Bring Back Jim Crow? Tucker Carlson of Fox News Accidentally Admits He’s a Straight-Up Racist

The Senior Douchebag of Fox News, and host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, has been making news this week. In an “interview” with Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, Carlson was beaten to a pulp and exposed as an intellectual lightweight who has no grasp of facts or common sense. It was delicious to see him squirm and stutter.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

You would think that after such an embarrassing display, Carlson would try to rehabilitate his tattered reputation. You would be wrong. On Friday’s episode, Carlson hosted Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo for a discussion on immigration. Carlson began his inquisition by framing the entire debate as a measurement of the immigrant population of the country. His premise was that the more immigrants, the worse off the nation is. And he expressed a longing for the past, which he perceives as being more homogeneously white. It wasn’t. It’s just that the majority white population was more in control. But Carlson viewed that as better:

“When I was born in this country, the percentage of people who were living here, who were foreign-born, was under five percent. It’s now about fourteen percent. So that’s a three-fold increase. That’s a huge change – huge change – in less than fifty years. Is the country better or worse for that, would you say?”

Acevedo responded that the country is better off, as is the economy. Well, he tried to respond, but Carlson cut him off after about twelve seconds. Then, when Acevedo tried to inform Carlson that two-thirds of GDP growth since 2011 was due to immigration, he was interrupted again after twelve seconds. Does Carlson have an “interrupter clock”?.

The debate then shifted to the immigrants themselves, and whether they merited entry to America. Carlson argued that most immigrants were poor and undeserving of entry. You know, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He couldn’t comprehend the reality that even poor immigrants contribute to the country, either by filling jobs that Americans won’t do, or by rising up through hard work and innovation to found companies like Apple and Google.

Carlson then asserted that there is something undemocratic about current immigration policy because all the polls say that Americans want less of it. That, however, isn’t true. In fact, most polls show that broad majorities of Americans (75%) favor immigration in general, and are opposed to a border wall in particular.

But Carlson never lets facts get in the way of his rank bigotry. In the following exchange, Carlson let slip that he looks back longingly on a bygone era when white nationalists like himself reigned unencumbered by those pesky minorities demanding civil rights. Acevedo asked Carlson what period in the past he was advocating as superior to the present. Carlson replied:

Carlson: When I was born it was fine. It was a better country than it is now, in a lot of ways.
Acevedo: In what sense was it a better country? By what metric?
Carlson: It was a more cohesive country.
Acevedo: It was a less diverse country, maybe?
Carlson: No. It’s not about race. The middle-class was vibrant when I was born. It’s dying now. And [cutting him off] we’re out of time.

To the extent that the middle-class is less vibrant today, it’s due directly to the policies of Carlson’s Republican Party. Their agenda of tax cuts for the rich and regulation cuts for corporations is the single biggest factor in the shift of wealth from the middle-class to the top one percent. America’s economy is booming, but average Americans aren’t seeing any of the benefits. It’s a certainty that Carlson doesn’t want to roll that back.

As for his nostalgia, Carlson was born in 1969. That was just a few years after the Civil Rights Act was passed. The country was still unwinding the decades of Jim Crow laws that dominated most of the South. Martin Luther King was assassinated only one year prior and his work was far from over, as evidenced by his murder. There was one African-America senator, and only six members of the House. But that’s the wonderfully “cohesive” time that Carlson wishes America would return to. With this rhetoric it seems that he’s not even trying to disguise his racism anymore. And Fox News is apparently cool with that.

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

Protecting Trump? Fox News Buries Paul Manafort’s Cooperation and Plea Deal with Mueller Probe

There is no question that Hurricane Florence is the top story of Friday, September 14. The potential loss of life and billions of dollars in destruction are too serious a matter to under play. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the only story of the day. It most decidedly is not.

Donald Trump Fox News

On Friday morning, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman went into a courtroom in Washington where his lawyer announced that he had accepted a plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller in order to avoid further legal jeopardy. This is particularly significant because the deal includes Manafort’s cooperation with prosecutors on other matters. According to ABC News:

“In court Friday morning, prosecutors revealed that Manafort had completed a successful meeting with investigators in which he offered them information they considered valuable. They did not specify what information he agreed to share, but made clear the cooperation would be ‘broad’ and would include participation in ‘interviews, briefings, producing documents, [and] testifying in other matters.'”

This development now gives Mueller a cooperating witness who was in the room at Trump Tower when Don Jr. and others met with Russian operatives seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton. That’s the core of the “witch hunt” charges of collusion that have been driving Trump’s batty for two years. Additionally, Manafort’s high position with the Trump campaign makes it likely that he has other incriminating information about Trump and company related to Russia, Wikileaks, and efforts to obstruct justice. It’s hard to overstate the trouble this news poses for Trump.

However, it is easy to understate it. And that’s exactly what State TV (aka Fox News) has been doing since the news broke. While Fox News did air a twenty-six second “alert” prior to the plea being announced in court, they have taken great pains to ignore it ever since. That alert had no details about the agreement and no notice of Manafort’s cooperation with Mueller. At the noon hour Shepard Smith took over. It took him an hour and twenty minutes to say anything about the Manafort case. And that segment was the last he said about it for at least the next hour and a half.

It’s no wonder that Fox News is determined to suppress this news. It puts Trump in a the awkward position of defending himself against another former associate who is turning state’s evidence. In this case, Trump had previously praised Manafort for his loyalty and bravery under pressure:

Well, so much for not breaking. If history is any indicator, Trump will shortly tweet about what a weasel Manafort is for making up these lies to cut a deal for himself. Then Trump will Insist that he hardly knew Manafort and he had little to do with Trump or his campaign. And that’s when Fox News will resume reporting on this subject. They will virtually ignore the substance of the legal controversy and focus on Trump’s rejection of the weak-kneed former campaign boss. The script just writes itself.

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

Tucker Carlson Gets Creamed By Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer, Michael Avenatti in Hilarious Fox News Throwdown

The single most repulsive character on the Fox News Cartoon Network is, without a doubt, Tucker Carlson. He has assumed the position of the Grand Wizard of the white nationalist movement with his frequent tirades that literally regurgitate the racist tropes of the hate mongers of the right. A recent example of that took place just last week on a show where Carlson couldn’t figure out how diversity strengthens America.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Michael Avenatti

But what occurred on Thursday night’s episode went even farther into the abyss off wingnuttery (video below). Carlson hosted Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, in a what turned into a demolition of Carlson’s already splintered reputation. It began with Carlson introducing some of the ground rules for the TV debate. He said that Avenatti…

“…”has now agreed to appear on our set provided we give him time to state his case, and of course we’re happy to do that. In the past he’s also demanded that we stop referring to him by a certain unflattering nickname [Creepy Porn Lawyer]. We haven’t agreed to that demand, but tonight, as a gesture of goodwill, we will not use that nickname, because we’re always grateful when guests are brave enough to show up in person, including in this case.”

So Carlson made two promises in order to get Avenatti to agree to appear on the program. And Carlson almost immediately broke both of them. His first interruption occurred within seconds of Avenatti’s response to the first question he was asked. And from the start, Carlson’s program featured chyrons that repeatedly used the “Creepy Porn Lawyer” epithet. It was a demonstration of the infantile nature of Carlson and the State TV outlet that employs him. Avenatti weighed in following the show:

Carlson asked his first question, which had to do with what the rational response would be to an act of cyber war by Russia. Avenatti began his answer by saying that “Well, Tucker, I understood that I was coming on your show tonight to talk about the case involving my client…” And that was as far as Avenatti got when Carlson burst in with his first interruption. Avenatti told Carlson that:

“You’ve gotta stop interrupting me, cause one of the conditions of me coming on tonight was that you were not going to do what you do routinely to guests, which is talk over them and interrupt them. So just let me finish with my answer.”

Then Carlson asked his question again, and Avenatti got a little further into his answer when Carlson again broke in, and Avenatti scolded him saying “There you go interrupting me again.” It’s clear how this interview was going to go from just these first few minutes. Avenatti was trying to give substantive responses to Carlson’s inquiries, but Carlson obviously didn’t like that Avenatti’s points included condemnations of Trump for colluding with Russia. So Carlson had to prevent that sort of truth from getting out to his willfully ignorant audience.

Despite Carlson’s introduction that claimed that he didn’t want to engage in insults, he excused his interruptions as “clarifications” because, as he stated, Avenatti didn’t understand the questions. But Avenatti wasn’t going to sit there and have Carlson call him stupid. He shot back at Carlson with a question of his own: “Why don’t you call Trump the creepy porn president” due to his having unprotected sex with a porn actress while his wife and four month old baby were at home. Carlson got glassy-eyed and stuttered as he tried to change the subject. Then, after acting like a wild buffoon, Carlson told Avenatti to “settle down.” It was hilarious.

Then Carlson goes totally off the rails with an assertion that makes no sense at all. He said that Avenatti should be paying his client, Stormy Daniels, because he has an expensive suit and she’s performing in strip clubs. Huh? What does that have to do with anything? Does Carlson think that any lawyer who is better off financially than his client should be giving the client money?

Avenatti then nailed Carlson for not knowing that Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to two campaign finance felonies. Carlson tried to claim that they were not violations, but you can’t plead guilty to something that isn’t a crime. Having lost this point, Carlson swings back to why Daniels is performing in “depressing strip clubs,” as if it were Avenatti’s role to tell her what to do. Avenatti replied that she’s doing what she wants and that “This is America” and “if a women wants to perform in a strip club she does so even though people like you demean her.”

You know that Avenatti was winning this debate by the way that Carlson was losing his composure. He actually ended up yelling at Avenatti because he refused to allow Carlson to continually interrupt him. And when Avenatti grew tired of Carlson’s belittling of his client, he asked Carlson about his own porn habits. That shut Carlson up momentarily. And when Avenatti asked Carlson if he thought that people who view porn should watch his show, Carlson whimpered “I’m not even sure what that question means.” Then Carlson cut Avenatti off from responding to his closing lecture by declaring that he was out of time.

There is one lesson that everyone watching this segment ought to take to heart: No one should ever – for any reason – appear on Tucker Carlson’s program. He will lie to your face about the conditions of the agreement to appear. And then he will endeavor to steer the conversation to whatever tangential topic he thinks he can best malign you with. Avenatti actually handled Carlson brilliantly throughout the “interview,” but it was still an exercise in futility that accomplished nothing. Carlson’s mind can not be changed, and neither can the minds of his dimwitted viewers.

While there is a scant amount of comic relief from seeing Carlson squirm, it’s still unproductive and only serves to spike his ratings. That potentially gives him attention from a larger pool of Deplorables when he should be booted off the air for advancing the agenda of neo-Nazis and violent, racist extremists. The sooner he gets canned for advocating his race war, the better for America.

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

TFA: Eric Holder Slams Trump and Lou Dobbs of Fox News for Ignorant Tweet About the DOJ

One of the most fascinating aspects of Donald Trump’s dementia is how he frequently expresses something that has the effect of contradicting his intention. He did this recently in a tweet about his “witch hunt” delusion that actually affirmed it. And he did it again in a rant about the anonymous New York Times op-ed that validated the article’s warnings about his unfitness to serve.

Donald Trump, Eric Holder

Well, he’s done it again. On Tuesday morning, when the rest of America was deep in remembrance of the victims of 9/11, Trump decided he would go after his own Justice Department. And he did so with what he must regard as the worst possible indignity he could muster: comparing it to Obama’s Justice Department:

On the surface, what Trump is implying is that his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was no better than his predecessor, Eric Holder. But this attempt at insulting Sessions could be interpreted another way. Trump might be saying, inadvertently of course, that the Justice Department is operating exactly as it should be. A change in administrations ought not to alter the mission of the agency, which is to be a nonpartisan seeker of facts and accountability for wrongdoing. So it should, in fact, not be any different under Sessions, than it was under Holder.

Trump, however, is wholly incapable of understanding anything as principled and anchored by ethics as that. What he was aiming at was the refusal of Sessions to turn the department into his own Office of Personal Persecution. Trump is livid that Sessions won’t lead an inquisition against Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who Trump, in his paranoid haze, believes are conspirators in a “Deep State” plot to dethrone him.

As for Holder, he noticed Trump’s harangue at Sessions and observed some differences between the current DoJ and the one that he led. Holder tweeted in response to Trump:

Indeed, Holder took his responsibilities seriously as the nation’s top law enforcement official. He dedicated his service to advancing the rights of all Americans and bringing criminals to justice. His closing acronym, “TFA,” was a reference to the 25th Amendment that provides for the removal of a president who is incapable of carrying out his duties.

Finally, Trump’s tweet was his second of the morning that quoted Lou Dobbs, the Fox News hack who is so infatuated with Trump that he signs most of his own tweets with the hashtags #MAGA and #TrumpTrain. Nothing like being fair and balanced. The other Dobbs quote posted by Trump said:

Needlass to say that is 100% false. There are mountains of evidence that connect Trump directly to Russia and people close to Vladimir Putin. And there is literally nothing that connects Clinton to Russia except for the partial funding of the Steele Dossier, which included sources that were Russian dissidents, not Kremlin operatives. That’s a huge difference.

All of this underscores the differences between what Eric Holder sees as an honest Justice Department and what Trump thinks should be an agency that is obedient to his tyrannical rule. Fortunately, that perverse vision isn’t being carried out – yet. But with Trump threatening to fire Sessions after the midterm elections, who knows.

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

Category 5 Tweet Storm Hits as Trump’s Panic and Fear Threaten to Blow Him Away

The all too frequent occurrence of Donald Trump frantically pounding out Twitter posts to defend himself against his outrage of the day is becoming absurd. The more he feels pressured by events, and the exposure of new and damaging facts, the more wild-eyed his tirades become as his world collapses around him.

Donald Trump

On Monday morning Trump banged out fifteen tweets. The quantity alone is evidence of how obsessed and afraid he is. But the content makes that even more clear. They are mostly filled with lies and desperate distractions aimed at relieving the crushing duress he must be under. He began with a lie so easily disprovable that Fox News did it:

From there Trump moves on to the new, bestselling book by veteran investigative journalist, Bob Woodward: Fear: Trump in the White House. The book is a well documented tour of Trump’s dysfunctional White House. It affirms all of the similar reports that have come out over the past year and a half that cast the administration as a pit of animosity, jealousy, and above all, fear and disrespect for the Commander-in-Chief. Trump leads off with a tweet that contradicts itself. He asserts falsely that Woodward’s book relies on “disproven unnamed and anonymous sources.” And in the very next sentence notes that these real people “have already come forward” to deny the quotes attributed to them.

So Trump alleges that the book is a “joke” and a “scam” and that he’s going to “write the real book.” Don’t hold your breath. This is coming from someone who has never actually written a book himself, and who is best known for his pathological lying. He also alleges that the quotes attributed to him are fake because he doesn’t “talk that way.” But everyone has heard how he talks going all the way back to his “pussy grabbing” comments during the election.

Trump was especially dishonest in the tweet wherein he presented the question that NBC’s Savannah Guthrie asked Woodward as if it were a statement of fact that corroborated him. It wasn’t. She was just asking a question the way that real journalists do. In fact, she was rather aggressively taking an adversarial position that favored Trump. But the President’s tweet proves that he either couldn’t understand that, or just doesn’t care about the truth. And he didn’t bother to post Woodward’s answer to the question, which was “These are political statements to protect their jobs – totally understandable.” That’s because real journalists know that sources often tell the truth on background, but lie in public.

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

While Trump whines about what he regards as a “Deep State” coup that is out to get him (even though many of his critics are his own appointees in the administration), the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller rolls on, getting new information and cooperative witnesses every day. It’s only a matter of time before all the truth comes out and Trump will have nothing but his glassy-eyed disciples to prop up his failed presidency. And that time cannot come soon enough.

White-Winger Tucker Carlson of Fox News Can’t Figure Out How Diversity Strengthens America

The enthusiasm with which Fox News has been embracing the racist themes of white nationalism has been observable for years. It was a constant feature on Bill O’Reilly’s program, as it is on Laura Ingraham’s. However, their adoption of this abhorrent political movement is accelerating on a daily basis throughout the Donald Trump presidency. And it’s unchallenged leader in this crusade is their primetime anchor, and man with “resting douchebag face,” Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

Carlson is having trouble understanding why diversity strengthens America. In Friday’s episode of his White Nationalism Hour on Fox News, Carlson played a video montage of President Obama and others praising the benefits of a diverse nation. After which, Carlson complained that he doesn’t “know exactly what it means other than ‘stop talking or else.'” How he got that from people advocating for more voices joining the public discussion is a mystery only a Grand Wizard can solve. But his whole segment on diversity was a holy mess of bigotry and ignorance. For example (video below):

“How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Since you’ve made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it. Can you think, for example, of other institutions – I don’t know – marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are. Do you get along better with your neighbors or your co-workers if you can’t understand each other, or share no common values?”

This is way to easy. First of all, is Carlson really using the military as an example of an institution where these is no diversity? America’s armed forces were desegregated in 1948 by President Harry Truman. And ever since then they have been a model for desegregating other sectors of public and private society. Does Carlson think our troops would be better off going back to forced separation based on race? Of course he does. That’s actually his point.

What’s more, Carlson also seems to be criticising the acceptance of interracial marriages. That’s another barrier that was legally overcome by the Loving v. Virginia decision by the Supreme Court in 1967. And it’s another human rights advancement that Carlson apparently wants to rollback.

His language in the sophomoric question he asks is revealing in itself. He implies that the purpose of encouraging diversity is “cohesiveness.” No, that’s the purpose of segregation and whites-only lunch counters. The purpose of diversity is expanding everyone’s understanding of a broader perspective of the world. It’s to combat exactly what Carlson thinks are obstacles to understanding each other. But in Carlson’s view our differences in skin color represent insurmountable conflicts in values. What freaking hell hole of a planet does he live on?

The fact that Fox News allows these types of flagrant white supremacy diatribes to go out on their network is an indication of their support for such repulsive tributes to prejudice and hatred. Tucker Carlson is just a petulant little jerkwad who’s views are aligned with the Klan. But Fox News runs a major cable “news” network that influences a significant faction of America’s Deplorables. And such a network must not be permitted to advance these hateful, ignorant notions without consequence. Their advertisers need to be shamed and shunned. The cable operators who carry the network need to hear from their subscribers that this hate speech is unacceptable.

Most importantly, conscientious people in public life must not grant Fox credibility by appearing on their racist programs. The network needs to be frozen out of decent society. Let them wallow in the filth of their regular cast of bigots. They can host Ann Coulter and Sebastian Gorka and Donald Trump and other white supremacists exclusively. That way it will always be easier to recognize the sleazeballs by their presence on the avowedly racist cable network.

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

Breaking on Fox News: Doddering Old Man Trump Can’t Stay Awake During Obama’s Speech

This Friday has been a day filled with significant news stories that have a profound impact on the nation and the world. For instance, Donald Trump asked his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, to investigate the New York Times for publishing an op-ed by an anonymous author. Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, was sentenced in federal court. Hurricanes are heading toward both Hawaii and the East Coast of the United States. And Russia is threatening an offensive in Syria that could put American soldiers at risk. So what is the top story on the Fox News website this afternoon?

Fox News, Donald Trump, Barack Obama,

That’s right. Donald Trump trolls former President Barack Obama by saying that “I fell asleep” during the speech Obama gave today at the University of Illinois. That seems like a pretty sorry effort at trolling. After all, Trump is essentially admitting that he’s a tired old coot with weak stamina. In fact, The Fox News lede could just as well have read:

“A doddering old man, with observable physical and mental infirmities, is unable to stay awake in the middle of the day during a noteworthy speech by a former president even though it is partially about him.”

Of course, that would be somewhat unwieldy as a headline, but it’s a more accurate representation of the facts. Why would Trump want to portray himself as having such low energy, a criticism he used to throw at Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush? What’s more, if Trump had trouble staying awake for this speech, he had better see his doctor immediately. Obama gave an eloquent and rousing address that covered a broad range of important issues facing the country. Here is a just a taste (full video below):

“Over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has, unfortunately, found a home in the Republican Party. This Congress has championed the unwinding of campaign finance laws to give billionaires outside influence over our politics; systematically attacked voting rights to make it harder for young people and minorities and the poor to vote; handed out tax cuts without regard to deficits; slashed the safety net wherever it could; cast dozens of votes to take away health insurance from ordinary Americans.

They embraced wild conspiracy theories like those surrounding Benghazi; or my birth certificate; rejected science; rejected facts on things like climate change; embraced a rising absolutism on a willingness to default on America’s debt by not paying our bills; to a refusal to even meet, much less consider, a qualified nominee for the Supreme Court because he happened to be nominated by a Democratic president. None of this is conservative … It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical.

And that put Trump to sleep? These weren’t even the parts that spoke directly about him. He probably wouldn’t have appreciated Obama reducing him to a symptom of today’s political divisiveness. Trump wants to always be the center of attention. And Obama directly addressed Trump’s Stalinist tendencies toward the media by saying that “I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them ‘enemies of the people.”

If Donald Trump has trouble maintaining consciousness during a speech like this, imagine how difficult it must be for him to stay awake during national security briefings. And what about legal consultations with his personal attorneys handling Robert Mueller’s investigation into his collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice? And if he’s only kidding around, it’s an idiotic attempt at humor that only reaffirms the perception of him as being confused and oblivious. Which is a perception that has been reaffirmed so often that we can just accept it as fact at this point.

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

Trump’s Incoherent Whining on Fox News About Anonymous Op-Ed in NY Times Actually Affirms It

We’re two days into the news cycle on the anonymous op-ed that appeared in the New York Times announcing a “resistance” inside the White House to Trump’s dangerous unfitness for office. If anything, the temperature has increased with more insiders coming forward to warn about Trump’s unbalanced mental state.

Donald Trump

Meanwhile, Trump is proving the allegations against him by bellowing at his staff and behaving even more paranoid than usual. He can’t trust anyone around him but his children, and even that might be assuming too much. The effect this has had on him is obvious and profound. He’s tweeted about this, and the related book by Bob Woodward, eighteen times already. He’s clearly obsessed with these credible depictions of his mental infirmities by people who have access to him and reason to know.

So naturally Trump rushed frantically to Fox News in order to get a good tongue bathing in an environment where he would be safe from well deserved criticism. He was interviewed by Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth before the crowd at his Montana cult rally. And the part of exchange that covered the New York Times op-ed pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Trump’s rupturing psychoses. It’s a wholly incoherent rant that he seemed to disgorge in a single, panicky breath. (video below):

Hegseth: Folks here might have seen an anonymous column written in the New York Times. [Audience boos] And I think this audience would say that an attack on you was an attack on the people that voted for you. Are you any closer to knowing who did it and what should be done if you find out who did it?
Trump: Well number one, the Times should have never have done that because really what they’ve done is, virtually, you know it’s treason. You can call it a lot of things, but to think that you have somebody in all of the cabinets – some many people as you know they came forward, they’re writing editorials. They’re all saying you know it’s got to be at a fairly low level. Because so many people today, I was just coming out, and I see all the people that are saying such great things. We have a lot of love in the administration, and the White House is truly as you would say, a well-oiled machine – it is working so well. You know we have – I heard you say yesterday, we have thousands of people that in theory could qualify. So they take one person out of thousands, but what’s unfair – I don’t mind when they write a book and they make lies cause it gets discredited. We just discredited the last one, we discredit all of them because it’s lies. But I’ll tell you, when somebody writes and you can’t discredit because you have no idea who they are – usually you’ll find out, it’s a background that was bad, it may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state person that’s been there a long time. You don’t know where – it’s a very unfair thing. But its very unfair to our country and to the millions of people that voted, really for us. They voted for us.

First of all, go back and read the question. Trump came nowhere near anything that might be considered an answer. What you have there is an insane person insisting that he’s completely sane while proving that he isn’t. Trump began by charging the Times with treason. Obviously, he has no idea what the word means or how to apply it. And this wasn’t a hypothetical comment. On Air Force One this morning Trump said he was asking his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, to investigate the Times as a “national security” matter. However, he couldn’t explain how a critical op-ed endangered national security. He also said he’s looking into taking some unspecified action against the paper and the author. That would be a flagrant breach of the Constitution’s First Amendment.

Trump went on to extol the “love in the administration,” despite the unprecedented turmoil, resignations and terminations during his first two years in office. His senior staff are reported to have called him “an idiot,” “a moron,” “a liar,” “a baby,” and more demeaning, but accurate epithets. If this is his idea of a “well-oiled machine,” what, in heaven’s name, would a squeaky one look like?

Trump also told Hegseth that “I don’t mind when they write a book” because “we discredit all of them.” Notice that he doesn’t say that he refutes them or offers substantive rebuttals. He astonishingly admits that he goes straight for character assassination. He affirms that by complaining that he can’t discredit the author if he doesn’t know who it is. Of course, he could dispute what was said, but the only thing he’s interested in is attacking the person, not the allegations. That’s because he can’t attack allegations that are demonstrably true.

The more Trump defends himself from charges of mental infirmity, the more he is demonstrating the validity of the charges. And he’s behaving like the cornered animal that lashes out wildly at any perceived threat. That’s the same behavior he’s exhibited with regard to the investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. Trump is clearly afraid and in panic mode. And that is turning his responses to these situations into more evidence against him. So keep ranting, Donnie. You’re signing your own impeachment order.

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

Hannity Insanity: Trump ‘Is the Most Sound-Minded Person to Ever Occupy the White House’

The question of Donald Trump’s fitness to serve as president has been a frequent topic of discussion in recent weeks. Dozens of psychiatric professionals are among those who have weighed in on the subject, declaring that Trump has severe mental deficiencies that pose grave risks for the nation. But Sean Hannity of Fox News, without any training in the subject, disagrees.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

Speculation about Trump’s declining mental state is not a new concern. News Corpse addressed it two years ago with an analysis of his advancing senile dementia. And with every new day our obviously disturbed President provides new examples of why he must be removed from office. On Wednesday an op-ed was published in the New York Times by a “senior official” in the Trump administration that affirms much of the concerns expressed by others for the past two years.

Enter Sean Hannity. On his Wednesday evening episode of Trump-Fluffers on Parade, Hannity hosted one of his favorite fluffing guests, “doctor” Gina Loudon. She and Hannity jumped right into a defense of Trump’s self-made image as a “stable genius” with an awkward segue from the New York Times story. Hannity began by charging that the op-ed’s author is a “crazy, anonymous, gutless, cowardly,” person. And, fatigued from heaving so many insulting adjectives, he threw the question to Loudon (video below):

Hannity: There is a madness to this and your background and your book discusses this derangement. What do we call it?”
Loudon: We’ve got Trump Derangement Syndrome, Sean. That’s what most people have called it to this point. But my book actually uses science, and real data, and true psychological theory to explain why it is quite possible that this president is the most sound-minded person to ever occupy the White House.
Hannity: Literally, liberals heads are gonna explode at what you just said.
Loudon: That’s the fun part of the madness. Watching them go crazy over the fact that he’s really pretty unphased by them. And I believe that. And I know him.
Hannity: And that’s what drives them nuts.

This is an Olympian feat of delusional, propagandizing hogwash. Loudon isn’t satisfied with merely claiming that Trump is of sound mind. Nope, she has to embellish it with the flaming absurdity that it’s the soundest mind ever. And what’s more, she has scientific evidence of it. How she can prove by scientific methodology that Trump, or anyone, has a mind that is more sound than any other, has yet to be revealed. She should release her “research” immediately, so that we can all have a good laugh. As for being “unphased,” his own hair-raising Twitter feed contradicts that bullcrap.

Hannity then went on to say that the media are “like drug addicts” who wake up every day and, if they don’t get their fix, their “hate for the day,” they “break out into sweats.” Sounds more like he is describing himself and/or his Dear Leader. Trump is the one who begins every day with rabid tweetstorms in all caps. The media is just reacting to the manic outbursts of the Commander-in-Tweet. Meanwhile, Loudon criticizes Bob Woodward’s book and praises her own, because he doesn’t know the President and she does. Which is really an endorsement of Woodward’s book because he isn’t going to be biased by a personal association, but she will be.

The gargantuan, Kool-Aid infused, suck up to Trump’s allegedly sound mind has to ignore two years of off-the-rails idiocy. Is it sound to kiss up to foreign dictators while lambasting long-time allies? Is it sound to continually take credit for the achievements of your predecessor and to lie about your own innumerable failures? Is it sound to brag about how effectively you are destroying the environment and sabotaging healthcare? Is it sound to praise neo-Nazis and to abduct children from their parents and warehouse them in cages? According to Hannity and Loudon (and the rest of Fox News), the answer is a resounding “Dah!”

This tendency to lavish effusive praise on Trump is a hallmark of his own hyperbolic rhetoric. He can’t say anything, particularly about himself, without making it the bestest of all time. Conversely, any criticism he has of someone else is automatically the worst in the history of the world. There is probably a psychiatric term for this condition, and we can just add to the list of the mental infirmities that Trump is suffering from. Unfortunately for America, it’s a long list.

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

Death Spiral? Trump’s Favorite Poll, Rasmussen, Has Him at 44% – Lowest in 7 Weeks

It isn’t easy being a malignant narcissist. Having such an intensely egocentric fetish with oneself carries with it numerous burdens. Chief among those is an unhealthy obsession with what everyone thinks of you. Consequently, Donald Trump is consumed with the polling on his public approval and, more notably, his disapproval.

Donald Trump

There hasn’t been very much good news for Trump with regard to his recent polling. This affront to his self image caused him to freak out and mistakenly brag that he had reached a fifty-two percent approval rating. Turns out he misread the numbers. That was actually his disapproval rating.

Many of the latest surveys place him at or near the worst showings of his presidency. For instance, last week ABC/Washington Post published their most recent poll that showed Trump at a new high in disapproval (60%). It so flustered Trump that he called it a “suppression poll” in an angry tweet that falsely maligned the pollster’s accuracy. Then he followed that up with a tweet about his favorite propagandist polling outfit, Rasmussen, that was somewhat more friendly, although it still had him underwater (48-50%). Nevertheless, his tweet praised Rasmussen as “one of the most accurate.”

Seeing as how Trump appreciates the alleged accuracy of Rasmussen’s polling, he must be taking seriously the latest in their daily tracking of the President’s approval, or lack thereof. On Wednesday Trump sunk to a seven-week low. Rasmussen is reporting his disapproval at fifty-four percent. His approval was down to forty-four percent. Interestingly, Rasmussen also has Trump’s “strong” disapproval at forty-four percent, which ties with his total approval. Ouch.

For the record, the most recent Fox News poll has Trump’s approval only one point higher than Rasmussen’s (45%). So the consensus among the State TV propaganda outlets is pretty clear.

This slippage could not be happening at a worse time for the President. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, has been tightening the screws with new indictments, convictions, and guilty pleas of close Trump associates. The release of Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, is revealing the crisis of chaos in Trump’s “Crazytown.” His Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, is getting flambe’ed at his confirmation hearings in the Senate (and his approval rating is the lowest of any Supreme Court nominee).

Finally, Trump is preparing to hit the campaign trail on behalf of floundering Republicans nationwide. You have to wonder how many of them still want him to show up. Because at this rate Trump may be hitting record lows even on Rasmussen’s poll. He’s only got six more points to go before matching the thirty-eight percent he pulled on August 2, 2017. That’s totally doable, Donnie. Keep hope alive.

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