Fox News

Schizo Trump Loves/Hates Fox News and Misses their Sexual Predator Boss

Posted by on May 19, 2020 at 1:51 pm. 4 Comments :

On Monday Donald Trump unleashed another in his series of desperate deflections from the COVID-19 crisis that he has tragically exacerbated by his negligence and incompetence. He volunteered to a press gaggle that he is taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to ward off the coronavirus.

Donald Trump, Fox News

Of course, as with everything Trump says, it needs evidence before it can be regarded as truthful. If he is taking it he is exposing himself to serious health risks for a treatment that has no proven efficacy. If he’s lying he’s encouraging his dimwitted cult followers to assume those risks. Either way it is an obvious attempt to steer the news cycle away from his inept and deadly mishandling of the raging pandemic.

Media manipulation may be the one skill that Trump puts any real effort into refining. He has proven his willingness to manufacture distractions at precisely the moment he is being scrutinized for some act of idiocy or scandal. But he doesn’t really have to be any good at it because he has Fox News to refurbish his floundering PR in the wake of his incessant bumbling. Which makes Trump’s schizophrenic, flip-flopping attitude toward Fox all the more bizarre. Tuesday morning Trump took to his Twitter machine to cheerlead for his favorite Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends.

In addition to celebrating the ratings of his Foxic friends, Trump engaged in the infantile name-calling that is the hallmark of his presidency. He is especially perturbed by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough who has been an effective critic. Recently Trump began lobbing slanderous allegations that Scarborough murdered an intern twenty years ago. But Trump’s glee over the ratings victory for Fox comes in stark contrast to a tweet he posted just a few hours before:

There is so much wrong with that tweet that it’s really going to need some deeper analysis. First of all, anyone who watches Fox knows that the network is far more pro-Trump now than ever. With a prime time line up that consists of dependable Trump-fluffers like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson, there is a unanimity of opinion that would make North Korea’s media operation jealous. A recent example is how they virtually swapped out their coronavirus coverage in order to hype the phony “Obamagate” conspiracy theory.

Secondly, Trump is not “looking for a new outlet,” he’s already found one. He has been busily promoting the One America News Network (OANN), a tiny, little-watched, video blog that is even more worshipful of Dear Leader Trump than Fox. In fact, some of Trump’s financial backers recently bought OANN, which suggests that it may become his television home after he loses in November.

As for Trump “miss[ing] the great Roger Ailes,” that’s his testimonial to the now deceased CEO of Fox News who was terminated due to mounting evidence of his sexual harassment and assault. Ailes not only committed vile acts himself, but he actively covered up the misconduct of his colleagues like Bill O’Reilly, often paying millions to secure the silence of their victims. Naturally a sexual predator like Trump would find camaraderie in an equally nauseating pervert.

Finally, Trump’s fluctuating opinion of Fox News is just further proof of his mental infirmity. He can’t seem to remember whether he loves Fox or hates it. Here is just a sampling of the frothing hatred Trump has recently aimed at Fox News;

Despite the attacks on Fox above, he has also been dishing out effusive praise to Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Greg Gutfeld, Laura Ingraham, Brit Hume, Mark Levin, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Plus, he’s done recent interviews with Fox and Friends, Bartiromo, Hannity, and Jeanine Pirro. Nearly all of his interviews since becoming president have been on Fox. So which is it, Donnie? Is Fox News part of the liberal, Democratic, Deep State, cabal that’s out to destroy you? Or is it Trump’s loyal bastion of unflinching support and blind adulation? Well, it depends on what day it is.

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

Daddy Can’t Have Rallies, Whines Trump Spawn In Lie-Riddled Fox News Rant

Posted by on May 17, 2020 at 11:46 am. 3 Comments :

Proving that he is still living in a fantasy world where everything he does is perfect and universally revered, Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning that “Doing REALLY well, medically, on solving the CoronaVirus situation.” Never mind that there are now nearly 1.5 million cases and 89,000 deaths in the U.S., and those numbers continue to rise. This is another “Mission Accomplished” moment for Trump.

Donald Trump, Sick Sense

In the meantime, Eric Trump is serving Fox News duty by visiting with Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, “Judge” Jeanine Pirro (video below). The Trumps continue to exploit Fox News for their official propaganda dispatches despite Trump’s increasingly frequent complaints that the network “doesn’t deliver for US anymore.” Clearly they still regard Fox as their special delivery carrier of choice, particularly with bootlicking sycophants like Pirro, Sean Hannity, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends.

In this latest episode of “Inebriety Apprentice,” an ever eager Eric sought to attract daddy’s attention and love by diminishing the tragic perils of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, while simultaneously dispensing flagrant falsehoods about Joe Biden. In Trump World, politics takes precedence over dead Americans. Eric led off with an obviously ludicrous claim that “Biden loves” the nation being locked down, a condition that is wholly attributable to his father’s negligence and incompetence. He went on to mock Biden for “making some horrible blunders,” which is ironic considering the shoddiness of the rest of this tantrum. For instance, Eric said that Democrats…

“…think they’re taking away Donald Trump’s greatest tool, which is going into an arena and fill it with 50,000 people every single time. They’ll milk it every single day between now and November 3rd. And guess what? After November 3rd Coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen.”

First of all, Trump has never drawn 50,000 people to any of his cult rallies – or even half that, much less done it “every single time.” Eric is suffering from the same Crowd Size Inflation Disorder as his father. It’s a disease that is rooted in inferiority and impotence anxiety. Secondly, Eric’s assertion that the coronavirus will “magically all of a sudden go away” after the election implies that it’s a nothing but a political hoax. Does that mean the 90,000 dead Americans will spring back to life and 36 million people will return to jobs that were never gone on November 4th?

Eric’s assertion that drawing allegedly large crowds is daddy’s “greatest tool” actually puts Trump in a trivial light. Any good cult leader (Jerry Falwell, Jim Jones, Adolf Hitler, etc.) can do that. A good president should have more significant tools and skills like intelligence, insight, and compassion, characteristics that the Trump family sorely lacks. Eric also cited as Papa Trump’s “greatest asset” that “the American people love him [and that] he’s relatable.” Not according to pretty much every poll that shows Trump has had a majority disapproval throughout his presidency. He even rates lower on trust than his nemesis, CNN. You know that’s gotta sting. But Eric wasn’t through…

“So make no mistake, to a lot of them this is a very cognizant strategy that they’re trying to employ. It’s no different than the nonsense that they’re trying to throw in the Hope Act. No different than the mail-in voting they want to do all of these places. No different than wanting illegal immigrants to vote in our country. It is a cognizant strategy and it’s sad. And again, it’s not gonna be allowed to happen and we’re gonna win in November.”

Let’s get it out of the way that having a “cognizant strategy” isn’t sad at all. The word means “having or showing knowledge or understanding. So naturally Eric misused it. As for the “nonsense” in the Hope Act, apparently Eric is opposed to a bill “that would streamline and modernize how eligible recipients can access services to alleviate hunger and food insecurity, receive affordable housing, and expanded banking services.” Actually, he probably meant the HEROES Act that allocates additional relief funding for those impacted by the ongoing pandemic. But he made a “horrible blunder.”

Eric is also opposed to making voting more accessible in a manner that won’t make citizens chose between exercising their rights and staying alive. And he’s inventing some initiative that no one has proposed to allow illegal immigrants to vote.

What’s curious is that Eric’s grievance about daddy not being able to have a rally could be rectified by daddy just having a rally. The only one stopping Trump from bringing his glassy-eyed disciples out of their bunkers to congregate and spread their germs is Trump. Democrats aren’t locking the President into the White house against his will. So Eric’s protest is really just more petulant whining as a means of shifting blame for his own failures to others. Like Father, like son.

What’s more, Eric is appearing with Pirro on Fox News where the management has mandated that employees work from their homes. Both Eric and Pirro are safely conversing from the comfort of their respective mansions. If this is all a big Democratic hoax, which is what the shills on Fox News are telling their dimwitted viewers, then why don’t they simply revoke the order to work from home and bring everybody back into the studio? That’s a question that no one on Fox will ask, much less answer. And it’s a concept that is far too complex for the likes of little Eric.

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

Fox News Leads the Trump Charge Against Coronavirus Relief for the American People

Posted by on May 15, 2020 at 12:53 pm. 5 Comments :

As the nation continues to suffer through the worst pandemic in a century, Donald Trump continues to downplay the risks and seeks to force the American people back into unsafe workplaces. His record thus far has resulted in more than 1.4 million people infected and more than 86,000 deaths. But apparently that isn’t enough for Trump and his GOP confederates.

Fox News, Democratic Wish List, Coronavirus, Trump

On Friday morning Trump held a press conference to announce his “plan” for developing a vaccine. True to form, the plan consisted of nothing but happy-talk and bragging about imaginary achievements. He baselessly claimed that there would be a vaccine before the end of the year, contradicting the estimates of every credible immunologist. Even worse, he insisted that people would return to work whether or not there was a vaccine. Trump still fails to grasp that there can be no resolution of this crisis without a vaccine, along with universal testing, tracking, and treatment.

Predictably, State TV (aka Fox News) is backing Trump 100% in two significant ways. First, they are practically ignoring the the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic throughout their broadcast day. In its place they are feverishly flaunting the phony “ObamaGate” conspiracy theory that no one – including Trump – can even define. And secondly, what little coverage of the pandemic they do offer is starkly skewed to a far right perspective that is generally reserved for fringe Internet trolls.

For example, Fox News did a segment on the HEROES Act, a Democratic congressional initiative to provide relief for those impacted by the pandemic. The Fox angle was focused squarely on what they considered to be inappropriate funding programs. According to Fox (and featured in their on-screen graphic above), there were five primary targets of their criticism:

  • $1,200 payments for certain undocumented immigrants.

    • These include adults who were brought here as children and who have been working, paying taxes, and even serving in the military. But even were that not the case, undocumented immigrants are still members of our communities and require assistance in order to mitigate the spread of the virus.

  • $3.6 billion for mail-in voting.

    • This is required in order to insure the safe conduct of the upcoming election in November. That’s something that Trump and Republicans don’t care about since they prefer it when fewer people vote. Trump even said that with higher levels of voting “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” What’s more, recent elections in Wisconsin where mail-in voting was prohibited by the GOP resulted in at least 52 people becoming infected with the coronavirus. Finally, both Trump and Fox News have been trying to bankrupt the Post Office in order to suppress voting access.

  • $20 million for arts and humanities.

    • This is a category of relief that Republicans are fond of disparaging, but which the American people support. Particularly during times of hardship, like those we are now experiencing. It’s also a sector of the economy that employs millions of Americans who are not otherwise covered by previous relief programs. Plus, financially it’s a pittance.

  • $100 million for domestic violence prevention.

    • It’s hard to figure out why they would include this on their hit list. Are they in favor of domestic violence? And there is evidence that quarantining has increased the incidence of such violence.

  • Bank loans/financial services for cannabis businesses.

    • This was clearly added in order to exploit the association to illicit drugs. However, in the real world, cannabis is actually a valid medicine that many Americans rely on.

It’s safe to say that most Americans would approve of the items in this Democratic “Wish List.” But to make matters worse, here are some of the items that Fox News left out:

  • Another $1,200 one-time payment to everyone, up to $6,000 per family,
  • $1 trillion in aid to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments to help offset revenue losses due to the pandemic shutdown and retrain public employees.
  • $200 billion in hazard pay for the essential workers.
  • A 15% increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
  • $75 billion for testing and contact tracing as well as free treatment for coronavirus.
  • An extension of the $600 bump to weekly unemployment insurance payments through January.
  • $175 billion in new money for rent, mortgage, and utility payments.
  • $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service.

This is a positive agenda of support for the American people that Trump is already threatening to veto. One of his treasured initiatives that he is holding the bill hostage over is a payroll tax cut. That’s a deliberate attack on Social Security which is funded by that tax. Furthermore, with 36 million people out of work, that’s not even a tax cut that would provide much benefit. Those unemployed Americans already have zero payroll tax deductions. And another of Trump’s sticking points is his proposal to prohibit lawsuits against corporations where employees are harmed by lax safety precautions related to the coronavirus. So Trump wants to force people back to work and then indemnify the companies if those people get sick or die.

But none of this has to make any sense. It only has to be played over and over again on Fox News to keep their glassy-eyed cult followers in line. They are not an especially cerebral crowd and can be easily trained to obey the edicts of Dear Leader as manifested by his media machine. The good news is they are a small cadre of crackpots who will ultimately have little impact on the direction of the nation. And November can’t come too soon.

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

Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo is Angling for Trump-Fluffer of the Year Award

Posted by on May 14, 2020 at 11:59 am. 9 Comments :

Donald Trump’s fear of being interviewed by anyone but Fox News is still driving his media schedule. On Thursday he got another tongue bath by Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, who has become one of the network’s most glassy-eyed disciples of the Trump Cult. Her questions were such sycophantic pablum that they would have embarrassed a North Korean State TV shill.

Fox News, Donald Trump, Maria Bartiromo

The entire interview was nothing but pure propaganda, as Bartiromo failed to challenge Trump on any issue, and her follow-ups mostly consisted of obediently nodding her head in agreement. But perhaps the most preposterous and troubling exchange occurred as she was wrapping up the interview and slipped into her best impersonation of a butt-kissing supplicant (video below):

Bartiromo: This is toward the end of your first term as president and this entire term has been dominated by resistance. You’ve gotten so much done: Tax legislation, international things, so much done. And yet the FBI take-down effort, pushback on all of your Supreme Judges, a complete drama around Brett Kavanaugh, the Democrats in Congress attacking your call with the Ukraine leader, then an impeachment trial.
Trump: Over nothing. Over absolutely nothing.
Bartiromo: And you keep…I’ve never seen anybody that can take a punch and get right back up and keep punching. Where does this resilience come from that you keep getting things done in the face of all of this?

Bartiromo makes groupies look respectable. She led off with a stream of unbridled praise for Trump’s alleged achievements, but could only list one, his tax cuts for the rich. Then she rattled off what she regarded as Trump’s obstacles, beginning with the inane conspiracy theory that Trump is calling “Obamagate.” Trump told Bartiromo that it was “the biggest political scandal of all time.” And Bartiromo giddily agreed. But when she asked Trump to explain what it is, he wandered off into an incoherent and unrelated rant about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, never returning to actually answer the question. And Bartiromo failed to press him on it.

Following that, Bartiromo complained on Trump’s behalf about “pushback” he received on his Supreme Court nominations, as if that never happened to any other president. She didn’t bother to mention how Mitch McConnell single-handedly denied President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, even the courtesy of a hearing. That was followed by Bartiromo’s insipid references to Trump’s impeachment, characterizing it as an annoyance and not the historic event that only two other presidents have been subject to.

Finally, Bartiromo mustered up all her courage, batted her eyes, and confessed her adoration for Dear Leader’s divine strength and endurance in the face of an onslaught of evil. In her eyes he is just so powerful and dreamy. She could hardly get all of her tributes out due to the drool flowing from her quivering, orange-stained lips.

And that was just from the last couple of minutes of the interview. The rest of this fawning romance video was equally as crammed with adulation and hero-worship. On Trump’s part, he predictably peppered the hour with his trademark bullying, boasting, and bullshit. For instance…

  • Trump lied about coronavirus fatality estimates, saying that 100,000 (which is up from his previous estimate of 60,000) should be regarded as a victory because it wasn’t 2,000,000.
  • Trump threatened to prosecute and jail President Obama and Joe Biden for crimes that he couldn’t name.
  • Trump tried to rewrite history by claiming that Putin wanted Hillary to win in 2016, even though Putin himself – and all of the U.S. intelligence community – said that Putin wanted Trump to win and helped him to do so.
  • Trump Lied about having built “new” wall along the southern border, which Bartiromo agreed with, despite the fact that not a single mile of new wall has been built.
  • Trump repeated his oft told lie that the U.S. was “taking in billions of dollars” in tariffs from China.

Trump closed by making a bizarre and callously insensitive comment about what he considered to be the positive side of a deadly pandemic. “The one thing about the Plague,” Trump bragged, “is that it said Trump was right.” WTHF is wrong with this so-called man? He is utterly devoid of any human-like attributes of sympathy. He is like the creature from Alien that is wholly focused on his own survival and will destroy anything that gets in his way. Except the movie is far more entertaining than watching Trump on Fox News. If you have the stomach for it, here’s the full tongue bathing …er… interview on Fox.

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

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1260933694790922242

PITY PARTY? Trump Clown Show Mocks Americans Suffering in Coronavirus Depression

Posted by on May 11, 2020 at 1:17 pm. 3 Comments :

As if it weren’t enough that Donald Trump neglected to act for two months as COVID-19 (coronavirus) spread throughout the nation – or that he trivialized it’s impact as being “totally under control” and that cases were “going down to zero” very soon, or that he blamed Democrats, China, and anyone but himself for the tragedies resulting from his incompetence – it’s agonizing to watch him continue to put the lives of more Americans at risk because his ego won’t permit him to take responsibility and act responsibly. Even worse, he actually brags about his flagrant failures.

Donald Trump, Pennywise

Trump’s rush to send Americans back into a still dangerous workplace has the stench of hypocrisy. He can’t even keep the coronavirus out of the White House with daily testing, but he expects average folks to become the “warriors” in his battle to save corporations and the stock market. And they won’t have the testing, protective gear, or medical care that he and his comrades have.

In this environment of blatant privilege for the wealthy and the politically connected elite, Trump has proven that he just doesn’t care about the hardships of others. So he sent Peter Navarro, his advisor on trade and manufacturing, out to mingle with the Trump-fluffers at Fox News. Navarro’s visit with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends (video below) was jam-packed with the sort of happy-talk propaganda that totalitarian regimes are so fond of.

Navarro lead off with a callous characterization of the hard times that most Americans are struggling to cope with. He referred to the criticism of Trump’s dreadful mishandling of the deadly coronavirus pandemic with this tone-deaf phrasing: “That was a pity party yesterday on the Sunday shows.” Of course. Because what’s a more self-indulgent demonstration of whiners feeling sorry for themselves than a population ravaged by a fatal and infectious virus? Particularly one that has resulted in the deaths of more than 80,000 people, many of which were preventable had there been competent leadership. Navarro elaborated saying that…

“This is not the Great Depression. Anybody that thinks this is the Great Depression doesn’t understand either history or economics. […] Here’s what we have here. We have President Donald J. Trump who built up the strongest and most beautiful economy in three and half years. And then the Chinese communist party dropped a virus on the world that, within sixty days, has temporarily shut us down. And all we need to do here is focus on the mission, the original mission of Donald J. Trump […]

Now it’s gonna be a long process because of the structural adjustments that are gonna take place as we adapt to the virus socially, culturally, and economically. But this Great Depression pity party stuff I saw yesterday, this aint that..”

For an economic advisor, Navarro sure sounds a lot like a PR shill. He begins by failing to grasp that the economic decline, the collapse of markets in equities and bonds, and the 20+ million Americans who are now unemployed, actually fit the definition of a depression with painful precision. And he dresses up his fan fiction in tributes to Dear Leader Trump, who he believes has that divine gift of being able to do no wrong. Naturally, he adopts his master’s habit of shoveling any and all blame unto others, in this case China. And while China shares it’s measure of blame, it was Trump who praised President Xi saying that “I think he’s handled it really well,” and that his management of the budding pandemic was “strong, sharp and powerfully focused.” Trump effusively complimented Xi well into February.

Now, suddenly, it’s all China’s fault, Trump’s lazy and lethal disregard is being ignored, and the White House rhetoric is simultaneously insisting that our tribulations are both temporary and “a long process.” The confusion emanating from the Trump administration is indicative of their utter lack of any idea of what to do. They are paralyzed by ignorance and their desperation to avoid any political fallout, especially with regard to the presidential election in November, which currently has Joe Biden beating Trump nationally, as well as in many of the crucial swing states.

Nevertheless, Navarro thought it would be a good idea to go on Fox News and demean Trump’s critics – which includes the majority of American voters – as a pity party. It’s a pity that these cretins don’t have more sympathy for the sick and the scared and the families of the deceased. But then heartless narcissism has been the Trump brand from the very beginning of his occupation of the white House. And there’s no reason to expect that to change.

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

Trump’s Heartless Take on Dreadful Jobs Report: It’s Fully Expected and I’m Not to Blame

Posted by on May 8, 2020 at 12:47 pm. 2 Comments :

When the history of Donald Trump’s presidency is written, it will be difficult to find documentation of any genuine expressions of sympathy for the American people, whether those whose lives were upended by hurricanes, refugees from poverty and oppression, or the victims of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Trump appears utterly incapable of having a human feeling for people who have suffered misfortune. Although he always seems to be pretty charitable toward corporations and the wealthy.

Donald Trump

On Friday morning the latest jobs report was released and it revealed a historic decline for the month of April. More than 20.5 million jobs were lost, a number not seen since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate tripled to 14.7%, which is likely an undercount because it doesn’t include those who are not currently looking for work due to the Stay-At–Home policies currently in effect.

Trump was being interviewed on Fox News by the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends when the report became public. The program interrupted their predictable Trump-fluffing to announce the new data and get a response from Trump. So in keeping with his callously uncaring demeanor, Trump’s initial message to the nation was this:

“It’s fully expected. There’s no surprise. Everybody knows that. Somebody said, ‘Oh, look at this.’ Well, even the Democrats aren’t blaming me for that.”

That’s typical Trump. No compassion for the people who are now unemployed. No concern for how they will pay for rent, groceries, medicine, etc. No acknowledgement of the stress and anxiety that millions of people are enduring. Nope. Trump can be relied on to always put his own interests above those of the nation or any of its citizens. And that is openly in play as he seeks to stem his personal financial losses by rushing to allow hotels and golf courses to resume operations. So naturally, Trump’s first thoughts upon hearing the jobs report were both egocentric and dishonest.

Trump’s malignant narcissism was on display in his first remarks when he complained about the prospect of being blamed for the pandemic and its consequences. That’s a key concern for Trump. Never mind that his documented negligence and incompetence has directly resulted in exacerbating the severity of the pandemic’s impact in the U.S. Trump relentlessly rejects any responsibility. He is so afraid of having to accept the blame he so richly deserves that he is pushing for a premature relaxation of business restrictions. That will undoubtedly result in even more illnesses and fatalities. And he keeps moving the goalposts on estimates of the dead. For weeks he “bragged” that it would be under 60,000 by August. Now that we are over 76,000 in May he has upped it to 110,000. Keep in mind that neither estimate is worth bragging about.

Trump lied by saying that he expected this catastrophic jobs market. In truth, he denied that there was any problem at all for the first two months. He insisted that it was fully “under control” and that the handful of cases would quickly “go down to zero.” Instead they went up to 1.3 million with more than 76,000 deaths. And contrary to his current position that he expected this, he literally said that “Nobody ever expected a thing like this” during a Fox News town hall two weeks ago. What’s more, his Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, said this on January 30:

“I don’t want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease. But the fact is, it does give businesses yet another thing to consider … I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

So not only was the Trump administration not planning for an employment debacle, they were actually looking forward to a jobs boom resulting from a rush by companies to relocate their manufacturing to the U.S. That turned out to be a figment of their overactive and self-serving imaginations. However, Trump did get one thing right during his segment with his Fox friends. “Next year,” he assured, “we’re going to have a phenomenal year. People are ready to go.” Indeed. President Biden will see to that. And the American people are surely “ready to go” to the polls to vote in November to oust Trump and his enablers in the Republican Cult.

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

HUH? Fox News Implies Barr’s Absolution of Flynn Invalidates the 2018 Election

Posted by on May 7, 2020 at 2:26 pm. 2 Comments :

The criminal administration of Donald Trump is frantically trying to slip through as many political atrocities as it can before it is swept out office next year. And they aren’t shy about hiding behind the tragedies of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic in order to achieve their nefarious goals. In fact, it almost seems like they are deliberately making things worse by prematurely “reopening” the country economically in order to better cloak their activities.

Donald Trump, Bill Barr

On Thursday Trump’s Justice Department led by Attorney General, Bill Barr, announced that they were asking a federal judge to drop the charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s disgraced former National Security Advisor. Flynn had pleaded guilty to an array of charges including lying to the FBI. He also promised to cooperate with federal prosecutors until he abruptly reneged and hired a new team of lawyers. The charges against him were pretty airtight, which is why he originally admitted his guilt. But more recently he concluded that by hanging tough he would be able to secure a presidential pardon or a dismissal, which is what has now occurred.

Flynn was the poster boy for the corruption that infects every cell of the Trump regime’s body. He had unsavory relations with the governments of Russia and Turkey. He was considered dirty even before Trump was inaugurated. President Obama fired him and warned Trump to steer clear. Naturally, that probably had the effect of endearing Flynn to Trump. Birds of a feather, and all that. Just last week Trump unleashed a tweetstorm of 27 tweets supporting Flynn.

The news that Barr was dropping the charges broke pretty quickly as every news network interrupted their programming with special coverage. However, the coverage on Fox News stood out for its predictably biased slant, including bizarre opinions by their “straight” news anchors, Bill Hemmer and Bret Baier. They joined to imply that Barr’s dismissal of Flynn’s charges somehow reflected on the validity of the 2018 election (video below):

Hemmer: It begs the question, what was Bob Mueller doing all this time? And were they out there looking for something that never existed? Were they trying to find a crime were they could not find one?
Baier: We’re in the middle of dealing with COVID and all of the health crisis and the economic crisis, but if you look back and you realize when Bob Mueller and his team knew that there was nothing there there, it was before the midterm election. And that raises its own questions about where that investigation went and how it proceeded.

WTF? If these guys don’t know what Mueller was doing at this point, they are either too stupid to be allowed to function outside of an asylum, or they are brazenly lying in support of their extreme right-wing agenda. Hemmer’s “questions” as to whether a crime occurred is deliberate disinformation. Mueller’s report explicitly stated that he was not able to exonerate Trump. It also enumerated several instances of felony perjury. Plus, there were several indictments and convictions in addition to Flynn’s guilty plea. All of this has been on the record for years now.

As for Baier, his preposterous speculations expose him as a bitterly partisan political hack. He asserts that Mueller at some point “knew that there was nothing there there.” That’s a flagrant lie. When Mueller testified before Congress he said that “Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian interference,” and that they “lied about it to cover it up.” Does that sound like he knew there was no there there?

What’s more, the contention that Flynn being let off the hook now has some bearing on the 2018 election cannot be squared with reality. First of all, how can a decision to allow an admitted felon to go free by a dishonest and devotedly loyal Trump Attorney General have any such effect? Barr’s decision doesn’t make Flynn innocent and it doesn’t alter the voters’ choices to sweep corrupt Republicans out of office. Flynn’s get-out-of-jail-free card only serves as a further indictment of the corruption in Trump’s criminal syndicate. If anything, it validates what voters did in 2018.

More importantly, Barr’s Trumpist puppetry will likely spark a new level of outrage among the majority of Americans who already want Trump, and his GOP confederates, gone in November. If they think that coddling traitors is going to translate into Republican votes, they are dumber than Trump looks. Flynn’s freedom will remind every American voter that Republicans are on the side of those who betray our country. The likelihood of a Democratic tsunami at the polls in November became greater today.

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

Hannity Freaks Out Over Holding Trump Accountable for His Coronavirus Death Toll

Posted by on May 2, 2020 at 1:11 pm. 3 Comments :

Donald Trump is without question the most reckless, ignorant, and incompetent president in America’s short history. Nevertheless, he is renowned for failing to take responsibility for any of his calamitous failures. Trump will vainly shift blame to others, employ awkward deflections, and lie shamelessly to avoid being held accountable. With Trump, the buck is always handed off to an innocent political foe or some hapless flunky.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

Fortunately for Trump, he has a cadre of glassy-eyed disciples in right-wing media who will cover for him no matter how ludicrous the circumstances. Most of them reside at State TV (aka Fox News), such as his shadow chief-of-staff-infection, Sean Hannity. Trump relies on Hannity as a defensive shield against uncomfortable facts, propaganda dissemination, and contorted political strategy. And on Saturday Hannity fulfilled all three of those roles in a brief blog post.

The headline on Hannity’s harrangue was “A NEW LOW: Schiff Says ’50,000 Americans Are Dead’ Because Trump Wasn’t Impeached and Removed.” He lashed out at Rep. Adam Schiff for what he said were “Schiff’s vicious comments.” Elaborating, Hannity charged that…

“Congressman Adam Schiff escalated his war-of-words with the Trump administration Saturday; saying “50,000 Americans are dead” because the President was not impeached and removed from the Oval Office.”

What Hannity was referencing was a portion of a Schiff interview on Friday with Chris Hayes on MSNBC (video below). Schiff accurately observed about Trump that “A man with no moral compass will never find his way, and this president certainly hasn’t.” The subject of the segment was Trump’s tragically negligent response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Hayes asked Schiff about comments he made at the conclusion of Trump’s impeachment that speculated about the grave necessity of removing Trump from office to avert future catastrophes. Schiff’s response speculated about the degree of damage Trump would still be capable of if he remained:

“How much damage could he really do? We posed that question to the Senate and we answered it by saying that he could do an awful lot of damage. But frankly, Chris, I don’t think we had any idea how much damage he would go on to do in the months ahead.

There are 50,000 Americans now who are dead in significant part because of his incompetence. Because of his inability to think beyond himself and put the country first. I don’t think we would have ever anticipated that his brand of narcissism and his brand of incompetence, sometimes his brand of malevolence, would be so fatal to the American people.

To be clear, Hannity’s assertion that Schiff said 50,000 Americans are dead because Trump wasn’t removed from office is inaccurate. What Schiff is that the deaths were because of Trump’s incompetence. Of course, those deaths would not have occurred had he been removed, but neither would they have occurred had he not been incompetent. What’s more, the severity of the coronavirus casualties is being under reported. The death toll is now over 65,000 with more than 1,100,000 infected.

A month ago Trump said that he would consider a total of 65,000 deaths to be a “victory.” That was an estimate for August that we reached in April. A few days ago his son-in-law (and senior advisor), Jared Kushner, called it “a great success story.” But yesterday Trump was busy tearing down and reconstructing the goal posts at 100,000 fatalities. Expect those posts to be pushed back further in a few weeks.

As for Hannity, his concern about not holding Trump accountable for the death toll isn’t surprising. But he is also failing to hold himself accountable. He spent the past couple of months dismissing the coronavirus as an insignificant form of the flu. As a result, a recent study revealed that watching Hannity actually increased one’s likelihood of dying from the disease. So it would be wise to practice social distancing from Hannity as well as all other Fox News viewers and Trump supporters. You can’t be too careful these days.

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

Jared Kushner Tells Fox News that 60,000 Dead ‘Is a Great Success Story’

Posted by on April 29, 2020 at 1:34 pm. 6 Comments :

History will record the total absence of “leadership” provided by Donald Trump and his regime as a catastrophic failure. It is unimaginable how thoroughly negligent Trump has been as a deadly pandemic spread across the nation and the world.

Donald Trump, Jared Kushner

Trump’s first inclination was to ignore the coronavirus entirely. He failed to take heed of at least a dozen warnings in his Daily Presidential Briefings. Then he cavalierly dismissed the threat as trivial, saying that it was “totally under control,” that it would “disappear…like a miracle,” and that “you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” It is now more than a million. And through it all he refused to take any responsibility for his negligence and incompetence as he wasted crucial months shifting blame to others.

At the same time, Trump hijacked the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings to cast himself as the star of what became an egocentric reality TV show that functioned more as a Trump 2020 reelection campaign infomercial. Instead of focusing on public education, he disseminated lies, insulted reporters, and bragged about the ratings. It got to the point that even his political allies were grimacing at his bizarre behavior. So he announced that he would cease to attend the briefings. That didn’t last but a couple of days.

Which brings us to Wednesday morning when Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, made an appearance on Fox News for his regular propaganda and happy-talk segment (video below). And he didn’t disappoint his hosts, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. He kept his remarks socially distant from reality by faithfully adhering to pre-established talking points such as his disparagement of health experts as “the eternal lockdown crowd.” Then he elaborated…

“We’re on the other side of the medical aspect of this, and I think that we’ve achieved all the different milestones that are needed. So the federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story.”

Literally every line of that is flagrantly untrue. We are certainly not “on the other side of the medical aspect of this.” To the contrary, the number of infections and fatalities continue to rise. We have not “achieved all the different milestones.” Unless Kushner regards 60,000 deaths an administration milestone. What’s more, we are not even close to the number of Americans tested that experts say are necessary to “flatten the curve.”

Kushner’s assertion that “the federal government rose to the challenge” is not only false considering its tragically poor performance, it contradicts what Trump says is the federal government’s role. Trump has repeatedly insisted that the states have primary responsibility and the feds are are just a backup of last resort.

Finally, Kushner closed by calling the Trump administration’s handling of this crisis “a great success story.” That’s an assessment so preposterous it hardly deserves a response. With tens of thousands of dead Americans, and over a million more suffering, any characterization of this as successful can only come from deranged and callously insensitive mind.

However, Trump is desperate to sell this snake oil story. The American people are not buying his self-serving presentations of an allegedly flawless response to the COVID-19 pandemic, nor his utterly insufficient efforts to bring relief to a nation crippled physically, emotionally, and financially. And he has fallen behind Joe Biden in every national poll, as well as polling in many of the critical swing states. It is in that state of desperation that Trump is frantically struggling to survive politically and psychologically. But with each passing day he seems to be losing both battles.

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

Fox News Cultists – And Nearly No One Else – Believe Trump is Honest

Posted by on April 28, 2020 at 2:30 pm. 5 Comments :

The determination of Donald Trump to malign the credibility of the media has taken a toll. However, the impact has been felt mostly by his own devoted disciples. The American people by and large continue to have little respect for Trump as a trustworthy source of information.

Trump Lies

Trump’s problems are entirely of his own making. His frequent and shameless lying does not go unnoticed. He has been documented to have told more than 18,000 lies since his inauguration. And particularly with regard to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, Trump has repeatedly disseminated easily verified falsehoods. As a result, the majority of the American people don’t believe what he says about pretty much anything. Even more painful from Trump’s perspective, and after years of vilification, they believe the media more.

A new poll by USA Today/Suffolk University affirms these views. When asked if they think Trump is honest and trustworthy, only 31% said that he is, while more than twice as many (64%) said that he is not. What’s more, when the responses were broken down by preferences for news sources, the ideological divide was starkly revealing:

“According to the Suffolk poll, of the 31% of Americans who believe Trump is honest and trustworthy, nearly two-thirds of them say Fox is their favorite news source. Among Fox-first viewers – who comprise about 25% of Americans in the survey – 78% say Trump is honest and trustworthy, while just 15% disagree.

The imbalance is even more striking when you look at people who don’t trust Fox the most. Among the three-fourths of the population who don’t list Fox as their No. 1, just 15% say Trump is honest and trustworthy, while nearly 80% say he is not.”

Let that sink in. The poll shows, firstly, that only 25% of the American people say they watch Fox News. The number is actually smaller than that as the Nielsen ratings show that only about 1% of TV viewers are actually tuning in the right-wing network. The poll respondents are likely just giving credit to the channel that reflects their political biases.

Of the 75% of Americans who are not Fox News viewers, a measly 15% of them regard Trump as honest and trustworthy. That compares to 78% of the Fox cultists who are only a quarter of the total respondents in the poll.

Consequently, Trump is suffering a huge trust deficit from which he is unlikely to recover in the few months remaining before the election. And his recovery is all the more difficult since there is no sign that he plans to be more truthful going forward, or that is even able to be. Trump’s commitment to spewing self-serving fiction has been a key component of his character (or lack thereof) for decades. And the more he puts himself in from of the people, the more he lies, and the more his credibility sinks into an abyss.

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