Bill O’Reilly Covers For Donald Trump’s Fascism – And Guess Who He Blames

Posted by on March 10, 2016 at 2:42 pm. 4 Comments :

Fox News blowhard, Bill O’Reilly, is very upset that “some in the media, both left and right, are portraying Mr. Trump as a 1930’s type fascist, and his supporters as budding brownshirts.” Now why would anyone ever suggest such a thing about Donald Trump and his legion of glassy-eyed disciples?

Bill O'Reilly Donald Trump

Just because Trump has initiated a campaign of hate directed at Latinos, African-Americans, and Muslims in much the same way that Hitler demonized Jews; just because he has called for massive deportation programs for undesirables; just because he has promised to order the military to commit war crimes by targeting the families and children of terrorists; just because he advocates marking Muslims with badges and cataloging them in government databases; just because he has encouraged violence against Americans protesting at his rallies and promised to pay for the legal defense of his followers who assault them; just because of that, where would anyone get the idea that Trump and his supporters were reminiscent of Nazi fascists?

O’Reilly devoted his Talking Points Memo segment to defending Trump, his long-time personal friend, from critics who simply point out the truth about Trump’s repulsive hate mongering. He began by explaining the reasons why many Americans are supporting Trump. In O’Reilly’s view it is because of an array of hoary tropes that he and other lock-step conservatives have been lobbing at liberals for years. He rattled off these subjects as reasons for Trump’s popularity.

  • Attacks on police officers, labeling them racists who hunt down young black men.
  • A porous southern border where narcotics and people smuggling continue unabated.
  • A stagnant economy where workers have little bargaining power.
  • A growing jihadist terror threat that the Democratic Party refuses to define.
  • A Democratic president who, after he announces the beheading of an American citizen, goes out to play golf.
  • A culture that now demands political correctness even if it goes against sincerely held religious beliefs.
  • A legal system that may actually harm a business owner if he or she does not want to participate in a gay marriage.
  • A press corps that generally embraces liberalism.
  • An educational system dominated by teachers and administrators who often impose their view of the world on defenseless children.
  • A grievance industry that is often promoted by the media.

That reads like a program summary for a Rush Limbaugh radio show. It’s a fairly comprehensive itemization of the meritless wingnut griping that goes on everyday on Fox News. But it has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump. This is just O’Reilly’s way of re-iterating his own festering laments and baselessly attributing them to Trump’s ascendancy in the GOP. And after laying out this nonsense, O’Reilly re-introduces Trump as the savior and a Messianic figure:

“In the face of all that an avenger named Trump has risen promising to stop the madness and giving blunt voice to millions of angry Americans.”

O’Reilly goes on to dismiss any relationship between Trump’s ultra-rightist agenda and the fascism it clearly recalls. He argues that Trump is merely representing a strain of “furious dissent.” That doesn’t remind anyone of Hitler, does it? And referring to the endorsement of Trump by America’s white supremacists, O’Reilly waves it off as merely “some bad people” exploiting his campaign. What O’Reilly fails to address is why Trump’s campaign is so ripe for exploitation by the KKK. Not stopping to consider that, he immediately shifts to a ludicrous comparison to Bernie Sanders.

“The same thing is happening with the Bernie Sanders crew. Some haters are supporting Bernie Sanders in order to tear down marketplace freedoms and inflict pain on prosperous Americans.”

Haters? The people O’Reilly is slandering as haters are the majority of Americans who are tired of wealthy elites (like O’Reilly) hoarding all of the economic opportunity and prosperity in the nation. Contrary to being motivated by hate, as Trump’s followers admit, the Sanders “crew” are driven by a desire to see all of their fellow citizens enjoy the benefits of our nation’s rich heritage. And what O’Reilly characterizes as inflicting pain on the prosperous is more like demanding that they pay their fair share. It can hardly be called pain if the Koch brothers are forced to get by on a mere $39 billion rather than $41 billion (the horror).

And here’s where it gets weird. O’Reilly concluded on the point that “charges of racism and fascism are easy smears designed to stop freedom of expression and stifle debate.” He, of course, would never resort to such a tactic and is visibly perturbed that others would dare to express themselves in such a repugnant manner. Well, that is until his next sentence:

“It’s funny, because the people that are doing this, they’re using techniques that the Nazis used. By them calling Trump a Nazi, and his supporters little brownshirts, they’re doing the same thing that Goebbels, who was the Minister of Propaganda, that Adolf and all of those boys did.”

That’s right, immediately after condemning people for calling Trump a Nazi (with ample justification), and asserting that such language was a tactic “designed to stop freedom of expression and stifle debate,” O’Reilly calls Trump’s critics Nazis. Is O’Reilly trying to stop their freedom of expression and stifle debate? His guest for the segment, Bernard Goldberg, giggled as he agreed with O’Reilly. Then he elaborated to say that “if their are any brownshirts in this country it’s liberals on college campuses.”

So now they’ve both called liberals Nazis after just complaining that such rhetoric was tantamount to suppression of speech. This is what passes for informed commentary on Fox News, the network that literally created Donald Trump and has gifted him with more than twice as much airtime as his Republican rivals. Having a close friend like O’Reilly is paying dividends for Trump, who is also afforded privileges on Fox News that other candidates are denied. For instance, live, uncut coverage of every stump speech; permission to phone in interviews; and uncritical reporting of his numerous, flagrant lies (see the Trump Bullshitopedia).

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

Trump knows that he has Fox News, and much of the rest of the press, wrapped around his abnormally short fingers. They are lapping up his bigotry in exchange for ratings. That was even admitted by the president of CBS who recently said that “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” And that pretty much sums up the treasonous attitude of the corporate media.

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Calling Jon Stewart: America Needs You Now More Than Ever

Posted by on March 9, 2016 at 12:39 pm. NO Comments :

When Jon Stewart left the Daily Show (TDS) he left a hole that is much bigger than his diminutive frame. TDS was a unique brand of entertainment that delivered more than humor. It was a daily session of cathartic therapy that provided a safe place to scream at the world through a video surrogate. It was a mocking rebuke of the madness that has infected contemporary politics and culture. It was an assault on the media from a rebel force that they couldn’t control.

Jon Stewart NBC News

TDS became so respected as a source for news that it was commonly included in polling to rate news providers despite being on a comedy network. And it generally rated quite well and higher than many of the allegedly serious news networks. That fact drove the media elitists wild with jealousy as they sought to ridicule the viewers as slackers (Bill O’Reilly added “stoned”), even though studies showed that the TDS audience was also better educated and informed than mainstream news viewers (including O’Reilly’s). Long-time TDS correspondent Stephen Colbert addressed this criticism saying that TDS viewers had to be knowledgeable about the news or they wouldn’t get the jokes.

With one of the most bizarre elections in history currently in progress, there is more material than ever for fierce mockery. The Trump candidacy is a Chinese joke factory – you know the kind that churns out gag-rich laughables 24/7 that sound like they were made by children. The cliche that “the jokes writes themselves” has been trotted out to describe the atmosphere, but talented professionals will still do a better job of it. And Trump isn’t the only source for freestyle farcicals in this election cycle. Ted Cruz is the first competitive presidential candidate to hail from the messianic wing of the Republican Party. And the opportunities missed by the now-defunct campaigns of Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, etc., can never be regained. The Democrats aren’t immune from mockery either, but I’ll leave that to all of the conservative comedians (oh wait, we still haven’t found any those, although Fox News is trying to desperately).

However, since Stewart stepped down from the fake anchor’s desk there has been an aching absence of the purgative satire that he mastered. His hand-picked successor at TDS, Trevor Noah, is an able comedian, but lacks the everyman relatability that endeared Stewart to his viewers. Larry Wilmore, who inherited the time slot of the Colbert Report, has been improving lately, but still falls short of his predecessors. And speaking of Colbert, his new role as himself on CBS’s Late Night doesn’t have the punch that his character did on Comedy Central. It doesn’t help that he is required to host celebrities and other product pluggers for most of the program.

There are some bright spots in the satire field. Most notable is John Oliver’s brilliant and hilarious long-form comedy on his HBO program. Seth Myers has transferred his SNL Weekend Update anchor routine pretty well to his Late Late Show’s “A Closer Look” segment. And former TDS correspondent Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal” has gotten off to a promising start. But Oliver and Bee are only offering one show a week, which hardly fills the void.

What everyone seems to be missing is the fact that Stewart was not doing political satire. He was doing media satire. His targets were predominantly news outlets and the people that represent them. While politicians weren’t shy about publicly embarrassing themselves on a regular basis, it was more often the way that they were covered by the press that attracted Stewart’s attention. And Fox News, the most flagrantly dishonest purveyor of propaganda, was a frequent and well-deserved target. While some comics do go after Fox from time to time, nowhere is there the kind of relentless ridicule that Stewart unleashed on a regular basis. His consistent and high quality humor launched a popular meme proudly declaring that “I get my news from Comedy Central and my comedy from Fox News.”

Satire is a centuries-old form of communication that, at its best, is not only funny, but enlightening. And in the heat of this electoral season, where the front-runner of one of the major political parties is endorsed by the KKK and isn’t bothered by comparisons to Adolf Hitler, satire is an indispensable component to dealing with the insanity that appears to have taken over the GOP and much of right-wing America. The news pundits that provide the so-called informed commentary on current events are too insipidly timid to be useful. Even worse, they are too often oblivious to the truths that a good humorist can make so apparent.

That’s why we need Jon Stewart to return to the public discourse in some fashion. He can’t resume his post at TDS, but he could provide a daily commentary segment on the Rachel Maddow Show, or Colbert’s Late Night, or even NBC News. His insights would give relief to the millions of Americans who are being tortured by a media culture that is functionally blind. He would present a perspective that is altogether missing from the news, and now even from television comedy.

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

It would be a major coup for whatever program or network was smart enough to reel Stewart in. And considering that there was once a ludicrous attempt to hire Stewart to host Meet the Press, this proposal makes much more sense and is actually plausible. C’mon, Jon – we need you. We need you continue to remind us that “Bullshit is everywhere […] and the best defense against bullshit is vigilance.”


Mein Drumpf: Comparisons To Hitler Should Not Surprise Donald Trump

Posted by on March 8, 2016 at 2:13 pm. 4 Comments :

On Good Morning America today host George Stephanopoulos interviewed Donald Trump and raised the subject of the increasingly common comparisons of him to Adolf Hitler. This, in and of itself, isn’t new, but Trump’s response added another lie to the growing collection of falsehoods that he has accumulated (see the Trump Bullshitopedia).

Stephanopouplos didn’t go into much detail about the many similarities of Trump’s rhetoric to that of the Nazi leader, but he did note that critics as diverse as comedian Louis CK, and the unintentionally funny crackpot Glenn Beck, have both made the association. Then Stephanopoulos hit Trump with a fact that has become inescapable, saying that “The number of prominent people comparing you to Adolf Hitler is growing by the day.” Trump responded saying…

“I don’t know about the Hitler comparison. I hadn’t heard that, but it’s a terrible comparison. I’m not happy about that, certainly. I don’t want that comparison. But we have to be strong.”

Setting aside the perverse argument that being strong is somehow a defense for sounding like a fascist, Trump is flat out lying about not having heard the Hitler comparisons before. In fact, Trump heard these very same comparisons while being interviewed by the very same guy. Last December News Corpse reported on an exchange between Trump and Stephanopoulos that was nearly identical to the one today. The only notable difference is that today Trump feigned being unhappy with the comparison, while previously he said that it didn’t bother him. From News Corpse, Dec. 8, 2015:

It had to come to this. Donald Trump’s affinity for Nazis was always just beneath the diseased skin of his repulsive rhetoric. Now, after months of promulgating brazenly racist views, advocating policies that are indistinguishable from those of history’s fascists, and promising to commit war crimes if elected, will anybody be surprised by it bubbling to the surface? Trump’s true face was exposed today when he was asked a simple question on Good Morning America:

George Stephanopoulos: You’re increasingly compared to Hitler. Does that bother you?
Donald Trump: No, what I’m doing is no different from FDR.

Donald Trump

So there you have it. Donald Trump is not bothered by comparisons to Adolf Hitler. And why should he be? He has been running on the platform of the Nazi Party since he announced his candidacy. What’s more, he justifies his comfort with the association by positively referencing the Japanese internment camps built during the FDR administration, which are universally condemned as one of America’s most shameful actions.

Trump frequently claims that he has “the greatest memory in the world,” but he is now pretending not to recall a recent discussion with the same interviewer on the same subject. Trump’s dishonesty is becoming so flagrant that he is having trouble keeping track of his previous lies. And his pretense that he is suddenly bothered by being associated with a megalomaniacal tyrant is hardly believable. His most recent rallies have been marred by violence that he openly encourages against protesters. He even promises to pay for the legal defense of anyone who assaults a protester. He has hired his own brand of brownshirts to patrol his rallies. And the loyalty pledge ceremonies that he orchestrates eerily resemble the throngs of Germans hailing Hitler with the Nazi salute.

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

So when you hear Trump claim that he is unaware of the comparisons to Hitler, you now know that it is a blatant lie. You also know that when he complains about that comparison, it is obvious that he is simply trying to deny the reality that his entire campaign is grounded in fascistic rhetoric, and worse, behavior. And as bad as it is that Trump would engage in such a repulsive campaign, we must not forget the people that attend his rallies cheering, pledging loyalty, beating protesters, and later voting for this nauseating candidate. It is what the Republican Party has sunk to in this age of rightist hate.


Hillary’s America: Ex-Con’s Anti-Clinton Documentary Whitewashes The Right’s Ties To The KKK

Posted by on March 7, 2016 at 11:56 am. 10 Comments :

The architects of the long-festering anti-Clinton crusades are often people who are demonstrably lacking in ethics or honesty. Take for example ex-con Dinesh D’Souza. Two years ago he pleaded guilty to election fraud. Prior to that he was forced to resign as the dean of a Catholic university due to his marital infidelity. This paragon of virtue, who is presenting himself as a spokesman for conservative values, has a follow-up to his 2012 crocumentary, “Obama’s America,” wherein he attempted to portray Hillary Clinton and President Obama as a hippie and a street thug.

The Hippie & The Street Thug

Setting aside those sexist and racist characterizations, D’Souza utterly failed to make any coherent points and his cinematic tantrum had no impact on the election that he hoped to swing to the right. So naturally he is returning with a new screed aimed directly at Clinton titled “Hillary’s America.” If her administration wound up being anything like Obama’s, then the stock market would double again, there would be another 72 straight months of private sector job growth, the percent of Americans without health insurance would be cut in half again, and the deficit would be cut by another two-thirds. What a nightmare.

The trailer for D’Souza’s new film (video below) reveals that it intends to continue an absurd and dishonest argument about racism in America. It begins with a D’Souza voice-over asking “Who are these Democrats?” Before answering that question he whines that “It all began when the Obama administration tried to shut me up.” That’s a reference to his prosecution and incarceration for election fraud to which he admitted guilt. He doesn’t explain how that sneaky rascal Obama got him to break the law by illegally funding a Republican Senate candidate. However, he does dismiss his own criminality to claim that “The big criminals are still at large,” while showing video of Clinton and Obama.

The meat of this propaganda piece appears to be centered on D’Souza’s allegations that the modern Democratic Party is closely tied to the Ku Klux Klan and supports slavery. This is one of the favorite lies of far-right cranks and Republican apologists for bigotry. It is based on the sliver of fact that 150 years ago southern Democrats were angry with Abraham Lincoln’s abolitionist policies and formed hate groups to oppose him. But the flaky right obsessively ignores the reality that Democrats cast off those positions in the 1950’s and 1960’s as they advanced comprehensive civil and voting rights legislation.

As a result, the bigots in the party fled en masse to a welcoming Republican Party that opposed advancements in equality and swelled the ranks of the white supremacist organizations. Former Democrats like Strom Thurmond became leaders of the GOP’s segregationist contingent. And today it is still the Republican Party that is throwing up roadblocks to the voting rights and non-discrimination bills that are proposed by Democrats. It is not coincidental that Donald Trump’s candidacy is backed by David Duke and other white supremacists. And it isn’t just Trump that draws those racists to the GOP. Anyone who can deny that it is the Republican Party that is the home of Confederacy-loving racists is either lying through their teeth, oblivious to reality, or painfully stupid.

D’Souza appeared at this year’s ultra-rightist CPAC convention to promote the film. He revealed his intention to release it during the Democratic National Committee’s convention in July. Clearly he thinks he’s going to disrupt the news cycle with his wingnut fan fiction, but more likely it will get lost amid the more newsworthy events associated with launching the Democrats’ presidential nominee into the general election. So he was reduced to begging the CPAC attendees to see the film on its opening weekend in the hopes of building buzz. [Side note: D’Souza will have wasted a lot of time and his sponsors money if Bernie Sanders ends up being the nominee]

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


The Cult Of Fox News: Blind Devotion To Cable’s Church Of Disinformation Continues

Posted by on March 6, 2016 at 7:51 pm. 3 Comments :

While researching an article on the cultish components of Donald Trump’s campaign and the branding strategy behind it (stay tuned for that.) I came across an article I wrote a little over a year ago that addressed the same subject, but with respect to Fox News. Having read it again it seemed to still be so relevant to the Fox News of today that it deserved a second look. So here it is in its entirety.

Pray for Fox News

One of the fundamental methods employed by cults to assure unwavering loyalty is to demand that devotees believe only in the doctrine bestowed by the cult. All others are presumed to be deceivers and unworthy of trust.

With that in mind, consider the results of the new Pew Research study on “Political Polarization & Media Habits.” The year-long research surveyed American news consumers and categorized their relationships to thirty-six sources for news and information about government and politics by political ideology. The differences in the levels of trust exhibited by consistent conservatives and liberals are profound.

The study reveals that conservatives have drastically constrained their access to news to a very few, hard-right outlets. They behave as if any exposure to a conflicting viewpoint would be tantamount to fraternizing with Satan. Consequently, they rely almost solely on Fox News for their information intake. That is how Fox maintains their ratings position, by herding all of the conservative cattle into one corral.

Nearly half (47%) of conservatives identify Fox News as their “main source” for news. Nothing else even comes close. Compare that to liberals who cite CNN as a main source only 15% of the time with a half dozen other sources closely competing for their attention. What’s more, conservatives obediently trust Fox News by a larger margin (88%) than any other group of viewers. And the only other sources they trust more than 50% of the time are similarly far-right partisans: Sean Hannity (62%), Rush Limbaugh (58%), and Glenn Beck (51%). Of course, none of those sources are objective news providers, or even journalists.

While Conservatives have only four sources that they trust more than 50% of the time, liberals express trust for nine different sources at that rate: NPR (72%), PBS (71%), BBC (69%), New York Times (62%), CNN (56%), NBC (56%), MSNBC (52%), ABC (52%), and CBS (51%). Note that they are all (with the exception of MSNBC) generally regarded as legitimate journalistic enterprises. Except, that is, by conservatives who trust none of them. In fact, conservatives only have greater trust than distrust for twelve of the thirty-six sources in the study. So consistent with the cult maxim, conservatives actively distrust twenty-four (two-thirds) of the sources. Liberals flip that stat, having greater trust for twenty-eight of the sources and distrust for only eight.

The mission of Fox News from the beginning was to divide the nation by ideology. It is why they came up with their “fair and balanced” slogan with the implicit accusation that the other news providers were neither. They deliberately sectioned off their audience and told them that everyone else was lying to them. Subsequently, when they lied to their viewers (which they do constantly), there is no place for them to turn for the actual truth. The Fox version of events becomes the unqualified gospel for their audience/disciples despite being riddled with falsehoods and rancid partisanship. And additional proof of that is seen in the studies that show that Fox viewers are less informed than those who watch other media, or even those who watch nothing at all. And the more you watch Fox, the less you know.

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

The correlations to cult status are unmistakable: Proselytize relentlessly (Fox is #1); repeat/preach the cult’s doctrine (anti-Obama, anti-government, Benghazi); reinforce obedience with fear (tyranny, terrorism, Ebola); glorification of idols (Ronald Reagan, Ted Cruz, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin); demonization of competing views (Democrats, the rest of the media); and fabricating a comforting home for faithful followers by casting experienced propagandists and appealing, mostly blonde, presenters as reporters. It’s a closed loop society that succeeds by keeping the flock secluded, ignorant, and artificially happy. I just hope they don’t start serving Kool-Aide.


Donald Trump Caught Cheating At Fox News Debate – Fox Covers It Up

Posted by on March 5, 2016 at 8:01 pm. 6 Comments :

At the Republican debate on Fox News last week, Donald Trump proved that he is an ignoramus and a liar. And now we learn that he is also a cheater. What happened will not surprise anyone who has observed Trump’s acute sociopathic tendencies, but it is nevertheless indicative of his aversion to civility and decency.

Fox News Donald Trump

CNN’s Dylan Byers reports that during the debate Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, came out unto the stage to consult with him. That is an explicit violation of debate rules. And to make matters worse, when a network staffer told Lewandowski that he had to leave, Lewandowski defiantly refused.

This is the sort of behavior that one would expect from a privileged, elitist, wannabe dictator who doesn’t believe that any rules apply to him. And it also reveals that Trump is too stupid to participate in a debate without getting help from his handlers. Even with that help Trump made numerous mistakes and told easily debunked lies. For example, he affirmed that as president he would try to order the military to commit war crimes, something that he has said before. The following morning his campaign released a statement contradicting Trump saying that he would adhere to all domestic and international laws. Then Trump gave a speech later that day reiterating his pro-war crimes stance.

The fact that Trump has to cheat, and do so openly even after being told to stop, foretells an ominous future should he ascend to the White House. It exposes his proclivity for ignoring legal standards of conduct. It marks him as someone who would not hesitate to violate the law in order to get his way.

The sad thing about this is that Trump’s supporters are so dazzled by his gold-plated persona that they will probably like him more because of this. They will regard it as a sign of strength. But they should think twice (which mistakenly presumes that they have thought once already). Trump’s glassy-eyed disciples are the same Tea Party know-nothings that go bonkers when they hear about President Obama’s executive orders (of which he has issued fewer than any president in the last century). They are the same wingnuts who complain without foundation that he disregards the Constitution. They are convinced that he violates the law pretty much any day that he wakes up.

Consequently, it would be an epic feat of hypocrisy to approve of Trump’s shady dealings. It would also be dangerous from the standpoint of their own political agenda. Since Trump has no political convictions, his lawlessness could be put to use doing something that the righties detest.

Breaking the agreed upon rules of a civilized debate does not indicate strength. To the contrary, it indicates fear of being constrained to fair play. It indicates an inner sense of inferiority that you can’t compete on a level playing field. It is the definition of weakness.

Fox News doesn’t fare any better in this scandalette. After failing to stop Trump from consulting with his campaign manager, Fox told the other debate participants that they could have similar consultations. In other words, Fox just said that everybody can cheat and ignore the rules that were previously agreed upon for sound reasons. That’s a huge cop-out. Part of the purpose of these debates is to be able to judge the candidate’s ability to think on their feet.

So what could Fox have done differently? They could have sent Trump home for the night. They could have banned him from the next debate. They at least could have disclosed to the audience what had occurred. If a pitcher throws a spitball, the umpires don’t tell the other team’s pitchers that they can throw spitballs too. The violation is disclosed and the violator is sent to the lockers. Fox decided to expand the cheating and lie to the viewers by keeping all of it secret.

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

It seems that every day we learn something new about Fox News and the Republican Party that reveals more about their hypocrisy, larceny, and total lack of ethics. Donald Trump is the perfect Fox News candidate because they are both averse to honesty and principles. That’s probably why they created him in the first place.

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CNN Catches Donald Trump Stiffing The Veterans He Pretends To Love

Posted by on March 4, 2016 at 12:57 pm. 6 Comments :

Remember when Donald Trump was too chicken to face Fox News host Megyn Kelly in a Republican debate, so instead of participating in the last debate before the Iowa caucus he cobbled together a phony veterans benefit and pretended to raise money for the wounded warriors he professed to “love all over the place?” Well, a funny thing happened.

Donald Trump

CNN decided to look into the distribution of the reported six million dollars that was raised to see if any of the twenty-two charities Trump listed as recipients had actually received any donations (video below). Their report revealed that, more than a month later, only about $800,000 of the six million dollars had found its way to the intended veteran beneficiaries.

CNN was initially told by the Trump campaign that the information about the funds was on his website, but after extensive searching that turned out not to be true. So CNN’s Drew Griffin called all of the listed charities to ascertain whether they had received any donations. Only seven organizations reported receiving any money. Griffin reported that…

“We have been asking, other news organizations have been asking, where’s the accounting of this? It’s a big dollar amount but it’s not high math when you’re dealing with hundred thousand dollar checks and six million dollars in donations. It should be easy to do. Charity Navigator, one of the groups that follows charities, says the money should have been disbursed by now. We continue to ask, but get no answers.”

This may be one of the reasons that several veterans groups announced that they would refuse to take any of Trump’s money before the bogus telethon began. Many people regarded the event as a political stunt that insulted America’s veterans by using them as campaign props.

What’s more, of the alleged six million dollars raised, four million came from four of Trump’s wealthy pals making one million dollar donations each. That’s two-thirds of the total that Trump raised with four phone calls that he could have made at any time, but never bothered. He only reached out to these donors when he needed an excuse to ditch the Fox News debate and the fearsome Megyn Kelly.

It remains to be seen where the rest of the money is and when or whether it will be disbursed. This delay further affirms that Trump is as insincere an advocate of veterans issues as he is about virtually everything else to which he shamelessly panders. It makes the release of his tax returns even more crucial as he has been accused of not being as charitable as he claims and is evading the disclosure of that by not releasing those returns.

Trump has never been regarded as a philanthropist. In fact, he is rather infamous for being the least charitable billionaire in the United States. With his purported billions of dollars he could easily have made a donation for the whole six million all by himself and disbursed it overnight by cutting a few checks. The fact that he hasn’t tells us just how much he really cares about veterans. To him they are merely another issue to exploit in order to get his way.

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


Yes, Donald Trump Did Make An Ass Of Himself At The Debate – Again

Posted by on March 4, 2016 at 9:01 am. 3 Comments :

In case you missed the latest Republican debate on Fox News, here is a recap of some the lowlights provided by the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump.

Donald Trump GOP

Moderator Chris Wallace opened with a question referencing Mitt Romney’s brutal takedown of Trump earlier that day: “[Mitt Romney] challenged you to answer with substance, not insults. How do you answer Mitt Romney, sir?” Not surprisingly, Trump responded with an insult: “Well look, he was a failed candidate, he should have beaten president Obama very easy.”

Trump was asked about his failure to disavow the support of David Duke, the KKK and other white supremacists. He came clean saying “I totally disavow the Klu Klux Klan. I totally disavow David Duke. I’ve been doing it now for two weeks, this is your — you’re probably about the 18th person that’s asked me the question. It was very clear.” That’s funny, because his previous reason for not doing so was that he didn’t hear the question due to a “very bad earpiece.” He has apparently abandoned that lie. And white supremacists continue to back his candidacy for reasons that are obvious to anyone who listens to him.

On the subject of how badly the discourse in the Republican campaign had deteriorated into infantile insults, Trump elected to sink even further saying “[Marco Rubio] referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.” Something tells me that he is going handle this the same way he is handling his tax returns – by refusing to provide evidence (thank God). And something also tells me that he is just as dishonest about both subjects. His bellicose bullying is clearly overcompensating for shortcoming.

Rubio hit Trump again on his record as a businessman who failed repeatedly and had the benefit of a generous inheritance. Trump continued to evade the issue, changing the subject to the “small” loan of a million dollars that he received from his father. Someone needs to ask him directly how much he received from his father’s estate when he died. Published reports put the amount as high as $200 million.

Trump gave a long, and nearly incoherent, answer when asked when he will start having his clothing lines manufactured in the U.S. He eventually said that he wouldn’t do it because it wasn’t financially feasible because China, Japan, and Mexico “make it impossible for clothing-makers in this country to do clothing in this country.” Of course, the truth is that there are many domestic clothing manufacturers and Rubio made that point by noting that all of the clothes on his website are made in the U.S.

Trump was asked if he would authorize of The New York Times to release the tapes from an interview that included off-the-record remarks. He declined saying that “I have too much respect for that process to say ‘just release everything.’ I would not do that.” He seems not to grasp the concept. Being off-the-record is purely a concession to the interviewee. It is not a process or a promise to the journalist. If he releases the reporter from the agreement, the reporter would be thrilled to publish the material. Trump is obviously trying to blame his refusal to release the material on an imaginary “process” because he’s afraid of what it will reveal about him.

Trump was asked about his flip-flopping, including the time he said that he would have invaded Afghanistan, which he said that he would not do the day before. His explanation was that “Well, on Afghanistan, I did mean Iraq.” The only problem with that is that the full statement he made opposing the Afghanistan invasion was this: “We’ve made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place. That thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave. Just as I said that Iraq was going to collapse after we leave.” He could not plausibly have meant Iraq instead of Afghanistan if he included Iraq in the comment as another example of invasions he opposed.

And then there was this bizarre exchange with co-moderator Bret Baier:

Baier: Mr. Trump, just yesterday, almost 100 foreign policy experts signed on to an open letter refusing to support you, saying your embracing expansive use of torture is inexcusable. […] So what would you do, as commander-in-chief, if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders? […] the military will refuse because they’ve been trained to turn down and refuse illegal orders.
Trump: They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.
Baier: But they’re illegal.
Trump: Well, look, you know, when a family flies into the World Trade Center, a man flies into the World Trade Center, and his family gets sent back to where they were going — and I think most of you know where they went — and, by the way, it wasn’t Iraq — but they went back to a certain territory, they knew what was happening. The wives knew exactly what was happening. They left two days early, with respect to the World Trade Center, and they went back to where they went, and they watched their husbands on television flying into the World Trade Center.

First of all, Trump is revisiting a lie he has told before about the wives of the 9/11 hijackers. Only two of the terrorists were married, and their wives never came to the U.S. in the first place, so they never flew back to that “certain territory.” Secondly, Trump completely dodged the question as to how he would coerce the military to commit war crimes, which is what he is proposing when he says that he would bomb the families of terrorists. Soldiers are actually duty-bound to refuse to follow unlawful orders.

And this is current front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. As frightening as is the prospect of such an ignorant, dishonest, wannabe dictator becoming president, it is even scarier that there is a sizable faction of Republican voters who support him. This affirms my theory that Trump is just a symptom, his followers are the disease.

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


Mitt Romney Scorches Donald Trump – Heads Explode At Fox News

Posted by on March 3, 2016 at 11:13 am. 7 Comments :

This morning there was an unprecedented attack by a former Republican presidential candidate on a current front-runner for the GOP nomination. Mitt Romney’s speech was a well constructed and impassioned plea to Republican voters to reject Donald Trump, whom Romney called a phony and a fraud. Romney’s speech covered a panoply of Trump’s abhorrent remarks and disastrous proposals. Video of Romney’s address is below, along with some select quotations. But first…

Mitt Romney Donald Trump

The response by Fox News immediately following Romney’s speech was swift and decidedly hostile to Romney. Fox host Jon Scott impaneled three guests to discuss the uncommonly harsh criticism of Trump. All three of them bashed Romney and predicted that the ensuing controversy would benefit Trump. It was a lock-step, unified condemnation of Romney in defense of Trump that didn’t bother to address a single substantive point from the address.

The post-speech analysis on Fox was followed by the regularly scheduled program, Outnumbered. And guess what? The reaction was identical to the three panelists who preceded them. Guest co-host Eric Bolling got the ball rolling by complaining that if Romney were sincere about his critique he should have come out with this speech sooner. Having failed to do that everything he said should be dismissed now. The rest of the cast of co-hosts generally agreed that because Romney lost the election in 2012 his electoral advice should be forever after ignored. But co-host Andrea Tantaros had the most cutting rebuke when she implored voters to tell Romney to “take it and shove it.”

After Outnumbered, Fox News continued their Romney-bashing with another panel of two contributors who both dismissed Romney as ineffective and irrelevant. The consistency of the stance against Romney was so thorough that, by all appearances, it could only have been planned in advance. There was clearly a directive sent down to the newsroom from the ivory tower office of Roger Ailes to trash Romney and defend Trump. Nothing else could explain the uniformity of thought by so many Fox personalities. And it is that type of uniformity that Fox News has always sought to ensure in order to manipulate the cultish disciples that watch the network.

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

Update: Romney predicted in his speech that Trump would respond “with every imaginable low road insult.” He called that one right. When Trump spoke at a rally in Portland Maine, he was obsessed with Romney’s 2012 loss and ignored every substantive issue that Romney raised. Then Trump proceeded with his robo-speech extolling his greatness and his promise to build a wall. And, of course, every cable news net covered live in its entirety despite the absence of any news value.

Here is the video of Romney’s speech, followed by some select quotes from the transcript that capture the tone of Romney’s warnings about a Trump presidency.

If Donald Trump’s plans were ever implemented, the country would sink into a prolonged recession. […] even as Donald Trump has offered very few specific economic plans, what little he has said is enough to know that he would be very bad for American workers and for American families.

But wait, you say, isn’t he a huge business success that knows what he’s talking about? No he isn’t and no, he doesn’t. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create it. […] A business genius he is not.

Trump’s bombast is already alarming our allies and fueling the enmity of our enemies. Insulting all Muslims will keep many of them from fully engaging with us in the urgent fight against ISIS.

[T]his is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter’s questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity. […] There is dark irony in his boasts of his sexual exploits during the Vietnam War while John McCain, whom he has mocked, was imprisoned and tortured.

Dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark: He claimed that he had spoken clearly and boldly against going into Iraq. Wrong, he spoke in favor of invading Iraq. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11. Wrong, he saw no such thing. He imagined it. His is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader. His imagination must not be married to real power.

Think of Donald Trump’s personal qualities, the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics. [..] Now imagine your children and your grandchildren acting the way he does. Will you welcome that?

The audio and video of the infamous Tapper-Trump exchange on the Ku Klux Klan will play a hundred thousand times on cable and who knows how many million times on social media.
There are a number of people who claim that Mr. Trump is a con man, a fake. There is indeed evidence of that. Mr. Trump has changed his positions not just over the years, but over the course of the campaign, and on the Ku Klux Klan, daily for three days in a row.

We will only really know if he is the real deal or a phony if he releases his tax returns and the tape of his interview with the New York Times. I predict that there are more bombshells in his tax returns. I predict that he doesn’t give much if anything to the disabled and to our veterans. I predict that he told the New York Times that his immigration talk is just that: talk.

Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less than noble purposes. He creates scapegoats of Muslims and Mexican immigrants, he calls for the use of torture and for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit first amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.

Here’s what I know. Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.

Not a bad rant for a Republican, conservative, establishment, one-percenter.


Fox News Admits That The Media Is Rooting For Donald Trump

Posted by on March 2, 2016 at 7:30 pm. 2 Comments :

Yesterday News Corpse published an article on The Trump Effect that laid out how the media has a profit motive to keep Donald Trump in the race. The article included a quote from the CEO of CBS who confessed that, with regard to Trump, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” In other words, their lust for profit has a higher priority than their love of country.

Donald Trump News

So what happened on Fox News last night could not have happened at better time. On the Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly did a segment with the Fox News media correspondent and host of Fox’s MediaBuzz, Howard Kurtz. The discussion began with Kelly asserting that “a lot of the media, they love Trump.” That’s an understatement, particularly after exploring the Trump Effect and the profound financial incentive the media has to extend his place in the limelight. They are doing everything they can to keep his face in front of voters and maintain his electoral viability. Which led to this revealing exchange:

Kurtz: Now Cruz has made this argument in recent days, and Marco Rubio as well, that the media has focused so much attention on Donald Trump. They love Donald Trump. They’re rooting for Donald Trump. At least until the fall.
Kelly: But they do. If you look at the numbers even on the nightly newscast — the time they devoted just in the past night — last night to Donald Trump vs the other two, it was six minutes Trump, I think seven seconds, Rubio. I mean, the disparity was remarkable.
Kurtz: There’s a clear imbalance. And we’ve all had banners awaiting Trump news conference, which shows how he can hijack the news cycle. But a lot of that attention has been negative.

Kelly had finally admitted something that has been true for more than half a year – that the coverage of Trump by the media has been wildly out of proportion to the rest of the candidates of both parties. While Kurtz only mentioned that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had complained about this, last December Bernie Sanders told Chris Cuomo of CNN about a study that showed that Trump received 81 minutes of airtime on ABC News in 2015 while Bernie Sanders got 20 seconds.

The response by Kurtz to Kelly’s revelation, however, was painfully oblivious to reality. First of all, he tried to blame Trump for the imbalance by accusing him of “hijacking the news cycle.” Which makes you wonder if Kurtz knows the definition of “hijack.” Trump did not storm the studio and force the news producers at gunpoint to put him on the air. They did that all of their own accord. It was more of a gift from the press than a hijacking by Trump. If the media didn’t want to put him on then he wouldn’t be on, and there would be nothing he could do about it. Just ask Bernie Sanders.

Following that absurd portrayal of events, Kurtz then attempted to conflate two completely different issues. By veering off to say that “a lot of that attention has been negative,” he was changing the subject from the free airtime that Trump got to the amount of time spent discussing him. But that isn’t the problem that was raised by observing how much time Trump got every time he gave a stump speech. The cable news networks seem to cut to him live whenever he holds a rally. And, of course, they don’t do that for anyone else. That’s the problem, and Kurtz appeared not to want to acknowledge it.

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

The most striking part of this whole segment, though, was how both Kelly and Kurtz spoke about the media as if it were a detached entity that had nothing to do with them. However, the truth is that Fox New is the network that is most responsible for the coverage imbalance that they both concede exists. No network gives Trump more airtime than Fox News. And on Fox, no candidate receives as much airtime as Trump. So it was a bit disorienting to hear these two pretend that the Trump Effect was just some vague theory that was floating around and impacted all of the media equally. They may have come closer to representing reality by admitting that the media roots for Trump, but they continue to lie about their decidedly prominent role in the cheering section.