SRSLY? Kayleigh McEnany Tells Fox News There Were No Crises When Trump Was President

Posted by Mark NC on August 25, 2021 at 12:10 pm. 3 Comments :

The commitment by Fox News to gaslight America is among the most conspicuously dishonest campaigns of flagrant falsehoods ever contrived by an alleged “news” enterprise. Their relentless avalanche of lies and shameless promotion of liars is Olympian in its scale and ambition.

The most recent evidence of Fox’s fantastical fib factory came on Tuesday evening when Donald Trump’s former press secretary (now employed by Fox News), Kayleigh McEnany, guest co-hosted on The Five and participated in a discussion about President Biden’s first few months in office. Her preposterous remarks were an exhibition of either her utter aversion to truth-telling, or stage 4 acute amnesia. She babbled that…

“We are eight months into a Biden presidency. Jesse. Wrap your head around that. We still have three years and four months left. Look, when President Trump was President, you didn’t see crisis after crisis. You just didn’t see it.”

Kayleigh: When President Trump was President, you didn’t see crisis after crisis. pic.twitter.com/pipF8GWbBg

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 24, 2021

What the Holy F**k? Even after four years of unabashed lying by Trump – who set an unchallengeable record of more than 30,000 lies – it is still startling to hear such malignant mendacity coming out of even a professional deceiver’s mouth.

The reality of the crisis-stained Trump administration is so thoroughly contrary that it’s hard to believe that McEnany could allow those words to escape her perfidious piehole. What follows is a necessarily abridged archive of Trump’s catastrophes:

Led about inauguration crowd size
Fired National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, for lying to the FBI and VP
Fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Fired FBI Director James Comey
Fired Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci
Fired … Oh look them up yourself. There’s way to many to list here
The Mueller Report that led to 34 indictments, and 10 incidents of obstruction of justice
Paid off (and lied about) Stormy Daniels
The longest government shutdown in American history
Disclosed classified material to Russian ambassador
Sided with Vladimir Putin against American intelligence
Abandoned nuclear pact with Iran
Got laughed at by the entire United Nations
Fell “in love” with North Korean dictator, Kim Jung Un
Very fine people on both sides at Nazi-attended rally
Separated babies from their parents and warehoused children in cages
Covered for Saudi murderers of Washington Post journalist
Praised QAnon
Exits Paris Accords on Climate Change
Pardoned accomplices Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, etc.
Tear gassed protesters for a photo-op at a church
Multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault
Jeffrey Epstein
Wasted billions on a useless border wall that Mexico didn’t pay for.

And Most Notably…

Was impeached twice
Preside over half a million deaths due to COVID pandemic
Incited deadly insurrection

And that’s only a partial list. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has…

Delivered thousands of dollars to millions of Americans suffering from the pandemic that Trump neglected
Reversed dozens of Trump’s anti-environmental executive orders
Restored Obamacare to the state prior to Trump’s sabotage of it
Rejoined the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization
Lead an economy to record growth and historically low unemployment
Advocates for workers rights and a higher minimum wage
Investing in infrastructure and Building Back Better for American families and businesses
Pushing legislation for voting rights
Managed the effort to get 70% of American adults vaccinated

And Biden is currently getting the U.S. out of the twenty year long Afghanistan war that Trump fumbled so badly. Yet somehow, to McEnany and Fox News, it’s Biden who is burdened with crises? Put down the pipe Kayleigh.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram.

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

Trump’s Plan for Afghanistan Was to Abandon Our Troops and Allies, Psaki Reveals His Lies

Posted by Mark NC on August 24, 2021 at 5:34 pm. 4 Comments :

One of the problems that Joe Biden inherited from his predecessors when he became President was the two decades long war in Afghanistan. And he made it clear that he was determined to make certain that it wasn’t handed down to another president.

Biden’s goal was strewn with obstacles placed in his path by Donald Trump, whose abysmal deal with the Taliban has been lambasted by his own National Security Advisor as a “surrender agreement,” that lifted all sanctions on the Taliban and freed 5,000 of their imprisoned fighters, including their leader.

Not one to be deterred by reality, Trump is still hammering away at Biden with blatantly dishonest representations of the situation now unfolding in Afghanistan. He released a statement on Tuesday via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban), that sound more like a madman on a street corner yelling at passing cars than a diplomat:

“Biden surrendered Afghanistan to terrorists and left thousands of Americans for dead by pulling out the Military before our citizens. Now we are learning that out of the 26,000 people who have been evacuated, only 4,000 are Americans. You can be sure the Taliban, who are now in complete control, didn’t allow the best and brightest to board these evacuation flights. Instead, we can only imagine how many thousands of terrorists have been airlifted out of Afghanistan and into neighborhoods around the world. What a terrible failure. NO VETTING. How many terrorists will Joe Biden bring to America? We don’t know!”

There’s a lot to unpack in that hysterical harangue. Starting at the top, Biden did not surrender to terrorists. That was Trump. And Biden has not left a single American for dead, much less thousands. Trump appears to have ingested some powerful hallucinogens.

Moving on, Trump is surprised that 26,000 of the evacuees were Afghans. He apparently doesn’t know that there are far more Afghans in Afghanistan than Americans. He also doesn’t seem to know that thousands of them served our troops loyally and bravely and deserve to be rescued from a dire fate at the hands of the Taliban. Trump is actually repeating the very same racist lines that he previously used on Mexican refugees, implying that they are all criminals being “sent” to America by wily foreign governments.

What’s more, Trump is outright lying (surprise) about whether these Afghans are vetted before being evacuated. This question was raised at the White House daily press briefing by Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy. Which gave press secretary Jen Psaki yet another opportunity to publicly humiliate him. Doocy asked a loaded question suggesting that there are suspected terrorists among the evacuees. Psaki replied saying that…

“We have a stringent vetting process, which includes background checks before any individual comes to the United States. So I can’t speak to one individual, but I can tell you and confirm for you that we take the vetting of any individual who comes to the United States and comes out incredibly seriously and it’s an extensive process.

“I would say that this is now on track, Peter, to be the largest airlift in US history. And that is bringing American citizens out. It is bringing our Afghan partners out. It is bringing allies out. So, no, I would not say that is anything but a success.”

Jen Psaki to Peter Doocy: "I would say that this is now on track, Peter, to be largest airlift in US history … so no, I would not say that is anything but a success." pic.twitter.com/goyQM9KQN6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 24, 2021

Doocy, masochist that he is, persisted with another question suggesting that because Biden is hoping to stick to the August 31 date for the withdrawal to be completed, that the Taliban had “the same kind of influence over military planning as the Commander in Chief?” And once again, Psaki had to set him straight:

“Well, first of all Peter, the Taliban’s deadline was May 1st, struck in a deal with the prior administration. The President’s timeline was August 31st. That’s the timeline he set, and a period of time he needed in order to operationalize our departure from Afghanistan.”

Peter Doocy tries to claim that the Taliban is running Joe Biden. Jen Psaki reminds him that it was Trump who set the Taliban's deadline, "The Taliban's deadline was made first striking a deal with the prior administration." pic.twitter.com/5kfs9EbR7H

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 24, 2021

Anyone who had even a glancing knowledge of these matters knew that the Taliban and Trump had agreed to a May 1st exit date. So it’s just a demonstration of his ignorance that Doocy didn’t know that the August 31 date was Biden’s decision, not the Taliban’s. And Biden is reserving the option to extend that date if conditions on the ground require it. The Taliban has no role in that decision making process.

It’s clear from Trump’s remarks that his plan was to leave behind both Americans and Afghans. He had not initiated any operations to evacuate anyone prior to his evacuation from the White House, even though there were only three months between his exit and May 1st. That may have been his purposeful attempt to hamstring Biden, or it may have just been his incompetence and negligence.

Either way, Trump has no right to complain about how things are turning out. Just the fact that the Biden team has evacuated 70,000 people since August 14 is a testament to what competent leadership can achieve. And he did it while also dealing with a surging pandemic (also Trump’s fault) and a busy legislative agenda that included bills to provide relief payments to the American people, a historic investment in infrastructure, and an effort to preserve voting rights.

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

Fox News Fingers Who is Really at Fault for What’s Happening in Afghanistan: Jill Biden!

Posted by Mark NC on August 22, 2021 at 12:19 pm. 7 Comments :

The aftermath of President Biden’s decision to proceed with the previously negotiated withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has dominated the media for the past week. To be sure, any retreat from failed military operations cannot be expected to be free of difficulty. And there are troubling images of desperate Afghans seeking to escape the anticipated tyranny of Taliban rule.

Unfortunately, much of the media coverage has focused on melodramatic moments that lack context. The press as a whole seems to have forgotten what Afghanistan was like prior to the U.S. invasion in 2001. In short, it was pretty much the same then as it will be going forward once the evacuation is complete. No better, no worse, and no discernible benefit from twenty years of occupation. The lesson to be learned is not one about predictable hardships following a lengthy war in hostile territory, but about the futility of waging such wars in the first place.

Not surprisingly, Fox News has taken the most preposterous positions regarding the end of the Afghanistan adventure. They have entirely ignored that the original, severely flawed agreement to leave was negotiated by the Trump administration (which he is still bragging about). That deal has been rebuked by Trump’s own National Security Adviser, General H.R. McMaster, as a “surrender agreement.” It lifted all sanctions on the Taliban and freed 5,000 of their imprisoned fighters, but got nothing in return.

What’s more, while Fox News harshly criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of efforts to evacuate Afghans who helped the U.S. during the two decade occupation, they are simultaneously complaining about the prospect of bringing those refugees to America. Tucker Carlson has labeled them “invaders” who are “coming to your neighborhood.”

On Sunday’s episode of Fox and Friends, co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy went to even more bizarre lengths to malign Biden. She began by regurgitating the tedious Fox News trope that Biden is mentally unfit to serve as president (video below):

“I look at this and I think ‘Wow. We had a president who was impeached over a phone call.’ This looks like a much more impeachable offense. If you ask me, I know that’s probably, technically it’s probably not, but when you look at what’s hurting America, when you look at the lack of leadership, and you wonder who are the people responsible for putting someone this incompetent, and frankly this, you know, mentally frail in this position?”

Note that the American people already made their judgment about that by overwhelmingly voting for Biden. And they had previously determined that it was Trump who doesn’t have the mental soundness to serve (according to a Fox News poll, no less). Also, Trump wasn’t impeached “over a phone call.” It was his treasonous effort to pressure the president of Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election that resulted in the first of his two impeachments.

As for grounds to impeach Biden, Campos-Duffy admits that there aren’t any. (unlike Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is apparently even more ignorant of the Constitution than she is). But her craziness was just getting started.

“Of course the media and many people are saying – you had some people on your show this week who were saying it was Susan Rice and Obama and maybe Valerie Jarrett. I’m sorry, as a political spouse, I can’t help but look at Jill Biden, No one knew better his state of mind than Dr. Jill Biden. And if you ask me, the most patriotic thing Jill Biden could have done was tell her husband – to love her husband and not let him run in this mental state that he’s in. I think she failed the country as well.”

So now it’s all Jill Biden’s fault? Never mind that Campos-Duffy didn’t bother to cite a single example of any behavior by the President that would warrant such concerns. She still managed to place the blame on a woman, and one who is highly accomplished and respected.

However, Campos-Duffy never had any concerns about Melania Trump’s tolerance of her husband’s obvious cognitive deficiencies. After all, Donald Trump believed that stealth fighters are actually invisible, that windmills cause cancer, that we should nuke hurricanes, that George Washington’s Army took over airports, and that injecting bleach will cure COVID.

Melania never said a single word about any of that. Clearly she is not a patriot and is responsible for all of the harm that Trump caused during his four years of non-stop incoherence, ignorance, incompetence, and raging hostility. Is too late to impeach her?

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

Lindsey Graham Exposes His Impeachment Hypocrisies as He Attacks Biden on Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on August 21, 2021 at 9:56 am. 2 Comments :

There are few people in American politics who are more obsequious sycophants or shameless hypocrites than South Carolina’s senior senator Lindsey Graham. For example, today Graham is a groveling toady for Donald Trump, but during the 2016 presidential election he referred to Trump as a “jackass,” and “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” who “doesn’t have the temperament or judgement to be commander in chief.”

Graham is, after all, the guy who said of candidate Trump “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.” But a year later Graham complained about Trump’s critics in the press calling him “some kind of kook, not fit to be president.” This video never gets old…

On Friday Graham appeared on Fox News and demonstrated his Olympic-grade ability to flip-flop as he attacked his former friend, Joe Biden. The topic of discussion was the arduous evacuation of Americans and others from Afghanistan. However, his appraisal was rife with fantastical visions of dire circumstances that did not exist in reality. He told his Fox Friends that…

“If we leave one American behind, if we don’t get all those Afghans who stepped up to the plate to help us out, then Joe Biden, in my view has committed a high crime and misdemeanor under the Constitution and should be impeached.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says if we leave one American or Afghan that helped us behind, "then Joe Biden in my view has committed a high crime and misdemeanor under the Constitution and should be impeached.” pic.twitter.com/ugrntsI0On

— The Recount (@therecount) August 20, 2021

Graham is deliberately setting up a scenario for failure based on his partisan political hopes rather than the facts on the ground or any genuine concern for the wellbeing of either Americans or Afghans. And he is rushing to place blame on President Biden for problems that have not, and likely will not occur.

Never mind that it was Trump’s malfeasance and incompetence that set the stage for what’s happening now in Afghanistan. Trump’s own Defense secretary, Mark Esper, said that Trump “undermined” the deal with the Taliban. And his national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster, derisively described Trump’s deal as “capitulation,” and a “surrender agreement.”

Graham’s sudden craving for an impeachment is another one of his partisan backflips. While he’s itching to impeach Biden without even the pretense of rational grounds, he voted against impeaching Trump for actual crimes against America – twice. And his preposterous justification for those votes was that “I firmly believe impeachment would further destroy our ability to heal and start over.”

Even more bizarre was Graham’s recent threat to impeach Vice-President Kamala Harris based on an easily provable lie, saying that, “I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if Republicans take over the House.” Which is just another crucial reason to vote against every Republican for any office.

Graham clearly has an impeachment fetish, but only when it concerns innocent Democrats. However, he’s happy to forgive his Dear Leader for flagrantly impeachable misconduct. What’s more, Graham is willing to betray his longtime friends in order to achieve his sinister goals.

Remember, both of Trump’s impeachments were over his deranged obsession with destroying Joe Biden. In the first, Trump was found to have pressured the president of Ukraine to dig up nonexistent dirt on Biden. In the second, Trump incited a violent insurrection to overturn the will of the people and prevent the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

At this point it would safe to disregard Graham as a hyper-partisan, bootlicking, fraud, who will sell out his party, his country, and his soul for a smattering of crumbs from his messiah, Donald Trump. After all the turmoil of the Trump years, Graham still believes that the Republican Party “can’t grow without him.” And he worshipfully declared his desire to “harness the magic” of Trump’s “movement,” while ignoring his “dark side.” Which is something he could just as easily have said about Satan.

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

WTF? Trump Tells Fox News that Booster Shots Are a ‘Money Making Operation’ and Not Needed

Posted by Mark NC on August 18, 2021 at 5:31 pm. 11 Comments :

It appears that having lost more than 600,000 Americans from the coronavirus still isn’t enough for Donald Trump and his Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News). Despite having known about the severity of the pandemic early on (but deliberately downplaying it), Trump is continuing to lead his glassy-eyed cult disciples astray with flagrant falsehoods about the current state of affairs.

Trump is on a media spree this week with two visits to Fox News, one to Newsmax, and he’s hosting another of his super-spreader cult rallies, this one in Alabama where the percentage of people vaccinated is the lowest in the nation. [Late additions: Joe Pags, Rick & Bubba]

During his second Fox News “interview” with shameless Trump-fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, Trump unleashed a torrent of lies related to his negligent and incompetent mismanagement of the pandemic and where things are going from here. What follows are a few excerpted – and poignantly annotated – highlights from the segment (video below):

“I’ve taken the vaccine. I’m very, very proud of it.”
If Trump is so proud, why has he refused to mount a public service campaign to persuade his devotees (who comprise the bulk of the resistors) to get vaccinated?

“When I was president, you didn’t have this problem with people not wanting to take it.”
First of all, the vaccine was not available until December 14, 2020, after Trump was voted out, and just a month before Joe Biden was inaugurated. As for people wanting the vaccine, it was a time when demand was strong from the majority of Americans who weren’t deceived by Trump and Fox News propaganda.

“They don’t take it because they don’t trust Biden.”
That’s Trump’s psychotic projection kicking in. Any scarcity of trust was due to the deliberate anti-vax agitprop by Trump and Fox News.

“When I was president, you didn’t have people protesting the vaccine.”
Again, the vaccine had only just become available. However, you had plenty of people protesting – sometimes violently – the existence of the virus and refusing to take simple steps to mitigate its spread, like wearing masks.

“When I left it was virtually gone. It was over.”
Oh for chrissakes! The death rate was peaking in January of 2021. But Trump’s lies still seem to have much farther to go.

[On the need for a booster] “That sounds to me like a money-making operation from Pfizer. […] You wouldn’t think you would need a booster.”
Because everything that a grifter like Trump does has to have greed as a motive, he thinks that’s true for everyone else.

More troubling is Trump’s dismissal of the need for a booster shot that has been verified by actual scientists. Just as he has spent most of the last year and a half downplaying the tragic and deadly risks that people are facing, Trump still seems determined to kill off more Americans by convincing them that there isn’t any real threat and they don’t need need to take simple steps to insure the safety of themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation. And naturally, Bartiromo adoringly goes along with everything Trump says.

Trump would rather let more people suffer and die so that he can blame it all on Biden and continue his fundraising pitches to enrich himself and finance his next insurrection and attempted coup. Ironically, the number of suckers available for him to exploit with this lethal scam will decline in corresponding proportion to the number deplorables he can swindle with his self-serving lies.

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

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace Nails Biden’s Afghanistan Speech: The People vs the Media

Posted by Mark NC on August 16, 2021 at 4:29 pm. 2 Comments :

A lot has and will be said about President Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and the method with which he did it. Needless to say Fox News and Donald Trump’s Republican Party will embark on their predictable knee-jerk condemnation of Biden regardless of how events transpire.

Trump has already rolled out his narcissistic version of the situation that he neglected for four years, other than to negotiate a deal with the Taliban that was tantamount to full surrender. He lifted all the sanctions on them, released 5,000 of their prisoners, including their founder and leader, and promised to remove all U.S. and allied forces by last May.

As for the GOP and their Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News), they launched a coordinated, and wholly dishonest, campaign to disparage Biden and portray him as on vacation while he was actually working at Camp David, a military facility run by the U.S. Navy.

On Monday afternoon Biden addressed the American people to explain the reasoning behind his decisions regarding finally ending America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war (video below). It was a speech that was equal parts elucidation, compassion, and accountability. Some of the highlights include…

“We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that.” […]

“That was a decade ago. Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building.” […]

“I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.” […]

“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.” […]

“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision. American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” […]

“I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end. While it’s been hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect, I’ve honored that commitment.” […]

“I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the United States.”

Following the speech MSNBC anchor, Nicolle Wallace, gave a profound summation of the different ways Biden’s words would be received by the public and the press. She said that…

“95% of the American people will agree with everything he just said. 95% of the press covering this White House will disagree. And for an American president to finally be completely aligned with such an overwhelming majority of what the American people think about Afghanistan is probably a tremendous relief to the American people.”

MSNBC host @NicolleDWallace: "95% of the American people will agree with everything [President Biden] just said. 95% of the press covering this White House will disagree." pic.twitter.com/UzLr6DPyPz

— The Recount (@therecount) August 16, 2021

Wallace is exactly right. The media seems to have a built in favoritism for whatever generates the most conflict and melodrama. But the American people have long favored an end to the seemingly perpetual conflicts that began after September 11th, 2001. And that opinion is shared by both Democrats and Republicans. Even Trump and his cult disciples have been opposed to continuing the war in Afghanistan. He ran on it, just like Biden did.

Of course, that won’t stop Trump and his GOP confederates from lambasting Biden for achieving the goal that they never could. They are jealous of his successes, whether it be foreign affairs, infrastructure, healthcare, or any of the other failures by Trump and company.

It’s ironic that Wallace is one of the few television commentators to recognize both the desires of the public and biases of the press. She was the White House Communications Director for George W. Bush, the president that got us into this mess to begin with. Which makes her insights all the more relevant and welcome.

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

Watch Trump Bragging About His Taliban Deal That He Now Calls ‘Embarrassing’

Posted by Mark NC on August 16, 2021 at 10:24 am. 15 Comments :

Expecting Donald Trump to be honest about anything is guaranteed to lead to bitter disappointment. He is a pathological liar whose self-serving distortions of reality are his way of avoiding having to face the torrent of failures that define his existence. His malignant narcissism prevents him from seeing anything he does or says as anything but perfection.

In the wake of the tragic events in Afghanistan, Trump predictably embarked on a frantic crusade to absolve himself of any responsibility. And naturally he blamed it all on Joe Biden. It’s the same deranged defensiveness he had to the COVID pandemic that he so horrendously bitched, and the January 6th insurrection he deliberately incited.

However, Trump’s raging irrationality inevitably fouls up his attempts to exalt himself no matter what disaster he produces. On Monday morning he said that “Afghanistan is the most embarrassing military outcome in the history of the United States,” in a proxy tweet that his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington, posted for him (a violation Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban). But Trump can be seen on video bragging profusely about the conditions for which he is now castigating President Biden. Here is Trump just one month ago at one of his cult rallies:

“I started the process. All the troops are coming back home. They couldn’t stop the process. Twenty-one years is enough, don’t we think? Twenty-one years. They couldn’t stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop the process when other things were… Yeah, thank you.

It’s a shame. Twenty-one years by a government that wouldn’t last. The only way they last is if we’re there. What are we gonna say? We’ll stay for another twenty-one years, then we’ll stay for another fifty? The whole thing is ridiculous.”

Trump on Afghanistan withdrawal: “I started the process. All the troops are coming back. They couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough, don’t we think?” pic.twitter.com/BACqgzB2Kc

— The Hill (@thehill) June 27, 2021

Is this what Trump means by “embarrassing”? The “process” to which Trump is referring is the deal he made with the Taliban in March of 2020. At the time it was not exactly heralded as “the Art of the Deal.” To the contrary, it was widely repudiated by foreign policy and military experts as “disgraceful” and a total surrender to the Taliban.

One representative appraisal of Trump’s folly said that it “gives the Taliban a series of concrete, measurable gifts.” It began by promising an immediate drawdown from 100,000 troops to less than 3,000, and that “American and allied forces will leave within 14 months” (by last May). It also promised “the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners,” including their founder and leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar. The deal also committed “to the ‘goal’ of removing sanctions from members of the Taliban that include travel bans, asset freezes, and an arms embargo.” And it came “without any agreement by the Taliban to cease hostilities against our allies.”

Trump’s comments a month ago affirm his belief that exiting Afghanistan was a priority that superseded any other strategic considerations. He virtually confessed that he “started the process” as a means of boxing Biden into an untenable dilemma. He also admitted that the outcome we see today was inevitable because Afghanistan had “a government that wouldn’t last.” without U.S. support.

All of that failure was Trump’s own assessment of the consequences of the deal that he made with the Taliban. It was a deal that he excluded the Afghans from even participating in, which assured that they would have no stake in complying with it. But now Trump is accusing Biden of causing the calamity that he claims to have foreseen when he made the deal more than a year ago. Talk about embarrassing.

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

DumbFox: GOP Clowns Bash Biden for Vacationing While He’s Working at a Military Facility

Posted by Mark NC on August 15, 2021 at 6:11 pm. 4 Comments :

This weekend the situation in Afghanistan took a disastrous turn as the Taliban successfully advanced on the capitol in Kabul. There is blame enough to go around for this debacle that begins with the father of the conflict, George W. Bush. President Biden’s role is limited due to the missteps by Donald Trump, whose negotiations virtually handed Afghanistan to the Taliban. Then he left Biden with a deployment of only 2,500 American troops, far too few to take on the Taliban terrorists’ newly empowered by Trump’s prior agreement.

In the wake of the Taliban’s progress, Fox News rushed out one of their standard propaganda pieces that cast a negative spin on Biden. It was titled “Biden hammered for spending time at Camp David while Taliban take over Afghanistan.” The opening sentence read…

“Republican members of Congress criticized President Biden on Sunday for spending time at the Camp David presidential retreat instead of the White House as the Taliban fought to finalize a takeover of Afghanistan.”

This is typical of how Fox News avoids any effort to produce legitimate journalism. First of all, it isn’t exactly news that Republicans criticized President Biden. What else do they ever do? More importantly, the entire premise of the article is nonsense. It seeks to demean Biden for going to Camp David as if it were some kind of vacation. And that theme was present throughout the article and the quotes from ultra-partisan, right-wing Republicans like Jim Jordan, Tom Cotton, Lauren Boebert, Elise Stefanik, and Jim Banks:

America’s in crisis. Afghanistan’s in chaos.

Why’s Joe Biden on vacation?

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) August 15, 2021

Jordan needs a refresher course on apostrophes.

Why is Joe Biden in hiding? He should immediately address the nation and answer for the catastrophic situation in Afghanistan. Conference calls between cabinet secretaries and senators don’t cut it in a crisis.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 15, 2021

Biden isn’t hiding. He’s working. But Republicans can be forgiven for not understanding that since they never do it.

No person who calls themselves the President of the United States should be on vacation while the world crumbles down around them.

The dereliction of duty continues…

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) August 15, 2021

Most people wouldn’t consider Afghanistan reverting to where it’s been for decades a “crumbling” world

America is in crisis.

And Joe Biden is on vacation. https://t.co/fCQzN4kyZu

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) August 14, 2021

There’s that “vacation” BS again.

On the conference call briefing for members of Congress with Biden officials. It’s clear the Biden administration was caught unprepared, didn’t anticipate this catastrophe and the President is hiding & asleep at the wheel.

— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) August 15, 2021

This, coming from an apologist for the January 6th domestic terrorists.

What every single one of them fails to recognize is that Camp David isn’t a summer camp. It’s a military facility. In fact, according to the White House website it is “Known formally as the Naval Support Facility Thurmont,” and is run by the U.S. Navy. It is fully equipped for secure communications and has been the site of historic conferences with both domestic and international leaders.

Anyone portraying Biden as anything other than fully engaged in current events is simply injecting their partisan biases into the matter. But what else would you expect from the Republican hacks and Fox News shills who seem to be rooting for American defeats? Just like their Dear Leader Trump who tweeted by proxy (a violation of Twitters rules against circumventing a ban) that…

“It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen in Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and out crippled economy, It shouldn’t be a big deal, because he wasn’t elected legitimately in the first place!”

That deranged, lie-riddled message hardly needs a reply. So let’s just leave it at noting that Trump is the one who “allowed“ this to happen. And it is Trump who, along with Fox News, is responsible for the “tremendous surge” of the COVID pandemic. And the remaining bits of his whining rant are simply flagrant lies.

However, the most loathsome part of Trump’s alt-tweet is where he opines about the legitimacy of the election. It was that “Big Lie” that led to the deadly insurrection on Capitol Hill on January 6th, and threatens to fuel even more violence. But then, that’s precisely what Trump, the GOP, and Fox News are aiming for.

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

Trump Dishonestly Blasts Biden in an Ego-Drenched Defense of His Own Afghan Failures

Posted by Mark NC on August 15, 2021 at 9:58 am. 3 Comments :

As the Taliban completes its brutal military takeover Afghanistan, Donald Trump is predictably seeking to absolve himself of any responsibility, while casting blame on others. This time, once again, it’s President Joe Biden, who repeatedly has had to finish the hard jobs that Trump either left undone or irreparably botched. Whether it’s the COVID pandemic or the nation’s infrastructure or the economic recovery, Biden has been forced to clean up Trump’s failures.

Afghanistan can now be added to the list of Trump’s fumbles. But even as the Taliban is advancing on Kabul, Trump is trying to pin his mistakes on Biden. In a statement that was on posted Twitter by his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington, (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban), Trump displayed his penchant for slathering himself in undeserved praise that invariably ignores reality. He wrote that…

“Joe Biden gets it wrong every time on foreign policy, and many other issues. Everyone knew he couldn’t handle the pressure. Even Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said as much. He ran out of Afghanistan instead of following the plan our Administration left for him—a plan that protected our people and our property, and ensured the Taliban would never dream of taking our Embassy or providing a base for new attacks against America. The withdrawal would be guided by facts on the ground.”

Setting aside Trump’s tiresome, knee-jerk insults, his claim that Biden disregarded his “plan” presumes incorrectly that he had a plan. Trump’s entire approach to Afghanistan was evolved from a meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2020, where he agreed to lift all sanctions on the Taliban and release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, in exchange for a three month cease fire. Trump expressed his misplaced trust in the Taliban terrorists saying that “I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we’re not all wasting time.” The Afghans were not even included in those negotiations.

Trump went on to brag falsely that he “took out ISIS.” Then he closed with another ad hominin insult, projecting on Biden his own “weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence.” Which is interesting considering his initial praise for Biden’s withdrawal as “a wonderful and positive thing to do.” Although he still criticized Biden saying that “we can and should get out earlier. Nineteen years is enough, in fact, far too much and way too long,”

For his part, Biden responded to Trump’s baseless criticisms in his announcement of the troop drawdown, saying that…

“Over our country’s 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent its finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion dollars, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in US history, One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country.” […]

“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor — which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019 — that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. Forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500.”

That’s right, Trump actually wanted to leave Afghanistan months sooner. He proposed rewarding the Taliban terrorists with a visit to Camp David. And he left Biden with a skeleton deployment of 2,500 troops. Trump virtually handed Afghanistan to the Taliban. That’s the same Taliban who were in charge in 2001, and were harboring Osama Bin Laden as he was plotting the 9/11 attack.

However, now Trump thinks he should get credit for his “weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence”? No thanks. The only thing Trump should get is a prison sentence for his innumerable crimes against America.

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

On Trump Reinstatement Day the Befuddled Former Guy Asks ‘Do You Miss Me Yet?’

Posted by Mark NC on August 13, 2021 at 5:52 pm. 6 Comments :

It was a long time coming. After months of such political prognosticators as the MyPillow headcase Mike Lindell and the QAnon Qrusaders insisting that August 13th would usher in the re-inauguration of Donald Trump, the day has finally arrived. And Washington is buzzing with anticipation as – – – oh wait. Trump is still holed up at his Bedminster golf bunker dictating alt-tweets, and Joe Biden is still president.

The industrial strength lunacy required to believe that Trump might return to Washington as anything other than a convicted felon is impossible to measure on conventional scales. And yet, a disturbingly large minority of cultists were convinced that the resurrection of Trump was as certain as the sun rising from the eastern edge of the flat Earth. And even though that prophesy has gone unfulfilled, they will likely sign on to whatever new date is proposed by the potentates of Trumpism.

In the meantime, Trump is issuing decrees via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban). On Friday Trump lashed out President Biden with a pile of lies and a hysterical question (linked here in case you want to report it):

“Tragic mess in Afghanistan, a completely open and broken Border, Crime at record levels, oil prices through the roof, inflation rising, and taken advantage of by the entire world—DO YOU MISS ME YET?”

For the record, the exit from Afghanistan was planned long ago, during the Trump administration. And while refugees are anxiously migrating north, the borders are not by any stretch of the imagination “open.” Any knowledgeable law enforcement professional will tell you that crime is not at record levels. The only reason that oil prices and inflation have risen is because the economy has improved significantly from the peak pandemic days of the Trump era. And what Trump thinks is the world taking advantage of the U.S. is actually what it looks like when they are showing respect, rather than the laughter that Trump received.

However, for pure oblivious hilarity, nothing beats Trump asking if we’ve missed him. There are really only two answers to that ego-drenched question.

The first is “No f**king way, you sanctimonious cretin.” Why would anyone miss the guy whose negligent and incompetent mismanagement of the COVID pandemic led to the loss of more than 600,000 American lives? Why would anyone miss an idiot who gave corporations and the wealthy massive tax cuts, abandoned the international efforts to mitigate the climate crisis, alienated America’s allies, and embraced its enemies? Why anyone miss a malignant narcissist who placed his own greed and lust for power above the welfare of the nation?

The other answer to his question is “How can we miss you if you won’t go away?” The election was eight months ago, but Trump is still making us suffer through his relentless whining about having lost decisively to someone he disparaged as a senile communist. His “Big Lie” tirades led to the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. And by continuing to pound on that nonsense he is veritably insuring further violence.

So “NO,” Donald. We do not miss you. Polls show that the American people want to move on. Most say that a Trump candidacy in 2024 would be bad for America. We never wanted you in the first place. You lost the popular vote by seven million votes. You never reached 50% approval in the four years of your presidency. That’s a distinction no other president can claim.

The only thing that the American people look forward to more than Trump leaving the public stage, is his entering a federal prison. And the sooner that happens the better. This nation cannot heal from the sickness that Trump spread without full legal accountability for his crimes. When that happens it will be remembered as Reinstatement Day for American democracy.

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

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