Crazed Right-Wing Shill Provides the Perfect Example of Why MSNBC Shouldn’t Book These Crackpots

Posted by on August 8, 2018 at 11:45 am. 3 Comments :

On Tuesday’s edition of The Beat with Ari Melber on MSNBC, Melber hosted what was supposed to be a discussion of racial division in the era of Donald Trump. That’s a timely topic that had the potential to be enlightening and productive. There’s just one problem. Melber made the mistake of inviting right-wing bomb-thrower Candace Owens on to take the conservative side of the debate.

Ari Melber, Candace Owens, MSNBC

Melber began the segment innocently enough with a summary of what he expected it to cover. He welcomed his guests, Owens and Prof. Michael Eric Dyson, with this introduction (hair-raising video below):

“President Trump again attacking prominent African-American. He’s just impugned the the intelligence of LeBron James and Don Lemon. Which echoes the way he singled out the intelligence of Congresswoman Maxine Waters or the academic credentials of Barack Obama.”

And it was all downhill from there. Melber begins the discussion by asking Owens if she thinks that Donald Trump is embracing racial division. Her answer was a long-winded filibuster that produced nothing but anger and hate and entirely evaded the topic. She began slowly, pretending to be responsive, but shortly diverted to an unrelated subject about the recent rash of gun violence in Chicago (about which she opposes any action on guns). And that rant somehow morphed into her own travails in public where she has been confronted by opponents. And finally she went off on an extended tirade wherein she exalted Trump’s (imaginary) achievements, whined about black conservatives being criticized, and asserted that Democrats have always been racist, ignoring the party realignment that took place in the 1950s and 1960s.

All of that occurred in a wild-eyed display of bluster where Owens refused to stop yammering, ignored Melber’s pleas to be civil and fair, and generally behaved like deranged mental patient who traded her meds for Snickers bars. But what needs to be recognized here is that this was not a spontaneous outburst. Owens came on the show planning to leap off the rails from start. That’s evident in her evasion of the questions which she was told in advance would define her appearance. And it’s evident in her obviously prepared raving and disrespect for civil discourse.

Considering what occurred in this segment, MSNBC, and other conscientious news networks, should realize that booking people like Owens is a futile endeavor. Their only purpose is to derail the conversation and insult the participants. And they should not be given a platform to do that. Not only is it a waste of time, it prevents the discussion of important issues that would be useful to the audience. Owens belongs on Fox News and Infowars where haranguing the left is central to their mission. But real news networks need to learn from this that booking these cretins is just giving them leeway to crap all over free speech.

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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POLL: Trump’s GOP Favors Giving Fascist Authority to the President to Shut Down Critical Media

Posted by on August 7, 2018 at 12:23 pm. NO Comments :

The disintegration of American democracy continues as the Republican Party under Donald Trump embraces the politics of totalitarian dictatorships. It’s consistent with their worshipful supplication to everything that Trump does and says. Any dissent is regarded as betrayal and party members are held to strict oaths of unbending loyalty.

Donald Trump Republican, GOP

In addition to rallying behind Trump’s Stalinist rant that the media is “the enemy of the American people,” a new Ipsos poll shows that a plurality of Republicans (43%) believe that he should be able to shut down any media company that he deems is behaving badly. Can you guess which ones those would be? According to Ipsos:

“Some of the limits of public support for freedom of the press are made stark with a quarter of Americans (26%) saying they agree ‘the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior,’ including a plurality of Republicans (43%). Likewise, most Americans (72%) think ‘it should be easier to sue reporters who knowingly publish false information.”

For the record, anyone can already sue a reporter or news outlet that knowingly publishes false information. The problem that Trump and his cult following have is when reporters publish truthful and fact-checked information that exposes their lies and the damage they are doing to the country. Their attacks on the press are not intended to produce either fairness or balance. They are intended to intimidate journalists and to poison the minds of the Deplorables so that they trust no other source than Dear Leader.

This strategy is also seen in Trump’s determined efforts to threaten reporters with banishment from White House events and the revocation of their licenses. And his relentless castigation of the media as “sleazy,” “disgraceful,” “horrendous”, “liars,” is bound to lead to violence. Meanwhile, his communications office has made the daily press briefings irrelevant. For one thing, they are hardly daily. There were five briefings in June and only three in July. And when they are held the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, spends most the time evading questions, haranguing reporters, and exalting Trump.

The good news is that, despite the worst efforts of Trump and the GOP to denigrate the press, the American people consistently say that they trust the media more than they trust the President. Perhaps the fact that Trump is the most documented pathological liar that’s ever occupied the White House has something to do with that opinion.

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


Why Trump’s Loony Charges of Russian Collusion By Hillary Clinton Will Blow Up in His Lying Face

Posted by on August 6, 2018 at 11:42 am. 3 Comments :

In the process of his rapid descension into panic and fear, Donald Trump is becoming ever more frenzied and detached from reality. He knows that the law is closing in on him and his family (who he just threw under the bus) and he’s grasping for any lifeline to keep from sinking into the abyss of his treasonous criminality.

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton

Among the tactics Trump has settled on is an effort to snare Hillary Clinton in a Russian collusion story of her own. This fictional construction has already been hammered to death by Trump’s pals at Fox News, so his cult followers are primed to buy into it. But there are a couple of significant problems with this desperation ploy.

The gist of Trump’s scheme asserts that Clinton is the one who has conspired with the Kremlin to bring down the candidacy of Trump. Never mind that Vladimir Putin admitted at a joint press conference in Helsinki that he wanted Trump to win. The President’s angle is that Clinton and/or her campaign paid Russians for dirt on Trump that they would use to his detriment in the election. And that is his basis for claiming that Clinton is the real colluder. He’s addressed it many times on Twitter, including this past weekend. For instance:

However, that fairy tale is just plain ludicrous. What Trump is referring to is the now famous Steele Dossier. It was researched and complied by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who was regarded as credible by his American counterparts. He did have Russian sources from whom he extracted information. That’s called investigating, but it’s not colluding. And he didn’t pay for the information. He was paid by a firm, Fusion GPS, that was originally contracted for opposition research on Trump by a conservative website, but he was not paid by Clinton or her campaign.

In addition to that, the data in the dossier was never used by the Clinton campaign. So the allegation that she engaged in this alleged collusion to harm Trump doesn’t make any sense. Contrast that with the evidence that Trump was colluding. He personally promoted the information that was obtained by his son and his campaign manager in meetings that they lied about later. He even asked the Russians to do more hacking to steal even more data from Clinton. Which they did.

But the real problem for Trump is that he keeps hedging his claim that there was no collusion with the false assertion that collusion isn’t a crime. That’s like a murderer saying “I didn’t shoot the guy, and was nowhere near the scene. But anyway, it was a self defense.” While “collusion” is not a word in the criminal statutes, the crime does exist as a combination of related offenses such as conspiracy. And it is illegal to interfere with an election and to solicit or accept money or other things of value from foreign governments.

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

So every time that Trump pretends that collusion is not a crime, he is outright lying. But worse, when he demands that Clinton be investigated for collusion, he is conceding that it actually is a crime. So which is it? Trump wants everyone accept his premise that “Crooked Hillary” should be investigated and prosecuted (lock her up) for colluding with Russia. Therefore, the same standard would have to be applied to Trump. By casting blame on Clinton, Trump is actually making the best argument for bringing himself to justice. And the good news is that that is exactly what special counsel Robert Mueller is doing.


Trump Confesses Collusion with Russia While His Lawyer Jay Sekulow Lies About Trump Tower Meeting

Posted by on August 5, 2018 at 3:06 pm. 1 Comments :

On Sunday morning’s edition of This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow about his prior statements concerning the infamous meeting in Trump Tower. That was where Don Jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and other Trump associates conspired with Russian operatives to acquire emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Donald Trump

As a refresher, what Sekulow said at the time was that the meeting was an innocent gathering to discuss adoption issues. He further said that Donald Trump knew nothing about it and had no role in the false explanations that were disseminated to the press.

Of course, we now know that Trump dictated those phony excuses. And we know it because Sekulow admitted it in a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller. What’s more, Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is said to be ready to testify that Trump was aware of the meeting before they took place, and approved of it. At this point that’s almost academic since the evidence shows that Trump was talking about the ill-gotten fruits of the meeting in public in advance of it.

Remember, this was a meeting in his own building, with his son, his son-in-law, and his campaign manager, to discuss Russian dirt on his opponent, during his campaign. Gee, why would anyone think he knew anything about it? Nevertheless, that was the position of Sekulow and the whole Trump regime. But on This Week Sekulow said this (video below):

“I was in the case at that point a couple of weeks and there was a lot of information that was gathering, and as my colleague Rudy Giuliani said, I had bad information at that time. I made a mistake in my statement. I talked about that before. That happens when you have cases like this.”

Actually, that is most definitely not what happens in cases like this. In cases like this it is imperative that attorneys collect and disseminate only well researched and documented information. Anything less is a flagrant disservice to their client, as is evident by what’s going on now. But that isn’t the worst thing about Sekulow’s remarks.

The worst part is that the entire statement is riddled with lies. If Sekulow had “bad information” at the time, then why didn’t he correct the record after he was able to get good information. He had over a year to do that. He had access to the people who attended the meeting. Why didn’t he get statements from them to set the record straight? In fact, why didn’t they offer corrections themselves without being prodded by Sekulow? They knew what he said on TV and they knew is was false. Every one of them let the lies fester for a year. And, of course, Trump himself knew that what his lawyer said wasn’t true, but he didn’t bother to correct him either.

What’s more, you have to ask why Team Trump told so many lies about the meeting in the first place. If they all considered it to be innocent and legal there should be no reason to invent fictional scenarios that were sure to be uncovered eventually. That’s not the way innocent people behave. And they allowed those lies to gather mold for months, purposefully deceiving the American people as well as the investigating authorities.

And, for the first time, Trump himself has acknowledged that the subject of the Trump Tower meeting was to obtain dirt about Clinton from Russia. That’s a bombshell admission that also reveals that he lied when he told the press that it was about adoptions, and also when he dictated the lies that Don Jr told.

This tweet is confession that Trump colluded with Russia to get dirt on Clinton. It’s as simple as that. Furthermore, it isn’t legal and it isn’t done all the time. To the contrary, this has never been done, that anyone knows of. And it is strictly against the law to conspire with a foreign government to interfere with an election. It’s also illegal to accept cash, or anything of value (like stolen emails), without disclosing it in campaign finance reports.

Since we know that Trump and company have lied about whether there ever was a meeting with Russians, and then lied about the subject of the meeting, and then lied about the participants, and then lied about why they told the previous lies, then it’s a good bet that the lies Trump just told will also be exposed in short order. That being his claim that he didn’t know about the meeting. Anyone who believes that is terminally naive. It’s just a matter of time before the truth about this comes out, just like the truth about the meeting did. And when it does you can expect Trump start tweeting about illegal MS-13 immigrant children on a nationwide killing spree who refuse to stand for the national anthem.

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 Sunday Morning (Not So) Funnies: The ‘Fake News Hates Me’ Edition

Posted by on August 5, 2018 at 10:30 am. 1 Comments :

If it’s Sunday, this must be time for Donald Trump to flail about wildly with desperate and wacky allegations pouring from his Twitter machine. And our pathetically incoherent president did not disappoint. He’s like Lynyrd Skynyrd coming on stage and starting off their concert with Free Bird. As they say in show business: Give the Deplorables what they want.

Donald Trump Toilet

Trump’s latest flurry of tweets is rather typical of his customary routine. Although he does seem to have stepped it up a notch. Let’s dive right into the week’s banquet of crazy.

Actually, the “fake news” loves you saying that the media is the enemy of the people. The fake news being Fox News, Breitbart, Alex Jones, National Enquirer, etc. And you’re projection of blaming the media for the division and distrust that you create is all too obvious. Escalating your rhetoric to assertions that the media “can cause war” and is “dangerous and sick”, will only increase the odds for a tragic act of violence directed at journalists who are just doing their jobs.

So are you saying that you are not concerned about your son? That would be consistent with your narcissistic personality disorder. But nobody expected you to throw your son under the bus by finally conceding that he colluded with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Which is absolutely illegal and never done, so far as anyone can tell. What’s more, it did go somewhere (into your campaign stump speeches and the weak minds of Republican voters), and according to your personal attorney, Michael Cohen, you did know about it.

First of all, there are a lot more than seventeen angry Democrats. It’s more like 65 million. But more to the point, there weren’t any meetings between Democrats and Russians concerning the dossier that has been confirmed in many respects (and none of it has been proven false. Ask Shepard Smith). But even if there were such meetings, you just got finished saying that it wasn’t illegal for you and your family. But it is illegal for Clinton? And by the way, if the witch hunt is one-sided it’s only because all the witches are cackling from the Republican side. There have already been dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas from amongst your associates.

The problem that you’re having is that the media actually is reporting the lies and corruption having to do with your treasonous activities. If they weren’t you would have to constrain yourself to just the racism and utterly dishonest, self-exalting themes of your presidency. Which for your cult followers would probably be enough.

And that’s it for this edition of the Trump (Not So) Funnies. Well, for the time being. Trump is, once again, at one of his luxurious golf resorts for the weekend. And that’s where he often goes farthest off the rails. So stayed tuned for more deranged bluster from the now disgraced (temporarily) White House.

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


How Trump Turned the Presidency Into His Personal Book Club for Dummies

Posted by on August 4, 2018 at 4:31 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the most notable observations that historians will make about Donald Trump’s presidency is how little he engaged in any presidential activities. And this is not just a commentary on his infantile behavior, petty boorishness, and just plain ugly bigotry. He spends more time watching Fox News, golfing, and headlining staged hate festivals to feed his malignant ego and rile up his glassy-eyed cult followers, than he does presidenting.

Donald Trump, Crippled America

In addition to those diversions from the dreary duties of upholding the Constitution and promoting the general welfare, Trump has spent an inordinate amount of time promoting the literary aspirations of his friends. If you didn’t know better you might think he wasn’t the Commander-in-Chief, but the PR flack for a failing, right-wing publishing company.

So in order to have a record of the President’s list of books he almost certainly hasn’t read, but thinks that you ought to, here are the tomes (79 so far) for which he has exploited his White House position in order serve as the huckster for crackpot conservative authors:


https://twitter.com/dbongino/status/1129822219432071169


And of course there’s this work of dystopian fear mongering that launched Trump’s campaign:

You might notice something that these books have in common. Most of them are either slobbering suck ups to Trump or blithering attacks on his critics. Apparently Trump doesn’t read anything that isn’t about himself. Even so, no thoughtful person will believe that Trump, who can’t be bothered to read a three page national security briefing (unless it’s filled with pictures and positive references to himself), actually read all of these snoozers. And it’s also interesting to note that eight of these books are by people associated with Fox News. That must be part of the contract Trump has with the network. They slavishly advance his candidacy and administration, he sells the cheesy, unreadable books their shills write.

This is just another of the unprecedented variances from the norm that Donald Trump has pioneered. No other president has spent so much time or personal capital hawking self-exalting books written by his friends. That’s because every other president would have considered it unseemly, unethical, and a vulgar abuse of power that dishonors the office. But then again, “vulgar abuse of power that dishonors the office” is pretty much the mission statement of the Trump regime.

For a collection of books that are more enlightening, truthful, and that can have a more positive impact on the nation going forward, visit the News Corpse Recommendations page on Amazon. You’ll find some some truly valuable contributions to the contemporary political discourse, including my own (like the one below).

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

UPDATE: In addition to the books above that Trump is pimping, there are others that he harshly criticizes. But none more so than the book by veteran investigative journalist Bob Woodward: Fear: Trump in the White House. As of mid-September he has posted a record nine tweets warning Trump’s cult followers to avoid this singularly dangerous opus.

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Racist Moron Donald Trump Tweets that LeBron James and CNN’s Don Lemon are Dumb

Posted by on August 4, 2018 at 1:40 am. 2 Comments :

Remember when America had a president who wasn’t an infantile jerkwad who threw around insults at anyone he happened to hate at the moment? When we had a respectable leader who filled you with pride and confidence in the future. It seems like ages ago, but the memory lingers and the hope of returning to that reality persists. But for the time being we’re stuck with Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, LeBron James

In a late night mental breakdown, Trump posted a disgustingly insulting tweet that demonstrates just how loathsome he is. And he’s following in the footsteps of one of his bigoted Fox News idols, Laura Ingraham, who did a whole segment on why LeBron James should “shut up and dribble.” But Trump’s tweet was confirmation that he’s a racist with the emotional maturity of newborn gnat.

First of all, there is no contest as to who is the dumbest man on television. It’s Donald Trump by leaps and bounds. In fact, this tweet is proof of it. For one thing, Lemon did not just interview LeBron James. The interview was four days ago. Is Trump really that slow? What’s more, the interview was a compelling look into the life of James and his selfless efforts to establish a school for at risk kids. Compare that to the phony “university” that Trump founded which ripped off students and broke numerous laws.

Secondly, Trump is repeating his pattern of insulting the intelligence of accomplished African-Americans. He has questioned the academic credentials of President Obama. He frequently refers to Congresswoman Maxine Waters as having a low IQ. And now he calls both Don Lemon of CNN and LeBron James dumb. But how would Trump know with his inability to comprehend the complexities of an Archie comic book? These are two of our nation’s most successful African-Americans who have excelled in their fields. Trump has only excelled at inspiring Nazis and Klan members to chant mindlessly at his cult rallies.

Apparently Trump was triggered by some brief and rather tame criticisms James made in the interview. When Lemon asked what he would say if he were sitting across from Trump, James said diplomatically that “I wouldn’t sit across from him.” Imagine the self-control he had to exercise to keep from saying something overtly derogatory, which Trump would have more than deserved. Nevertheless, Trump flew off the handle and fired off his blithering insults. But Trump’s senile dementia prevents him from recalling what he has said in the recent past about James and Lemon:

As for the final few words of this nauseating tweet, Trump added an insincere “I like Mike.” He may think that people will see that as evidence of his appreciation for Michael Jordan, another renowned African-American athlete and citizen. But don’t be fooled. He’s surely talking about Mike Pence. And Jordan had some harsh words for Trump’s divisive attack on sports figures who dare to exercise their right to free speech:

“One of the fundamental rights this country is founded on was freedom of speech, and we have a long tradition of nonviolent, peaceful protest. Those who exercise the right to peacefully express themselves should not be demonized or ostracized.

“At a time of increasing divisiveness and hate in this country, we should be looking for ways to work together and support each other and not create more division.”

And this just in: Jordan is supporting LeBron. Plus, Trump is doing one of his hate rallies in Ohio today (LeBron’s home state). I’m sure everyone who loves and admires LeBron will be waiting for him. Also, Melanie is trolling her imbecile husband by praising Lebron. And if you need to get the bad taste of Trump’s sickening bigotry out of your mouth, below is Don Lemon’s insightful and entertaining interview with LeBron James.

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

And now there’s this from Don Lemon:


‘Quit Letting Trump Use You as a Foil,’ Fox News Politics Editor Tells the Press

Posted by on August 3, 2018 at 6:25 pm. NO Comments :

It was just last Wednesday that Shepard Smith of Fox News delivered a searingly honest monologue about Donald Trump’s relentless lies concerning the special counsel’s probe of his collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. It was a timely effort to set the record straight as Trump gets more anxious and threatening toward Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Donald Trump

However, the surprising spectacle of a senior Fox News reporter being openly disparaging of the President may be getting more acceptable to the Fox brass. On Friday’s edition of Outnumbered, Fox’s politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, laid into the White House’s “useless” daily press briefings, which are hardly daily affairs anymore. There were five in June, and only three in July. And during a discussion on the subject, Stirewalt was unusually critical of Team Trump:

“I think we’re at a point where the White House briefs very rarely, and when they do it’s useless. We should stop the televised briefings. It’s counterproductive. It’s turned into showboat theater. No questions get answered. Well, not no questions. Substantive issues are not addressed. It has become a forum for personal achievement and political utility for the administration.”

Actually, Stirewalt was right the first time. Questions are not answered by this press secretary, Sarah Sanders. She routinely dodges and lies for half an hour, and then slips out of the room. But he was right about the administration using the briefings as a political tool to disseminate disinformation. He continued:

“I submit, we should stop having reporters at those Trump rallies. Everybody should stop having reporters penned up like veal in the back of those things for the President to use as a prop. And then some of the reporters exploit that for their own personal benefit. This is not helping anybody. Get out of the hall. Leave the cameras. Get the reporters out of the hall. Quit letting him use you as a foil.”

Exactly. Trump spends much of his time at his self-exalting rallies insulting the press. He points at them with a hostile glare and accuses them of lying and worse, treason. He encourages his glassy-eyed disciples to blast them with the sort of animus that can easily escalate to violence. He is inciting them to act in ever more dangerous ways that are almost certain to result in tragedy.

But Stirewalt does have a good idea, one that has been proposed before by media experts like Jay Rosen. The obvious futility of getting anything newsworthy from these briefings was apparent long ago. There is no journalistic need to cover them live because nothing urgent ever happens. The press can send interns and camera operators to record the snooze-fest and alert senior reporters if something important happens to shake loose. The result would be reporters would be freed up to do real journalism, and the White House communications office would have to find another platform for their propaganda.

Following Stirewalt’s righteous tirade on the uselessness of Trump’s press briefings, host Harris Faulkner ignored every point that he made in order to pivot into a tribute to the Trump administration. Because you can’t go for more than a minute or two on Fox News without lavishing the White House with undo praise. Faulkner applauded Trump for scheduling a press conference with members of his national security team. That event was pure photo-op with partisan insiders bragging about what a great job they were doing on preventing any new cyber attacks on the upcoming election. And they managed to do that without providing any details whatsoever on the activities they were allegedly engaged in.

Harris went further to demean CNN’s Jim Acosta for asking Sanders if she thinks that the media is the enemy of the people. She implied that maligning the media in Stalinist language was hardly worth paying attention to and that Acosta’s question was, therefore, a trivial waste of time. Shortly thereafter, co-host Trish Regan chimed in with her opinion that “the majority of Americans” look at CNN and MSNBC and “realize that they have a very extreme bias.” And yes, she was saying this on a Fox News program where four out of five panelists were overtly conservative supporters of Donald Trump.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the press actually failed to show up for these briefings. Would the White House learn a lesson and begin to make them more substantive? Well, let’s not get ridiculous. This White House would just whine that the media was being mean to them and book some more rallies where Trump could clown around for his cult followers. But at least Trump’s ability to funnel lies to a captive audience would be gone, and reporters could go back to doing what they became reporters for.

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


Fair and Huh? Fox News Anchor Tells Trump Shill that She “Needs to Go on the Offensive’

Posted by on August 3, 2018 at 10:34 am. 5 Comments :

The evidence that Fox News is just Donald Trump’s in-house propaganda ministry keeps growing with each new day. The network seems to have no bottom with regard to blatantly biased support for, and adulation of, Dear Leader. And the argument that they have two separate types of programs – one that is opinion based, and one that is “news,” is repudiated on a regular basis by their own reporting.

Fox News Fair and Balanced

America’s Newsroom on Fox News is supposed to be one of their allegedly “straight” news shows. However, on Friday’s edition of the program Mercedes Schlapp, Trump’s White House director of strategic communications (whatever that is), was interviewed. The discussion included a question about the “contentious moment between Sarah Sanders and Jim Acosta of CNN.” That was when Acosta asked Sanders to acknowledge that the media is not the enemy of the people. Sanders pointedly refused to to do so – twice. And now Schlapp was being given another opportunity to set the record straight. But instead, she said this (video below):

“Fake news is dangerous. We know for a fact that many of these so-called news reporters go out there have a complete disdain for President Trump. It’s no wonder that we’ve seen that 90% of the media coverage for President Trump has been negative.”

Schlapp went on to whine about how Trump and company are helpless victims who have been mercilessly attacked by the all-powerful media. Poor babies. She cited blistering assaults with examples that they have been “called names” by journalists. Gee, Trump would never do anything so unspeakably hideous, would he? And to this pitiful rant, Fox’s host, Bill Hemmer (who is rumored to be a candidate to succeed Sanders as press secretary) said:

“I don’t think you should be defensive about this. You need to go on offense. And I know that’s a big part of why you came on today.”

Then they all had a good laugh when Hemmer asked Schlapp if she was “tired of winning.” What we have here is the Fox News anchor advising the Trump shill to be more offensive, as if that were possible. Just Thursday night at his cult assembly in Pennsylvania, Trump himself escalated his war on the press by calling them the “disgusting fake news,” and “horrendous people.”

Hemmer’s not-so-subtle coaching of Schlapp may have been an attempt to add a new clip to his audition reel for the job at the White House. After all, he’s facing stiff competition from three other Fox Newsers: Heather Nauert (currently stationed at Trump’s State Department), Kimberly Guilfoyle (Don Jr’s new girlfriend who was recently terminated by Fox for sexual misconduct), and Tony Sayegh (now on duty at Trump’s Treasury Department).

This abundance of candidates all from the same network shouldn’t surprise anyone. Trump spends much his day watching Fox News and is advised regularly by people like Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Plus his brand, spanking new Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications is former Fox News president, Bill Shine. He was also recently jettisoned by the network for enabling and covering up the sexual misconduct of big shots like Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. So Hemmer would fit in nicely with this wholesome group of cretins, don’t you think?

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


By Rudy Giuliani’s Own Standard Donald Trump is Guilty of Obstruction of Justice

Posted by on August 2, 2018 at 5:02 pm. 1 Comments :

It just keeps getting easier and easier to catch Donald Trump and his Merry Band of Incompetents in lies or other nefarious activities that reflect their dishonor and deceit. And the blunder by Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on Thursday is just the latest example of this phenomenon.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump

If Saturday Night Live wanted to create a satirical character whose practice of the law incriminated his client more often than not, they would only need to transcribe Giuliani’s comments verbatim. In this episode, Giuliani attempted to clean up a Trump tweet that appeared to most people as an obvious effort to obstruct justice with regard to the special counsel probe of Robert Mueller. Trump tweeted:

That sure looks like Trump is directing his Attorney General to halt the investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia. But Giuliani has an alternative interpretation of the tweet that makes it completely innocent. He told CNN’s Dana Bash that Trump was just “expressing his opinion on his favored medium for asserting his First Amendment right of free speech. He said ‘should’ not ‘must.'”

So the use of the word “should” absolves Trump of any culpability for comments that seem to be giving Sessions a direct order. But if your boss told you that you should stop working on a “terrible” project “right now,” would you think he was just expressing an opinion and ignore him? Not if you wanted to keep your job, you wouldn’t. But if Giuliani is so fixated on the words “should” and “must,” then he might want to refer back to this tweet by Trump in April:

That satisfies the Giuliani standard of saying “must” in order for the directive to be considered obstruction of justice. So we all owe Rudy our thanks for making the legal argument so clear and applicable to his client. Now we just need to wait and see how he and/or Trump try to spin this into something that means the opposite of what it obviously means.

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