OMG! Trump Has Been Whining Incoherently About Being Home Alone for Two Weeks

Posted by on January 3, 2019 at 9:53 am. 1 Comments :

It’s official. The President of the United States of America is a whiny little baby who can’t be left on his own without throwing an infantile tantrum. Actually, Donald Trump will do that with other people around also. But it’s especially noticeable when he is whimpering about his loneliness himself and in public, as he did at his first cabinet meeting of the new year.

Donald Trump, Home Alone

The White House get-together with his sycophantic assembly of bootlickers was an epic mess. Trump lied repeatedly about many subjects. He misrepresented the history of the Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. He said that he fired his former Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis (Mattis quit in protest). After insulting generals who have criticized him, he claimed he would have been a good general. Never mind that Cadet Bonespurs evaded the draft five times. And he went on endlessly about his idiotic vanity wall.

Among the bizarre episodes in this meeting, Trump, sitting behind a “Wall of Thrones” style poster on the table, complained about having been left home alone during the holidays. Although he didn’t go down to his golf resort in Palm Beach, he didn’t explain why Melania or other members of his family couldn’t have been with him at the White House, instead of partying at Mar-a-Lago. “I was here on Christmas evening,” Trump cried. “I was all by myself in the White House. It’s a big, big house.” But that wasn’t the only time that Trump expressed this sense of being forsaken. It began several days before:

Then he posted a video on Twitter where he sobbed that “While I’m at the White House working, You’re out there partying.” And he continued his snivelling in another tweet wherein he described himself as being “in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over.” This plaintive wailing was rather absurd since it was the Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress at the time, that closed the session. Democrats had no say in the matter.

However, Trump’s relentless whining is just another indicator of how mentally unstable he is and how unfit to perform the duties of the presidency. Of course, he did proclaim with some pride that he is “The Most Fabulous Whiner.” And now he is providing even more proof of it – not that it was necessary.

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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LOL: Donald Trump’s ‘Official Presidential Job Performance Survey’ Plagiarizes Stephen Colbert

Posted by on January 2, 2019 at 12:56 pm. 2 Comments :

The first days of 2019 are promising to be just as challenging for Donald Trump as the past two years. He is presiding over a government that has been partially shut down for twelve days. His pronouncements about abruptly retreating from Syria were castigated by his fellow Republican Nationalists. And the specter of special counsel Robert Mueller continues throw a dark shadow over Trump and his crime family.

Stephen Colbert & Trump Baby

The most pressing problem for Trump is the government shutdown that has put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. These are innocent victims of Trump’s self-absorbed stubbornness who are unable to pay their mortgages or buy groceries. And all because of an idiotic vanity wall on the southern border that even he says was already paid for by Mexico via the new (but unratified) USMCA trade deal between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

Polls show that the American people are blaming Trump for the shutdown that he said he was proud to be the cause of. They are also opposed to the wall altogether. That is likely a contributor to Trump’s overall approval rating continuing to scrape the bottom of the political ocean floor, as it has since he was inaugurated.

Consequently, Trump is seeking to manufacture some support to rub on his inflamed ego. So he’s running a poll of his own to cuddle up with on the nights when Sean Hannity doesn’t call. The poll is designated on his website as the “Official Presidential Job Performance Survey.” And it is exactly the sort of brazenly biased piece of uselessness that you would expect.

It’s a single question poll that asks: “How would you rate President Trump’s job performance so far?” And then it gives you multiple choice options for your response. They are “Great,” “Good,” “OK,” and “Other.” So Trump isn’t providing any options that explicitly confer a negative response. It’s pretty darn close to Stephen Colbert’s famous questioning of public figures as to whether the President was “a great president, or the greatest president.” (Video below) But Colbert was doing it for laughs. Trump is serious. It’s because he needs to be treated like a baby who can’t handle even mild criticism. And the Republican Party ran the exact same poll on Trump’s behalf last year.

At the bottom of the poll is the real reason for its existence. It requires you to enter your name and email address before your responses will be recorded. So this is actually just a phishing expedition to include you into a database that they will exploit for their nefarious political ends. So if you don’t mind being added to a list of Trump’s Deplorables, go ahead and tell him what you really think.

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


Donald Trump’s Top 10 ‘Witch Hunt’ Tweets in 2018

Posted by on January 1, 2019 at 2:47 pm. 2 Comments :

The new year is here, and with it the obligatory “Best Of” and “Top 10” lists. And News Corpse isn’t about to be left out of all this fun. So our contribution to this annual tradition consists of some of the most newsworthy revelations that graced the the official communications platform of the President of the United States of America: Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, Witch Hunt

That’s right. Trump’s obsessive tweetstorming was a unique feature of his presidency that brought with it many of the lies and and insults for which he is now notorious. But no messaging by this belligerent blowhard was more profound than those that railed furiously over what he called the Russian, hoax, rigged, phony “Witch Hunt.”

Trump’s endeavor became a full time occupation at the White House that resulted in 131 tweets wherein he referenced a Witch Hunt in some context. That includes seven that were deleted and re-tweeted for misspellings (mostly of the same word: council/counsel). There were numerous outbursts aimed at specific individuals including James Comey, Hillary Clinton, and his own now-former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And many were contradictory or outright distortions of the truth. Three were just the words “WITCH HUNT” in all caps with no further comment.

But in the spirit of the season’s ritual of limiting recognition to a select few, what follows are what we regard (somewhat randomly) as the Top 10 tweets about Witch Hunts by Trump in 2018:


This one rang in the new year on January 10, 2018, and boldly claimed to know how Democrats and Russians were responding to the affair. He was certainly wrong about the Democrats, but he was probably right about the Russians laughing.


Oh those poor young and beautiful traitors like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen. Their reputations ruined mainly because they lied and were dumb enough to associate with Trump.


Here Trump lays the groundwork for granting himself a get-out-of-jail-free card. Why would he even bring this up if he did nothing wrong?


Nothing says “I tried to stay uninvolved” like posting 131 tweets ranting about the injustice of being held to account by your own Department of Justice. As for the expense, Trump tweeted four times his assertions related to the cost of the special counsel investigation. It went went up rapidly from $10 million, then $20 million, then $30 million, and finally $40 million, all within the past year. That’s some pretty high inflation. In any case, the asset forfeitures from the Manafort case alone are worth more than that, so the probe is actually making a profit. And they haven’t even got to Trump’s assets yet.


Trump isn’t going too far by baselessly accusing a United States Senator of drunkenness, is he? And for the record, there are more than thirteen angry Democrats. It’s closer to 65,000,000, plus many more Independents and woke Republicans.


Something tells me it doesn’t help Trump’s argument that he isn’t colluding with Russia, by whining about his declining relationship with Russia.


This tweet is just included because we thought it necessary to have one with “FAKE NEWS” in it.


Trump is a master of projection. He is the one who has been maligning government officials in the FBI, Justice Department, and Congress. But now he’s trying to attach the McCarthy label to special counsel Mueller, who is just dong his job. Trump is also the big crybaby.


The best evidence that Trump’s mind is totally gone is that he really thinks he would have a seventy-five percent approval rating were it not for the so-called Witch Hunt. He’s barely cracking fifty percent with Rasmussen, the most biased right-wing pollster in the business.


This is a lovely example of Trump’s mob mentality. Calling someone a “rat” generally refers to a low-level hood who tells police the truth about his crime boss (i.e. Trump). Also, the FBI didn’t break into Michael Cohen’s office. They had a warrant issued by a judge. Cohen welcomed them in and later complimented them on their courtesy and professionalism.

Rest assured that 2019 will see a whole new collection of Twitter freak outs from Trump. As Mueller closes in on the President he will get ever more frantic and crazed with his reactions. If you thought “covfefe” didn’t make any sense, you aint seen nothin’ yet. Just wait until the special counsel report is released, or Congress begins holding oversight hearings. Trump’s madness has only just begun to manifest itself. And if he isn’t restrained, it could get dangerous.

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


A Happy New Year Message from Donald Trump: ‘Some Things Never Get Better and Never Change’

Posted by on January 1, 2019 at 8:24 am. 2 Comments :

Well, somehow we all made it through another year. And this one was particularly challenging with a president who is most notable for his dishonesty, callousness, ignorance, and unconstrained ego. Donald Trump is testing this American experiment in democracy and he’s really putting it through the wringer. Along with his State TV (aka Fox News) division, the nation is either getting stronger or withering away.

Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, New Year

To hear Trump tell it, there is little to cheer about going forward. He literally tweeted the most pessimistic New Year’s message ever, saying that “Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change […] and it will ALWAYS be that way!” What an inspiring thought on the eve of a new year.

But if that wasn’t enough, Trump later posted a New Year’s video that reinforced his delusional, all-consuming obsession with himself (video below). He leads off by congratulating himself because, in his diseased mind, “there’s never been an administration that’s done more than the Trump administration.” If you recall, that’s what he said at the United Nations a few months ago where the ambassadors of world laughed in his face. Such a proud moment for America.

That was followed by a litany of his alleged achievements that were nothing of the sort. He praised an economy that is “doing great” despite this being the first time in ten years that the stock market finished in the red for the year. He lauded rising wages that are the result of Democrats increasing the minimum wage across the country over the objections of Trump and the GOP. He thanked himself for trade deals and treaties that are either ineffective, non-existent, or downright destructive. And of course, he ranted incoherently about his idiotic vanity wall saying that without it there are no borders, and therefore no country. So what has been taking up all this real estate between Mexico and Canada for the past two and a half centuries?

Finally Trump closes with some of his familiar campaign gibberish. It may be his way of convincing himself that special counsel Robert Mueller isn’t real, you know, like Santa Claus. And he stutters out a New Year’s wish that focuses exclusively on him:

“We’re gonna win. We’re gonna win all the way. We’re gonna win at everything we do. So happy new year. And let’s enjoy the next year. And then we’re gonna enjoy the following year. And then we have four more. And everything is going to be so beautiful.”

Trump knows his audience is too dumb to get any message without being pummeled with it at least three times. Hence his repetition of the imaginary “winning” mantra. And he makes sure that the only years that he singles out for future enjoyment are those wherein he’s eligible to still occupy the White House. Never mind that most Americans will only enjoy those years if he’s been removed and, preferably, incarcerated. That would indeed be beautiful.

And to top off the night, Pete Hegseth of Fox News did a typically sycophantic phone-in interview of Trump from Times Square. It featured all of the expected Trumpian hogwash with some slobbering adoration from Hegseth. And it was all politics, no partying. Trump did his routine border wall blather, lashed out at Democrats, and for some reason boasted that “Nobody knows more about technology than me.” And he further applauded himself for “producing better than I actually said.” If he means producing more division and hatred and trouble for our country, he’s right. And as if to prove that point, Trump posted a deranged, all-caps tweet New Year’s morning that continued to malign the press and insult anyone who doesn’t sufficiently idolize him:

The year ahead is going to be as challenging as the one that just came to an end. As Mueller gets closer to nailing Trump and his crime family, he will get more belligerent and deranged. He will escalate his hostility and lies. So stay positive, engaged, and hopeful for the coming year and ultimately the return of justice, democracy, and sanity to America. And have a HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY.

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


Elizabeth Warren Slams the Fox News ‘Echo Chamber’ of ‘Fear and Hate’ in Presidential Campaign Video

Posted by on December 31, 2018 at 11:35 am. 1 Comments :

On the precipice of a new year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has released a video (below) announcing that she is forming an exploratory committee to test the waters for a prospective presidential campaign. She is the first of what will likely be a big pool of Democratic hopefuls seeking to cast out Donald Trump in 2020 – if he makes it that far (Mueller?).

Elizabeth Warren, Fox News

Notable in her video was the fact that she didn’t mention Trump’s name once. That will surely drive him nuts. There’s nothing he craves more than hearing his own name in pretty much any context. But she concentrated on bread-and-butter issues of importance to America’s middle class families. For instance, she laid out a platform that directly addresses the threat of corporatism and income inequality:

“I spent my career getting to the bottom of why America’s promise works for some families, but others who work just as hard slip through the cracks into disaster. And what I found was terrifying. These aren’t cracks that families are falling into. They’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack. How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie.”

Warren went on to link the political class to the problems that Americans are experiencing. She noted that the one-percenters “enlisted politicians [and] crippled unions.” to achieve their self-serving goals. And she pointedly stated that “Today corruption is poisoning our democracy.” She may not have said Trump’s name, but he was ever-present in her remarks.

It was also encouraging to see that Warren wasn’t shy about holding Fox News accountable for their contribution to the decline of Western Civilization. She took on the wealthy elites and Fox News saying forthrightly that:

“The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate designed to distract and divide us.”

While she spoke those words there were images of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Fox and Friends, and Laura Ingraham prominently displayed. She got in the whole primetime lineup, plus Trump’s favorite Fox News morning show.

This is the kind of fearless honesty that will be needed to beat Trump (or whatever GOP hack runs in his place) in 2020. You can rest assured that Fox News will there to advance the lies and hostility of the Republican agenda and defeat the champions of unfettered democracy who are fighting for the welfare of the majority of American citizens.

The Trump presidency has shown us that the GOP couldn’t care less about ordinary people, honest representation, or the rule of law. But it has also shown us that there are voters who are susceptible to flagrant deception and who are willing – even eager – to be lied to. They are the rubes that Fox News is designed to corral into the GOP camp. And the rest of us need to be alert and engaged in order to preserve our country and the democracy that it pioneered.

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


Donald Trump’s Blatantly Racist Spin About a Poll of Veterans Cites Only the White Veterans

Posted by on December 30, 2018 at 11:23 am. 2 Comments :

At this point in the Era of Trump, it isn’t exactly breaking news when Donald Trump tells another lie. It’s really just the natural state of his psychosis to casually pervert the truth in all things great and small. He does it daily on his Twitter feed as well as his hostile encounters with the press. And in most cases the obvious falsehoods are easily spotted and debunked.

Donald Trump, Military Parade

However, every now and then Trump engages in a fit of dishonesty that is so outrageous it’s hard to fathom what’s going through his diseased mind – or if anything is going through it at all. And one of those fits occurred during his regularly scheduled Sunday morning tweetstorm. While languishing forlornly in the White House this holiday season, Trump found some rare solace in an Associated Press poll. So he blurted out on his Twitter machine that:

It’s generally understood that the military is more conservative than the population at large. Although some high profile leaders have been notably disgusted by Trump, including his ex-chief of staff Gen. John Kelly, who called Trump an idiot, and his ex-defense secretary Gen. James Mattis, whose letter of resignation made it clear that Trump is reckless and ignorant. Trump appointed both of these senior officers with glowing accolades, but eventually fired with them unseemly disrespect for their service.

But the problem with Trump’s citation of this poll is that he’s read it horribly wrong. The sixty-two percent figure that Trump cited is just related to border security, not his approval by veterans in this poll. That number is fifty-six percent. The number Trump quoted is, more interestingly, also his job approval by just white veterans. That’s a disturbing coincidence for someone who is so often associated with racists and racism. In all likelihood, this was deliberate on Trump’s part to imply that a larger level of support than he really has. After all, the opinions of his white followers are the only ones that mean anything to him. For the record, the poll shows that only twenty-two percent of African-Americans in the military approve of Trump. And of course, Trump got and twisted this info from his favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends.

It’s also noteworthy that this poll questioned 115,000 people, of which only 4,000 were veterans. So the numbers reflecting that segment are tiny compared with the overall pool of respondents. And on that matter, Trump didn’t bother to mention the other results in this poll. For instance, overall, 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president. And women, the fastest growing demographic group in the military, disapprove of Trump by fifty-eight percent. Only forty-eight percent of vets say that Trump “has the right temperament to serve as president.” Fifty-eight percent of all respondents say he has “tried to impede the Russia investigation.”

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

So as usual, Trump has flagrantly misrepresented reality in order to prop himself up. He has to distort the truth because otherwise there is little he can say that isn’t dreadfully negative about him. But this episode is worse than usual because Trump takes a number that is obviously a specific segment of the veterans community and he tries to pass it off as broader, across the board support. That’s the behavior of a sick and desperate loser who has nothing left but a fantasy world wherein he is universally adored.

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Poor Donald Trump is Alone in the Big, Scary White House Tweeting About the ‘Witch Hunt Hoax’

Posted by on December 29, 2018 at 11:08 am. 4 Comments :

The saddest story of the year has got to be the tear-jerking saga of a lonely president who is desperate and frightened about the monsters under his bed. Donald Trump is once again rage-tweeting on a Saturday morning because he has nothing better to do – no presidential stuff, no holidays with a loving family. It’s enough to make you wanna take him in your arms and throw him into a jail cell where he can weep in the warm embrace of the other members of his crime family.

Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, Freak Out

Trump began his pre-New Year’s weekend digging back in time to when he whined plaintively about a report (that he undoubtedly saw on Fox News) that some texts between a couple of FBI agents were allegedly deleted:

Trump’s assertions that the messages were deleted and lost is totally and provably false. Not that the most lyingest president in history cares. The agency recovered and preserved all the messages after a temporary tech glitch. That, however, didn’t stop Trump from demanding all of the texts that the FBI already has, and insisting that there has been “Total Obstruction of Justice” – which is something he’s very familiar with. This triggered his knee-jerk outcry of “Witch Hunt” and led to more inanity in another tweet:

So Trump is saying that he’s in the White House waiting for Democrats who have already left town. That’s so sad it hurts. Picture him staring out of the window wondering if Chuck and Nancy have forsaken him on Christmas. He misses the “Presidential Harassment” that he soaks up because at least it’s some attention. By the way, the Democrats only left town because the Republicans (who still control both houses of Congress for a few more days) ended the session. Democrats had no say about that.

It’s also curious that Trump complained that Democrats “have little time left for things like stopping crime and our military!“ Did Trump really mean to say that he supports stopping our military? That would be consistent with his recent decision to abruptly retreat from Syria, leaving ISIS free to regroup and our allies to be slaughtered by Russia and Turkey. And Trump’s position on the shutdown is so incoherent that even Fox News has had to shore it up with extra-thick propaganda. That’s when Trump isn’t using it to evade justice and impeachment.

Next up is Trump’s pathetic and obvious attempt to change the subject away from those that are making him look so foolish and frightened:

Anyone who believes that Trump actually had a phone conversation with President Xi just now is terminally naive. First of all, at the time of the tweet it was midnight in China. Not only is that awfully late for a diplomatic phone summit, but it would be cutting into Trump’s morning appointment with whatever is on Fox News. And without that daily injection of hate mongering and fake news, Trump couldn’t get out of bed and face the ever-worsening fates that are crushing his spirit and producing these deranged tweetstorms.

And finally (as if there is ever a final tweet from this wacko-bird), Trump makes one the most ludicrous, blame shifting comments of his wretched presidency:

This is so absurdly far-fetched that it hardly needs a response. Other than to say that it is despicable that Trump would exploit these tragic deaths for such a brazenly partisan political purpose. But then again, that’s Trump. And his reasoning is ridiculous. People who are fleeing poverty and violence aren’t going to remain someplace where their lives are at risk because they might have to climb a ladder to get over a wall. Is he really that callous and stupid? (You don’t have to answer that).

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


Fox News Badgers Trump’s Chief of Staff Mulvaney to Take Even More Extreme Positions on the Wall

Posted by on December 28, 2018 at 11:21 am. 4 Comments :

It’s day seven of the Trump Shutdown, and Fox News is determined to hold Trump’s feet to the fire. Not for his responsibility for creating this havoc and hurting hundreds of thousands of Americans. But to insure that he doesn’t bend on the radical principles that Fox News holds dear.

Fox News, Donald Trump Baby

On Friday morning Fox and Friends interviewed Trump’s Acting (one of many) Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney (video below). For the most part it was a friendly get together among like-minded Trump shills. However, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes were fired up over the possibility that the President might commit the unforgivable crime of compromising with Democrats in Congress.

Mulvaney tried repeatedly to characterize the Democrats as having “left Washington” to avoid the debate on Trump’s idiotic and useless vanity wall. But this Congress is still run by Republicans. They control whether the Congress stays in session or not. And it is Republicans who made the decision to stop working until next year. Democrats had no say in the matter.

Yet Mulvaney still accused Nancy Pelosi of orchestrating the shutdown and leaving town because she doesn’t want to appear weak. That’s a classic case of projection when it’s Trump who is transparently afraid of looking weak in the eyes of Fox News. Both houses of Congress had previously agreed on funding bills to keep the government of open. But then Trump was triggered by Fox News reports that he was breaking his promise to build a wall. And even though he also promised that Mexico would pay for it, he still felt it necessary to punish American taxpayers by shutting down the government.

What stood out in the interview was the ferocity of the Foxies in pushing Mulvaney to take ever more extreme positions on the wall and the shutdown created to force it down the nation’s throat. Here are the questions that Mulvaney was hectored with by the Fox crew::

Pete Hegseth: He says he’ll close it all down because of these ridiculous immigration laws. Is he willing to go that far?

Mulvaney replied that Trump is willing to go all the way. We’ll see. But it was predictable that the first question was so full of anti-immigrant bias.

Hegseth: It was $25 billion dollars was possibly on the table. Now it’s five […] Mr. Mulvaney, a lot of Trump supporters feel like five is already a compromise, $5 billion. So to now float out there $2.5, $2.7, wouldn’t that look like a cave on this key issue.

Mulvaney surprisingly admitted that the $25 billion figure was “smoke and mirrors.” And the only real “cave” here is Trump to Fox News.

Griff Jenkins: Hold on. The American people wanted a wall. What deal then now is President Trump willing to accept that is anything short of that wall?

According to Mulvaney, nothing. “That’s why the government is closed.” As for what the American people want, a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos shows that only thirty-five percent said they backed including money for the wall in a congressional spending bill. And only twenty-five percent said they supported Trump shutting down the government for it.

Rachel Campos-Duffy: But let me ask this. We’re talking about money – $5 billion, $1.5 billion, $2.7 billion. Why isn’t there other things on the table? DACA for example. Is that being negotiated?

Mulvaney said that it is, but there’s no evidence of that from the White House. Plus it would be atrocious for Trump to exploit DACA applicants as bargaining chips for a wall nobody wants (even though he’s done that before).

Hegseth: Mr. Director, Nancy Pelosi calls the wall immoral ineffective, and expensive. We know it’s effective. We know $5 billion is not expensive in Washington dollars. In taxpayer real dollars we know it is. But the morality of it. Tell that to the family of Corporal Singh. Tell that to the family of Kate Steinle. The moral thing to do is to keep it shut down until you get a wall. Trump supporters are going to expect that. How attuned are you to the reality that a compromise that makes it look like Republicans are cavin’ again – Here we go. Democrats always … No. That is a real thing that has to be factored in.

Mulvaney insists that “We’re not compromising.” But this question was loaded with bigotry and lies. There are no credible experts that believe the wall would be effective. Most undocumented immigrants came legally through border checkpoints. And by raising the Singh and Steinle issues, Hegseth is once again implying that all immigrants are potentially murderers. The facts show that immigrants commit crimes a lower rates than American-born citizens. So Hegseth shouldn’t be talking about “the moral thing to do,” especially since he opposes all reasonable gun reforms to prevent the massacres of American citizens by American citizens.

Hegseth: The President’s floated the nuclear option. Is that a possibility in the Senate?

“I wish all options were open,” said Mulvaney. But even Mitch McConnell has ruled this out.

Campos-Duffy: If he’s there, why doesn’t he do an Oval Office address? […] Why isn’t he using all the tools at his disposal?

On this Mulvaney fired back saying that Trump knows what he’s doing, and how to do it, better than they do. Because Dear Leader is infallible and only wants to protect his weak and frightened children.

And that’s what passes for a fair and balanced interview on Fox News. The program’s hosts badger their guest with opinionated viewpoints aimed at pushing him toward their radical perspectives. And the guest complies with answers that feed right into the craziness of their right-wing agenda. But in the end none of this matters because Trump will only tweet something that contradicts them and himself and makes no sense. And his glassy-eyed cult followers will lap it up like gruel and be grateful for whatever morsels he tosses to them.

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


Trump Uses the Shutdown He Created to Evade Legal Liability and Possible Impeachment

Posted by on December 27, 2018 at 11:15 am. 2 Comments :

The United States federal government has now been shut down for five days during the holiday season. While Donald Trump initially said that he would proudly take responsibility for the shutdown, he has lately been frantically trying to shift blame to the Democrats, even though he explicitly promised not to do that. It’s an act of such brazen duplicity that it should serve as a warning to anyone considering putting any trust in anything that Trump says.

Donald Trump Impeach

However, Trump’s exploitative nature had not yet begun to peak. It is now being reported that he has his government lawyers citing the shutdown that he is wholly responsible for as an excuse to delay a civil trial into his financial corruption. According to Politico:

“Justice Department attorneys representing Trump asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to postpone indefinitely all further filings in an appeal related to a suit that the governments of Maryland and Washington, D.C., filed over Trump’s alleged violation of the Constitution’s ban on foreign emoluments.

“The government’s brief is not due until Jan. 22, but DOJ lawyers asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., to put the appeal on ice until the shutdown ends.”

Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the shutdown could result in the furlough of some federal employees whose services might be required for the lawsuit. Of course, anyone whose work is deemed critical would still be required to report for work. And a case involving unlawful activity by the President that could lead to impeachment would surely meet that criteria.

The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prohibits gifts to the President from foreign and state governments. The lawsuit filed by Maryland and the District of Columbia alleges that Trump is profiting from such expenditures at his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Many representatives of foreign governments have admitted that they are booking rooms at the hotel in order to curry favor from Trump. And the self-dealing also extends to other Trump properties and other organizations patronizing them, including the Republican National Committee.

For Trump be exploiting the shutdown this way is further evidence of his arrogance, entitlement, and disrespect for the law. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will be out of work – or working for no pay – during the holidays. They will be struggling to buy groceries and pay mortgages while Trump exploits their hardship to avoid accountability for his criminal behavior. On Thursday morning he even tweeted a veiled threat to hold Democrats hostage if he doesn’t get his way:

First of all, how did he determine that “most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?” And what if they are? Is he implying that it’s his intention to bring hardship to federal employees based on their political party? Perhaps what’s more important is that most of the people harmed by the shutdown are likely Trump supporters in red states who are reliant on government services. Not that he actually cares about any of them.

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

Trump’s transparent prejudices and political vengefulness is not only improper, it’s callous and sickening. But his attempt to profit from the suffering of others by asking the court to delay judgment on his malfeasance is cynical and self-serving. He must not be permitted to tarnish justice by turning his shutdown policy into a legal excuse to evade the punishment he so richly deserves.


Fox ‘News’ Fluffs Trump in the ‘Bone Spurs’ Debate with Ultra-Biased Headline and Story

Posted by on December 26, 2018 at 1:01 pm. 3 Comments :

From the earliest days of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions he has transparently tried to exploit the men and women of the military for his electoral advantage. Never mind that his actual actions were disrespectful, and even illegal (his charities withheld promised funds) as he insulted veterans like John McCain, Gold Star families, and the fallen who he refused to pay tribute to. And until today, Trump had never even visited the troops in a war zone, and only conceded to take the trip after being shamed into it for months.

Donald Trump, Saving Cadet Bone Spurs

Trump’s visit to Iraq today was a blatantly self-serving affair that appears to have been done for the sole purpose of producing a propaganda video of him cavorting with real life soldiers. The video was just a montage of Trump smiling and shaking hands set to a soundtrack of the right’s favorite syrupy paean to patriotism, “God Bless the U.S.A.”

But perhaps the most notable hypocrisy of the Trump era has been his own evasion of military service via a series of academic deferrals and a highly suspicious medical exemption for “bone spurs” in his heel that never prevented him from playing baseball or golf. On Wednesday the New York Times published a story that examined the bone spurs controversy. They interviewed the daughters of the doctor who is reported to have given Trump his medical excuse to deploy to Manhattan’s Studio 54 instead of Vietnam. The story said in part that the daughters of the doctor…

“…say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“‘I know it was a favor,’ said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.”

The Times found that Dr. Braunstein rented an office in the Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, which was owned by Trump’s father Fred in the 1960s. The daughter’s claimed that their father received special treatment from the Trumps following his “favor” for young Donald.

So naturally, Fox News rushed in to shield Trump from any of the criticism resulting from the article in the Times. On the Fox News website they published a story with an unfair and unbalanced headline stating that: “New York Times tracks down anti-Trump children of deceased doctor to run uncorroborated Vietnam allegations.”

Wow. That really packs in the pro-Trump bias by the shovel full. First, the story attempts to dismiss what the women said by casting them as anti-Trump, implying they did this to deliberately harm the President. However, they have said nothing about this for decades and only spoke after the Times found them and asked for their account of what happened.

Secondly, the story is not uncorroborated. It originated from an anonymous tip that didn’t include any details or names. The Times then did the legwork to fill in the blanks. So what the daughters told them was, in fact, the corroboration of the original tip.

The Fox News article noted that Trump himself has never provided any details of his alleged infirmity because he said that he didn’t recall them. This from the man who says he has the world’s greatest memory (which he later didn’t remember saying). And Fox wasn’t at all curious as to why there was no evidence that the doctor had ever examined Trump before disqualifying him from military service.

Finally, the Fox News article only solicited two other persons for comments on the story. One was Dan Gainor, of the uber-rightist Media Research Center, who said “I’m surprised the paper didn’t arrange a séance and quiz the late doctor, too.” The other was conservative strategist Chris Barron, whose comment attacked the Times saying that “The New York Times is essentially indistinguishable from a gossip rag you’d find in the super market checkout line.” That’s it. No other quotes were provided from any left of center or neutral sources.

Trump’s recent treatment of Secretary of Defense James Mattis is proof of his disrespect for the military. And an interview he did last month on Fox News (wherein he bashed Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy Seal who helped dispose of both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden) shows that he only supports the military when they bow down to him. But on Fox News Trump is still a hero whose evasion of the draft was a trivial matter that shouldn’t be explored by the real news media. And any attempts to do so will be met with biased retorts that offer zero substance to support their claims, but fit nicely in the Trumpian era theme of fake news.

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