Pete Hegseth

A Happy New Year Message from Donald Trump: ‘Some Things Never Get Better and Never Change’

Posted by on January 1, 2019 at 8:24 am. 2 Comments :

Well, somehow we all made it through another year. And this one was particularly challenging with a president who is most notable for his dishonesty, callousness, ignorance, and unconstrained ego. Donald Trump is testing this American experiment in democracy and he’s really putting it through the wringer. Along with his State TV (aka Fox News) division, the nation is either getting stronger or withering away.

Donald Trump, Robert Mueller, New Year

To hear Trump tell it, there is little to cheer about going forward. He literally tweeted the most pessimistic New Year’s message ever, saying that “Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change […] and it will ALWAYS be that way!” What an inspiring thought on the eve of a new year.

But if that wasn’t enough, Trump later posted a New Year’s video that reinforced his delusional, all-consuming obsession with himself (video below). He leads off by congratulating himself because, in his diseased mind, “there’s never been an administration that’s done more than the Trump administration.” If you recall, that’s what he said at the United Nations a few months ago where the ambassadors of world laughed in his face. Such a proud moment for America.

That was followed by a litany of his alleged achievements that were nothing of the sort. He praised an economy that is “doing great” despite this being the first time in ten years that the stock market finished in the red for the year. He lauded rising wages that are the result of Democrats increasing the minimum wage across the country over the objections of Trump and the GOP. He thanked himself for trade deals and treaties that are either ineffective, non-existent, or downright destructive. And of course, he ranted incoherently about his idiotic vanity wall saying that without it there are no borders, and therefore no country. So what has been taking up all this real estate between Mexico and Canada for the past two and a half centuries?

Finally Trump closes with some of his familiar campaign gibberish. It may be his way of convincing himself that special counsel Robert Mueller isn’t real, you know, like Santa Claus. And he stutters out a New Year’s wish that focuses exclusively on him:

“We’re gonna win. We’re gonna win all the way. We’re gonna win at everything we do. So happy new year. And let’s enjoy the next year. And then we’re gonna enjoy the following year. And then we have four more. And everything is going to be so beautiful.”

Trump knows his audience is too dumb to get any message without being pummeled with it at least three times. Hence his repetition of the imaginary “winning” mantra. And he makes sure that the only years that he singles out for future enjoyment are those wherein he’s eligible to still occupy the White House. Never mind that most Americans will only enjoy those years if he’s been removed and, preferably, incarcerated. That would indeed be beautiful.

And to top off the night, Pete Hegseth of Fox News did a typically sycophantic phone-in interview of Trump from Times Square. It featured all of the expected Trumpian hogwash with some slobbering adoration from Hegseth. And it was all politics, no partying. Trump did his routine border wall blather, lashed out at Democrats, and for some reason boasted that “Nobody knows more about technology than me.” And he further applauded himself for “producing better than I actually said.” If he means producing more division and hatred and trouble for our country, he’s right. And as if to prove that point, Trump posted a deranged, all-caps tweet New Year’s morning that continued to malign the press and insult anyone who doesn’t sufficiently idolize him:

The year ahead is going to be as challenging as the one that just came to an end. As Mueller gets closer to nailing Trump and his crime family, he will get more belligerent and deranged. He will escalate his hostility and lies. So stay positive, engaged, and hopeful for the coming year and ultimately the return of justice, democracy, and sanity to America. And have a HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY.

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

Fox News Badgers Trump’s Chief of Staff Mulvaney to Take Even More Extreme Positions on the Wall

Posted by on December 28, 2018 at 11:21 am. 4 Comments :

It’s day seven of the Trump Shutdown, and Fox News is determined to hold Trump’s feet to the fire. Not for his responsibility for creating this havoc and hurting hundreds of thousands of Americans. But to insure that he doesn’t bend on the radical principles that Fox News holds dear.

Fox News, Donald Trump Baby

On Friday morning Fox and Friends interviewed Trump’s Acting (one of many) Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney (video below). For the most part it was a friendly get together among like-minded Trump shills. However, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes were fired up over the possibility that the President might commit the unforgivable crime of compromising with Democrats in Congress.

Mulvaney tried repeatedly to characterize the Democrats as having “left Washington” to avoid the debate on Trump’s idiotic and useless vanity wall. But this Congress is still run by Republicans. They control whether the Congress stays in session or not. And it is Republicans who made the decision to stop working until next year. Democrats had no say in the matter.

Yet Mulvaney still accused Nancy Pelosi of orchestrating the shutdown and leaving town because she doesn’t want to appear weak. That’s a classic case of projection when it’s Trump who is transparently afraid of looking weak in the eyes of Fox News. Both houses of Congress had previously agreed on funding bills to keep the government of open. But then Trump was triggered by Fox News reports that he was breaking his promise to build a wall. And even though he also promised that Mexico would pay for it, he still felt it necessary to punish American taxpayers by shutting down the government.

What stood out in the interview was the ferocity of the Foxies in pushing Mulvaney to take ever more extreme positions on the wall and the shutdown created to force it down the nation’s throat. Here are the questions that Mulvaney was hectored with by the Fox crew::

Pete Hegseth: He says he’ll close it all down because of these ridiculous immigration laws. Is he willing to go that far?

Mulvaney replied that Trump is willing to go all the way. We’ll see. But it was predictable that the first question was so full of anti-immigrant bias.

Hegseth: It was $25 billion dollars was possibly on the table. Now it’s five […] Mr. Mulvaney, a lot of Trump supporters feel like five is already a compromise, $5 billion. So to now float out there $2.5, $2.7, wouldn’t that look like a cave on this key issue.

Mulvaney surprisingly admitted that the $25 billion figure was “smoke and mirrors.” And the only real “cave” here is Trump to Fox News.

Griff Jenkins: Hold on. The American people wanted a wall. What deal then now is President Trump willing to accept that is anything short of that wall?

According to Mulvaney, nothing. “That’s why the government is closed.” As for what the American people want, a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos shows that only thirty-five percent said they backed including money for the wall in a congressional spending bill. And only twenty-five percent said they supported Trump shutting down the government for it.

Rachel Campos-Duffy: But let me ask this. We’re talking about money – $5 billion, $1.5 billion, $2.7 billion. Why isn’t there other things on the table? DACA for example. Is that being negotiated?

Mulvaney said that it is, but there’s no evidence of that from the White House. Plus it would be atrocious for Trump to exploit DACA applicants as bargaining chips for a wall nobody wants (even though he’s done that before).

Hegseth: Mr. Director, Nancy Pelosi calls the wall immoral ineffective, and expensive. We know it’s effective. We know $5 billion is not expensive in Washington dollars. In taxpayer real dollars we know it is. But the morality of it. Tell that to the family of Corporal Singh. Tell that to the family of Kate Steinle. The moral thing to do is to keep it shut down until you get a wall. Trump supporters are going to expect that. How attuned are you to the reality that a compromise that makes it look like Republicans are cavin’ again – Here we go. Democrats always … No. That is a real thing that has to be factored in.

Mulvaney insists that “We’re not compromising.” But this question was loaded with bigotry and lies. There are no credible experts that believe the wall would be effective. Most undocumented immigrants came legally through border checkpoints. And by raising the Singh and Steinle issues, Hegseth is once again implying that all immigrants are potentially murderers. The facts show that immigrants commit crimes a lower rates than American-born citizens. So Hegseth shouldn’t be talking about “the moral thing to do,” especially since he opposes all reasonable gun reforms to prevent the massacres of American citizens by American citizens.

Hegseth: The President’s floated the nuclear option. Is that a possibility in the Senate?

“I wish all options were open,” said Mulvaney. But even Mitch McConnell has ruled this out.

Campos-Duffy: If he’s there, why doesn’t he do an Oval Office address? […] Why isn’t he using all the tools at his disposal?

On this Mulvaney fired back saying that Trump knows what he’s doing, and how to do it, better than they do. Because Dear Leader is infallible and only wants to protect his weak and frightened children.

And that’s what passes for a fair and balanced interview on Fox News. The program’s hosts badger their guest with opinionated viewpoints aimed at pushing him toward their radical perspectives. And the guest complies with answers that feed right into the craziness of their right-wing agenda. But in the end none of this matters because Trump will only tweet something that contradicts them and himself and makes no sense. And his glassy-eyed cult followers will lap it up like gruel and be grateful for whatever morsels he tosses to them.

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

An Ugly Celebration: Fox News Cheers the ObamaCare Ruling that Will Cause Millions to Suffer

Posted by on December 15, 2018 at 11:47 am. 5 Comments :

On Friday evening an ultra-conservative judge in Texas handed down an obtusely argued ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. His reasoning hinged on the fact that Republicans in Congress, who have long aspired to kill the popular legislation, amended the law in a manner that rendered it invalid. This was a well orchestrated plot to kill a program that has helped millions of Americans and saved lives.

Fox News Donald Trump

So what was the reaction on Fox News? Well, it began with an early morning episode of Fox and Friends (video below) that should put to rest forever any doubt that these cretins are sadistic, uncaring, and filled with hatred for their fellow citizens. The program that Donald Trump watches religiously began with this exchange by co-hosts Ed Henry, Pete Hegseth, and Jedediah Bila:

Henry: Today, a little gift ahead of Christmas.
Hegseth: I already got a gift today. I got a gift last night.
Henry: It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Hegseth: Well, I don’t know what your gift was but …
Henry: I know what you meant. Obamacare is unconstitutional. That is what a federal judge is ruling in Texas. He said the Affordable Care Act is invalid as open enrollment closes today. What’s fascinating about it this is that the judge is saying that the whole law, the entire Affordable Care Act should in fact be torn down because the individual mandate demanding that you buy health insurance is unconstitutional.
Bila: It’s about time. I mean we’ve been having this debate for a long time. I was so happy to see this. This was completely unconstitutional from the start.

This is their idea of a Christmas “gift” that “keeps on giving”? This is something that they are “so happy to see”? Do they realize that millions of Americans depend on this program for critical healthcare? That means medical services and pharmaceuticals for people with potentially lethal illnesses. It means care for sick children and pregnant women. If ObamaCare is struck down then everyone with a preexisting condition will once again be shut out of the insurance market. It means that young people on their parents’ insurance plans will lose their coverage. It means the return of discriminatory pricing and the elimination of preventative care. And even for those who don’t have serious medical problems, it means much higher premiums.

Republicans have chanted “repeal and replace” for eight years, but in all that time have failed to offer their “replacement” for ObamaCare. Now the ACA could be lost with nothing to protect those who rely on it. And this makes the Foxies shiver with glee. Of course, it wasn’t just the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox News who threw a party for this ruling. Donald Trump tweeted his own holiday joy at seeing millions of people thrown into healthcare nightmare, calling it “Great news for America.”

Watching these grotesquely inhumane gasbags laugh about this ruling as a gift for Christmas is painful in itself. It almost makes one wish that they would have to go through this hardship themselves, or with a loved one. They have no concept whatsoever of empathy or concern for other Americans. But if there is any silver lining to this, it’s that there will be stronger demand for Medicare-For-All than ever before, and for the Democrats who support it.

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

https://twitter.com/EastTNVol/status/1073897774691876865

Fox News Freak Out: Host Says of Democrats that ‘We’ve Always Known they Were Socialists’

Posted by on November 25, 2018 at 11:55 am. 3 Comments :

Now that the 2018 election is over, and the “Blue Wave” has swept more Democrats into office than at any time since Watergate, the 2020 election is lining up at the starting gate. Democrats have much to be hopeful for considering the historically low approval ratings of Donald Trump (who has never managed to reach 50%) and the Senate map that has twice as many Republican Nationalists defending their seats as Democrats.

Fox News, Donald Trump Baby

This of course means that Fox News is already chomping at the bit to canonize Trump and malign Democrats. And nowhere more than Trump’s favorite Fox program, Fox and Friends, is the mudslinging perched at the ready to attack. On Sunday’s episode of the melodrama that Fox passes off as “news,” the “Curvy Couch” potatoes were on the edge of their sofa with excitement at the prospect of smearing those pesky liberals who won by a massive majority three weeks ago. They began by featuring a tweet thread by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) wherein he rejected the notion that Democrats would engage in a fight between moderates and progressives. But then the Foxies ignored that and rattled off their own bitterly partisan narrative.

Co-host Pete Hegseth demonstrated his low comprehension skills by insisting that the 2020 Democratic nominee for president is going to be “a far-left progressive.” Never mind that the Democrats could nominate noted conservative Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and the GOP would still label him as a far left radical. Republicans aren’t interested in honest assessments, only what they think will have a negative electoral impact. But then co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy (a former cast member on MTV’s The Real World, and wife of GOP congressman Sean Duffy) let loose what the GOP really believes (video below):

“A lot of people mocked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I think the moment she came out and proud as a socialist, and caused the other members of the caucus – all of them basically took their masks off and said ‘Yep. We’re there too.’ We’ve always known they were socialists. So I think what’s really important here is that 2020 is gonna be an honest election between socialism and American capitalism.”

Really? Campos-Duffy actually thinks that all of the Democrats who might run for president in 2020 are masked socialists? However, she and her Fox News comrades have known it all along. That’s actually an accurate representation of Fox’s long held bias that has earned them the State TV label that was recently affirmed by the discovery that Fox’s former president, Bill Shine, now works for Trump is being paid simultaneously by both.

What’s more, notice how Campos-Duffy characterizes capitalism as “American,” but leaves off any such judgment of patriotism when she mentions socialism. That’s typical of Fox News and the right who routinely ignore the fact that many of the core principles of American society are rooted in socialism. That includes everything from public libraries and schools to Medicare and Social Security.

Campos-Duffy went on to say that she hopes Democrats nominate a progressive, which she said “means socialist.” Co-host Griff Jenkins then chimed in to say that the 2018 election proved that there are no “blue dog” Democrats who are moderates or conservatives. And of course, Hegseth agreed saying that “You’re totally right. And there will be no more ‘code talk,'” by which he meant Democrats hiding their clandestine socialist conspiracy.

But they are deliberately misleading their willfully ignorant audience. The Democratic Party is far more diverse in every way than the Republican Nationalists, and that includes political ideology. In fact, there are even many right-leaning Democrats who Fox News has been crowing about for their opposition to Nancy Pelosi as the next Speaker of the House. So they are contradicting their own narratives.

Whoever the next Democratic nominee for president is, it will be someone who far surpasses the flagrantly idiotic, racist, narcissistic, criminal, treasonous, rage-aholic, fear fetishist who is occupying the White House now. And if it’s someone who recognizes the benefits of broad ideologies – including socialism – it will be the will of the people that got that person the nomination. And, hopefully, the White House. It’s called democracy. Get used to it Republicans, because your authoritarian, gerrymandering, voter suppressing ways are coming to an end.

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

Trump Brags About the ‘Great Honor’ of Record Approval in a Fox News Poll that Doesn’t Exist

Posted by on November 4, 2018 at 10:58 am. 5 Comments :

Trying to analyze the presidency of Donald Trump gets harder with each passing day. The primary difficulty is attempting to discern whether Trump is lying or stupid or suffering from senile dementia. The unarguable signs of one or more of all three of these Trump deficiencies are evident in nearly everything he says. Although, in the end, it hardly matters which one stands out at any given time because they are all alarming and unacceptable traits in an American president.

Donald Trump

Case in point: On Sunday morning Trump awoke and took to his twitter machine to communicate directly with his Deplorable cult disciples. He re-tweeted some twenty previous tweets from last week, including the most flagrantly racist campaign ad ever produced. And mired in that muck of mainly endorsements of Republican Nationalist Party candidates was this display of Trump fluffing his own ego:

Any conscious observer would recognize right off the bat that there is something terribly wrong with this tweet. Trump’s actual approval rating among African-Americans is in single digits. A recent Washington Post poll put the number at three percent. Even a Trump-friendly Fox News poll last month reported that all non-white respondents combined totalled only Twenty-nine percent approval.

However, an even more troubling part of this tweet is Trump’s assertion that the forty percent approval among African-Americans came from a Fox News poll. The only problem with that is that no such poll exists. So this is Trump either lying, being too dumb to understand simple news reporting, or sinking into a blissful dementia.

There is, however, some evidence that stupidity is the cause of this particular mental failure. There was a segment on Trump’s favorite Fox program, Fox and Friends (video below), wherein contributor Deroy Murdock cited a poll that did put Trump’s African-American approval at forty percent. The program blasted a full screen graphic of this “news” to introduce the Murdock interview. But right at the bottom of the graphic was an attribution of the polling data to Rasmussen Reports, the notoriously right-leaning survey outfit that exists only to give conservatives some positive poll results when reputable pollsters have none. Murdock repeated the number in the interview, but neither he nor co-host Pete Hegseth bothered to identify the utterly non-credible source.

So apparently Trump was engaged in his customary practice of watching hours and hours of Fox News and happened to see this bogus story on how much African-Americans adore him. Then he had to immediately share this falsehood with his (many fake) Twitter followers. It’s cute that he feels “honored” by the imaginary approval that he thinks he has among a demographic group that almost universally despises him and his racist agenda. But it’s disturbing that he continues to have such an acutely distorted perception of the nation he is supposedly leading.

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

Trump Mindlessly Parrots Fox News Lies About ISIS Mixing with Migrant Refugee Caravan

Posted by on October 22, 2018 at 12:41 pm. 2 Comments :

One of the most frequent personal observations expressed by Donald Trump is his insistence that he is a bottomless vessel of boundless knowledge. He claims that he knows more about defense than his generals; more about climate than scientists; and more about the law than his army of lawyers. He may be right about the latter considering that Rudy Giuliani is the head of his laughably inept legal team.

Donald Trump Fox News

However, the evidence of Trump’s brilliance must be buried deeper than the Mariana Trench. He is wrong more often than a chimpanzee predicting the stock market. Although it’s hard to know whether his mistakes are due to common ignorance or, more likely, to flagrant lying. And so much of what he professes to know absolutely is just stuff he heard on Fox News, another disseminator of poorly manufactured fabrications. It’s a sign of his acutely shallow intellect that he relies so heavily on the alternative facts of a TV network staffed by proud foes of intelligence.

Nevertheless, that’s where Trump got his latest bit of bullpucky regarding the nearly 7,000 migrants marching toward the United States in hopes of escaping the poverty and violence in their home countries. Trump posted a tweet on Monday morning that was chock full of falsehoods with racist overtones:

Trump is so enamored of his ability to invent cute nicknames for the objects of his wrath that he came up with one for imposing crises. But the “National Emergy” that he’s panicking about is a figment of his overactive imagination. Especially the part about the “unknown Middle Easterners” allegedly mixing in. Trump appears to have absorbed this non-fact from the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. Co-host Pete Hegseth ranted incoherently about the migrant “caravan” in a segment that backed up Trump’s asinine proposal to deploy the military to confront peaceful, unarmed, refugee families. But the centerpiece of this nonsense was the allegation that members of ISIS were infiltrating the marchers (video below):

Hegseth: You got the president of Guatemala saying to a local newspaper down there just last week, they caught over a hundred ISIS fighters in Guatemala trying to use this caravan or other processes.
Steve Doocy: Are we sure that’s true?
Hegseth: He talked to their local newspaper, we don’t know it, it hasn’t been verified. But even one poison pill is too many in a caravan.

Virtually none of that is true. To begin with, President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala didn’t talk to a local newspaper. He made remarks at the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America, an event whose attendees included Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Secondly, President Morales was not talking about ISIS fighters caught in conjunction with the migrant caravan. In fact, the caravan had not even begun when Morales spoke at the Conference. Thirdly, there is no evidence whatsoever that any apprehensions of terrorists were ever made. And finally, in his remarks Morales said that the alleged terrorists had all been deported, in which case they would no longer be in the country or able to sneak into the caravan. Therefore, no National Emergy.

From that basket of nothingness, the ultra-conservative shills at Judicial Watch published a thoroughly false report that implied that Morales had revealed an ongoing effort by ISIS to clandestinely enter the U.S. by disguising themselves as migrants. That work of fiction was picked up by Fox News, and then blasted out by Trump to his millions of Deplorable Twitter followers. And to reiterate, none of it was true. But that didn’t stop Trump from doubling with another inane tweet:

Let’s just set aside the fact that Congress had drafted a comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform bill, but Trump’s stubborness to compromise killed it. Now he’s imploring his cult followers to “think of and blame the Democrats” whenever they see refugees seeking asylum in America. Note that he doesn’t want you to think of the hardships they’ve suffered, or even the impact on the U.S. by their being granted asylum. He sees this a purely political matter and he’s exploiting these human tragedies to try to offset the expected Republican losses in the upcoming midterm election.

What’s worse is that Trump’s response to this is to threaten to cut off aid to the countries these refugees are fleeing. So the inhumane conditions that led to their exodus will now get exponentially worse and more of them will take the risks to escape. That’s the sort of thinking that can only come from someone steeped in ignorance and hatred. It’s the thinking of television pundits whose expertise is in celebrity gossip. And sadly, it’s typical of what America has been having to tolerate for as long as Trump has occupied our White House.

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

Racist Fox News Hosts Smear Democrat Stacey Abrams as Promoting an ‘MS-13 Blue Wave’

Posted by on October 14, 2018 at 4:04 pm. 2 Comments :

It really doesn’t take much to set off the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends when a Republican candidate is trouble. That’s the current state of the gubernatorial election in Georgia where Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams is in a dead heat with her GOP opponent Brian Kemp. This is a deep red state where Democrats aren’t supposed to win, so Fox News has bolted onto the scene to muck it up.

Fox News, Stacey Abrams

On Sunday morning’s episode of Fox and Friends (video below), the three co-hosts set out to malign Abrams, who would be the first African-American women governor in the U.S. But they had to manufacture a controversy by taking her comments out of context so they could align her with criminal gangs. Co-host Ed Henry began by saying:

“As if on cue, Stacey Abrams, who is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Georgia […] sounds like, she thinks at least, that that the Blue Wave is gonna include illegal immigrants voting.”

Then they run a video clip of Abrams saying:

“The thing is that the Blue Wave is African-Americans. It’s white, it’s Latino, it’s Asian-Pacific Islanders. It is made up of those who were told that they are not worthy of being here. It is comprised of those who are documented and undocumented.”

Coming out of the video, Henry says that “If you’re undocumented you’re not supposed to be able to vote.” Whereupon his co-host Pete Hegseth asks:

“What should we label it? Is it an illegal Blue Wave? An alien Blue Wave? If you’ve got criminal gangs coming across, is it an MS-13 Blue Wave?”

Really? First of all, it needs to noted that Abrams was not talking about voters. And nowhere in the clip that Fox played did she say that. She was talking about all of the people who can contribute to an awakening of progressive change in the country. That includes many people who don’t vote but care about the direction this nation takes. It includes students who are not yet eighteen, like the survivors of the Parkland massacre. It includes Dreamers who fulfill every criteria of citizenship except for the technicality that they are undocumented. And it includes the tens of thousands of citizens in Georgia that are being unlawfully removed from the voter rolls by a corrupt Republican secretary of state who happens to be Brian Kemp, Abrams’ opponent.

However, for Fox News to go so low as to associate Abrams with the MS-13 gang is way beyond the pale. As an aside, the MS-13 gang did not come across the border. It’s a home grown gang from southern California. Nevertheless, this proves that Fox News has a complete lack of integrity, honesty, and ethics. And it proves their intention to advance a racist theme that African-American candidates must be connected to criminal elements simply because of the color of their skin. It’s a theme that Fox’s audience will readily accept due to the priming they’ve had from years of watching Fox.

There is going to be a Blue Wave in November, and Fox News is going to have to live with it. Of course, they will lie their butts off and spread bigoted propaganda like they did here, but they can’t prevent the coming progressive tsunami by exposing how hateful and prejudiced they are. They are just going to make matters worse for themselves and the Republican Party they are shilling for as America becomes more diverse. And maybe Democrats and progressives should welcome any actions they take to destroy their own Deplorable right-wing.

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

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

Posted by on September 7, 2018 at 11:41 am. 3 Comments :

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

Donald Trump

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Huh? Fox News Slams Bill Clinton for Being Seated Near Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin’s Funeral

Posted by on September 3, 2018 at 1:25 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week was a difficult one for many Americans, and particularly those close to music legend Aretha Franklin and senate icon John McCain. The media was more consumed with funerals than at any other time in recent memory. And, sadly, the services for these deceased notables were exploited for political gain by media cretins like Fox News who seem to have forgotten how to show respect for the families of the fallen.

Fox News, Bill Clinton, Louis Farrakhan

However, the passage of time over the weekend did nothing to temper the madness at Fox News. They must be getting pretty desperate for disparaging material to throw at their political enemies, because the latest assault really scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

In a segment on Fox and Friends (video below), the “Curvy Couch” potatoes served up a story that criticized President Bill Clinton for his attendance at Aretha Franklin’s funeral. The objection they had was that he was seated near Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan is unarguably a repugnant bigot who has been inciting racial and religious hatred for decades. It was surprising to see him at the service for a woman known for her support of civil rights and her closeness to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

But for Fox News to make an issue of the seating arrangements is ludicrous. The intro to the segment had co-host Ed Henry saying that “The very controversial Nation of Islam leader who has notoriously declared that ‘Jews are my enemy’ and ‘white folks are going down,’ was seated prominently alongside former President Bill Clinton.” In fact, there were several references to Clinton sitting next to Farrakhan. But that’s a lie. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were separating Clinton from Farrakhan.

More to the point, Clinton had nothing to do with the seating arrangements. He likely didn’t know who else was attending or where they would be seated. Does Fox News think that Clinton should have stood up and stomped out of Franklin’s funeral after spotting Farrakhan in the crowd? Apparently so. They even brought in Alan Dershowitz to suggest that option. And co-host Pete Hegseth was aghast at the lack of media whining about this scandalous chair affair, saying “What about the question to the elites of our country? This is not a story? They’re not blinking an eye.”

Of course, the reason the press isn’t blinking is because, in fact, it isn’t a story to anyone but the craven loons at Fox News who are grasping at straws to denigrate Clinton and any other Democrat that they happen to bump into. They previously faulted Clinton for looking in the direction of Ariana Grande when she was singing. Which is something that humans do while entertainers are performing. They also complained bitterly about the eulogies at both funerals when they thought expressions of unity, civility, and respect were attacks on Donald Trump. Now why do you suppose they thought that? Perhaps because he is anathema to those honorable personality traits?

It’s noteworthy that while America was mourning, Trump was golfing and tweeting. Maybe he DM’d his BFF Vladimir Putin. And what’s really worse: Clinton sitting near, but not speaking to, Farrakhan, or Trump lavishing effusive praise on, and doing the bidding of the murderous dictator and enemy of America, Putin?

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

Fox News Attacks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Encouraging Kids to Be Interested in Politics

Posted by on September 2, 2018 at 1:50 pm. 2 Comments :

The professional Trump-fluffers at State TV (aka Fox News) are very concerned about what is happening to innocent children. No, not the ones that Donald Trump has ripped from the arms of their immigrant parents and put in cages along the border. Fox News is worried about American children who are being indoctrinated into socialism by nefarious congressional candidates.

Fox News, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

On Sunday’s episode of Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes latched onto a video that was posted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is running for the 14th district seat in New York. Ocasio-Cortez is seen talking to a group of kids in a park about what she’s doing. The kids are clearly interested and, when she mentions that she’s going to Congress to fight Trump, they spontaneously erupt in cheers. Several of the kids are heard volunteering that they don’t like Trump.

However, children engaged in civic affairs is viewed as a dangerous trend by the Fox News crew. Co-host Ed Henry refers to Ocasio-Cortez as a “cause celebre” on the left, and then introduces the video where he falsely says that she is “trying to rally kids to go after President Trump.”

In the video, the sin that Fox News is so rattled about is that Ocasio-Cortez asks a group of kids if they will go home and tell their parents to vote. Oh my heavens, no. What has become of the world? A candidate for Congress isn’t ignoring an exuberant group of young folks who clearly have an interest in what she’s saying. She isn’t dismissing them as waifs and then catering to the elders who can vote and donate to her campaign. She’s actually engaging them in a respectful conversation and encouraging their interest in civic affairs (see her video below). So naturally Fox News thinks this is abhorrent and must stop immediately. The Foxies continue their brazenly partisan harangue in this fear mongering exchange:

Rachel Campos-Duffy: I actually love this video because there’s so much about Alexandria that is so revealing. She’s such a novice that she really tells you the truth about socialism. This is what socialists do for kids. They don’t help kids. They organize kids. They indoctrinate kids. That’s what she’s doing. That’s what social justice warriors like her are best at.
Pete Hegseth: That’s a good point, you’re right. She’s naive. She’s talking to these kids. Go tell your parents how much you hate Trump.

So Campos-Duffy is glad that Ocasio-Cortez is a political novice because it results in her telling the truth. Unlike the propagandists on Fox News who are seasoned professionals with the experience to suppress any honest tendencies and stick to lying at all times. And Hegseth agrees that encouraging kids to engage in discourse with their parents is somehow subversive and anti-American. They are both apparently afraid that the adults in these families will be unfairly coerced into voting against Trump by their brainwashed offspring. It makes one wonder how susceptible the Fox News hosts are to what their manipulative kids are telling them to do.

Needless to say, including children in discussions about politics is a positive and educational exercise. It prepares them for when they will be old enough to participate in the civic duty of voting. But on Fox News it’s a frightening notion that evokes scary images of informed young citizens. Never mind that the notorious hypocrites at Fox regularly feature conservative kids, and even bring them on their network for extended interviews. For instance, Jesse Watters interviewed nine year old Trump fan Jacob Silva for nearly seven minutes. But they better be careful. Fox also hyped a thirteen year old conservative, Jonathan Krohn, who had the good sense to grow up and, by the time he was seventeen, was supporting Barack Obama.

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