Campaign 2016

Donald Trump Moves Closer To A Third (Reich) Party Campaign

Posted by on February 15, 2016 at 7:16 pm. 2 Comments :

The overgrown crybaby Donald Trump has unleashed yet another tirade of the ego-soaked entitlement that defines his personality and presidential campaign. At a press conference scheduled for damage control following his embarrassingly brutish performance at the CBS News GOP debate, Trump revisited his previous threats to violate his loyalty pledge to the Republican Party.

Donald Trump

At issue this time is Trump’s accusation that the Republican National Committee conspired to embarrass him by packing the debate audience with lobbyists and donors to his rivals’ campaigns. He whined that the crowd, which booed him several times, was deliberately chosen to be hostile to him. And he wasn’t sitting still for it. He warned that “The RNC better get its act together,” lest they risk the onslaught of his vengeful wrath. Then he got specific about the consequences of offending him:

“I signed a pledge. But the pledge isn’t being honored by them. I signed a pledge. The pledge isn’t being honored by the RNC. Because those tickets were all special-interest people. […] The RNC does a terrible job — a terrible job. And just remember what I said — remember in this room — I signed a pledge. But it’s a double-edged pledge. And as far as I’m concerned, they’re in default of their pledge when they do that.”

He seems to be saying that he signed a pledge. [Has anyone else noticed how much he repeats himself?] Here’s the thing – despite Trump’s characterization, there were no conditions attached to the pledge. It was simply a promise to “endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, regardless of who it is” and “not seek to run as an independent.” The pledge was implemented to prevent Trump from taking advantage of the RNC’s auspices, particularly the debate schedule, and then bolting to run against them.

It appears at this point that the RNC was foolish to have trusted him. They refuted his accusations about the audience composition saying that “Each candidate received 100 tickets.” But Trump expanded on his conspiracy theory to baselessly suggest that college students who received tickets sold them to anti-Trump lobbyists. So we can now officially add paranoia to Trump’s diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And if the charge of packing the audience isn’t enough, Trump is also warning the RNC that they had better support his birther complaints against Ted Cruz:

“One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President. If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately. Additionally, the RNC should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me.”

This isn’t the first time since signing the pledge that Trump has threatened to violate it. He was asked last November by George Stephanopoulos if he still intended to honor the pledge and he answered “I’m going to have to see what happens. I will see what happens. I have to be treated fairly.” It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s word is worthless. If the RNC continues to have faith in him they are setting themselves up for betrayal. The only loyalty Trump has is to himself.

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

In addition to Trump’s repeated threats to double-cross his supposed GOP allies, There seems little likelihood that Trump would support them if he is not the nominee. How could he profess to support people that he has castigated so viciously as liars, losers, and weaklings. Via his crushing and childish insults he has dug himself a hole so deep that it would be absurd to later pretend to respect any of the other other candidates. And they would likely spurn his endorsement, were he to offer one. So the pledge that was signed last year by the whole GOP field is a sad joke that has no value. How appropriate for the Republican Party.

The Three Dumbest Moments From The Republican’s Kindergarten Debate

Posted by on February 14, 2016 at 7:12 pm. 2 Comments :

Last night’s debate on CBS showcased a Republican Party that is jam-packed with whimpering, infantile candidates who are wholly unprepared to dress their dollies, much less lead a nation. It’s hard to imagine that, after watching that spectacle, anyone can picture any of these colicky brats with America’s nuclear missile launch codes.

bawlapalooza

If you have a strong stomach you can go watch the whole debate on YouTube, but what will be presented here is a representative sampling of the frightening stupidity that is exhibited by what the GOP believes are its shining lights – the banner carriers of their Party’s mission. These examples are not snippets of the policy or vision that the candidates are pitching. For the most part they simply repeated the same old right-wing claptrap that they have been spewing for years. What you will see here is more of a demonstration of how dysfunctional their underdeveloped brains are, and how useless they would be in a crisis. In reverse order…

#3 – Dr. Ben Carson

Carson was asked this question about the President’s responsibilities in the event of a Supreme Court vacancy: “You’ve written a book on the constitution recently. What does the constitution say about whose duty it is here to act in this kind of a situation?” Carson’s response was…

“Well, the current constitution actually doesn’t address that particular situation, but the fact of the matter is the Supreme Court, obviously, is a very important part of our governmental system.”

Actually, the fact of the matter is that the Constitution explicitly addresses this particular situation. It says that the President “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,” to nominate Judges of the supreme Court. There is nothing ambiguous about this granting of executive authority. Now, it’s pretty dumb to not understand something as basic as this, but Carson compounded his idiocy by making an unrelated observation:

“And, when our constitution was put in place, the average age of death was under 50, and therefore the whole concept of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court judges, and federal judges was not considered to be a big deal.”

OK, there are actually some good reasons to revisit the lifetime appointments clause of the Constitution, but Carson’s ramblings don’t mention any of them. A quick glance at the history books informs us that the first Supreme Court justices did not have some sort of neanderthal lifespan that made such an appointment reasonable. The first Court’s members, and their ages on death, were Chief Justice, John Jay (83) and Associate Justices: William Cushing (78), John Blair (69), John Rutledge (60), James Wilson (55), and James Iredell (48). So two of the four passed away fairly young, but the rest were pretty hardy. Judge Jay outlived Antonin Scalia by four years. This lapse of easily obtainable knowledge is not surprising for someone who rejects evolution and thinks that the pyramids in Egypt were built to store grain.

#2 – Marco Rubio

During an argument about the record of former President George W. Bush, Donald Trump laid responsibility for 9/11 at Jeb’s brother’s feet. That’s actually a fair criticism, even though Trump lied about his opposition to the Iraq war that followed. But Rubio defended Bush by shouting defiantly that “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.”

Actually, Bill Clinton did take actions against Bin Laden that were unsuccessful. And for his trouble he was bitterly castigated by Republicans in Congress who cooked up a conspiracy theory that Clinton was using the attacks as a distraction. What’s more, Bush was unable to capture or kill Bin Laden after nearly eight years and with the full force of a military wartime engagement, including tens of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan. In light of that, it seems rather absurd to complain that Clinton didn’t succeed when he did not have Congress’ authorization for war and Bin Laden had not proven to be a significant threat to the U.S. at the time. Rubio’s assertion was merely a lame attempt to lash out a Democrat in order to absolve his hero, Bush, of responsibility.

#1 – Donald Trump

Is anyone shocked that Trump took the gold in this competition of idiocy? He could have done it easily by sticking to his standard toolkit of lies (see the Trump Bullshitopedia), many of which he used in this debate. For instance, he claimed that he didn’t support Planned Parenthood, that he didn’t file for bankruptcy (4 times), that he didn’t use eminent domain to try to evict an elderly woman for his casino parking lot, and that he opposed the Iraq war “loud and strong.” All lies.

But Trump served up this morsel of nitwittedness during an exchange about his use of profanity. In his own defense he sought to attack Jeb Bush saying…

“Two days ago he said he would take his pants off and moon everybody, and that’s fine. Nobody reports that.”

First of all, Trump is completely misrepresenting what Bush said. Bush was making a rhetorical point about how hard it is for him to get the attention of the press. The “mooning” comment was just a joking example of what he might have to do. And he said it to a reporter. Trump implied that Bush was making a literal threat to expose himself.

Now that was pretty dumb all by itself, and it certainly didn’t excuse Trump’s much more blatant obscenities. But Trump wasn’t through. After Bush denied Trump’s charge, Trump insisted that “You did say it. Been reported in 10 different news…” Well, if it was reported 10 times, then how does Trump explain his initial charge that “Nobody reports that?” In the span of a few seconds, Trump managed to expose himself as a liar.

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

Conclusion

If this is representative of the best that the Republican Party has to offer, it is a party that is in deep trouble. The rest of the field may not have made this list, but they are no less deserving. Ted Cruz is becoming the Nixon of the Tea Party set with his dirty campaign tricks. Jeb Bush doesn’t seem to have any reason for running other than that his father and brother did before him. And John Kasich thinks he can sell his “moderate” appeal to Republicans who have fallen off the deep end of the John Birch Society pier. And all of them acted as if they hadn’t reached puberty yet. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for November.

Crybaby Donald Trump Threatens To Sue Ted Cruz For Being Canadian – Again

Posted by on February 12, 2016 at 8:14 pm. 4 Comments :

The Republican Party’s candidate for Bully-in-Chief, Donald Trump, is once again demonstrating how frightened he is by anyone unwilling to submit to his imagined authority. Trump’s well-known knee-jerkiness when confronted by criticism, or anything less than unequivocal compliance, generally results in a flurry of infantile insults and slander.

Trump Cruz

Today Trump’s tantrum was set off by a Twitter exchange between him and his former BFF, Ted Cruz. Trump accused Cruz of doing negatively slanted push polls about Trump and lying about his position on marriage equality (which Trump once supported and now opposes). When Cruz denied that he was involved in any push polling, Trump called him a liar and questioned his religious faith saying “How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?” Trump ought to be asked that question himself considering his record setting output of unambiguous falsehoods (see the Trump Bullshitopedia). Of course, if he were asked that question, he would just lie some more.

As the feud continued, Trump eventually brought in his big gun. For several weeks now, Trump has been making birther noises implying that Cruz is not eligible to serve as president because, having been born in Canada to a mother who is a U.S. citizen, he is not a “natural born citizen,” as is required by the Constitution. And now that his ire has been raised by Cruz’s hardball campaigning, Trump tweeted a full-throated threat aimed at bringing Cruz into submission:

“If @TedCruz doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen.”

For the record, Trump has already expressed an interest in suing Cruz over his citizenship. After first promising not to sue during a Republican debate on January 14, Trump contradicted himself three days later, telling ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that it “sounds like a very good case. I’d do the public a big favor. It’s a good idea.” In fact, it’s such a good idea that some of his supporters have actually filed a lawsuit questioning Cruz’s right to run for president. In all likelihood that suit will be thrown out for lack of standing, but Trump himself, as a competitive candidate, wouldn’t have that problem.

The underlying question regarding the definition of “natural born citizen” has never been adjudicated by any legal authority. So whether or not Cruz is eligible is not settled law. Experts have come down on both sides of this question. But that has no bearing on Trump’s behavior.

What makes this latest threat so peculiar is that Trump does not seem the least bit interested in filing the suit in order to prevent an ineligible person from ascending to the presidency, or out of respect for the law, or to preserve the constitutional integrity of the office. Nope – Trump’s sole motivation is to beat Cruz into compliance. Trump’s threat explicitly states that, if Cruz were to capitulate to his demand to refrain from producing negative ads, then Trump would not proceed with the litigation and would allow the legally-suspect campaign to continue.

What’s more, Trump’s threat is itself potentially a violation of federal law. 18 U.S. Code § 610 – Coercion of political activity, states that…

“It shall be unlawful for any person to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, any employee of the Federal Government as defined in section 7322(1) of title 5, United States Code, to engage in, or not to engage in, any political activity…”

By threatening Cruz’s political activities with regard to his campaign advertising, Trump appears to have stepped outside the boundaries of the law. As a United States senator, Cruz is an employee of the Federal Government and, thus, protected from threats by this statute.

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

Once again, Donald Trump is acting like the privileged, elitist, aspiring tyrant that he is. He doesn’t care about the law as it applies to anyone else or to himself. He is focused solely on how he can get whatever he wants regardless of how it impacts others. And he uses threats the way children use tantrums. If he doesn’t get his way he whines like a baby, throws around insults, and issues ultimatums. And he is presently the first choice of Republicans for the nomination of their party for president. Wow. Just wow.

Update 2/15/2016: Trump is again threatening to sue Cruz over his citizenship status. At a press conference today he said…

“One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President. If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately. Additionally, the RNC should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me.”

So now Trump is threatening both to sue Cruz and to ditch the Republican Party to run as an independent. Can this get any more fun?

Ted Cruz Polishes His Anti-Semite Credentials With Glenn Beck’s Help

Posted by on February 11, 2016 at 8:30 pm. 3 Comments :

In the battle for political endorsements Donald Trump won the Teabagger gold by snagging Sarah Palin. But Ted Cruz, no slouch in the wingnut arena, managed to score a silver medal by winning the “conspiritual” (conspiracy+spiritual) heart of Glenn Beck.

Ted Cruz

Fortunately for Cruz, Beck’s endorsement came with a truckload of goodies that only a practiced purveyor of snake oil could provide. Among those goodies are his relationships with the most fringy preachers America’s evangelical community has to offer. For example, Cruz has aligned himself with radical Christianist pastor Mike Bickle, a Beck pal, whose sermons have warned that God will “raise up the hunters” to go after any Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity. And Bickle was not afraid to name names. Adolf Hitler, according to Cruz’s new BFF, is “the most famous hunter in recent history.”

Bickle is not the only proponent of the crackpot theory that God sent Hitler to punish Jews. John Hagee of Cruz’s home state, Texas, has been preaching this nonsense for years. He is also a confederate of Glenn Beck. Hagee went to the extreme of literally thanking God for Hitler whom he believes was doing the Lord’s work by driving Jews out of unfriendly nations and into Israel, hastening the Apocalypse.

In his 2008 campaign for president, John McCain admirably rejected the endorsement of Hagee for saying the very same things that Bickle is saying. Cruz, on the other hand, has embraced Bickle and even attended a gala honoring Hagee where he vilified President Obama as “one of the most anti-Semitic presidents in the history of the United States of America.” At the time, the Anti-Defamation League and other major Jewish organizations called on Cruz to repudiate Hagee’s remarks, which Cruz obstinately refused to do.

None of this should surprise anyone familiar with Glenn Beck. He has a well established pattern of disparaging Jews and others he regards as different. He recently made a list of the nine people whom he said most contributed to the 20th century being the Era of the Big Lie. Eight of them were Jewish. Beck also maligned the majority of American Jews as being like terrorists, saying that “Reformed rabbis are generally political in nature. It’s almost like Islam – radicalized Islam – in a way to where radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics.” And then there was the time that Beck likened 85 kids murdered in Norway by a right-wing extremist to the “Hitler Youth.”

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

This is pretty good evidence that Cruz is working hard to secure the Nazi vote. Of course, he’ll have to fight tooth and nail with Donald Trump for that sector of the electorate. Trump may already have an insurmountable lead by articulating an unequivocally fascist agenda. He even told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that he is not bothered by comparisons to Hitler. Clearly Cruz has his work cut out for him. But Beck will surely be of some help rallying the Stormtroops. Consequently, the battle for the right’s Nazis and fascists and anti-Semites is going to roil the Republican Party for some time to come.

Donald Trump LOST To Hillary Clinton And Bernie Sanders In New Hampshire

Posted by on February 10, 2016 at 8:00 pm. 12 Comments :

The typhoon known as Donald Trump continues to be exaggerated by a media infatuated with a celebrity candidate whose psychotic fits are utterly unpredictable. He is covered obsessively by the press mainly because they are hoping to catch him in a juicy controversy or a slap-fight with an elderly widow.

To a certain extent the press has gotten exactly what they want. Trump’s behavioral meltdowns have already yielded tabloid gold. He has fought with Fox News, directed his supporters to “knock the crap out of” protesters, and called Ted Cruz a “pussy.” And for his reward the press provides him with uninterrupted attention that magnifies his wholly manufactured TV fiction persona.

Take the just concluded New Hampshire primary. Trump was declared the runaway winner in a rout that devastated his opponents. The shock registered by the media over his dominating electoral prowess went completely off the scale. It’s a typical exhibition of laziness by reporters who are incapable of putting information into context. So let me do it for them.

Trump-Clinton

Donald Trump received 35% of the Republican vote. That is indeed a significantly larger percentage than John Kasich, whose 14% earned him second place. However, it less than the 38% that Hillary Clinton got in her losing bid against Bernie Sanders (who drew a truly extraordinary 60%). This means that Clinton in defeat has greater support among Democrats than a victorious Trump does among Republicans.

What’s more, New Hampshire voters turned out in record numbers for this primary. As a result, Trump conned about 100,000 dimwitted voters to cast their lots with an overt racist and wannabe dictator. The Sanders total, however, bested that by 50%, with a 151,000 votes. Even Clinton’s losing effort came very close to Trump with 95,000 votes. And yet Trump is considered the phenomenon.

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

Everybody needs to take a breath, sit back, and reexamine what is taking place. Donald Trump is a blowhard who knows how to work the media refs to build himself up. He is only leading from within his own fractured party of crackpots in a large field of candidates that dilutes the anti-Trump vote. A more realistic assessment of Trump’s campaign will be possible when the contestants are whittled down to two or three (as they are for the Democrats). Until then, we can expect the media to wear their phony astonishment at Trump’s alleged success despite all the evidence that he’s a paper tiger pitching a reality TV character minus the reality.

Donald Trump’s NH Victory Brought To You By The So-Called Liberal Media

Posted by on February 9, 2016 at 9:03 pm. NO Comments :

The New Hampshire primary results are in and they tell us something far more significant than merely who won. There are some stark differences in the way the winners for each party managed to achieve their victories.

Fox News Donald Trump

The Republican race has been a seventeen ring circus for most of the past seven months. And the reality TV tenor of the campaign is due almost entirely to one man: Donald Trump. From the day he announced his candidacy with a hate-filled speech that castigated Latinos as rapists and murderers, to his embrace of and by white supremacists, Trump’s antics have served to expose Republican voters as ready to follow his racist, misogynistic crusade to the very gates of Hell.

Compare that to the Democratic race where, while there have been some sharp elbows thrown from time to time, for the most part it has been a campaign focused on issues and the differences between the candidates. Not once has either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders called the other a “loser” or a “p*ssy” or told any of their constituents to go “f**k themselves” (yep, Trump really did that).

However, the truly startling thing that the New Hampshire results reveal is the very lopsided role the media played a in how the campaigns progressed. Specifically, the television news coverage of the campaigns was strikingly different. As Media Matters reported in December, the three broadcast networks lavished Trump with an astonishing 234 minutes of coverage. And during the same period of time from the same networks, Sanders received 10 minutes of coverage. No, that is not a typo. In fact, Trump received more network coverage than all of the Democratic candidates combined, including non-candidate Joe Biden.

Then, when you add Fox News to the mix, Trump got another 23 hours of coverage in 119 appearances. Of course, the number for Sanders on Fox was zero. Even among other Republican candidates, none received even ten hours of airtime. Media Matters calculated the value of the airtime Trump was given at roughly $30 million, if he had to pay for it in advertising. Even Trump thought this was ridiculous and said so at a rally:

“Every time I go on television it’s gotta be live. It’s live. I said ‘Oh, can I have a rest please?’ Tonight it is live on Fox. Who likes Fox? I like Fox. It’s live on CNN. Who likes CNN? And it’s live on MSNBC, right? How come it always has to be live? Why don’t they just cover me like anybody else where they go the next day and they show little clips? Every time I speak it has to be live. It’s ridiculous, but it’s OK. Right? We have to suffer with it.”

The media has been playing into Trump’s hands by treating him as if he were Kim Kardashian and every public move or utterance had some prurient interest to their viewers. Even though his events rarely produced anything that was remotely newsworthy, the networks rushed to put him on live in the hopes that he might burst an artery or slap an elderly widow.

Consequently, Trump now brags that he has spent very little on his campaign but still achieved an important victory. The truth, however, is that he got tens of millions of dollars in free advertising that his rivals had to actually pay. His success was handed to him as gift by the media that he bitches about in every speech.

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

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, got his victory the old fashioned way – he earned it by raising funds from millions of supporters and communicating a positive message to appreciative voters. He had little to no help from the so-called “liberal” media. And this obvious disparity in coverage is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. That is, unless either Trump is caught in bed with a fourteen year old boy or Sanders agrees to appear on Dancing With The Stars.

WTF? Donald Trump Tells Businesses To Go F**k Themselves (Video)

Posted by on February 5, 2016 at 2:02 pm. 9 Comments :

In the seven months that Donald Trump has been a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, he has succeeded in promoting bigotry, insulting his GOP colleagues, inciting violence, lying incessantly, and demonstrating an abject ignorance of every subject on which he speaks. His campaign has been a textbook example of how to offend and humiliate a political party and a nation. And now he has taken it another step over a line that he crossed months ago.

Donald Trump

At a rally in New Hampshire, Trump was railing against local companies that moved their operations out of the country. This is a standard bit of chum that Trump throws to his bottom-feeders during his stump speeches. But in the course of expressing his distaste for off-shoring, he let loose an awkwardly whispered F-Bomb aimed at the New Hampshire business community.

“We’re gonna bring businesses back. We’re gonna have businesses that used to be in New Hampshire that are now in Mexico come back to New Hampshire, and you can tell them to go f**k themselves because they let you down and they left. We want the businesses that stayed.”

This is the sort of dignified, presidential behavior that endears Donald Trump to his zealous followers. This is the type of character that many Republicans regard as appropriate for national leadership and diplomacy. This is a freakin’ embarrassment. How anyone can take this cretin seriously is a mystery that exceeds any comprehension.

And setting aside Trump’s boorish assault on decency, he doesn’t even come close to making any sense. The problem of off-shoring manufacturing is real and there are effective solutions available. But Trump isn’t addressing any of them. Instead, he is promising companies that return to New Hampshire a profanity-laced tongue lashing after they come back. He is riling up the locals to unleash their hatred on the prodigal employers. That is not exactly the sort of incentive that will persuade a rush back to the homeland. It does, however, illustrate how little Trump knows about international economics and trade. That was also shown as he continued this demented rant.

“It’s hard. We’re the highest taxed nation in the entire world. It’s hard for them to stay and they stay. Those are the ones we have to cherish and love. These people are great.”

So Trump cherishes the great people at the companies that stayed and he hates those that left, and he will tell them so as soon as he brings them back. But he excuses them somewhat by noting how hard it is to stay in “the highest taxed nation in the entire world.” And that would be a good excuse except for the fact that that it isn’t true. Many countries have higher effective tax rates for corporations and the U.S. rate is less than the average of all developed countries.

Not only is Trump wrong, he fails to acknowledge that his own businesses left the U.S. for cheaper labor in China and Mexico. If he wants to bring jobs back to America he could start now with his own suits and ties and other Trump-branded crap without being president. But this hypocrite has refused to do that even after it has been pointed out to him numerous times since he announced his candidacy. In fact, David Letterman pointed it out to him over three years ago

What he hasn’t refused to do is check his undignified conduct and incivility. In addition to this most recent profanity, Trump recently said that he would “bomb the sh*t out of ISIS.” Just yesterday he said “I was going to say [politicians] are really full of sh*t. But I won’t say that.” That was a demonstration of his passive-aggressive verbal abuse, something he used against his Fox News nemesis recently when he tweeted “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct.”

[Update 2/8/2016: At a rally in New Hampshire Trump repeated something someone in the audience shouted about Ted Cruz (video). “She said he’s a p*ssy. That’s terrible,” Trump said, pretending to disapprove and demonstrating once again his oh-so presidential demeanor]

He just can’t help himself. Donald Trump is a classless, ignorant, bigoted, narcissistic, wannabe dictator. He would turn the United States into a reality TV joke. The respect for America that President Obama painstakingly restored following the disastrous administration of George W. Bush would be rolled back to lows our nation has never seen. And he would preside over a cult-like pack of disciples who exemplify the pathetic misanthropes who propped up Hitler.

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

Bill O’Reilly Says American Journalism Is On The Verge Of Collapse, And He Should Know

Posted by on February 4, 2016 at 3:24 pm. 6 Comments :

Every now and then a crumb of truth falls from the lips of a Fox News propagandist, usually without him or her even knowing it. The latest example of that came last night when Bill O’Reilly sought to lay the blame for Ted Cruz’s dishonest campaigning at the feet of CNN.

Fox News Bill O'Reilly

The backstory is that Cruz’s team spread a rumor that Ben Carson was ending his campaign just as the Iowa caucuses were about to begin voting. That news bite doesn’t really have much significance since Carson’s supporters would hardly move the dial on the caucus results. But it didn’t stop Donald Trump from making ridiculous claims that the tactic had hurt him and he was threatening to sue.

Now Bill O’Reilly is picking up the baton to beat CNN with (video below). He is making a wholly unsupported argument that it was CNN that created the whole controversy. O’Reilly began by asserting that CNN’s Chris Moody “tweeted misleading information about the Carson campaign.” That was O’Reilly’s first lie. Moody simply tweeted that “Carson won’t go to NH/SC, but instead will head home to Florida for some R&R. He’ll be in DC Thursday for the National Prayer Breakfast.” O’Reilly said that tweet was “Flat out untrue.” And if it weren’t for the fact that it was entirely true, O’Reilly would have been right.

Moody followed his tweet seconds later with one saying that “Ben Carson’s campaign tells me he plans to stay in the race beyond Iowa no matter what the results are tonight.” O’Reilly didn’t bother to report that and went on to assert that “There is no question that CNN is responsible for the false report.” But no matter how many times he repeats that lie, it will not become true. However, O’Reilly did stumble into a factual statement that deserves recognition:

“Talking Points has said it many times: The state of American journalism is on the verge of collapse. Ideology has permeated hard news coverage and honest reporting is becoming almost scarce. Especially in political circles.”

And if anyone should know about the scarcity of honest reporting it’s Bill O’Reilly. He has a trademark on it and he is demonstrating beautifully the collapse of American journalism. It’s funny that whenever anyone on Fox criticizes the dishonest media they seem to forget that the most significant new development in modern journalism has been the rise of Fox News. Ya think there’s a connection? The truth about the CNN report is that they relayed information about Carson that was unambiguously true. Moody’s tweets were totally accurate, and they were followed up on the air by CNN’s Dana Bash who said that…

Ben Carson is gonna go back to Florida, his home, regardless of how he does tonight here in Iowa. He’s gonna go there for several days and then afterwards he’s not gonna go to South Carolina, he’s not gonna go to New Hampshire, he’s gonna come to Washington, D.C. And he’s gonna do that because the National Prayer Breakfast is on Thursday […] If you want to signal to your supporters that you want it, that you’re hungry for it, that you want them to get out and campaign, you’ve gotta be out there and doing it too. And he’s not doing it. It’s very unusual.

She never said that Carson was suspending his campaign. She was simply reporting factually on his immediate schedule and the fact that most contested campaigns do not set aside several days to leave the campaign trail when so much is at stake. That doesn’t mean that he’s closing up shop. It just means that he might be taking a strategic risk. It was the Cruz campaign that spun that into a rumor about Carson calling it quits.

All of the facts enumerated here were available to O’Reilly at the time he broadcast his attack on CNN. He simply refused to pay attention to any fact that interfered with his predetermined intention to disparage his competitors at CNN. And he knows quite well that his ill-informed audience will eat up his lies without question.

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

After the news broke regarding Cruz’s smarmy tactics, Carson called on Cruz to demand the resignation of anyone on his staff who participated in spreading the rumor. However, today there is more news about the Carson campaign that wasn’t available previously. The Washington Post is reporting that Carson’s campaign funds are drying up and as a result he has fired 50% of his staff. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that his campaign is over either, but it sure looks like it’s headed in that direction. And in the end, it may actually be the explanation for why he took the unusual step of heading home to Florida rather than going straight to New Hampshire.

Sore Loser: Crybaby Donald Trump Threatens To Sue After Losing The Iowa Caucus

Posted by on February 3, 2016 at 7:05 pm. 5 Comments :

In yet another display of acute ego-centrism, Donald Trump is threatening to sue over his loss in the primary caucus on Monday. This threat comes after he insisted that he was “honored” by having finished behind Ted Cruz and congratulating his opponents. It took less than forty-eight hours for Trump to revert to his native obnoxious personality and show himself for the sore loser that he is.

Donald Trump Loser

Trump’s whining began on Twitter where he absurdly demanded that the caucuses be done over or nullified. Then he quickly shifted to his natural inclination, which is to file a lawsuit against the fiends who would dare to cross him. That lawsuit is based on allegations that the Cruz campaign falsely asserted that Ben Carson was returning to Florida and suspending his campaign. Trump told Boston Herald Radio that it was …

“One of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. They said he was quitting the race and to vote for him.” and when asked if would sue, Trump responded “I probably will; what he did is unthinkable.”

If Trump thinks that this is one of the most disgusting things he’s ever seen, then he surely has not been paying very close attention to his own campaign’s racism and calls for violence. The tactic used by Cruz was definitely a sleazy move, but no more so than what is seen routinely in the rough and tumble of a political campaign. Especially among Republicans. It is reprehensible and should be remembered if Cruz becomes the nominee, but it is not actionable in court.

What’s more, Trump could not prove that he suffered any harm by this dirty trick. It was clearly aimed at Carson, and to the extent that it was effective, Carson was the victim. There is no plausible argument that any deceived Carson voters switched to Cruz rather than another candidate, including Trump. So Trump conceivably benefited from Cruz’s scam. And if Trump thinks that Cruz’s tactics are grounds for a lawsuit, then he is opening himself up to a countersuit from Cruz who has been legitmately harmed by Trump’s allegations regarding his citizenship and his eligibility to run for president.

For the record, Donald Trump is a serial litigator. He has filed numerous claims against former business associates, political foes, and public figures he feels have disparaged him. The list is illustrative of his tendency to bully anyone that defies or insults him. For instance…

  • Trump threatened to sue a small t-shirt vendor who is producing “Stop Trump” merchandise in response to his racist assaults on the Latino community.
  • In 2013 Angelo Carusone’s “Dump Trump” campaign aimed at persuading Macy’s to sever their business relationship with Trump earned a lawsuit threat. More recently Trump and Macy’s have broken off that relationship with Trump firing parting shots at what an awful company Macy’s is.
  • Trump recently threatened to sue Bill Maher for having made a joke about his thoroughly joke-worthy challenge to get hold of President Obama’s college transcripts.
  • Trump filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision. And he’s going after NBC too. Both of these are related to their cutting ties with his Miss Universe pageant following his remarks about Mexicans being criminals and rapists.
  • Trump is suing Jose Andres after the mega-chef pulled out of a restaurant deal with his DC Hotel. This was also a response to Trump’s racist comments.
  • Trump has also threatened to sue the National Hispanic Media Coalition for exercising their free speech rights.
  • Trump recently threatened to sue the conservative Club for Growth because they ran some negative ads against him.

There have been many other Trump litigations that go back decades as compiled by the Daily Beast. In most cases he is just beating his chest and trying to intimidate people. That is the behavior of a textbook Narcissist and wannabe dictator, which he appears to think is the position he is running for now.

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

It is truly astonishing that there is anyone in America who could actually consider voting for this jerkwad. His blatantly racist rhetoric, his childish insults, his brutish warmongering, and his ignorant pronouncements on economics, trade, law, and other components of governing, would be enough to scare any sane person away from his candidacy. But on top of that he has such a repugnant and unpresidential demeanor that it boggles the mind to imagine anyone who would want him representing this nation. Which leads me to conclude that the only thing more grotesque than Donald Trump is someone who would vote for him.

Playing La Raza Card: RNC Chair Brags That 2 of Top 3 In Iowa Are Hispanic

Posted by on February 2, 2016 at 7:05 pm. 1 Comments :

Following the 2012 loss by Mitt Romney, the Republican National Committee conducted what they called an “autopsy” to establish what went so terribly wrong with a campaign that they thought they would win in a walk. After all, they were running against a president that they believed was a dismal failure on top of being a gay Muslim from Kenya who hated America. Their self-examination concluded that the GOP had fatally ignored the constituencies of color and that they would have to appeal to a much larger percentage of Latinos if they ever hoped to win a national campaign again.

Ted Cruz Marco Rubio

In 2016 the RNC is now confident that they have resolved that problem. As evidence of their progress Reince Priebus, the chairman of the party, rushed over to Fox News, the party’s PR division, and gleefully boasted about the diversity of the party’s leading candidates. He told Fox that the GOP is enjoying a high degree of enthusiasm and added that…

Priebus: The other big thing was, look, Ted Cruz, first Hispanic out of Iowa from a major political party. Marco Rubio, two out of our top three Hispanic. Where is the media on this? Right? This is a big deal.

It’s interesting that the party that has relentlessly lectured Democrats for “playing the race card,” and complains bitterly when Democrats show pride for historical firsts (like the first African-American or woman or Jewish president), is suddenly showing off their own alleged minority credentials. However, there are some pertinent facts that they are egregiously omitting.

First of all, while two of the top three GOP candidates in Iowa are indeed Hispanic, the third is Donald Trump – a brazenly racist hate monger who has referred to Latino immigrants as rapists and murderers. Trump has thoroughly alienated the Latino community and has even banished Latino reporters from his campaign events. And somehow he is still delusional enough to believe that he will win their votes.

Secondly, bragging about Cruz and Rubio as representatives of the Latino community really stretches the notion of representation. Both of them share the same repugnant views toward immigrants that define Trump’s bigotry. They want to build a silly wall. They want to deport millions of Latinos residents. They oppose Obama’s DREAMers initiative that allows young Latinos who came here as children, are in school or have completed military service, and have no criminal record, to remain in the U.S. They promise to repeal ObamaCare, which makes health insurance available to millions of Latinos. And they are on the wrong side of many more general issues that impact Latinos such as equal employment, minimum wage, education, and taxes.

Clearly none of the top three finishers in Iowa (or any of the other Republicans) are aligned with the needs and desires of the majority of Latinos. The GOP candidates with Latino names are no more likely to draw Latino votes than Ben Carson is to draw the votes of African-Americans.

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

Republicans must think that these voters are so stupid that they will vote against their best interests just because of a shared ethnicity. That’s not gonna work. Voters know when a candidate is going to fight for the things that matter most to them. That’s why black voters voted for Obama – not because he’s black. And that’s why Cruz and Rubio will never be able to trick very many Latinos into voting for them. But they’re still going to try, and the effort will only make them look more foolish and desperate.