Fox News

Trump Won’t Condemn White Nationalist Domestic Terrorists for Fear of Offending His Base

Posted by on August 4, 2019 at 12:02 pm. 6 Comments :

The casualties are piling up as gun violence in America continues unabated. And it is impossible to tolerate any longer the right-wing mantra of “thoughts and prayers” while they do absolutely nothing constructive to solve the problem. To the contrary, Republicans in Congress work affirmatively to obstruct common sense solutions that the American people want in unprecedented majorities.

Donald Trump

This isn’t about mental health. It’s not about video games or prayer in school. It’s about easy access to weapons of war and the flagrant racism and hate speech of Donald Trump and his ilk. There have been more mass shootings (250) in 2019 than there have days (219). And while Democrats have passed bills in the House of Representatives, Republicans, and particularly GOP leader Mitch McConnell, have refused to even allow a vote on any of those bills.

For his part, Donald Trump remains aloof and unable to tear himself away from his golf game, or Fox News, long enough to address this crisis with any measure of the seriousness it demands. A real president would deliver an Oval Office speech condemning the white nationalists who are responsible for the majority of fatalities related terrorism in the U.S. That’s a conclusion that even the Trump-appointed FBI director affirmed. It would be nice if we had a real president.

But Trump himself will not even acknowledge that there is a problem with right-wing violence. In fact, he literally downplays any significant occurrence of it. Following the slaughter at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, Trump dismissed the growing threat of white nationalism saying that “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”

The words “white nationalist terrorism” have never passed through Trump’s lips. And this is despite his being one of the most vocal critics of President Obama for not using the inaccurate and inflammatory phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump even called for Obama to resign on Twitter asking…

Trump has made it a hallmark of his presidency to maliciously portray refugees as criminals and terrorists “invading” our country. Never mind that his exclusionary view of “our” country ignores the fact that it is populated, and was built, by refugees. Yet he demands that they “go back where they came from,” even they happen to be U.S. citizens and elected representatives in Congress. The rhetoric of “invasion,” and “criminal,” and “go back,” is exactly the same language that appears in the manifestos of these racist murderers.

It’s also the same language that is used by Fox News. Tucker Carlson’s White Nationalist Hour frequently bemoans the “darkening” of America. He has said that immigration “makes our own country poorer, and dirtier.” His colleague Laura Ingraham worries that “the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore [due to] massive demographic changes … that most of us don’t like.” And in the wake of two tragic massacres, Fox sought to blame ISIS or video games rather than the clearly guilty movement of alt-right bigotry.

There’s a reason that Trump won’t go after these domestic terrorists. He is scared. He’s a shivering wisp of a man who is afraid of offending his base. He’s afraid that the attendance at his cult rallies will decline. He’s terrified of losing support from the neo-Nazis who comprise the most activist faction of his hateful crusade. And Republicans in Congress won’t act either because they are afraid of offending Trump.

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

Trump is so unashamedly beholden to his cretinous disciples that he recently joked about shooting migrants. And considering the clarity that Trump gives to his hate speech, no one should be surprised when his followers take up the call. When they do, don’t expect Trump to denounce them. But the rest of the nation needs to come together and condemn Trump’s hatred and incitement to violence. We need to hold him accountable for the pain and grief he purposefully encourages. And if he can’t “finally mention the words [white nationalist terrorism], he should immediately resign in disgrace!”

SRSLY? Trump-Bot on Fox News Says ‘I Don’t Remember Us Electing an Angry President’

Posted by on August 2, 2019 at 1:12 pm. 6 Comments :

A few weeks ago Donald Trump whined about his State TV network (aka Fox News) hosting a couple of town halls with Democratic presidential candidates, saying that “Something strange is going on at Fox, folks.” It might have been a little strange, except for the fact that Fox predictably used the appearances to disparage them in every segment that followed.

Donald Trump

However, Trump is probably over that momentary episode of angst now that he can see Fox faithfully fulfilling its mission to exalt him and brazenly lie on his behalf. Fox’s overt adoration of Trump was displayed in yet another staged “interview” of one of their stable of Trump-fluffing contributors. This time it was frequent Fox shill, and disgraced, ousted GOP House Speaker, Newt Gingrich. In a segment about the recently broadcast Democratic debates, Fox called on Gingrich to provide his relentlessly partisan analysis. And his opinion of where the Democrats are going wrong couldn’t have been more asinine (video below):

Gingrich: It was amazing the level of anger you got out of Bernie Sanders and Sen. Warren. I mean, these are really angry people and it was kind of amazing to watch them. It’s the opposite of how people normally win the presidency. You watch Barack Obama with a big smile. You watch Ronald Reagan with a big smile. I don’t remember us electing an angry president literally in my lifetime.

Newt Gingrich is either suffering from a severe case of selective amnesia, or he is deliberately peddling some of the most ludicrous lies ever told on Fox News. First of all, while Sanders and Warren (and all decent human beings) are often noticeably upset with the abhorrent words and deeds of Trump, they were also hopeful and positive and bearing bright smiles.

More to the point, while Gingrich’s “amazement” that Democrats are “really angry” fails to put their mood in context to the horror of Trumpism, his inability to recall the election of an angry president is downright delusional. Donald Trump is America’s ranking rage-aholic. He has a temperament range that runs from outrage to fury. The only time that he isn’t in the midst of a frothing tirade is when he’s stroking his own bloated ego.

Trump uses his anger mainly to malign his critics. He routinely taunts them as “stupid, ugly,” or other similarly infantile insults. His rants are purposely intended to incite hatred, division, and distrust among otherwise united citizens. And yet he has the audacity to charge that “The rage filled Democrat Party is trying to tear America apart.” He recently retweeted a meme that said that “Democrats are the true enemies of America.” Nah, he aint angry at all, is he?

So Gingrich can’t remember the election of an angry president even though the current one that he obediently reveres is a seething cauldron of bile and hostility. And despite Gingrich’s blindness to Trump’s acid acrimony, Trump himself regards it as an asset:

To put it mildly, Gingrich and Fox News are such glassy-eyed disciples of Trumpism that they have lost all connection to reality. In the very segment where Gingrich claims Democrats are angry, Fox runs runs video of them smiling at the debate. And Fox also had a chyron that affirmed Trump’s anger that read “Trump Tears Into ‘Radical’ 2020 Democrats In Ohio.” Which was portrayed as a show of strength.

Another example of this dementia inducing adulation took place on Trump’s favorite Fox program, Fox and Friends. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt sought to gaslight (or more accurately, “Foxlight”) her viewers with a comparison of Trump to Joe Biden. She said that “They’re both rust belt people though. They’re both, like, blue collar workers that have money, but blue collar.”

WHUT? To be fair, no ever ever accused these “Curvy Couch” potatoes of being Mensa members. But Earhardt has to know that Trump was born to a wealthy father in New York City, while Biden was a middle-class kid from Scranton, PA. This purposeful lie, as well as the ones by Gingrich, can only be taken as deliberate attempts to mislead the easily confused Fox News audience who seemingly yearn to be lied to. And the profiteers and propagandists at Fox know enough to give the Deplorables what they want.

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

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.

Fox News and Trump Shill Kellyanne Conway Equate U.S. Media to Russian Election Tampering

Posted by on July 29, 2019 at 1:33 pm. 3 Comments :

The 2020 presidential election is approaching rapidly. And despite the problems with the 2016 election, Republicans are doing nothing to prevent Russia – or any other hostile foreign entity – from repeating efforts to interfere with America’s democracy. To the contrary, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell just blocked two bipartisan bills intended to protect the election. They are actually aiding and abetting the nefarious efforts of our enemies.

Kellyanne Conway, Fox News

It’s no wonder that the GOP is working on behalf of Russia. The Kremlin helped secure the victory of Donald Trump in 2016, and Republicans are well aware that they are unlikely to win in 2020 without more of that help. So the campaign is on by the Trump administration to pave the way for continued hacking and tampering in the upcoming election. He has decimated the Justice Department’s counterintelligence operations. He has installed hyper-loyal allies in critical White House posts. And, as usual, he is attacking the free press in order to keep the American people from learning the truth about his conspiracies with his BFF Vladimir Putin.

On Monday morning, Trump’s Senior Counselor and Chief Alternative Facts Dispenser, Kellyanne Conway, appeared on Trump’s favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends. And she wasted no time in declaring that the American media is no different than Russian spies when it comes to to meddling in U.S. elections (video below):

“This President is very concerned about foreign interference in elections. We don’t want Russia to interfere. We don’t want China. But you know what? We also don’t want the mainstream media to interfere in the elections this time either, like they tried to do last time. Get your thumb off the electoral scale. Let people fight it out fairly and squarely.”

Conway’s message was clear: American journalists are unpatriotic agents of evil who are intent on destroying democracy. They are to be feared and, if necessary, silenced to prevent them from engaging in their anti-American plots. Conway regards the collection and dissemination of news to be a dangerous pursuit that must be shut down.

And why wouldn’t she think that? The more we find out about Trump and his unlawful activities throughout his campaign and presidency, as well as his efforts to obstruct justice with lies and failures to cooperate, the closer he is to impeachment and possible incarceration. So while Trump is repeatedly referring to the free press in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” his designated mouthpieces are equating reporters with Russian spies.

What Conway and her boss are really afraid of is that the American people will discover the depths of criminality to which Trump and company have sunk. They aren’t concerned about the media putting their thumb on the electoral scale. They are concerned that their own thumbs aren’t pushing down hard enough. What does she think Fox News is doing all day and night with their obsequious fawning over Trump and disparaging of anyone who offers the slightest criticism.

Trump was exposed in the recent congressional hearings with Robert Mueller for “welcoming and encouraging” election help from Russia, as well as lying to cover it up. And he’s getting ready to do it again. Why not? There have, as yet, been no consequences for his prior crimes. He’s even so brazen about it that he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that he would not refuse help from Russia in future campaigns. How is that not treason?

All of this has been excused by State TV (aka Fox News), who seem to have no issues with the President revealing in advance his intention to commit crimes. This makes Fox News complicit with those crimes. This flagrantly biased Trump-fluffing by Fox should be considered in-kind contributions to the Trump campaign and monitored by the Federal Elections Commission. And Conway, who has her own legal problems for repeatedly campaigning in the course of her official duties (a violation of the Hatch Act), should be serving in the Big House, not 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.

Under Fire for Racism and Facing Impeachment, Trump is Sucking Harder on His Fox News Pacifier

Posted by on July 28, 2019 at 1:29 pm. NO Comments :

Let’s get this out of the way from the start: Donald Trump is a straight up racist who is fomenting hatred in America by stoking the bigotry of his white nationalists supporters. That is evident in his ever increasing rhetoric that attacks almost exclusively people of color in Congress and in American cities. But Trump isn’t parading down that heinous path alone.

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

As the well deserved tsunami of criticism crests over Trump’s Crusade of Deplorables, he’s finding refuge in a familiar fox hole. Literally. Trump is leaning more heavily on Fox News for validation than ever. Which is astonishing since for years he has been leaning at angle that defies gravity. Trump began sucking on his Fox News pacifier long before he was a candidate for president. He had a weekly segment on Fox and Friends called “Mondays with Trump.” And after entering the White House he has circled the Fox wagons around him by appointing Fox alum to high posts in his administration. Likewise, former Trump associates quickly scurried over to Fox for work after leaving the White House.

The latest tantrum thrown by our Kindergarten President featured what most objective analysts recognize as flagrant racism. Trump’s attack on Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland was littered with the language of fascists who stir up their stormtroopers by dehumanizing those they despise and portraying them as vermin. But Trump didn’t just wake up and decide to viciously malign the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Although that wouldn’t have been surprising since the committee is currently holding hearings to pull the sheets off of his numerous criminal activities.

Nope. Trump was triggered by a segment on Fox News that was deliberately laying the groundwork for his racist tirade. But Fox’s role in this is not limited to field research for the Grand Wizard of the White House. They play a much larger part in the wingnut fog that surrounds the President. So now when Trump’s moral depravity is being punished by decent Americans, Big Baby Trump is hiding behind the petticoats of Fox News.

This weekend alone Trump has posted videos or other references to Fox News nine times. It’s a parade of the usual suspects. Trump tweeted Jeanine Pirro three times, Mike Levin, twice, along with Louis Gohmert, Jesse Watters, and Pete Hegseth of Fox and Friends. There weren’t any posts by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham because they aren’t on the air on the weekend. But rest assured, they are in Trump’s so-called heart.

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

This happens every time Trump finds himself in trouble. He can’t articulate a coherent thought, so he relies on the simple-minded blather from his confederates on State TV. Even when he tweets some sort of self-defense, it is usually purloined from the ravings of someone he just saw on Fox. Trump would not be president today were it not for Fox News. And he could not survive another week if they went off the air. Fox News is Trump’s respirator. He is already brain dead, but being kept alive politically by the propaganda machine to which he is attached.

Trump’s Racist Obama Envy Skids Off the Rails with Vindictive and Deranged Threats

Posted by on July 27, 2019 at 10:54 am. 4 Comments :

It has long been said of Donald Trump that he is behaving like a cornered criminal who shoots wildly in all directions out of fear and desperation. That characterization has never been more true than now. With the congressional Mueller hearings concluded, Trump seems to recognize the legal jeopardy he faces. Mueller’s testimony, while not particularly dramatic, did establish that Trump and his associates welcomed and encouraged Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, and then lied in order to cover it up (aka obstruction of justice).

Donald Trump Zombie

Now Trump is lashing out with some of the most nauseating assaults on anyone he perceives to be his enemy – which is not just his political opponents, but at least half of the American people. In a White House press avail on Friday, Trump did what he does best: Whine! Then he focused his attention on his archenemy, President Barack Obama. This was a bizarre rant that could only have been triggered by his personal hatred and racism. He said:

“All they want to do is impede, they want to investigate. They want to go fishing. And I watched Bob Mueller – and they have nothing – There’s no collusion, no obstruction. They have nothing. It’s a disgrace.

“We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat president. Let’s look into Obama the way they’ve looked at me. From day one they’ve looked into everything that we’ve done. They could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let’s subpoena all of his records. Let’s subpoena all of the records having to do with Hillary Clinton and all of the nonsense that went on with Clinton and her foundation and everything else.

“We could do that all day long. Frankly, the Republicans were gentlemen and women when we had the majority in the House. They didn’t do subpoenas all day long. They didn’t do what these people have done. What they’ve done is a disgrace.”

So now Trump wants to look into Obama’s presidency? And what clandestine criminal acts does he think might be uncovered? Well, Obama wrote a book. Quick, someone alert the FBI!

Trump’s portrayal of Republicans as polite politicos is among his most deranged observations. The GOP controlled House of Representatives – led by ultra-partisan hacks like Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz (both now Fox News contributors) – was relentless in their baseless persecution of both Obama and Hillary Clinton. Contrary to Trump’s dishonest recollection, they did issue numerous subpoenas regarding everything from Hillary’s emails to Benghazi to Fast and Furious to the alleged targeting by the IRS. And let’s not forget their years long assault on Obama as a gay Muslim born in Kenya. Despite these endless and partisan probes, the GOP found no evidence of anything untoward by anyone.

There is a big difference between Trump’s hysterical outbursts alleging crimes by Obama, and his own legal woes. For one thing, There is no evidence whatsoever that Obama ever violated any law. Certainly not with his book deal. However, the investigations into Trump’s criminality were all based on his own behavior and documented proof of wrongdoing. Trump and his team had over 127 secret meetings with Russians that they all lied about when asked.

What’s more, Trump’s complaint that he has been subjected to inquiries that Obama never had to endure is true, but not for the reasons he thinks. Both political and legal probes into Trump’s finances have resulted in requests for his tax returns, which he once promised to release. Instead, he has used every legal trick in the book to avoid any such disclosure. Obama, however, didn’t have this problem because he voluntarily released his taxes during his campaign. Obama also didn’t have problems with corruption in his businesses because he didn’t seek to exploit his presidency for profit, or to sell out his country to Russians and other foreign entities.

To make matters worse, Trump went on a Saturday tweet-spree attacking Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings. Trump called Cummings’ Baltimore district a “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess [where] no human being would want to live.” He went on to compare Cummings’ district unfavorably with his concentration camps on the border saying it is the “Worst in the USA [but that the] Border is clean, efficient & well run.” Then Trump baselessly alleged some sort of corruption by Cummings asking “Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!”

Make no mistake, This is a forthrightly racist attack on an African-American congressman and his black and brown constituents. Trump has also been attacking four congresswomen of color for the past few weeks. His mantra that they should “go back” where they came from was not only insulting (they are all citizens), but un-American. And this new attack on Baltimore – three days shy of its 290th birthday – is further evidence that Trump truly hates America, particularly major cities with proud histories and diverse populations. And it is no coincidence that Trump’s use of this sort of rhetoric is always reserved for people of color. This was expressed with great passion and moral integrity by CNN’s Victor Blackwell, who is from Baltimore.

It also cannot be ignored that Rep. Cummings is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee which is investigating several of Trump’s unsavory activities. Just this week Cummings received the authority to subpoena Ivanka and Jared’s email. And if that weren’t enough to trigger Trump’s wrath, consider that his source for this assault on Baltimore was very likely a segment on the subject he had just seen on Fox News.

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

So Trump’s animus toward a venerable American city, it’s residents, and all Americans who cherish the principles our nation was founded on, is an expression of both his bigotry and his political hostilities. It is more proof (as if it were needed) that he is unfit to serve as president and is an embarrassment to the nation.

REALLY? Trump Says Fox News Polls ‘Have Always Been Terrible to Me’ – Let’s Go to the Tweets

Posted by on July 26, 2019 at 12:16 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s only been one day since Donald Trump was gleefully bragging about the results of a Fox News poll that said his approval on the economy was 52 percent. Never mind that the same poll showed him in negative territory on almost everything else, including overall favorability and most of his signature issues. Trump, like all narcissists, only sees what he wants to see.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

Today Trump is whining about additional results released from the Fox poll that show him getting crushed by Joe Biden. The poll also has him getting beat by Bernie Sanders and in statistical ties with Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Naturally, this insult to his bloated ego incited a tantrum on Twitter aimed at maligning his own State TV network:

First of all, Trump’s reference to Fox News when he says they were supportive of him as “Proud Warriors” is an unabashed confession that he regards them as being the propaganda battalion of his political army. And their betrayal is an unforgivable sin that cannot be ignored. Consequently, he is now lambasting them as traitors who are part of the “Lamestream Media in Collusion with Crooked and the Democrat Party.” Proving, once again, that all it takes is one less than flattering remark for Trump to explode with outrage and accuse you of treason.

As for Fox News always being terrible for Trump, that is not an opinion that he has held with much consistency. To the contrary, he has often praised the Fox News polls and thank the network for their obedient adulation. For instance:

For each of these tweets Trump had to either misrepresent the actual poll results, or cherry pick them to feature only the parts that he liked. The one lauding 40 percent approval by African-Americans was an outright lie. The one about the FBI breaking the law was deceitfully manipulated by Trump. He combined several different responses into one to arrive at 58 percent. If the responses were split into fair groupings the result would be 38-51 against the assertion that any intelligence agency had broken the law. And the one bragging about a Fox News poll putting his approval at 50 percent was actually Fox News reporting on a poll by the notoriously biased Rasmussen.

What is abundantly clear is that Trump has been more than pleased with the results of Fox News polls in the past. But when one is less than adoring he flips out and insists that they have always had it in for him. That’s a sign of a severe mental infirmity consistent with narcissism, paranoia, and sociopathic disengagement from reality.

There is nothing about this latest Fox poll that is out of line with most other polls. Even Trump’s surveying savior, Rasmussen, shows Trump with a majority 51 percent disapproval. Notably, Rasmussen had Trump at 50 percent approval the day before the congressional testimony of Robert Mueller. And he has declined every day since. In Rasmussen’s poll!

So the public perception of Trump was not helped by Mueller’s damning affirmation of Trump’s criminal behavior. Trump wasn’t helped by the testimony that he welcomed and encouraged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Nor was Trump’s reputation aided by Mueller’s explicit description of his actions as constituting obstruction of justice.

The fact that Fox News pollsters managed to produce a relatively accurate representation of the public mood has sent Trump into a fit of acrimony. He is flagrantly in denial of reality and flailing wildly in a attempt to reshape the world into one that loves him unconditionally. And to the extent that he fails at that, his critics, even friendly ones, become his bitterest foes. Every Trump supporter needs to remember that, no matter who you are or how worshipful you’ve been in the past, if you backslide for even a moment you become the enemy of the people. That’s life in the Cult of Trump.

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

Trump is Plunging Into a Desperate Dependence on Fox News that’s Downright Creepy

Posted by on July 25, 2019 at 12:09 pm. NO Comments :

In the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony, Donald Trump has rushed to buttress the barricades of his propaganda crusade. In practical terms that means hyping the crap out of every Trump-fluffing shill he sees on Fox News. And he may have set a record for posting tweets that are flagrantly fawning by the bootlickers at his favorite cable “news” network.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Hate Again

In the few hours since the Mueller hearings concluded, Trump posted sixteen (16!) tweets referencing – and even explicitly thanking – Fox News and their stable of pro-Trump PR toadies. They included disseminating White House talking points about the hearings being “a disaster.” And there were the obligatory lies about “no obstruction, no collusion,” even though Mueller said precisely the opposite. He posted eight videos of segments from Fox that were nothing more than drooling sycophancy, and quotes from the devoutly anti-intellectual “Curvy Couch” potatoes on Fox and Friends.

There were also a couple of prideful postings of a new Fox News poll. Trump celebrated that the poll gave him a 52 percent approval rating on the economy. Never mind that the economy has been in the midst of the longest bull market in history that began ten years ago during the Obama administration. And it performed better in the last two years of Obama’s term than in the first two years of Trump’s.

More importantly, the same poll showed that Trump was severely underwater on almost everything else, including most of his signature issues. For instance, favorability (45 approve – 51 disapprove), border security (44-52), immigration (41-54), trade (40-49), Iran (39-46), North Korea (39-49), and health care (38-51). But Trump was never very good at figuring out stuff as complicated as polls. Our “stable genius” in the White House can only comprehend surveys that are unflinchingly adoring.

The relationship between Trump and Fox News has always been an unethical convergence of media and politics. Fox News is the de facto State TV division of the Trump regime. At any given moment, Fox is either promoting Trump as the new Messiah, or attacking his critics as spawns of Satan. Although, Fox will sometimes complain that they are miscast as biased, and there are even some rare examples of independent thought.

But the biggest impediments to Fox News being perceived as “fair and balanced” (a ludicrous slogan that they abandoned two years ago) are Fox News and Donald Trump. They will always manage to reinforce their conspicuous and disgraceful perversion of the free press. Either Trump will come along to prove that Fox is his personal PR agency with the sort of tweeting frenzy he just unleashed, or Fox will fill their schedule with what can only be described as pro-Trump campaign ads disguised as news programs.

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

The Fox News/Trump Nationalist Party is not only unprecedented, it’s dangerous. It produces a false narrative among the cultists who adhere it that embraces hostility and division, excuses lying, encourages ignorance and willful obliviousness to bona fide national security threats, and turns a sector of the electorate into, essentially, advocates for America’s enemies. And it’s led by a Reality TV game show host who said that he has no time for TV, despite having plenty of time to post tweets of what he is supposedly not viewing.

UPDATE: It only took one day for Trump to figure out that the new Fox Poll was not good news for him. So of course, he lashed out on Twitter against Fox polls which he says “have always been terrible to me.” But don’t worry, the Whiner-in-Chief will return to slobbering over Hannity and Company before you know it.

Exoneration? Collusion? Obstruction? Trump’s Fate is Sealed By 3 Brief Exchanges with Mueller

Posted by on July 24, 2019 at 10:33 am. 4 Comments :

The day before special counsel Robert Mueller was to testify in Congress, Donald Trump made a point of telling reporters that “No, I’m not going to be watching. [adding that] Maybe I’ll see a little bit of it.” Instead, Trump spent much of the morning on Wednesday live-tweeting the hearings. And his commentaries were pretty much what would be expected of someone fraught with guilt and fear.

Robert Mueller Trump

The Mueller report was 438 pages probing Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia during his campaign and presidency, and his efforts to cover up those crimes. But Mueller was a reluctant witness whose testimony was restricted to merely affirming the contents of the report. Consequently, the hearings were not particularly compelling drama. Democrats read from the report and asked Mueller if their quotations were accurate. Republicans ignored the facts and focused on attempts to discredit Mueller and the investigation in its entirety.

Nevertheless, the contents of the report are damning enough without elaboration. The facts that point to Trump’s guilt with regard to conspiracy and obstruction are apparent in quantity and clarity. And Democrats on the House Justice Committee made great strides in presenting the legal arguments for Trump’s impeachment. Three exchanges in particular form the core of the case against Trump. Beginning with this:

Rep. Nadler: The President has repeatedly claimed that your report found that there was no obstruction and that it completely and totally exonerated him. But that is not what your report said, is it?
Mueller: Correct. That is not what the report said.

So Trump’s repetitive and tedious protestations that the report said there was “no collusion, no obstruction.” have been firmly repudiated by the report’s author, under oath. In another exchange, Mueller made it clear that Trump and his associates blatantly interfered with his investigation:

Rep. Demings: Lies by Trump campaign officials and administration officials impeded your investigation.
Mueller: I would generally agree with that.

Finally, there has been much debate over why Mueller didn’t indict Trump for the crimes that he documented in his report. Rep. Ted Lieu dived straight into that question and got a definitive response from Mueller:

Rep. Lieu: The reason that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president. Correct?
Mueller: That is correct.

(Note: Mueller corrected himself later in the day to say that he had misspoken and that his probe did not make a determination as to guilt or innocence. But that isn’t correct either. He explicitly said that Trump was not exonerated and enumerated at least ten instances of obstruction of justice. Also, his report did identify the OLC memo as an impediment to the special counsel issuing indictments of Trump).

These portions of Mueller’s testimony show that Trump is guilty of criminal acts, including his efforts to conceal those crimes. And all of this information was in Mueller’s report. But its delayed release, and misrepresentation by Trump’s shill at the Justice Department, William Barr, muddied the waters and deliberately doused the matter with confusion. That was as much a crime of obstruction of justice as anything that Trump did.

For his part, Trump unleashed a tweetstorm of eleven posts aimed at further distorting the truth that he knew would be revealed in the hearings. And for good measure, they included two predictably biased assessments that he attributed to Fox News. He baselessly accused Democrats of “fabricat[ing] a crime” to “try pinning it on a very innocent President.” Which is funny, in a sad and pathetic way.

He also threatened Mueller not to deny under oath that he had sought an interview for the job of FBI Director. Of course Mueller was asked about that during his testimony, and he did deny it. And Trump banged out another of his substanceless and impotent rage-tweets:

This is not the behavior of an innocent man. Trump is so obviously and thoroughly consumed with fear that it can’t help but ooze from every orifice in his body. And he has good reason to be afraid. He knows what he did. And knows the consequences when everyone else finds out. And so we can expect him to continue these tirades, and even ratchet them up as the law gets ever closer to holding him accountable.

UPDATE: At the beginning of the House Intelligence Committee’s hearing with Mueller, Chairman Adam Schiff extracted some profound and damning revelations about Trump’s crimes:

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

Trump Misreads Poll on Support for His Impeachment, Posts Absurdly Wrong Numbers

Posted by on July 23, 2019 at 2:47 pm. 1 Comments :

The President of the United States is presently the subject of a rare debate over whether he should be impeached for crimes committed by him and/or his associates. While other presidents have been accused of high crimes and misdemeanors, none have been suspected of treasonous conspiracies in conjunction with foreign enemies. This is a situation unique to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump Impeach

Consequently, public polling on whether Trump should be impeached has emerged as an important gauge of his ability to endure another term in office, or even complete his first. And his historically low approval ratings isn’t helping him any. That may be why he is now disseminating obviously false information that makes his situation appear somewhat less dire. On Tuesday morning Trump tweeted this:

Notice that Trump didn’t bother to provide a link to the poll he referenced. That’s a common tactic he employs to prevent people from discovering that he’s a lying jackal. This tactic works well among his Deplorables who will believe whatever he says, even when there’s proof that he’s lying. But for the rest of us, we have to try harder to find out what the heck he’s talking about.

In this case, there is only one recent poll regarding impeachment with an 11 percent result. It’s the YouGov survey published July 18. This poll asked “Do you think the U.S. House of Representative should or should not try to impeach President Trump?” The overall response was 36 percent YES, and 45 percent NO. So where did Trump get 11 percent? That was the number of Republicans who said that he should be impeached. Democrats favored impeachment by 64 percent. So Trump is trying to pass off the GOP-only number as the number for all Americans.

For a bit of contrast, a Twitter user replied to Trump’s tweet with a Twitter poll of his own. At the time of this writing, 77 percent of more than 22,000 votes favored impeachment, while 22 percent did not. Of course, this is not a scientific poll, but it’s revealing that such a large majority of voters on Trump’s own Twitter feed want to see him impeached.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has gotten poll results horribly wrong. On one occasion, Trump retweeted a Fox News report that put his overall approval at 55 percent. Fox later admitted that they made a mistake and that the real number was 43 percent. In a rare correction Fox took down their story but, three months later, Trump still has not.

On another occasion, Trump bragged about the results of a Fox News poll that doesn’t actually exist. He said that his approval among African-Americans in this imaginary poll among was 40 percent. That’s not even close. It’s actually in single digits. A recent Washington Post poll put the number at three percent.

And then there was the time that Trump boasted about a poll showing him with 52 percent approval. Of course that was also in error. The 52 was really his disapproval. His approval in this case was only 44 percent.

Almost everything else in Trump’s tweets is also wrong. He’s taking credit for economic success that is almost totally attributable to his predecessor, President Obama. Stock market and jobs stats increased more during Obama’s administration than in Trump’s. And his tax cuts, regulatory moves, tariffs, and trade wars, were demonstrably harmful to the economy and particularly working people.

It’s hard to say whether all of this misreporting was the result of his poor comprehension skills or deliberate deception. Neither is a very good option. But we have a very serious problem when the President of the United States can’t grasp the results of a simple survey, and has no interest in ever setting the record straight when he’s wrong.

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

What’s more, his attempt at mockery by saying “Gee, let’s impeach the President,” forms the core of his argument against impeachment. He thinks that if the economy is strong, there is no justification to impeach. But that’s nonsense. Impeachment is called for if the President is found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. And if he is, it doesn’t make any difference what the state of the economy is. A president who breaks the law during good times is still a criminal. But that’s just another simple concept that Trump is incapable of understanding.