Sean Hannity Faceplants with Ludicrous Charge that Anti-Trump Protesters are Racist

Posted by on June 18, 2019 at 1:00 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the favorite pastimes of right-wing propagandists is to try to deflect the well documented history of their racism by flipping the narrative and falsely accusing liberals of being prejudiced. It’s a futile exercise in deception considering that liberals are the champions of equality for all, while conservatives put up obstacles at every opportunity. It’s liberals who fight for civil rights, and Republicans who suppress everything from voting to jobs to education and more.

Sean Hannity, Fox News

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the primetime block on Fox News is a virtual White Power Broadcasting service. It’s triumvirate of Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity are beloved by America’s confederacy of white nationalists and neo-Nazis. The fact that that doesn’t make them (or Fox) nervous tells you all you need to know about them.

Leading this pack of weasels is Sean Hannity. He is also one of those who most frequently accuses Democrats of the abhorrent behavior that conservatives are known for. And that occurred again on Monday night’s episode of his program. In order to disrupt some anti-Trump rallies, Hannity sent Fox contributor Lawrence Jones to see if he could goad some innocent people into saying things that Hannity could take out of context. But he failed miserably, so he had to bend some comments into absurd misrepresentations of reality (video below). He began by saying that…

“There were some moments, vile, racist, vicious, horrible. Two men actually approached our own Lawrence Jones and one told him to go back to Fox News where there’s ‘more cotton for you to pick.’ [and another said] ‘He’ll tell you to go back to Kenya next.'”

This is what Hannity thinks is vile and racist? Anyone with an elementary grasp of the English language can see that neither of those comments were directed at Jones. Telling someone to “go back to Fox News where there’s more cotton for you to pick,” is a criticism of Fox News as a figurative plantation where African-Americans are exploited. That is, when they aren’t being disrespected, insulted, and belittled. And the comment about going back to Kenya was obviously a sarcastic reference to the Birther movement that Hannity and Fox participated in, wherein they maligned President Obama as an un-American, illegitimate president. The protester who said it was clearly referring to Trump as the person who would tell Jones to go back to Kenya.

So the first comment was directed at the racism of Fox News, and the second was directed at the racism of Trump. How any of that could be construed as racism aimed at Jones is beyond imagination. But departures from reality are what Hannity specializes in.

Hannity further demonstrated that by rattling off a list of phony “accomplishments” that he said Trump had achieved for African-Americans. Then he asks why, with all of that, the black community doesn’t support him. To which Jones had a pretty good response. He said that Republicans haven’t been articulating their message and that “the President can make a turn if he goes into the community.” Which, of course, Trump has never done. Every one of his dozens of cult rallies have been in snow white communities and attended by overwhelmingly white devotees.

Hannity is suggesting that African-Americans who don’t support Trump are stupid and don’t understand what’s in their own best interests. He thinks that they should submit to the nearly all-white GOP to be their paternal caretakers. It’s a condescending attitude that is racist at its core. The reason African-Americans almost universally support Democrats is because they can see that it’s a party that embraces diversity, including in the ranks of their representatives and leadership. But conservatives are devoted to oppressing anyone that doesn’t look and think like them. And these stunts by Hannity only drive home that point with greater emphasis.

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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Fox and Friends Transforms Into the Official Trump Campaign Media Headquarters

Posted by on June 17, 2019 at 4:09 pm. NO Comments :

On Tuesday Donald Trump is “officially” launching his 2020 presidential reelection campaign. But like everything Trump does, it’s a phony stunt with a purpose wholly unrelated to what is advertised. In fact, Trump launched his reelection bid the day of his inauguration in 2017. The rally that Trump is planning in Orlando is just another opportunity to assemble his cult hordes and rant incoherently for two hours about Democrats, the press, and how awesome he thinks he is.

Fox News Friends

It’s no coincidence that this rally is taking place a week before the first Democratic primary debate, also in Florida. Trump is fond of stepping on the political events of others. It’s his campaign equivalent of photo-bombing. And he’s preparing for the big day by enlisting his State TV (aka Fox News) confederates in the promotion effort. To that end, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends booked Trump’s campaign press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany for a few minutes of uninterrupted Trump-fluffing (video below).

The segment began with a “sneak peek” at Trump’s first campaign ad for the 2020 cycle. It was predictably jam-packed with words and pictures that exalted Trump as the returning Messiah. Notably, the clip that Fox and Friends aired prominently displayed a number to send a text message to the Trump campaign. Then they silently re-played the same segment – with the text number showing – in two-thirds of the screen while interviewing McEnany.

Following the campaign video, Fox and Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt introduced McEnany, and asked her “What do you think?” That’s right. She asked the spokesperson for the Trump campaign what she thinks about the advertisement produced by the campaign. That’s the sort of hard-hitting “journalism” we’ve all come to expect from Fox News. And naturally, McEnany’s response was the typical snake oil patter of a dedicated StormTrumper. Without even bothering to reply as to what she thinks about the ad, McEnany veered into an attack on “the dozens of socialists running in the Democratic field.” Fill-in co-host Dan Bongino then weighed into to ask a probing question which he prefaced by saying that…

“The tax cuts worked, the economy’s booming, unemployment is at historic lows, red tape is being cut. But when you look at polls – I was reading an article a while ago from the New York Times – a lot of Americans don’t even believe they got a tax cut. Contrary to the data which says they did. Do we as Republicans need to do a better job of getting the message out, that this economy is due to a change from the older Obama liberal ways?”

What we have here is an outright declaration by a Fox “News” host that he and his colleagues are Republicans and are seeking advice from Trump’s press secretary on how to advance their shared political agenda. Not that we didn’t already know that, but they don’t often admit it on the air. The rest of Bongino’s “question” was really a thinly disguised campaign pitch for Trump that was littered with provable lies. Most notably that the American people are somehow ignorant of their own tax burdens. Actually, they know very well that Trump’s Tax Scam has hurt them while helping corporations and the wealthy.

Then Earhardt returned to the video’s text message number. Because, just like any other commercial, you can’t repeat that often enough. At this point Fox and Friends began to sound more like the Home Shopping Network for Trump. She queried McEnany saying…

Earhardt: At the bottom of that video we just saw it says to text “Trump” to [REDACTED]. What happens if you do that?”
McEnany: It’s really important. It allows us to update our data. We have the best data in the business, Ainsley. That means we know what doors to knock on. We’re going to be able to isolate the handful of the few million voters who will decide this election. Because of that text you allow us to update our data. You also get to be a Trump volunteer. What’s better than that?

So now Fox News is participating in refining the Trump campaign’s election databases and recruiting volunteers. What’s better than that? This was followed by co-host Steve Doocy raising the issue of Trump’s floundering poll numbers. He noted that “The story over the weekend was that the President is not doing very well in his internal polls.” That’s true, and after denying that these polls exist, Trump fired the pollsters suspected of leaking the data. McEnany waved it all off with some lazy and transparent spin. But what Doocy didn’t bother to mention was that there was another poll over the weekend with similarly bad news for Trump. That one was by Fox News itself, and it showed Trump losing to all five of the Democrats that they pitted against him.

This is just the beginning of the 2020 election cycle, and already Fox News is fully engaged in their role as the media arm of the Trump reelection effort. If anything, they are even less ashamed of exposing their partisanship than in previous cycles. If there were any justice, Fox News would be forced to declare itself a political operation and report its services as in-kind contributions to Trump’s campaign. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen because integrity at Fox News is as rare as it is in the candidate they are working for.

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


Holy Fox News Poll: Every Democrat Beats Trump, Also Trump Coordinated with Russia

Posted by on June 16, 2019 at 3:56 pm. 1 Comments :

There has been a lot going wrong for Donald Trump lately. Most of it due to his own incompetence and big mouth. He admitted that he would take dirt on on political opponents from hostile foreign governments. He accused his own White House counsel of perjury. He threatened an economic catastrophe if he isn’t reelected. And he even speculated about declaring himself Dictator-for-Life.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

So what more could go wrong for Trump after a week wherein he has made assholery a hallmark of his presidency? Well, he might want to cut back on consumption of his beloved Fox News. That’s because they just released a poll that has almost nothing but bad news for him. It’s funny how Trump rejects polls across the board until one says something nice about him. And that one is often Fox News. But now he will have to lump Fox in with all the other “Fake News” haters trying to destroy him.

It starts with his approval rating that Fox puts at a dismal 45 percent. Even worse, the breakdown of those numbers showed that only 21 percent strongly approve, while 41 percent strongly disapprove. And this comes the day after Trump celebrated the results of a bogus survey by the notoriously disreputable Rasmussen Reports, that showed a ridiculous 51 percent approval.

Additionally, the poll pitted Trump against the top five Democratic candidates and Trump lost to all of them: Biden/Trump: 49/39; Sanders/Trump: 49/40; Harris/Trump: 42/41; Warren/Trump: 43/41; Buttigieg/Trump: 41/40.

Quinnipiac just ran a similar poll with the same results. What’s more, Trump lashed out at reports about leaked results to his own internal polling that also showed him losing. He called both the reports and the polls fake news. But for some reason, he just fired those pollsters.

Fox News included a question in their poll that asked “What would your reaction be if Donald Trump were reelected president?” The answers were Enthusiastic/Pleased: 36 percent versus Displeased/Scared: 50 percent. They also asked “Do you think a politician can have low moral and ethical standards and still be a good leader?” By a 25 percent margin (35/60) they said resoundingly “NO.”

There was plenty of other bad news for Trump in this poll. For instance: Respondents say that Trump’s immigration efforts have “gone too far” (50%); they support the Dreamers (72%); they oppose Trump’s tariffs (52%); they oppose his border wall (55%); a plurality say that Trump’s tax reforms “benefit people with more money” (48%); And on whether Trump coordinated with Russia, 50 percent of voters say that he did.

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

Taken together, this is devastating news for Trump. Not only because the numbers themselves indicate how deeply unpopular he and his ideas are, but because this is from a source that he relies on for sycophantic bootlicking and positive reinforcement. Unfortunately for Trump, he can’t wave off this poll like he does all the others. He can’t accuse the source of being Trump-haters or denizens of the “Deep State.” And he’s going to have a hard time pretending that the 43 percent of American voters in this survey who say that he should be impeached are paid plants by George Soros. He’ll need a whole new level of self-deception to slog through this.


Aspiring Tyrant Trump Ponders Not Leaving White House, Accuses New York Times of Treason

Posted by on June 16, 2019 at 11:29 am. 2 Comments :

If it’s Sunday, it’s time for our regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm by the totally “stable genius” who is currently occupying what he thinks is the White Nationalist House. That’s right, Donald Trump is spending Father’s Day posting hostile attacks on anyone he doesn’t believe is sufficiently adoring. But not to worry, when he’s done he’s going golfing with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Sycophant), so his kids won’t have to suffer his repugnant company.

Donald Trump

In today’s episode of Trump’s Tweet Tirade, he is lashing out at the media, because not having done so since yesterday must be driving him crazy. And he is in a ripe mood that further illustrates the ravages of a mind consumed by paranoia and narcissism:

First of all, Trump’s proposal for a poll comparing his insults toward two nationally respected newspapers doesn’t really make any sense. A more interesting poll would be one that compares the honesty and deceitfulness of the press to Trump himself. Oh wait. Many polls have already been done on that and Trump comes out the loser every single time. The American people repeatedly say that they trust the media – whether it be the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, or any other news source polled – over our notoriously perfidious president.

It’s becoming a bit tedious to have to continually point out every time that Trump invokes Stalin to malign the press as “the enemy of the people.” But that’s just too grotesque an abuse of his position to let it go by. And speaking of abuse, Trump is also speculating about declaring himself Dictator-for-Life, just like his heroes Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un. It’s a sentiment that he has expressed before, and continues to be abhorrent and terrifying. And he is pursuing a common path among despots to assume power by attacking the press, and even accusing it of crimes punishable by death:

For the record, the Times actually consulted with Trump’s national security team prior to publishing their story on U.S. cyberattacks against Russia. They responded to Trump’s tweet saying that:

“Accusing the press of treason is dangerous. We described the article to the government before publication. As our story notes, President Trump’s own national security officials said there were no concerns.”

So they were assured that there was no reason to withhold the story on national security grounds. Apparently Trump didn’t bother to check with his own people before calling the Times treasonous. What’s more, Trump also claims that the story isn’t true. So then how could it be treason to report something that he’s saying didn’t happen?

If these remarks by Trump cause you to be concerned about the welfare of the nation, you aren’t alone. There is a growing movement to have Congress begin an impeachment inquiry. And the more Trump displays this kind of mental impairment and animosity to American principles and institutions (including admitting that he would take dirt on political opponents from foreign enemies), the more people who will demand that he be removed from office and prosecuted for his many obvious crimes. And the sooner the better for the sake of the nation – and the world.

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


Trump’s Narcissistic Delusions: He’s Bragging About Awful Polls and Threatening Armageddon

Posted by on June 15, 2019 at 11:15 am. 9 Comments :

Last week Donald Trump continued down a path of implicating himself in impeachable crimes. During an interview with ABC News he admitted that he would take dirt on a political opponent from a hostile foreign government, which is against the law. He also falsely accused his White House counsel, Don McGahn, of committing perjury, which is obstruction of justice. And he’s asserting that he has secret agreements with North Korea and Mexico, which are illegal if not ratified by Congress.

Donald Trump Messiah

Trump is nearly incapacitated by his fear of being held accountable for the crimes that he knows all too well he is guilty of. And this is causing him to become more desperate with each passing day. So now he is trying to find some comfort by cowering in the slimy warmth of the Trump-fluffing media that he relies on for emotional support. And they are cooperating by telling him he is beloved by the American people.

The only problem with that is that even their reassurances are pitifully weak. They come in the form of reports on polling of Trump’s approval. But those numbers are historically negative. Nevertheless, when they reach what are considered “highs” for Trump, he celebrates, even if they are dismally low in reality:

Two of those tweets cite the One America News Network (OANN), a struggling conservative outfit that is trying to appeal to the right-wingers who think that Fox News is a bastion of liberal propaganda. Trump begins by saying that “The latest polls find 51% of Americans approve of President Trump’s Job Performance.” But there is only one poll that has ever had him that high. It’s the notoriously disreputable Rasmussen poll that Trump hypes on a fairly regular basis. But even Rasmussen shows that Trump cannot sustain that level of support.

Then Trump finds joy in a report that a Democratic pollster said that his polling has been historically steady. That’s actually true. It’s been steadily horrible. He has never cracked 50 percent by any credible pollster and currently resides in the low forties by most surveys. And the report that he’s referring to is not complimentary to him. Which may be why he didn’t link to it. It says essentially that he’s in a rut where no good news helps him and no bad news hurts. In other words, his cult is still a glassy-eyed horde of blind devotees, but everyone else hates him.

Finally, Trump claims that his current polling is “even better than in 2016.” That’s just another lie by the lyingest president in history. His approval ratings in 2016, if anything, were slightly higher than where they are now. But for the most part they’ve been, as he said above, steady. He has lost support among the working class, women, and minorities, and particularly in the states that gave him his electoral college victory.

Consequently, Trump is resorting to fear mongering. In another Saturday morning tweet Trump warned that “if anyone but me takes over in 2020…there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before.” That actually sounds more like a threat than a prediction. But it’s consistent with the malignant narcissism that is ravaging his diseased brain.

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

In his dementia, only Trump can save us from a catastrophic collapse of civilization. Because he’s so beloved by the entire universe. These are the ramblings of a sick mind that can’t cope with the reality that he is the least popular president ever and that he’s very likely to be impeached and imprisoned. And the closer he gets to his inevitable fate, the worse these sociopathic symptoms will become. So buckle up, America. It’s gonna be bumpy ride.


Trump’s Bizarre Reasons for Accusing His White House Counsel McGahn of Lying Under Oath

Posted by on June 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the unique characteristics of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior is that, unlike most other criminals, he actually ends up admitting his wrongdoing in public and insisting that there’s nothing wrong with it. That was surprisingly well demonstrated on Thursday when he told George Stephanopoulos that he would happily accept and disseminate dirt on his political opponents, which is against the law.

Donald Trump

And one of the reasons that Trump is so comfortable making such public confessions is that he knows he has Fox News (aka State TV) to clean up after him. That’s what took place on Friday morning when the President did another call-in interview with the devoted Trump-fluffers on Fox and Friends. It was easily predictable that Trump would book this segment following a gaffe that was essentially an admission of treason.

However, even that brownnosing do-over was stepped on by Trump himself with the release of another clip from the Stephanopoulos interview. In this discussion Trump launched into a familiar and tedious denial that he ever sought to have special counsel Robert Mueller fired. That’s a claim that has been refuted by several of his close aides, including his White House Counsel, Don McGahn. Stephanopoulos noted that McGahn had testified to Mueller that Trump did ask him to talk to the Justice Department and make it clear to them that Mueller “had to go.” Which led to this incriminating exchange (video below):

Trump: I don’t care what he said. It doesn’t matter. That was to show everyone what a good counsel he was.
Stephanopoulos: But why would he lie under oath to Robert Mueller?
Trump: Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer. Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen, including you, including the media, that Robert Mueller was conflicted.

First of all, when Stephanopoulos asked why McGahn would lie under oath, Trump didn’t reject that premise. In fact, he attempted to justify it. So Trump is accusing his White House counsel of committing criminal perjury. It will interesting to see if Attorney General William Barr will now open an investigation into that and issue an indictment for McGahn. (Don’t hold your breath). Because either McGahn is guilty of perjury, or Trump is lying about it.

Secondly, Trump’s first explanation for McGahn’s alleged perjury is that McGahn was seeking to “make himself look like a good lawyer.” How? By lying under oath? How does it burnish his credibility to implicate Trump in a scheme to fire Mueller? Trump is apparently conceding that testimony linking Trump to obstruction of justice is the honorable thing to do. Of course it is. Telling the truth would surely cast a positive glow on McGahn or any other witness. But accusing McGahn of doing the right thing is an odd defense from Trump’s perspective.

Finally, Trump’s other explanation for McGahn’s testimony is that McGahn, and “anybody that would listen,” were deluged with complaints by Trump that Mueller was conflicted. That assertion has always been a deliberate lie on Trump’s part. But his admission here that he has been inundating everyone around him with that allegation could itself be construed as obstruction of justice. He’s trying to materially harm the investigation by falsely impugning the integrity of the special counsel.

So Trump is providing a perverse set of arguments in his defense. On one hand, Trump thinks that his White House counsel is a perjurer for having told the truth about him. On the other, Trump is obstructing justice by lying about Mueller. And if you’re having trouble figuring that out, or why Trump would be asserting such a preposterous defense, it just means that you’re a normal, logical person. Unlike the sociopathic narcissist currently residing in the White House.

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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Sean Hannity Gaslights America: Spins Trump’s Treasonous Remarks As ‘A Genius Setup’

Posted by on June 13, 2019 at 4:49 pm. 3 Comments :

Every aspiring dictator worth his salt has a media enterprise at the ready to peddle his version of an obviously fabricated, self-serving reality. And for Donald Trump that has always been Fox News. The network that was born as a propaganda tool for right-witn purveyors of policies that benefit only corporations and the wealthy quickly adapted to the Era of Trump and aligned their most prominent, primetime shills with the White House approved messaging.

Fox News, Sean Hannity

Leading the pack of StormTrumpers at Fox News is Sean Hannity, a sycophant so devoted that the shows up to speak at Trump’s cult rallies and appears in his campaign videos. Hannity has proven that he will do and say anything to support Dear Leader, no matter how deceitful, immoral, ar absurd.

So naturally when Trump takes a gaping bite out of his own bone-spur infested foot, Hannity is right there with the ketchup and a Diet Coke to help wash it down. On Wednesday Trump essentially confessed to George Stephanopoulos that he unlawfully received information from Russia and would be happy to do so again with any hostile foreign nation. It was an unambiguous admission of a “high crime” that would merit impeachment. Hannity’s response to this criminal treachery was to herald it as a brilliant ploy to discombobulate the hapless Democrats saying that “In many ways that was a genius setup because the media mob will fall right into his trap” See? Trump was only pleading guilty to treason in order to punk the libs. And Hannity continued (video below):

“Listening is much different than, let’s see, lying, spying, and paying for Russian lies and spreading it through the media by ‘deep state’ operatives and then using it as a basis for a FISA warrant … Why are they not so outraged about Hillary paying for Russian lies, disinformation, Comey generously using the unverifiable data from Russia to spy on the Trump campaign and get a FISA warrant? No doubt, by the way, this will all get another round of fake, phony, moral selective outrage over that interview, but it’s a perfect setup because if they are outraged about that then how can you not be outraged over what I just said?”

Needless to say, that voluminous disgorgement was nothing but more of the fantastical mythologies that Hannity is famous for. His first goto deflection is to bring up some old, debunked lies about Hillary Clinton. And his defense of Trump isn’t that he’s innocent, but that he’s only as guilty as (he says) Clinton is. That’s like Ted Bundy defending himself by claiming that the fictional Hannibal Lecter was way worse.

If this is the best that Hannity and Fox News can do to persuade their Deplorable, and easily fooled, viewers that Trump didn’t actually admit that he has taken, and will gladly take in the future, disinformation from operatives working for foreign enemies, then it’s clear they are running on empty. They are now having to literally scrape the bottom of their propaganda barrell. It’s a pathetic spectacle, but one that was inevitable considering how much bullshit they’ve been spreading around for the past few years.

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


COLLUSION: Trump is Committing Treason in Order to Resuscitate His Floundering 2020 Campaign

Posted by on June 13, 2019 at 11:57 am. 10 Comments :

It is impossible to understate the profoundly evil nature of what Donald Trump told George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday. In an extended interview, Trump not only justified his prior collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, he also placed an open call for hostile foreign governments to do the same thing in 2020. It’s an unambiguous attempt to seek assistance from America’s enemies. This is Trump’s reelection campaign strategy.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

The interview was an astonishing performance by an unabashed traitor to American laws and principles. What follows are a few of the most egregious segments that are profoundly disturbing and utterly inexcusable.

Stephanopoulos: But should [Don Jr] have gone to the FBI when he got that email?
Trump: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the FBI? You don’t– I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the FBI. In my whole life. I don’t–you don’t call the FBI.

Actually, Trump has called the FBI at least twice according to FOIA documents, but only when it’s to his personal benefit.

Stephanopoulos: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the FBI.
Trump: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t– this is somebody who said, “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the FBI. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.

It’s not different. The information that Trump was seeking (Clinton’s and DNC emails) was also stolen information on his opponent. And calling the FBI is precisely the way it works, even according to Trump’s own FBI director, Christopher Wray. So Trump responded that…

Trump: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life.

Trump: If somebody comes into your office with oppo research– they call it oppo research–with information that might be good or bad or something, but good for you, bad for your opponent, you don’t call the FBI. I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings–if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected.

Here Trump is trying to conflate normal opposition research with his collusion with foreign governments, which is illegal. Then he cites some statistics that he’s pulled from his – assumptions and justifies the criminality because, as he says, everybody does it. So therefore it’s okay?

Stephanopoulos: Your campaign this time around, if foreigners, if Russia, if China, if someone else offers you information on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the FBI?
Trump: I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, “we have information on your opponent.” Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.

Norway? It’s funny how Trump can’t bring himself to mention Russia. But more to the point, what he’s describing here is collusion, plain and simple. He goes on to say that he wouldn’t report it to the FBI because “the FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it.” Sure, because there are only 13,412 special agents and 20,420 support professionals.

Trump may have point. 33,000 FBI agents might not be enough to investigate all of the crimes that he has committed. In this interview he said once that he might alert the FBI to unlawful communications with foreign governments. But he said four times that he wouldn’t. And he said it again in a series of tweets on Thursday morning:

Notice that the examples he uses are our allies. Once again, he refuses to implicate Vladimir Putin and his pals in the Kremlin. He also fails to mention whether these talks included getting dirt on his opponents. He is deliberately trying to deflect from the real issue. And unfortunately, that will work on his Deplorable followers and his shills at Fox News.

The bottom line is that Trump’s remarks are a direct invitation to our enemies to engage in hacking or other illegal activities and pass along what they steal to Trump. He has already told them that he’d listen. So why wouldn’t they do it? He is unambiguously soliciting a criminal act. And for that alone Trump should be impeached and imprisoned.

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


Hannity Attacks Maddow and Winds Up Admitting that He and Fox News are ‘Fake News’

Posted by on June 12, 2019 at 1:01 pm. 8 Comments :

MSNBC just announced that their panel of moderators for the first Democratic primary debate will include Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, José Diaz-Balart, Chuck Todd, and Rachel Maddow. And as might be predicted, the last name on that list has already stirred some controversy.

Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, Fox News

Rachel Maddow is unambiguously opinionated. Her program covers the news from a liberal perspective, although always dedicated to presentations that rely on factual sources. Whether or not it’s appropriate for her to be a moderator for a political debate is – well, debatable. But it’s MSNBC’s decision to make and her performance can be judged on the merits. That is, unless you’re Sean Hannity of Fox News. In which case Maddow must be preemptively denounced with childish nicknames (ala Donald Trump) like “Roswell Maddow” and absurd slurs that portray her as “left of Mao, by public admission” (an admission that exists only in Hannity’s cartoon brain).

Hannity devoted a whole segment of his program on Tuesday to this manufactured controversy, and brought in Sean Spicer and Jesse Watters to add their “unbiased” analysis (video below). Hannity led off by referring to Maddow as…

“Tinfoil hat-Maddow, the single biggest liar, conspiracy theorist in the country, the person that pushed the Russiagate lies night after night.”

Never mind that the role of “biggest liar, conspiracy theorist” has long been held by Hannity himself. He has pushed destructive falsehoods ranging from Obama’s birth certificate, to Pizzagate, to the Seth Rich murder, and to countless and malicious assaults on special counsel Robert Mueller. But Hannity was unable to cite a single alleged conspiracy theory promoted by Maddow. With regard to Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia, and his obstruction of justice, Maddow has actually broken stories that have held up over time. But that wasn’t the worst of Hannity’s drooling outburst. In response to the news of Maddow’s selection as a moderator, he offered a programming proposal of his own:

“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll have a debate moderated by me, the Great One [Mark Levin], Rush Limbaugh, Jesse [Watters] can join us, and Laura [Ingraham] and Tucker [Carlson]. How’s that?”

How’s that? That’s actually pretty funny. Hannity just slogged through several minutes of whining about how prejudicial and dishonest Maddow is, and thus unfit to be a moderator. So what’s his method of balancing out this partisan tilt? Countering it with his own flavor of prejudice and dishonesty. He is, in effect, admitting that he and his Fox News colleagues are as unfit to moderate a debate as he says Maddow is. It’s kind of like Hannity telling a schoolmate “You’re mother would win an ugly contest, unless my mother was a contestant. How’s that?”

For the record, Maddow already moderated a Democratic primary debate. Back in 2016, she was on a panel during a debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. At the time, Howard Kurtz of Fox News didn’t think she was the right choice. But he nevertheless said that “Rachel Maddow did a pretty good job in questioning Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at MSNBC’s Democratic debate last night.” And why wouldn’t she? She’s a Stanford graduate and a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in political science. Hannity is a dropout who rose to fame as a radio shock jock.

Hannity’s meltdown over this issue is typical of his bombastic response to everything that Democrats or liberals do, whether or not there is any cause. He is oblivious to the fact that a primary debate (as opposed to the general election) is a partisan event to begin with. He’d probably be shocked to learn that every one of those debaters are Democrats. And it’s not as if he and Fox News have distinguished themselves during their many interviews (aka tongue baths) with Trump, who is too scared to be interviewed by anyone on MSNBC or CNN. So much for being fair and balanced.

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

https://youtu.be/OmURkXawuYk


WTHolyF? Fox News Hysterically Whines that CNN and MSNBC ‘All Seem to Be Opinion Shows’

Posted by on June 11, 2019 at 2:26 pm. 4 Comments :

Well, we are through the looking glass, folks. Of course, that’s been said so many times in the Era of Donald Trump that most of us have built up an immunity to it. But on this occasion there is real concern that the fantasy (nightmare) weavers at Fox News have abandoned any pretense of reality.

Donald Trump Fox News

In a segment on Monday night’s episode Stuart Varney’s Fox Business program, the host interviewed Fox News’ media correspondent, and host of MediaBuzz, Howard Kurtz. The discussion was a particularly obtuse analysis of the editorial positions on MSNBC and CNN. It began with Varney calling out his competition for “Anti-Trump coverage” that is “wall to wall on those two networks.” And that led to this bizarre exchange with Kurtz (video below):

Varney: What’s your judgment, Howard, when two all news networks carry one single editorial message, which is resist Trump for everything and get him out? I mean, you’re a media guy. You can’t be that pleased that two major networks are going so consistently down that opinion road.
Kurtz: I wouldn’t go quite that far. I think there are some fair reporters at both networks. But certainly when you turn on the primetime shows, and it’s getting increasingly hard during the day, they all seem to be opinion shows. I mean, you know, you’ve got these panels that are six to one anti-Trump. I mean, there’s no secret about it. That’s the way they’re being programmed.

Seriously? That’s a media analyst on Fox News, the network that is best known today as “State TV” due to its unflinchingly adoring coverage of Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party. Fox News has dedicated it’s primetime block to three of the most biased Trump-fluffers on television (Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson), Hannity even shows up to speak at Trump’s cult rallies.

As for panels that are partisanly skewed, Fox doesn’t leave that to just their primetimers. They begin with “Fox and Friends” in the morning. Then “Outnumbered” is aptly named with four (and sometimes five) right-wingers out of five co-hosts. And in the afternoon they have “The Five,” which is another four to one conservative pile-on. So Fox News actually designs their shows to have multiple wingnuts ganging up on a lonely alleged liberal. Neither MSNBC or CNN has such a program.

Kurtz did criticize Trump for advocating a boycott of CNN’s parent company, AT&T, in order to punish CNN. And even Varney acknowledged that MSNBC was doing well in the ratings prior to the release of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Kurtz agreed and made the point that MSNBC’s viewers might have fallen off due their disappointment that Mueller wasn’t more aggressive in his indictment of Trump. That’s actually a pretty good explanation for MSNBC’s recent ratings slump, although it’s still the second highest rated cable news network.

However, for Kurtz to stare into the camera and complain about the partisan tilt of MSNBC and CNN is hypocrisy on an Olympian scale. At least both CNN and NBC have actual news divisions that break stories and win awards. But for him to do that without even the slightest acknowledgement of Fox’s extreme political prejudices, marks him as the same sort of propagandist as Varney, Hannity, and the rest of Fox’s flunkies. If it wasn’t such a serious breach of journalistic ethics, it would make a hilarious sketch for Saturday Night Live.

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