Coronavirus

Trump Says ‘This is Easy’ as He Leads America Into a Coronavirus Wasteland

Posted by on April 20, 2020 at 2:37 pm. 6 Comments :

Donald Trump’s criminally negligent response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic will go down as one of the most deadly abdications of leadership in history. From the beginning he refused to take the threat seriously. He insisted that the few cases reported in the U.S. would shortly drop to zero. His claim that he had everything under control was either a flagrant lie or fatally ignorant.

Donald Trump Climate Change

Trump also failed to pressure his pal, Xi Jinping, into providing honest and accurate data on the rapidly spreading infections. At the time, Trump was bragging about a pretty rotten trade deal that he was negotiating with China. He was afraid to jeopardize it by holding Xi’s feet to the fire on a public health catastrophe that has now taken the lives of more than 40,000 Americans.

Trump continues to tread the hypocritical territory between “total authority“ and “taking no responsibility at all.” He spends the vast majority of his Coronavirus Task Force briefings (aka Trump 2020 reelection campaign TV infomercials) bragging about what he imagines are unprecedented achievements, but that don’t actually exist in the real world. Yet somehow these claims of outright victory are adjacent to his accusations of abject failure for which he blames mostly Democratic governors and the media.

Monday morning Trump shoveled another heap of garbage into his Twitter feed. It was typically self-aggrandizing, while maligning anyone he regards as less than utterly adoring. He began by unleashing a tired and impotent attack on Democrats, and concluded by praising himself:

Let’s break down this tantrum. For starters, it was not the Democrats (radical, do nothing, or otherwise) who “screamed” for ventilators. It was doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, and other public health experts. It was also patients who were suffering, many of whom later died.

Secondly, acquiring ventilators was not exclusively the job of state governors. The federal government has a long established role in responding to national emergencies like the one that is in effect today. By not coordinating that response, Trump produced an environment where states had to compete with other states to get critical medical equipment and supplies. What’s worse, they also had to compete with the feds, who were undercutting efforts by the states to get these supplies. And Trump’s claim that “everyone got their V’s” is patently false.

Thirdly, Trump segued into a bizarre rant about “Testing, Testing, Testing,” and claimed that the states were “playing a very dangerous political game” simply because they asked the Trump administration to do its job. While testing is done in the states, the responsibility for producing the test kits rests with the president who alone can invoke the Defense Production Act to compel companies to gear up the manufacture of necessary medical items.

Finally, Trump pretends that he’s going to work with the governors. That’s when he isn’t attacking them with childish insults and inciting his cult followers to engage in open rebellion to the “Stay at Home” and “social distancing” policies that are critical to flattening the curve of the pandemic. And perhaps the most preposterous assertion in Trump’s Twitter tirade is his claim that “This is easy compared to the fast production of thousands of complex Ventilators!”

Really? Trump thinks it’s easy to manufacture, distribute, and process the tens of millions of test kits that are required before we can ever return to some semblance of normality? If so, then there is just one simple question he needs to answer: Why hasn’t he done it?

Obviously, Trump is only focused on shifting blame for his failures to others. That’s because he’s desperate to halt the brutal decline he is suffering in the polls, and to salvage his floundering reelection prospects. He’s just too stupid to realize that everything he’s doing will have the opposite effect that he’s hoping for. But what’s worse is that he is continuing to contribute to the tragedies and loss that the American people are suffering. And he just doesn’t care.

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

Even Trump’s ‘Friends’ Think His Behavior at Coronavirus Briefings is Asinine

Posted by on April 19, 2020 at 12:48 pm. 5 Comments :

For several weeks Donald Trump has been serving as the host of a daily reality TV program known as “The Coronavirus Task Force Briefings.” Trump envisions himself as the COVID-19 pandemic’s Pat Sajak, spinning a Wheel of Falsehoods and propaganda. He has turned what was intended to be a platform for disseminating life and death information into a petty, partisan, political charade.

Donald Trump

No longer able to bask in the glassy-eyed adoration of his cult disciples at mass rallies, Trump is callously exploiting a public health crisis in order to advance his own reelection prospects. He has cast himself as the star of the daily briefings despite the fact that, due to his ignorance and ego, he has nothing of value to contribute. Consequently, he wastes the time of the public and the press by upstaging the experts so that he can disgorge more lies, brag about imaginary accomplishments, and yell at reporters.

Trump’s narcissism always gets the best of him. He can’t hold a thought in his orange-glazed noggin that isn’t laser focused on his own self interest. But his efforts to exalt himself are failing bigly. His approval ratings are sinking during a national disaster, a time when any other leader would be enjoying a “rally round the flag” bounce. And he’s reduced to having to boast about his TV ratings because the American people aren’t buying his lies.

Even worse, many of Trump’s closest allies are straying from the Trump dogma. Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “Trump’s Wasted Briefings“ that said “If Mr. Trump thinks these daily sessions will help him defeat Joe Biden, he’s wrong.” GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia is warning that the president should “let the health professionals guide where we’re going to go,” and that the briefings have gone “off the rails a little bit.” Trump’s chief Senate bootlicker, Lindsey Graham, said that Trump “drowns out his own message,” and suggested that he appear once a week rather than every day. Even a reliable Fox News Trump-fluffer, Brit Hume, responded harshly to a Trump tweet about the briefings, saying that…

To top it off, one of Trump’s closest friends, Piers Morgan, appeared on CNN Sunday morning and delivered an uncompromising smack down (video below). He prefaced it saying that Trump “won’t want me saying this, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” And his elaboration pretty much confirmed that:

“I’ve been watching these daily briefings with mounting horror frankly, because this is not what the president should be doing. […and what…] this requires of any world leader is that they’ve got to be calm. They have to show authority. They have to be honest. They have to be accurate, entirely factual with what they’re telling the people. And they have to have the ability to show empathy. And on almost every level of that Donald Trump, at the moment, is failing the American people.

“He’s turning these briefings into a self-aggrandizing, self-justifying, overly defensive, politically partisan, almost like a rally to him. Almost like what’s more important to him is winning the election in November. No it’s not, Donald Trump. What is more important right now is saving American lives.”

To be sure, Morgan is notorious right-wing jerk with a long history of racism and misogyny. His prior remarks about Trump have been effusively laudatory. Which makes this criticism all the more painful for Trump. We can expect some infantile and insulting tweets aimed at Morgan shortly, because Trump’s most predictable trait is lashing out at those whom he feels have betrayed him. And that’s pretty much everyone, since his paranoia and persecution was affirmed in his own words when he said that “All I see is hatred of me.” Poor baby.

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

Talk About Desperate: Trump Celebrates an OANN Poll that Doesn’t Exist

Posted by on April 16, 2020 at 12:54 pm. 4 Comments :

On Wednesday Donald Trump unleashed one of his most bizarrely unhinged performances at the Coronavirus Task Force briefing (aka Trump Campaign Rally). He produced a fictional list of corporate executives he said were members of a new economic task force. He reiterated his delusional view that he has “total authority” and threatened to shut down Congress. And of course, he bragged about imaginary achievements and yelled petulantly at reporters. Then he stomped out in huff when he didn’t like the questions.

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

Trump’s presence at these briefings has been a waste of time from the start. He contributes nothing of substance, but distracts from the experts who actually have some relevant knowledge to impart to the public. Trump has proved that the only things he cares about are those things that advance his personal self-interest and assuaging his voracious ego. That was affirmed on Thursday as he took to Twitter with bitterly partisan posts and flagrant lies.

The first of Trump’s tweets was his celebration of a poll by the ultra right-wing Fox News wannabe One America News Network (OANN). This is the network that doesn’t have a big enough audience to be rated by Nielsen. It’s the network whose reporter was recently booted out of the White House briefings for violating social distancing guidelines, but who got a personal reprieve to stand in the back of the room by Trump’s press secretary (since fired), Stephanie Grisham. It’s a network that has even less credibility than viewers. But Trump promotes them because he can always count on them to kiss his – let’s say ring. He also uses them to needle Fox News when he doesn’t think they are being sufficiently flattering. So Trump tweeted this Thursday morning:

The first thing that makes this tweet significant is that no such OANN poll exists. This is another example of Trump mangling the facts to disseminate whatever “news” he believes will put him the best light, even if it’s fictional. It’s similar to his repeated – and false – claims that he has a 95% approval rating among Republicans. Trump often makes things up on the fly.

There does appear to be a poll that has numbers aligned to Trump’s tweet. It was conducted by the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank in North Carolina. So even if Trump had gotten the reference correct, it is still not a reputable, non-partisan survey. The notoriously biased Rasmussen poll only has Trump with a 46% approval, 53% disapproval. What’s more, the Civitas results are hardly worth bragging about. The alleged seven point lead over Joe Biden still has Trump below 50% (49-42%). Nationally, Trump has taken a nosedive with the most recent Gallup poll showing a six point drop in approval and a nine point leap in disapproval.

To add another level of irrelevance, the poll was conducted from April 5-7, so it’s a week and a half old. A more recent poll of this North Carolina race by Public Policy Polling shows Biden with a small lead in the state (48-47%), and the Democratic candidate for the Senate, Cal Cunningham, well ahead of the GOP incumbent, Thom Tillis (47-40%).

Trump has also been obsessed with maligning his perceived foes, including, and especially, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of whom he has a mortal fear. He posted two tweets piling on as many derogatory adjectives as he could think of. He called her “crazy,” “weak,” “a poor leader,” “incompetent,” “a pathetic puppet,” and “third-rate.” The first tweet quoted the insults of Sean Hannity of Fox News. The second tweet accused Pelosi of being “responsible for many deaths.” It also accused her of deleting a tweet that she never actually posted.

In other words, Trump was suffering a severe bout of psychological projection. Because those are all characteristics that have long defined Trump himself. Particularly the one concerning responsibility for tens of thousands of deaths that are directly attributable to Trump’s criminal negligence, and incompetence. And to make matters worse, Trump is still insisting that he wants to “reopen” the country, despite the fact that every health expert says it would be disastrous and deadly to do so at this time. Not that Trump or his GOP confederates care.

For the perfect example of how callous, insensitive, and greedy they are, take a look at this clip of Dr. Oz on Hannity Wednesday evening saying that schools should be reopened now because the deaths of 2 to 3% of American children from the coronavirus would be an acceptable “tradeoff” to get the economy back on track. No, really. He actually said that while Hannity nodded approvingly. This is the so-called “pro-life” right-wing:

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

COVID-1? How Stupid are the Trump-Fluffing Hacks on Fox News?

Posted by on April 15, 2020 at 12:10 pm. 7 Comments :

From the outset of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, Donald Trump and his enablers at State TV (aka Fox News) have been producing an impressive amount of propaganda and outright lies. Trump spends the majority of his time at the Coronavirus Task Force briefings defending his abysmal record and yelling at reporters. He has, in fact, hijacked the briefings to transform them into campaign events for his reelection. And now Trump has ordered the Treasury Department to put his name on the stimulus checks that Congress allocated as relief for the severe economic hardship the nation is suffering.

Donald Trump, Stimulus Check

Never mind that it isn’t his money, it’s the American people’s money. Trump just wants to make sure that there is some acknowledgement that the checks are connected to him. He doesn’t need to worry about that. Most Americans already know that the only reason these checks had to be issued was due to Trump’s negligence and incompetence. Note also that some 80 million people will be getting these funds via direct deposit and will never see a paper check.

Meanwhile, Fox News continues to parrot whatever falsehoods and self-exalting disinformation flows from Trump and his regime. They recently ran a dangerously deceitful segment that actually asserted that the coronavirus “was not and is not a pandemic.” And their perversions of reality are having an impact, at least on those foolish enough to rely on Fox News.

The startling abundance of idiocy never ceases to amaze. Just this week Trump declared that as President he has “total authority” to force states to bend to his fascistic will (a position he didn’t really think through). He also announced that in the middle of a global pandemic he was halting funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), ostensibly because they were soft on China near the beginning of the crisis. But they weren’t nearly as soft as Trump:

As if that weren’t dumb enough, Trump’s senior White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, visited the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends for a little Trump-fluffing and cult sermonizing. Conway sought to defend Trump’s defunding of the WHO by accusing them of not adhering to the facts. Which makes her remarks ever more asinine:

“This is COVID-19, not COVID-1 folks, and so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization, facts and figures, would be on top of that.”

Is it possible that Conway actually believes that the pandemic was caused by the nineteenth iteration of the coronavirus and that there were eighteen prior strains that we should have learned from? For the record, COVID-19 was named for being the coronavirus disease of 2019. And yet, this is her argument for adhering to the facts?

Well, to be fair, it was Kellyanne Conway who originated the phrase “alternative facts.” So it’s kind of her brand. But no one at Fox News bothered to correct her. And, in the end, it serves to validate the studies that have long proved that watching Fox News makes people stupider.

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

Science FICTION: Now Fox News Says Coronavirus ‘Was Not and Is Not a Pandemic’

Posted by on April 13, 2020 at 12:47 pm. 5 Comments :

The United States is suffering through the slow torture of a painful unprecedented calamity. But enough about Donald Trump. The American people are enduring a hardship of mammoth proportions that is threatening both their health and economic welfare. It’s a challenge that requires a shared resolve to stare clear-eyed into the abyss of a frightful future.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

For the most part, Americans have been meeting this challenge with courage and a determination to prevail over the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Victory demands facing their troubles honestly and not being afraid to recognize difficult truths. It’s too bad that these efforts are made all the more difficult by the ignorant and dangerous misinformation that is disseminated by Trump and Fox News.

On Monday morning, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends interviewed former Reagan Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, a Fox contributor. His profoundly idiotic remarks made it hard to connect him with any office where education was involved. Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Bennett to comment on the 22,000+ deaths so far. This is what Bennett – and Fox News – are still shoving down America’s throat (video below):

Bennett: Now they say 60,000 people will die. 61,000 is what we lost to the flu in 2017 and 2018. The flu […] If you look at those numbers and see the comparable, we’re gonna have fewer fatalities from this than from the flu.

“For this we scared the hell out of the American people. We lost 17 million jobs. We put a major dent in the economy. We closed down the schools. You heard Dr. Oz say we didn’t have to do that. We shut down the churches and so on. You know, this was not and is not a pandemic. But we do have panic and pandemonium as a result of the hype of this.”

Kilmeade: Well, it is labeled a pandemic.

The measure of mendacity in those comments is hard to quantify. Let’s start with Bennett’s trivialization of the deaths attributed to COVID-19. His comparison of the coronavirus to the flu is absurd. The 61,000 deaths from the flu occurred over the course of a year. And he chose a particularly bad year. The 2018-2019 season saw half that many flu deaths. The 60,000 estimated deaths from the coronavirus would be over a few months. Also, the fatality rate for the coronavirus is much higher.

What’s more, the lowered projections are only because many states implemented their own “Stay at Home” orders and other precautionary guidelines that Trump foolishly neglected. Those guidelines must remain in effect if we are to avoid much higher rates of fatalities. But Bennett is advocating dropping those guidelines, which would result in a second wave that could be even worse than the first.

Bennett’s assertion that COVID-19 “was not and is not a pandemic” is beyond stupid. It’s a wholly dishonest attempt to deceive people that could end up costing many more lives. Kilmeade’s weak interjection that the virus is “labeled” a pandemic is hardly sufficient to correct the record. It is not “labeled” a pandemic. It IS a pandemic. That would be like saying that Hurricane Katrina was merely labeled a hurricane.

It would be bad enough if this interview took place in early February when Trump and the rest of his right-wing enablers were still saying that it was “totally under control,” with only five victims and it was “going down to zero” in a couple of days. But airing this now, after half a million Americans were infected and 22,000 died, tells us that Fox News still isn’t through misinforming the public about the risks of this pandemic. And if Fox News isn’t through, then neither is Trump.

Indeed, Trump is currently forming plans to “reopen” the country by May 1, a date that no health expert has endorsed. But then, his only considerations are for his bank account and his reelection prospects.

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

Watch as Trump’s Incompetence and Hostility to the Free Press is Exposed

Posted by on April 12, 2020 at 12:58 pm. 5 Comments :

Every day there is new evidence of how Donald Trump neglected to act responsibly to prevent the loss of thousands of American lives. This week we learned that “Top White House advisers as well as experts deep in the Cabinet departments and intelligence agencies all sounded alarms and urged aggressive action to counter the threat from the coronavirus, but President Trump remained slow to respond.”

Trump TV

We also learned, through the release of a series of “Red Dawn“ emails that circulated in the White House, just how determined Trump was to ignore the warning signs of imminent disaster. Even America’s preeminent expert on pandemics, and a member of Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Anthony Fauci, responded with stark honesty on CNN’s State of the Union to the question of whether fewer lives would have been lost had Trump acted sooner:

“You could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously no one is going to deny that … But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back [in February].”

In other words, Trump & Co. allowed a pandemic to spread so that they wouldn’t lose money or risk hurting his reelection prospects. In will be interesting to see if Dr. Fauci survives this truth telling when Trump is told about it. (UPDATE: Trump retweeted a post calling for him to fire Fauci).

In another demonstration of the invaluable service that the media is capable of providing, CNN’s Jake Tapper delivered an editorial examining the Trump administration’s plan (or lack thereof) for dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. The segment (video below) included a compilation of Trump’s badgering of reporters and his impotent attempts to intimidate the White House press corps. Tapper led off by noting that “Trump is taking questions from reporters nearly every day, but that does not mean he’s answering them.”

What followed was a stream of examples of Trump lashing out at journalists who were simply doing their jobs. But his childish put downs were pathetic at best, and they only served to reveal his barely veiled fear. He called seasoned reporters “third rate.” “disgraceful,” and “nasty.” He interrupted them before they could complete their questions. And his answers, more often than not, dodged the substance of the questions.

This just adds to the argument that Trump should not even attend these briefings. He has no useful knowledge or experience to offer. To the contrary, he most often unleashes blatantly false “information” that his own advisers have to later refute. He wastes valuable time either attacking legitimate journalists who are asking pertinent question, or embracing propagandists whose questions are nothing more than overt suck ups.

There is only one reason that Trump is showing up at these briefings, and that is to advance his reelection prospects. He has turned what should be a vital information channel into a crass campaign PR affair. Then he tries to make a preposterous argument about the ratings, saying that they are indicative of his alleged popularity.

Tapper summed up his remarks by asking Trump another question that he surely will not answer: “Attacking journalists who ask questions does not make those questions go away. It only reveals that you might not have the answers. Again, sir, respectfully, what is the plan for a way out of this? Do you have one?” If Trump responds to that question at all, it will likely be in the form of tweet that merely says “FAKE NEWS” in all caps without ever referencing the original question about whether or not he has a plan. But that hardly matters. The American people already know the answer to that question.

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

Fox News Viewers and Republicans are More Likely to Buy Trump’s COVID-19 Lies

Posted by on April 11, 2020 at 1:47 pm. 3 Comments :

The COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging America and the world continues to set new and more tragic milestones. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is still understating the threat and promising to end the “Stay at Home” and social distancing guidelines that health experts insist are still necessary. He is, as usual, more concerned about his bank account, and his reelection prospects, than about the lives of the American people.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Coronavirus

Trump’s callous disregard for the welfare of the nation’s citizenry is typical for a malignant narcissist who thinks only of himself. Unfortunately, his impact is felt more broadly by those caught up in the Cult of Trump who believe every lie he tells and who hate every enemy he targets.

The depth of devotion to Trump by his glassy-eyed disciples is revealed in a new survey by Gallup. The responses were broken down into various groupings, including what Gallup called the “news diet.” A conservative news diet is one where the respondents view only sources such as Fox News, One America News Network, and Breitbart News. A liberal news diet consisted of sources such as MSNBC, CNN, and the New York Times.

Among the questions in the survey was one that asked respondents if “the coronavirus is less deadly than, or as deadly as the flu.” More than twice as many in the conservative group believe that that COVID-19 is less deadly than the flu (57-28%). Never mind that all of the scientific data proves just the opposite by a wide margin.

Another question asked if “the Media is giving too much attention” to the pandemic. Once again, the disparity between the conservative group and the liberals is striking. Those who consume exclusively right-wing media (71%) already think think they’ve heard enough. Only 28% of liberals feel that way.

Finally, another question sought respondents’ opinions on Trump’s job performance. A whopping 94% of those who only view conservative media say that “Trump is doing an excellent/good job.” Those are unambiguously “cult” stats.

There was another survey released this week that further affirms the worshipful obedience to conservative lunacy. The Pew Research Center asked respondents whether they believed that the coronavirus came about naturally or was created in a lab. Once again, nearly twice as many Republicans (37%) as Democrats (21%) believe in the Frankenstein theory. This is the sort of conspiracy crackpottery that can only be produced by committed propagandists like those at Fox News.

Right-wing media and Donald Trump are the most productive purveyors of bullpucky about COVID-19, or any other subject for that matter. Trump continues to lie about the availability of medical supplies, the progress of testing, the success of his administration’s response, and virtually everything else related to this ongoing crisis. And Fox News is right there to back up his flagrant falsehoods.

No wonder people who confine themselves to conservative media are so dreadfully ill-informed. The only problem with that is that their ignorance could have an impact on the measures being taken to address the still considerable risks posed by the coronavirus. If they aren’t able to be educated, we are all likely to be in greater danger. And relying on the ability of Trump cultists to grasp reality is a precarious position for the nation to be in. Good luck everybody.

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

WHAT PANDEMIC? Narcissist-In-Chief Trump Tweets About TV Ratings 3 Days in a Row

Posted by on April 10, 2020 at 1:19 pm. 2 Comments :

The American people are courageously complying with the guidelines set by public health experts to maintain social distancing and other measures to mitigate the harm of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. It’s a profound burden that requires families to be separated, businesses to be shut down, and financial sacrifices to be endured. But there is no alternative if this crisis is to be halted with a minimum of suffering and loss. And then there’s Donald Trump.

Donald Trump TV Set

From the earliest days of the pandemic’s spread, Trump ignorantly neglected to take the necessary actions to avert certain human tragedies. He downplayed the threat as a trivial one that would go away by itself in few days with only a handful of victims. He refused to employ presidential powers to direct American industry to produce vital medical supplies and equipment. He repeatedly mislead the public about the impact that widespread illness would have on the nation and the economy. Who can forget his foolish opinion that the stock market is “starting to look very good to me!” it is currently down 6,000 points from it’s high in February.

And all the while Trump has been – in his own words – acting as a “cheerleader” for the country, as opposed to a truth teller. He’s admitting that he lies in order to disseminate a phony rosy scenario whose only purpose is to juice his approval ratings (which hasn’t worked), and boost his reelection prospects (which are also looking bad). Even Trump’s favorite pollster, the rabidly right-wing Rasmussen, just put him at 43& approval, his lowest standing in over five months.

Amidst Trump’s desperate efforts to distort reality with regard to COVID-19, he is also sharply focused on his own public image. As a well known malignant narcissist, Trump has a voracious ego that consumes his every waking hour. His Twitter account is heavily plastered with tributes to himself and praise for imaginary achievements. Included among them are Trump’s own tweets celebrating what he regards as TV ratings victories. In fact, Trump has tweeted about the ratings of the Coronavirus Task Force briefings three days in a row:

What Trump fails to understand is that these ratings are not indicators of his popularity. Viewers who both support and (mostly) oppose Trump watch these briefings. They are interested in what experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have to say. The Trump team is actually making that harder by briefly refusing to allow Dr. Fauci and others to appear on CNN unless the network submitted to his unethical editorial demands (quid pro quo?). What’s more, the briefings air on multiple networks simultaneously and, therefore, are not comparable to any single network program rating such as The Bachelor.

Finally, Trump is using the ratings not only to glorify himself, but to justify his incompetent, so-called leadership. He is spewing paranoid fantasies of Democrats and other adversaries conspiring to put an end to the task force briefings. In reality, there is only criticism of Trump’s self-serving participation in the briefings. He has no relevant experience or knowledge of the medical or public health issues at hand. He simply reads a bunch of data (that could be read by an intern), then spends the rest of the time lying, bragging, and yelling at journalists. And it isn’t just Democrats who are put off by Trump’s tantrums:

“White House allies and Republican lawmakers increasingly believe the briefings are hurting the president more than helping him.”

The problem is that Trump is hijacking these briefings and turning them into thinly veiled campaign speeches. This is his alternative to the ego-feasting cult rallies he can no longer hold. And under the circumstances, the media would be justified in delaying their reports for a few minutes so that Trump’s avalanche of lies can be fact-checked. The press is not obligated to air Trump’s lies unchallenged, or to give him free airtime for his campaign.

After the endless propaganda Trump unloads in these affairs, he goes on Twitter to advertise the next episode with boasts of how high the ratings are. This sorry state of affairs proves that Trump is suffering from a unique form of mental derangement that should worry every American. He really can’t distinguish between the presidency and The Apprentice.

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

CLAMPDOWN: Trump’s Politburo Bars Dr. Fauci and Others From Appearing on CNN

Posted by on April 9, 2020 at 11:51 am. 4 Comments :

The abhorrent tyrannical tendencies of Donald Trump continue to be revealed with each passing day. His admiration for brutal dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, has long been established in his own words. They are the models of unchecked power to which he aspires. And they are the political figures he most often refers to as his friends, even while he’s bitterly lambasting fellow Americans like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.

Donald Trump

On Thursday morning it was reported that Trump has taken another step toward the authoritarian government he craves. And, not surprisingly, it comes in the form of an attack on the media that he despises and routinely refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” CNN is reporting that Vice-President Mike Pence, who Trump appointed to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, is prohibiting the health experts on the team from appearing on CNN:

“Vice President Mike Pence’s office has declined to allow the nation’s top health officials to appear on CNN in recent days and discuss the coronavirus pandemic killing thousands of Americans, in an attempt to pressure the network into carrying the White House’s lengthy daily briefings in full.”

This could not be a more blatant assault on the free press, as well as a flagrant breach of the free speech rights of the doctors and other task force members who have critical knowledge and advice about the deadly pandemic that is spreading throughout the nation and the world. Trump is deliberately depriving the American people of potentially life-saving information in order to extort CNN into complying with his self-serving demands.

UPDATE: While these health experts are forbidden to appear on CNN, they are all over Fox News.

What’s more, Trump is imposing the very same sort of quid pro quo that he used to attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden. Trump is floating access to these health experts, but with a caveat: “I’d like you to do us a favor though.”

The “favor” that Trump is seeking this time is for CNN to submit to his demands to air all of his task force briefings live. That is a wholly improper ultimatum for a president to impose on news organization. But it’s even more ludicrous considering that Trump has transformed those briefings into thinly veiled campaign events to advance his 2020 reelection prospects. Since he can no longer hold the cult rallies that feed his voracious ego, he is hijacking these briefings and expecting the media to roll over and give him all the free ad time he wants.

The press has been struggling with the question of whether to carry the briefings live, or to delay them for a few minutes so that Trump’s avalanche of lies can be fact-checked. There is no reason to air Trump’s ego-fest when it is so devoid of newsworthy content. Both CNN and MSNBC have exercised some limited editorial discretion to avoid airing Trump’s dangerous disinformation and allowing him to engage in politics in the guise of virus updates. That’s something Fox News would never imagine doing. But Trump is singling out CNN, which he regards a his media nemesis, for this fascistic censorship. CNN reports that…

“Fauci, Birx, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Surgeon General Jerome Adams have all appeared on NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox during the last week, despite the fact that the broadcast networks have generally not covered the briefings that have included the vice president and health officials.”

The media must not give in to this presidential blackmail. They must continue to report honestly about Trump’s tragic failures in addressing this crisis. They must fearlessly expose his negligence, incompetence, and brazen self-interest. They must independently seek the judgment of experts like Dr. Fauci, in defiance of Trump’s orders. They should ask those experts if they agree with Trump’s gag order when they see them at the briefings.

Finally, the media must stick together. If Trump tries to silence any media organization, the others need to show their support by boycotting his briefings and other public events. That’s the only thing that will get through to the Narcissist-in-Chief. Any acquiescence to Trump’s bullying is a severe blow to the principles enshrined in the Constitution. And it’s as deadly to American democracy and freedom as the coronavirus is to it’s citizens.

UPDATE: After significant bad PR, the prohibition on CNN has been lifted.

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

Trump Freaks Out Over the Press Fact Checking His Lie-Riddled Coronavirus/Campaign Briefings

Posted by on April 8, 2020 at 2:05 pm. 5 Comments :

Donald Trump fears nothing more than being held accountable for the abhorrent things he actually does and says. He proves this every day with his virulent attacks on the free press that he routinely maligns in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” And Trump’s fears are justified considering that he lies with such frequency and shamelessness that it’s hard for the press keep up.

Donald Trump

On Wednesday morning Trump unleashed a raving Twitter tantrum that illustrated just how profoundly deranged he’s become. He is a densely packed heap of desperation and paranoia that is on the verge of bursting with atomic force. And he is utterly incapable of containing his rancid outrage:

This outburst is such a bizarre departure from presidential behavior that it requires some additional examination. Let’s start with Trump’s leading attempt to insult his political adversaries as “radical.” Because Trump uses this rhetoric nearly every time he mentions any Democrat, it’s lost any meaning. It’s just a childish, knee-jerk swipe at those he regards as his enemies. As is his baseless and impotent accusation that Democrats have “gone absolutely crazy.”

Getting more into the meat of Trump’s whining, he makes the completely unsupported assertion that Democrats want him to stop doing daily presidential news conferences. That isn’t possible since he has never done such things. What he’s doing now is hijacking the daily Coronavirus Task Force press briefings. And those he should stop doing because he has absolutely nothing to contribute. He has no experience or knowledge of the medical or public health issues at hand. He simply reads a bunch of data (that could be done by an intern), then spends the rest of the time lying about imaginary accomplishments, paying tribute to himself, and yelling at journalists. This is only wasting the time of the experts standing behind him and depriving the public of useful information.

During Tuesday’s briefing Trump dispensed numerous falsehoods including his ridiculous claim of rampant fraud in mail-in voting. Not only is there nearly zero such fraud, Trump himself voted with a mail-in ballot this year. He also continued to offer potentially deadly medical advice by promoting the use of an unapproved drug that can have severe side effects, and that he has a financial interest in. And he spent several minutes attacking the U.S. Postal Service for not not charging Amazon more to ship products (which would just be passed on to consumers). He claimed that companies like Amazon were bankrupting the Postal Service, when the truth is that they are supporting it.

Trump’s assertion that Democrats complained that he didn’t do enough news conferences before is wholly fictional. There were complaints about the White House press secretary discontinuing daily briefings, but no one was looking for more propaganda and bombast from Trump. And no one has ever suggested that he not be allowed to do any briefings. That’s just more of Trump’s invented victimhood. As for his press secretary, he just fired one and replaced her with an even less qualified spokes shill that he poached from his campaign operation.

Eventually, Trump got something right. There has been an effort by clear thinking people who have respect for democracy to “shame” the media into rethinking their coverage of the Task Force briefings. Due to Trump’s flagrant torrent of lies, and his thinly disguised efforts to transform the briefings into de facto campaign events for his 2020 reelection, many people in politics, the press and the public believe the media should alter its coverage. They need to show more deference to truth telling and not allow themselves to be exploited by Trump for his personal political ambitions. The press loses nothing by delaying their reports a few minutes so that what they air can be reviewed for accuracy and relevance. The press is not obligated to air Trump’s lies unchallenged, or to give him free airtime for his campaign.

Finally, Trump demonstrated his pitifully poor comprehension skills by bragging about the ratings for these briefings. He thinks that high ratings are an indication of his popularity. That is decidedly untrue. There are at least as many Trump opponents as supporters who are tuning in to get information about COVID-19. But in Trump’s cartoon brain all that matters is what feeds his voracious ego: ratings and what’s in it for him. He even expressed his disappointment that he wasn’t making a buck off the briefings. Referring to the press, he sarcastically lamented that “sadly, they get it $FREE.”

What is driving this twantrum is Trump’s innate fear of being exposed as the pathological liar that he is. And in an attempt to cut the criticism off at the pass, he is now actually confessing to his deliberate falsehoods. When asked about his prior dismissals of the real threat that COVID-19 represented, he told reporters (video below) that “You have to understand, I’m a cheerleader for this country.” In other words, he lied in order to pacify people with a phony rosy scenario, rather than tell them the more difficult truth, which would have saved lives. And that is as clear a dereliction of presidential leadership as you’ll ever see.

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