WTF? Trump’s Treasury Secretary Says GOP Tax Plan Restores Great Depression Policies

When Donald Trump returns from his “Humiliate America Tour” of Asia he will be greeted by politics and scandals that he cannot continue to avoid. His embrace of Vladimir Putin, the ongoing investigation into his collusion with Russia, indictments of his campaign and administration staffers, sexual abuse by GOP senate candidate Roy Moore, and the already floundering Republican attempt at tax reform.

Donald Trump

Trump has dived hair first into the tax debate with his customary aversion to the truth. On multiple occasions he has referred to the still stewing tax legislation as the “biggest tax cut in history.” It isn’t. But that didn’t stop his Treasury Secretary (aka the Foreclosure King), Steve Mnuchin, from lying to CNN’s Jake Tapper on behalf of his pathological boss (video below). In this exchange Mnuchin attempts a shady two-step to relocate the goalposts to another county. Tapper addresses the falsehood that Trump is proposing the biggest tax cut in history:

Tapper: We’ve tried to find a way that this is true, but it’s not.
Mnuchin: This will be the largest change since President Reagan.

A large change since Reagan is not the same thing as the biggest cut ever. Tapper displayed several different ways to calculate the tax impact of the Trump bill, but none of them achieved the ludicrous claims of Mnuchin and the President. So Mnuchin reloads and aims to move the goal posts even further by pointing out that just the corporate tax rate would drop from thirty-five percent to twenty. That, of course, has no impact on the tax bills of average Americans. And it still doesn’t support Trump’s gross exaggerations.

Undeterred, Mnuchin followed that up with perhaps the worst defense of fiscal policy imaginable. He bragged that the pass-through tax rate (which mainly benefits large corporations) “is gonna be the lowest rate since the 1930’s.” So Mnuchin is expressing outright pride that his plan matches the one in effect during the Great Depression. Really?

The big lie that Mnuchin, Trump, et al, relentlessly propagate is that our current tax system makes the U.S. uncompetitive. And they say this at the same time that they brag about how great the American economy is doing. Trump praises himself regularly for the historic performance of the stock market (although he has nothing to do with that). But if that’s true, why would we need to give more tax breaks to the very people and businesses who are already disproportionately prospering? Especially at a time when there are so many other critical demands for resources, including natural disaster relief, healthcare, infrastructure, and deficit reduction.

The goal of the Republican Party has always been to restore the economic principles that benefit their primary constituency and donors – corporations. These are the same principles that brought about the Great Recession of 2008, and most other financial disasters. And that includes the Great Depression. However, we do not often hear them so openly admit that this is their objective. It’s bad enough that these robber barons are constantly trying to steal from the American people to enrich themselves. But when they are so comfortable that they feel no need to disguise what they’re doing, it’s a sure sign of trouble ahead.

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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In His Own Words: Trump is a Traitor Who Believes Putin Over His Own Intelligence Agencies

Thousands of miles from America Donald Trump is shooting off his ignorant mouth and putting the country and the world in peril. This could not be a clearer case of treason against the United States. And the fact that it is committed by someone with the title of president makes it all the more disturbing and dangerous.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

While in Vietnam, a country Trump avoiding visiting as a young man by seeking five draft deferments, the President was asked about the well documented attack on American democracy by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. His responses are bone-chilling and demonstrate just how far he has deviated from his patriotic duty and common sense. Here are some choice excerpts from his remarks:

  • “Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that [hack our election],’ and I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”
    That’s comforting. Except that every time his own intelligence agencies tell him that Putin DID interfere with our election, apparently they don’t mean it and he doesn’t believe them.
  • “I can’t stand there and argue with him.”
    Why the hell not? He’s the leader of a hostile foreign nation that has always wanted to bring down the U.S. You are a coward if you can’t stand up to that.
  • “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”
    So you can’t insult our enemies, but you can insult fellow Americans, including our veterans? Is that a good thing for our country?
  • “Everybody knows there was no collusion. I think it’s a shame that something like this can destroy a very important potential relationship between two countries that are very important countries. Russia could really help us.”
    You might want to check the facts (and Robert Mueller) before you make absurd claims about what “everybody knows.” And if you think Putin’s aim is to help us you are certifiably insane.
  • “He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.”
    Why are you even asking him? We have the answer and he’s a liar. What’s more, you are again contradicting the entire U.S. intelligence community. And that includes the people you appointed (not some so-called “deep state” Obama holdovers): CIA chief Mike Pompeo, DNI Dan Coats, FBI director Christopher Wray, NSA head Mike Rogers, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Counterterrorism adviser Thomas Bossert.
  • “This artificial Democratic hit job gets in the way and that’s a shame because people will die because of it.”
    Is that a some kind of veiled threat?

It’s hard to find the words to react to this frighteningly stupid and treacherous rhetoric. Luckily, the above linked article from Politico supplied a quote from an expert that sums it up perfectly:

“The worst part of this is not that Trump takes Putin’s word over the evidence based analysis of his own intelligence agencies. It is not even that he plays the role of a useful idiot as he kowtows to Putin yet again. The worst part, by far, is that a hostile power is engaged in an ongoing attack on America’s political system and Trump is deliberately stripping the nation’s defenses bare and leaving us exposed to future assaults. It is unilateral disarmament plain and simple,” said Thomas Wright, Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and an expert in national security. “We have never seen this type of weakness in a U.S. president before.”

Sadly, we have never seen this type of weakness, idiocy, narcissism, corruption, blindness, cowardice, treasonous, childishness, vengefulness, greed, and hatred, in a U.S. president before. Hopefully we will not see it for very much longer. He needs to be driven from office by either law or shame. And our Congress must finally take a stand for what’s right and fulfill the oath they took to defend the Constitution.

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


Fox News is So Desperate They’re Hyping an ‘Implausible’ Discrimination Lawsuit Against CNN

The current news cycle is jam-packed with stories that reflect badly on Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Trump is bumbling his way through an embarrassing junket to Asia. Among other things, he has already flipped on his hard-line stance against China trade deals. In fact, he insulted American leaders and praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for taking advantage of their “incompetence.” In addition, The GOP’s candidate to fill Jeff Sessions’s senate seat in Alabama, Roy Moore, is mired in a pedophilia scandal. And last Tuesday Democrats swept the elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Washington, and more.

Fox News Lies

This puts Fox News in a difficult position. They have virtually nothing positive to report about their Dear Leader in the White or his flailing party. They’ve already been swinging wildly at bogus and irrelevant Hillary Clinton hogwash to the point where it’s just tiresome. And the must-pass Republican tax bill is faring no better than their much despised attempts to kill ObamaCare.

So Fox News is hitting the shelves for some ripe fiction they can disseminate. What they found was a lawsuit against their arch rival CNN for racial discrimination. Fox News giddily latched onto that and posted a wholly dishonest article on their website. The headline is a brazen lie that screams “CNN faces another racial discrimination lawsuit.”

The first thing to note is that CNN is not facing “another” lawsuit. The first paragraph reveals that it is the same lawsuit that was filed previously and thrown out of court for being inadequate. The judge ruled that “it doesn’t meet a plausibility threshold.” He also said that it was “unsupported by factual allegations sufficient to support the inferences claimed by Plaintiffs,” and that it was “littered with conclusory assertions, rank speculation, confusing statements, and generalized allegations.”

However, in the Fox News story the attorney for the alleged plaintiffs is confidant that the suit will prevail the second time around. He claims that he will refile sometime this year, ignoring the judge’s admonition that “any amendment would be futile.” So Fox News based the entire story on a failed lawsuit that has not been, and might never be, refiled. Fox didn’t bother to interview the plaintiffs to try to validate their claims, or do any thing else that resembles journalism.

What Fox News did do was was plant this totally unrelated landmine in the article: “The news comes as CNN continues to cause problems for parent company Time Warner as it tries to complete an $84.5 billion deal with AT&T.”

For the record, CNN isn’t causing any problems with regard to the merger. It’s Trump’s Justice Department (and possibly Trump himself) who are threatening to prohibit the merger unless the new company divests of CNN. There are plenty of reasons to oppose this merger, but CNN isn’t one of them. AT&T has no news division that would raise anti-trust concerns. This is clear case of abuse of power as the Trump administration seeks to punish a media outlet they despise.

If any news operation is causing problems for their parent company, it’s Fox News. They are making it unlikely that Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox will be able to acquire the European SKY satellite network. The U.K.’s Ofcom regulatory agency is studying whether Murdoch’s business is a “fit and proper” owner, and whether it would comply with local rules on broadcasting standards. Given the history of Fox’s overt political biases, it’s tight embrace of Trump, and the terminations of multiple senior staff (Roger Ailes, Bill, O’Reilly, etc.) for sexual harassment and abuse, that’s gonna be a high bar to hurdle.

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

Finally, for some reason the Fox News article left out any mention of the lawsuits against Fox for racial and sex discrimination. Over two dozen current and former Fox News employees now suing the network. These are actual suits that are proceeding, not imaginary ones that were previously tossed out of court. But why would Fox include these facts in an article that was only published as a diversion from all of the bad news that is currently staining Trump and the right-wing cabal he is leading? As noted above: Desperation.

And remember: Racism is an integral part of the business model of Fox News. So this hypocritical and false story is almost funny (almost).


Watch Breitbart Editor Defend Roy Moore’s Sexual Encounters With Teenage Girls (Hannity Too)

Alabama’s Republican candidate for the senate, Roy Moore, has been accused of criminal sexual contact with multiple teenage girls. The youngest of them was only fourteen years old when Moore was a thirty-two year old assistant district attorney. These allegations are serious and profoundly disturbing. And while Moore is denying the charges, some of his GOP colleagues are already calling for him to drop out of the race. They include John McCain and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Breitbart Joel Pollak

Among those not seeking Moore’s withdrawal is Joel Pollak, senior-editor-at-large for Breitbart News. Pollak was interviewed by Ali Velshi on MSNBC and had some startling defenses of Moore’s aberrant behavior (video below). Pollak began by falsely claiming that the story in the Washington Post wasn’t accurate:

Pollak: You said yourself at the start of the segment that he’s being accused of relationships with teenagers. Now to me that’s not accurate. In fact it’s following in the narrative that the Post tried to set up.
Velshi: It is teenagers. It’s a fourteen year old, a sixteen year old, and two eighteen year olds. They’re teenagers.
Pollak: The sixteen year old and the eighteen year old have no business in that story because those are women of legal age of consent. […] There’s only been one relationship – that’s been alleged – that’s problematic.

What Pollak is asserting is that only the relationship with the fourteen year old is of concern. Therefore, he doesn’t think that a thirty-two year old public servant engaging in sexual conduct with sixteen year olds is any problem at all. That’s a position that most decent people will disagree with. Even if the age of consent in Alabama is sixteen, it doesn’t excuse Moore’s behavior. He’s still a much older man with the experience and power to dominate a girl that much younger. Anthony Weiner is jail right now just for texting a teenager.

Pollak’s knee-jerk defense of Moore is not surprising coming from Breitbart News. The website has been supporting Moore since the earliest days of his campaign. In addition to Pollak, Sean Hannity of Fox News has also come to Moore’s defense. He dismissed the charges as a mere “he said, she said” situation. Never mind that the Post cited dozens of sources.

The allegations against Moore also reveal something troubling about the Republican Party. They are quick to condemn liberals or Hollywood or Democrats for similar behavior. But when it comes to their own, Republicans and right-wing media circle the wagons. That’s why they can continue to back someone like Moore. And it also explains their continued support for Donald Trump, whose history of sexual harassment and abuse is well documented.

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


Fox News Whines Pitifully: Isn’t Country Music Supposed To Be Conservative?

Wednesday night saw the return of The annual Country Music Awards. It was a star-studded affair that featured the best and brightest of the genre. The program was a huge success in the ratings, topping the primetime lineup for the evening and hitting a three year high.

Fox News CMA

One of the highlights of the program was a duet between Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood. Their rendition of “Before He Tweets” was a lighthearted mockery of Donald Trump and his fetish with Twitter (video below).

So guess what? The “Curvy Couch” potatoes at Fox and Friends were bitterly distraught at the prospect of having lost country music to the evil liberals and anti-Trump media. They lamented over the unspeakable act of disrespectfully taunting their Dear Leader with a comical farce. The whine-fest began with a plaintive moan from co-host Steve Doocy:

“Remember the olden days when football wasn’t political, and so many things weren’t political? Well now, as it turns out, the CMAs have gotten very political.”

Brian Kilmeade made the painful observation that maybe “new country is a lot less conservative than old country.” And Ainsley Earhardt wondered “Where’s Dolly? Where’s Garth Brooks? They don’t get political.” Then she added wistfully “Really? It’s hitting country music now? Isn’t country music supposed to be conservative?”

These pop culture authorities apparently think that musical genres have a God-given political affiliation. Any divergence from that is sacrilege. And just the thought of it sends them into nostalgic yearnings for a bygone era that only existed in their imaginations. Don’t these new country heathens know that right-wingers own their musical biases? Hell, if they’re gonna act like liberals they should just go to MTV and play the Devil’s rock music.

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/Xu5K1s6zJsA


Bill O’Reilly Has Totally Lost His Feeble Mind with this ‘Price of Freedom’ Rant on Guns

Being a notorious sexual predator who has paid out tens of millions of dollars to victimized women is taking its toll on Bill O’Reilly. Now that he’s sequestered to his chintzy weblog since Fox News fired him, O’Reilly is exhibiting signs of acute mental distress. Among other humiliations, he has been making guest appearances on Sean Hannity’s radio show despite having hated him when they were Fox News colleagues.

Bill Reilly

On Tuesday O’Reilly posted a mini-rant on Twitter (video below) to complain about criticism he received for his remarks on gun regulations. Following the Las Vegas massacre, O’Reilly wrote on his website that:

“This is the price of freedom. Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are. The Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection. Even the loons.”

Gee. Why would anyone criticize that? O’Reilly is just quoting from the Constitution’s “Even the Loons” clause of the Second Amendment. Never mind that he is expressing a perverse comfort with potentially violent miscreants obtaining guns at will without any public safety oversight. Even worse, he is justifying the carnage as an acceptable consequence of making sure that every American has unfettered access to assemble a personal armory. And so O’Reilly takes to Twitter to double down on his lunacy, posting this belligerent response to his critics:

“The last time the Vegas thing happened I said this is the price we pay. This is the price of freedom. And all the left – ‘Oh O’Reilly, arrgh – [blubbering sounds].’ Look you pinheads, our freedom dictates that police cannot intervene unless a crime is committed.”

So O’Reilly is cool with dozens of people being slaughtered at a country music concert so long as psychopaths can still buy AR-15s. Then he asserts that “everybody knew this guy was bad news.” He was referring to the shooters in both Las Vegas and Texas. He went on to say that the price of freedom demands that the rights of people like these to buy guns supersedes the rights of the rest of us to live. And while he notes that there is an exception for people with felonies, he apparently forgot that the Texas shooter’s criminal record had not been properly recorded. But here is where O’Reilly slipped off the rails:

“In the Reagan years there was a downgrading in getting people institutionalized. So it used to be a lot easier, in this country, to put people who are misbehaving, or behaving in an aberrant way, under observation and to take them off the street. But then the ACLU stepped in, the civil liberties people, and ‘Ah, no no no.’ So now you’ve got people walking all over the place and the authorities can’t do anything. [Raising his voice} The Price of Freedom!”

First of all, there was no “downgrading” of criteria to institutionalize someone in the Reagan years. What Reagan did was to close institutions in order to cut his budget as governor of California. That meant that thousands of people who were previously being treated for mental illness – voluntarily in many cases – were put on the streets. It was a budgetary decision, not a medical one.

Secondly, WTF is he talking about? He starts off reminiscing about the good old days when it was easier to lock up people for psychological reasons. He even takes a swipe at the ACLU for protecting the rights of the mentally impaired. And he bitches about all the free-roaming nutcases who can’t be involuntarily incarcerated. Apparently, freedom doesn’t mean that people with mental problems should be allowed to actually be free. However, he then reasserts his premise that freedom does mean they should all be able to arm themselves to the teeth.

If O’Reilly got his way, and the “authorities” were allowed to pick up “people who are misbehaving,” O’Reilly would have to be at the top of the list. Anyone with his decades long history of sexually harassing and assaulting women ought not to be “walking all over the place.” And his clear inability to articulate a coherent thought makes his case all the more troubling. He’s obviously a very sick man, in more ways than one. And in the final analysis, his “price of freedom” was $32 million (and more) paid to silence his victims.

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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ObamaCare Signups Breaking Records Despite Trump’s Sabotage and Declaring it Dead

Last month Donald Trump gave a definitive assessment of what he considered the status of ObamaCare. “ObamaCare is finished,” he began. “It’s dead. It’s gone. It’s no longer – You shouldn’t even mention it, it’s gone. There is no such thing as ObamaCare anymore.” Never mind that he sounded like the Monty Python sketch about the deceased parrot. In this case, the departed bird is actually showing signs of life.

Obama Trump Tweet

In fact, the number of people signing up for the Affordable Care Act this year is exceeding all records. It’s still the first week of open enrollment, but this surge is an unmistakably positive sign. As reported in The Hill:

“The surge in sign-ups, which was confirmed by an administration official, comes despite fears from Democrats that enrollment would fall off due to the Trump administration’s cutbacks in outreach and advertising.

“On the first day of enrollment alone, Nov. 1, one source close to the process told The Hill that more than 200,000 people selected a plan for 2018, compared with about 100,000 last year. More than 1 million people visited healthcare.gov that day, compared to about 750,000 last year, the source said.”

In one respect these numbers should not be all that surprising. The polls show that ObamaCare has an overwhelmingly positive approval rating. When asked if Trump should make the ACA work seventy-one percent said that he should. That includes a plurality (48%) of Republicans.

Which makes it all the more puzzling that Trump and the GOP are trying so hard to kill the program. They attempted three separate votes to do so, and all failed. So Trump took it upon himself to try to sabotage the healthcare plan. Among the steps he took to deliberately destroy a popular policy:

  • Trump pulled the plug on all Obamacare outreach and advertising in the crucial final days of the 2017 enrollment season.
  • Trump attempted to bribe health insurers to support his bill to kill ObamaCare.
  • Trump misdirected funds intended to encourage enrollment into a public relations plan aimed at strangling it.
  • Trump stopped paying the cost-sharing reduction [CSR] payments that subsidize many individual policies.

The resiliency of ObamaCare demonstrates the enduring appreciation the American people have for its benefits. They continue to support it, and even to expand it. That’s why the movement to implement a universal Medicare-for-all plan continues to pick up steam. At the same time, Trump’s cynical and destructive efforts to kill ObamaCare will continue to fail. The people recognize it as a hostile assault on their interests and welfare. And it’s one of the primary reasons he is suffering with such historically low approval ratings.

Open enrollment began on November 1, and it continues until December 15 (some states have extended that date. Be sure to enroll or renew within those dates. And since the Trump administration has slashed promotional efforts to inform people, please pass this information on to everyone you know.

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

Here is Trump being an asshole:


Trump Said Shooting Was a Mental Health Problem, But Signed Bill Easing Their Access to Guns

Once again Donald Trump and every Republican NRA shill in America is serving up their “thoughts and prayers.” Meanwhile, the families and victims of another gun slaughter are suffering for the abject negligence of a cowardly Congress. The shooting in a Sutherland Springs, TX, church is just the latest episode of senseless violence that is turning the country into a war zone. But the absence of affirmative solutions isn’t the worst part of the right-wing response. They are proactively enabling the almost certain continuation of these tragedies. And it starts at the top with Trump himself.

Donald Trump

The President’s first remarks on the Texas massacre were given just hours after it occurred from his junket in Japan. As usual, he couldn’t help politicizing the subject. Absolving his friends in the gun lobby of any responsibility, Trump speculated on the cause despite having no facts. “This isn’t a guns situation,” he reckoned. “This is a mental health problem.”

With regard to the latter half of his comment, it’s unarguable that mental health played a role in this shooting. In fact, it plays a role in every mass shooting. None of these incidents can be described as normal psychological behavior. So Trump is telling us nothing by stating the obvious. However, the first part of his comment completely ignores reality. These tragedies are only exacerbated by the easy access to such dangerous assault-type weapons.

The Republican Party marches in lock step with the NRA to preserve access to virtually all weaponry. They oppose regulating cop-killer bullets, military firearms, and “smart” guns. They are even blocking regulation of the “bump stock” accessories that modify conventional weapons into fully automatic ones. That was what the Las Vegas gunman used to kill fifty-eight people just last month.

But the GOP position on mental health is no better. They are currently proposing cuts to mental health programs in their budget and tax bills, More to the point, they are determined to protect the rights of violent offenders, domestic abusers, and other unstable miscreants to own whatever guns they want. Donald Trump even signed a bill in February for that precise purpose. As reported by NBC News at the time:

“President Donald Trump quietly signed a bill into law Tuesday rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun. […] President Barack Obama recommended the now-nullified regulation in a 2013 memo following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 first graders and six others dead. The measure sought to block some people with severe mental health problems from buying guns.”

Early reports suggest that the law Trump revoked was just the sort of regulation that might have kept the Texas shooter from obtaining his guns. He was discharged from the Air Force for “bad conduct.” Specifically, he was found to have assaulted his wife and child. Not coincidentally, domestic abuse has been found to be a consistent and accurate predictor of mass shooting perpetrators. Samantha Bee happened to do a segment on this subject last week. It should be required viewing for every member of Congress and law enforcement:

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


Trump Flunky Kellyanne Conway Spends 20 Minutes Dodging Questions and Bashing Hillary Clinton

On Sunday morning’s broadcast of CNN’s Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter welcomed Donald Trump’s most fact-averse spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway. She may be best remembered for coining the colorfully deceptive phrase “alternative facts.” Otherwise known as lies.

CNN Brian Stelter Kellyanne Conway

Conway’s interview (video below) was twenty minutes of unparalleled evasion and blatant propaganda. Sporting a plastered on simulated smile, she dutifully misrepresented the truth. And all the while injecting rancorous venom into the usual victims of her wrath. The segment began with a timely question concerning Donald Trump’s abysmal public image:

Stelter: Given President Trump’s historically low approval ratings, what specific steps are you and your colleagues taking to try to repair Trump’s credibility?
Conway: Well Brian, I think that’s the usual hyperbolic opening to one of the CNN segments. But let me tell you about the numbers that matter to Americans.

Whereupon Conway rattled off statistics about jobs and the stock market that Trump had absolutely nothing to do with. Congress has not passed, nor has he signed, a single bill related to the economy. The country is still operating on President Obama’s last budget. Stelter noted that morsel of reality saying that “The American people are not giving him credit for the economic boom according to all of the polls.” Conway’s glassy-eyed response: “Yes they are.” Is she on drugs? After that delusional comment she drifted off into some robotic criticisms of CNN. The fact that she cannot acknowledge that Trump has set new records for disapproval is typical of the tunnel-blindness of the administration.

This exchange continued with more questions from Stelter that Conway refused to answer. Each reply clumsily stumbled off to unrelated issues, most of which involved the GOP’s favorite fetish, Hillary Clinton. Conway employed the Clinton dodge repeatedly citing last year’s election and even reviving Benghazi. On the infamous Trump Dossier, Stelter interrupted Conway to admonish her for dismissing it as “completely unverified.” “Parts of it have been verified,” he corrected her. “That is misinformation you’re spreading on my program and I don’t appreciate it.”

Stelter also called Conway out on her obvious evasionary tactics saying that “I think viewers see what you’re doing – pivoting. When I say Russia, you say Clinton. It’s part of the strategy” She disputed that, then went straight back to bashing Clinton. And when she wasn’t bashing Clinton, she was bashing CNN. She made CNN the subject of debate throughout the interview, but Stelter wasn’t laying down for it. When she went directly at the unsupported charge of political bias, Stelter made the perfect response:

Conway: Brian, why not just say “Look. It’s in our commercial interest at CNN to be anti-Trump. We’re profitable if we’re against the President. Most of our viewers are against the President.” Just own it. Don’t you think that would be more credible for CNN?
Stelter: I understand that you don’t want an adversarial media. You just want everybody to be like Fox News.
Conway: No, that’s not true. Stop being so jealous of Fox News, Brian, and their ratings.

Now ratings are suddenly important again? When it had to do with Trump’s pitiful numbers, they were totally irrelevant. More to the point, Conway didn’t dispute that Fox News is a non-adversarial, pro-Trump, state-run network. She simply bragged about their status in the television market (which is losing ground to MSNBC). This interview was only useful as a lesson in how to badly evade a reporter’s questions. Conway’s failing grades on style were matched by her lack of substance. It’s no wonder that she rarely appears anywhere but on Fox News. And CNN would be justified in barring her from future appearances on the grounds that she only disseminates useless, self-serving bullshit.

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


Frightened Fox News Pulls ‘Impeach Trump’ Ad After Trump and Viewers Complain

The cable news network that once promised to be “fair and balanced” has demonstrated again that it was never either. Which may be why they ditched that slogan earlier this year. Friday it was revealed that Fox News breached a contract with billionaire activist Tom Steyer to air a commercial advocating the “Need to Impeach” Donald Trump. Steyer had bought airtime on Fox News and the ad did air at least once on Fox and Friends.

Donald Trump Impeach

However, since then Fox News decided to yank the ad despite the fact that the time had already been paid for. They didn’t give Steyer any reason for breaching their contract. They didn’t even tell him they had done so. When Fox News was asked to explain why they pulled they ads they gave a surprisingly inappropriate response:

Jack Abernethy, Fox News co-president: Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money.

If that’s true, it is an extraordinary development. It may be the first time that a television network made a programming decision for advertisements based on viewer response. Maybe the TV audience could speak up and get those disgusting cartoon bears that are obsessed with which toilet paper they wipe their cartoon butts with off the air.

More likely, Fox News axed these ads because the content was contrary to their political biases. The propaganda ministry at the network just could not abide an advertisement that made a strong case for removing Trump from office. Add to that the fact that Trump himself had registered his own complaint via Twitter saying:

Steyer appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on Friday when the subject of the ad came up (video below). He told Hayes about Fox’s action and explicitly called out the network for kowtowing to Trump. Steyer also had his attorneys contact Fox News to seek answers as to why they would unilaterally terminate the contract. The letter they wrote said in part that:

“Fox News abruptly pulled the advertisement without explanation (the ‘Cancellation’). We write to protest this baseless and unethical decision. The Cancellation is not only a breach of your agreement with Mr. Steyer – it is also a profound failure of journalistic integrity, a suppression of constitutionally protected speech, and likely a consequence of inexcusable political pressure.”

There are some good reasons for networks to decline to air certain ads. For instance, if the content is provably false, or if it is deliberately harmful or libelous. Political disagreement is not among the legitimate reasons. That would be censorship. Particularly if the President had a role in the decision.

However, the reasons that Fox News would have are easier to predict. They surely would not want to expose their viewers to this sort of information. And they wouldn’t want to piss off their prime benefactor in the White House. But the excuse that they felt guilty about taking Steyer’s money is patently absurd. That sort of argument would lead to rejecting any ads from Democratic candidates. Their predominantly Republican audience wouldn’t like those either. But maybe that’s precisely the ultra-partisan, spin doctoring that Fox News is aiming for.

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