Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson of Fox News Parrots Trump’s ‘No Collusion’ Mantra in the Stupidest Way Imaginable

Posted by on February 13, 2019 at 1:30 pm. 2 Comments :

The competition for “The Stupidest Person on Fox News” is always a heated affair with way too many deserving candidates. With people like like Sean Hannity (a perennial leader, but ratings loser), Laura Ingraham, Steve Doocy, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, etc., in the running, it’s may be impossible to name a single winner. But if anyone holds the inside track it’s usually Tucker Carlson.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

On Tuesday Donald Trump caved in again to his superior, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, over the funding for his idiotic vanity wall along the southern border. The deal that the bipartisan committee in Congress hammered out actually allocates less money to the wall than the deal Trump rejected before his shutdown. So in an effort to draw attention away from yet another example of his pitiful negotiating skills, Trump went back to his whining about the numerous investigations of his criminality that are in progress. He tweeted this on Wednesday:

Of course that tweet, like almost everything Trump says, is totally false. The Senate Intelligence Committee did not make the statement that Trump is attributing to them. It was just the opinion of Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the committee. The Democrats disputed Burr’s opinion on its face and noted that their probe is not even complete. What’s more, Burr didn’t even say that there is “no evidence of collusion.” He said that he hadn’t seen any “direct” evidence. Which leaves plenty of room for circumstantial evidence or the simple fact that they had not seen the volumes of evidence that special counsel Robert Mueller has.

Naturally, Trump isn’t interested in the complexities of the truth. His mission is to simplify and distort everything to the point where his dimwitted Deplorables can be fooled into thinking he’s winning. He previously tweeted a “Thank You” note to MSNBC for airing a segment that reported Burr’s comments. But Trump cut off the video just before it went into the detail that exposed the very real legal jeopardy that Trump faces.

Enter Tucker Carlson. It won’t surprise anyone that Carlson acted out his sycophantic infatuation with Trump as he always does. He agreed with Trump’s mistaken comments about the Senate committee’s non-conclusion. And he went into great (but malformed) detail to make his point. He insisted that, according to the Senate committee “There is no evidence whatsoever that the Trump campaign conspired in any way with the government of Vladimir Putin during the last presidential election.” As noted above, none of that is true. But what makes Carlson’s suck-up a candidate for awards in stupidity is how he frames his phony argument:

“If you’ve been following the story at all, and of course you have been, you will not be surprised by this. “No Russian collusion” is a lot like the moon landing actually happened, or the abominable snowman was probably a long-haired mountain goat. You knew that already because you are not an idiot.”

So Carlson is arguing that the proof that there was no collusion is that it’s self-evident, that that’s just the way it is and everyone knows it. Never mind all the indictments, convictions, and disclosures of secret meetings with Russians by dozens of Trump associates. You just know it couldn’t be and, therefore, it wasn’t.

And here is where the dumbness becomes Olympic-grade. Carlson later quotes former Navy intelligence officer, Malcolm Nance, saying on MSNBC that there was no direct evidence implicating Benedict Arnold in treason, but that “everyone knew it was treason when they caught the man.” Carlson found this out-of-context soundbite so absurd that he repeated three times. And not once in those repetitions did he realize that he was ridiculing exactly the same reliance on something being self-evident that he relied on himself a few minutes earlier. He apparently has the attention span of brain-damaged gnat.

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

What’s really disturbing is that this is precisely the sort of logical malfunction that works so well among Trump’s cult followers and Fox News viewers. They won’t catch the obvious contradictions or cognitive failures that define the right’s crackpot ideology in the Era of Trump. But they will follow along blindly with whatever their Dear Leader and his State TV surrogates tell them is the truth. Which makes one wonder whether their stupidity is even worse than that of Carlson, Fox News, and Trump.

Fox News Primetime Shows are Bleeding Audience, Advertisers, and Revenue Due to Excessive Assholery

Posted by on February 7, 2019 at 12:59 pm. 7 Comments :

The news just keeps getting worse for Donald Trump’s favorite television network. Over the past three months Fox News has been thrashed in the Nielsen ratings by MSNBC, particularly by Rachel Maddow who has topped her competition, Sean Hannity, almost every night since the November midterm election.

Fox News, Titanic

Now TheWrap is reporting that Hannity’s primetime colleagues have problems of their own. Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have both been the targets of advertiser boycotts as a result of commentaries that were especially loathsome. Not that their regular topics don’t routinely offend decent people. But even these weasels can cross lines that are impossible to ignore:

“According to an analysis for TheWrap by advertising data firm Standard Media Index, Fox News’ 10 p.m. slot, hosted by Ingraham, was down at least $16 million in ad revenue in 2018. Carlson’s show, which airs at 8 p.m., has lost another $2.2 million thanks to an ad boycott that began in December after he said mass immigration makes the U.S. ‘poorer, and dirtier, and more divided.'”

Tucker Carlson’s flagrant white nationalism has become a staple of his nightly program. It’s unconscionable that any advertisers continue to support him. But the exodus of ads has definitely proven to be more than a temporary setback. Carlson is currently is running about half of the ads he had prior to the boycott. And they have been replaced by unpaid Fox promos and public service announcements.

Laura Ingraham’s problems began after she attacked the survivors of the Parkland, Florida high school shooting. These are kids who suffered a nightmare that no one should ever face, but who Ingraham considered fair game for even more abuse. She is also notorious for her racist and elitist views, such as when she said that basketball legend and philanthropist LeBron James should “shut up and dribble.” Now her advertisers have also been cut in half.

Fox News is standing behind their repugnant hosts. They insist that they will not be bullied by lefties like Media Matters and Sleeping Giants. What’s more, they contend that they haven’t lost any revenue as a result of these boycotts because the ads were merely “shifted to other dayparts.” That’s an outright lie. It would mean that the other programs had unsold ad inventory that these ads could be slipped into. But even if they do, that means they still lost money because they were only replacing one ad for another. Additionally, an ad in primetime costs much more than other dayparts, so such shifting would require those ads to be discounted.

And that’s not all. With MSNBC taking the number one spot in most of the primetime cable news market, Fox News would have to lower their ad rates because advertisers aren’t going pay a premium for a number two network. And with that change in leadership comes an even bigger problem for Fox. Like every cable channel, Fox News makes most of its profits through licensing fees from cable system operators. They currently have a very lucrative contract that was negotiated at the height of their ratings success. Now that they are no longer the leader, those contracts will decline in value when they are up for renewal.

All of this is due to Fox’s determination to advance a radical right-wing agenda and to serve as the State TV mouthpiece for Donald Trump. It’s an unsustainable business model as the nation wakes up from its temporary lapse in judgement and rejects Trump and the sycophantic, cult-like GOP that he commandeered.

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

The midterm election that produced a historic shift in party control in the House of Representatives was just the beginning. And as the legal consequences of Trump’s criminal and treasonous activities unfold, Fox is going to find itself in ever deeper trenches of muck. That’s surely not going boost their bottom line.

Rachel Maddow Leads MSNBC to a January Freeze-Out of Sean Hannity and State TV (aka Fox News)

Posted by on January 30, 2019 at 10:11 am. 6 Comments :

The new year has started off with big bang for MSNBC and its star anchor Rachel Maddow. For the past couple months her program has been smothering her Fox News competition, Sean Hannity. It began immediately after the midterm election on November 6th and hasn’t slowed down since. And January’s results confirm that it was no fluke. Maddow has definitely caught fire and her sharp analysis and engaging manner of unfolding complex subjects is clearly winning over viewers.

Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity

Some of the highlights from the January Nielsen ratings include that Maddow was the number one non-sports show on all of cable, not just just news programming. She dominated in both total audience and the advertiser friendly 25-54 demographic. Her success helped drive up the performance of her primetime colleagues Lawrence O’Donnell and Brian Williams. In fact, that bloc of programming won every hour for the entire month.

Maddow’s show contributed to MSNBC’s impressive audience growth. It gained fourteen percent in total day, and six percent in prime time versus January 2018. During the same time period Fox News declined significantly. It’s total day viewership was down eleven percent. In primetime Fox News lost ten percent. And those numbers were even worse for in the 25-54 demo: down twenty-one percent total day, and twenty percent in the demo.

Almost as satisfying as Maddow’s success is the failure of Fox’s Sean Hannity. Once the unchallenged cable news champ, Hannity’s total ratings crashed nineteen percent since the midterms in November. His fall in the demo was a massive thirty percent. His Fox News lead-in, Tucker Carlson, didn’t fare any better. He was Fox’s top program, but he trailed Maddow by seventeen percent in total audience, and by nineteen percent in the demo. It’s a relief to know that America’s television viewers are recognizing the hatred and racism that emanates from the likes of Carlson and Hannity and are changing the channel.

What’s more, Carlson and Laura Ingraham are suffering from an advertiser exodus due to their offensive positions. Carlson mainly for his open advocacy of white nationalism. And Ingraham for her attacks on the kids from Parkland, Florida, who survived the school shooting last year. So their shows are not only losing viewers, but they aren’t making any money either.

In addition to the solid wins by Maddow, there was good news in January’s numbers for the rest of the MSNBC roster. The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and The 11th Hour with Brian Williams were both number one in both total audience and the demo. Morning Joe rose fourteen percent while its competition, Fox and Friends, sunk ten percent. Hardball was number one in total viewers. And the programs hosted by Chris Hayes, Ari Melber, Stephanie Ruhle, Hallie Jackson, Craig Melvin, Andrea Mitchell, Ali Velshi, and Katy Tur all posted record numbers. One particular standout was Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace, which was number one in total viewers, beating perennial Fox News host Neil Cavuto.

The days of Fox News dominating the cable news ratings are definitely over. And thanks for that should go to Rachel Maddow for redefining how a successful news program can be produced. She does not follow the daily tweetstorming of the President, and never hosts panels of belligerent partisans yelling over each other. She presents detailed examinations of serious issues in an honest and accessible way, and respects her audience.

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

But some thanks should also go to Donald Trump for behaving like a loathsome cretin whose flagrant lies are driving away whatever few rational thinkers are still left watching Fox News. Those who remain are the barrel-bottom crud who enjoy wallowing in ignorance and will never be pried loose from their cult worship.

Donald Trump Just Made a Fantastic Argument Against Building His Idiotic Border Wall

Posted by on January 26, 2019 at 1:53 pm. 1 Comments :

Well, it took thirty-five days and cost about six billion dollars, and incalculable personal suffering, but the Trump Shutdown is now over (temporarily). To say that Donald Trump caved is putting it mildly. He folded like a counterfeit three dollar bill under pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who he calls “Nancy”). And true to form, he emerged from the White House to declare victory in an impotent display of pathetic groveling and forced bluster.

Donald Trump

During Trump’s concession speech he revealed another repulsive side of himself as he admitted that the purpose of his wall is to hurt already suffering refugees by killing any “glimmer of hope” they might have for safety and freedom. And on Saturday morning he followed that up with a Twitter tantrum that was rife with callousness and delusion. This tweetstorm featured one posting that stood out as being a pretty darn good argument against the vanity wall that Trump has been so obsessed with:

So if we have already turned away two “caravans” of asylum seekers, then why do we need to spend billions of dollars on a wall that most experts say will be useless? The next caravan can be handled exactly the way the previous two were, without the expense or the pain associated with shutting down the government in an infantile rage.

Trump has actually admitted that our current ability to secure the border is perfectly adequate. There can be no credible argument that there is anything resembling an emergency at the border. So his yappy whining has no purpose other than to salve his ego. But he won’t let that stop him:

Let’s set aside Trump’s deranged assertion that he didn’t concede. The larger point he is making here is that he finally recognizes that the shutdown he was proud to impose was actually causing great harm and misery to millions of innocent people. But in the same sentence he callously threatens to do it all over again, unconcerned about inflicting more pain. He’s like the bully who uses his victim’s hand to slap his own face while taunting “Why do you keep shutting down yourself? Why do you keep shutting down yourself?”

This isn’t the first time that Trump’s argument for his wall has backfired on him. While his original campaign promise was that Mexico would pay for wall, he has failed utterly to bring that about. Instead, he has since insisted that the wall is being paid for by several different means in addition to Mexico, including: It would pay for itself, presumably by reducing unspecified expenditures on law enforcement; The new trade deal between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, which has nothing to do with wall funding as all the financial benefits of such a deal go to private industry; And the American taxpayer from whom he is currently demanding payment under threat of shutting down our government or declaring an unconstitutional national emergency.

So that’s four different payments for the same wall. How is that not a con game that would land anyone else in jail? Especially since the wall isn’t needed in the first place as Trump has now conceded on Twitter. And along with that concession, Trump has provided a couple of tweeted endorsements that are as phony as a con man’s paid shills. The first is by Fox News regular Matt Schlapp, who also happens to be married to Mercedes Schlapp, the White House Director of Strategic Communications. And the second is a video produced by the Daily Caller News Foundation, which is run by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. So these are hardly independent affirmations of Trump’s wall fetish.

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

The more Trump talks and/or tweets, the less Democrats need to make the case against Trump’s wall. He’s doing a mighty fine job of that all by himself. And the last person who would be surprised by that is special counsel Robert Mueller, who has seen Trump’s public statements as some of the most incriminating pieces of evidence against him, particularly with regard to obstruction of justice. This is just how Trump operates. He is so consumed by his narcissism that he truly believes that everything he says is brilliant and furthers his objectives. By the time he finds out how wrong he is, it will be too late.

Elizabeth Warren Slams the Fox News ‘Echo Chamber’ of ‘Fear and Hate’ in Presidential Campaign Video

Posted by on December 31, 2018 at 11:35 am. 1 Comments :

On the precipice of a new year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has released a video (below) announcing that she is forming an exploratory committee to test the waters for a prospective presidential campaign. She is the first of what will likely be a big pool of Democratic hopefuls seeking to cast out Donald Trump in 2020 – if he makes it that far (Mueller?).

Elizabeth Warren, Fox News

Notable in her video was the fact that she didn’t mention Trump’s name once. That will surely drive him nuts. There’s nothing he craves more than hearing his own name in pretty much any context. But she concentrated on bread-and-butter issues of importance to America’s middle class families. For instance, she laid out a platform that directly addresses the threat of corporatism and income inequality:

“I spent my career getting to the bottom of why America’s promise works for some families, but others who work just as hard slip through the cracks into disaster. And what I found was terrifying. These aren’t cracks that families are falling into. They’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack. How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie.”

Warren went on to link the political class to the problems that Americans are experiencing. She noted that the one-percenters “enlisted politicians [and] crippled unions.” to achieve their self-serving goals. And she pointedly stated that “Today corruption is poisoning our democracy.” She may not have said Trump’s name, but he was ever-present in her remarks.

It was also encouraging to see that Warren wasn’t shy about holding Fox News accountable for their contribution to the decline of Western Civilization. She took on the wealthy elites and Fox News saying forthrightly that:

“The whole scam is propped up by an echo chamber of fear and hate designed to distract and divide us.”

While she spoke those words there were images of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Fox and Friends, and Laura Ingraham prominently displayed. She got in the whole primetime lineup, plus Trump’s favorite Fox News morning show.

This is the kind of fearless honesty that will be needed to beat Trump (or whatever GOP hack runs in his place) in 2020. You can rest assured that Fox News will there to advance the lies and hostility of the Republican agenda and defeat the champions of unfettered democracy who are fighting for the welfare of the majority of American citizens.

The Trump presidency has shown us that the GOP couldn’t care less about ordinary people, honest representation, or the rule of law. But it has also shown us that there are voters who are susceptible to flagrant deception and who are willing – even eager – to be lied to. They are the rubes that Fox News is designed to corral into the GOP camp. And the rest of us need to be alert and engaged in order to preserve our country and the democracy that it pioneered.

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

OUCH! Tucker Carlson of Fox News Flips on Trump for ‘Breaking Promises,’ Being ‘Incapable’

Posted by on December 6, 2018 at 3:39 pm. 3 Comments :

There has been an emerging trend of ordinarily worshipful Fox News shills mustering up the gumption to be mildly critical of Donald Trump. This may be because the boorish behavior, jaw-dropping ignorance, and off-putting narcissism of Trump might finally be starting to produce the same sense of nausea in these otherwise devoted cult followers that the majority Americans feel. Or maybe they just see the writing on the impending indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

The latest apple to fall from the Trump tree is Tucker Carlson. This is significant because no one on Fox News is more supportive of Trump’s white nationalism and his hatred for non-European immigrants than Carlson. And Carlson is the favorite pundit of the neo-Nazi website, Daily Stormer. He has even ranted about his aversion to diversity in America and the need for leaders to “love the people you’re leading,” including the white supremacists. So it’s somewhat surprising to see him criticize Trump in an interview with a Swiss publication. As reported by the Washington Post:

“Carlson said he cannot stand Trump’s self-aggrandizement and boasting. Then, when asked whether Trump has kept his promises, the usually quick-witted and long-winded Carlson had just one word: ‘No.'”

“His chief promises were that he would build the wall, defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn’t done any of those things. […] He knows very little about the legislative process, hasn’t learned anything, hasn’t surrounded himself with people that can get it done, hasn’t done all the things you need to do, so it’s mostly his fault that he hasn’t achieved those things.”

It’s good to know that Carlson can’t stand Trump’s “self-aggrandizement and boasting” (as demonstrated this week following the Bush funeral). But it would more helpful if he said it on his primetime Fox News program than in a Swiss magazine that his viewers have never heard of and would never read. It’s also nice to see that Carlson recognizes that Trump is an idiot who can’t learn. So he might want to let his viewers know that.

Of course, the reasons for Carlson’s disappointment are that Trump hasn’t successfully implemented the campaign of right-wing bigotry and suppression of the poor that Carlson is hungering for. What Carlson really wants is a more competent leader to clamp down on the people that he doesn’t like who are ruining America for his elite class mates. The one saving grace of Trump’s presidency is that he’s too stupid to get much done. And that’s what’s irking Carlson.

It will be interesting to see if Trump responds to this display of disloyalty with an anti-Tucker tweetstorm. After all, Trump has been generous with his accolades for Carlson. He even tweeted a promotion for Carlson’s book (along with 30+ promotions for other rightist authors).

However, it will be difficult for Carlson to defend himself, at least on Twitter. A month ago Fox News began a self-imposed boycott of Twitter to protest the social media platform’s failure to punish some lefty activists who went after Carlson. But even after the offenders were booted off the site, Fox still hasn’t posted a tweet since then. And neither has Carlson. Resulting in a Twitterverse that is just a little bit more pleasant for everyone else.

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

It’s Official! Lou Dobbs is the Undisputed “Most Deranged Lunatic” on Fox News for 2018

Posted by on December 5, 2018 at 11:27 am. 5 Comments :

The competition was fierce. With perennial Fox News favorites like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and the rabidly incoherent “Judge” Jeanine Pirro vying for the title, a longshot contender has emerged from the pack for a clear and unchallenged victory. Congratulations to Lou Dobbs.

Fox News, Lou Dobbs

While no one can dismiss the efforts by Hannity to relentlessly defend Donald Trump from any and all criticism, even to the point of appearing at his cult rallies to make his endorsement in public, it wasn’t enough. And Carlson’s ceaseless support for the white nationalism that is the foundation of Trump’s base wasn’t enough either. All of it, including the infantile babbling from the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, failed to knock Dobbs from his well deserved perch. Because how can you compete with material like this:

Charles Hurt, Washington Times: This is the entire problem that all of these people have. They all have been – have been peddling this fear-mongering, the end of the world nonsense.
Dobbs: Actually, the United Nations really wants to go a little bit beyond being a, if you will, a debate club. They’d like to take over the world. And they see the perfect opportunity in global warming. […] despite the fact that there is great, great debate over whether there is that quote-unquote “warming.”

That’s right. The United Nations is actively pursuing a plot of world domination. And their dastardly scheme is centered on a determination to prevent the Earth from becoming inhospitable for living creatures. How underhanded and devious of them. And Dobbs calls out these villains who he says are ignoring the “great, great debate” about the reality of climate change that is currently raging among the three percent of scientists (and 97% of Fox News shills) who deny that it’s happening. But this alone wouldn’t have secured Dobbs this great honor. He also unleashed this epic idiocy:

Dobbs: What in hell is wrong with the American people that they don’t understand this president deserves their support because he is trying to protect their lives and that of their children? […] Why shouldn’t it be frustrating to the American people to see [Trump] assailed every day? You’re watching in Robert Mueller a man trying to kill him.

Those damn American people! Somebody needs to put an end to them. Maybe the U.N. Dobbs also wondered why every preacher and history teacher isn’t talking about this and he ranted that “higher education is indoctrinating American students to become left-wing radicals.” That’s wrong because, according to Dobbs, they should should be indoctrinating those kids to worship Trump the Protector.

But worst of all, Dobbs has revealed the clandestine plot by the leader of the “Deep State” conspiracy, special counsel Robert Mueller, to actually assassinate the President. Why isn’t anyone else talking about this? Isn’t it obvious that Mueller is maneuvering himself and his “Band of Angry Democrats” (as Trump calls them) into position to shoot his lethal legal filings and deadly facts straight at Trump’s bulbous, yet empty head?

Lou Dobbs really does deserve credit for beating out some pretty darn tough competitors for this honor. The “Most Deranged Lunatic” on Fox News was never going to be an easy award to capture. But Dobbs rose to the occasion and he’s entitled to all the of the attention and ridicule that comes with it.

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

The Fox News Boycott of Twitter Enters its 4th Pointless, Spiteful, Self-Defeating, Glorious Week

Posted by on December 2, 2018 at 12:02 pm. 3 Comments :

If you’ve noticed a slight change in the ordinarily divisive environment that permeates the Twittersphere, it may be due to the absence of one of its chief generators of disinformation and antagonism. Back on November 8, Fox News began a boycott of Twitter to express their displeasure with the social media platform’s allegedly insufficient response to a situation involving one of their program hosts.

Fox News, Twitter

Fox News said that their boycott was a reaction to how Twitter handled a protest at the home of Fox’s primetime host Tucker Carlson. The protesters were demonstrating against Carlson’s fervent advocacy of white nationalism and his incendiary and racist views on immigration. Carlson later claimed that protesters had “cracked” his front door, but the police found no evidence of that. What appears to have set off Fox News is a video that someone posted on Twitter that showed a protester’s sign with Carlson’s home address on it. So Fox demanded an apology and the removal of the video.

Well, Twitter complied with both of those demands, and also suspended the account of SmashRacismDC, the group that organized the protest. But it’s been nearly a month and Fox News still hasn’t posted a single tweet. And it isn’t just the main Fox News Twitter account. Fox and Friends, Fox News Research, Fox Business, Fox News Insider, Fox News Politics, and Tucker Carlson himself have all ceased to tweet. Perhaps most surprisingly, the account of Fox Nation is also dark, even as it launches its new incarnation as a subscription streaming service this week.

The boycott apparently doesn’t extend to individual Fox News hosts. Carlson’s fellow primetimers Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are both still tweeting. But the exodus of the network’s primary Twitter feeds for this extended period of time is still curious. There is no indication of when the Twit-fast will end, or what will trigger the conclusion. But in the meantime, Fox news is neglecting a significant method of disseminating their right-wing, pro-Trump propaganda.

On the other hand, since most of the news for Donald Trump has been bad, Fox is getting away with not reporting some seriously damaging stories. For instance, there have been no tweets about Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, pleading guilty to lying about his work on Trump Tower Moscow. Nor have have there been any tweets about Trump’s pathetic foreign affairs in France and Argentina. Nor have have there been any tweets about refugees being teargassed by Trump’s ICE thugs. Nor have have there been any tweets about the massive “Blue Wave” that swept a record number of Democrats into Congress and statehouses across the nation.

The good news is that Twitter is less littered with the lies and Trump-fluffing that Fox News would otherwise be engaging in. And some small portion of the Trump cult may have less exposure to the pre-masticated spin that Fox News serves up to their glassy-eyed sheeple by the barrel. And ironically, the last tweet posted before the boycott is one that announces a federal court ruling against the Trump administration’s assault on the DACA program. Consequently, that message is getting extra play that Fox would likely have suppressed otherwise.

So enjoy this respite from the anger and falsehoods that we would be subject to without this boycott for as long as it lasts. Because when it’s over we will be wishing we had appreciated it more when we had the chance.

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

Wannabe Dictator Trump Brags That He’s Responsible for Creating Media Haters

Posted by on November 17, 2018 at 11:31 am. 5 Comments :

Apparently Donald Trump isn’t satisfied with just referring to the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of people.” And it doesn’t fulfill his reckless compulsion to merely put a target on the backs of constitutionally protected journalists who are receiving more death threats than ever. Even more than threats as actual bombs have been mailed to the reporters that Trump has specifically directed his hostility.

Donald Trump

Now Trump is openly declaring his pride in creating a brigade of willfully ignorant disciples who despise the media and exacerbate a dangerous environment for journalists who just want to do their jobs. Trump is actually proud to be inciting violence at those who engage in the practice of freedom of the press as America’s Founding Fathers envisioned it. And Trump said so explicitly in an interview with Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller:

“A lot of the animosity that we have in our country is because of fake news. They’re so angry at the news. You guys are at my rallies all the time, you see the anger when I mention the words ‘fake news’ and they turn around.”

“You look at what’s going on with the fake news and the people get it. Now they get it, and you know they had a very high approval rating before I became president, and I think it’s actually a great achievement of mine. Their approval rating now is down as low as just about anybody. And much lower than your president. I actually have good approval ratings, which nobody ever writes.”

Trump is exhibiting how severely he misinterprets reality if he thinks that the country is angry at the media rather than at him. And his boasting about the Deplorables who respond with blind obedience at his rallies only reinforces the observation that he’s leading a cult, not a political party.

However, the most troubling part of these comments is Trump’s assertion that he has lowered the approval rating of the media, which he regards as a “great achievement.” He is bragging that his self-serving tantrums are negatively impacting the one profession that the framers of the Constitution saw fit to protect by name. He actually believes that disparaging the free press is a triumph of his “leadership,” when, in fact, it’s proof of his betrayal of American values.

In addition to Trump displaying his personal loathing of constitutional principles, he is also showing his flagrant ignorance and dishonesty. First of all, his claim that media approval is “much lower than your president” is easily refuted by every poll on the matter. The most recent Gallup poll puts Trump’s approval near his all-time low at thirty-eight percent. And just a couple of months ago, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that the public has far greater regard for the media than for the President. As News Corpse reported:

After his years-long campaign of denigrating the press, as well as the Constitution’s First Amendment, Trump has gotten nowhere in terms of swaying the favor of the public. A new poll by Quinnipiac asked “Who do you trust more to tell you the truth about important issues: President Trump or the news media?” A majority of fifty-four percent chose the media. Only thirty percent chose Trump. That’s a twenty-four point margin of difference. […]

The poll also asked “Which comes closer to your point of view: the news media is the enemy of the people, or the news media is an important part of democracy?” And by an even bigger majority the media came out far ahead, with sixty-nine percent saying that the media is an important part of democracy.

So Trump is both wrong on his facts and wrong to use his lies to brag about damaging America’s long-held reverence for a free press. He is wrong to encourage and embrace followers who have such open animosity for the journalists who strive to keep them informed. But of course, they are merely emulating his despicable and dangerous example. Other nationalist tyrants have sought to produce the same sort of blind loyalty that recognized only their Dear Leader as a truth-teller, and only his words as believable. Trump is, after all, the one who told his dimwitted devotees that “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” In other words my children, “Believe me, not your own eyes and ears.”

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

Fox News Boycotts Twitter, So No Reporting on Trump’s Hush Money, Election Results, and More

Posted by on November 10, 2018 at 11:40 am. 1 Comments :

Last week Tucker Carlson of Fox News was the victim of some unruly protesters who showed up at his home and shouted at his family. It was a particularly dumb exercise that succeeded only in frightening the household and giving Carlson ammunition to attack all progressives as hostile and lawless. Never mind that there was widespread criticism of the ill-conceived protest, even by many of the liberals Carlson most frequently attacked.

Fox News, Twitter

However the most absurd response to the protest is that of Carlson’s network, Fox News. They have decided to to refrain from using Twitter because they are upset with how the social media platform handled posts by SmashRacismDC, the group that reportedly was responsible for the action against Carlson. Fox told a Tribune Media reporter that they would remain tweetless until Twitter removed the posts and apologized. There is no indication of whether or not an apology was rendered, but Twitter suspended the account of SmashRacismDC and deleted the offending tweets two days ago. And yet, two days later, Fox News still has not tweeted anything.

This seems to be a curiously petty reaction to the situation. After all, Twitter was not responsible for the protests, and they did banish the party that was. Is Fox just holding out for the apology because their corporate ego has been bruised? Are they stomping off in a huff until Twitter sends them a Hallmark card? Who do they think they’re hurting?

One consequence of this boycott, intended or otherwise, is that Fox News isn’t reporting some important news events that have taken place in the last couple of days. There is vote counting going on in Florida, Georgia, and Arizona that will have a profound impact on the composition of the next Congress. And so far, the trends are favoring the Democratic candidates for senate and governor in all three. Is Fox News comfortable with not informing their Twitter followers of this news? Or is that their intention?

Furthermore, there was a bombshell story by the Wall Street Journal that reveals hard evidence that Donald Trump not only knew, but led the efforts to pay hush money to women with whom he had sexual affairs, including Stormy Daniels and Summer Zervos. He has previously denied (i.e. lied about) these allegations. That makes this a convenient time for Fox to go dark online so as not to further spread these revelations. Surely Fox News doesn’t want their audience to be exposed to such damning truths, even if it’s coming from a newspaper that is part of their corporate family.

Along with these stories are others concerning the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the resulting controversy over Trump’s apparent attempts to obstruct justice by hindering the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. And Trump’s designated “Acting” Attorney General, Matt Whitaker, is facing stiff criticism for his prejudice with regard to Mueller, and his sordid past that includes a connection to a company that engaged in rampant fraud. This is another story Fox would likely want to suppress.

Now Trump is in Paris meeting with foreign leaders with whom he has been feuding. There are devastating fires in California that Trump falsely blamed on “forest mismanagement,” rather than climate change. The recent mass shooting in Thousand Oaks exacerbates the debate on efforts to legislate gun safety reforms. And Trump’s war with media takes a nasty turn as he singles out African-American women for abuse.

All of these are stories that are getting significant play in the press, and on Twitter, but for which Fox News is muzzling itself over a specious complaint about a Twitter problem that is already resolved. And all of these are stories that reflect poorly on Donald Trump, for whom Fox News operates as the State TV mouthpiece. Is it really just a coincidence?

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

UPDATE: It’s day three of the Fox News Twitter boycott. There is a report that a memo was sent to the entire Fox digital team to refrain from tweeting Fox content on either Fox or personal accounts. But for some reason, Fox and Friends seems to be exempt from this network-wide Twitter boycott.