Coronavirus

Fox News is Already Speculating About Super Trump Beating COVID-19

Posted by on October 2, 2020 at 11:53 am. 2 Comments :

The news that Donald Trump and the First Lady have tested positive for COVID-19 came as a surprise Thursday night, but not because it could not have been predicted. Trump’s disregard for practicing the most rudimentary safety guidelines stipulated by his own health experts (Dr. Fauci, CDC, Surgeon General, etc.) provided a reliable foreshadowing of what has now occurred.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

The nation sends its thoughts and prayers at this difficult time. Never mind that Trump didn’t share that concern for the more than 200,000 Americans who have already died (and seven million plus infected). This is a nation with compassion that exceeds the callousness of its current “leader.” It’s just so sad that so many had to suffer because of Trump’s negligence and vanity to refuse to promote the sort of behavior (social distancing, mask wearing, etc.) that would have saved tens of thousands of lives. Even now, his administration has still not adopted a consistent, coherent strategy for the safe reopening of businesses and schools.

Throughout the past eight months, Fox News has been Trump’s accomplice in misinforming the public about the very real risks posed by the coronavirus pandemic. And that role hasn’t changed now that the President is among its victims. On Friday morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends engaged in their typical banter, exalting Trump and maligning his critics. And in the course of their daily propaganda production, co-host Brian Kilmeade had this to say:

“Let me take it to another level. People think – and there’s a lot of people out there who say that ‘If I get it I die.’ Seven million people have it, it’s terrible. Now what if the most famous person in the world gets it and in ten days it’s back out? Doesn’t that also send a message that you could say whatever you want in stats and graphs but I give you an example of somebody who’s in that danger age of 74 who is out there, gets it, and beats it? Could that also send a message?”

Fox Business host Stuart Varney initially suggested that people might become more cautious about following safety guidelines and be more resistant to the opening of bars, restaurants, etc. But he quickly shifted course and agreed with Kilmeade that a rapid recovery by Trump would “mitigate concern about the virus.” And they clearly regarded such a relaxation of concern as a good thing.

There is so much wrong with that attitude. First of all, people need to be concerned about a virus that has killed 200,000 Americans and counting. Any “mitigation” of concern is a sure path to more deaths. Secondly, if Trump recovers quickly, that tells us nothing about how the virus would affect anyone else. How many Americans have teams of physicians and first-class hospital facilities catering to their exclusive needs 24/7?

What Kilmeade is suggesting is that the “message” of a rapid recovery by Trump is that it affirms the belief among his cult disciples that Trump is omnipotent; a Superman in the White House who can rescue us from any and all threats. It’s a dangerously tunnel-blind faith in the false divinity of someone who has more in common with a sociopath than a savior.

For several weeks Trump has tried to distract the nation from the tragic consequences of the pandemic that he so badly mismanaged. He’s tried to shift the public discourse to civil unrest, the Supreme Court, phony assertions of election fraud, and whatever other manufactured controversy he recently saw on Fox News. But now the coronavirus is back at the top of the news cycle, and likely will remain there for the remainder of the campaign. And if there is anything positive to take away from this, it’s that it may result in people becoming more committed to safer behavior. And that alone could save thousands of lives.

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

Trump’s Psychotic Sunday Tweetstorm Defies All Reason, Decency, and Honesty

Posted by on September 27, 2020 at 12:10 pm. 3 Comments :

As the coronavirus pandemic surges throughout the country, Donald Trump is hard at work at what he considers his job: posting lies and incoherent babbling on Twitter. After which he promptly assumed his post on the golf course for the remainder of the day. Priorities.

Donald Trump

Trump began his rage-tweeting with a demonstration of his cowardice and utter desperation. “I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night,” he twitted. Never mind that he is in no position to make such a demand. It’s a hollow appeal for something he knows won’t happen and that he would never submit to himself. Trump is simply trying to malign Biden’s mental fitness for office, even though polls show that a majority of voters say that Trump is the one who doesn’t have the mental soundness to serve.

Following that, Trump took a swipe at Sen. Richard Blumenthal for embellishing his military service ten years ago. Trump said that because Blumenthal was untruthful he should be impeached and “should not be entitled to a vote on anything of importance!” But if that’s Trump’s standard, then Trump’s punishment for telling more than 20,000 lies should be 20,000 times worse. At least Blumenthal had the dignity to serve his country in uniform, as opposed to Cadet Bone Spurs who dodged the draft five times and insults America’s fallen as “losers” and “suckers.”

Next up was a frantic twantrum over Mike Bloomberg’s donation to a Florida group that is paying the outstanding fees of former prisoners so that they can vote. Trump is terrified of losing the state and determined to suppress the vote any way he can. And in this case he also recklessly charges that Bloomberg “committed a serious crime” without bothering to mention what law was broken.

Then there is Trump’s three word, all caps command to “WATCH THE BALLOTS!!!” It’s difficult to tell if Trump is advocating election integrity (yeah, right), or promoting a new show on Fox about the Ballot family. That would make a good vehicle for Scott Baio as the patriarch of a Klan clan that is afraid of the Black Lives Matter movement and a society that has turned against his repulsive brand of bigotry.

Finally, Trump re-twitterated his obsessive commitment to terminate Obamacare, even while the nation is suffering through a deadly pandemic. He grotesquely characterizes it as “a big WIN for the USA!” And as he frequently does, he lied about it being “replaced with a MUCH better, and FAR cheaper, alternative.” However, Trump has never had a healthcare plan, despite announcing that one would be unveiled in two weeks numerous times for the past three years. And the GOP has similarly spent ten years promising a replacement, but has never even drafted a proposal.

It’s notable that in this Twitter tirade Trump has focused exclusively on his political pet peeves that he littered with lies and infantile nicknames. He didn’t once mention the pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 200,000 Americans and is, by all the accounts of every expert, going to get worse this winter.

More than anything, Trump wants to shift the public discourse away from COVID-19 and his wretched mishandling of it. He wants people to forget the loss of their loved ones and the illnesses that have resulted in permanent disabilities for many of those who survived. Unfortunately for Trump, the issues he’s using to deflect also have the effect of reminding people of his ignorance, incompetence, and his aspirations to authoritarianism and dictatorship. It’s a lose-lose proposition for America’s Biggest Loser.

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

Kayleigh McEnany’s Lame Attempt to Whitewash Trump’s Blame for 200,000 Deaths

Posted by on September 22, 2020 at 2:04 pm. NO Comments :

This week the United States achieved another milestone under the “leadership” of Donald Trump. More than 200,000 Americans have died as a result of his negligence, incompetence, and deliberate malfeasance in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Add to that the 6.7 million people who contracted the disease, many of whom will suffer permanent, debilitating disabilities.

Kayleigh McEnany, Donald Trump

This is unarguably a record of abject failure that translates into tragedy for millions of people. Yet somehow Trump gives himself a A+ for ranking near the bottom worldwide for managing this crisis. The only area that he concedes falling short is in public relations, for which he gives himself a D.

Trump deserves some credit for recognizing how terrible his White House communications operations are. For the most part they have ignored the traditional duties of conveying important information to the American people, choosing instead to conduct itself as an arm of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. And he has repeatedly been at odds with the medical experts on his Coronavirus Task Force. No wonder the cases and fatalities stack up even as other countries are returning to relative normality.

At the helm of Trump’s communications team is his press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. She’s an accomplished liar who is ably filling the shoes of her weasley predecessors Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and “alternative facts” spinner, Kellyanne Conway. As evidence of McEnany’s prowess for falsehoods, observe this response to a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta:

Acosta: The country has had over 200,000 deaths from coronavirus. What do you say to Americans who are outraged over this and blame this administration for so many lives lost in this country?
McEnany: Well, as you’ve heard several doctors on the task force note from this podium, we were looking at the prospect of two million people perishing from the coronavirus in this country. We grieve when even one life is lost, but the fact that we have come nowhere near that number is a testament to this president taking immediate action. After shutting down travel from China, when the other party, Democrats were saying that was xenophobic; for shutting down travel for Europe; for developing landmark therapeutics that are working, like Remdesivir.

There’s a lot to unpack in that brief commentary. To begin with, we were never “looking at the prospect of two million people perishing.” That was a baseline estimate of fatalities if nothing were done at all to mitigate the spread of virus. While Trump didn’t do very much, many governors and mayors took independent actions to shut down hazardous activities and to promote safe practices such as social distancing and the wearing of facial masks, both of which Trump dismissed and even mocked. The two million fatality estimate was never intended to be a benchmark for success. Trump himself used smaller numbers, beginning with fifteen and rising with reported deaths to 60,000. It’s now more than three times that, and growing. That’s a testament to failure.

Furthermore, Trump never shut down travel from either China or Europe. His restrictions were full of exemptions and he applied them too late, after the virus was already spreading in the U.S. The criticism of his xenophobia was connected to his focus on China – even calling it the China virus – despite the fact that most of the cases in the U.S. were traceable to Europe. And finally, McEnany summed up Trump’s accomplishments by giving him credit for developing Remdesivir, a drug developed by Gilead Sciences in 2009.

It’s easy to see why Trump’s PR operations are held in such low repute, even by him. In the exchange above, McEnany never even answered Acosta’s question. But Trump’s own efforts aren’t helping. Just this weekend he made some ludicrous and blatantly false remarks about the coronavirus and it’s potential for transmission:

“Now we know [the coronavirus]. It affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems, that’s what it really affects. That’s it. In some states, thousands of people, nobody young below the age of eighteen, like nobody. They have a strong immune system. Who knows? Take your hat off to the young, cause they have a hell of an immune system. But it affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.”

You’ll recall that just last week Trump was heard on recordings by Bob Woodward for his book, RAGE, saying that COVID-19 affects “not just old…older. Young people too. Plenty of young people.” That was in addition to his admission that he knew from the start how deadly it was, but was playing it down.

200,000 are a lot of “nobodies.” But it was always Trump’s intention to trivialize the massive amount of suffering for which he is directly responsible. That explains the fallacies disseminated by his PR team. However, it isn’t because they performed poorly. In fact, it was probably the best performing agency in his administration. That’s because they were saying precisely what Trump wanted them to say.

McEnany and company were lying on Trump’s behalf and at his direction. So it’s unfair of him to grade them with a D, when they were just doing what they were told. They may have been grossly misinforming the public and putting untold lives at risk, but they were doing exactly the job that Trump hired them to do.

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

Trump is Advocating ‘Herd Mentality’ Knowing it Will Kill 2 Million Americans

Posted by on September 16, 2020 at 12:23 pm. 2 Comments :

On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump took a rare step outside of his protective Fox News bunker for a town hall style interview on ABC with George Stephanopoulos. It was a pitiful spectacle of prideful ignorance and shameless lying. In other words, business as usual for Trump.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

Among the many dangerously dishonest departures from reality disseminated by The Donald were his bizarre defenses of his incompetent and deadly mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to spreading many of the same falsehoods he’s been putting out for months, Trump contradicted himself by denying that he downplayed the severity of COVID-19 (which he admitted to in the new book, RAGE! by Bob Woodward), while also insisting that he did downplay it in an effort to avoid creating a panic. So Trump was simultaneously downplaying it and not downplaying it, a feat only possible by an acutely disturbed psychotic (which is pretty much what America thinks of Trump).

When the discussion came around to the development of a vaccine, Trump managed to surprise Stephanopoulos with a claim that no public health expert or epidemiologist would give any credibility to. That led to this exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: It would go away without the vaccine?
TRUMP: Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time it goes away.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And many deaths.
TRUMP: And you’ll develop — you’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen.

First of all, Trump’s cognitive infirmity produced a glitch that resulted in his reference to “herd mentality” when he likely meant “herd immunity.” Herd mentality is something completely different, but familiar to those who study cult behaviors. Which may explain why it was on Trump’s mind.

More to the point. Trump is proposing a “solution” to the pandemic that would be nothing less than catastrophic. The herd immunity to which Trump was trying to refer is a process that requires 60-80% of the population to become infected. By even the most conservative estimates, that would result in more than two million American deaths.

What makes this all the worse is that Trump knows this horrifying fact and is apparently comfortable with it. That was not always the case. Back in April Trump addressed this subject and forthrightly rejected the concept of herd immunity:

“At a news briefing centered on the virus, Trump was asked about Sweden’s decision to embrace a ‘herd immunity’ approach to it, allowing it to spread widely enough that there would be enough people with immunity to slow the spread. ‘I think we could have followed that approach,’ Trump said of Sweden’s strategy. ‘And if we did follow that approach, I think we might have 2 million people dead.'”

So five months ago Trump opposed herd immunity and the prospect of millions of fatalities. But now, as the number of American deaths approaches 200,000, he’s embracing it without concern for the victims. And he’s doing everything he can to achieve herd immunity at the expense of his own cult followers. He is gathering them into indoor facilities without adhering to his own CDC guidelines that call for social distancing and face masks.

Unfortunately, the herd/ignoramus mentality practiced by these glassy-eyed Trump disciples will also put the rest of us at risk. As they spread out in the communities where they live and work they will expose people to the virus who would never have attended a Trump revival meeting. So those of us who are not brain damaged StormTrumpers will need to be extra careful in the coming weeks. And hopefully, with determination and hard work, we will evict Trump and his ghoulish confederacy of traitors from our White House.

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

Fox News Spins Ludicrous Comparison of 9/11 to the Coronavirus

Posted by on September 11, 2020 at 2:43 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It was a day that shook the nation, and the world, in a profoundly painful way that woke many up to the reality of our vulnerabilities. And on this solemn day there have been some respectful remembrances and thoughtful condolences for the victims, their families, and for the first responders who sacrificed so much.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

Of course, there have also been some grossly inappropriate attempts to hijack this day for political and/or personal advantage. Donald Trump was notorious for that when he bragged on the day of the tragedy that his building in Manhattan had just become the tallest in the city:

It should come as no surprise that Fox News joined in on the brazen exploitation of horror. On Friday morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends aired a segment that drew a preposterous comparison between 9/11 and the coronavirus pandemic. Co-host Brian Kilmeade unleashed this nauseating rant (video below) that had no basis in reality or even sanity. “New York is attacked,” Kilmeade began. “America is under siege.” And he continued…

“But at the same time, New York kept moving. In a very short time the stock market was open. People were still getting into subways. People still went to work. At the same time keeping an ear to the news to find out what’s next as we would mobilize in a matter of months and kill almost every single person that was involved in this. The first generation of Al Qaeda.”

“That’s what’s different now. This, we stopped. And America looked around and go ‘What do we do?’ We knew who the enemy was then. Here we’ve got this invisible virus that the Chinese are responsible for, but it doesn’t look like that’s an attack. “

Kilmeade is earning his reputation for being the stupidest man on Fox News. He apparently doesn’t realize that people were comfortable returning to the subways after 9/11 because they were in no danger of contracting an airplane crash from another passenger. Their coworkers were unlikely to infect them with a collapsing skyscraper.

Kilmeade is likewise unaware that the reason we “stopped” this time is because COVID-19 is a highly transmissible infectious agent for which there is no vaccine or treatment. His attempt to draw parallels between these two events is simply pathetic, but not at all unexpected from Fox News.

In addition to his absurd correlations and xenophobic insults aimed at China, Kilmeade also made some blatantly false statements. While America was attacked, we were not under siege. There was no invading army and no subsequent assault. The stock markets remained closed until September 17, the longest shutdown since 1933, which Kilmeade characterized as “short.” We did retaliate against the Taliban that was harboring Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, we did not kill “every single person that was involved.” Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, wasn’t killed until ten years later.

Finally, Kilmeade’s description of Americans looking around wondering what to do utterly fails to explain why that’s so. It’s because we have a president who lied to the people about the peril this virus posed. Trump knew how deadly it was and purposefully withheld that information in order to advance his reelection prospects. He repeatedly downplayed the danger, oversold the development of a vaccine, and mocked those who advised and practiced safety guidelines such as social distancing and facial masks.

Trump also contradicted the experts and disseminated falsehoods about unproven cures such as hydroxychloroquine and injecting bleach. Even worse, he embraced quacks who ranted about “demon sperm” and spread crackpot conspiracy theories that only a fraction of those reported to have died from COVID-19 were actually its victims.

Is there any wonder why some Americans were baffled about what to do? Even now there are those who believe that the coronavirus is (as Trump has said) a hoax. Never mind the nearly 200,000 graves (6,400,000+ infected) and the grieving families and friends of those stricken. The confusion that Kilmeade referenced is almost entirely the fault of Trump. The remainder of the guilt lies with Kilmeade, and his confederates at Fox News, who continue to cover for him.

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

RAGE: Bob Woodward Book Reveals that Trump Deliberately Lied About the Coronavirus

Posted by on September 9, 2020 at 11:46 am. 3 Comments :

For months after the coronavirus was known to spreading throughout the United States, Donald Trump was pretending that it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. He claimed it was no more dangerous than the common flu. He insisted that that he had it under control. Now, after more than 190,000 Americans have died, we have some evidence of just how dishonest Trump was with the American people.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

A new book is being released next week. And RAGE, by Bob Woodward is already creating a tsunami that pulls the veil from Trump’s lies. Excerpts are beginning to be reported by the media. And they are nothing less than shocking. For instance, as reported by Robert Costa of the Washington Post…

“‘This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,’ national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. ‘This is going to be the roughest thing you face.'”

“Ten days later, Trump called Woodward and revealed that he thought the situation was far more dire than what he had been saying publicly. ‘You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,’ Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. ‘And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.'”

“At that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear, and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control.”

“Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. ‘I wanted to always play it down,’ the president said.”

“Fauci at one point tells others that the president ‘is on a separate channel’ and unfocused in meetings, with ‘rudderless’ leadership, according to Woodward. ‘His attention span is like a minus number,’ Fauci said, according to Woodward. ‘His sole purpose is to get reelected.'”

Most of this has been known to those who have been paying attention for the past six months. It was easy to conclude from Trump’s behavior and public comments that he was lying to advance his political interests. But for the first time we have Trump himself confessing to this outrageous and deadly dishonesty. And to make matters worse, there are tapes (see below).

This is an abhorrent betrayal of the American people by a president who clearly couldn’t care less about who gets hurt. And he’s still doing it. He’s still playing it down with demands that schools reopen, that professional sports and other large public events resume, and that the country returns to a pre-virus lifestyle before it is safe to do so. And it’s still “his sole purpose…to get reelected.” Anyone still not convinced that Trump is a narcissistic sociopath is just a devoted cult follower who wants to be be deceived.

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

Fear and Loathing in Trump’s America: A Tweetstorm of Lies and Desperation

Posted by on August 30, 2020 at 1:51 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s Sunday, so it’s time for another episode of Donald Trump’s Sunday Morning Tweetstorm. The rest of America is enduring the hardships of a deadly pandemic made worse by Trump’s negligence and incompetence. They are suffering through the Trump Recession, replete with record bankruptcies, foreclosures, evictions, and unemployment. And they are watching scenes of civil unrest incited by Trump’s craving for violence to justify his neo-fascist aspirations.

Donald Trump, Twitter

This Sunday’s Tweetstorm is jam-packed with Trumpian assholery. Beginning before sunrise at 5:49 AM, and for two hours and fifteen minutes after, Trump unleashed an avalanche of triggered tweets. There were 89 by 8:04 AM, when he had to quit in order to make his tee time (Really! He went from this to his golf resort). That’s one tweet every 1.5 minutes. Many of those 89 tweets were retweets (69) of sycophants and random Twitter trolls. [UPDATE: By day’s end Trump had tweeted a grand total of 110 times. Most of the later tweets were about Portland/violence or infantile attacks on Biden]

The most prominent subject for this morning’s Twitter tantrum was violence in the streets, particularly in Portland, Oregon. These tweets accounted for 41% (37) of the total tweets. Trump’s thinly disguised message to his cult disciples was that violence is good for his campaign so feel free to go out and stir some up. His Senior White House Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, literally said just that this week on Fox News. Trump himself praised the actual instigators, who came armed for confrontation with peaceful protesters, as…

Coming in second in Trump’s Tweet tirade (at 30%) was a parade of polling posts that purported to place Trump in the lead against Joe Biden. However, the 27 retweets were all from “PollWatch2020,” an unverified Twitter account and right-wing propaganda mill. The only polls they cited as sources for their data were the Trafalgar Group and the Democracy Institute. Both are rabidly partisan servants of conservative candidates and issues. Trafalgar has a C- rating by the analysts at FiveThirtyEight. And Democracy Institute isn’t even rated because they are considered to be a “fake” pollster. This blast of bullpucky is refuted by virtually every other poll available from credible survey organizations.

In addition to these putrid postings, Trump also retweeted an article from the Babylon Bee headlined “Biden: ‘If You Thought The Republican Convention Was Good, Just Wait ‘Til We Have Our Convention!” The purpose of this posting was to ridicule Biden for allegedly not knowing that the Democratic convention was held the previous week. However, the Babylon Bee is a wholly fictional, satirical website. It isn’t known if Trump was aware of that or not. However, it’s clear that many of his cult followers didn’t know. They replied to his tweet with laughter at what an idiot Biden must be. Who wants to tell them they are the idiots?

Trump also posted three tweets that falsely reported fatalities due to the coronavirus. All three tweets cited the conspiracy crackpot website, Gateway Pundit, run by Jim Hoft, the “stupidest man on the Internet” (seriously, Google the phrase). They made the claim that there have only been about 9,000 deaths. That number is drawn from the website of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) where it says that only 6% of the reported fatalities were due “solely” to COVID-19. Most of the deaths had comorbidity factors like pneumonia.

Of course, the presence of contributing factors doesn’t mean that COVID-19 wasn’t the cause of death. But that’s the asinine assertion by Hoft. And now Trump has joined in that idiocy with these retweets, one of which was by Jenna Ellis, the Senior Legal Adviser to the Trump campaign and personal attorney to Trump. [UPDATE: The original tweet making this false claim was removed by Twitter for having violated the rules regarding spreading misinformation. But the Ellis retweet by Trump is still live]

The upshot of this cavalcade of dishonesty and hostility on Trump’s Twitter feed is that Trump is determined to inflame tensions and encourage hateful and hurtful confrontations. He has cheered on violent agitators as “great patriots.” He has maligned Democratic leaders as supportive of atrocities. And he is affirming the position that Conway made with regard to such violence as being beneficial to his reelection campaign. It’s despicable and dangerous and it needs to stop.

Unfortunately, we cannot rely on Trump to abandon these abhorrent tactics. Se we need to be cognizant of his nefarious scheme and resist giving in to his cynicism and purposeful destruction of civil society. If we are to prevail, we need to keep justice in our heads, peace in our hearts, and our eyes on the prize. The only blood will be on the hands of Trump and his racist, hate mongering Republican accomplices.

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

Fear Factor: Now Trump Says Voting Will Give You the Coronavirus

Posted by on August 23, 2020 at 1:16 pm. 6 Comments :

Donald Trump is terrified! He knows he is losing badly to Joe Biden, despite his frantic and impotent efforts to characterize Biden as a puppet of scary, radical leftists, and/or as a mentally deficient socialist. And if you can’t beat a mentally deficient socialist puppet, you might as well give up. In many ways it seems like that is exactly what Trump has done.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump is demonstrating a measure of desperation that is unprecedented in American politics. He has resorted to bizarre, dystopian horror stories about how Democrats are plotting to “terminate” their opponents and that he is “the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos.” Which is true in reverse.

But even those preposterous assertions weren’t enough to satisfy Trump’s lust for a nightmarish vision of a future wherein he is the loser. So on Sunday morning he tweeted this:

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1297575466061053957

Oops. Apparently Trump’s tweet so profoundly offensive that Twitter flagged it for “violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.” On his Twitter feed you have to click through the warning to see Trump’s tweet. For convenience, and in anticipation of Trump deleting the tweet, here is what Trump tweeted:

“So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster. Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas? They are not Covid sanitized. A big fraud!”

Literally every word of that is false and/or ridiculous. To start with, there is no evidence of security issues with mail drop boxes that have been in use for decades. Trump fails to cite any source for his claim that they are a “disaster.” Secondly, it is impossible to “vote multiple times” because every ballot is checked for authenticity and duplication. Third, Trump’s inquiry as to “who controls” the drop boxes could be answered if he spent ten seconds on research. They are controlled by the local election authority, which is non-partisan and serves administrations of both parties.

Finally, Trump introduced a new and comically ludicrous concern about the drop boxes being “Covid sanitized.” This seems dreadfully insensitive coming from the person most responsible for the tragic loss of more than 175,000 American lives. It is Trump who failed utterly to control the spread of the coronavirus, and still mocks the use of masks and other safety guidelines, while promoting untested and dangerous therapies.

Now we’re supposed to take Trump’s alleged concern about infected drop boxes seriously? For the record, the drop boxes are well maintained and kept clean, and ballots may be inserted without ever touching the box. But more to the point, the only people who would believe this bullpucky are Trump’s own cult followers. Democrats will dismiss it and cast their votes eagerly, whether by mail or in person. But the Trumpists will more likely be scared off. And if they believe that the drop boxes are contaminated, they why wouldn’t they think the same thing about in-person polling places. Trump is so stupid that he doesn’t realize he’s scaring away his own voters.

Trump has a single purpose with this tweet. He is trying to frighten the American people. He is seeking to foment fear in order to suppress the vote.. He’s seen all of the national polls – as well as those in the crucial swing states – and there is no escaping the fact that his prospects for reelection are dismal. So the only course he has left is to dissuade people from voting. And he’ll do that by directing the Postal Service to interrupt delivery of ballots. Or by deflating confidence by insisting that the election will be rigged. Or by posting “police” at polling places to intimidate voters. And now by claiming that a completely safe alternative voting procedure could result in the transmission of a deadly virus.

There is a word for that. It’s “terrorism,” the definition of which is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” So Trump is now officially, by definition, a terrorist. And like any other terrorist, he must not be negotiated with. He must defeated utterly and irreversibly. And he must be brought to justice. And, ironically, the first step toward that end is to VOTE! If you don’t, the terrorists win.

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

Why is Trump Doing (and the Media Covering) His Newsless Coronavirus Briefings?

Posted by on August 11, 2020 at 1:44 pm. 2 Comments :

Last April Donald Trump fired himself as the Coronavirus Task Force spokesmodel. It was a termination necessitated by the obvious harm he was doing to his already floundering reelection campaign and the campaigns of his fellow Republicans. No one lamented his three month absence considering the fact that, due to his ignorance and ego, he had nothing of value to contribute anyway.

Donald Trump TV Set

Trump himself complained that the briefings served no purpose and were a waste of time. “The American people are getting nothing but Fake News,” he whined about an event where he was the dominant speaker. That’s quite a confession.

So it was with some surprise that Trump renewed his canceled broadcasts last month. The new version of the Trump Virus Show was recast with only the eponymous star. The supporting cast of doctors, epidemiologists, and other experts were sacked, presumably because their knowledge and ability to communicate upstaged Diva Donald.

So now we are, once again, witnessing the absurdity of the President of the United States being reduced to the daily recitation of dry statistics that could be easily read by an intern or an elementary schooler, either of whom would do a better job. Trump’s stodgy, emotionless oratory couldn’t possibly be more annoying.

This ought not to be dismissed as just another peculiarity of the Trump Era. There is, of course, a deadly pandemic ravaging the nation and the world. The economy is in shambles with a record number of people unemployed, high rates of evictions and foreclosures, business bankruptcies increasing, and more Americans seeking assistance from welfare agencies and food banks.

Yet somehow Trump finds the time to stand before the press – who he repeatedly maligns in Stalinist terms as the “enemy of the people,” – and performs his reality TV shtick. He disseminates provable lies, yells at and insults reporters, shamelessly lavishes undue praise on himself, and viciously attacks Democrats – and even Republicans – that he perceives as adversarial or disloyal.

Most of the time consumed in Trump’s “briefing” is wasted on matters having nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. He regales in the performance of the stock market, which his policies are artificially propping up for the benefit of the wealthy and is a poor indicator of the economy that is currently in recession. He weaves fictions about his alleged legislative achievements. And he desperately invents electoral news that casts him as the victor in contest that exists only in his demented mind.

These charades are actually poorly disguised alternatives for the campaign rallies and other blatant politicking that he can’t pull together. Trump is reported to be despondent after weeks of not getting his ego stroked by worshipful disciples. So he demands attention by pretending to stage news conferences that are devoid of any actual news.

For that reason, the media should show some integrity and decline to service Trump’s pathetic and narcissistic neediness. He has proven repeatedly that he has nothing newsworthy to convey. So by showing up, the press is acting as his campaign’s communications staff. They are giving him free airtime and allowing him to spread his propaganda, lies, and hate speech.

If Trump wants to rant about Democrats and pay tribute to himself, he can pay for ads like any other candidate. In the meantime, the press can send junior reporters with cameras to document Trump’s meltdowns and then air whatever turns out to have some substantive news value, if anything. Short of that, the media needs to step back and stop helping to further Trump’s electoral aspirations.

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

‘Shocked’ Fox News Host Gets Schooled on Trump’s Lies about the Coronavirus

Posted by on August 10, 2020 at 1:10 pm. 6 Comments :

The endless stream of lies emanating from Donald Trump on a daily (hourly) basis continue without pause as the number of Americans infected by the coronavirus exceeds 5,000,000, and the fatalities surpass 163,000. Unmoved by these horrifying statistics, Trump persists in deflection and trivializing the suffering that the nation is enduring due to his negligence, incompetence, and egomaniacal refusal act responsibly.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

On Monday morning Trump took time away from his golfing regimen to express his desire to see more young people placed in danger by compelling them to participate in collegiate sports programs. Never mind that colleges around the country have already had to shut down due to spikes in coronavirus cases. Trump doesn’t care about kids, or anyone other than himself. As Trump told Fox News last week…

“My view is schools should reopen. This thing is going away. It will go away like things go away. And my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost – and I would almost say definitely, but almost – immune from this disease.”

Exactly! COVID-19 will “go away like things go away.” Things like bone spurs and cancer and senile dementia. My view is that Trump is almost – and I would almost say definitely, but almost – completely insane. Trump’s view, though, is shared by his bootlickers on Fox News. In a segment on Fox and Friends (video below) discussing how the coronavirus affects children, co-host Ainsley Earhardt revealed her surprise that kids were affected at all:

Earhardt: 97,000 kids have tested positive? That was such a shock to me because we heard kids really don’t get it. If they do they’re all going to be okay. Do you have any details about that percentage of kids that do get it? Are they all doing okay? Do they have any deaths?
Dr. Natasha Kathuria: I don’t know about the mortality or morbidity right now in that group. That was just in two weeks. So about 100,000 new cases in pediatric kids just in two weeks. And I can guarantee you that number is much higher. We don’t really test kids that often. They’re usually asymptomatic, they have very mild symptoms, But they’re still shedding this virus.

This was a “shock” to Earhardt because she “heard kids don’t really get it” from her fellow propagandists on Fox News, where that lie has been a regular part of the disinformation that they disseminate every day. The data about the virus’s impact on children was revealed in a new study that tracked such cases and found a total of nearly 340,000 children have been infected to date. The number for the past two weeks (97,000) represents a 40% increase just as schools were reopening in some states, and includes at least 611 child fatalities.

Earhardt, however, wasn’t finished trying to shape the discussion to frame it more positively to align with Trump’s lies. Her follow up for Dr. Kathuria was couched in a false assumption that was quickly shot down:

Earhardt: We’re just going to have to be extremely careful. Most Americans want their kids back in school, but we want to do it safely. But it is true though that when the kids get it, they don’t have the – you said – it’s just minimal side effects, right? If they even see those at all.
Dr. Kathuria: That’s a majority of them. The likelihood of death and the likelihood of critical illness is lower. But it’s possible. A seven year old just died in Georgia with no medical problems. We hear about this and we see it all the time. Kids get sick.

Nice try, Ainsley. But reality demands recognition that children are not only susceptible to illness, they are also carriers who can bring the virus home to their parents, grandparents, and others in their community. The good doctor deserves credit for not buckling to Earhardt’s leading and biased questions. And if Earhardt was shocked to learn about kids getting sick, think how shocked she must have been that some morsel of truth managed to leak out onto the air at Fox News.

UPDATE: At his coronavirus briefing (aka 2020 reelection event) Trump was asked if he was concerned about 97,000 kids getting the virus. He replied that it didn’t concern him and then reiterated his false belief that kids are immune.

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