Fox News

Fox News in a Coma: ‘Nobody Was Asking Hillary Clinton About the Guy that She’s Married To’

Posted by on April 23, 2018 at 1:40 pm. 2 Comments :

If you thought that Fox News had run out of ways to shock people with examples of acute obliviousness, you might wanna sit down. The network that relentlessly pumps out provably false stories despite having been debunked – sometimes by their own reporters – still manages to find ways to sink ever lower into states of purposeful amnesia. Their corporate mission has always been to accuse other news networks of bias, ignoring the fact that they were created to be a flagrantly partisan mouthpiece of conservatives and the Republican Party.

Hillary Clinton

On Sunday’s “State of the Union” on CNN, Donald Trump’s Senior Shill, Kellyanne Conway, was interviewed by Dana Bash. Part of the discussion included an inquiry about Conway’s husband, George, who had curiously posted a number of tweets that were critical of Donald Trump. Conway feigned offense to this question and replied:

“We’re now going to talk about other people’s spouses and significant others just because they either work at the White House or CNN? Are we going to do that? You just went there. […] There has been a different standard for me than there have been for other people.”

Conway’s complaint is particularly absurd considering that less than a week ago she brought up the political leanings of the spouse and children of former FBI Director James Comey in an attempt to discredit him. However, there is plenty of available evidence that other political spouses have encountered the same line of questioning. The notion that she was subject to a double standard could not be more ridiculous.

Well, perhaps it can get more ludicrous. And leave it to Fox News to find a way to achieve that. On Monday morning, anchor Jon Scott led a panel in a discussion of Conway’s weekend remarks. His defense of Conway was typical of the wingnut cognitive breakdown that Fox News specializes in. He actually said that:

“Nobody was asking Hillary Clinton about the guy that she’s married to. It does seem that sometimes there’s a double standard in that regard.”

Did have a stroke? Was he in a Turkish prison for the last few years? There is something terribly wrong with someone who is supposed to be familiar with politics and current events who could make such a statement. Hardly a day went by when Hillary Clinton was not asked about her husband, Bill. And one of the most prominent inquisitors was Donald Trump. He even brought four women who alleged that Bill Clinton sexually harassed them to a debate in St. Louis.

And it wasn’t just Trump asking about Bill. The media was all over it. Two months before the election Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted an article by Buzzfeed that she said was a “Pretty detailed read on Juanita Broaddrick’s long-ago allegations against Bill Clinton.” That’s the same Maggie Haberman who Trump attacked this weekend as being “a third rate reporter” and “a Crooked H flunkie.”

How Jon Scott could not know that Bill Clinton was a constant topic of both the media and the Trump campaign during the election is unimaginable. Which is probably the best evidence that he does know, he’s just lying. And the sad thing is that Fox News viewers are so delusional and hypnotized by their Tele-Master that they won’t question this glaringly preposterous comment. They’ll just nod obediently and absorb the lies like they always do.

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

LOL: GOP Fundraiser Lost Money Due to Big Payouts to Trump Golf Club and Fox News Speaker

Posted by on April 22, 2018 at 2:51 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party is struggling to stay afloat in this Era of Trump. The President has been an anchor around the necks of many GOP office holders and candidates. An unprecedented number of Republican members of Congress (over 40) have already resigned or announced that they will not be running for reelection. And this is a year during which they control all three branches of the federal government.

Donald Trump

Republicans still in the game have been hurt in the pocketbook this year. they are raising significantly less money than Democrats and everyone, regardless of party affiliation, is expecting a “blue wave” to sweep Washington come November.

So it doesn’t help when when Republicans stage fundraisers where they actually spend more money then they take in. But that’s what happened in Morris Country, New Jersey in February. And the reasons for the shortfall were emblematic of the con game mentality that dominates the tenor of Donald Trump’s Washington. The New Jersey Globe reports that:

“Morris County Republicans lost money on their winter fundraiser at Trump National Golf Club and have a paltry $13,956 in their warchest […] The county GOP organization raised $58,335 at an event that cost them more than $64,000. They spent $24,487 at Trump National and paid Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld $30,000 to speak.”

That’s right. The reason that the party fundraiser is in the red is because Trump’s facility and a Fox News hack took all their profits. Both Trump and Fox News ought to be conscious of the impact they are having on the electoral prospects of their political allies. They surely don’t want Democrats to win in these races that are considered competitive. But in both cases Trump and Gutfeld seem to be more devoted to their own greed than to their political values. Which is actually consistent with their political values.

The article in the Globe closed with an additional bit of information that makes this embarrassing event look even worse:

“At the February fundraiser, Republicans teased potential donors with the idea that President Trump would attend as a surprise guest – even asking for social security numbers in advance, something that would suggest a presidential appearance. Trump was at Mar-a-Lago and there was little possibility that he would be in New Jersey for President’s Day weekend.”

So this money losing affair flopped even after they tried to fool people into thinking that they might get to rub elbows with their Dear Leader. Apparently Trump wasn’t a sufficient draw to turn around the prospects of this debacle. But at least he made a few thousand bucks off of it. And so did Fox’s Gutfeld. So it wasn’t a total loss. Unless you’re a Republican candidate in Morris County. Here’s hoping the GOP will put on more of these events. Trump and Fox News shills can always use the extra cash.

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

HUH? Fox News Wonders ‘How Can Professional Commentators Go On the Air and Speculate?’

Posted by on April 22, 2018 at 12:40 pm. NO Comments :

From its inception, Fox News was determined to disguise their political biases. They fashioned a network that they would claim is “fair and balanced,” but would never even attempt to live up to that standard. Last year they finally abandoned that slogan and replaced it with one that was obviously and shamelessly inspired by Donald Trump’s anti-media histrionics: “Real News.”

Fox News, Howard Kurtz

So it isn’t surprising when the chief media correspondent on Fox News, Howard Kurtz, would host a discussion on his show about media bias that flagrantly ignores it own ethical breaches. Sunday’s episode of MediaBuzz delved into the controversy surrounding Fox News host, and official Trump-fluffer, Sean Hannity. This week Hannity was revealed in court to be another client of Trump’s beleaguered attorney, Michael Cohen. He vehemently denied that which, in effect, means that he’s calling Cohen a liar. That’s something that Trump himself seems to be preparing to do.

Kurtz was disturbed by the media reaction to Hannity’s unambiguous ethical lapses (video below). Primarily, he found fault with the coverage of this story by his competitors on cable news. He led off the conversation saying that:

“In the aftermath, and it was such intense media reaction to this, a couple of people went on the air on other cable news channels and kind of just got out there.”

As examples of this alleged “outness,” Kurtz played video of two guests that appeared on MSNBC, but no other cable news channels. They raised questions about the undeniably conflicted relationship between Hannity and Cohen. The guests were Danielle Moodie-Mills, a SiriusXM talk show host, and Jennifer Rubin, a conservative opinion columnist from the Washington Post. Both observed the coincidence that Hannity had secured the services of Cohen, a “fixer” who had facilitated payoffs to the mistresses of his other clients (Trump and RNC official Elliot Broidy).

Since Hannity refused to disclose the nature of his relationship with Cohen, it’s entirely fair for pundits to assemble available data and offer analyses that seek to provide a coherent explanation. But that’s not how Kurtz sees it. He asked his guest, Shelby Holliday of the Wall Street Journal:

“How can professional commentators go on the air and speculate, without a shred of evidence right after this happened, that ‘Oh, there must have been a woman involved or something’ and there is absolutely no evidence to support it?”

Seriously? This is Fox News wondering whether it’s appropriate to speculate about public figures. It’s the network that spent years asserting that Barack Obama was an illegitimate president due his birth in Kenya. It’s the network that tried to blame Hillary Clinton for deliberately causing the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi. It’s the network that advanced wild conspiracy theories like the child sex slave ring in the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor. And it’s the network that pushed ludicrous allegations that DNC employee Seth Rich’s murder was a clandestine, “Deep State” political assassination. That last one was Hannity’s baby. And those are just a few of Fox’s innumerable adventures in ridiculous and defamatory speculation.

Holliday responded to Kurtz’s inquiry by agreeing that “Journalistically that’s out of bounds. No reporters or news people should be speculating like that.” Of course, the examples that Kurtz played were opinion commentators, not reporters. And to her credit, Holliday did point that out to Kurtz. But Kurtz shot back that “Fine. You can criticize him all you want, but you can’t make stuff up and speculate.”

Well, thanks for that completely obvious and, for Fox News, hypocritical advice. Being told by Fox not to speculate is like being told by Donald Trump not to lie. And the fact that their specialist in media is so woefully lacking in self-awareness makes anything he has to say about the press unworthy of consideration. It’s asinine comments like these that make laughter the only appropriate response to anything Fox News says.

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

SRSLY? On Fox News Loopy Trump-Fluffers ‘Diamond and Silk’ Pass For Legitimate Journalists

Posted by on April 21, 2018 at 10:18 am. 1 Comments :

It’s been a bad year for Fox News. Donald Trump, the presidential figurehead they’ve been propping up for the past year, keeps swirling the legal drain on the way to the sewer of disgrace. Perhaps reflecting that downward spiral, Fox’s primetime ratings nosedived fifteen percent in February year over year. And while their revenue rose by about seventeen percent, that’s a pitiful performance when compared to their competitors: CNN’s rose thirty-two percent, and MSNBC rocketed up sixty-two percent.

Fox News, Diamond and Silk

What’s more, the on-air “talent” at Fox News aint what it used to be. Bill O’Reilly was fired for repeated incidents of sexual harassment and abuse. Megyn Kelly fled perverts like O’Reilly for NBC. So now Fox has to rely on the smug, white nationalism of Tucker Carlson, the elitist bullying of Laura Ingraham, and whatever the hell Sean Hannity is. All three have been digging deeper into the conspiracy theory territory of crackpots like Alex Jones. Fox News has never been a haven for reputable journalists who took their jobs seriously. But their distance from credibility has lately grown to titanic proportions (in more ways than one).

There is no better indicator of that than the rise of two sisters from North Carolina, Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, better known to Fox viewers as “Diamond and Silk.” After having made a name for themselves at Trump rallies (and being paid by his campaign to do so), D&S have become familiar faces on Fox News throughout the broadcast day. In recent weeks they have appeared on Fox and Friends, Watters World, the Ingraham Angle, and Cavuto. No Republican politician or pundit has had the blanket bookings that D&S have managed. Never mind that they have no discernible expertise in anything. They are brought on to opine about the economy, North Korea, immigration, healthcare, the legal intricacies of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and more. This from a network that’s determined to strip away the First Amendment rights of socially active celebrities and athletes, and even student survivors of mass shootings.

Let’s not mince words here. These women are clowns. They appear in tandem to interject “amens” and “that’s rights” to augment whatever the other is saying. Their clothing, makeup, and accessories are straight from the Barnum and Bailey Collection. And their patter is strictly scripted to praise Donald Trump as America’s “Master” of Ceremonies. He even thanked them in one his numerous tweets about them. Some of the past D&S episodes on Fox include:

  • Diamond and Silk: Democrats can’t have everything their way.
  • Diamond and Silk: Jay-Z needs to respect this president.
  • Diamond and Silk: The president’s agenda gets an A+.
  • Diamond and Silk: The hypocrisy on the left is so real.
  • Diamond and Silk: Get behind your president and his agenda.

Recently, Cubic Zirconia and Sackcloth have been emitting high decibel whining on Fox News due to what they contend is a bias against conservatives by social media platforms like Facebook and Google. They are apparently ignorant of the recent changes by tech media to combat actual “fake” news and the efforts by hostile foreign nations to infiltrate and disrupt our media and democracy. D&S think that the audience decline being experienced by every online publisher is specific to them alone. Poor babies.

So these yammering yokels have been making the rounds on Fox News to complain that they are the victims of censorship. Typically, their complaints are front loaded with lies. But it’s just the sort of bullpucky that Fox hosts and viewers devour whole. As a result, their phony travails were even cited during the congressional hearings featuring Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. Five Republicans (Ted Cruz, Joe Barton, Marsha Blackburn, Steve Scalise, Billy Long) were duped into posing questions about D&S.

But if you think that was bad, wait until you see them testifying in person before Congress. That’s right, in an appearance on Fox and Friends Friday, D&S announced that they would be testifying about their imaginary conservative bias online at a House Judiciary Committee hearing next week. Has America really sunk this low? A couple of embarrassingly ridiculous bumpkins, with no experience in anything but ranting annoyingly, are about to be interviewed by our representatives in Washington.

Diamond and Silk are being accorded a measure of respect by Republicans in Washington they haven’t earned and don’t deserve. But then that’s exactly what Fox News has been doing for months. They’ve gone from tantrum throwing political rage-a-holics like Sean Hannity to these insipid, half-witted nobodies. It’s a clear sign that the direction Fox News is heading is for ever lower respect for intelligence and reality-based journalism. In other words: Same as it always was.

Update: D&S had their day on Capitol Hill and predictably embarrassed themselves and the Republicans who invited them to make a circus of Congress.

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

Oblivious GOP Guest Tells Fox News that ‘Democrats Must Stop Calling Opponents Criminals’

Posted by on April 20, 2018 at 1:05 pm. 2 Comments :

Hypocrisy is a common symptom of political pundits and politicians on both sides of the aisle. But there are times when the hypocrisy of starkly partisan shills goes completely off the rails. This is often seen on Fox News, the natural habitat of partisan hypocrites.

Fox News, Ari Fleischer

On Friday’s episode of Outnumbered, the featured “One Lucky Guy” (as they call their rotating guests) was former George W. Bush press secretary, Ari Fleischer. They were discussing the just filed lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee charging that the Russians, Wikileaks, and Donald Trump conspired to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. Near the end of the segment Fleischer decides to get all principled with a general denunciation of criminalizing politics:

Ari Fleischer: “Let me elevate all of this. This country has got to stop accusing its opponents of being criminals. I defended Barack Obama when Donald Trump said that he was illegitimate and born in Kenya. I don’t like saying the people you oppose on ideology are illegitimate. And now the Democrats are doing it to Donald Trump. The country has got to stop this.
Marie Harf: That’s just exactly what Donald Trump did. He’s still calling for his opponents to be jailed. So it’s not just Democrats who are doing it. It starts at the top.

First of all, there is no proof that he actually did defend Obama on the birther lies. In fact, in a tweet he declined to seek an apology from Trump for those conspiracy theories, and then tried to blame them on Hillary Clinton, which was a right-wing lie.

Fox News headlined this exchange on their website as “Democrats Must Stop Calling Opponents Criminals.” They linked to the video of the segment (posted below) to support their blatantly biased assertion that it is Democrats who are responsible for these rhetorical offenses. However, as Harf managed to squeeze in at the end of the segment, there is someone else who may bear some of the responsibility:

Just thought that we should set the record straight. And while we’re at it, the allegations against Trump are not the work of partisan Democrats. He is being investigated by a special counsel (Robert Mueller), a Republican who was appointed by a Republican Deputy Attorney General, who was appointed by Trump and works for the Republican Attorney General. And virtually all of the witnesses in the Russian probe are also Republicans. So there’s that.

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

Fox News Fetishes Over Their False Claim that CNN Fetishes Over Trump’s Fetishes

Posted by on April 18, 2018 at 12:11 pm. NO Comments :

Last year an opposition research document compiled by a respected British intelligence operative surfaced that is still generating news. Known now as the “Steele Dossier,” it contained a wealth of information about Donald Trump that was both substantive and disturbing. And a small bit of it that was rather salacious. So guess which part drove Trump to distraction?

Fox News/Playboy

The findings that Christopher Steele included in his dossier placing Trump in a Moscow hotel with prostitutes have assumed an undue prominence in much of the press. No one should be surprised by that in a society that made Kim Kardashian a pop culture phenomenon. Fox News is no exception, as they frequently hyped up reports of hookers urinating on the bed in Trump’s hotel room as he watched from safe distance. Especially Sean Hannity, who can’t seem to keep his mind off of it (see video below).

Despite their own perverse complicity, Fox News is boldly calling out CNN for reporting on the very same subject. In effect, they are whining that their own salacious reporting isn’t doing as well as the salacious reporting by their competitors. Their media reporter, Brian Flood, is asserting that this “puts CNN coverage in the toilet.” He doesn’t say where it puts Fox’s coverage.

His arguments are strained, to say the least. He leads off by swinging at CNN boss Jeff Zucker, who he says “continues to focus on adult film stars and lurid claims about President Trump’s alleged activities in a Moscow hotel room.” In the same opening paragraph Flood baselessly claims that the “pornographic video probably does not exist.”

Flood disgorges the familiar Fox News talking points that the dossier is unverified (that’s not true) and that it was the basis for warrant to spy on Trump’s campaign (also untrue). Then he goes on to cite the number of times that the “pee tape” was mentioned on CNN over a finite period of time. Those stats came from the ultra-rightist media bashers at the Media Research Center.

The conclusion that Flood draws from his overtly biased sources and analysis is that CNN’s ratings have been severely damaged by their attention to this undeniable newsworthy story. He says that:

“The result of Zucker’s strategy has been a president of the United States who often refers to CNN as ‘fake news’ on a regular basis, while the network regularly loses to MSNBC when it comes to ratings.”

Of course, Trump called CNN, and the rest of the media that is appropriately critical, fake news long before this story broke. It has been a part of his public diatribe dating back to his campaign and his assertions that the media is the “enemy of the American people.” And CNN’s ratings, while trailing MSNBC and Fox, have never been better. So that doesn’t square with Flood’s claim that this story has hurt CNN.

What’s more, Flood completely ignores the fact that MSNBNC does similar reports on Trump’s “pee tape” escapades. And MSNBC is regularly beating Fox News in the ratings war. Especially Rachel Maddow who has taken the lead as the number one cable news program, leaving Sean Hannity without a pot to piss in.

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

Fox News is Totally Cool with Sean Hannity’s Unethical Shilling for His Lawyer Michael Cohen

Posted by on April 17, 2018 at 2:18 pm. 2 Comments :

On Monday a shocking courtroom drama played out during a hearing for Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. After previously refusing to disclose the name of one of his clients, he relented and announced that the secret client was Fox News host Sean Hannity. After those in attendance regained their composure, the media lit up with tales of the obvious violations of ethics from everyone involved.

Fox News Sean Hannity

It took Fox News another day to come up with a response to this calamity. But the extra time they devoted to it didn’t seem to help them manufacture a satisfactory excuse. All they could muster was a weak attempt to hold themselves blameless and free pass for Hannity to continue being a complete sleazeball. They said that:

“While FOX News was unaware of Sean Hannity’s informal relationship with Michael Cohen and was surprised by the announcement in court yesterday, we have reviewed the matter and spoken to Sean and he continues to have our full support.”

Let’s break that down. First of all, Fox News is admitting that they have no idea what Hannity is up to. Obviously he never bothered to tell is bosses that he was in violation of common principles of media ethics. That failure to alert the executives in charge was, by itself, a fireable offense. No media enterprise should ever be “surprised” like this.

Secondly, what Fox is so cavalierly looking the other way about is a complex web of immorality and deceit. Cohen told the court that Hannity is his client. Hannity denied that. In effect, he is calling Cohen a liar. Plus, Hannity insists that Cohen isn’t his lawyer, but still says he should have attorney-client privileges. For that privilege to be in effect, there has to be an attorney and a client. Also, Hannity said that he never paid Cohen anything for his advice. Well, except for the time he slipped him ten bucks to invoke the privacy of an attorney-client relationship that he said he didn’t have. But what is he trying to keep private if the only thing he said he ever discussed with Cohen was real estate?

And why did Cohen try so hard to keep Hannity’s name a secret at the hearing? Does it have anything to do with Cohen’s specialty of facilitating hush money payoffs to mistresses of his famous clients? Or could there be some connection between Hannity and Cohen’s other client, Donald Trump, that they need to keep on the down low? Or maybe even some link between Hannity and Russia? Who knows?

Certainly not Fox News. At least they didn’t know before, and if they know now they aren’t saying. They also aren’t doing anything about it despite all of the blatant misbehavior noted above. Never the mind the beating they are taking in the press. For instance, the Washington Post published an article saying that it’s “Time for Fox News to investigate Sean Hannity.” Time Magazine is asking “Can Sean Hannity and Fox News Cover Michael Cohen Fairly?” Even Trump defender Alen Dershowitz called out Hannity on his own show saying “I do want to say that I really think that you should have disclosed your relationship with Cohen when you talked about him on this show.”

Fox News has already lost too many top prime time stars to take a chance with their current ratings king. Bill O’Reilly was fired due to his serial sexual harassment and abuse. Megyn Kelly ditched Fox for NBC in part due to O’Reilly and other Fox perverts. Laura Ingraham is currently suffering a hemorrhage of advertisers after she attacked David Hogg, the high schooler who survived the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Hannity would be getting off scot-free in under any circumstances because Fox is a den of iniquity and doesn’t care if their standard bearers are slimeballs. But he’s also benefiting because Fox is running out of replacement shills. If they were smart they’d give Hannity the heave-ho – not just because he committed unforgivably unethical acts – but because he’s losing to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. That should be the biggest embarrassment to Fox News that you would think they wouldn’t tolerate. They must really be hard up to let that go by.

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

The Plot Sickens: Sean Hannity is Revealed to Be Michael Cohen’s Secret Third Client

Posted by on April 16, 2018 at 12:43 pm. 6 Comments :

It is getting ridiculous how much the phrase “You just can’t make this up,” is applicable to Donald Trump’s administration. But the news on Monday morning definitely applies. As Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen headed back to court for a hearing to suppress materials seized during the raid on his office and home, the surprise was supposed to be the presence of Stormy Daniels. That’s not how it worked out.

Sean Hannity Fox News

Prior to this hearing Cohen was ordered by the judge to disclose the three clients that he claimed to be representing. There was some dispute as to whether Cohen was actually doing any legal work. So Cohen supplied the names of Donald Trump and Elliot Broidy. Broidy just resigned from his post at the Republican National Committee after it was disclosed that he paid $1.6 million to a Playboy Playmate to hide his affair. Cohen facilitated that payoff.

However, Cohen’s lawyers declined to reveal the name of the third client. Until now. And it turned out to be Fox News host Sean Hannity. According to reports:

In their letter to Wood, Cohen’s lawyers said he had given legal advice or handled dispute resolution for three clients since 2017: Trump, venture capitalist Eliot Broidy and another person.

Broidy on Friday resigned from his post as deputy finance chair at the Republican National Committee after it was revealed that Cohen had helped arrange Broidy’s $1.6 million payment to a Playboy model in exchange for her silence about their affair and her pregnancy, which was aborted.

“The third legal client directed Mr. Cohen to not to reveal their identity publicly,” Cohen’s lawyers wrote to Wood.

The lawyers added, “As to the one unnamed legal client, we do not believe that Mr. Cohen should be asked to reveal the name or can permissibly do so.”

Cohen’s lawyers argued that identifying the third client was “likely to be embarrassing or detrimental to the client.” No kidding. At this time it is not known what matters Cohen was representing Hannity on. But the fact that he served as the conduit for payments to mistresses for his other two clients is more than a little suspicious.

Hannity has been the most fiercely loyal Trump-fluffer on Fox News. But he has also taken positions defending Cohen since the U.S. Attorney in New York raided his offices. For instance:

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/984242895300579330

The fact that Hannity and Trump share a lawyer cuts deeply into his ability to continue reporting on the President. There has to be a complete accounting of the relationships and any legal crossover. And it has to go more in depth than it’s just the “Deep State” attacking him and Trump.

Now there will have to be some response from Fox News. Is it possible for Hannity to continue doing commentaries about Cohen and Trump considering the obvious conflict of interest and overt bias that these relationships represent? Can Fox even keep him on the air? At the very least the network has to get a more complete disclosure from Hannity in order to discern if he has been violating any network codes of conduct. Of course, it is Fox News so they may decide to do nothing simply because their ethics are no better than Hannity’s.

UPDATE: Hannity is saying that he has asked Cohen for legal advice, but he was never his client and was never billed. In effect he’s calling Cohen a liar because Cohen told the court that Hannity is his “client.”

And Hannity has actually interviewed Cohen on his show (here and here) without disclosing that he was interviewing his own lawyer.

And Hannity has been in litigation with a woman who asserts sexual misconduct.

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

Trump Told Fox News that the U.S. is Just as Bad as Russia and Tried to Make Comey Agree

Posted by on April 16, 2018 at 11:18 am. NO Comments :

The ABC interview of James Comey Sunday night had some juicy quotables. The interview precedes the release of his book, A Higher Loyalty, which is currently number one on Amazon. Comey’s opinion that Donald Trump is “morally unfit to be president” seems to be getting the most play in the morning-after media. But Comey also introduced several “possibilities” that are hard to ignore. He said that it’s possible that Trump is “compromised by the Russians.” He said that there is possible evidence of Trump obstructing justice. And he said that it is possible that Trump “was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow.”

Comey Trump

All of those are harrowing thoughts when applied to the President of the United States. And particularly so when they come from one of the highest law enforcement officials in the American federal government. The harmful prospects implied by those remarks cannot be overstated. And they will surely play a part in the unfolding investigation being conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

In addition, there was a surprising allusion to Trump’s favorite cable news network, Fox News. It reveals the extent to which he is preoccupied with everything he sees and hears from his shadow policy advisors on the network, who too often become his actual White House advisors. The exchange occurred when George Stephanopoulos asked Trump about his relationship with Vladimir Putin, a unambiguously brutal dictator who Trump has never been able to say a single bad word about. This is what ensued (transcript here, video below):

“The Super Bowl pre-game show where– and I hadn’t asked any questions about this, but the president was just talking about it, he had given an answer to Bill O’Reilly that had been much criticized across the political spectrum when he had said, in response to a question, that he respected Vladimir Putin and said, ‘That doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him.’

“And then O’Reilly responded, ‘But he’s a killer.” And the president responded, in substance, “But we’re killers, too. You think our country’s so innocent.’ I forget the exact words, but that’s the gist of it. And that moral equivalence, between the people of our government and Putin’s thugs, had generated a lot of controversy. […]

“He was telling me it was a good answer and then said – gave me an opening by saying, ‘You think it was a great answer. You think it was a good answer.’ And then he was starting to move on. And I jumped in and I said, ‘Mr. President, the first part of the answer was fine, not the second part. We’re not the kind of killers that Putin is.’

And when I said that, the weather changed in the room. And like a shadow crossed his face and his eyes got this strange, kinda hard look. And I thought in that moment, ‘I’ve just done something unusual maybe.’ And then (SNAP) it passed and the meeting was over. And, ‘Thanks for coming in,’ and – and Priebus walked me out.”

Comey regarded that exchange as having an unintended positive result. He said that “by interrupting him and also criticizing him to his face,” it ended any personal relationship between him and Trump. It allowed him to “keep a distance that we need to keep from him.” But it also showed that Trump has an unhealthy obsession with whatever he says on Fox News being validated by everyone with whom he comes into contact. Trump desperately wanted Comey to agree that what he told O’Reilly was brilliant.

Of course, what he told O’Reilly was an insult to America and blatantly unpatriotic. Even O’Reilly thought so. Putin is guilty of murdering his political opponents and critical journalists. He is a cold-blooded tyrant who thirsts for world domination. Whatever flaws the U.S. has, they are not on that level of evil. But Comey’s refusal to suck up to Trump caused the President to freeze up. And it may have been at that moment that he decided that Comey had to go.

The cumulative effect of the Russia investigation and Comey’s lack of adoring fealty to Trump sealed his fate. So ironically, Fox News, the PR division of the Trump White House, may have inadvertently played a role in proving that Trump obstructed justice. Who’da thunk it?

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

SRSLY? Corey Lewandowski Tells Fox News That the ‘Situation with Assad’ is Obama’s Fault

Posted by on April 14, 2018 at 2:01 pm. 3 Comments :

It didn’t take long for Fox News to broadcast their official response to the Syrian chemical weapons crisis – or any problem that rankles Donald Trump’s administration: Obama did it! That’s right. And the reason that Trump had to renege on his campaign promises to refrain from getting America mired in any more foreign conflicts, like the one in Syria, is the same as as his excuses for all of his other lies and blunders.

Barack Obama, Donald Trump

In a segment on Fox News, Trump shill Corey Lewandowski disseminated the pre-approved White House doctrine regarding any and all scenarios that negatively impact the administration (video below). It was a prime example of the robo-speak that is emblematic of the Trump regime. It was also the very same position that Trump himself tweeted years before. Lewandowski said that:

“The reason we’re in this situation with Assad is because Barack Obama drew a line in the sand which meant nothing. There were no teeth behind it. The chemical weapons that were supposed to be a red line in the previous administration meant nothing. And we’re here today, and people lost their lives in Syria, because the previous administration did nothing to prevent it from happening.”

For starters, Lewandowski must have forgotten that Trump already executed a military response to a prior use of chemical weapons by Assad last year. He insisted that it would send an unmistakable message to Assad that continuing such atrocities would not be tolerated. Apparently the message was not as clear as Trump thought. Especially after he announced that he would be pulling U.S. troops out of Syria shortly.

The question that no one on Fox News is asking is: How would Obama’s actions years earlier have changed any of the outcomes following Trump’s more recent actions? If Trump’s bombing raid last year didn’t deter Assad, why would Obama’s raid five years ago have done it? Are they just admitting that Obama would have done it better?

Now let’s take a look at whether Obama did anything after Assad’s use of chemical weapons during his term. The fact is that Obama forcefully denounced Assad and advocated for a military response. However, unlike Trump, he sought congressional approval (as the Constitution requires) in order to ensure that the action had the full support of a united nation. He beseeched the GOP-controlled legislature to come together in this effort saying:

“Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What’s the purpose of the international system that we’ve built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the worlds’ people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?”

The response by Congress was worse than voting down an authorizing resolution. The Republicans in charge would not even permit the measure to come up for a vote. And it was clear that if they had, a majority of Republicans would have voted against it. Which is especially interesting considering what Trump was saying at the time:

So according to Trump, Obama needed congressional approval to bomb Syria (which he tried to get), but Trump can do whatever the hell he wants? That’s the mindset of a flaming hypocrite, and a wannabe dictator.

None of these facts are likely to persuade Fox News, or their glassy-eyed viewers, to change their minds about Obama being the source of everything bad in the world. He will continue to be the excuse they cling to for any of the failings by Trump and the Republican Party of (avoiding) personal responsibility. This is just the way that the right-wing has their propaganda wired. And it’s convenient that they have a “news” network that is amenable to serving as their State-run TV outlet.

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