Fox & Friends

Lacking Any Coherent Impeachment Defense, Trump Deploys An All Fox News Blitzkrieg

Posted by on September 25, 2019 at 10:44 am. 11 Comments :

On Wednesday morning Donald Trump released the transcript White House provided, non-verbatim memo of his July phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was somewhat anticlimactic considering that he had already admitted that he pressured Ukraine to smear Biden, and even declared Biden “corrupt” and subject to the electric chair. Still, he has been saying for days that the call was “perfect,” that he had done nothing wrong, and promised that it would exonerate him. What the hell was he thinking!

Donald Trump, Phone, Pacifier

Keeping in mind that several days prior to this phone call, Trump had frozen nearly $400 million dollars in military aid to Ukraine, who were engaged in a conflict with Russian troops on their eastern border. With that as context for Trump’s remarks, here are some relevant and incriminating parts of the memo (full document below):

“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. […] I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance.”

“Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it. […] I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.”

“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

So Trump starts out by asking for “a favor.” That’s precisely how Godfather Don Corleone began his conversations with shakedown victims when he made them “an offer you can’t refuse.” Zelensky knew that the aid his country needs was at risk. This is as close to a quid pro quo as is ever encountered in organized crime. And having that followed up by a request to meet with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and his Attorney General, William Barr – which is a new and troubling revelation – only makes Trump’s clearly unlawful intentions more clear.

The fact that Trump bothered to malign special counsel Robert Mueller is another indication that he is tying this call to his own political tribulations. And directly warning Zelensky that “it’s very important that you do … whatever you can do,” is hardly a subtle nudge. Trump then brings up the Ukrainian prosecutor who he calls “very good” despite being held in disrepute by the U.S. government, the European Union, the World Bank, and other international institutions.

Trump then got to the real point when he brought up Joe Biden and made the objectively false statement that he “stopped the prosecution” of Biden’s son. In fact, the corrupt prosecutor wasn’t even actively pursuing the case. And every investigation into the matter found zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden. Nevertheless, Trump pressed this issue repeatedly in the phone call and kept pressing for a meeting with Giuliani and Barr.

If this is Trump’s idea of an exculpatory document, you have to wonder what he considers incriminating. Trump is seen here explicitly abusing his power by recruiting a foreign leader to interfere with an American election. And he is using funds allocated by Congress to extort the illegal results he wants. There is no defense for this criminal behavior. Trump couldn’t even provide one, so he claimed on Wednesday that it should all be ignored because the stock market went up. Really? For the record, the market today is stagnant at best. It’s exactly where it was in January of 2018, a year and a half ago. Trump is also arguing his innocence based on his leading poll numbers. Except that he’s losing to every top Democrat. In fact, a Fox News poll saying just that was released a week before Trump called Zelensky. Coincidence?

Then Trump turned to his goto protectors at Fox News to vainly try to spin this in his favor. He posted (so far) twelve (12!) tweets of Trump-fluffing sycophants that contained no factual refutation of the damning contents of the White House summary phone call. They included:

  • Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway writing that the whistleblower’s attorney worked for Hillary Clinton and “Schuck” Schumer. That was for short internships nearly twenty years ago.
  • Fox host Mark Levin asserting that the is media trying to protect Biden.
  • Sean Hannity interviewing Attorney Joe DiGenova, whose reputation was so bad that he couldn’t be added to Trump’s staff.
  • Tucker Carlson interviewing Jenna Ellis, a member of the Trump 2020 Advisory Board.
  • Sean Hannity interviewing GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a sellout who once called Trump an idiot and a liar, but who now kowtows to him in the most embarrassing fashion.
  • Lou Dobbs interviewing Harmeet Dhillon from the Republican National Lawyers Association.
  • Sean Hannity (again), this time with Kevin McCarthy, House Republican Leader.
  • Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, another Fox News host and shameless Trump-fluffer.
  • Yet another Hannity reference saying that the whistleblower has a political bias.
  • Fox and Friends asserting that “Democrats have been talking about Impeaching Donald Trump since before he was inaugurated. @SteveDoocy @foxandfriends”
  • Fox host Bret Baier saying that “You don’t see a direct quid pro quo in this.”
  • Fox’s White House correspondent, John Roberts, saying that there was no quid pro quo in the memo.

Someone who has a good argument for innocence wouldn’t have to resort to a cadre of notoriously biased pundits and Fox News propagandists for legal help. But this is Trump’s whole modus operandi. Remember, his preparation for the presidency was hosting a reality TV game show for fourteen years. His entire reference to his job is tied to television and celebrity. So rather than accumulate knowledgeable defenses from intelligent, reputable people, he leans on dishonest TV personalities talking to partisan hacks. You know, people just like himself.

UPDATE: The whistleblower complaint has been declassified and released. It’s available here with a few redactions.

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

Fox News Defends Trump’s State-Sponsored Political Extortion as Just ‘The Art of the Deal’

Posted by on September 20, 2019 at 2:00 pm. 6 Comments :

The news that Donald Trump may have promised the president of Ukraine hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid if he would open a bogus investigation into Joe Biden has captured the attention of the press. And rightfully so. This would amount to state-sponsored extortion by Trump in order to smear a political opponent. And it wouldn’t even be the first time that Trump has conspired with a foreign country to steal an election (see: Russia, 2016).

Donald Trump, Fox News, White House

As this scandal continues to build steam, Trump is managing to get himself into even more hot water. In a press avail with the Prime Minister of Australia, Trump gave contradictory answers about what he knew about the affair. In fact, when asked if he read the report he contradicted himself in the space of a single sentence saying, “No I haven’t. I just – I tell you, everybody’s read it. They laugh at it.” He went on to attack the press, as usual, saying that “Our media has become the laughingstock of the world […] You’re a joke.” Which only proves that he is pitifully incapable of recognizing who the world is actually laughing at.

In the midst of this unfolding melodrama, Fox News is adopting their routine position as Trump-fluffing propaganda disseminators. And taking the lead is Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox and Friends. Their defense of Trump is a bizarre spectacle of ludicrous justifications for Trump’s potentially treasonous behavior (video below). Co-host Steve Doocy began by telling his dimwitted viewers to…

“Keep in mind this whistleblower filed this report with the inspector general of the Intel community on August the 12th. That was over a month ago. Then they kicked it around, sent it to the Department of Justice, and said ‘We do not have to hand it over to Congress.'”

First of all, it is entirely improper for the Justice Department to interfere in this process in any way. It negates the whole purpose of the Whistleblower Protection Act if the President’s henchmen (Attorney General William Barr, et al) can suppress information provided in good faith by insiders concerned about national security. And it endangers the welfare of the whistleblower whose identity is disclosed to people who have motive to retaliate.

That said, after having improperly interfered, the Justice Department has no authority to rule that the complaint can’t be turned over to Congress. The law says unambiguously that it “shall” be turned over. So the Justice Department is wrong, and Fox News is wrong to excuse this breach of the law. But Doocy wasn’t finished. He continued…

“The reason the whistleblower apparently said that it was ‘serious’ and ‘urgent’ is because that designation usually automatically triggers it getting to Congress. The Department of Justice says that that is not appropriate, so we don’t have to give it to the Committee. Well, somebody with knowledge of this person’s story didn’t like the fact that Congress wasn’t gonna get it and it wasn’t gonna become public. So they leaked the story to the Washington Post.”

Again, none of this is the Justice Department’s call. But Doocy is also introducing something that was never a part of this. He implies that somebody wanted this to become public. But had the complaint been turned over to Congress, they would have reviewed it privately. The only reason any of this is becoming public is because the process was breached by the administration.

It’s ironic that Fox News is more worried about this complaint leaking than the substance of the complaint which is Trump’s attempts to extort and/or bribe a foreign country and to pressure them into aiding his election fraud. But if you thought that Fox was bothered by any of that, here’s what Doocy’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt had to say about it:

“They say the President was making promises, leaking delicate information to another heads of state. But this is what they do. They talk. They negotiate. And the President’s known for that. The art of the deal. Who’s leaking this? Is it someone that works at the White House?”

So to Fox News this is standard operating procedure in negotiations. They consider it acceptable for Trump to bully foreign leaders into manufacturing political dirt on his opponents. They regard it as simple dealmaking, despite the fact that there are no components of this deal that are in the interests of the United States. It is a purely hostile swipe at Biden, who Trump expects to run against next year. So Earhardt is defending dealmaking that is only intended to disrupt an election. But then again, that’s what Fox News does every day. Disrupting elections by airing distortions and lies is the whole reason Fox News exists.

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

Fox News Hack Lies About Having Seen Trump’s ‘New’ Border Wall – That Doesn’t Exist

Posted by on September 19, 2019 at 2:12 pm. 4 Comments :

The blatant partisan biases of Fox News have been well documented for many years. And yet the network continues to pretend that they have some measure of journalistic integrity. They claim that their “news” and “opinion” sides are clearly delineated and that viewers are smart enough to tell the difference. But that’s wrong on two counts. First, there is no real separation of what they call news and the opinions that permeate nearly every report they air. And second, they think their viewers are smart?

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

On Thursday morning a segment on Fox and Friends featured an interview of Donald Trump by the network’s Chief National Correspondent, Ed Henry. Theoretically a correspondent with Henry’s title should be one of Fox’s alleged journalists. Nevermind that he’s a regular co-host of the ultra-opinionated Fox and Friends Morning Trump-Fluffing Show. This interview was jam-packed with Trumpian falsehoods and propaganda on subjects ranging from the Federal Reserve to gun reform.

However, one subject was highlighted by Henry when he bantered with his “Curvy Couch” potato colleagues back in the studio. Henry was interviewing Trump near Otay Mesa, California, where the President was visiting a section of the border wall that he claims to be building. And in his summation of their talk, Henry put his own spin what he encountered (video below):

“We’ve had Democrats on the show saying that the President is not telling the truth. That’s what they claim when he says and boasts that there’s new wall being built. I’m here to say the President is right and they are wrong. And that’s not an opinion. That’s my reporting with my own two eyes. I was there. There is in fact miles and miles of new wall being built and it’s working.”

Well then, that settles it. If Henry was there and saw a brand new wall with his own two eyes, it must be a box of wholesome fact morsels wrapped in golden ribbons of truthiness. Except for the fact that Henry was shamelessly lying. He was actually standing at the site where there was already an 18 foot wall that had been there for years. He even mentioned it himself in a long-winded response to questions from Mediaite.

What’s more, a photo taken in April of 2013 shows a wall already in place at the Otay Mesa site. And the Washington Post reported that the construction at the site where Trump and Henry talked was actually just “a 24-mile section of replacement barrier.”

In addition, Henry didn’t explore the length of the wall he was observing so he couldn’t possibly know if there were “miles and miles” of it. And as for it working, he merely cited some data that migration had slowed during the past few months. But it always slows during the summer due to the excessive heat that makes traveling on foot difficult and dangerous.

So Henry’s indignant insistence that Trump’s Democratic critics were wrong was pure, partisan bullcrap. And his reliance on his own two eyes suggests that his “vision” is seriously impaired by his blind allegiance to Trump. But this also puts the lie to the claim by Fox News that they differentiate between news and opinion. In fact, they don’t seem to have any news content at all. It’s a 24/7 right-wing opinion factory that is about as committed to truthtelling as Trump or his bootlicking lackey, Corey Lewandowski, who admitted to Congress that he has no obligation to be honest. That describes pretty much everyone in the Trump regime from top to bottom. And make no mistake, Fox News is a fully subscribed member of the Trump regime.

Here is how the Trump campaign promoted the Fox News propaganda piece by Ed Henry:

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 Geraldo Rivera Confirms Trump is a Racist While Arguing that He Isn’t a Racist

Posted by on September 13, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 2 Comments :

The debate over whether or not Donald Trump is a racist has been over for months, years really. The evidence is in his frequent and virulent hate speech, as well as his policies that are deliberately aimed at disadvantaging people of color. And the fact that he is supported by the nation’s most prominent white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups is further proof of his embrace of bigotry.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

Most people upon discovering that KKK leaders are praising them would stop and reflect on what they did or said to attract such loathsome admirers. But not Trump. He actually panders to them and refuses to make any outright criticisms. He invites them to the White House and recycles overtly racist tropes that history has condemned. He even told women of color – who happen to be members of Congress and U.S. citizens – to “go back you came from.”

Notwithstanding all of these facts, Fox News continues to pretend that there is nothing remotely racist about Trump. It’s a position that mimics the worshipful fawning of state run media in Russia, North Korea and other totalitarian regimes. And on Trump’s favorite Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes earned their pay by ignoring the truth about Trump and slobbering over Dear Leader’s bottomless capacity for universal love.

Aside from the helpful montage of Democrats correctly pointing out that Trump is a racist, this clip features Steve Doocy wondering why they weren’t asked “What do you mean? What are you referring to?” The fact that he even bothers to ask that question demonstrates just how blind he is to reality, or more accurately, how blind they want their views to be. For the record, Doocy’s question has been answered many times, and this compilation from Vox serves as a convenient resource.

Later in the program, long-time Trump friend and blabbering sycophant, Geraldo Rivera, showed up for another of his regular appearances and began sucking up in the first few seconds of his segment. He started off with a glassy-eyed confession that “I love the President and I’ve known him for 45 years and he is not a racist.” Geraldo then blames Trump’s troubles on “sloppy rhetoric” that “makes him vulnerable” to charges of racism. But as he continues, Geraldo himself outlines Trump’s rancid bigotry that extends far beyond rhetoric:

“When the President says ‘shathole countries,’ and NFL players who kneel are ‘sons of bitches,’ and ‘Mexicans are rapists,’ I think that he should emphasize the positive.”

See? It’s as simple as that. Just ignore the fact that you’ve viciously insulted African countries, African-American athletes, and Latinx refugees fleeing violence and poverty. Focus on imaginary “positives” that can be exploited to brainwash the dimwitted Trump cultists and viewers of Fox News. Geraldo also advised Trump that “His staff should look more like the country. It should be more diverse.” That’s not the sort of advice you give to someone who isn’t noticeably prejudiced.

It’s ironic that Geraldo’s defense of Trump contains such a useful itemization of the evidence that he is, in fact, flagrantly racist. But Geraldo wants you to dismiss all of that and be filled with the same reverential and baseless adoration of Trump that he has. And this isn’t just the position of Geraldo. It’s the same irrational mask of delusion that all Republicans and Fox News hacks wear and that they want to strap onto you. It’s just that you don’t see them tugging at the strings this openly very often.

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

John Bolton Texts Fox News Live to Say He Resigned, Contradicting Another Trump Lie

Posted by on September 10, 2019 at 12:12 pm. 3 Comments :

The administration of Donald Trump continues to be a hot mess. Having already achieved a record number of departures of White House top staff, Trump has just parted ways with his fourth National Security Advisor, John Bolton. Sources say that Trump and Bolton argued about the President’s foiled scheme to bring the Taliban to Camp David.

Donald Trump, John Bolton

The break up with Bolton leaves Trump’s national security team littered with “acting” heads, including National Security Advisor, Homeland Security Secretary, Director of National Intelligence, and Chief of Staff. These are all critical posts that have a particular significance during these times of international turmoil. Trump is awkwardly juggling relations with Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, China, Russia, and many more foreign hot spots that threaten American interests. But the nation under Trump’s “leadership” lacks competent management in the jobs that oversee those crucial areas of statecraft.

Trump announced Bolton’s dismissal in his usual way – via Twitter saying “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation.” It isn’t surprising that Trump and Bolton disagreed. That was apparent even before Bolton was hired, and anyone paying attention knew it. But Trump’s staffing decisions are based on the shallowest criteria, such as how they look on Fox News.

Not surprisingly, Bolton had a different view of how his separation came about. Contrary to Trump’s claim that he asked Bolton to resign, Bolton says – also via Twitter – that he made the offer first. And just to drive the point home, Bolton live-tweeted Fox News where his pal and former colleague, Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends, read the tweet on the air:

https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1171458331216502785

So Bolton, a former Fox News contributor, hasn’t been unemployed for an hour and he’s already angling for his old job at back at Fox. But the more important question going forward is which Trump-fluffing Fox News shill will Trump name as the next National Security Advisor? There are several prospects in the the Fox family who would meet Trump’s low standards for work in his White House: 1) Be willing to lie unflinchingly for Trump; and … well, that’s pretty much it.

One candidate could be Walid Phares, a longtime right-wing pundit and advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Phares distinguished himself as an Islamophobe and a crackpot conspiracy theorist with claims that tied President Obama and Hillary Clinton to the Muslim Brotherhood. Another candidate could be retired Gen. Jack Keane who makes frequent appearances on Fox defending Trump blindly for whatever the atrocity of the day happens to be.

However, a more likely candidate would be this favorite of Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who was a presenter on the recently shuttered NRA-TV before becoming a full-fledged Fox contributor who sometimes fills in for Hannity. Bongino has already caught Trump’s eye with a book that makes wild assertions about the “Deep State” spying on Trump. The President has tweeted about or retweeted Bongino 84 times. Typically they are just factless tributes to Trump’s imaginary awesomeness and virginal innocence, such as…

So we can expect the next National Security Advisor to be a worshipful member of the Trump cult. And he will join a team of hacks who have never been confirmed by the Senate because, according to Trump, “I like ‘acting’ because I can move so quickly.” In other words, he likes “acting” because he can just pull sycophantic, unqualified names out of his arse without having to get the constitutionally mandated consensus of the Senate. And sadly, in these troubled times that’s what America has to suffer though with our wannabe dictator in the White House.

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

Whining on Fox News: Fact-Checking Trump Will ‘Reveal Him to Be Stupid, Uninformed, or a Liar’

Posted by on September 5, 2019 at 11:40 am. 4 Comments :

From the outset of Donald Trump’s presidency he has regarded the media as his most dangerous foe. That’s why he he repeatedly refers to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He even explicitly tweeted on Wednesday that his “real opponent” is not the Democratic Party, but the press. It’s his innate hatred of any institution that is governed by facts and honesty that drives this dangerous and anti-constitutional hostility.

Donald Trump

Trump is right in a perverse way. He really does need to fear the press due to his unabashed and pathological lying. To date he has racked up more than 12,000 lies since his inauguration. Every fact-checker who tracks Trump’s pitiful record of falsehoods has compiled volumes of evidence that he simply doesn’t care about accuracy or truth. And his lies can range from easily verifiable nonsense like who pays for tariffs (which got shot down by Fox News), to his ludicrous battle to defend saying that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian (it wasn’t). Trump will lie about matters big and small because his internal morality doesn’t recognize the difference between truth and lies. He’s focused solely on whatever benefits him at the moment.

So it was not surprising to see Geraldo Rivera at his regular perch on Fox and Friends running defense for Trump. These relentless presidential bootlickers are as predictable as flies on bullshit, which is a pretty apt simile. During a segment that started out examining Trump’s diverting funds from the military to his vanity border wall, Geraldo took a detour to shield Trump from criticism about his lying ways, but belly-flopped painfully in the process:

“This is all clear to me what is happening is that this president gets the worst press of any president in the history of the republic. Everything he says and does is cross-checked and scrutinized to reveal him to be stupid, uninformed, or a liar, you know, it is very frustrating to see how other news networks obsess about any misstep or misstatement the president makes.”

Geraldo’s assessment of which president got the worst press might be disputed by Presidents Clinton, or Nixon, or even Lincoln. But to the extent that there is negative news about Trump, it’s entirely his own fault. After all, Trump is the worst president of any in the history of the republic. He’s the first to never have positive approval ratings (they never broke above 46 percent). And his inexperience, ignorance, and incompetence is exposed nearly every day in on his Twitter feed and his useless, impromptu “chopper talk” press avails. It would be easy for Trump to avoid bad press. Just stop doing idiotic, racist, and often illegal things.

More to the point, Geraldo is complaining because “Everything [Trump] says and does is cross-checked.” Oh my Gawd! What a horrible thing to do to a public servant who is pretending to lead the free world. What’s worse is that Geraldo actually admits that such scrutiny will result in Trump being revealed to be “stupid, uninformed, or a liar.” And that, as it happens, is the truth. So what Geraldo is upset about is that the true nature of Trump’s inadequacies will become apparent to everyone should he be held to reasonable standards of review. Which is the job of the press. But Geraldo isn’t seeking the truth. He’s seeking the suppression of it. Which is the job of Fox News.

Trump is upset about the very same thing as Geraldo. He doesn’t really care whether the media is honest or not. He’s only interested in making sure that his flagrant fabrications aren’t discovered and reported. And if they are, he will attempt to discredit the press so that no one – or at least his Deplorable cult followers – will believe them. He actually admitted that to Leslie Stahl when she asked why he attacks the press. “You know why I do it?” he replied. “I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.” So as Stahl suggested, “Put that in your head for a minute.”

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

Trump-Fluffing on Fox News: Hosts Promote Bed-Buggy Doral Resort for the 2020 G7

Posted by on August 27, 2019 at 11:57 am. 3 Comments :

In his closing remarks at the G7 summit in France, Donald Trump managed to deliver an infomercial for his Doral Miami Golf Resort to host the next G7 summit in 2020. It was a painfully self-serving spectacle that is also a likely violation of the Constitution. At the very least it’s a predictably Trumpy exhibit of greed and an utter lack of ethics.

Fox News Friends

Not surprisingly, Fox News weighed in on the idea the following morning. On Fox and Friends the “Curvy Couch” potatoes did a segment (video below) agreeing with Trump that Doral would be the perfect place for the summit. Even though there are thousands of hotels and conference centers across America that would be ideal for such an event. It’s just a weird coincidence that the site owned by Trump happens to be the best place of all. Who would have thought?

The segment began with Steve Doocy introducing Trump’s sales pitch from France. And it was all downhill from there. Brian Kilmeade jumped in to insist that there was no favoritism involved because Trump “would want to do it there anyway. It’s just the perfect site … Trump Tower is not available.” Then Doocy acknowledged the potential legal problems, but also provided an excuse:

“Critics say the use of his property for official business violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. I’m sure the president has asked the lawyers, ‘Hey, how can I donate this, how can we possibly work around it?”

The Emoluments Clause prohibits the President from accepting money, or anything of value, from foreign governments or persons. So if the representatives of the G7 had to actually pay Trump in order to attend the next summit, that’s a pretty obvious violation. Even if the site was donated, the publicity would have to be considered something of enormous value and, therefore, illegal. What’s more, Doocy is playing clairvoyant by surmising with certainty that Trump would have consulted his lawyers. You know, geniuses like Rudy Giuliani. But based on his past, that actually seems like the last thing Trump would do.

Ainsley Earhardt also contributed to the unpaid advertisement by remarking that “It would be a beautiful place, though, for world leaders to go and see what our country looks like.” Because all of America looks exactly like an elite golf spa in Miami? She then declared that Doral was “representative” of the country, before adding that “I’ve never been to Doral.” So in other words, she’s an expert, by Fox News standards.

None of the Fox friends bothered to mention that Doral had a serious problem with bed bugs a couple of years ago. But Trump couldn’t resist bringing it up:

Trump’s denials are in keeping with his tendency to lie about virtually anything. Even though – as in this case – he settled a lawsuit against the resort for the infestation. Trump and the Foxies also neglected to mention that Doral has been suffering a severe financial drought. It’s net operating income has dropped 69 percent in two years. So that would make Trump’s promotion of it even more suspicious as an attempt rescue another one of his floundering business enterprises.

It’s bad enough that Fox News is a 24/7, State TV, propaganda machine for Trump and his Republican Nationalist Party. But is there nothing too unethical for this so-called “news” network to do on behalf of their Dear Leader? They have already appeared at Trump’s political cult rallies. And they can be relied upon to defend any atrocity that Trump commits, while viciously maligning his critics. Now they are even serving as the sales agents for his failing golf resort. It would be oddly comforting if this were the bottom of the Fox News/Trump abyss. But every time it seems we’re there, they find a way dig even deeper.

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

Donald Trump Jr Admits on Fox News that Daddy’s Rhetoric Can Incite ‘Fringe Crazies’ to Kill

Posted by on August 7, 2019 at 2:53 pm. 2 Comments :

Most objective people recognize that the language used by national leaders can profoundly influence their followers. That’s especially true of cult-like movements wherein the leader is regarded as infallible and claims to be an omnipotent figure who know more than anyone about everything and is the only one who can fix every problem. Sound familiar?

Donald Trump Jr

Nevertheless, Donald Trump’s apologists have been frantically trying to absolve him of any responsibility for the hostilities that erupt from his careless rhetoric and hate speech. His Republican colleagues, and the fluffers on Fox News, refuse to concede that ranting endlessly about immigrants and refugees as rapists and invaders will have any impact on Trump’s glassy-eyed disciples. That’s true even after the El Paso massacre where the shooter left writings that were indistinguishable from Trump’s public tirades.

Among the diversions used by Trump’s defenders is that the gunman in Dayton, Ohio, might have had some more liberal leanings. Even if that’s true, it’s a bizarre effort to draw a false equivalency between the two events. Unlike the El Paso situation, the Dayton shooter never even hinted that he was motivated by any political person or ideology.

This is where Donald Trump Jr comes in. He appeared on his father’s favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends (video below), to commiserate with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes about how the President is the real victim in all of this. The TV bitch session repeatedly portrayed Trump as a good-hearted, well-meaning uniter who only wants everybody to get along. But at the same time Junior went out of his way to malign Daddy’s critics. He focused particularly on Rep. Joaquin Castro, chairman of Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the brother of Julian, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president. Castro had posted a graphic on Twitter that listed some of the San Antonio area’s donors to Trump’s campaign. So Junior lashed out in huff saying…

“That list sort of screams like the Dayton, Ohio, shooter’s list. When a radical, left-wing politician, who’s polling at about zero percent, does this for either attention or a call to action, it’s pretty scary. I mean, that was the same thing that the Dayton, Ohio shooter did.”

The same thing? Not quite. The President uses abhorrent language that was intended to make weak Americans fear migrants as potential assailants who are out for blood. He characterizes them as subhumans assembling to either take over America or destroy it. The only thing Castro’s tweet did was identify people who support Trump. Apparently they aren’t especially proud of that decision. To the contrary, Junior and the Fox hosts agree that merely being associated with Trump’s reelection effort is so reprehensible that it makes them potential targets for murder. That says more about what they think of themselves than anything else.

Think about that. People in Texas – IN TEXAS – are worried that being a supporter of Trump will cause them harm. There don’t appear to be any Biden (or Sanders, or Warren, or Harris or…) supporters that have that fear. And to be fair, neither do most of Trump’s supporters. This expression of fear by Junior and Fox is an utterly dishonest charade intended to disparage Castro and some nebulous conspiracy of allegedly hostile lefties. But when Junior was asked whether the list of Trump donors might really cause someone to hurt any of them, he conceded that it wouldn’t, except under certain circumstances:

“Perhaps not to reasonable people, but the fringe crazies on both sides – and we saw that in the last week, right? You have fringe crazies on all sides. They see that.”

Wow! This is exactly what people have been saying makes Trump’s racist harangues so dangerous. The possibility that some of his Deplorables would act out violently, believing that they were fulfilling his wishes. And Junior is now admitting that unstable people could take the words of his father as an inspiration to commit unlawful and violent acts. It’s precisely the charge that has been leveled at Trump. And it’s the same charge that Junior, Fox News, and the rest of Wingnutia, have been been so fiercely denying. Now, despite the fact that it doesn’t fit their narrative, it is being forthrightly validated.

Junior went on to whine (just like Daddy) about the tribulations of politics. “Our people,” he said, “don’t weaponize the political system the same way. We don’t do the organized boycotts that the left does.” He obviously isn’t paying much attention to his father who has called for numerous boycotts. But then there isn’t really much reason to listen to Trump when he lies so frequently and brazenly, In fact, just this morning, when asked by reporters if he regrets any of the harsh and divisive rhetoric he uses, he said that “No, I think my rhetoric brings people together.” Umm…nevermind. There is simply no satisfactory response to that degree of delusion.

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

False Equivalencies: Trump Tries to Smear Others with His Rancid and Inflammatory Rhetoric

Posted by on August 6, 2019 at 1:09 pm. NO Comments :

In the wake of multiple episodes of horrific gun violence over the weekend. Donald Trump has scrambled to find, not solutions, but shelter from the well-deserved criticism crashing over him like a tsunami. His defenders in politics and punditry deployed in formation to praise their infallible Dear Leader and smear those who dared to question his radiant presence.

Donald Trump

Leading the charge was Cadet Bone Spurs himself. He posted a tweet that sought to deflect from his deliberately hostile language that incited the El Paso shooter. And he drew support from Fox News by quoting the Trump-fluffers on Fox and Friends who asked “Did George Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook?”

Well, no. President Bush never did that. But that’s only because Obama never did or said anything that could remotely be interpreted as incitement to commit any violent act. Trump, on the other hand, does that nearly every day. And this was typical of the charges that have been levied against anyone who sees a rational connection between Trump’s tirades and the murderers who take up his call to arms. Among the StormTrumpers attempting to shield him from censure is his Senior Alternative Fact Dispenser, Kellyanne Conway, who has had just about enough:

“I’m hopping mad this morning because I see very little, scant coverage of the fact that this Dayton shooter has been confirmed as having a Twitter feed that was supportive of Antifa, that was supportive of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders.”

First of all, the Twitter account in question has not yet been confirmed as belonging to the Dayton shooter. But more to the point, there has been significant of coverage of this Twitter feed by every major news outlet, including Trump’s nemesis, CNN.

However, the budding narrative that Sen. Warren, or any other Democrat, should bear any responsibility for the shooting is absurd. It’s proof that the right has exhausted any substantive arguments they might have had to defend Trump, so they’re resorting to this lunacy. Trump’s inspiration for the El Paso shooter is evident in his own words and deeds. He has called immigrants “criminals” and ‘rapists.” He leads his cult rallygoers in chants telling elected representatives – women of color who are American citizens – to “go back” to where they came from. He refers to refugees as “invaders.” And the writings of the shooter explicitly refer to Trump as an inspiration. But none of that is the case for the Dayton shooter and any connection to any liberal politician or media personnel.

The Republican rightists have also tried to compare murders in Chicago or Baltimore to the mass shootings in El Paso. That is another blatantly false equivalency that ignores reality. The Chicago area crimes are generally gang-related and inspired only by rivalry and/or greed. But the El Paso shootings are acts of terrorism with specific goals to invoke fear as a weapon to make social change. What’s more, local officials and law enforcement work vigorously to reduce the incidents of violence in their communities and to enact reforms when available. But the Republicans in Congress have spent decades obstructing any efforts to reduce the incidence of domestic terrorism by white nationalists.

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

These efforts by Trump and his media mouthpieces to introduce bogus comparisons between obviously disparate crimes are evidence of their callous disregard for the truth and for finding real solutions. It’s proof that Trump’s call for unity is an insincere charade intended only for media consumption. And until they can take responsibility for their words and actions, and renounce the inflammatory rhetoric that they have used so often, it will be impossible to take their pleas for bipartisanship seriously.

Thanks Fox News, for Exposing Trump as a Failure at Nearly Everything He Promised

Posted by on July 31, 2019 at 11:04 am. 4 Comments :

Following the first round of the second set of Democratic presidential primary debates, Fox News thought they had found a way to advance their mission of disparaging the Democratic Party and it’s candidates. They didn’t go quite as far as Donald Trump did (who tweeted that “Democrats are the true enemies of America”), but it was still pretty damn awful.

Donald Trump, Fox News

The only problem with Fox’s anti-Democratic post-debate banter was that they ended up inadvertently slamming their own guy. In a segment on Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes were especially enamored of 1% candidate John Delaney, mainly because he was criticizing other Democratic candidates who actually have a chance of winning and facing Trump in the general election.

Ainsley Earhardt of Fox and Friends interviewed Delaney (video below) and effusively praised him for countering Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for Medicare for All. They played a clip of Warren righteously blasting the allegedly “pragmatic” Delaney. “I don’t understand,” Warren asked, “why anybody goes through all the trouble of running for the President of the United States, just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.” Earhardt then went on to say…

“I thought it was very practical what you were saying last night. I thought you did a good job with that because we all knew that kid in school that beat you when you were running for student body president because they promised to put snack machines in all the classes. You know that’s not gonna happen. But the kids hear that and they vote for that person. […] I don’t understand why people run and then they promise stuff and then it never happens.”

First of all, if Earhardt doesn’t understand why candidates make campaign promises, she needs to go back to doing local news in South Carolina and writing children’s books. Secondly, she has no basis for asserting that Democrats will not fulfill their promises to expand healthcare, particularly since President Obama already proved that they can do it.

However, the biggest blunder of Earhardt’s tantrum was her complaint about people who “promise stuff and then it never happens.” She could not have provided a better description of Donald Trump if she were the chair of the Democratic Party. Let’s explore a few of Trump’s broken vows.

Trump promised his own healthcare plan that he said would cover every American for much less than it costs now. Not only has he not delivered, he hasn’t even offered a draft of a plan. He promised to build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. That’s been a running joke for over two years now. He promised infrastructure construction and repair, but came up empty even though Democrats support it. I could go on.

OK, I will. He promised progress on trade, then imposed tariffs that only hurt American consumers. He promised denuclearization, but North Korea, Russia, and Iran are all expanding their programs after his bumbling missteps. He promised to eliminate the budget deficit and the national debt. But the deficit has grown by billions and the debt is now over $22 trillion dollars, thanks mostly to Trump’s tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy.

The reality is, as noted by PolitiFact, that only 16 percent of Trump’s campaign promises were graded as “Promises Kept.” The other 84 percent are distributed between “Compromised, Broken, Stalled,” or “In the Works.” That is hardly a record that anyone should be proud of. And even by his accounting Trump has been a dismal failure.

Although Trump does deserve credit for some notable successes. For instance, he has succeeded in dividing the nation, emboldening racist hate groups, cozying up to foreign dictators, fouling the planet, appointing corrupt government officials, suppressing voters, and advancing an economy that works only for corporations and the rich, while average Americans struggle. But at least we can all be grateful to Fox News for pointing out how horribly Trump has failed and why no one should even consider voting for him.

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