Immigration

Trump’s Child Abuse is Politicized By Fox News Hacks in the Most Idiotic Way Possible

Posted by on June 24, 2018 at 11:46 am. 1 Comments :

The right-wing defense of Donald Trump’s heinous policy of ripping apart families of immigrants is continuing into it’s third week. And as it progresses it gets ever more callous and offensive. Just this week we’ve seen conservatives characterize the baby prisons as “summer camps,” or excusing the horror by saying that the immigrant children “aren’t our kids,” or dismissing these human rights abuses because kids aren’t being gassed, or belittling the harm by comparing them to American urban communities.


The extreme contortions that these shills have to make to twist Trump’s grotesque policy into something that his glassy-eyed disciples will embrace is a feat that defiles humanity. And when they aren’t being overtly racist, they are peddling theories so ludicrous as to be monuments to searing political stupidity.

An example of that was provided on Saturday by Jesse Watters of Fox News. On his program he engaged in an exchange with his Fox colleague Ed Henry (note: both of these paragons of virtue were recently outed for cheating on their wives) that revealed their utter disdain for decency. Henry began by casting immigration as an issue that Trump “can carry into the midterms,” falsely charging that “Democrats care sometimes more about illegal immigrants than citizens.” Then, after trying to conflate the issue of children being separated from their parents with crime, the discussion became even more political (video below):

Henry: The President is on the right side when he is talking about enforcing laws, which is pretty obvious, pretty basic. He got elected on that. And cracking down on illegal immigration. The problem is when you put the kids into the middle of it, it enables Democrats and the media to exploit the policy in a way that blows up in his face. He should have thought through that part a whole lot more.
Watters: I agree. And the Democrats think they can run on these child migrants, but I don’t think it’s necessarily gonna move votes, because it doesn’t necessarily affect the average citizen. Yes, it’s sad. It tugs at your heart strings, but it’s not like gas prices, it’s not like taking away your healthcare, it’s not like jobs. It may make you feel bad for the moment, but this isn’t a major issue that I think people, especially independents, are gonna be voting for in November.

Really? Henry thinks that the problem Republicans have is that abusing the human rights of children and families of immigrants is all about the optics, not the welfare of the children. And that Trump’s mistake was not thinking through how awful tearing families apart would look. But how it looks isn’t what is sickening the American people.

Watters went even further to openly discuss the issue in terms of how it would impact the election. And his conclusion was that it wouldn’t hurt Trump or the GOP because American voters wouldn’t care. It’s just a little heart string tugging is all. Not nearly as important as what they pay for gas, or losing their healthcare.

It’s not bad enough that Watters and Henry regard Americans as so selfish that they care more about a few pennies difference in their gas bill than they do about suffering babies. But apparently they havn’t seen what the price of gas is lately either. The national average has increased by 25.6 percent in the past year. What’s more, Trump’s deliberate sabotage of ObamaCare, combined with the GOP tax plan, is predicted to result in as many as twenty-one million Americans losing their coverage. Then there’s also the Republican efforts to do away with protection for people with preexisting conditions and cut seven billion dollars from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

So Watters and Henry are offering an analysis of the upcoming election that is startling stupid. They are arguing that Americans are heartless heathens who are only interested in their own pocketbooks. But at the same time they ignoring that the pocketbook issues they raised slant heavily against the Republicans and Trump. It’s a good thing that their analysis is only being aired on Fox News, because those viewers are the only ones sufficiently brainwashed to believe any of that crap. The rest of the country is poised to oust Republicans specifically because of their policies that hurt average people, as well as their hideous human rights abuses directed at immigrant families.

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

Fox News Shill Admiringly Compares Trump’s Child Internment Camps to American Ghettos

Posted by on June 22, 2018 at 4:17 pm. 11 Comments :

The flagrant racism of Donald Trump and his cult congregation of glassy-eyed Republicans and wingnut pundits continues to sink ever further into the abyss. On Friday we saw the repulsive spectacle of a Fox News host, Brian Kilmeade, defend Trump by saying that the kids being separated from their families were just foreigners who we can blithely disregard. “Like it or not,” Kilmeade said, “these aren’t our kids. Show them compassion, but it’s not like he’s doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas.” Get it? This would only be a real problem if the kids were from Idaho.

Fox News, Rachel Campos-Duffy

On a day when there are still a couple thousand children being held hostage by Trump’s government, the President held an event at the White House to talk about Americans killed by immigrants. Never mind that there are far more Americans killed by Americans who Trump never bothers to show any sympathy for. Including children at schools like Marjory Stoneman High whose white, Christian murderer is an American citizen. Trump never invited the parents of those victims to the White House.

Fox’s Laura Ingraham has been a reliable spokesperson for the cretins who think that ripping babies from their mothers’ arms is a justifiable form of border security. She recently dismissed the thought of any harm inflicted on the immigrant children by saying that their detention facilities were just like “summer camp.” If she attended summer camps like that it might explain how her mind got so twisted and callous.

On Ingraham’s Thursday program she interviewed Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, who expressed an opinion that is surely widely held among conservative dirtbags. In an attempt to minimize the horror experienced by a kidnapped child, Campos-Duffy compared their incarceration to the conditions at many inner city housing communities (video below):

“I spoke to some African-Americans who say, ‘Gosh, the conditions of the detention centers are better than some of the projects that I grew up in,’ The detention centers are far safer than the journey that these children just came on. People aren’t stupid.”

However, Campos-Duffy just proved that not only are some people stupid, they are also nauseatingly heartless. It is mindnumbingly idiotic to compare urban housing to forced internment camps for children stolen from the loving care of their parents. Campos-Duffy apparently cannot comprehend the terror of a lost child who is being held by strangers who provide no comfort or care. That’s the sort of experience that can literally scar a child for life.

But Campos-Duffy made another point that she is certainly too dense to notice. She inadvertently pointed out the inhumane conditions at some of the “projects” where low income Americans live. She’s admitting, without realizing it, that those living conditions are extraordinarily harsh and that it is shameful that a nation as wealthy as the United States would permit it. That’s something that is not talked about enough in the media, especially the conservative media that Campos-Duffy calls home.

Nevertheless, the comparison is still horribly wrong. To be sure, there are hardships for low income families living in impoverished, and sometimes dangerous, neighborhoods. But they are living there with their families, friends, and other sources of support from the community. They are not minor prisoners in a state facility without parental companionship or security. And the fact that Campos-Duffy and her Fox News cohorts can’t see the difference is a sad testament to their inhumanity.

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

Trump: ‘I’d Rather Be Strong’ and Heartless than Be ‘Overrun With Millions’ of Criminal Immigrants

Posted by on June 20, 2018 at 1:09 pm. 6 Comments :

The president who called immigrants “animals” and described them as “infesting” America has backed down on his abhorrent policy that ripped children from the arms of their mothers and fathers. Never mind that he and his surrogates insisted that this “horrible” policy that doesn’t exist was created by Democrats and was just like “summer camp.”

Donald Trump

Now Donald Trump, who previously said that only Congress could fix this, has allegedly fixed it (see update below). He was adamant that he couldn’t do anything about it, but now he holds a televised ceremony asserting that he is doing something about it. Either he was lying then or he just signed an illegitimate document.

However, we must not forget that Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he implemented the family separation policy. Team Trump repeatedly admitted that it was a deliberate effort to provide a deterrent to immigrants and others seeking asylum. He also tried to use the issue – and the children – as ransom for support for his idiotic border wall. And even as he prepared to sign this executive order, he articulated his view that any expression of compassion was a sign of weakness that he rejected:

“If you’re really, really pathetically weak, the country is going to be overrun with millions of people. And if you’re strong, then you don’t have any heart. That’s a tough dilemma. Perhaps I’d rather be strong.”

It is not surprising that Trump is averse to human empathy. He has demonstrated that amply over the many years of his public life. But his open preference for being strong as a direct alternative to having heart is further evidence of his unfitness to lead a compassionate nation. What’s more, he continues to portray immigrants as invading hordes who aspire to overrun the nation and strip “patriotic” Americans (white Christianists in Trump’s view) of their rights and privileges. The “millions” of invaders, though, are an obvious scare tactic to trigger more hatred from his glassy-eyed disciples.

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

It remains to be seen whether Trump’s temporary “solution” actually solves anything. He will still claim that Democrats are obstructing a more comprehensive reform. And of course, he will try to take all the credit for solving a problem that he created. But that must not be allowed. It’s important to make sure that he doesn’t exalt himself as the savior of the children now that he was forced to reverse his noxious policy. What he did was a moral atrocity. It will have been a moral atrocity after it’s stopped. Some of the damage to these kids will be permanent, and the perpetrators deserve permanent scorn for what they’ve done. We must never forget or forgive this sort of heinous government activity. #BlameTrump

UPDATE: The text of the executive order has been publishes and it’s predictably weak. It has loopholes relating to its implementation only when “appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.” So he could still ignore it by saying that it violated some law (as he has been doing) or he doesn’t have the money.

Fox News Defends Traumatizing Kids Because ‘President Trump is Not Gassing Children’

Posted by on June 19, 2018 at 3:34 pm. 3 Comments :

Ever since the story broke about how Donald Trump is ripping children from the arms of their mothers and fathers, Fox News has been trying very hard to help the President obfuscate the issue. They have been variously claiming that it wasn’t happening, or it that it was happening before Trump, or that it was an act of mercy, or that it was horrible but the fault of Democrats. They have been so shaken by the public reaction that they can’t seem to pick a lie and stick to it.

Fox News Todd Starnes

Now Todd Starnes of Fox News Radio has found a whole new approach to the matter. He’s delighted that he can defend Trump’s child abuse initiative by noting that the President isn’t gassing children. No, really. Here is what he said:

“President Trump is not gassing children. President Trump is not loading up train cars with illegal alien children and sending them to the death camps. Lady Liberty is in tears because the Democrats and the mainstream media would rather side with illegal alien invaders than stand alongside their fellow Americans. That’s treasonous and that’s traitorous in my book.”

When you have to sink to finding the goodness in your policies by being able to say they aren’t as bad as Nazi atrocities, you might want to rethink those policies. Unfortunately for Trump and the Republican Party, it’s too late for that. They are now married to this heinous practice after repeatedly sending out administration officials to defend it.

And Fox News may be the worst among them all. Their hosts from Fox and Friends in the morning, to Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity at night, have all taken Trump’s side. They try to portray the detention centers as “summer camps” where kids are confined by “walls of chain-link fences” which, for some reason, are not cages. They claim the kids have regular meals, televisions, and play sports. That is, when these toddlers aren’t curled up in foil blankets, crying for their mothers.

And Starnes calls critics of this cruelty “treasonous” and “traitorous” based on his perception of them as siding with “illegal alien invaders.” That’s right. He sees these children as warriors from hostile nations, and anyone who has compassion for their suffering is betraying America.

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

For the past week there have been a lot of nauseating efforts to justify what the Trump administration is doing to these kids. But Starnes may have hit peak assholiness. At the same time he has rather succinctly summed up what Trump and the GOP have wrought. They are apparently aiming for a horrendous method of terrorizing children and deterring asylum seekers without quite reaching the depths of the Third Reich. Perhaps we should congratulate them on their success.

Be Aware: After Trump is Forced to Reverse His Child Abuse Policy, He’ll Take All the Credit

Posted by on June 18, 2018 at 11:14 am. 5 Comments :

There is uncommon agreement across the political spectrum that Donald Trump’s arbitrary and abhorrent policy of ripping children from the arms of their mothers and fathers is unconscionable and unsustainable. At least outside of Congress, where Republicans continue to support this madness. Even former First Lady Laura Bush has condemned the practice, calling it “cruel,” “immoral,” and “heartbreaking.”

Donald Trump, Immigrant Children

But the Trump administration has been twisting itself into ninth level Mobius strips trying to deny, obfuscate, or otherwise absolve themselves of responsibility for the horror they have wrought. Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, had the gall to say flatly that “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.” And that’s after Trump himself admitted to the policy saying that “We have to break up families. The Democrats gave us that law.” Never mind that it has been well documented that there is no such law and that this is wholly a policy of the Trump administration, and the Democrats had nothing to do with it. It could be reversed by the stroke of a pen by Trump alone. Or even by legislation passed by the Republican controlled Congress. Trump doesn’t need the Democratic votes he keeps whining about.

Trump’s own senior staff admit that this is their doing. “If you don’t want your child separated,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “then don’t bring them across the border illegally.” Of course, these asylum seekers are not breaking any laws. And speaking about family separation, Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said “A big name of the game is deterrence [and] it could be a tough deterrent.” In both cases they are advocating cruelty and human rights abuse as a deterrent for a civil border violation.

Trump is still lying about his responsibility. He tweeted Monday morning that “It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security.” Although he isn’t even effective enough to spell “border” correctly. He also tweeted that “Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country.” Actually, he’s close. Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth (Trump and the GOP) as a means to hold them hostage to Republican demands for an idiotic and useless wall along the nation’s southern border.

With the near unanimous revulsion for Trump’s policy, it is inevitable that it will be rescinded. It may come from Congress or the White House, but it seems unthinkable that it would be permitted to continue, even by Republicans who, so far, have shown zero compassion. And with a rescission there will also likely be an attempt on Trump’s part to take credit for it. That’s what he does. He is genetically incapable of taking responsibility for any of his failures, but he is psychotically obsessed with taking credit for everyone else’s achievements (ask Obama).

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

While it’s important to point out that this mess is all Trump’s doing, and that he is lying when he blames Democrats for his own heinous policy, it will be equally important to make sure that he doesn’t exalt himself as the savior of the children once he is forced to reverse his policy. What he’s doing is a moral atrocity. It will have been a moral atrocity after it’s stopped. Some of the damage to these kids will be permanent, and the perpetrators deserve permanent scorn for what they’ve done. We must never forget or forgive this sort of noxious government activity. #BlameTrump

Sarah Sanders Uses Bible to Defend Trump’s Heinous Policy of Ripping Apart Families Seeking Asylum

Posted by on June 14, 2018 at 3:00 pm. 7 Comments :

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is best known for her ability to dispassionately lie about any matter that arises in the course of the daily press briefings. It’s a skill that most of the rabid zealots in Donald Trump’s administration sorely lack. But it often comes across as callous when the subject requires some measure of empathy.

Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

That was exhibited in spades on Thursday as Sanders was questioned about the heart-wrenching policy that Trump has enacted to rip crying children from the arms of their terrified parents. This policy has drawn broad condemnation from across the political spectrum, yet Trump and Co. refuse to halt its enforcement. That position took a peculiar turn when Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited a bible verse to justify his nauseating actions. However, the quotation he addressed only referred to obedience of the law, but made no reference to tearing families apart. Even Trump-supporting evangelical Franklin Graham called the policy “disgraceful.” At the daily press briefing, Sanders was asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta to comment on the remarks by Sessions (video below):

Acosta: On these children that are being separated from their families as they come across the border, the Attorney General earlier today said that somehow there is justification for this in the bible. Where does it say in the Bible that it’s moral to take children away from their mothers?
Sanders: I’m not aware of the Attorney General’s comment or what he would be referencing. I can say say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.
Acosta: You just said it’s in the bible to follow the law…
Sanders: That’s not what I said. And I know it’s hard for you to understand even short sentences, I guess.

Huh? That’s exactly what she said just seconds before denying that she said it. This is advanced level gaslighting. And in the process of flagrantly lying about what she just said, Sanders delivers a wholly inappropriate insult with regard to Acosta’s ability to understand her short (dishonest) sentences. It’s notable that other reporters raised the same inquiries, but Acosta, a Latino reporter from CNN, was the only one she insulted. And if Sanders is looking for an appropriate bible verse to quote, she might try this one referring to refugees (sojourners) from Leviticus (19:33-34) which, when President Obama cited it, Fox News went berserk:

“33. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. 34. The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”

Sanders then went on to accuse Democrats of being responsible for the law requiring the separation of undocumented children from their parents. But there is no such law. It is being done as a result of an arbitrary policy implemented solely by the Trump administration. Nevertheless, Sanders said that Trump has called on Democrats to change the (nonexistent) law. But she fails to explain how Democrats could do that when they are in the minority and have no power to introduce or pass such legislation. Likewise, she ignores why Republicans, who do have the power, don’t just change the law themselves. Since they have the majority, they could make this issue go away overnight. What’s stopping them?

Among the other journalists questioning Sanders about this were Paula Reid of CBS, who advised Sanders, in vain, that there was no law mandating the separation of children. Also Brian Karem of Sentinel Newspapers made an impassioned plea asking “Sarah, you’re a parent. Don’t you have empathy for what these people are going through?” Sanders responded by recognizing a different reporter for an unrelated question. And that’s fairly typical of how she and Trump deal with difficult issues that require compassion and some expression of humanity.

Also brought up in the briefing were reports that Sanders and her deputy, Raj Shah, are planning their exit from the White House sometime this year. She would neither confirm nor deny the reports, but still criticized the reporting. We’ll see what she say when she actually leaves, which is all but certain. And we’ll also see what direction Trump will take when he names her replacement. I’m betting on Kimberly Guilfoyle of Fox News since she’s already sleeping with Don, Jr.

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

Trump Cries for the ‘Young and Beautiful Lives’ Destroyed – Because of Him and His Crimes

Posted by on May 27, 2018 at 10:10 am. 2 Comments :

There is something terribly wrong with the American president that is rooted in pure evil and an inbred aversion to decency. That was demonstrated on Sunday morning when he tweeted something so repulsive it can only make honorable people nauseous.

Donald Trump

Some background: This week Donald Trump attacked Democrats for what he called “the horrible law that separates children from there parents.” He was referring to his own administration’s policy of detaining immigrants and separating kids – including infants – from their mothers and fathers. These children have been taken while screaming for their mothers and placed in government custody in unknown locations without communication for weeks and months on end. Reports indicate that the whereabouts of as many 1,500 of these children are now unknown, and some are suspected to have been handed over to human traffickers.

Despite Trump’s absurd and false claim that this was due to a law attributable to Democrats, the truth is that there is no such law mandating this horrendous activity. It is solely the policy of the Trump administration, which they previously admitted and even bragged about. They considered it an effective deterrent to immigrants. Chopping off their legs might also serve as a deterrent, but America should not be about torturing people physically or through the the trauma of family separation.

So Trump’s response to the reports of children being yanked out of their crying mothers’ arms was to tweet this:

Good lord. That sickening comment is almost too ridiculous to decipher any meaning from. Presumably it’s Trump’s way of equating the tearing apart of families seeking asylum with the political blowback from working for Trump. He’s seems to be talking about adults who choose to be employed in the White House but may now find it difficult to get other jobs. But that’s only because an association with this president is almost automatically an indicator of bad character. He generally recruits people who will lie shamelessly for him and have no sense of human empathy. What reputable employer would want someone like that on their staff?

It’s notable that Trump didn’t give any examples of these “young and beautiful” victims. They probably include the 71 year old Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager who is currently facing multiple indictments. Or maybe Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Or perhaps his young policy aide George Papadopoulos, who also pleaded guilty and has been cited as one of the original Trump insiders who sought to collude with Russian operatives during the election. These poor souls are indeed returning to home (or prison) in tatters, and deservedly so.

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

By trying to connect the suffering for this kind of criminal, and perhaps traitorous, behavior to what innocent immigrant children are enduring is what makes Trump’s latest tweet so monstrously abhorrent. It is further proof that he is an unrepentant narcissist, concerned only for his own welfare and the defense of his fragile ego. And it is to America’s eternal shame that he was ever put in a position of power where he can do and say things like this. It is now up to the nation to try to correct this error and, not just remove him from office, but punish him for his crimes.

Fox News Senior Douchebag Asks: Why Would the Left Be Defending Violent Street Gangs?

Posted by on May 18, 2018 at 3:20 pm. 2 Comments :

On Thursday Donald Trump engaged in a discussion of immigration issues and created yet another controversy over his prejudice and dehumanization of whole classes of people. There is some dispute over whether Trump was referring to all immigrants or only MS-13 gang members when he said that “They aren’t people. They’re animals.” But there is no dispute that even bringing up gangs in a conversation about immigration is a deliberate attempt to associate immigrants with violent criminals.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

Trump tried to justify his comments in a tweet wherein he insisted that he was talking only about MS-13. He whined about the “fake news” media purposefully misreporting his remarks. But even giving him the benefit of a doubt as to who he was talking about doesn’t change the fact that he was maligning all immigrants by making this association.

Not surprisingly, the Trump-fluffers of Fox News immediately scrambled to his defense with ludicrous allegations of media misbehavior. They uniformly accused the press of acting in bad faith and deliberately posting untruths in order to hurt the President. That’s nothing but a severe case of mass paranoia. And one of the worst sufferers of this malady is Fox’s Tucker Carlson. The poor guy seems to have the permanently furrowed brow of someone who is simultaneously dumbfounded and hostile. On his program Thursday night he launched into a recklessly slanderous diatribe that only certified his overt bias and inbred hatred for anyone not like him (video below). “Why would the left,” he began “be defending the country’s most violent street gang?” Which not a single person on the left ever did. He continued:

“Trump has made them irrational. That’s part of it. But the left also senses a threat to its most basic worldview. MS-13 is a living reminder that the left’s position on immigration is fundamentally a lie. The media tell you every day that every immigrant, legal or not, is a future brain surgeon or tech company founder. Therefore, immigration controls are unnecessary.”

That rant by Carlson is as clear an example of a cognitive meltdown as you will ever encounter. First of all, Carlson imagines some mysterious leftist worldview that is being threatened by the existence of MS-13. That makes no sense at all. And he delivers this nutty theory right after claiming that the left has been defending MS-13. Which one is it, Tucker? Is the left defending the gang or are they threatened by it?

Then Carlson launches into an attack on both immigrants and reality. He demeans the contributions of immigrants with his assertion that lefties wrongly believe that all immigrants have potential to achieve some form of greatness. Let’s just set aside the fact that many of America’s most successful and innovative companies were indeed founded by first or second generation immigrants (Tesla, Google, Reddit, Amazon, Yahoo, Ebay, Apple). In fact, that’s true of almost half of the S&P 500.

However, progressives also recognize the hard work performed by immigrants in the agricultural sector, as well as restaurants, hotels, and healthcare. And nowhere in the agenda of the left has there been a claim that “immigration controls are unnecessary.” Only that they are fair, reasonable, compassionate, and true to the American ideals expressed by the Statue of Liberty. But those are qualities that are foreign and abhorrent to right-wingers like Carlson.

Carlson’s hate-fest concluded with a tribute to his Dear Leader. He literally parroted the idiotic notion that Trump laid out in his address announcing his entry into the 2016 presidential campaign:

“If they admit that MS-13 is actually bad and must be stopped, they’d have to also admit that when some countries send their people here they aren’t sending their best.”

Of course, there isn’t a single person on the left who has any trouble condemning MS-13 as being something that is bad and must be stopped. However, everyone with a functioning brain knows that immigrants to the U.S. have not been sent here by by their native countries. Whether those immigrants are the best or not, they come here by their own volition. Carlson and Trump believe that there is a governmental authority that selects who will emigrate to America. And then they wonder why the left is constantly mocking them for their stupidity and preposterous ideas. Maybe it’s because they keep defending the country’s most asinine concepts.

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

Trump Stains Ceremony Honoring Fallen Peace Officers With Self-Serving Partisan Politics

Posted by on May 15, 2018 at 3:32 pm. 4 Comments :

On Tuesday Donald Trump held another in his series of chest-thumping, apple pie, American values, theatrical affairs. He does these obviously manipulative farces to try to prove how much he cares about whatever issue he is exploiting that day. Generally it’s an issue he has never demonstrated any real concern for. Whether its veterans, who the coward with five draft deferments pretends to adore while slashing their benefits, or working people, who the New York “billionaire” rips off in business and with tax scams that mainly benefit the wealthy, Trump just loves putting on these cons to persuade his deplorable base that he’s on their side.

Donald Trump

The latest such event was the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on held in Washington D.C outside the Capital. The service is an annual event that honors law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. It’s a worthy affair for any leader with an honest respect for the sacrifices made by our first responders. Unfortunately, this president’s honesty is as phony as a diploma from Trump University.

This is just the sort of event that Trump can show up for and rattle off some applause lines from his TelePrompted speech. He did just that with prepared phrases like “We will protect those who protect us” and “Every American heart bleeds blue.” He praised the fallen as “among the bravest Americans to ever live,” who “faced down evil,” and “did it all with courage.” These are unarguably appropriate tributes to men and women who lost their lives in the service of others. But it all seems so hollow when the speaker lacks any hint of emotion or sincerity.

The disingenuousness of Trump’s address was brought into full view when he reached a part that he, or his handlers, thought could be twisted into a political message that benefited him. He raised the subject of immigration and found a way to hype his ludicrous and ineffective border wall. And then he went further with a full-on, partisan rant that abandoned the theme of honoring the fallen and dived straight into naked politics:

“We are calling on Congress to secure our borders, support our border agents, stop sanctuary cities and shut down policies that release violent criminals back into our communities. We don’t want it any longer. We’ve had it. Enough is enough!”

This exploitation of a what should be a solemn memorial service is typical of the disrespect that Trump will show whenever he decides that his needs are greater than whatever occasion he is supposedly commemorating. Whatever he believes the merits are of the policies he advocates, they are not universally held, even among this assembly of law enforcement officers. Many in the field believe that the policies adhered to in so-called sanctuary cities actually save officers lives. They make it possible for immigrants to come forward when they’ve witnessed a crime and help to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It’s pitiful that Trump can’t hold his tongue for a few minutes to let the families and colleagues of fallen officers pay tribute to their loved ones. He has to turn it into an affair that brings the attention back to him and makes his own priorities the focus of the day. And for comparison, here is how a dignified president addresses the same event with respect and admiration for those who serve and their families:

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

President Barack Obama at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service in 2015:

Fox News Lies: Trump’s Border Wall Can Be Paid for By Cutting Welfare – Still Not By Mexico

Posted by on March 12, 2018 at 3:10 pm. 1 Comments :

When Donald Trump spoke at the rally in Pennsylvania for some GOP candidate whose name he barely mentioned, Trump naturally launched into a medley of his campaign’s greatest hits. One of those most clamored for by his audience of fanatics was that old familiar refrain “Build the Wall.” And Trump didn’t disappoint his fans as he once again promised that the wall would be built “100 percent.”

Fox News Trump

The following day Fox News jumped on this critical breaking story with a report on Fox and Friends First. Host Heather Childers interviewed the Trump sycophant head of the so-called National Border Patrol Council, Brandon Judd. In Childers introduction of Judd she summarized what would be the theme of the whole segment:

“A brand new report says the wall could pay for itself by eliminating the need for welfare and other taxpayer funded benefits given to illegal immigrants.”

Wow, really? Actually, no. The report cited by Childers was published by the ultra-conservative assembly of xenophobes known as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). It concluded that undocumented immigrants in the United States were consuming sixty-four billion dollars in federal benefits from welfare, public education and refundable tax credits. Outside of education, Childers and CIS were simply making most of that up. The immigrants in question are not eligible for welfare of any type, including ObamaCare. And how can they receive refundable tax credits if they aren’t filing tax returns? The truth is that immigrants provide far more financial benefits to the the country than anything they consume.

Through a flurry of leading questions, Judd repeated the findings from the same CIS study. And he went on to say that the wall “will cut down on what the taxpayer burden will be, which will then go straight into funding the wall.” That’s an impressively delusional statement. Let’s try to follow his logic. What Judd is saying that taxpayers would be relieved from having to pay welfare benefits for illegal immigrants (we’ll set aside for the moment that there are no such benefits). But that tax revenues would instead be shifted to paying for Trump’s wall. So contrary to Judd’s comment, there is no reduction in the burden of the taxpayers at all.

Furthermore, Judd is conceding that it’s the taxpayers who are paying for the wall. So the lede in this story where Childers claimed that the wall would pay for itself was a lie. It would be paid for by the aforementioned taxpayers. And in that case, it would not be paid for by Mexico, as promised by the President. Judd called this “a brilliant way to go about it. And that’s the business strategy that President Trump brings to the American people.”

It’s rather ludicrous to characterize this idiocy as “brilliant.” But it’s pretty accurate to say that it’s characteristic of Trump’s business strategy. As a failed businessman who has declared bankruptcy at least six times, Trump can hardly qualify as a business expert. He is a practitioner if “Disaster Capitalism” (hat tip: Naomi Klein), who exploits his failures for his own gain at the expense of everyone he does business with. And as president, that means the American people are the chumps in his greedy game. And Fox News is his PR division that airs garbage like this interview in order to help Trump fleece the nation.

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