning, all they’ve done is use the virus, politicize the virus to bludgeon President Trump. All the same people who have done the same thing for three straight years. … Russia, Russia. Ukraine, Ukraine. And impeach, impeach. Now, corona, corona.”

What’s most disturbing about this is that, while Fox News is virtually encouraging risky behavior for their viewers, they are giving completely different advice to their employees. A memo that was sent by Fox’s CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace told staffers to…

“…cut back on studio bookings and to expect possible programming changes as a result of precautions being taken against the spread of coronavirus.”

And furthermore…

“Fox News told producers and bookers to rely more on remote interviews or interviews conducted via Skype; to cancel all in-person meetings; and to limit vendors for entering the building. Earlier this week, Fox News canceled the in-studio audience for its ‘Greg Gutfeld Show’ on Saturday nights and said it would stop doing a live-audience show for ‘Fox & Friends’ that had been taking place about once every month.”

That’s good advice that is consistent with the guidance given by medical experts. Many companies are instituting similar precautions. But while that’s good enough for the Fox staffers, it isn’t what Fox is telling their own viewers. And that isn’t just the view of outsiders and critics of the network. A Fox producer told CNN’s Brian Stelter that…

“The attempt to deflect and blame the media and Democrats from Trish Regan, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Jesse Watters, and Greg Gutfeld — instead of addressing the coronavirus — is really irresponsible and hazardous to our viewers.”

The stark difference between Fox’s internal personnel guidance and their editorial policy is indicative of their political biases. It also demonstrates that their concerns for their audience (which is largely made up of vulnerable seniors) is focused more on pro-Trump propaganda and advancing his reelection prospects, than on protecting their health and welfare. Which, not surprisingly, is exactly what Trump himself is focused on. That’s why he has failed to implement broad-based testing and continues to understate the still very serious risks.

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


Trump is Patient Zero: His National Emergency Ignores His Own Role as a Risk Factor

Posted by on March 13, 2020 at 1:02 pm. 3 Comments :

After more than two months of slow-walking and trivialization, Donald Trump is finally taking the perils of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak more seriously. The declaration of a national emergency is not only an acknowledgement of the potential threat posed by the virus, but also an implicit admission that his previous approach was pitifully ineffective and even dangerous.

Donald Trump

While it is long past time to begin treating this as the pandemic that it is, Trump is still missing some critical aspects that can have a profound impact. Notably, Trump is setting a terrible example for personal behavior in the midst of a viral outbreak. Despite having been in close proximity to people known to have tested positive for COVID-19, Trump continues to refuse to self-quarantine, or even be tested. His first exposure occurred at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) a couple of weeks ago. That resulted in several Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz, self-quarantining. More recently Trump met with the Prime Minister of Brazil and his press secretary, Fabio Wajngarten, who has tested positive.

Under any other circumstances, someone with the exposure Trump has had would voluntarily terminate his contacts with others. The possibility that he was infected would make such contacts too dangerous to continue, not just for those persons, but everyone they encounter afterward. That’s precisely how viral pandemics spread. Trump is also putting his senior staff and other government officials at risk. Imagine how that could affect the nation if numerous people responsible for critical government management were simultaneously sidelined.

Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health is a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force. On Friday he told told Willie Geist of MSNBC that anyone who had the interactions Trump has had should isolate themselves for two weeks. Dr. Fauci also told Congress that the Trump administration’s testing protocols are “a failing.”

So why would Trump so brazenly reject the guidance provided by every medical expert? Perhaps because it’s consistent with his prior attempts to diminish the severity of the outbreak. He has stubbornly insisted that there really isn’t much of a problem at all. As the virus was spreading, Trump said that there were few victims and the number was going down. He told the nation that it would simply go away. And he recklessly compared it the common flu. Never mind that the fatality rate is 300 times higher for the COVID-19. His purpose was to shield himself from criticism while blaming Democrats for inciting panic and conspiring to use the crisis to hurt him politically.

Not surprisingly, that is exactly the same purpose that has been driving reporting on Fox News. Everyone from Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham to Trish Regan to Lou Dobbs to the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, have been downplaying the risks while hyping the alleged politicization by Democrats. And both Fox and Trump have been frantically shifting blame to others and falsely criticizing the Obama administration for it’s handling of the H1N1 virus in 2009. What that has to do with the current crisis is obviously just a dodge to attack Trump’s perennial nemesis. For the record, Obama declared a health emergency in the first month of the H1N1 outbreak and tested a million Americans. Trump has tested only about 10,000 people in more than two months.

Trump has been actively seeking to keep reports of infections and fatalities low in order to avoid publicity that makes him look bad and adversely affect his reelection prospects. He even said that he opposed allowing Americans from a cruise ship to disembark because it would increase virus stats. What’s more, the Trump administration refused to the use the COVID-19 test developed by the World Health Organization. These actions are reported to have taken to tamp down the numbers. This, of course, delayed testing in the U.S. by crucial weeks. Trump is clearly more worried about his PR than human lives.

There are a lot of things that the administration can do now to address this crisis and protect the American people. Congress is working on bipartisan legislation to help workers, businesses, and healthcare professionals. But Trump’s bragging and paying tribute to himself is not among them. The virus doesn’t care about his narcissistic rambling.

However, a simple thing Trump can do would be to follow the advice of his own experts. He needs to immediately self-quarantine to prevent further viral infections. And he needs to be tested to give confidence to the nation that he hasn’t become infected himself. He needs to do these things for all of the reasons that healthcare experts have enumerated. But he also needs to do them to set an example for the nation and the world. His obstinance is irrational, counterproductive, and childish. In other words, so very Trumpian.

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


After a Plea to ‘Stop the Partisanship’ Trump Unleashes Partisan Attacks

Posted by on March 12, 2020 at 3:33 pm. 5 Comments :

On Wednesday evening, Donald Trump delivered an Oval Office address intended to inform and calm the public on the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. His demeanor was strikingly dour as he clumsily read his remarks from a Teleprompter. It is hardly comforting when a president sounds and looks sick while talking about a spreading sickness. To make matters worse, he repeatedly made comments that were untrue, which had to be corrected afterward.

Donald Trump

If Trump thought this speech would assuage the anxiety of nervous Americans, he was pitifully mistaken. He failed to offer a comprehensive plan to respond to the growing threat of widespread infections. His proposals mainly centered on travel restrictions and financial relief. And in that regard, his approach was not well received. During and after the speech the Dow Jones futures nosedived 800 points. And on Thursday the markets suffered an historic 10% decline, falling more than 2,300 points.

There were efforts in the speech to unite the country and seek common ground to face this challenge together. “We must put politics aside,” Trump said, “stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family.” That’s straight out of the Politician’s Book of Platitudes. And coming from Trump, who has distinguished himself as the most hostile and politically divisive president in memory, it seemed especially disingenuous. Not surprisingly, it took him less than twelve hours to abandon his calls for inter-party harmony.

In a pair of tweets Trump bitterly attacked Democrats that he regards as his natural enemies. In the first he complained that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn’t sufficiently deferential to his crisis strategy:

Note that Trump isn’t expressing his own opinion here, but that of his mouthpieces on Fox News. And in their notorious ignorance and dishonesty, they misrepresented Pelosi’s positions. When Pres. Obama proposed a payroll tax cut to remedy the economic collapse of 2008, it made sense because it would encourage people to go out and spend money. In today’s crisis that would be useless. We don’t have a problem with people not being incentivized to consume. The problem is that they are being advised to avoid markets, restaurants, entertainment, etc., where they would otherwise spend freely. So a few extra bucks in their paycheck would just sit in the bank. In the meantime, the Social Security Trust that payroll taxes fund would go into debt.

The other tweet that Trump posted reached back to his obsession with having been investigated and impeached:

This seems like a inopportune time to reanimate this monstrous conspiracy theory. Of course, Trump was never the victim of a “coup.” He was lawfully impeached according to the rules set forth in the Constitution, a document that Trump is woefully unfamiliar with. However, his anger over having been held accountable for his criminal behavior is still seething. And at a time that he was ostensibly seeking unity to combat the coronavirus, he chose instead to unload on his Democratic foes once again. There are even reports that Trump is still so bitter and hurt that he can’t bring himself to negotiate in good faith with Pelosi:

“Two senior Trump administration officials described a president who, out of an intense bitterness toward the House Speaker, has shuddered at the prospect of being in the same room with her during the ongoing public-health crisis and economic reverberations.”

What’s more, Trump answered a few questions from the press during a White House meeting with the Prime Minister of Ireland. When asked about the failure of his efforts to implement virus testing, he defensively shot back at his old nemesis, Barack Obama (video below):

“If you go back and look at the swine flu and what happened with the swine flu, you will see how many people died and how actually nothing was done for such a long period of time as people were dying all over the place. We’re doing it the opposite. We’re very much ahead of everything.”

Trump has a deep seated and deranged need to make everything a competition with Obama. In this case, as in pretty much all others, he is factually wrong. Obama declared a health emergency in April of 2009, shortly after the H1N1 virus became a known problem. He later declared a national emergency to free up additional federal funding and other resources. Trump’s lies were drawn directly from his pal Sean Hannity of Fox News.

This is how Trump behaves just hours after pleading for national unity and an end to partisanship. It is typical of his belligerent character and his malignant narcissism. Combined with his paranoia and his thirst for vengeance, it poses an imminent threat to the welfare of the nation at a perilous time. America has weathered bigger storms than this, but it has never had such an ignorant, sociopath at the helm. Our strengths are sufficient to overcome the weaknesses of one incompetent leader. But the sooner he is removed from office, the better off all of us will be.

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


Trump’s Paranoia Has Insiders Warning That ‘He’s Definitely Melting Down Over This’

Posted by on March 11, 2020 at 2:40 pm. 2 Comments :

The nation has been mired in uncertainty for several weeks now due to the (now official) COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Americans are worried about their health and the health of their loved ones. And the economy is in a tailspin that was triggered by the pandemic news. But one thing that has been confirmed during this crisis is that Donald Trump is the most ignorant, self-obsessed, ill-prepared, and insensitive leader this country has ever had.

Donald Trump

While most Americans are struggling to cope with the rush of bad news, Trump is struggling to lather himself with praise, diminish the risks, and cast blame on his numerous perceived enemies. His desperation is unmistakable as his outbursts become ever more incoherent.

On Wednesday morning he fired off a flurry of panic-tweets that put these fears on display. In one tweet he bragged that “America is the Greatest Country in the world,” as if that sort of chest-thumping would frighten off the virus. In another he wrote that he’s working to “create a vaccine,” which in reality will take 12-18 months. In yet another, he blamed the Democrats in Congress for politicizing the virus, which is pure projection. But perhaps the most bizarre and revealing of his tweets was this:

Notice that Trump doesn’t bother explain what he’s whining about? He just unleashes his hostility and expects his glassy-eyed disciples to nod their heads in unison and agree. For the record, Trump is referring to this Vanity Fair article by Gabriel Sherman: “He’s Definitely Melting Down Over This”: Trump, Germaphobe in Chief, Struggles to Control the Covid-19 Story.” The article cites several sources within the administration who express concerns about Trump’s faltering mental state. They worry that he is losing faith in his own team. For example, he just fired chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and replaced him with former Rep. Mark Meadows (who is now self-quarantined because he came in contact with someone who tested positive at CPAC).

Trump’s psychosis prevents him from being able to deal with any situation wherein he doesn’t feel he is in control. And, of course, he cannot control a virus. So in public he resorts to frantic boasting and overt lies about how brilliant and effective he is. But in private he is said to be harboring acute paranoid fears. For example, Sherman’s sources tell him that…

“Stories about Trump’s coronavirus fears have spread through the White House. Last week Trump told aides he’s afraid journalists will try to purposefully contract coronavirus to give it to him on Air Force One, a person close to the administration told me. The source also said Trump has asked the Secret Service to set up a screening program and bar anyone who has a cough from the White House grounds. ‘He’s definitely melting down over this,’ the source said.”

So Trump thinks journalists are plotting to assassinate him with a virus. It’s hard to convey just how insane that is. For one thing, couldn’t they have done that two years ago? Trump is coming undone. Even his attack on Vanity Fair is evidence of derangement. However, it’s derangement that he has suffered from for years. This isn’t the first time that Trump has predicted the death of Vanity Fair:

    Oct 3, 2011: Sadly, Vanity Fair is a rapidly dying magazine.
    Apr 9, 2012: Vanity Fair Magazine, which used to be one of my favorites, is failing badly.
    May 24, 2013: Read this & you will understand why Vanity Fair is going down the tubes.
    Dec 8, 2013: Vanity Fair Magazine won’t be around much longer, it’s really in bad shape!
    Dec 28, 2017: Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs.

And it’s not just Vanity Fair. Trump has predicted the end of the New York Times on 39 separate occasions (Here’s one example). And then there’s this:

    Jun 26, 2019: CNN is dead as a door nail (no credibility), and MSNBC is dying fast.
    Dec 12, 2019: Fake News like CNN & MSNBC are dying.
    Dec 14, 2019: Both Commiecast MSNBC & Fake News CNN are watching their Ratings TANK. …. Don’t know why @FoxNews wants to be more like them? They’ll all die together.
    Jan 28, 2020: So, what the hell has happened to @FoxNews. Only I know! … Watch, this will be the beginning of the end for Fox.
    Feb 25, 2020: CNN & MSDNC are dying in the ratings!

At precisely the moment that America needs a steady hand guiding the course for the nation, we are stuck with a demonstrably demented character whose narcissism and paranoia are likely to result in far more misfortune than would otherwise be the case if a sane person were president. So for the time being the American people are going to have to rely on themselves and each other. Because the maniac occupying the White House is a basket case who can’t discern reality from the nightmares his mania manufactures. Good luck everyone.

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

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Callous Fox News Anchor is Cool with Seniors Dying from the Coronavirus

Posted by on March 10, 2020 at 2:59 pm. NO Comments :

Donald Trump’s mishandling the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak continues to reap tragic consequences. While infections and fatalities increase, Trump is still downplaying the risk and trying to blame his failures on Democrats. He even tweeted his thanks to Republicans in the Senate for passing a bill to provide funding for coronavirus related projects. Never mind that it was an $8 billion bill (Trump asked for only $2 billion) that was authored by Democrats, who provided the majority votes to pass it.

Go Fox Yourself

Considering the gravity of the issues at hand, the press is generally taking care to offer useful information and a realistic presentation of the facts, without causing undue alarm. However, on Fox News they have a different philosophy of journalistic responsibility. Predictably, they are serving as Trump’s mouthpiece to trivialize the matter so as not to negatively impact his polling and reelection prospects. and to both Trump and Fox News, those are the most important considerations.

To that end, Fox News anchor Ed Henry interviewed Florida’s Republican Senator Rick Scott. And from the outset it was clear that the segment was intended to prop up Trump’s management of the crisis. Henry prefaced his first question with a brazenly leading slant saying that he was just “adding this important context” (video below) …

“In your state there have been 18 cases of COVID-19, two people, sadly, have died, but both of those residents were elderly and had traveled internationally. So when you hear the context, it’s not quite as scary”

“Not quite as scary” to whom? Certainly seniors who travel would be shaken by these statistics. Henry is saying explicitly that the deaths of a few old folks don’t really matter, and the rest of the American people can comfortably ignore the loss of these doddering old coots. He apparently believes that fewer elders don’t really figure in the big picture. Just put it into context, and who really cares?

Let’s set aside the abhorrent insensitivity of Henry’s comments for a moment look at the sheer ignorance he is displaying. Henry is oblivious to the fact that the coronavirus can attack anyone. And even if the victims are younger and have stronger immune systems, they can pass it on to others with greater vulnerability, including children with respiratory ailments, young adults with diabetes, cancer patients, etc. And all of these potential victims likely have families that would be devastated by losing a loved one. So Henry also belittling the suffering of those indirectly affected.

Twenty-six Americans have already died from this budding pandemic. Over 700 have been diagnosed as infected. And considering that the U.S. is woefully lagging in testing, there could be thousands more. That could translate into hundreds more fatalities. Among those exposed (so far) are six members of congress, five of whom are Republicans. There may actually be a greater risk for the GOP and Trump supporters due to Trump’s purposeful and self-serving deceit. Trump himself interacted with someone infected at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And let’s not forget that he is one of those disposable elderly folks. As are the majority of Fox News viewers.

Henry’s gross disregard for the lives of seniors is a new low for Fox. There is simply no excuse for this sort of callous thoughtlessness. But for Fox News it is far too common. They have never been especially concerned about humane policies, whether addressing healthcare, taxes, climate change, immigration, or guns. Now they are simply fulfilling their mission to serve up Trump-fluffing propaganda without regard for the truth or the well being of the American people. Because that’s the position of Trump. And Fox is, as always, committed to echoing Dear Leader’s cruel and inhumane approach to governance.

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


Fox News and Trump are Infecting America with Lies About Viruses and Economics

Posted by on March 9, 2020 at 1:51 pm. 8 Comments :

Just at the time the country needs a steady hand to guide it through difficult times, we are unfortunately stuck with Donald Trump, an ignorant, narcissistic, sociopath, who is more concerned with his public image than with the lives of the American people. A budding pandemic is threatening to engulf the nation, and simultaneously collapse an economy that is already on thin ice.

Donald Trump, Fox News

Trump has been mishandling the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak from the first days it was identified. He has stubbornly tried to downplay the seriousness of its impact on both people and economics. And he continues to this day trying to dismiss the risks that we are facing. Especially among his own supporters who are the most vulnerable to his alternative facts.

On Monday morning he posted several tweets intended to pacify the public with phony platitudes. In one tweet Trump compared the coronavirus to the flu. “At this moment,” he tweeted, “there are 546 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” Having thought about it, it’s apparent that Trump can’t do math, because that data shows that the coronavirus, which is just beginning to spread, is 200 times more lethal than the flu. That isn’t exactly comforting.

Of course, Fox News has Trump’s back. They are promoting equally as troubling distortions of reality that are intended more to boost Trump’s polling than to protect people’s lives. Devoted Trump-fluffer Jeanine Pirro unleashed an extended rant that also used flu data to diminish the potential harm from the coronavirus (video below):

“Now they say the mortality rate for coronavirus is higher than the flu. But consider, though, that we have a flu vaccine, and yet in 2019, 16,000 Americans died from the flu. Imagine if we did not have the flu vaccine the flu would be a pandemic. So all the talk about coronavirus being so much more deadly doesn’t reflect reality. Without a vaccine, the flu would be far more deadly.”

How does someone this stupid get their own TV show? The mortality rate for the flu would not increase were there no vaccine. Pirro seems think that the mortality rate is based on the percentage of deaths from within the entire national population. Actually, the base is just those infected. So without a vaccine there would surely be more deaths, but they would likely occur at the same percentage rate. Pirro is also assuming that the coronavirus isn’t going to infect more people than the flu. At this time there is no way to predict that. And the fact remains that the mortality rate for the corona virus remains far higher than for the flu.

As for Trump, he is spinning furiously to avoid any negative repercussions from the dramatic drop in the stock market. He is alternately blaming it on coronavirus panic, the media, oil prices, Democrats, and probably Hillary Clinton’s emails. He’s frantic because he knows that a faltering economy will be the death knell for his reelection hopes. But he was never a particularly good market analyst. Just two weeks ago Trump tweeted that…

Everything about the tweet is utterly and painfully wrong. The coronavirus was hardly “very much under control.” on February 24. There were only a handful of confirmed diagnoses – and zero deaths – in the U.S. then. There over 600 known infections now, and 26 deaths.

Trump’s remarks about the stock market were triggered by a 1,000 point drop that day. But if anyone took Trump’s advice and acted on what he thought was a market that looked good, they took a considerable beating. The market has declined another 3,500 points since Trump’s grossly miscast, optimistic tweet. In fact, the market has declined to a level last seen in November of 2017. So anyone who invested in the last two years has lost money. And the more recent their investments, the more they lost.

With the challenges facing the nation today, it would helpful if we didn’t have to rely on a president who has been documented lying more than 16,000 times. It would also be nice if we didn’t have a propaganda outlet like Fox News covering up Trump’s failures, falsehoods, and mental infirmities. Getting through the next few months would be hard enough under normal circumstances. Remember “normal circumstances?” Yeah, those were the days.

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


Trump’s Lawsuits Against the Media Could Produce an Avalanche of Evidence – Against Him

Posted by on March 8, 2020 at 12:40 pm. 5 Comments :

This election year has seen norms in political activity be swept away by Donald Trump’s continued rejection of decency and honesty as he tweets his way through a failing presidency. The observations that Trump is either pitifully ignorant and/or severely demented are impossible to dismiss. His symptoms range from bizarre assertions about windmill cancer and toilet flushing, to intense paranoia, delusions of grandeur, and authoritarian aspirations.

Donald Trump, Constitution

In recent weeks Trump has also been escalating his war against the media that he repeatedly refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” which he did once again Sunday morning. Now Trump has set out on a path of litigation that is rooted in hostility and vengeance against the constitutional protections of a free press. This is behavior that reeks of fear, desperation, and the all-consuming mania of an unbridled persecution complex. It began with the announcement a week and a half ago that his campaign is suing his perennial nemesis (in his diseased mind), the New York Times for defamation. And in the short time since then, Trump has announced additional lawsuits against a couple of other perceived foes, the Washington Post and CNN.

Virtually every legal analyst who has commented on these lawsuits considers them not only frivolous, but dangerous. They are intended to inhibit free expression and punish those who dare to criticize Dear Leader. It’s a pure dictatorship play by a president who has repeatedly expressed his admiration for tyrants like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. Each of these suits explicitly attack published opinions articles, not hard news. For instance, these are the specific citation in Trump’s legal complaints that he is alleging are defamatory:

New York Times
“There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions. The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo.”

Washington Post
The lawsuit cites a June 13 opinion piece by Greg Sargent that said Trump “tried to conspire with” a “sweeping and systematic” attack by Russia against the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It also cites a June 20 opinion piece by Paul Waldman that asked “who knows what sort of aid Russia and North Korea will give to the Trump campaign, now that he has invited them to offer their assistance?”

CNN
“The Trump campaign assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table.”

All of these articles are expressing opinions that are rational, fact-based, and affirmed by authoritative sources. Some are even affirmed by Trump himself. After all, he did ask Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails on national television. What’s more, an extensive investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller found that “Trump and his campaign welcomed & encouraged Russian interference.”

To this day, Trump continues to openly solicit political assistance from hostile foreign countries. And his actions prove that he is working in concert with our adversaries to boost his reelection prospects.

While Trump’s wrathful litigiousness is an assault on press freedom, and has an unambiguous chilling effect on journalists, there is a silver lining to his abhorrent conduct. Should any of these lawsuits ever see a courtroom, Trump will be obligated to comply with discovery orders to turn over documents relevant to his complaint. So the defendants can require him to produce materials that he has been refusing to provide to prosecutors and investigators in Congress. And should he do so, he will almost certainly reveal incriminating evidence that could subject him to criminal indictments.

Consequently, it is highly unlikely that Trump will pursue these lawsuits. He may try to use them for publicity for awhile, and to run up the legal fees for the defendants. But in the end he will probably run away (or try to), as he has done throughout his life. However, he may not be able to escape if the defendants countersue and seek a declarative judgment asserting their rights under the First Amendment. In which case, he might still be required to submit to discovery and even testimony. So even though his intentions are loathsome and anti-American, this could still wind up being kinda fun.

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


POLL: Trump’s Flagrant Coronavirus Lies Are Turning His Supporters Into Carriers

Posted by on March 7, 2020 at 10:42 am. 3 Comments :

The latest news about the spreading coronavirus crisis is producing a rather schizophrenic response from Donald Trump and his administration. On one hand he is desperately trying to suppress accurate information in order to prevent a negative impact on his public approval ratings and damage his prospects for reelection. On the other hand he is scheduling ever more public appearances with his virus task force in an effort to tamp down panic.

Donald Trump Virus

The problem with Trump’s Anti-Coronavirus, All Is Well, National Tour is that he continues to disseminate falsehoods regarding the spread of the virus and his pitifully ineffective response to it. On Friday he visited the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) where he dealt out numerous lies about the alleged containment and availability of testing. On the latter he rambled nearly incoherently, conflating fake virus data with the excuses he used to justify his attempts to solicit political dirt on Joe Biden from Ukraine:

“They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful. Anybody that needs a test gets a test. […] and the tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect, right”

Seriously? Trump is actually trying to employ the documented lies he told – that resulted in his impeachment – to validate his patently false claims that testing is widely available. In other words, he’s using his conviction to prove his innocence. But according to his virus team, those tests will still not be available in sufficient quantities for weeks. However, if they were to become available, the first place to distribute them should be at Trump’s cult rallies that are filled with supporters who believe his assertions that there is really nothing to worry about. As News Corpse noted last week…

“This campaign of trivialization is insuring that it is Trump’s supporters who are the least informed about the reality of this budding pandemic. They are, therefore, the most likely to dismiss the risks and behave in ways that could escalate the incidence of infection. So while supporters of Democratic candidates may gather in public, they are likely to be heeding common sense advice to wash their hands, use sanitizers, cough or sneeze safely, and even stay home if not feeling well. But the Trump cultists who aren’t buying the seriousness of the outbreak, will be more likely to ignore such precautions.”

A new poll by Reuters/Ipsos confirms the potential risks of associating with Trumpists. As a result of the President’s dangerously optimistic pronouncements, his supporters are less likely to adjust their behavior to conform with the recommendations of medical experts.

“Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to say the coronavirus poses an imminent threat to the United States, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this week. And more Democrats than Republicans say they are taking steps to be prepared, including washing their hands more often or limiting their travel plans.”

This makes the possibility of exposure and transmission far greater among Trump supporters than other Americans. And the places where Trump’s followers gather in the biggest numbers is, of course, at his cult rallies. Trump was asked on Friday whether he was concerned about the potential risk of bringing people together for these events. He replied callously that it “doesn’t bother me at all, and it doesn’t bother them at all.”

Well, so long as Trump and his disciples are not “bothered,” everything should be okay. No one needs to worry that they might be a breeding ground for a pandemic viral infection that they could spread to their families, co-workers, neighbors, and even strangers at shopping malls, movie theaters, churches, etc.

Although, it is a bit comforting that despite Trump’s reckless indifference to spreading disease at his self-serving rallies, he presently doesn’t have any scheduled. It’s impossible to know whether that is because he secretly is concerned about contaminating his fans (or more likely, himself), or he just hasn’t settled on the specifics of his itinerary going forward. But in any case, it would still be wise to avoid any large assemblies of Trump supporters who aren’t taking common sense precautions because Trump, in his infinite wisdom, told them they don’t need to.

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