Immigration

Fox News (and Ann Coulter) Pile On Trump for Lying About His Border Wall Being Built Already

Posted by on December 12, 2018 at 3:06 pm. NO Comments :

On Tuesday Donald Trump insisted that a meeting between himself and congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer be televised. That turned out to be a bad move for the President who behaved like a petulant child demanding that he get funds for his idiotic, useless border wall or he would shut down the government. He actually agreed to accept full responsibility for what Pelosi termed “the Trump Shutdown.”

Fox News, Laura Ingraham

In addition to the whining from Trump about Congress not submitting to his divine will, he repeated a flagrant lie that has been part of his stump speeches for months now. Trump wants to convince people that his wall is already being built and is near completion in some areas. That, of course, is pure fiction. He has never had funds allocated to it, and there has been no construction whatsoever. But he keeps saying this because he knows his glassy-eyed cult followers will believe whatever he says.

On this occasion, however, Some of the ordinarily loyal Trump-fluffers in the conservative media are falling off the wagon. Most notably, Laura Ingraham of Fox News, who addressed the subject on her program and told her Republican guests that…

“I must have missed the wall being built. What wall? That’s not a wall. Stop saying it’s a wall. There’s no wall … you gotta stop saying that.”

Coming from a primetime Fox News shill, that was rather surprising. Ingraham didn’t mince words either. And it was all the more significant since one of her guests was Steve Scalise, the third highest ranking Republican in the House. Of course, most of her other remarks during the segment were straight out of the Trump playbook (build the wall; stop the caravan; immigrants are criminals, drug dealers and disease carriers). But on the question of Trump lying that “A lot of wall has been built … big sections of wall,” she was spot on and uncharacteristically honest.

Ingraham was joined by another right-wing blowhard who usually shovels Trump propaganda by the barrel. Ann Coulter wondered whether Trump thinks his supporters are dumb in a tweet that called out his border wall lie:

Let’s just leave that business about what Trump thinks of his followers alone. It’s too easy. The important part of Coulter’s tweet is that she is not falling for Trump’s gaslighting of America with false claims that “People do not yet realize how much of the Wall … has already been built.” Coulter even posted a link to the Washington Post fact-checker who covered this issue earlier this year. Although, like Ingraham, Coulter swung back to her customary wingnut position. On the same episode of Ingraham’s show she unleashed a nauseatingly racist tirade against Democrats:

“We’re gonna be seeing a lot of these disputes in the Democratic Party base because they all hate one another. I mean you have the Muslims and the Jews and the various exotic sexual groups and the black church ladies with the college queers. The only thing that keeps the Democratic base together is for them to keep focusing on white men are the ones keeping you down. You must hate white men. It’s the one thing they have in common.”

So while these devoted sycophants for Trump can be relied on to spew hatred and lies on behalf of their Dear Leader, it’s nice to see that once in awhile they can recognize the inconvenient truth that Trump is a bald-faced liar. Although they have the luxury of knowing that Trump isn’t going to tweet nasty epithets at them, or make up infantile nicknames, the way he does if Maxine Waters or Hillary Clinton says the exact same thing.

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

A Brutal AP Fact Check Exposes Trump’s Intellectual Laziness and Hostility Toward the Truth

Posted by on December 1, 2018 at 6:44 pm. NO Comments :

If there is anything that we’ve learned from Donald Trump’s first two years in the White House it’s that he is utterly uninterested in educating himself about the issues a president is required to know. Even worse, he has a stifling aversion to the truth and will callously lie to advance whatever message he’s pushing at the moment.

Donald Trump

The Associated Press took inventory of some of the President’s recent public remarks and compared them to reality. The result is a pathetic and troubling expose of a man completely unfit to lead a remedial scout troop, much less the most powerful nation on the planet.

The AP described Trump’s failings as a “slippery grasp of science as well as trade policy.” But their observations go way beyond that, covering most of the subjects that will eventually touch every American’s life. What follows are a few choice selections from the article that illustrate just how dangerous Trump’s willful ignorance is:

TRUMP: “Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China, and there is a long way to go. If companies don’t want to pay Tariffs, build in the U.S.A. Otherwise, lets just make our Country richer than ever before.”
THE FACTS: That’s not how it works. Yes, money from tariffs is going into the federal treasury, but it’s coming from U.S. businesses, not from overseas. Tariffs are paid by the importer, not the exporter or government in another country. Beyond that, tariffs paid by U.S. companies tend to result in higher prices for consumers. So a tariff is a transfer of wealth from business to government, and sometimes from consumers to government as well. It is not a foreign payment to the U.S.

TRUMP: (On the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement): “The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly. It is probably the largest trade deal ever made, also. ”
THE FACTS: It’s not the largest trade deal ever made. It covers the same three countries as its predecessor, NAFTA.

TRUMP: “Our steel industry a year ago was dead, and now it’s one of the most vibrant anywhere in the world. Big Steel is opening and renovating plants all over the country.”
THE FACTS: Construction spending on factories has yet to take off significantly after having been in decline between 2016 and much of 2018. […] A year ago, the steel industry employed 141,200 people, says the Labor Department. Now, 145,100. That’s a gain of 3,900 jobs during a period when the overall economy added 2.5 million jobs.

TRUMP: “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.”
THE FACTS: Last year had the most unhealthy soot days since 2011. The number of days with unhealthy smog levels was down from 2016, but higher than 2015, 2014 and 2013.

TRUMP: (On the confrontation between migrants trying to rush into the U.S. and authorities who used tear gas to drive them back): “Three Border Patrol people yesterday were very badly hurt, getting hit with rocks and stones.”
THE FACTS: This didn’t happen, according to the account by the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan. He said there were no “reported serious injuries on either side of the border.”

TRUMP: (Retweet): “Illegals can get up to $3,874 a month under Federal Assistance program. Our social security checks are on average $1200 a month.”
THE FACTS: Wrong country, wrong numbers, wrong description of legal status of the recipients. The $3,874 refers to a payment made in Canada, not the U.S., to a legally admitted family of refugees.

TRUMP: “Obama had a separation policy; we all had the same policy. I tried to do it differently, but Obama had a separation policy. But people don’t like to talk about that.”
THE FACTS: Obama did not have a separation policy. The Trump administration didn’t, explicitly, either, but that was the effect of his zero tolerance policy, which meant that anyone caught crossing the border illegally was to be criminally prosecuted, even if they had few or no previous offences. The policy meant adults were taken to court for criminal proceedings and their children were separated.

The AP article (posted on the Fox Business website) goes into greater detail and has some additional examples of Trump’s lies. However, this is a representative sampling of how little regard Trump has for conveying facts to his dimwitted cult followers. It’s this sort of dishonesty that makes it difficult for average Americans to engage in rational discourse with Trump supporters. His glassy-eyed disciples live in a world of make believe that turns them into regurgitation machines for his deliberate falsehoods. And that blind devotion to Trump’s manufactured unreality poses serious risks for the future of the country – and the world. Which makes it incumbent on the rest of us to redouble our efforts to correct the record and spread knowledge.

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

Fox News Pushes for Lawless Tyranny in the White House: Tells Trump to Violate Judicial Rulings

Posted by on November 20, 2018 at 1:23 pm. 4 Comments :

The blatant biases of State TV (aka Fox News) have been well documented for many years. And particularly in the Era of Trump, their slobbering sycophancy has gone to extremes never before seen. But for most of that time they have confined their propaganda to slavishly supporting Donald Trump and falsely maligning his critics. Now they are upping their game.

Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Laura Ingraham

Throughout much of Trump’s presidency he has attempted to govern as if he had dictatorial powers. He has sidestepped Congress to issue more executive orders than any of his modern predecessors. He has interfered with ordinarily independent government agencies to impose his will. And he has implemented numerous policies that have been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. And in all of these matters he insists that he has the ultimate power over whether his initiatives are carried out.

Now Trump is getting help from Fox News in his bid to become the American Fuhrer. A pair of court decisions has inflamed the network’s hosts to the point that they are openly advocating lawlessness on the part of the White House.

On Monday night, the embarrassingly brown-nosing Fox Business host, Lou Dobbs, presided over a discussion about the court decision forcing Trump to restore the press pass of CNN’s Jim Acosta. The White House’s original suspension of the pass was repudiated by most of the press corps, including the executives at Fox News (although not their on-air punditry). Following the court order, Trump issued a bizarre and unconstitutional decree that sought to enforce strict behavioral guidelines for reporters. But Dobbs and his guest Gregg Jarrett weren’t having any of it (video below):

Dobbs: Isn’t there a time where you have to just tell a district court judge to go to hell? I mean the idea that you have to follow the dicta of a district court judge and can’t make rules and can’t run the White House in the way that it has been run since time immemoriam.
Jarrett: There’s no freedom to be obnoxious and rude. There’s no freedom of the press to question the President. It’s a privilege to be there at the White House. And there are rules and norms that have always been followed. And now you’ve got a judge who has decided to expand due process beyond any resemblance of its intent.
Dobbs: He’s telling the President if the United States how to conduct business.
Jarrett: I agree with you. I would tell the judge to go to hell.

So these alleged “patriots” believe that “There’s no freedom of the press to question the President”? Apparently their constitutional education didn’t even make to the First Amendment. What’s more, they believe that they can simply tell judges to “go to hell”? That’s a form of ultra-rightist anarchy that is practiced in dictatorships, not constitutional republics. And now it’s openly advocated by Fox News, Trump’s designated media mouthpiece.

But that isn’t the end of it. Fox News host Laura Ingraham took a similar stand on different subject. Another recent court ruling found that Trump’s proposed restrictions on how and where immigrants can apply for asylum were unconstitutional. This pertains to the refugees that Trump falsely accused of being criminals and sent the military down to the border to prevent an imaginary “invasion.” In response to this ruling Ingraham lashed out saying that:

“These courts are out of control. […] Maybe it’s time to just defy these court orders and say, ‘Make me. Make me. We think your order is illegitimate.”

Once again, a Fox Newser is advising the President to violate the law, to act in contempt of court, and to impose his dictatorial will over the rule of law and the American people. This is beyond mere political advocacy. This is subjorning criminal acts. This is cheerleading for tyranny. This is profoundly disrespecting the principles enshrined in our nation’s Constitution.

And, not to be overlooked, this is being done with the full knowledge and approval of the network’s executives and owners. Fox News is acting in concert with the criminals in the White House and their accomplices in the Republican Nationalist Party.

This is a shockingly inappropriate abuse of the air waves and warrants an investigation by the FCC and the oversight committees in Congress. Just like yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater is not protected free speech, compelling illegal acts on TV is not protected freedom of the press. If Sean Hannity were to look into the camera and tell his viewers to get their guns start shooting some Democrats he would be arrested immediately. This is the same thing. It’s a direct incitement to criminal activity. And Fox News needs to be held accountable.

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

HEY Trump Jr, Is Fox News Now Fake News Since They Nixed Daddy’s Racist Ad Too?

Posted by on November 5, 2018 at 1:35 pm. 2 Comments :

On last Saturday, Donald Trump, Jr posted a tweet that took CNN to task for declining to run a blatantly racist campaign ad for Daddy Trump. Lil’ Donnie wrote that “CNN refused to run this ad… I guess they only run fake news and won’t talk about real threats that don’t suit their agenda.”

Donald Trump Jr

Needless to say, the “real threats” to which he was referring were phony assertions that a “caravan” of poor and frightened Central American refugees were amassing to “invade” the United States to take your jobs and rape your daughters. But what Lil’ Trump was complaining about was the alleged media bias by CNN for refusing to accommodate the Racist-in-Chief by running the repulsive video. And his outrage was unambiguously expressed by condemning CNN as “fake” news with a presumably leftist agenda. But what will Trumpkin say now that Fox News has also banned the ad from both the Fox News and Fox Business networks? The announcement of this decision by Fox said that:

“Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network.”

This statement is something less than satisfying because it doesn’t bother to say what the “further review” uncovered that made the ad too objectionable to run. Also, Fox didn’t pull the ad until it had already aired fourteen times. But at least they eventually did the right thing and protected their audience from – well, from the rancid bigotry that their regular hosts disseminate every day anyway.

Trump was asked by reporters on Monday morning about the offensive ad and lied that he didn’t know anything about it. He literally tweeted it himself. Is he suffering from dementia? [Don’t bother answering that]. Elaborating, he said that:

“We have a lot of ads. They certainly are effective, based on the numbers that we’re seeing. … A lot of things are offensive. Your questions are offensive.”

So Trump is apparently conceding that he has a lot of offensive ads. But that’s alright as long as they are “effective” based on some uncorroborated (and probably fictitious) numbers. Then he goes on to play the child’s game of Rubber and Glue by calling the reporter’s questions offensive, without explaining why. Meanwhile, his child still hasn’t commented on the fact that their State TV affiliate (aka Fox News) banned the racist ad just like CNN did. I guess that news didn’t fit his wingnut, conspiracy theory agenda.

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

Crybaby Don Jr Whines That CNN Refused to Air a Flagrantly Racist Ad By Daddy Trump

Posted by on November 3, 2018 at 10:35 am. 3 Comments :

Apparently the crybaby gene is a dominant component of genetics. It was obviously passed on from Donald Trump to his pampered offspring who do nothing but complain about the awful fate they have suffered by being the spawn of a fake billionaire con man. The latest evidence of that genetic flaw trickling down in the Trump family is a sniveling tweet by Donnie Jr.

Donald Trump

Last Wednesday Trump posted a disgusting video on his Twitter account that accused Democrats of supporting the free access of a Mexican murderer, and others like him, to enter and reside in the U.S. It was the most brazen appeal to racism in a campaign ad since the infamous Willie Horton ad – a creation of the late Roger Ailes of Fox News. Trump received near universal condemnation for having posted the ad, even from many Republicans sickened by its barefaced bigotry.

Subsequently, a similarly repulsive ad was submitted by Trump’s campaign to CNN. The network properly declined to run it. And that act of integrity triggered Donnie Jr to run to his Twitter box and post this:

First of all, what mental sickness would cause someone to ask people to “enjoy” that clip of a nauseating killer? But more to the point, for the Trumpette to describe the contents of this ad as “real threats” demonstrates how far removed he is from reality. The main thrust of the ad is advance Trump’s fear mongering with regard to the refugees marching in Central America. It closes with a message to “Stop the Caravan” by voting Republican. But the “caravan” is at least a month away and is populated by frightened refugees – mostly women and children – fleeing violence and poverty. There is no proof that any villainous stereotypes like the one in Trump’s video are among the migrants.

What’s more, the murderer featured in the ad was actually released from custody by Trump’s pal, and pardoned felon, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And he later re-entered the U.S. during the Bush administration. So if anything, this ad should be advocating voting for Democrats who had nothing to do with this sleazeball.

CNN appropriately declined to run the ad and said so in a direct response to Trump Jr. They called out the obvious and abhorrent racism in the ad and noted that they would not take dirty money to air it. Which raises the question as to whether Fox News was solicited to run this ad. If they were and refused, then why isn’t Donnie Jr whining about that? And if the ad wasn’t taken to Fox, then was this just a publicity stunt to malign CNN?

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

Of course there is still the possibility that Fox News took the ad and is planning to run it prior to election day. Which would be entirely consistent with their racist editorial policy. Their hosts spew bigotry like this all day long, and they do it for free. Why wouldn’t they pocket some of Trump’s cash and profit from spreading more hatred and division?

Fox News ‘Judge’ Wonders If Trump Aides and Republicans Have Infiltrated the Refugee Caravan

Posted by on November 2, 2018 at 12:55 pm. 3 Comments :

As the midterm election gets closer, the deranged conspiracy theories of Fox News Trump-fluffers get more perverse and mired in absurdity. Donald Trump is the point man in this mission with his increasingly offensive, racist, and dishonest ravings from the podium at his cult rallies. But his minions at State TV (aka Fox News) are dutifully backing him up (when they aren’t occasionally repudiating him) with ludicrous fictions aimed at their willfully ignorant audience.

Jeanine Pirro Fox News

On Friday’s episode of Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes hosted one of their own, “Judge” Jeanine Pirro, the Executive Harpy of Fox’s Libtard Attack Squad. Pirro came prepared with her unique brand of partisan tripe. The panel was discussing the “caravan” of migrants fleeing the violence and poverty in their home countries. However, on Fox News these refugees were portrayed as invaders intent on storming the U.S. borders to rape and pillage innocent Americans. It’s the same noxious bigotry that Trump has been prattling about for weeks as he attempts to exploit the fear and prejudices of his glassy-eyed disciples. But Pirro took it a step further (video below):

“I wanna know who’s in that caravan? Are there pedophiles? Are there career criminals? Are there people who think they can beat their wives without consequence? We don’t know, and that’s the whole issue.”

Indeed. That is the whole issue. We definitely need to know if there are menacing cretins infiltrating the caravaners that mean to harm our families and neighbors. Are there pedophiles like Roy Moore and Strom Thurmond? Are there wife abusers like former Trump staffer Rob Porter? Are there criminals like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Tom Price, and Donald Trump himself? In short, is the entire caravan made up of members of Trump’s Republican Nationalist Party? Because we surely don’t want to allow any of those thugs into the country. They would just being more crime, disease, and probably some Russian subversives to undermine our democracy.

These are good questions that Pirro is raising, and we need to get the answers. But she wasn’t through with her prescient observations. She had some constructive opinions about how to protect us from these foreign threats. And her solutions were tightly intertwined with her infatuation for Trump:

“So the President, by taking a hard line saying look, you can only now seek asylum at ports of entry, and then dealing with the birthright citizenship issue, which has been like an anchor on our necks, is recognizing that this is an issue that we need to address.”

That’s an interesting set of proposals. Except for the fact that the invading refugees have always intended to present themselves to border officials at legal ports of entry to request asylum. And Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship is actually an assault on the U.S. Constitution that he swore to preserve and protect. But other than that, it’s super-keen. Hopefully Fox News will follow up on these questions and get to the bottom of the controversy over the GOP invaders threatening to destroy America. And if they don’t, the people need to take action by voting in massive numbers on November 6.

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

Trump’s Asinine Threat to Send 5,000 Troops to the Border is Savagely Ridiculed on Fox News

Posted by on October 29, 2018 at 3:50 pm. NO Comments :

The news of a so-called “caravan” of Central American migrants marching north toward the United States is tailor made for a Fox News freakout. Which is why Fox News has been freaking out about it for the past couple of weeks. They actually created the story for the express purpose of advancing the prospects of Trump’s Republican Nationalist Party in the upcoming midterm election.

Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child

Donald Trump himself has latched onto the issue in the most nauseating fashion as he falsely maligns these refugees as criminals and gang members. His latest tweet on the subject was a festival of lies and xenophobic hate:

Of course, Trump has zero evidence to support his vicious claims. And he’s ignoring the fact that these peaceful travelers do intend to enter the U.S. legally. Presenting yourself to immigration officials at the border is precisely the legal process for people applying for refugee status. But Trump is determined to slander folks who are already frightened and desperate. What’s more, he has adopted of the language of the murderer who just killed eleven worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue. That’s a real criminal who cited the caravan in hostile messages just before his rampage, and referred to the migrants as “invaders.”

Trump’s request that the migrants “go back” is a peculiar outburst at people he seems to believe are on the road with smart phones reading his tweets. Does he think that they will just turn around and return to homes they reluctantly abandoned because their lives were at risk? But what’s worse is his threat regarding the waiting military. Trump is literally threatening to slaughter these refugees for seeking safety in the land of the free.

Meanwhile at Fox News, the one anchor that occasionally exhibits some measure of sanity, Shepard Smith, took note of Trump’s latest mental breakdown (video below). And Smith was brutal in his assessment of the absurdity in Trump’s plans. Smith said that:

“The U.S. will deploy some 5,000 troops to the U.S. border as early as tomorrow as thousands of migrants make their way north from Mexico. Tomorrow. The migrants, according to Fox News reporting, are more than two months away, if any of them actually come here. But tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about. There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”

So Smith not only pointed out the fallacy in Trump’s deranged policy, but he also identified the real reason that this issue is being discussed. The refugees are a thousand miles from the U.S. and are traveling by foot. They don’t represent any sort of threat whatsoever, and least of all, an imminent one that requires immediate deployment of troops. The only imminent threat is to the Republican Nationalist Party’s grip on political power. And that’s the only reason why Trump is demagoguing this issue and turning refugees into criminal hordes of subhuman invaders. And it’s just the sort of preposterous hate mongering that Trump’s Deplorable cult followers will suck up with relish.

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

Nice work Shep:
https://twitter.com/passantino/status/1057013271859994624

Bring Back Jim Crow? Tucker Carlson of Fox News Accidentally Admits He’s a Straight-Up Racist

Posted by on September 15, 2018 at 1:18 pm. 4 Comments :

The Senior Douchebag of Fox News, and host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, has been making news this week. In an “interview” with Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, Carlson was beaten to a pulp and exposed as an intellectual lightweight who has no grasp of facts or common sense. It was delicious to see him squirm and stutter.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

You would think that after such an embarrassing display, Carlson would try to rehabilitate his tattered reputation. You would be wrong. On Friday’s episode, Carlson hosted Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo for a discussion on immigration. Carlson began his inquisition by framing the entire debate as a measurement of the immigrant population of the country. His premise was that the more immigrants, the worse off the nation is. And he expressed a longing for the past, which he perceives as being more homogeneously white. It wasn’t. It’s just that the majority white population was more in control. But Carlson viewed that as better:

“When I was born in this country, the percentage of people who were living here, who were foreign-born, was under five percent. It’s now about fourteen percent. So that’s a three-fold increase. That’s a huge change – huge change – in less than fifty years. Is the country better or worse for that, would you say?”

Acevedo responded that the country is better off, as is the economy. Well, he tried to respond, but Carlson cut him off after about twelve seconds. Then, when Acevedo tried to inform Carlson that two-thirds of GDP growth since 2011 was due to immigration, he was interrupted again after twelve seconds. Does Carlson have an “interrupter clock”?.

The debate then shifted to the immigrants themselves, and whether they merited entry to America. Carlson argued that most immigrants were poor and undeserving of entry. You know, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He couldn’t comprehend the reality that even poor immigrants contribute to the country, either by filling jobs that Americans won’t do, or by rising up through hard work and innovation to found companies like Apple and Google.

Carlson then asserted that there is something undemocratic about current immigration policy because all the polls say that Americans want less of it. That, however, isn’t true. In fact, most polls show that broad majorities of Americans (75%) favor immigration in general, and are opposed to a border wall in particular.

But Carlson never lets facts get in the way of his rank bigotry. In the following exchange, Carlson let slip that he looks back longingly on a bygone era when white nationalists like himself reigned unencumbered by those pesky minorities demanding civil rights. Acevedo asked Carlson what period in the past he was advocating as superior to the present. Carlson replied:

Carlson: When I was born it was fine. It was a better country than it is now, in a lot of ways.
Acevedo: In what sense was it a better country? By what metric?
Carlson: It was a more cohesive country.
Acevedo: It was a less diverse country, maybe?
Carlson: No. It’s not about race. The middle-class was vibrant when I was born. It’s dying now. And [cutting him off] we’re out of time.

To the extent that the middle-class is less vibrant today, it’s due directly to the policies of Carlson’s Republican Party. Their agenda of tax cuts for the rich and regulation cuts for corporations is the single biggest factor in the shift of wealth from the middle-class to the top one percent. America’s economy is booming, but average Americans aren’t seeing any of the benefits. It’s a certainty that Carlson doesn’t want to roll that back.

As for his nostalgia, Carlson was born in 1969. That was just a few years after the Civil Rights Act was passed. The country was still unwinding the decades of Jim Crow laws that dominated most of the South. Martin Luther King was assassinated only one year prior and his work was far from over, as evidenced by his murder. There was one African-America senator, and only six members of the House. But that’s the wonderfully “cohesive” time that Carlson wishes America would return to. With this rhetoric it seems that he’s not even trying to disguise his racism anymore. And Fox News is apparently cool with that.

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

BURN! Fox News Accidentally Interviews a Candidate Who Tells the Truth About (and to) Trump

Posted by on July 23, 2018 at 11:36 am. NO Comments :

Monday morning on Fox News there was a devastating outbreak of the sort of truth that the network strives so hard to suppress. All of their evil efforts went up in smoke after a booking glitch put a conscientious Democratic candidate on the air instead of their customary crackpots and shills. It was delicious.

Fox News Bozo

On Fox and Friends First co-hosts Jillian Mele and Rob Schmitt introduced Ann Kirkpatrick, someone they thought was a pro-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Democrat that got booed at a candidate forum in Massachusetts. Their intent was to stir up phony dissension within the Democratic Party. That’s a common tactic used by Fox News to falsely infer a party in disarray. They have a bevy of so-called Democrats they can call on to bash the Party.

However, this time someone at Fox screwed up. The guest that appeared on air was not who they thought it was. It turned out to be Barbara L’Italien, a different candidate with an entirely different point of view. She began straight out of the gate with a message for Donald Trump (video below):

Mele: Joining us the candidate, the only democrat on stage to support ICE, Ann Kirkpatrick. Tell us why you do support ICE?
L’Italien: Good morning. I’m actually here to speak directly to Donald Trump. I feel that what’s happening at the border is wrong. I’m a mother of four and I believe that separating kids from their parents is illegal and inhumane. I’m state senator representing a large immigrant community and running for Congress in Massachusetts.

I keep thinking about what we are putting parents through and imagining how terrifying that must be for those families, imagining how it would feel not knowing if I’d ever see my kids again, we have to stop abducting children and ripping them from their parents’ arms. Stop putting kids in cages, stop making 3-year-olds defend themselves in court.

The co-hosts immediately looked confused and struggled to counter L’Italien’s truth with pre-chewed Fox News lies. Schmitt said that the practice of separating and caging children had been stopped. It hasn’t. Then Mele said incorrectly that the kids have been reunited with their families. Only about 500 out of nearly 3,000. That was followed by an awkward exchange wherein the co-hosts wondered “Who is this?” And after cutting the feed to L’Italien, they mused that “That didn’t go as planned. That happens sometimes. Time for a break? Yeah.”

A statement was later released by Desiree Dunne, the executive producer of Fox and Friends First. She tried to explain how the segment got so badly mangled, but failed to miserably. And then she sought to blame L’Italien:

“This morning we invited Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick to appear on Fox & Friends First through her press contact on file […] During the actual segment, Barbara L’Italien, appeared on camera instead of Kirkpatrick. Despite speaking to producers prior to the interview, L’Italien did not identify herself as anything other than Kirkpatrick until she was live on air, at which point we ended the interview.”

Note that Dunne doesn’t say that the producers ever asked L’Italien to identify herself. L’Italien told ThinkProgress that she was merely taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity to communicate with Trump and Fox viewers. She also said that:

“This would not have happened to an actual news station. Fox’s lack of attention to the facts normally is a disaster for the country, it just so happened that today it was embarrassing for them.”

Ann Kirkpatrick also had some harsh words for Fox News, saying that they “put out false reports on my position on ICE, without a single word from me.” So she doesn’t seem particularly disturbed by having been axed from the network’s propaganda programming. But even when the mistake was discovered, why would Fox need to end the interview? Why couldn’t they just continue talking to a candidate with a different perspective?

The answer to that question is obvious. fox News doesn’t tolerate different perspectives in circumstances they aren’t in complete control of. L’Italien was expressing a viewpoint that is shared by a majority of Americans. But since it is contrary to the Trump administration’s viewpoint, and that of the Republican Party, it could not be allowed on their air. But unfortunately for Fox, that happens sometimes.

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

Grumpy Old Trump Yells Impotently at Congress to ‘Get Those Immigrants Off of My Lawn’

Posted by on July 5, 2018 at 11:00 am. 1 Comments :

On the day following America’s birthday, Donald Trump resumes his hostile stance toward immigrants. There is a sad irony to Trump using Independence Day for his relentless attacks on the category of people most responsible for this country’s progress and prosperity. But it’s also as predictable as the sunrise.

Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child

On Thursday morning Trump was doing the critical work of the presidency, as he normally does. Just kidding. He was tweeting, of course. And in this spray of ignorant and agitated nonsense, Trump displayed one of the cliche characteristics of grumpy old men who fear every shadow that approaches. He lashed out frightened and vulnerable people who are seeking the goodness of America’s compassion toward refugees and asylum seekers, and told them to “get off of my lawn.”

Like a broken record, Trump bleats out his typically ill-informed complaints about immigration laws that he says are “insane.” Never mind that he has been the sole obstacle of bipartisan efforts to reform them. He carelessly writes that when people “enter our Country, they must be told to leave.” Notice that he didn’t even say anything about them entering illegally. He’s saying all people. Of course, that was a just mistake of omission on his part. He meant to say all non-white people.

However, the key phrase in Trump’s Twitter tirade came as he sought trivialize the complex issue of immigration. Saying that “they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn,” is glaringly stupid. It’s a lame attempt to conflate personal property with the much broader matter of federal immigration laws. Unless he’s suggesting that people from other countries could legally apply with the government for residency on “your front lawn” and eventually become citizens of your house.

Trump went on to whine about the burden of “hiring thousands of ‘judges'” to decide the fate of the families seeking asylum. He made that up. There is no plan – or need – to increase the judiciary for that purpose. Most of these cases have historically been resolved through civil adjudication. It would probably be necessary to provide some more resources to make that process more efficient, but it wouldn’t be by hiring judges or anywhere near thousands of the appropriate arbitrators.

Trump closed his morning catharsis with an all caps demand to Congress that they “FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW!” Does he think that by yelling on Twitter the representatives are going to snap to attention and obey his commands? Well, probably yes, he does think that. But it isn’t true. The problem will be solved when Congress gets the courage to negotiate a fair and bipartisan bill that addresses the issues at hand, and compels the President to sign it under the threat of a veto override.

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

In the meantime, DACA applicants are still living in fear of being deported from the only home they have ever known. And children are still terrified from having been ripped out of their parents arms and sent to virtual prisons, a human rights abuse that they can’t possibly understand. That’s the most pressing “INSANE” policy that needs to be resolved “NOW.” And if necessary, every American should yell at Congress to do it.