Racism

Irish Lives Matter? Fox News Celebrates Racism On St. Patrick’s Day

Posted by on March 17, 2016 at 7:57 pm. 6 Comments :

Leave it to Fox News to turn the most slammin’, sloshin’, party holiday of the year into an opportunity to demean a civil rights movement devoted to saving lives and improving relations with society’s institutions.

foxnews-stpatricks

Today’s episode of “The Five” opened with an extended segment of the panel’s tribute to St. Patrick’s Day by parading an array of everything they could find that was painted green, including donuts, milkshakes, and tacos. But it didn’t take long for them find a way to devolve into the offensive rhetoric that is the hallmark America’s rightist wingnut network. Somehow a light-hearted discussion about green beer and leprechauns led to the following exchange between Juan Williams and Kimberly Guilfoyle:

Juan Williams: Irish people were stereotyped and denigrated for a long time.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: And the Irish got over it. They don’t run around going Irish Lives Matter

This is one of those times when screaming at the TV just isn’t sufficiently satisfying. Guilfoyle actually believes that there is a coherent equivalence in America today between the current state of prejudice experienced by African-Americans and the Irish. She thinks that her snide mockery of Black Lives Matters makes a cogent point about civil rights.

Guilfoyle would be right if the Irish were being gunned down in the streets while unarmed for trivial alleged crimes. She would be right if the Irish were subject to institutionalized racism during encounters with law enforcement. She would be right if driving while Irish was a thing. But since none of that exists in reality, she’s just another Fox News bigot trying and failing to disparage a movement that is working hard to resolve real problems.

Fox News, of course, has a history of being openly biased, and St. Patrick’s Day has been the springboard for it before. A couple of years ago the Guinness Beer company made a principled decision to skip New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade because the LGBT community was prohibited from participating. That led Rupert Murdoch to tweet…

“Where will this end? Guinness pulls out of religious parade bullied by gay orgs who try to take it over. Hope all Irish boycott the stuff.”

At the time, News Corpse spelled out all the reasons that tweet exposed Murdoch as being either senile or drunk. Not the least of which is his ludicrous suggestion that Irish Americans, or any other celebrant, is going to abstain from drinking the most famous Irish beer in the world on St. Patrick’s Day. And as if to rub it in that Murdoch is a raging fool, last year Ireland voted to legalize same-sex marriage and gays proudly marched in this year’s parade.

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

Rupert Murdoch

Hillary’s America: Ex-Con’s Anti-Clinton Documentary Whitewashes The Right’s Ties To The KKK

Posted by on March 7, 2016 at 11:56 am. 10 Comments :

The architects of the long-festering anti-Clinton crusades are often people who are demonstrably lacking in ethics or honesty. Take for example ex-con Dinesh D’Souza. Two years ago he pleaded guilty to election fraud. Prior to that he was forced to resign as the dean of a Catholic university due to his marital infidelity. This paragon of virtue, who is presenting himself as a spokesman for conservative values, has a follow-up to his 2012 crocumentary, “Obama’s America,” wherein he attempted to portray Hillary Clinton and President Obama as a hippie and a street thug.

The Hippie & The Street Thug

Setting aside those sexist and racist characterizations, D’Souza utterly failed to make any coherent points and his cinematic tantrum had no impact on the election that he hoped to swing to the right. So naturally he is returning with a new screed aimed directly at Clinton titled “Hillary’s America.” If her administration wound up being anything like Obama’s, then the stock market would double again, there would be another 72 straight months of private sector job growth, the percent of Americans without health insurance would be cut in half again, and the deficit would be cut by another two-thirds. What a nightmare.

The trailer for D’Souza’s new film (video below) reveals that it intends to continue an absurd and dishonest argument about racism in America. It begins with a D’Souza voice-over asking “Who are these Democrats?” Before answering that question he whines that “It all began when the Obama administration tried to shut me up.” That’s a reference to his prosecution and incarceration for election fraud to which he admitted guilt. He doesn’t explain how that sneaky rascal Obama got him to break the law by illegally funding a Republican Senate candidate. However, he does dismiss his own criminality to claim that “The big criminals are still at large,” while showing video of Clinton and Obama.

The meat of this propaganda piece appears to be centered on D’Souza’s allegations that the modern Democratic Party is closely tied to the Ku Klux Klan and supports slavery. This is one of the favorite lies of far-right cranks and Republican apologists for bigotry. It is based on the sliver of fact that 150 years ago southern Democrats were angry with Abraham Lincoln’s abolitionist policies and formed hate groups to oppose him. But the flaky right obsessively ignores the reality that Democrats cast off those positions in the 1950’s and 1960’s as they advanced comprehensive civil and voting rights legislation.

As a result, the bigots in the party fled en masse to a welcoming Republican Party that opposed advancements in equality and swelled the ranks of the white supremacist organizations. Former Democrats like Strom Thurmond became leaders of the GOP’s segregationist contingent. And today it is still the Republican Party that is throwing up roadblocks to the voting rights and non-discrimination bills that are proposed by Democrats. It is not coincidental that Donald Trump’s candidacy is backed by David Duke and other white supremacists. And it isn’t just Trump that draws those racists to the GOP. Anyone who can deny that it is the Republican Party that is the home of Confederacy-loving racists is either lying through their teeth, oblivious to reality, or painfully stupid.

D’Souza appeared at this year’s ultra-rightist CPAC convention to promote the film. He revealed his intention to release it during the Democratic National Committee’s convention in July. Clearly he thinks he’s going to disrupt the news cycle with his wingnut fan fiction, but more likely it will get lost amid the more newsworthy events associated with launching the Democrats’ presidential nominee into the general election. So he was reduced to begging the CPAC attendees to see the film on its opening weekend in the hopes of building buzz. [Side note: D’Souza will have wasted a lot of time and his sponsors money if Bernie Sanders ends up being the nominee]

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

Proud Racist Donald Trump Just Can’t Quit His KKK Supporters – Or Quit Lying About Them

Posted by on February 28, 2016 at 1:22 pm. 6 Comments :

The campaign of Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president has been littered with racial prejudice and animus from the day he announced his candidacy. What’s remarkably unique about Trump is that conventional politicians, when confronted with allegations of racism, will deny the charges and defend themselves as unbiased. Needless to say, Trump is not conventional, but his tolerance of white supremacists goes way beyond his phony claims to political independence. In fact, he is openly enabling the white supremacist movement.

Donald Trump

Today on CNN’s State of the Union, Trump was interviewed by Jake Tapper who asked him about former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke’s endorsement of his candidacy. Tapper specifically inquired as to whether Trump would “unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?” Trump answered saying that…

“Well just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.”

In that short and babbling statement Trump said “I don’t know” or “I know nothing” seven times. That might have been the most honest he’s ever been about himself, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s lying, something he does with pathological zeal (see the Trump Bullshitopedia). First of all, why would you need to know anything about white supremacists, other than that they are white supremacists, in order to say that you condemn them and don’t want their votes? What more does Trump need to know about them to repudiate their bigotry?

More to the point, Trump’s desperately repeated denials contradict his prior statements about David Duke. Way back in August of last year Trump was asked by Bloomberg News reporters about Duke’s endorsement and he responded saying that…

“I don’t need his endorsement; I certainly wouldn’t want his endorsement.”

Well, apparently Trump knew who Duke was after all. At least he knew last August, and he frequently boasts that he has “the best memory in the world.” At that time Trump’s response as to whether he would repudiate the endorsement was “Sure, I would if that would make you feel better.” So his “repudiation” was only an attempt to satisfy what he sarcastically thought the reporters wanted, not a sincere expression of disapproval. And the obvious explanation for that is that he doesn’t disapprove. His whole campaign is proof that he seeks out and embraces the support of avowed bigots.

News Corpse has documented prior statements by Trump that affirm, if not his racist pride, at least his acceptance of the label. On one occasion he pointedly refused to deny that he is “a racist and a neo-fascist.” And then there was the time that he said that he is “not bothered by comparisons to Hitler.” What’s more, Trump’s Twitter feed is jam-packed with racist comments and retweets, including a blatantly obvious hate monger named WhiteGenocideTM. Even today Trump retweeted approvingly a quote by the fascist dictator Mussolini from a Twitter user named IlDuce2016.

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

This embrace of of the most repellent brand of hate mongering and the leading proponents of white supremacy is unprecedented in mainstream American politics. The Republican Party ought to take a stand and banish Trump from their ranks. However, that will probably not happen because the GOP has been harboring these racists for decades. They believe that these hate groups are critical to their electoral competitiveness, and they’re right. Trump did not create the affinity between the GOP and the KKK, he is merely saying out loud what they have always stood for.

Update 2/29/16: Trump is now piling lies on top of lies. In an interview today on NBC’s Today Show, Trump tried to blame his failure to disavow Duke on CNN’s “very bad earpiece.” He said…

“I’m sitting in a house in Florida, with a very bad earpiece that they gave me, and you could hardly hear what he was saying. What I heard was ‘various groups.’”

If you re-read the his response above, he explicitly mentioned David Duke and white supremacists several times. It could not be more clear that he heard every word of the question and responded to it with specificity. At no time in the interview did he appear to have had trouble hearing this or any other question. This excuse is not only brazenly dishonest, it is pathetically lame.

So Racist, Misogynist, NRA-Theist Ted Nugent Is A Flaming Anti-Semite Too

Posted by on February 8, 2016 at 8:45 pm. 6 Comments :

Has-been schlock-rocker, NRA board member, and Donald Trump suck-up, Ted Nugent, long ago demonstrated how virulently hateful he is with relentless and profane screeds against African-Americans, women, Latinos, Muslims, and pretty much anyone that doesn’t follow his noxious brand of wingnut, nativist, psycho-patriotism. And don’t forget that he abhors President Obama so much that he called him a “subhuman mongrel” and his assassination laden tirades brought the FBI to his door.

Ted Nugent

Now he has added another minority group to the honor roll of those who Ted Nugent despises. This time it’s Jews, a group that conservatives often pretend to like because the savior they prophesied is still expected to return and shuffle them all off to Heaven. However, before that happens, Nugent felt it necessary to publish a Facebook post that asked the pressing question “Who is really behind gun control?” His comment accompanying this image said…

“Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil, they would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP & BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax paid hired ARMED security!”

The image showed some prominent Jewish Americans with little Israeli flags pasted over them. Among those included are Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, and senators Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, and Barbara Boxer. The message is clear that Nugent is categorizing all Jews as opponents of his fetishized Second Amendment. And even worse, he is accusing them of hating freedom and conspiring to confiscate everyone’s guns. He is propagating a blatantly anti-Semitic and utterly false stereotype.

This is a common tactic among anti-Semites. They frequently seek to blame Jews for all of what they consider to be society’s ills. It’s either controlling the media, or owning all the banks, or pushing communism, or whatever these cretins happen to be obsessing over at the time.

The image itself has been floating around the InterTubes for years. Another version of it included even more of what they called “Gun Grabbing Traitor Jews.” Neo-Nazi organizations like Stormfront have used it to advance their hate-speech.

The Anti-Defamation League released a statement condemning Nugent and calling on him to remove the image from his Facebook page. They also said that…

“Nugent should be ashamed for promoting anti-Semitic content, and we hope that good people on both sides of the gun control debate will reject his tactics and his message.”

Setting aside the obviously disgusting nature of Nugent’s post, it also happens to be ridiculously untrue. While there are some gun safety advocates who happen to be Jewish, there are also Jewish proponents of the NRA. Some notables include former GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation Alan Gottlieb, and Sandy Froman, who actually served as the NRA’s president from 2005 to 2007, and is still a member of the board. This information, however, is steadfastly ignored by ignorant hate mongers like Nugent because it doesn’t fit their preferred narrative.

Nugent posted a subsequent message on Facebook after he was deluged with complaints about his Antisemitism. As might be expected, it was not an apology. He continued making insulting references as he defended himself, such as “Jews for guncontrol are nazis in disguise.” These are the sort of comments that he knows he can get away with because his sycophantic fans are even stupider than he is.

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

In case you were wondering, Nugent is himself a big fan of Donald Trump. SURPRISE! He called Trump “the hellraiser America has needed for a very longtime.” But don’t hold your breath waiting for Trump to disavow his anti-Semitic Facebook post. Trump recently said that he is not bothered by comparisons to Hitler and he is currently benefiting from a white supremacist Super PAC that campaigned for him Iowa and is doing so in New Hampshire as well. So why would he be bothered by this? He would probably consider Nugent for a cabinet post.

Update: Nugent just put out a wholly dishonest apology wherein he claims that he “made no connection whatsoever to any religious affiliation.” Really? The image was of twelve Jews with Israeli flags pasted on them and captions referincing “Jew York city.” After he was criticized for the posting he defended himself by saying that “Jews for guncontrol are nazis in disguise.” And now, apparently under some pressure, his apology claims that his posting had no religious affiliation? Yeah, right.

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.

So Now Donald Trump Is Re-Tweeting White Supremacists

Posted by on January 22, 2016 at 12:02 pm. 2 Comments :

Anyone who has been paying attention to the campaign of Donald Trump already knows that he is an unabashed racist who is supported by Ku Klux Klan groups and has white supremacists campaigning for him. Now we can also point to Trump himself re-tweeting his fellow white supremacists.

Donald Trump

The original tweet posted by a user named WhiteGenocideTM, said: “@WhiteGenocideTM: @realDonaldTrump Poor Jeb. I could’ve sworn I saw him outside Trump Tower the other day! “ So it was not exactly a secret that the tweeter was an openly racist douchebag. His Twitter page features incidents of various minorities assaulting white people. He is also promoting a pro-Hitler film.

There is simply no excuse for disseminating this sort of bigotry or engaging with its proponents. However, in context with Trump’s prior communications it is readily understood. News Corpse has previously reported that Trump is admired by KKK groups who see his candidacy as huge boost to their agenda:

“The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s.”

What’s more, white supremacist organizations are actively campaigning on Trump’s behalf. One group launched a robo-call operation to inform Iowans that Trump is their “Great White Hope” for 2016. The recorded message said…

“I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America. We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”

This is the sort of environment that the Trump campaign is deliberately fostering. His theme from the day he announced was rooted in racial politics and division. The only predictable outcome was the mainstreaming of the views of white supremacists and the advancement of their cause. In that regard, Trump has become their Grand Wizard and the most openly racist major party candidate for president in modern times. And his supporters are as guilty as he is. That will be the enduring legacy of campaign.

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

The (Master) Race For President: White Supremacists Are Campaigning For Donald Trump In Iowa

Posted by on January 9, 2016 at 9:29 pm. 1 Comments :

It is often said that you can judge the character of a man by the company he keeps. With that in mind it is illuminating to know that a notorious assembly of white supremacists have begun actively campaigning for Donald Trump in Iowa.

Donald Trump

A group led by American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor has launched a robo-call operation to inform Iowans that Trump is their “Great White Hope” for 2016. The recorded call says…

“I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America. We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”

American Renaissance is an openly racist organization that believes that whites are superior to other races. They are affiliated with other racist hate groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. It’s easy to understand why this group is backing Trump. His campaign has been a rallying cry for America’s bigots who see him as a candidate that has their supremacist interests at heart.

This isn’t a new development for the Trump campaign. From the day he announced his candidacy he has appealed to bigots by disparaging anyone who was not a white European. He called Latinos rapists and murderers. He falsely claimed that 81% of whites murdered in America were killed by African-Americans (The correct number is 16%. 82% of whites were killed by whites). He has proposed a ban on all Muslims coming into the country. Just yesterday he ejected a Muslim woman from one of his rallies, which sent his supporters into a frenzy of hateful abuse aimed at her as she was escorted out.

Is it any wonder why racist groups like American Renaissance would endorse Trump? Last month Politico published an in-depth article detailing the broad-based admiration for Trump among America’s white supremacists. The article revealed that…

“The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s.”

Surprisingly, despite Trump’s overt hostility he continues to insist that he will win the votes of African-Americans and Latinos. That is a demonstration of what may be the most advanced case of self-delusion on record. Not only is he oblivious to the impact his hate-speech has on the minority communities he despises, he is unable to recognize the correlation of his hateful rhetoric to the type of racist supporters he attracts.

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

Given the severity of Trump’s tunnel-blindness, it is unrealistic to expect him to comprehend the reasons that white supremacists are flocking to his campaign. But his supporters who were attracted by his celebrity, and the phony facade of an anti-establishment outsider, ought to wake up and notice with whom they are rubbing shoulders. They should realize that if the KKK is campaigning for Trump, maybe they ought to reconsider their own support. And if they don’t, then they should not complain when the rest of the country classifies them as the same sort of crackpots who are propping up The Donald and his vile agenda of bigotry.

SNL’s Michael Che On Donald Trump’s “Phone Sex” Appeal To Racist Republicans

Posted by on December 13, 2015 at 3:36 pm. NO Comments :

Just as some portion of the mainstream media is beginning to report accurately on the overt racism of Donald Trump, Michael Che of Saturday Night Live comes up with an alternate theory that makes sense:

“At this point Trump is the political equivalent of a phone sex operator. He’s just whispering whatever dirty little racist fantasies Republicans want to hear.”

trump-phone-sex

The segment on last night’s SNL Weekend Update is one of the funniest bits of the whole campaign season. Che’s premise is that Trump is not actually racist at all, despite all the evidence pouring out of his own mouth. Che notes Trump’s prior associations with people like Don King and Apprentice contestant Omarosa. He says that…

“I don’t believe that Donald Trump is a racist. He’s just pandering to the most prejudiced segment of the country. He’s hustling them. […] None of what he’s saying is true. You don’t just develop racism overnight on the campaign trail. Racism is embedded deep down in a person’s soul. I’ve looked into that man’s eyes. Donald Trump doesn’t have a soul.”

Indeed, Trump appears to have no moral center. His positions on issues have spun wildly from being pro-choice to total opposition to any abortion; from advocating tax increases for the wealthy to proposing across-the-board tax cuts; from favoring universal health care to dismissing ObamaCare as a disaster; from floating an isolationist foreign policy just a few weeks ago that would have Russia fighting with Syria against ISIS to his new promise to “bomb the shit out of ISIS?” He even praised Hillary Clinton effusively calling her a “terrific woman,” but he now says that she was “the worst Secretary of State in the history of the United States.”

Either Trump is nursing multiple personalities or he is just adopting positions that he thinks he can exploit to advance his craving for power and adulation. He does have an eager audience among ill-informed Tea Party discontents who don’t mind being lied to (see the Trump Bullsitopedia for a growing catalog of his lies). In fact, like the phone sex patron, it seems to turn them on. They have an uncanny ability to let their imaginations subsume reality so long as it satisfies their political lusts.

However, it doesn’t seem possible that someone could so fiercely promulgate such ugly rhetoric without that sort of bigotry being ingrained in them. A decent, tolerant person with respect for others would choke and stammer trying to say the hateful things that comprise Trump’s platform. Trump says them with such confidence and certainty that he could not possibly be putting it on. Perhaps Che’s contention that Trump lacks a soul could account for his being able to pitch this hate speech. But either way it means that he is fully capable of harboring the most vile forms of bigotry. And Che is addressing it in what may be the most effective way – with ridicule.

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

WTF? Donald Trump Backed By KKK, Thinks He’ll Win 100% Of Black Vote

Posted by on December 11, 2015 at 3:11 pm. 9 Comments :

There is a point at which Donald Trump’s repugnant reality TV persona crosses over the line from merely hateful, nativist demagoguery to psychopathic delusion. Some will argue that the line was crossed long ago, but whatever doubt remains has just been obliterated.

Donald Trump

Yesterday Politico published an in-depth article detailing the broad-based admiration for Trump among America’s white supremacists. That ought not to come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Trump’s campaign. On the day he announced that he was running he slandered Latinos by characterizing Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers. He went on to insult pretty much every minority constituency in the nation, culminating with his most recent racist and unconstitutional proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country. These views have resulted in a surge of support from the KKK crowd. From Politico:

“The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s.”

Indeed, Trump has made it easier for bigots to come out of the closet and proudly exalt their white heritage over the minorities they fear and regard as inferior. Given his overtly racist rhetoric, that is not surprising. What is surprising is that Trump’s campaign not only doesn’t think he will be hurt by his hate speech, but what they actually believe they can achieve is mind-boggling. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney and executive vice president at the Trump Organization, told Yahoo News…

When asked how much of the African-American vote the campaign wants to win, Cohen had a perfectly Trumpian answer: All of it. “Our goal is 100 percent.”

That’s right. 100%! If that isn’t a symptom of megalomaniacal psychosis than Napoleon was a misunderstood wallflower. Trump would be exceedingly fortunate with a showing in the teens. He has done nothing but alienate black voters. A recent meeting he held with black pastors turned into an embarrassing affair after he told the press that they were endorsing him. Many of them had to correct the record and very few ended up making an endorsement. But Cohen went on to make an observation that touched on the truth at the beginning, but then fell completely apart.

According to Cohen, Trump needs to win black voters because other minority groups won’t support him: “The truth, yeah, I’m trying to coordinate it because I am mindful of the fact that, you know, there are coalitions and I’m talking about now like Hispanic coalitions that … will not support Trump,” Cohen explained. “And that’s OK because the ones that don’t like Trump aren’t even here legally and they can’t vote, so it doesn’t really matter, right?”

This doesn’t even make sense. Cohen is saying that Trump needs to pack in black voters to replace Latinos who will not vote for him. To the extent that he needs to find constituencies to replace those he’s insulted, that’s true. But then he asserts that those Latinos he’s lost can’t vote anyway. So according to his own warped logic, there aren’t really any lost votes that need to be replaced by African-Americans. And setting aside the incoherence of that logic, he is further demeaning Latino-Americans by accusing them all of being here illegally. But not only are they a significant percentage of the citizen population, they are the fastest growing voter demographic in the nation.

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

This would be a good time to remember that Trump had previously asserted that, despite his hostile rhetoric, he intended to win the Latino vote as well. Back in July he said that…

“I have a great relationship with the Mexican people. I have many people working for me […] They love me, I love them. And I’ll tell you something, if I get the nomination, I’ll win the Latino vote.”

See? He loves them. And they love him because they work for him. And everybody loves their boss, don’t they? Especially bosses who insult you and treat you like crap (A few days ago employees of Trump’s International Hotel in Las Vegas voted to unionize in order to attain fair wages, respect, and dignity). Apparently, now that great relationship with Mexicans has soured. Although he still has his great relationship with “the blacks,” as he calls them. At least until he decides to throw them overboard too. But none of this better get back to the Klan, the only group in this story that is actually supporting Trump’s candidacy.

Fox Nation Promotes A Racist Hate Group’s Twisted Defense Of Donald Trump

Posted by on December 9, 2015 at 8:17 pm. 3 Comments :

FrontPage Mag, the online organ of David Horowitz’s right-wing Freedom Center, regularly publishes virulently anti-Muslim screeds intended to spread disinformation and fear. Horowitz is a radical rightist who has been called “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. His organization is a fringe assembly of wingnuts that is tied to notorious Islamophobes like Pamela Gellar and Daniel Pipes. And that makes it a perfect source for the bigots at Fox Nation.

Seeking to shore up Donald Trump’s widely lambasted proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, FrontPage reached back thirty-five years to post an article titled “Jimmy Carter Banned Iranians from Coming to the U.S. During the Hostage Crisis.” The apparent purpose is to exonerate Trump by suggesting that Carter did the same thing. There’s just one little problem: It isn’t the same thing at all.

Fox Nation

It takes a deliberately obtuse individual to find any similarity between what President Carter did when Americans were being held captive in Iran, and what Trump is proposing now. Iran is a sovereign nation with an identifiable and accessible governing body. In 1979, in what became known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis, students, with the support of the government, took over the American embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two diplomats hostage. Responding to that act of terrorism, Carter implemented a series of sanctions against the nation of Iran to pressure them to release the hostages.

Among the measures taken by Carter was the breaking off of diplomatic relations, suspension of trade, freezing financial assets, and this one that was included in the FrontPage article to vindicate Trump:

“Invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires.”

That is what FrontPage and the Fox Nationalists think is comparable to Trump’s desire to prohibit all Muslims, from all nations, from entering the U.S. based on their religion. Carter was imposing sanctions on the citizens of a country that was unlawfully detaining Americans. That is a reasonable reaction to an act of aggression by sovereign state. It is how diplomacy is conducted in order to pressure an antagonistic country into complying with international law.

Trump, on the other hand, is advocating a ban on all individuals of a particular faith. They may have nothing to do with any other nation or entity that is in conflict with the U.S. They may, in fact, be supporters of the U.S. who seek to travel here in order to help in the fight against terrorism. They may be doctors or scientists or teachers who cherish Western freedoms. They may be diplomats or politicians from Canada or Italy or Indonesia. They may be relatives of American Muslims who simply want to visit or reunite with their families. The one identifying characteristic prohibiting them from entry under Trump’s proposal is their religion.

That sort of religious bigotry is antithetical to everything for which America stands. It violates the very principles that inspired the first Europeans to venture to a New World. And, unlike the sanctions imposed by Carter, there is no discernible benefit that could be derived from imposing it. Nevertheless, here is the nearly incoherent argument offered by FrontPage:

“Now unlike Muslims, Iranians were not necessarily supportive of Islamic terrorism. Many were and are opponents of it. Khomeini didn’t represent Iran as a country, but his Islamist allies. So Trump’s proposal is far more legitimate than Carter’s action. Carter targeted people by nationality. Trump’s proposal does so by ideology. […] Classifying Iranians as a group is closer to racism than classifying people by a racist supremacist ideology that calls for the mass murder and enslavement of non-Muslims, as ISIS is doing today.”

To set the bar for idiocy as low as possible, the very first sentence of their argument implies that all Muslims are “supportive of Islamic terrorism.” They go on to make the absurd contention that “Khomeini didn’t represent Iran as a country.” WTF? And based on those ludicrous assertions, they conclude that Trump’s proposal is “far more legitimate than Carter’s.” This is literally too stupid to respond to.

But they aren’t done embarrassing themselves. The next half-baked notion they float is that targeting citizens of a nation with which you are in conflict is racist, which by definition, it is not. At the same time they dismiss that notion that targeting people by religion is racist, which by definition it is. And they close by again implying that all Muslims practice the sort of perversion of Islam that is practiced by ISIS.

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

This is the sort of garbage “journalism” that Fox News has chosen to pluck out of the hate mongering fringe in order to defend Donald Trump. That tells you just how desperate they are to maintain their appeal to Trump’s bigoted supporters. It is a marriage made in hell that only furthers the interests of America’s enemies.