There’s a lot going on in the news lately. Two hurricanes have trampled major U.S. cities. North Korea is rattling nuclear sabers. Terrorists have attacked again in London. Congress is struggling with DACA, tax reform, and yet another attempt to kill Obamacare. And special counsel Robert Mueller continues to close in on Donald Trump.

Very little of this bodes well for Trump. His approval rating is still sliding down into record low territory. He has tried pathetically to change the subject with typically Trumpian attacks and juvenile insults aimed at capturing media attention. To no avail. So predictably, Fox News is riding to the rescue. They aired a segment Friday featuring an ultra-right wing guest who claimed to have new emails that prove Hillary Clinton guilty of pay-to-play.

The Fox News fetish over Clinton’s email is nearly psychotic. Despite years of trying, they have never produced anything that was remotely illegal. And it’s not for lack of effort. Fox News has devoted countless hours of valuable airtime to this subject, all aimed at defaming Clinton. And now, ten months after the election, they are still at it. It’s a demonstration of desperation. They simply have nothing else to distract the public from Trump’s disastrous reign of error.

On Friday Fox News hosted Tom Fitton of the conservative Judicial Watch (video below). Fitton claimed to have acquired new emails through the Freedom of Information Act that revealed wrongdoing by Clinton. The problem is, during the entire segment he didn’t produce a single one, or even offer a quote from any of the allegedly incriminating material.

Fitton began by accusing Clinton of having lied to Congress about turning over all her emails to the State Department. But the “new” emails he claimed to have were from the State Department, so obviously they had them. Then Fitton asserted that many of these emails contained classified information. But he didn’t offer any proof of that. And previous similar claims all turned out to be false. The gist of this appearance on Fox was to rehash the old email business, while presenting nothing new or relevant.

FITTON: Going back again to the pay-to-play scandal, it’s email after email of Doug Band, who was a Clinton Foundation top official, worked with the Clinton’s closely, coordinating and working with Huma Abedin to take care of favors for Clinton Foundation donors who were going through Band to get access and benefits from the state Department. Visas to Cuba. Meetings in Singapore. Other types of activity like that. It’s there in black and white.

None of that interminably run-on sentence contributed anything to the store of knowledge of this subject. There was nothing that could be described as proof of wrongdoing. What Fitton did say was rather mundane. He seems to think that the legitimate operations of the State Department (visas, diplomatic meetings) are inherently criminal. But he offered nothing to connect any of Clinton’s actions with her family foundation. No one ever has. And despite his assertion that “It’s there in black and white,” it actually wasn’t. Why didn’t he bring any of these supposedly damaging emails to the studio?

Fitton went on to make other random and unsupported allegations. He called the Comey investigation “a sham.” At one point he rolled completely off the rails by stating that Comey was fired because “no one trusted him.” But even Trump admitted that he fired Comey because of “the Russia stuff.” Then Fitton even undercut his own argument that this was new information by admitting that “The Justice Department knows about this.” Apparently he believes that Trump’s Justice Department, under the supervision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is covering up for “crooked” Hillary Clinton.

Clearly Fox News has run out of phony scandals to peddle. So they are reprising their hits from yesteryear. It’s the classic oldies network for Deplorables who still want to “Lock her up.” No wonder Fox’s ratings are lagging behind MSNBC. I suspect that even some Fox viewers are tiring of this rotting heap of garbage and are looking for some fresh news. And if this is the best Fox can do as they try to play defense for Trump, the President better start worrying about his future move from the White House to the Big House.

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

.@TomFitton on @HillaryClinton: "The pay-to-play scandal… It's there in black and white." pic.twitter.com/2ZNzDCUOKl

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 16, 2017