Despite A Week Of Fox News Bashing, Obama’s Approval Rating Hits 3-Year High

Posted by on March 26, 2016 at 2:28 pm. 6 Comments :

It may be time to send Fox News a thank you card for helping President Obama to achieve his highest level of approval since December of 2012. Gallup’s latest numbers show Obama with a 53% approval rating, and 44% disapproval (as of 3/25/2016). Of course, it wasn’t for lack of trying to smear the President with anything they could dig up. Apparently they just underestimated the American people’s appreciation for a leader who engages in positive forward movement, rather than the sort of juvenile antics that are being showcased by Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail.

Barack Obama

The past week was full of the sort of poll-shifting events that often shape the public’s opinion of national leaders. And true to form, Fox News worked rigorously to turn those events into negative fodder for their Obama-phobic audience. They began by brazenly politicizing the tragic terrorist attacks in Brussels. Various Fox News characters desperately tried to blame Obama for the bombing. They asserted that his strategy for combating ISIS was so weak that it encouraged more attacks. However, the truth is that Obama’s counter-terrorism efforts have seriously degraded the capabilities of the enemy, including killing more than half of their top commanders. ISIS has lost 40% of the territory it once held in Iraq. Many experts regard resorting to terrorism as a sign of weakness by combatants who are unable to make military gains.

Then Fox criticized Obama for continuing his historic visit to Cuba. They would have preferred that he tucked his tail between his legs and scurried back to D.C., as if there were anything he could do there that he couldn’t do on the road. Why they think that it would be a good thing for the President to exhibit fear and panic in the wake of terrorist act (whose purpose is to incite fear and panic) is a mystery. And they never criticized presidents Bush or Reagan who both remained on vacation following similar incidents.

There has also been a dust up in Washington concerning the vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by Antonin Scalia’s sudden death. Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a widely admired moderate judge who has been praised by Republicans in the past. But now they are clinging to an imaginary constitutional clause prohibiting presidents from doing anything in the last year of their term. The rhetoric on Capital Hill has been decidedly hostile toward Obama simply because he is complying with his constitutional obligations. GOP senators have accused him of trying to “shove” his nominee “down their throats,” and attempting to “pack the court.” All of which is nonsense. He is only asking them to do their jobs as stipulated by law.

Finally, the Republican primary has been a non-stop Obama-bashing extravaganza. For the past eight months every GOP candidate has bitterly castigated the President as inept, dangerous, arrogant, feckless, and even treasonous. They simultaneously claim that he has done more than any other president to harm America, but also that he has done nothing for his entire term. Likewise, he has shown brilliant cunning in his plots to destroy the nation while also being an utter fool who was never up to the job. That kind of schizophrenic contradiction really has be worked at.

So it must be frustrating for the GOP to observe that while all of these heavy-handed and baseless condemnations were being flung at Obama, the American people were warming up to him more than at any other time than in the past three years. By significant majorities they approve of his opening diplomatic relations with Cuba. They want the Senate to confirm Judge Garland for the Supreme Court. And their opinions of the Republican contenders for the GOP nomination range from embarrassment to disgust (even among Republicans).

President Obama must be doing something right. And Fox News is demonstrating that they have far less influence on the electorate than like to pretend. They have yet to report these latest presidential approval numbers from Gallup, even though they gleefully announce any polling down tick with a flashy “ALERT” accompanied by whooshes and gongs to make sure their dimwitted viewers are paying attention.

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

So the Fox audience will remain blissfully ignorant of the fact that Obama is riding high in the polls, and will continue to wallow in the fantasy that Ted Cruz or Donald Trump are going to trample the Democratic candidate in the fall. Just like they did in 2012 when they were lied to by Fox into believing that Mitt Romney was going to win by landslide. That’ worked out pretty well, didn’t it?

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In His Own Words: Donald Trump Is Selling Himself Like A Bag Of Cheetos

Posted by on March 25, 2016 at 1:45 pm. 4 Comments :

The Republican Party has saddled itself with one of history’s most repulsive characters in this, or any, election season. Donald Trump is the manifestation of the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and general anti-intellectualism that has long festered behind a thin veil of the GOP’s pseudo-respectability. As much as many of the party’s relative moderates are embarrassed by Trump, they cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for him.

Donald Trump Cheetos

Trump’s campaign strategy has resembled nothing more than the sort of reality TV battles that made him a household name. He trades in hyperbole and personal attacks and dumbed-down misrepresentations of issues. More often than not he lies without shame to advance his self-serving interests (see the Trump Bullshitopedia) And always, he casts himself as a sort of Messianic savior who is the only hope for rescuing America from the hordes of enemies, within and without, who yearn to destroy us in unspeakably horrific ways.

However, if you pay attention to Trump’s own descriptions of his operational tactics you will find that he is selling himself more like a consumer product than a candidate. Trump is essentially marketing himself like the corny, air-puffed, cheese snack, Cheetos, which has little substance but lots of toxic chemicals and seasoning. And while the comparison has been made before, Trump is surpassing all previous efforts by confessing to his marketing schemes. He is slapping a label on his snake oil that actually says “Snake Oil.”

What follows are some of the comments that expose Trump as a smarmy salesman. And the fact that he is unashamed to admit that his entire candidacy is akin to a pitch for fast food makes it all the more distasteful.

The best place to start is where Trump helpfully defines the marketing premise of his campaign by telling Politico that “I’ve done my job. I’m the product, the product is me.” That was his attempt to explain why he relied on massive rallies to promote himself, rather than the face-to-face town hall gatherings that are the standard in early state primaries. It’s the marketing equivalent of putting up a Superbowl ad instead of having a taste test at a local grocery store. Trump doesn’t really want anyone to get that close for fear of being exposed as a phony.

Way back in 2006 Trump was on the O’Reilly Factor where he laid out for Bill O’Reilly the reason he fights dirty saying that “If I attack on a purely intellectual basis nobody would listen and the response would not be nearly as effective.” So he is admitting that his rancor and bombast is an act designed to bring him more attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s truthful or tactful so long as it has shock value and the media laps it up.

Then there was the time that Trump openly admitted that his antics were crafted to generate drama and controversy: “If I weren’t in the race you’d have the same as you did four years ago, just the same boring things that would be just boring, that’s the way it is. Maybe That’s why The Apprentice was so successful.” In this comment Trump actually openly associates his success as a candidate with success as a contestant on a TV game show.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone after they learn that his measure of power in politics is the same as his measure of power in television: “It’s ratings. I go on one of these shows and the ratings double. They triple. And that gives you power. It’s not the polls. It’s the ratings.” And furthermore, he believes that that capacity for drawing an audience (which rests primarily on appealing to their bloodlust for seeing a horrible train wreck live on the air) puts the TV networks in his debt: “The networks are making a fortune off of me!” Sadly, the networks are buying into that as recently revealed by Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS who said “Who would have thought that this circus would come to town. It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. […] Go Donald, go.”

Which brings us to how Trump extends his marketing philosophy to his opponents. He has coined little slogans to disparage other candidates, or anyone whom he regards as an enemy. For instance, “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz and “Little Marco” Rubio. He has also tried to stick labels on Ben Carson as a “psychopath,” Jeb Bush as “low energy,” and Hillary Clinton as “lacking stamina.” What all of these have in common is their resemblance to marketing catch phrases that he repeats every time he mentions their names.

Donald Trump is bound and determined to create a public perception of his rivals as evildoers who strive intentionally to cause harm to America and its good citizens. At the same time he offers himself up as the solution to every problem anyone could ever have. His self-branding positions him as the best at whatever he is currently talking about: building a wall, killing terrorists, creating jobs, curing disease, etc. He is likewise the bestest of friends to the poor, women, veterans, evangelicals, and “the blacks.” In short, he’s an all-purpose elixir to cure whatever ails ya.

This characterization of himself serves the purpose of certifying his role as savior to the ignoramuses who worship him no matter what disgusting thing he says or does. It’s a phenomenon that even the obsequious media has recognized. Trump’s support seems to congeal following some grotesquery like a blatant lie (thousands of Muslims celebrating 9/11), or brazen misogyny (blood coming out of Megyn Kelly’s, whatever), or embrace of hatred (declining to rebuke KKK support), or advocacy of violence (promising to pay the legal fees of supporters who assault protesters).

These are not coincidental factors in his campaign. Trump is deliberately setting up his followers to behave like the zombie fanatics for which he desperately yearns. They are expected to follow him into literal battles as exemplified by his threat of riots at the GOP convention if he is not crowned as the Party’s nominee. His egomaniacal compulsions are typical of a cult leader who requires total devotion from an unquestioning flock. And he is as open about that aspiration as he is about his crass commercialization of politics. He regards his supporters as disciples who will follow him anywhere, as he revealed in this tweet:

“Because of me, the Republican Party has taken in millions of new voters, a record. If they are not careful, they will all leave. Sad!”

And just to reiterate the point, he told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC that “If I go, I will tell you, these millions of people that joined, they’re all coming with me.”

And so the Tribe of Trump is born. And in order to belong you must literally pledge your allegiance. This is a bit more demanding than becoming a part of the Pepsi Generation, but is sold in much the same way – through sloganeering, repetition, and the packaging of a social sect that promises acceptance and the welcoming embrace of a de facto family. Even if it is more like the Manson Family, it still offers a measure of warmth and communion. It is a shield from the tribulations of a world they perceive as hostile with enemies everywhere, including where they used to find friends.

In that regard they have even joined Trump’s war against the most reliably biased right-wing media empire in history, Fox News. Trump’s war on Fox has been joined by his minions who are all too happy to boycott the network to which they once clung obsessively. And Trump eggs them on tweeting “Wow, you are all correct about @FoxNews – totally biased and disgusting reporting.” So what we have here is the Trump Cult competing directly with the Fox News Cult. This should be fun.

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

Trump has adopted a mix of missionary work and marketing that exploits the tried and true methods of televangelists and telemarketers (but I repeat myself). He employs the persuasion technology of modern media to appeal to people’s fear and dependency on a sense of belonging (i.e. white supremacy). And his methods include the emotional power of proselytizing patriotism, faith, and rampant scapegoating of vulnerable minorities. It’s a potent cocktail that approaches a form of mass hypnosis, and it has been used before on frightened and disaffected populations. Which makes it all the more understandable that, by his own admission, Trump is not bothered by comparisons to Hitler. In fact, Trump probably views him as an inspiration and role model.


NRA Flack Wayne LaPierre Boasts About How Smart Gun Owners Are

Posted by on March 24, 2016 at 9:55 pm. 3 Comments :

When I saw this article at Right Wing Watch I could hardly believe the audacity of it. Wayne LaPierre is the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association and it’s chief propaganda spewer. He has a long history of ludicrous pronouncements and conspiracy theories, mostly warning of imaginary armies of firearm confiscators invading the bunkers of America’s gun fetishists.

The subject of this self-glorifying harangue (video below) was a tribute to the historically unparalleled genius of gun owners. LaPierre was not shy about heralding the brilliance of his troopers during a speech at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. He said…

“So many of those elites, they think they’re better than us. They somehow think they’re more sophisticated. They think they’re more intellectually evolved somehow than we are. Or they think they’re just somehow plain smarter than we are. Well, I’ve got news for the elites who look down their noses at all of us and our rights: We gun owners are a heck of a lot smarter than you’ll ever be. It’s true.”

Well that just about settles then. Who can argue with that? Just be careful not to pay any attention to the abundance of news stories that present a somewhat different picture. All you have to do is venture over to Twitter and check out the hashtag #GunFAIL. What you will find is an endless array of incidents that expose the geniuses that LaPierre is exalting as idiots. Some of the reports are comical or ironic. But others are tragic despite their foolishness.

The stories include people who shoot themselves while demonstrating their firearm safety expertise. Others report on people who shoot their friends while pretending to aim “unloaded” weapons at them. The most heartbreaking are the stories of children who shoot other children, sometimes their siblings, after finding an unsecured weapon in the home.

And let’s not forget that some of the most infamous and celebrated NRA members include Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent. Those two alone bring down the average IQ level of the organization to single digits. And then there’s this brainiac:

Ted Cruz

I don’t mean to portray all gun owners as ignorant dopes. Certainly many of them are intelligent and responsible. But any community of people wherein these types of tragedies are so painfully common cannot possibly pass themselves off as, in the words of LaPierre, “in all of the world, some of the smartest citizens.”

But what makes LaPierre and the hardcore NRA-theist crowd really stupid is their opposition to common sense reforms that would prevent much of the suffering caused by irresponsible gun use, whether accidental or intentional. Universal background checks, hi-tech trigger locks, limiting magazine capacity, mental health screening, etc., are just a few of the measures that could save lives but are opposed by the NRA. If they really wanted to demonstrate some intelligence they would start backing these proposals like the majority of Americans do.

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


Hey Fox News, Donald Trump, And All You Other Gutless Republicans: Stop Helping ISIS

Posted by on March 23, 2016 at 8:21 pm. 5 Comments :

One of the first reactions to the tragic bombings in Brussels came from conservative pundits and politicians who berated President Obama for being in Cuba and sticking to his scheduled activities. They were outraged that the President didn’t drop everything and hightail it back to Washington so that he could…

Well, I’m not sure what they thought he could do there that he couldn’t do from Cuba. Still, for some reason they thought he should have tucked his tail between his legs and scurried back to D.C. In the 21st century the notion that a president has to be in the Oval Office for anything to get done is ludicrous. A few years ago Obama was delivering a hilarious address at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner while Seal Team 6 was disposing of Osama Bin Laden. The mission was ordered, engaged, and in progress without the President chained to his desk. And it was an undeniable success. But to the Fox News crowd America is being let down unless terrorists get to decide where our president should be. And if the President isn’t as rash and irrational as wingnuts think he ought to be, the terrorists win.

That’s the sort of defeatist rhetoric that makes life easier for terrorists. They know that they can’t beat the United States in a military battle, so they engage in acts of terror whose only purpose is to spread fear in the West and to promote recruitment to their cause among extremist Muslims. Of course, they don’t have any governmental infrastructure or media apparatus so they depend on the private press to promote their activities. And like every other public relations campaign, the more press coverage they get, the better for their cause.

Fox News ISIS Flag

That’s why the President was right to stay in Cuba and continue with his historic visit, including a baseball game between the Cuban national team and the Tampa Bay Rays. Obama himself put it clearly in remarks to ESPN:

“The whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people’s ordinary lives. […] What they can do is scare, and make people afraid and disrupt our daily lives and divide us. And as long as we don’t allow that to happen, we’re gonna be okay.”

Exactly. So why don’t conservatives get it? The truth is, they probably do, but they would rather scold the President for invented misdeeds than to admit that he is demonstrating strength, wisdom, and representing the nation’s best interests.

People need to realize that these heinous bombings are intended by the terrorists to inflame emotions and draw Western powers into a quagmire on their battlefield. And as if to validate that goal, war hawks among American conservatives are falling for the tactic and calling for an increased military presence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. Donald Trump is even arguing that the U.S. should adopt the tactics of the terrorists in order to fight them on their own terms. He said that…

“I think we have to change our law on, you know, the waterboarding thing, and they can chop off heads, and they can drown people in cages, in heavy steel cages, and we can’t waterboard. So we have to change our laws and we have to be able to fight on an almost equal basis.”

Fighting on an equal basis as terrorists lowers us to their level. It obliterates any moral authority we might have. Trump is an ignorant cretin who can’t grasp the simple concept that America is only worth fighting for because of the principles we embrace. Resorting to the sort of savagery that is embodied by terrorism, including waterboarding and carpet bombing, makes us no better than the enemy and not worthy of defending. Not to mention that it is precisely what the terrorists want. The more they can portray us as the ruthless ones, the more converts they can acquire. Adopting their methods is a dangerous submission to the will of the enemy. Why would anyone want to give the terrorists exactly what they are hoping for? That used to be called treason.

In the process of castigating Obama with their knee-jerk criticisms, conservatives are demeaning not just the President, but the whole country. They make public statements that disparage our military and our resolve to be victorious. That must go over pretty well with the leaders of ISIS and Al Qaeda. When American senators and news commentators characterize our side as “weak” and “losers” it emboldens our enemies and invites them to escalate their attacks. It is also a blatant lie. What these traitors are forgetting (or not bothering to learn) is that…

“Since the beginning of the American-led air campaign against ISIS, the coalition has launched 8,000 airstrikes and dropped about 28,000 bombs on ISIS sites in Iraq and Syria. In other words, we’ve been launching about 17 airstrikes and dropping 60 bombs per day. Every day. For over a year.”

These missions have seriously degraded the capabilities of the enemy, including killing more than half of their top commanders. ISIS has lost 40% of the territory it once held in Iraq. A recent U.S. airstrike killed more than 150 terrorists at a Somalia camp. Critical ISIS figures such as Abu Salah, their financial chief in charge of its extortion activities, Hajji Mutazz, a deputy to the leader of ISIS, and chemical weapons expert, Abu Malik, have all been killed in recent actions. Clearly, anyone observing the available facts can see that there is a concerted effort to defeat these enemies. So the political distortions from the right are a dishonest campaign to harm Obama, and by extension the country.

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

None of this is meant to diminish the genuine harm done by barbarians who have no respect for humanity. But it serves no purpose to give them the free advertising they crave. We are fulfilling their desires when we help them to spread fear and to foment despair. The only sane way to react to these events is to acknowledge that they occurred and then stop obsessing over them. Then we can conduct our retaliatory response calmly and decisively. But by no means should we panic, tear out our hair, and give the enemy the impression (and satisfaction) that they have crushed our spirit and won a victory.

President Obama At Cuban Baseball Game


Judge? Not! Sarah Palin Announces Her Next Pathetic Media Failure

Posted by on March 23, 2016 at 2:50 pm. 5 Comments :

Apparently the election season gods didn’t think there was enough comedy in this year’s political news. So they are providing us with a new object of ridicule that is really just a warmed over version of an old one.

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin has reportedly signed a deal to appear as a reality TV show judge in the mold of Judge Judy (with an emphasis on mold). At this point the show is just a proposal that has not even produced a pilot. If/when a pilot is available it will be shopped to independent television stations in the hopes of getting enough takers to make going into production financially viable. That may be a difficult task.

The potential market for a new Palin vehicle already knows that her previous forays in television have ended poorly. She was not able to keep her first series, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on the air. Nor was she able to draw sufficient ratings to sustain her second attempt, “Amazing America With Sarah Palin.” She also suffered a total collapse with her subscription Internet video venture that didn’t even last one year. And, of course, she was jettisoned by Fox News who couldn’t justify paying an incoherent has-been to shoot off her mouth for a few minutes a day.

Now some enterprising producer thinks he can package Palin to star in a pseudo-legal reality show. This despite the fact that Palin is neither a lawyer, nor a judge, nor adept at anything associated with mediation, or for that matter, entertainment. What a great idea.

The only reason that seems plausible for this project to exist would be to prepare Palin for a future role in the administration of Donald Trump, should America be unlucky enough for that nightmare to manifest. Trump could then nominate Palin for a seat on the Supreme Court and cite her judicial experience in the realm of syndicated TV. She would be almost as qualified as the rest of the bozos that would infest a Trump administration.

Maybe Palin thinks that as a television judge she would have special powers to achieve her own personal goals. For instance, she could rule death panels unconstitutional and strike down ObamaCare. Or she could issue subpoenas for Hillary Clinton’s top-secret Benghazi confession. Or she might just keep things close to home and pardon her son for having beaten his girlfriend and brandishing an AR-15 while drunk. The options are endless for a season of legal buffoonery. Too bad the chance of this ever getting off the ground is about equal to the chance of Palin being named the GOP nominee for president at the upcoming Republican convention. Hmm. Maybe I should give them any ideas.

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


NYT/CBS Poll: Most Republicans Are Embarrassed By Donald Trump, But Will Vote For Him Anyway

Posted by on March 22, 2016 at 9:08 pm. 2 Comments :

How screwed up are Republican voters? That question may seem unnecessary to anyone who has been watching the GOP primary campaign this election season. It began with seventeen candidates, most of whom never had any hope of success, and some of whom were just plain delusional. And as the field narrowed, the remaining candidates represented the worst of the party’s fringe element. And that’s not even counting Donald Trump.

Donald Trump Voter

What really makes the Republican Party a fall-down laughing stock is something that was revealed in a new poll from the New York Times and CBS News:

“Alarmed by the harsh attacks and negative tone of their presidential contest, broad majorities of Republican primary voters view their party as divided and a source of embarrassment and think that the campaign is more negative than in the past.”

That’s right. Sixty percent of Republican primary voters said the campaign had made them feel mostly embarrassed about their party. The reasons they cite are exclusively associated with the grotesqueness of the Trump campaign: his boorish, unpresidential demeanor, lack of substance, and advocacy of violence. And yet, 46% say that they favor him to be the party’s nominee, twenty points higher than their next choice, Ted Cruz. In fact, half of all voters said they would be “scared” if Trump were elected president, and another 19% said they would be “concerned.” And their concern would be justified, not just because of his unfitness to be president, but because both Clinton and Sanders hold double-digit leads over him in head-to-head match-ups.

So Republican voters are saying that they want Trump to be president despite the fact that they are embarrassed by him as a candidate and afraid of the prospect of his presidency. What sort of sickness would cause people to make such contorted decisions about something so important? Whatever it is, it is the reason that I said way back in September of last year that Donald Trump is just a symptom, Republicans are the disease:

“The fact that his hateful idiocy has caught on with a significant faction of the Republican electorate isn’t his fault. Trump’s support isn’t coming from the back seat of his limo. There are actual voters lining up to align themselves with his noxious brand and without them he would be an asterisk in the polls.”

What’s truly frightening is that so many Republicans are willing to support someone that they affirmatively find embarrassing. The results of this poll should be a source of ongoing concern for the health of our democracy. We probably won’t know until July if Trump actually becomes the GOP nominee, and he may be dumped by party insiders at the convention. But it will be hard to wipe off the stink he has attached to the party and, even after he inevitably flames out, the ignorance and bigotry that are the hallmarks of his campaign will remain. The cult of Trump isn’t new. It’s just the latest incarnation of the Tea Party and the Fox News Church of Right-Wing Crackpottery.

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

One last note, if it makes Republicans feel any better, most Democrats are also embarrassed by Donald Trump. But they’re also embarrassed by Republicans who would still vote for him despite their embarrassment.

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WTF? Donald Trump’s Plan To Prevent Terrorism: Give America A Pep Talk?!

Posted by on March 22, 2016 at 3:07 pm. 5 Comments :

The news from Belgium overnight is a disturbing new chapter in the war against international terrorism. These incidents are too frequent and cause too much misery for the victims and their families, while serving no purpose other than to incite fear. Unfortunately, with news of this nature there also comes the inevitable opportunists who see it as their chance to advance some self-serving agenda. And first in line for that sick exploitation this morning is Fox News and Donald Trump.

Donald Trump

The Kurvy Kouch Potatoes at Fox and Friends wasted no time in getting Donald Trump on the phone to offer his uniquely idiotic and wholly vacant opinions on the Brussels tragedy. Yet even in this friendly setting, every time Trump was asked what he would do under these circumstances, he dodged the question entirely and resorted to spinning his dystopian perception of the world as a terrorist infested hell hole. In more than thirteen minutes he didn’t present a single policy proposal to address the problem other than curtailing immigration and building walls. However, he did have delusions about bad guys with fake passports who are coming into our country by the thousands. Add to that his disseminating long-debunked falsehoods about no-go zones in Paris and Brussels, and his general dismissal of all counter-terrorism measures currently in place, and you have a stew of dangerous ignorance seasoned with rancid hatred and buckets of fear.

The exchanges Trump had with his Fox pals were so embarrassingly meaningless that even the hosts seemed to struggle to get Trump say something – anything – intelligible. They tried asking him the same question multiple times to pry an answer out of him, but still failed to do so. That was when they weren’t making fools of themselves by lobbing softballs like when Brian Kilmeade wanted to know if Trump thought his assessment of Brussels was right. Trump answered “Of course I’m right.” Now that’s journalism. And it was quickly followed by Ainsley Earhardt asking Trump to comment as a businessman “because the market are down […] what happens now from a business perspective?” Trump answered “I think this whole thing will get worse as time goes by. It’s being perpetrated now all over the place.” Note: The markets in the U.S. and Europe were mostly up today (Dow, S&P, FTSE, Euronext, CAC, DAX).

That nonsense is just the start of the foray into fiction for which both Fox and Trump are known. At one point Trump bragged that “I’ve been talking about this for a long time, and look at Brussels. Brussels was a beautiful city, a beautiful place with zero crime, and now it’s a disaster city.” Well except for the fact that Brussels not only has had crime, like any other city, but terrorism as well. For instance, in March of 2012, there was an attack on a Shia mosque. In June of 2012, two Belgian police officers were stabbed in a subway station. In May of 2014, a shooter killed four individuals at the Brussels Jewish Museum. But other than that.

Here are a few other choice moments from the Trump interview:

Earhardt: If you were to become president and were in a situation like this, what would you do to protect America?
Trump: Well, again, I think I’ve said it. I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what is going on. Look at Brussels, look at Paris, look at so many cities that were great cities.

Since Trump has already said that closing the borders would be among the first things he would do as president, then presumably they would already be closed if a situation like this occurred. So what’s his answer to the question? Close the borders harder? And there was this:

Kilmeade: The key to unwinding the issue is getting the Muslim community to trust us and the government more than they do maybe people in their own community. How do you do that?
Trump: Well you need to have, I mean you need to be very vigilant as to who you have and where they’re coming from. You have to look at people and look at their backgrounds so closely. But this is a story that seems to be more and more happening.

Did I miss something? He didn’t address at all the question of how he would get Muslims to trust the government so that they might help to prevent terror attacks. Undaunted, Kilmeade tried again:

Kilmeade: A lot of people listening right now might be misinterpreting your message, in the past and currently, that you have a problem with Muslims. You don’t have a problem with Muslims, in fact you just hired one, Walid Phares, to work for you. So how do you want to win over the trust of the Muslim community who want to be Americans, who are good citizens, and get them to oust the terrorists amongst them? How does Donald Trump do that?
Trump: Well that’s one of the things. They’re very untrusting of people other than Muslims. […] That community doesn’t believe in reporting. They know exactly what’s going on and they don’t believe in reporting to the police.

First of all, Walid Phares, a Fox News analyst, is a Christian, not a Muslim. Secondly, it was nice for Kilmeade to answer his own question for Trump on the matter of his “problem with Muslims.” But Trump’s answer once again avoided any response to the question of attaining the trust of Muslims. To the contrary, he just maligned them as willing accomplices to any terrorist act. But Kilmeade was unusually persistent:

Kilmeade: So what’s your message to them?
Trump: My message is not to them. My message to us is we better get smart and we better get smart fast.

And that’s the kind of substantive proposal that will surely put an end to terrorism for all time. Why didn’t anyone think of that sooner? A little later Trump did come up with a message for American Muslims:

Trump: My message to them is they have to be more open with police. They have to become part of the community. They have to let people know when they see people making bombs on the first floor of the apartment. They have to let people know. And they don’t do it. And then the bombs go off and the guns go off and everything happens and you have the situation like like you recently had in California. […] In my opinion this is just gonna get worse and worse because we are lax and we are foolish.

Finally, Trump addressed part of the question. He at least acknowledged that there needs to be some measure of trust between citizens and law enforcement. But he still didn’t offer any suggestions for achieving that. So Kilmeade’s colleague Ainsley Earhardt took a shot at it:

Earhardt: How do you penetrate communities like that? How do you make a difference and make change?
Trump: It’s not for us to penetrate. It’s for them to penetrate. They have to come to us. You know, we’re not the victims here. We’re acting like it’s our fault. That’s the problem with the liberal policies of this country and this world.

We’re not the victims? Does anyone know what he’s talking about? And his assertion that any penetration must be done by members of the Muslim community is downright ludicrous. It is the job of law enforcement to cultivate relations with the community. Trump thinks we should just hang around and wait until informants feel like coming forward without putting in any effort to encourage it. And then there was this:

Doocy: Let’s say you’re President of the United States today [I’d rather not, actually]. Obviously you would have cracked down on immigration to prevent what you were talking about earlier. What else would you do today?
Trump: Well, you know, I guess I would just talk to the people and give them, frankly, a pep talk. You know, we need a pep talk. We need spirit in our country, OK?

I’m not sure I have anything to say about that. Except for: Are people seriously thinking of voting for this imbecile? A PEP talk?! And Trump is just the guy to give one, he’s so positive and inspirational.

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

To put a rotting, maggot infested cherry on top of all of this, Fox’s Stuart Varney interviewed Trump’s senior policy advisor, Stephen Miller, and asked him a question that makes a mockery of the tragedy in Brussels by shamelessly politicizing it: “We’ve been saying all morning that this makes Trump look good, because he’s addressed the issue of immigration, specifically Muslim immigration. I take it you agree with that?” Good guess, Stu. And thanks for spending the morning telling your dimwitted viewers that a terrorist attack that has taken the lives of at least thirty-one people, with many more injured, is good news for Donald Trump.

Miller began his response by trying to say that political advantage ought not be a part of the discussion, but he ended saying that his candidate, Trump, had a much better take on this than Ted Cruz. Which led Varney to say:

“I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of you vs. Cruz. I don’t want to do that. This is a solemn day. […] We’ve had an outrage in Europe which will have repercussions on our politics here in America. Stephen, one last question. I take it at the moment Donald Trump is ahead in the polls in Arizona by a substantial amount.”

Did you follow that? First Varney asks a pointedly political question. Then he admonishes his guest for giving a political answer. Then he asks another overtly political question. And with that I have to go lay down. My head is spinning. I’m sure there will be more exploitation of this sad affair as the day goes on. And surely Trump will say some more stupid crap. But I’ve had enough for now. Maybe I need a pep talk.


Fox News Shamelessly Whitewashes Donald Trump’s Threat Of RNC Riots

Posted by on March 21, 2016 at 8:50 am. NO Comments :

It is difficult to recall any leading candidate for president who has so frequently and blatantly insinuated the threat of violence into a political campaign as Donald Trump. And his threats have not been merely hypothetical rhetoric, they have produced actual assaults at his rallies on peaceful protesters and even members of the press.

Donald Trump Fox News

When Trump made recent comments that he expects that there will be riots at the Republican National Convention if he is not given the GOP nomination for president that he believes is his entitlement, he said it in the context of his prior statements that literally encouraged violence from his followers. However, Fox News is trying desperately to absolve him of any responsibility for the potential harm that he is forecasting and inciting. This morning on MediaBuzz with Howard Kurtz, the host went to great extremes to let Trump off the hook:

“I was surprised that the media went to DEFCON 1 over Trump’s riots comment. I mean, I’ve used that phrase, ‘oh, there will be riots if this happens,’ and I thought it was hyperbole.”

That is typical of what is coming from the Trump apologists at Fox News. They are lock-step in agreement that Trump’s dangerous language is merely a figure of speech or, at worst, a careless exaggeration. What they seem to be purposefully sweep under the rug is the full story that Trump is telling his glassy-eyed disciples. That story includes advocating openly hostile behavior such as his desire to “punch [protesters] in the face,” and his praising of an assault about which he said the protester “deserved to be roughed up.” He lamented the old days when protesters would be “carried out on a stretcher,” and even offered to pay the legal fees of his goons if they “knocked the crap out of” some protesters (see the video below). In light of all of that, his talk of riots can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole. What Trump actually said was…

“I don’t think you can say that we don’t get [the nomination] automatically. I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous — many, many millions of people. […] I think bad things would happen. I really do, I believe that. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”

In other words, if his tyrannical orders are not obeyed, his followers have his permission to fulfill his prophecy. He knows exactly what his storm-Trumpers are capable of. This was an unambiguous threat intended by Trump to convey that he is determined to be the GOP nominee, or else. And if he is not exalted, riots will ensue. Of course he says that he “wouldn’t lead it,” but conspicuously never says that it shouldn’t happen. That wasn’t an accident. It was a message.

For Howard Kurtz to pretend that Trump was entertaining a flight of fancy and meant no harm requires a massive dose of self-delusion. And on that measure, Kurtz is full of it. He has performed the duties of Trump’s fluffer before, as he tried to exempt Trump from criticism for his repugnant remarks, while simultaneously trying to keep Trump’s verbal fecal splatter from soiling the Republican Party.

Kurtz had help from his Fox News comrades who similarly stepped up to scour the scum off of Trump. Fox regulars Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, Greta Van Susteren, Andrea Tantaros, and Chris Wallace all sought to attach the “figure of speech” fallacy to Trump’s hate-speech.

In addition to whitewashing Trump’s endorsement of riots, Fox made sure that the protesters were disparaged as the real problem simply for exercising their rights to express themselves. In the view of Fox News the First Amendment is only available to conservatives, and dissenters are infringing on them when they seek to speak out. Had Fox been around when Martin Luther King was protesting racist segregation in Alabama, they would have vilified him for interrupting George Wallace’s freedom to oppress black schoolchildren.

Fox News

In pursuit of the sort slander that turned bigots like Wallace into heroes, Fox trotted some of their old fear mongering to rile up their dimwitted audience. Trump is standing in today for Wallace, but his bigotry is no different. So Fox is going after Trump’s protesters so as to turn them into villains. And of course Fox’s coverage of protesters is always slanted to portray progressives as evil, but a couple of years ago, when the protesters were the Tea Party, Fox heralded them as patriots. Now the foul remnants of the Tea Party are lining up behind Donald Trump. And Fox News is running the media interference for them.

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

Donald Trump's History of Inciting Violence

Terrifying. #DumpTrump

Posted by MoveOn.org on Sunday, March 13, 2016


Fox News Slams Donald Trump For His “Sick Obsession” With Megyn Kelly

Posted by on March 19, 2016 at 9:15 am. 2 Comments :

Seven months ago Donald Trump was a participant in the first Republican primary debate on Fox News. He was treated exactly the same as every other candidate, but his reaction was unique in a way that has come to exemplify his trademark bluster and vulgarity. Since then Trump has engaged in a non-stop assault on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, whom he accused of being unfair by asking him to account for his own words.

Donald Trump Megyn Kelly

In all the time that has gone by, Fox News barely said a thing about Trump’s contemptuous ranting. Today, however, Fox News appears to have had enough. Their turning point came after Trump posted another in his series of caustic tweets bashing Megyn Kelly. In the past few days he has taken to branding the Fox host as “Crazy Megyn,” belittling her as “highly over-rated,” and calling her program “unwatrchable.” And then he unleashed this direct attack aimed at Kelly and Fox’s most treasured asset, their audience:

“Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.”

For some reason, after eight months of acrimony and bile that was an entirely one-sided feud by an irrationally enraged Trump, Fox News decided to fight back. They issued the following statement in a belated defense of their star anchor:

“Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land. Megyn is an exemplary journalist and one of the leading anchors in America — we’re extremely proud of her phenomenal work and continue to fully support her throughout every day of Trump’s endless barrage of crude and sexist verbal assaults. As the mother of three young children, with a successful law career and the second highest rated show in cable news, it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job.”

For Fox News to finally notice that Donald Trump’s juvenile antics are “beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate” is something of a revelation for them. Apparently slandering all Mexicans as rapists and criminals, mocking a reporter with a physical disability, embracing the support of white supremacists, proposing to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., encouraging violence at his rallies, repeatedly swearing in public, and most recently floating the idea of his rabid legion of disciples rioting at the Republican convention if he isn’t crowned as the party’s nominee – apparently all of that wasn’t sufficient for Fox to recognize Trump’s total lack of anything resembling dignity. Maybe they were still waiting for him to fulfill his promise to “act presidential.” Good luck with that.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has advocated boycotting Kelly’s show or even the Fox Network completely. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that he had insulted Kelly in the most sexist terms. He has called her a “bimbo” and complained that her demeanor at the GOP debate was due to her menstrual cycle saying that “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her … wherever.” The entirety of his tirades against Kelly seemed to have stemmed from that debate where she questioned him about his proclivity for hurling misogynistic insults at any women who dared to be less than deferential to him. It’s a grudge he has held onto tenaciously despite the fact that she never responded in kind.

So why did Fox suddenly come to Kelly’s aid after eight months of abuse from Trump? One possible reason is his decision to skip the next Fox News GOP debate (for the second time), which resulted in its cancellation. That will cost Fox a small fortune. More likely, though, it’s that Kelly recently complained to More Magazine that “I do wish that O’Reilly had defended me more in his interview with Trump.” She was referring to an episode of the O’Reilly Factor where Trump told O’Reilly that he had “zero respect” for Kelly, and O’Reilly just continued sucking up to Trump without offering any support to his network colleague. Perhaps that complaint filtered up to the executive suites and touched the withered heart of Fox CEO and cult leader Roger Ailes, who sent word down to his PR flacks to start backing her up. He has a lot invested in her and her show, which is the second highest rated program on Fox.

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

In any case, it’s fun to see Fox News, the media equivalent of the Republican Party Pravda, calling out the Republican’s front-runner for the nomination to run for president, as “crude and sexist” with a “sick obsession.” Does this mean that they will cease to give him millions of dollars more in free airtime (beyond the $30 million they’ve given him so far)? Does it mean they will hold him accountable for the plethora of blatant lies he’s told in his quest to be America’s dictator (see the Trump Bullshitopedia)? Don’t bet on it. Fox is still more concerned with advancing an extreme rightist agenda while raking in piles of cash from advertisers hooked on their ill-gotten ratings. Consequently, this bone they’ve thrown to Kelly will not likely alter the propaganda path they’ve trod for the last twenty years.


Watch Seth Meyers Hilariously Skewer The GOP’s Voter Suppression Campaign

Posted by on March 18, 2016 at 2:01 pm. NO Comments :

Seth Meyers is proving to be one of the smartest and funniest of the late-night, political comedians. He has taken his mock-news anchor persona from Saturday Night Live and made it a central feature of his NBC Late, Late Show. And last night’s outing is one of the best examples of why it’s working so well.

Seth Meyers

Meyers “A Closer Look” segment took on the subject of voter ID (video below) with the opening premise that “Voting levels in the U.S. are already among the lowest in the industrialized world,” with slightly more than half of eligible Americans participating in the democratic process. That compares to some other democracies like Sweden where the participation rate is over eighty percent.

The problem, as Meyers sees it, is that rather than trying to improve things many states are passing laws that make it “harder, not easier” to vote. It is not coincidental that those states are run by Republican governors and/or legislatures that have clear partisan agendas. And the impact of these laws can result in the difference “between President Hillary Clinton and glorious beloved leader, Donald Trump, all praise to him and his magnificent hands.”

The segment spelled out how these laws specifically make it harder for low-income residents and people of color to obtain the newly required photo IDs. He cited as an example a 94 year old North Carolina woman who was put through an absurd obstacle course that included ten trips to the DMV and over 200 miles of commuting. All of this to allegedly prevent a suspicious nonagenarian from scamming a North Carolinian whistle-stop out of a single vote.

Meyers correctly observes that the only fraud associated with the anti-voting laws is the purported reason for their existence. The law’s defenders say they are trying to stop voter impersonation – a crime that nobody is committing. Enacting laws to prohibit crimes that aren’t occurring is, as Meyers said, like saying “We’re not sure you’re gonna be on The Batchelor, but you should start taking Valtrex anyway.” Had the law been in effect since 2000 it would have prevented thirty-one possibly improper voters out of more than two billion cast. However, at the same time, it would have kept hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters from casting ballots.

In one particularly egregious example of voter disenfranchisement, Meyers cited an Alabama law that resulted in the closure of DMV offices in mostly rural counties. The secretary of state promised that he would offset that loss of access by dispatching a mobile unit to provide IDs and register the estimated 250,000 voters that didn’t have the IDs made necessary by the new law. He said that the mobile unit would be sent to festivals, schools, churches, and even Walmarts. But when asked how many IDs the unit issued last year he answered, “only twenty-nine.” Out of 250,000. To which Meyers quipped that the unit must actually have been sent to empty lots, swamps, abandoned mineshafts, and Radio Shacks.

The issue of voter suppression is one that is too often ignored by the so-called liberal media. But it is one of the most harmful initiatives being carried out by conservative politicians with the support of right-wing media. Fox News, of course, is leading the way in promoting the false narrative of imaginary voter fraud. For instance, Bill O’Reilly has been fear mongering for years that lax rules for registration are threatening to let “illegal aliens” take over the country. It’s a lie that he and others at Fox are continuing to push on their dimwitted cult of viewers.

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