Rachel Maddow is Leading MSNBC to Record Ratings, the Only Cable News Net to Gain Viewers

Posted by on August 28, 2018 at 10:14 pm. 2 Comments :

While Donald Trump is dragging his presidency down to the depths of the abyss, he might deserve some credit for lifting MSNBC up to the heights of ratings Valhalla. For the month of August MSNBC achieved a significant milestone, becoming the the second-most-watched network across all of basic cable. And the network’s star, Rachel Maddow, had the number one show for total viewers on cable TV for the last week of August.

Rachel Maddow

This ratings bonanza took place as Trump’s world was crumbling. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted on eight felonies. His personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight felonies of his own. And Trump’s inner circle suffered some serious ruptures. His long-time friend, and publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors. The same goes for the CFO of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg. Immunity is not handed out unless the recipients were exposed to serious legal jeopardy and had something useful to trade for their get-out-jail-free card.

These sort of news events may have brought viewers hungry for credible reporting to MSNBC resulting in their ratings wins last week. But the whole month notched gains that were noteworthy. In fact, MSNBC’s primetime rose over their draw in 2017, while both CNN and Fox News declined. Maddow’s contribution to that was scoring the top show rating in all of cable TV for the whole month in the 25-54 demographic. To be clear, she not only beat Sean Hannity head-to-head, but every other show of any type on basic cable.

The remainder of the MSNBC schedule was equally as successful with viewers. Everyone from Chris Hayes to Lawrence O’Donnell to Ari Melber to Brian Williams to Joy Reid, enjoyed record breaking numbers. The daytime crew, including Ali Velshi, Stephanie Ruhle, Hallie Jackson, Nicolle Wallace, and Katy Tur, all notched substantial gains as well.

If this is any indication of how the content of the news can affect ratings, there is sure to be more good news to come. Manafort’s next trial in Washington, D.C. is scheduled to begin in mid September. And almost every day there are new revelations that bring Trump’s dismal fate closer to realization. Much of them unveiled by his own big mouth and fat Twitter fingers. And as events continue to unfold, America’s television viewers will continue to seek out truthful accounts of the breaking news.

That’s good news for MSNBC. And as for Fox News, they can surely rely on their cult followers to keep their numbers pretty high. After all, they will need those extra doses of fake propaganda and blurred reality from State TV to anesthetize them into their cozy states of semi-consciousness.

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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Trump, the Whiner, Parrots His Senior Media Advisors, Dobbs, Diamond & Silk, Via Fox News

Posted by on August 28, 2018 at 12:04 pm. 1 Comments :

Let’s put to rest the notion that Donald Trump regards himself as an icon of strength and triumph. If there is one thing that Trump has excelled in to the exclusion of all others, it’s his relentless whining about how hopelessly impotent and powerless he is. Trump literally bragged about being “the most fabulous whiner.” So despite having majority control of all three branches of government, Trump and company persist in their pathetic whimpering that they are mercilessly oppressed, suppressed and obstructed from achieving any of their repugnant goals.

Fox News, Diamond & Silk

In his latest attempt to create a media distraction from the horrendous drubbing he took for demeaning John McCain, Trump turned to Fox News for anything that he could post to Twitter that might take the heat off for a few moments of relief. He found it in a segment from the Lou Dobbs program on the Fox Business Network. And without bothering to confirm the ludicrous assertions in the clip, Trump tweeted out that:

Needless to say, that is all Grade A bunk that has no basis in fact. The Republican controlled Congress even held hearings to ascertain whether the Internet and social media were employing any tactics to inject political bias into what are supposed to be neutral search results and news feeds. They found nothing. Instead, they reaffirmed that the algorithms used by tech companies are not based on ideology, but that they respond to what people want to see.

However, that didn’t stop Trump from threatening Google Tuesday morning. And it didn’t stop Dobbs from spewing demonstrably false charges against Google and others along with his guest experts on media and technology, Diamond & Silk. This dynamic duo has been squealing about imaginary censorship for months. The exchange they had with Dobbs was an exercise in how to dumb down America on what is supposed to be a financial news channel (video below):

Dobbs: I take it that you’re not surprised that Google is sort of banning conservatives from their search results with President Trump?
Diamond: No, it’s not surprising. And to us it looks like it’s tyranny. You have these media outlets, along with Google, taking and they’re suppressing voices of conservatives. Not only that but they’re thumbing down our pages where we can’t see President Trump’s content or good news about what’s going on in this country when it comes to this president. And I am not for big government, but I really do believe that the government should step in and really check this out. Because this is, again, the sort of [inaudible] of tyranny. We don’t need dictatorship. We don’t need people controlling what we can and cannot see.
Silk: And this also look like a form of political lynching. Insteading of using the news, what they are doing is using algorithms and a form of censorship to Trump people’s platforms out, to keep you from being able to do your search whenever you want to search for our beautiful president.

Notice that Dobbs began with a matter of fact statement that Google is “banning conservatives” even though he has no facts to support that charge. And his Looney Tunes guests join the choir with even more extremist banter about tyranny and dictatorship and lynching and the deflowering of “our beautiful president.”

Dobbs went on to charge that Google’s search technology has become shallow and political. Then he complains about the “deep, profound concentration of wealth” and the “deep, profound concentration of political power.” Which is a position that would delight America’s socialists and critics of income inequality. Except that Dobbs is only applying this rhetoric to those who he perceives as foes of the President and the ultra-rightist agenda he represents.

What’s more, these stalwart defenders of conservative values are pushing for the government to stomp its boot down on the Internet’s defilers of Trumpian goodness. Never mind that the First Amendment prohibits the regulation of speech by private companies. The Constitution is an impediment to the propagandist objectives of Trump and Fox News. They can’t merely dismiss their hypocrisy by claiming to be against big government while advocating for such regulations. Even Trump’s chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, warned that “We’re taking a look at it,” And the one policy measure they could pursue that would prevent bias by anyone, would be the one they are affirmatively trying to kill: Network Nuetrality.

But while pounding on the political oppression by the enemies of Trumpism, at least Dobbs is comforted by the presence of Trump saying that “If we didn’t have a president like this one I don’t know where we’d be.” Then Dobbs contradicts the whole premise of the segment by noting that Trump “has his own access to the American people” via social media. So he’s now arguing that Trump and his confederates are enjoying unprecedented success getting their message out. So where the hell is the alleged censorship?

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


Trump Can’t Be Shamed. So Why Did He Re-Lower the White House Flag for John McCain?

Posted by on August 27, 2018 at 4:17 pm. 3 Comments :

A rare occurrence took place on Monday that is entirely out of character for Donald Trump and his notoriously petty and obstinate administration. The President reversed himself on his prior decision not to honor the memory of Sen. John McCain by flying the White House flag at half mast. The flag had been lowered on Sunday, but was raised to full staff again on Monday in a breach of protocol that requires it to remain lowered until after the burial of the honoree.

Donald Trump

Trump is not known for having an open mind or for changing his position once he’s figured out (or been told) what it is. Sure, he’ll frequently contradict himself or engage in rank hypocrisy, but that’s different than staking a position and then backtracking. So what might have caused this deviation from his “normal” behavior?

Firstly, it needs to be recognized that Trump is not susceptible to shame. The fact that there was near universal condemnation of his childish dissing of McCain could not have triggered his flip-flop. Even with criticisms from his pals at Fox News and the American Legion. After all, Trump took even more heat after his policy of breaking apart immigrant families became known. The inhumanity of that made most Americans sick as they watched babies being ripped from the arms of their parents. But Trump never backed down from it until he was forced to by the courts.

Likewise, Trump was hammered for his bigoted ban on Muslims entering the country. Majorities of Americans opposed the policy and several federal courts overturned it. But Trump stayed the course without regard for the repudiation of the American people. He continues his crusade to build a wall on the southern border even though polls show that most voters don’t want it. His attacks on the media are rejected by the people who still have more trust in the press than they do in Trump after two years of his anti-constitutional abuse.

So what’s the difference when it comes to this incident with the lowering of the flag? Surely it has nothing to do with Trump’s opinion of McCain. He is openly disdainful of him. He declined to offer any kind of praise following the news of the Senator’s death. And even now that he has acquiesced and re-lowered the flag, he accompanied the action with a pissy statement that still failed to pay McCain any tribute:

“Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country and, in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment.”

That statement made no gesture to honor McCain’s integrity, patriotism, or any other observance of a positive, personal nature. But he did lead off with the pointless and, under the circumstance, inappropriate mention of their disagreements. Who cares?

There is only thing that marks this affair as unique to the other situations wherein Trump had no problem weathering the storms of criticism. This time many of the attacks are coming from Republicans in Congress who still revere their deceased colleague. Trump desperately needs the support of his congressional confederates to push forward with his abhorrent agenda. He also needs them to shield him from the slings and arrows of investigations and impeachment. The fear of becoming a lame duck or being cast adrift in a rocky political sea must have caused Trump to grudgingly lower the flag and issue a weak proclamation about McCain’s passing.

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

The good news in that is that in November there will be an opportunity to turn Congress into exactly the body that Trump fears most. The much-anticipated “Blue Wave” would subject him to hearings chaired by Democrats who have been chained up too long by unethical Republican leaders. And the prospect of impeachment would become plausible as more and more of Trump’s associates (aka accomplices) are indicted or granted immunity. And that’s not even taking into consideration the looming visage of special counsel Robert Mueller. So stay tuned and have plenty of popcorn at hand.


Daffy Donald Trump Mistakenly Tweet-Brags His 52% Approval, But That’s His Disapproval

Posted by on August 26, 2018 at 10:06 pm. 2 Comments :

With everything that is going wrong for Donald Trump lately, it’s clear that the pressure is taking a serious toll on his already sorely inadequate comprehension skills. The average person would be feeling the heat if confronted with disastrous scenarios like having your campaign chairman (Paul Manafort) and personal attorney (Michael Cohen) convicted of multiple felonies. And add to that your friends (David Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer) and close associates (Allen Weisselberg, CFO of your business) being granted immunity by federal prosecutors in order to testify against you.

Donald Trump

But for someone who has severe mental deficiencies in the first place, the consequences are magnified geometrically. That’s the state that Trump finds himself in now, and the result is frightening. On Sunday evening he posted a tweet intended to excite his glassy-eyed followers and to pump up his gargantuan ego:

The media doesn’t need to make Trump look evil. And let’s just set aside that he felt it necessary to disseminate this self-exalting message on the day that saw multiple people get shot in Jacksonville, Florida. Trump said nothing about that. It’s also the day after the passing of Sen. John McCain, who Trump neglected to pay any tribute to for his decades of service to the nation. Instead he played golf at one of his resorts and had his press secretary release a statement that he was “monitoring” the Jacksonville situation. Which means he was watching Fox News.

However, what’s really astonishing about trump’s boastful tweet is that he couldn’t even get the numbers right. Yes, the poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News (who are, in his opinion, fake), did find that ninety percent of Republicans have a favorable view of the President. Trump may like that, but it should be a serious embarrassment to the Republican Party. What Trump failed to report accurately was his overall approval rating, which he said was fifty-two percent. The only problem with that is that’s actually his disapproval rating in the poll. His approval is only forty-four percent.

If this is the level of accuracy that we can expect from our president, then America is in deep, deep trouble. Especially coming from someone who thinks there were millions of people at his inaugural address (there weren’t). Or that three million people voted illegally (they didn’t). Or that he won the women’s vote in 2016 (just white women). Or that U.S. Steel is opening six new plants (actually it’s zero). And this could go on endlessly with all of the lies that Trump regularly tells about his imaginary accomplishments.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really that funny. If Trump can’t get the simplest numbers right about polls or the attendance at his cult rallies, how can he be expected to get the numbers right about the economy or the quantity of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the United States and its enemies? This sort of cognitive infirmity poses serious risks for our nation. And it’s just more proof that Trump is unfit to be in any position of leadership.

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


Paying Tribute: Would Anyone in Trump’s Republican Party Be Remembered Like John McCain?

Posted by on August 26, 2018 at 11:26 am. 3 Comments :

Saturday saw the passing of one of the most storied and respected members of Congress in this generation. John McCain was an irascible political pugilist who managed to nurture close friendships with almost everyone with whom he did battle. And he did battle with everyone. His maverick status may have been an overwrought marketing scheme, but he did have a tendency to skirt partisan divides more frequently than most of his colleagues.

Donald Trump John McCain

Consequently, he earned the respect, admiration, and affection of his congressional peers. The remembrances expressed in the past twenty-four hours have been uniquely non-partisan, especially by today’s Trumpian standards. Naturally, McCain’s passing brought out kind words and loving thoughts from Republicans who regard him as an elder statesman. But he has also been lauded with effusive praise by President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, and many more from the ranks of Democrats.

The tributes generally include recognition of his valiant and selfless service to the nation as a Navy officer and a public servant for more than thirty years. They cite his courage, integrity, honor, perseverance, collegiality, fairness, and above all, putting his principles and his country before himself or his party. And those saluting him specifically used those words to described his enduring legacy. The only prominent Republican who failed to do so was Donald Trump, whose curt tweet offered only obligatory condolences, but said nothing at all about the man or his life’s work.


Compare that to the more fully realized sentiments of the man who defeated McCain for the presidency:

All of these accolades may seem customary under the circumstances when a notable public figure meets his destiny. But on reflection, it’s hard to imagine the same measure of esteem being shown toward any of McCain’s GOP pals were they to expire. Does anyone think that Mitch McConnell would be eulogized with words like courage, integrity, or honor? What about Paul Ryan? Or Jim Jordan? Or Chuck Grassley? Or Kevin McCarthy? Or John Cornyn? Or Mike Pence? Or (do I have to say it) Donald Trump?

What ever one thinks of McCain’s politics, he actually does represent a bygone era of bipartisanship that the GOP has been chipping away at for years. And with the emergence of Trump, the demolition crew has really stepped up their efforts to shred whatever fragile veil of unity has managed to survive.

As a result, it may be a while before America sees another passing of a Republican who garners such near universal praise. Maybe some of the GOP leaders in Congress and elsewhere should start to think about their own legacies and whether they would like to be remembered as heroes or narrow minded zealots.

This applies especially to those who can look the other way as Trump exacerbates partisan divisions, incites racial hatred and misogyny, puts the wealthy and corporations above everyday citizens, and worst of all, kowtows to foreign dictators and sells out the nation to our enemies. Support for that sort of anti-American agenda is unlikely to win over the hearts and minds of grieving Americans once you cast off your mortal bounds. Something to consider.

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


Trump Tweets ‘Big Story’ About the FBI that Turns Out to Be a Big Lie By Wingnut Website

Posted by on August 25, 2018 at 3:59 pm. 5 Comments :

The tribulations of Donald Trump continue to mount as news of his crumbling network of accomplices gets more dire with each passing day. Just this week his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted of eight felonies and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to felonies of his own. Then two close associates – David Pecker of the National Enquirer, and Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Organization – were granted immunity by federal prosecutors in exchange for their cooperation.

Donald Trump

As usual, when ever Trump sees dark clouds gathering he attempts to blow them away by creating a windstorm of his own. It’s an obvious tactic that just makes him look desperate and even more guilty. On Saturday morning he deployed this scheme with a series of tweets intended to distract from the Mueller probe and the slow-motion apocalypse that is his presidency:

The “Big story” that Trump refers to is one that has been in circulation for nearly two years now. It revolves around allegations that Hillary Clinton engaged in some vaguely defined wrongdoing connected to her handling of classified documents. This matter has been investigated by everyone from the FBI to various Republican-controlled committees in the House and Senate. And even when starkly partisan players in Congress were pushing hard to find misdeeds, they never did.

If getting “to the bottom of all of this corruption” was actually on Trump’s agenda, he would not be relying on Fox News as his source for information. After all, he has the world’s most sophisticated intelligence operations at his fingertips, but he still prefers the imbecilic sycophants on Fox and Friends to experienced law enforcement professionals.

The big story that has Trump triggered now is one that alleges that the FBI failed to review thousands of Clinton’s emails during their investigation in 2016. Trump attributes the story to Fox News, but it originated with a website, The Federalist, that is a virulent right-wing fount of extremist propaganda. The article authored by Paul Sperry is an interminably long screed that offers nothing but conjecture, when it isn’t rehashing ancient history about alleged Clinton misdeeds.

The key point that Trump’s tantrum focuses on is the charge that the FBI deliberately ignored thousands of Clinton’s email that were discovered on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, who was married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Sperry asserts that some 675,000 emails were found, but that the FBI only reviewed 3,077 of them. That’s because the FBI conducted an automated review that identified the vast majority of these emails as duplicates that they had received and reviewed from other sources. Sperry casts doubts on the FBI’s ability to have effectively screened out the duplicates, but he offers no proof for that contention, and he completely ignores the fact that computers are quite capable of comparing text.

Somehow, Trump concludes from this dubious article that the emails that were supposedly unreviewed were “REALLY BAD” and “disasters.” Where he got that from is anyone’s guess because even Sperry never made that claim. Nevertheless, on the weakness of this report, Trump is threatening, again, that he “may have to get involved” in the work of what should be the independent Justice Department. He has long claimed that he has that right and that he could even run the investigation himself if he wanted to. Imagine that: a president who personally takes control of the persecution of his political enemies. That says pretty much everything you need to know about the wannabe dictator 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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Donald Trump Seeking Immunity From Mueller in Exchange for Flipping on Don Jr And Melania

Posted by on August 25, 2018 at 11:33 am. 4 Comments :

The past week has seen a flurry of unprecedented activity in Washington concerning the criminal probe of Donald Trump and his Confederacy of Crooks. Most noteworthy are the felony convictions and guilty pleas by Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and personal attorney, Michael Cohen. With respect to the latter, Trump was even implicated as a co-conspirator in unlawful campaign finance transactions.

Donald Trump, Melania, Don Jr

Also in the news were two of Trump’s closest associates who were granted immunity by federal prosecutors. David Pecker is the publisher of the National Enquirer, a tabloid that has gone to great lengths to shield Trump from negative publicity, while harshly attacking his opponents. He has also been a Trump friend and ally for more than two decades. Allen Weisselberg is the long-time chief financial officer of the the Trump Organization with knowledge of nearly everything that goes on behind the closed doors of Trump’s criminal enterprise. The fact that both of these people were offered and accepted immunity indicates that they were complicit in illegal activities and that they have information to share.

Not wanting to get left holding the bag, Trump himself is reported to be seeking an immunity deal. After all, why should he take the fall if he can point his bony fingers at other dumb suckers? Sources say that Trump is willing to spill his guts about the meeting with Russian operatives at Trump Tower that was set up by his son Don Jr. and Manafort. Nearly everyone involved in that secret meeting has lied repeatedly about what took place. And that includes Trump, who recently outed himself as having deliberately deceived the nation. Consequently, it will be interesting to get his testimony about what actually occurred, if he can be relied on to tell the truth (a longshot at best).

What’s more, Trump has been carefully watching the case of Rep. Duncan Hunter, who was just indicted on corruption charges. Hunter was the second person in congress to endorse Trump’s presidential campaign. It’s tangentially noteworthy that Trump’s first congressional endorser, Chris Collins, has also been indicted. And his third is the embattled Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.

Of particular interest to Trump is Hunter’s legal strategy of blaming his wife for any wrongdoing. It’s a bold move that most defendants (or decent people) would shy away from. But Trump appears to regard it as a show of strength and a sign of masculinity. Therefore, he is also offering the special counsel incriminating information on his wife, Melania. The First Lady has not been been implicated yet in any of the shady dealings by Team Trump, but the President believes he can link her to nefarious activities due to her being an immigrant with suspect loyalties to America.

This concession to the Mueller and company is a stark turnaround for Trump who has expressed in no uncertain terms his utter disdain for “flippers.” He regards them as “rats” and conversely sees people who resist cooperating with law enforcement as being loyal to their fellow mobsters. But then Trump is getting some very dodgy legal advice which he says comes from the shows he watches on TV.

It is not known whether Mueller is considering immunity for Trump. For one thing, he doesn’t appear to have any information on the sort of bigger fish that immunity is generally granted to hook. He is the biggest flounder in the cesspool. Furthermore, his request just smells like another stab at desperation to avoid being impeached, indicted, and imprisoned himself. For those and other reasons, Trump may be disappointed in his quest to escape responsibility for his misdeeds and corruption. Perhaps he’d have more luck if he had an embarrassing video of Vladimir Putin in a Moscow hotel with urinating hookers. Oh wait, that was Trump too.

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


Massive Voter Fraud? Via Fox News, 19 Non-Citizens Voted in 2016 – Trump’s Off By Only 2,999,981

Posted by on August 24, 2018 at 3:53 pm. 1 Comments :

This week Donald Trump laid into his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, chastising him for having properly recused himself from the Russia investigation, and for not persecuting Trump’s perceived enemies. In Trump World the Department of Justice is his personal legal team who should be pursuing only those matters that advance his interests. That’s not the way the Constitution sees it.

Vladimir Putin Voted

Perhaps to mollify Trump, Sessions is throwing him bone in the form of a set of indictments for voter fraud. This is an issue that has been close to Trump’s shriveled heart ever since he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by more than 3,000,000 votes. The egocentric President has claimed repeatedly that this loss was the result of millions of illegal Clinton voters. But every study that has researched this has concluded that no such widespread fraud exists. That even includes the commission Trump empaneled, which was quickly disbanded having proved nothing. But none of that stopped Trump from exercising his active imagination:

The charges that Fox News is reporting involve nineteen (19) people who allegedly registered and/or voted in 2016, despite not being American citizens. The accused are from all over the world, including Mexico, Nigeria, Italy, Korea, and Poland. Which puts to rest the right-wing conspiracy theories that Mexicans are swarming into the country to take it over. Additionally, there is no indication who these people voted for, and it is just as likely that some of them supported Trump as Clinton.

Given that Trump has variously claimed that between three and five million people voted illegally, he’s only off by between 2,999,981 and 4,999,981. That’s actually not a bad effort by a president whose record for being 100% wrong (i.e. lying) is unmatched in American history. And while Trump was adamant about stopping non-citizens from south of the border tainting our elections, he had no objections to Vladimir Putin doing it.

To make matters worse, the Republican Party just voted to kill “A bill that would have significantly bolstered the nation’s defenses against electoral interference” and they did so “at the behest of the White House.” So Trump’s GOP cannot credibly claim to be interested in fair elections. And these new charges from the Justice Department really just reaffirm how rarely the sort of voter fraud that has Trump all verklempt actually occurs.

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


Trump Tells Fox News that He Has ‘Many Friends Involved’ in Criminal Activity Who Lie to the Feds

Posted by on August 24, 2018 at 9:34 am. 1 Comments :

In what passes for an “interview” on Fox News, the co-host of Fox and Friends, Ainsley Earhardt presided over Donald Trump doing his best impression of a Mafia boss to date (video below). His language resembled the lingo of classic movie gangsters as he delivered veiled threats, like the one where he warned that the stock market would crash if he were impeached (nice economy you have there. It sure would be a shame if something happened to it).

Donald Trump, Godfather

Earhardt never bothered to challenge Trump on any of his ludicrous assertions and lies. Fox gets away with this because they are the President’s shadow cabinet and the source for virtually all information he receives. Eventually the discussion turned to the question of whether his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, would cooperate with law enforcement officials. Trump might just as well have adopted a James Cagney accent and started snarling “You dirty rat.”

When Earhardt wasn’t staring adoringly at Trump, and tossing him the softest of balls, she sat quietly as he lectured her, and the Fox News audience of cultists, on the culture of crime family etiquette. He lauded his campaign chairman Paul Manafort for not caving in to the coppers by squealing on Trump. And he denigrated Cohen for ratting out his ex-boss and coming clean to the G-Men investigating Trump’s criminal conduct.

Trump also waxed philosophical about the art of “flipping.” He characterized it as crooks making up stories to escape severe sentences for crimes they’ve committed. In reality, it’s an agreement between suspects and law enforcement to secure cooperation in order to catch bigger crooks. Lying under these circumstance is rare because it would result in the deal being voided and the suspect receiving an even harsher sentence than was originally anticipated. Trump said that this common and useful practice “ought to be illegal.” But he also said that he’s very familiar with it:

“I know all about flipping. For 30-40 years I’ve been watching flippers. […] I’ve seen it many times. I’ve got many friends involved in this stuff. It’s called ‘flipping’ and it almost ought to be illegal.”

That’s an extraordinary comment. In essence Trump is bragging that many of his friends are criminals who have been entangled in police investigations. He doesn’t say whether they were the flippers or the targets of the flipping. But either way they were involved in illegal activities as kingpins or cohorts with information to trade. And isn’t difficult to believe that Trump had these kinds of disreputable friends considering the bad character of Trump’s associates in his campaign and his presidency. In fact, anything other than a confederacy of crooks would seem totally out of character for this president.

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


Dotard Report: Trump Confides to Fox News that He Gets His Legal Advice ‘By Watching Shows’ on TV

Posted by on August 23, 2018 at 1:21 pm. 5 Comments :

The presidency of Donald Trump has been a slow motion disaster for the past twenty months. But the velocity of his crumbling regime has been ramping up in recent days. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted on eight felonies. His personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight felonies as well. Plus, Cohen testified that Trump was in on the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

Donald Trump

On Thursday morning the temperature continued to rise. Daveid Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and a close Trump pal, was granted immunity in order to provide information about Trump’s illegal campaign finance affairs. So fearing the worst, Trump took refuge in his “safe space” that he knows will always offer comfort, consolation, and a shield from any and all criticism – Fox News.

Ainsley Earhardt of Fox and Friends was dispatched to rub salve on the President’s wounds (video below). And she really came through. Asking a series of softball questions that Trump could swat away with ease, Earhardt sat through the entire twelve minutes nodding like a bobble-head doll. She didn’t challenge Trump on a single subject, despite his flagrant and easily provable lies. For instance, Trump rattled off false statistics about employment; he said that James Comey is Robert Mueller’s best friend; he alluded to imaginary crimes that Hillary Clinton committed; and he claimed that the FBI raided Manafort’s home at 5:00 in the morning with guns. None of that, and most everything else he said, is true.

One particular exchange in this televised tongue bathing stood out as a revealing confession by Trump. Earhardt asked him about Cohen’s testimony at his pleading that Trump directed him to make the hush money payouts. And Trump’s answer was, to say the least, peculiar:

Earhardt: He [Michael Cohen] said in one story that you didn’t know anything about the payments. And now he’s saying that you directed him to make these payments. Did you direct him to make the payments?
Trump: He made the deals. He made the deals. And by the way, he pled to two counts that aren’t a crime. Which nobody understands. I watched a number of shows. Sometimes you get some pretty good information by watching shows. Those two counts aren’t even a crime. They weren’t campaign finance. […] A lot of lawyers – on television – and also lawyers that I have say that they are not even crimes.

Notice that Trump’s response did not address whether he directed Cohen to make the payments. He said twice that Cohen “made the deals,” but never denied that he directed Cohen to do so. Then Trump quickly pivots to an absurd statement that Cohen pleaded to two counts of something that isn’t a crime. Of course, anyone who isn’t brain-dead knows that you can’t plead guilty to a crime that doesn’t exist. It’s like saying “I plead guilty to eating brussel sprouts. And I’ll do it again, dammit” As it turns out, there is no law against eating brussel sprouts and, thus, nothing to plead to. He’s absolutely correct when he says that “nobody understands” this. Somebody needs to explain it to Trump. I’d suggest a kindergarten teacher, because they have experience with stubbornly immature students.

However, what was truly disturbing is when Trump disclosed where he gets his legal advice. He’s the President of the United States and has whole departments of lawyers working for him in the White House and the Justice Department, as well as his personal legal team. And yet, he tells Earhardt that his legal expertise comes from “watch[ing] a number of shows.” “Sometimes,” he says, “you get some pretty good information by watching shows.”

Trump doesn’t say which shows, but it’s a pretty safe bet it’s Fox and Friends or Sean Hannity. That would explain why he believes that someone can plead guilty to crimes that don’t exist. But if this is the source of his consultations on matters of law, he is in bigger trouble than he can possibly imagine.

For the record, this is the second time Trump has identified TV as his source for critical data on presidenting. In August of 2015, Trump responded to a question from Chuck Todd about who his advisors are for military issues. Trump said that “I watch the shows.” But then, what more would you expect from the Reality TV president?

It’s interesting that Trump credits television with providing so much good information. Because he still thinks that the press is, in the whole, corrupt and dishonest. He reiterated that when Earhardt asked him if the press is “the enemy of the people.” “Absolutely not,” he said. But went on to contradict himself saying that only “Eighty percent of the media is the enemy of the people.” So he gets his legal advice from the other twenty percent? With consultants like that, and TV lawyers like Rudy Giuliani implicating Trump in criminal acts every time he’s on the tube, Trump is headed for an extended stay in Leavenworth – or maybe Gitmo.

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