Republicans

Not Satisfied With Destroying The GOP, Donald Trump Is Also Destroying Fox News

Posted by on June 9, 2016 at 12:28 pm. NO Comments :

There is a rapidly escalating sense of desperation on the part of the Republican Party. More and more GOP politicians and pundits are publicly expressing their dismay, if not outright disgust, for Donald Trump as their nominee for president. Conservative radio talker Hugh Hewitt is even advocating that the party dump Trump at their convention next month or “get killed” in the November election.

Fox News Donald Trump

Now there is evidence that it isn’t just the GOP that Trump’s hateful rhetoric and childish demeanor are bringing down. TVNewser is reporting that the Nielsen ratings for last Tuesday’s primary night show Fox News getting knocked off of their top tier status among cable news networks:

“CNN was No. 1 in the key A25-54 demo […] And in a rare occurrence, MSNBC topped Fox News in the demo in both prime time (8 p.m. – 11 p.m.) and extended coverage (7 p.m. – 2 a.m.) MSNBC finished No. 2 in total viewers from 10 – 1 a.m. ET.”

It’s one thing for CNN to rank first in the ratings, which they have done several times in the past year. But for Fox News to be losing to perennial third-placer MSNBC is a monumental failure that indicates much deeper problems for both the network and the Republican Party for which it shills. This upset on primary night is significant because it reveals that the television audience in general is keenly interested in Hillary Clinton’s victory and historic achievement as the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party. At the same time it shows that Fox’s viewers were too depressed to even tune in, except for the brief remarks made by Donald Trump and his new friend, the TelePrompter.

It should come as no surprise that Trump’s affect on Fox News has produced negative results. He has been perhaps the harshest critic of the network, despite the fact that they have coddled him and devoted more of their airtime to him than to any other candidate. For that generosity Trump unleashed a non-stop tirade against numerous Fox News personnel. As News Corpse reported in April:

Ordinarily, any Republican candidate would be conscious of the sway that Fox holds over the party and the fate of anyone hoping to rise up in it. But Trump, with an apparently reckless lack of concern, has spent much of the last nine months mercilessly battering the network and its staff. He said of Megyn Kelly that she “is the worst” and has a “terrible show.” He called Karl Rove a “total fool” and “a biased dope.” He said that George Will is a “broken down political pundit” and “boring.” Chris Stirewalt was deemed “one of the dumbest political pundits on television.” Trump laughed off Charles Krauthammer as “a totally overrated clown,” “a loser,” and “a dummy.” And wrapping up the whole network for his disapproval, he tweeted that he was “having a really hard time watching Fox News.” Then he called on his followers to boycott the network. He even went after one of the major shareholders of Fox’s parent corporation.

Now that Trump is the GOP’s nominee, his legions of glassy-eyed disciples are all too happy to obediently shun Fox News. And the rest of Fox’s audience is cowering under the covers, too afraid to turn on the television and be faced with the reality of an imploding Republican campaign and a Hillary Clinton presidency.

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

Trump’s contribution to the decline of both the Republican Party and its media mouthpiece, Fox News, is certain to exacerbate the anxiety of the nation’s right-wingers. This may not be what Sarah Palin meant when she called Trump “a golden wrecking ball.” But in an oddly ironic twist of fate, America’s Democrats and liberals might want to send The Donald a thank you note.

The GOP Website Seems To Be Missing Any Reference To A Certain HUGE Name

Posted by on June 5, 2016 at 2:17 pm. NO Comments :

Gwen Ifill of PBS recently asked President Obama “Why don’t you mention Donald Trump by name?” The President playfully answered that “You know he seems to do a good job mentioning his own name.” And while that’s a reasonable position for the leader of the Democratic Party to take, it is a wholly different matter when the Republican’s official Internet site is so ashamed of their candidate that his name can’t be found on its home page or any linked pages.

GOP.com

A visit to GOP.com reveals that Donald Trump’s name is nowhere to found. Nor can he be found by clicking on the available links. Trump may not yet be the official nominee of his party, but given the fact that all of the other candidates have dropped out, and the party refers to him as their candidate, it is somewhat curious that he’s not mentioned on the party’s website. What are they ashamed of? And for those who wonder where Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders are on the Democrats’ website, be aware that the Democratic primary is not yet over and the party cannot take sides between candidates who are still vying for the nomination.

The GOP’s aversion to Trump isn’t limited to the GOP website. The highest ranking Republican in the U.S. government, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, has said only that he will vote for Donald Trump, but has not given him an explicit endorsement. The most recent Republican presidents and nominees for president (George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney) have not endorsed Trump and will not even be attending the Republican National Convention. And at several state conventions the leaders of the party gave speeches on party unity that conspicuously left out any mention of Donald Trump. They include Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Sen. Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

The Republican Party website is not shy about promoting prominent members of their party when they want to. The website’s online store is offering for sale hot properties like Dick Cheney cowboy hats, Reagan/Bush ’84 coffee mugs, and my personal favorite, George H.W. Bush socks. But you can’t buy a Trump baseball cap or bumper sticker.

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

If you try really hard you can find some references to Trump by using the site’s search tool. Those references mostly come in the form of news stories or press releases. There is nothing overtly promoting his candidacy or seeking support for his election. They aren’t even using him for fundraising. That speaks volumes about how the party feels about the choice made by their primary voters. In all likelihood, this should change as the campaign progresses, but the fact that the party is treating Trump like a ghost candidate now cannot be seen as anything but a rebuke.

h/t Republican Family Values

Prophets Of Rage Will Rock Against The Machine At The Republican National Convention

Posted by on June 3, 2016 at 3:51 pm. 3 Comments :

Cleveland, Ohio is the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It will also be the site of the Republican National Convention next month where the GOP will nominate Donald Trump as their candidate for President of the United States. And those two worlds are about to collide as the supergroup, Prophets of Rage, prepares to invade the city just in time for the GOP’s festivities.

Prophets of Rage

Prophets of Rage is a musical collaboration that includes Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Chuck D of Public Enemy, and B-Real of Cypress Hill. Their mission is to “Make America Rage Again.” While all of these musicians, and the bands they represent, are epic rockers, they are also committed progressive activists who fight on behalf of the poor, the homeless, victims of discrimination and abuse, and all the rest of the 99 percent who are too often forgotten by conventional politicians. As Morello told interviewers John Heilemann and Mark Halperin of Bloomberg News, “The times demand a band like Prophets of Rage to rise.” And in the spirit of that, the Prophets just announced that they will be making the pilgrimage to Cleveland to “cause a ruckus” at the GOP convention:

“Well there’s a thing called the Republican National Convention in July, and that will be a perfect place for a band like Prophets of Rage to cause a ruckus, and we will be there on the streets, in the field,” Morello said. “We have a venue and there may be venues that will be spontaneous venues, it’s hard to say. This is the kind of thing you don’t broadcast to the local authorities prior to arrival.”

The prospect of these radicals popping up unexpectedly in the streets of Cleveland might be cause for the Republican Party establishment, and the local police department, to worry. But the GOP convention has already been threatened with riots by none other than their presumptive nominee. In March Trump told CNN that if he didn’t get the nomination at the convention “I think you’d have riots…I think bad things would happen.”

Morello spoke about the group’s view that politics as usual is insufficient to meet the crises that the nation and the world faces today. He found blame enough to go around for both parties saying that staking all of your hopes on hope isn’t going to work, but that “xenophobic, fear-based racism” isn’t going to work either. He complained that the narrative in the media that portrays the electorate as angry misconstrues the message:

“It’s my contention that we can no longer stand on the sidelines of history. Dangerous times demand dangerous songs,” Morello said. “Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are both constantly referred to in the media as raging against the machine. We’ve come back to remind everyone what raging against the machine really means.”

The Republican convention promises to be an entertaining affair, and not just because their pending leader is a bombastic, controversy-baiting, former reality TV star who thrives on the adoration of his glassy-eyed followers. Donald Trump has incited his supporters to violence while casting venomous insults at his perceived enemies, usually women and minorities. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren noted, there is “more enthusiasm” for him “among leaders of the KKK” than leaders of the GOP.

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

So expect the convention to reflect those values, the values of their standard bearer. While Prophets of Rage will be stirring up emotions and inspiring grassroots activism outside the convention hall, the delegates inside will be fighting among themselves for an agenda of division and hate. At least we’ll get some awesome music out of it.

John Kerry Rips Donald Trump’s ‘Unbelievable Contemptuous Ignorance’ On Climate Change

Posted by on June 2, 2016 at 1:45 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party long ago committed itself to a position on climate change that is at odds with reality. The question is settled with 97 percent of the scientists who study the subject agreeing that climate change is occurring and that it is caused by human activities. But that hasn’t stopped faith-based GOP politicians, with help from the Fox News propaganda machine, from rejecting the voluminous data validating the unprecedented scientific consensus.

John Kerry

Leading the brigade of science deniers is the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. In a widely ridiculed comment he called climate change a hoax that “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He advocates anti-environment policies such as eliminating regulations on energy exploration and production, opening up federal lands to oil drilling, and building the KeystoneXL pipeline. He promises to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which he thought was called the Department of Environmental (DEP?). And most recently he said that he would rip up the United Nations’ historic Paris climate agreement that currently has 177 signatories.

Responding to Trump’s attack on the Paris accords, Secretary of State John Kerry was interviewed on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes (video below). He did not mince words when asked about Trump’s hostility toward the international effort to mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate change:

“Ripping up the climate agreement that was reached in Paris would be reckless, counterproductive, self-destructive. It would be an act of extraordinary danger to our country because of the path it would put us on both in terms of our global leadership on the issue as well as the actual policies we need to implement and it would in the end be an act of ignorance, of utter unbelievable contemptuous ignorance to get rid of something that the world has worked for since 1992 in Rio.”

Kerry didn’t stop there. He addressed the fact that each of the past years and decades marked record highs in global warming and were each hotter than those that preceded them, poignantly noting that “Somewhere people ought to be catching on to what is happening.” Along with the obvious and harmful impact of rising temperatures and sea levels, there is an alarming threat to national security. Kerry summarized this threat saying:

“Refugees that are being created in various parts of the world as a result of lack of water, or fights over food, or the fact that they have to move from where they live today. To talk about casually, without even understanding the work that has gone into it or the rationale for it, ripping it up would be one of the most reckless irresponsible, historically wrong acts I can think of.”

Conservative opponents of environmental reforms frequently try to belittle proponents as prioritizing climate change over terrorism. Of course, there is no reason why both issues cannot be tackled simultaneously. More to the point though, climate change actually is a more ominous threat that has the potential to instigate bloody wars and wipe out billions of people. Terrorism is unquestionably a tragic reality that requires a determined effort to defeat, but it does not approach the scale of climate change for global disaster. This was realized by no less a figure of right-wing stature than former George W. Bush defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. The Rolling Stone published a comprehensive examination of “The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk,” that cited Rumsfeld:

“In 2003, under Donald Rumsfeld, former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, the Pentagon published a report titled ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.’ Commissioned by Andrew Marshall, who is sometimes jokingly referred to within the Pentagon as Yoda — and who was a favorite of Rumsfeld’s — the report warned that threats to global stability posed by rapid warming vastly eclipse that of terrorism.”

OK? So now the climate-hoaxers cannot simply blame Obama and his socialist cabal of Sharia lawyers for inventing the crisis. Sources as deeply ingrained in the rightist dregs of warhawk free-marketism as Rumsfeld and Bush warned of the very same threat. In fact, four of the past Secretaries of Defense (Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, Robert Gates, and Rumsfeld) all subscribed to the policy that Climate Change is one of America’s top strategic risks. And three of the four are Republicans.

That leaves Donald Trump and his ilk to be the standard bearers of an utterly delusional rejection of the dangers that face a planet that is rapidly heating up, both in terms of temperature and hostility. Kerry characterized Trump’s denialism perfectly by labeling it reckless and ignorant. Unfortunately the Republican Party is now Trump’s plaything and they can be expected to wholly embrace his ignorance with enthusiasm and obedient blindness.

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

As Donald Trump Clinches Nomination The GOP Schemes To Prevent Future Trumps

Posted by on May 26, 2016 at 1:27 pm. 3 Comments :

Political parties are hard-wired to reflexively defend their candidates no matter what controversy arises. They have war room strategists and surrogates at the ready to “clarify” what the candidate really meant when he said that he wants to date his daughter. But you know you have a problem candidate with Donald Trump when the party is revamping its rules, before he’s even officially nominated, in order to short-circuit any possibility of another similar candidate being chosen in the future.

Donald Trump GOP

That’s what is happening today in the inner sanctums of the Republican Party. Insiders have been mulling over procedural changes designed specifically to avert another primary season like the one currently winding down. If they were confident of their prospects in November they would be carving the current rules into stone, but the mayhem and acrimony that characterized the past year for the GOP contestants, and the catastrophic ascendancy of Donald Trump, has party regulars in a tizzy. As reported by the New York Times:

“Leaders of the Republican Party have begun internal deliberations over what would be fundamental changes to the way its presidential nominees are chosen, a recognition that the chaotic process that played out this year is seriously flawed and helped exacerbate tensions within the party.”

It says something about a party when they are so horrified by the choice of their voters that they begin to plot to prevent such an awful choice in the future before their nominating convention commences. Donald Trump represents the very worst of right-wing America: the racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, demagoguery pandering to ignorant celebrity worshipers who don’t care about his frequent lies, hypocrisy, or the absence of any coherent policies. But that’s who the Republican voters chose as their champion to lead the nation and the free world.

The party’s blueprint for a Trump-free future includes rearranging the primary calendar to put less emphasis on the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Their proposal would keep these states at the front of the line, but pair each with another state to inject some diversity and to prevent any single candidate from gaining unstoppable momentum. They also want to narrow the field of primary voters to just their most loyal constituents. As the Times reports:

“[P]arty activists are also pushing to close Republican contests to independent voters, arguing that open primaries in some states allowed Donald J. Trump, whose conservative convictions they deeply mistrust, to become the presumptive nominee.”

Both of these ideas are actually pretty sound and have been floating around both party camps for years. The artificial exaltation of Iowa and New Hampshire has done nothing but advance candidates who appeal to largely rural, mostly white electorates. Those candidates are not likely to be as popular in states with more diverse and urban voters who make up the majority of the country. And it was never a good idea to permit independents and other non-party members to have a say in selecting candidates for parties to which they don’t belong and may seek to harm.

Ironically, the rules that these party activists are now attempting to alter were put in place after a similarly tumultuous primary season in 2012 that saw Mitt Romney eventually rise from a field of crackpots like Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain. The GOP chairman, Reince Priebus, was instrumental in changing the rules to limit the number of debates and shorten the primary calendar. He must have noticed that the more people saw of his candidates, the less they liked them. The intention was to reduce the embarrassment caused by their frequent televised brawls.

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

Unfortunately for them, the emergence of Donald Trump and his whiny, hostile, substanceless debate performances insured that the embarrassment would continue for yet another election cycle. And unlike 2012, when the process yielded a credible and arguably sane candidate, 2016 produced a narcissistic, ignoramus with designs on a dictatorship. And now they’re stuck with trying to defend him while simultaneously working behind the scenes to avoid a similarly distasteful fate in 2020.

Former Reagan State Department Official Scorches “Fascist” Donald Trump

Posted by on May 21, 2016 at 9:20 am. NO Comments :

For the past year much has been written about Donald Trump. He may be the most widely despised candidate for president to ever seek the office. The animosity directed at him comes from all across the political spectrum and many Republicans even now refuse to support his candidacy.

Donald Trump Fascism

That said, I can’t recall reading a more damning critique of The Donald than the one that appeared this week in the Washington Post. It was written by Robert Kagan, a former official in Ronald Reagan’s State Department, so this is no left-wing hit piece. It lays out a devastating account of why Trump would be a disastrous choice for leader of the free world, beginning with the headline: “This Is How Fascism Comes To America.” It gets worse from there. And the best way to convey the sentiment of this article is to simply let it speak for itself with a some choice excerpts. Therefore…

“The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic.”

“His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision.”

“Trump himself is simply and quite literally an egomaniac. But the phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous.”

“As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France — that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people.”

“This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society.”

“Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Führer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how.”

“To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today. These movements play on all the fears, vanities, ambitions and insecurities that make up the human psyche.”

“If someone criticizes or opposes the leader, it doesn’t matter how popular or admired that person has been. He might be a famous war hero, but if the leader derides and ridicules his heroism, the followers laugh and jeer.”

“What these people do not or will not see is that, once in power, Trump will owe them and their party nothing. […] Imagine the power he would wield then. In addition to all that comes from being the leader of a mass following, he would also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command: the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who would dare to oppose him then?”

“[I]s a man like Trump, with infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more humble, more judicious, more generous, less vengeful than he is today, than he has been his whole life? Does vast power un-corrupt?”

“This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him.”

That pretty much sums it up. Kagan has captured perfectly what Trump represents as a candidate. He is all bluster and ego without a hint of intellect, experience, or judgment. And sadly, his glassy-eyed followers dance to his calliope like well-trained circus geeks. It’s shocking that whatever level-headed Republicans remain aren’t bellowing from rooftops the warnings that are embedded in this article. they are not only sacrificing themselves and their party, they are putting America’s head on the chopping block. And they don’t seem to give a damn.

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

Donald Trump Is Now Officially The Candidate Of Fox News

Posted by on May 19, 2016 at 8:40 am. 2 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of the Fox News parent corporation, is reported to have made his decision to support the presumptuous nominee of the Republican Party, Donald Trump. At first glance this news may seem unremarkable for the avowedly right-wing cable net, but there is a history of discomfort with Trump on the part of Murdoch that he must have overcome either by greed or force.

Donald Trump Rupert Murdoch

Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine has been covering the inside stories on Fox News for several years. He has reliable sources and published the definitive, unauthorized biography of the network’s CEO Roger Ailes: The Loudest Voice in the Room. His latest scoop is one that casts a disturbing glow on the allegedly “fair and balanced” cable news network:

“According to a half dozen sources familiar with Murdoch’s thinking, the media mogul has signaled he plans to fully back Trump in the general election against Hillary Clinton.”

Prior to this revelation, Murdoch was not particularly enthusiastic about his billionaire peer. He has tweeted that regarding the characterization of Mexican immigrants as criminals, Trump was wrong. He was critical of Trump’s demeanor saying that “Trump finally loses it, in 95 minute rant.” And in a moment of unexpected clarity he asked “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?”

So the question now is what would make Murdoch set aside those concerns to support a notoriously racist, misogynistic, loose cannon with tyrannical tendencies for president of the United States? It’s a question that Sherman addressed in his column suggesting that the shift may be due to financial considerations. Sherman notes that:

“It’s clear Trump is good for business. According to one Fox News producer, the channel’s ratings dip whenever an anti-Trump segment airs.”

There is no doubt that Murdoch is an aggressive businessman who appreciates any opportunity to make a profit. He has built his media empire around a model of tabloid journalism that places tawdry melodrama above factual reporting. And Donald Trump’s reality TV persona has been a boon to all of the networks covering him for the past year. Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS, put it bluntly saying that Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

However, there may be more to this than sheer greed or political compatibility. In a previous column, Sherman revealed that Trump had dealings with a former Fox News executive who left under suspicious circumstances. The result was that Trump may have acquired information that would be damaging to Fox News and/or its principals. Sherman concluded that “If Ailes ever truly went to war against Trump, Trump would have the arsenal to launch a retaliatory strike.” That sounds very much like something Trump would do.

This could also explain why Fox News was so generous with Trump, giving him more airtime than any other candidate, while simultaneously allowing him to get away with his brutal treatment of Fox News. As News Corpse reported at the time:

“Ordinarily, any Republican candidate would be conscious of the sway that Fox holds over the party and the fate of anyone hoping to rise up in it. But Trump, with an apparently reckless lack of concern, has spent much of the last nine months mercilessly battering the network and its staff. He said of Megyn Kelly that she ‘is the worst’ and has a ‘terrible show.’ He called Karl Rove a ‘total fool’ and ‘a biased dope.’ He said that George Will is a ‘broken down political pundit’ and ‘boring.’ Chris Stirewalt was deemed ‘one of the dumbest political pundits on television.’ Trump laughed off Charles Krauthammer as ‘a totally overrated clown,’ ‘a loser,’ and ‘a dummy.’

Wrapping up the whole network for his disapproval, he tweeted that he was ‘having a really hard time watching Fox News.’ Then he called on his followers to boycott the network. He even went after one of the major shareholders of Fox’s parent corporation.”

Whatever the reason for Murdoch’s newfound infatuation for Trump, it is a troubling development for how the election will be reported. With the CEO of Fox’s parent corporation taking sides, it makes it inevitable that his editors, reporters, and presenters will be influenced and adjust their work accordingly.

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

Of course, Fox News has always been the mouthpiece for the Republican political agenda, so there may not be an apparent difference. But even the facade of neutrality is destroyed when powerful figures within a news organization set the tone for the enterprise. And it makes a mockery of events like today’s announcement that Fox News is seeking to host a Democratic debate before the California primary. Hopefully the party and the candidates will decline that invitation that is only meant to stir more controversy and damage the party’s prospect’s in November. With Murdoch’s capitulation to Donald Trump there is no way to pretend that the network is anything but hostile to whomever the Democrats nominate.

The Trump Effect: GOP Officially Supports Degrading Remarks Toward Women, Minorities

Posted by on May 16, 2016 at 10:02 am. 6 Comments :

This election cycle has seen more than its fair share of unconventional occurrences. It began with a record seventeen Republican presidential candidates who, one-by-one, were struck down by a vulgarian throwback who rooted his campaign in lies and juvenile insults. The feral tactics of Donald Trump did more to validate public ignorance and rudeness than any politician in modern times.

Donald Trump Effect

Even worse, Trump’s overt hate mongering made it safe for racists, misogynists, and xenophobes to come out from the crevices in the floorboards and promote their bigotry with pride. Leading by example, his offensive attacks have been directed at women, Muslims, Latinos, and pretty much anyone with whom he had a disagreement. The KKK is bragging that they can use Trump for outreach to recruit new members, and other white supremacists have been campaigning for him in the primaries.

Much of Trump’s rhetoric revolves around a generalized disgust for what he calls political correctness. But his misinterpretation of term is really just his desire to be crude and insulting without consequence. And now that he has introduced that theme to his fans in the public and the press, the Republican Party is lining up behind it as well.

This weekend at the Nebraska Republican convention, the delegates were presented with an opportunity to make civility and respect for others a part of their party’s platform. The opportunity came in the form of a resolution condemning “degrading remarks toward women, minorities and other people by Republican elected office holders or party officials, including candidates for president of the United States.”

On its face this seems like it should be an uncontroversial proposal. Who would be in favor of degrading remarks toward women and minorities? Of course the answer to that question is “Donald Trump,” who has made such conduct his trademark. And this was so well recognized by the delegates at the convention that they actually quashed the resolution in an apparent attempt to protect the presumptive nominee of their party. Let’s repeat this for clarity: The delegates to the Nebraska Republican convention voted against condemning degrading remarks toward women and minorities.

To make matters worse, the delegate leading the pro-degrading movement was state school board member Pat McPherson, whose own background is littered with smarmy behavior including inappropriate behavior towards a woman, repeated references to President Obama as “a half-breed,” and charges of third-degree sexual assault. Seems like just the right person to kill this resolution and advance the Trump campaign.

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

There is something terribly wrong when a state party platform refuses to pass a resolution that condemns offensive. And it’s especially disturbing when the reason for that refusal is that it would reflect poorly on your party’s candidate for president who traffics in such remarks regularly. However, that’s where Trump has led his party, a party that is now on record as officially supporting remarks that are degrading to women and minorities. Congratulations.

Loser Ted Cruz Finally Tells The Truth About Donald Trump And Fox News

Posted by on May 4, 2016 at 10:55 am. 1 Comments :

One of the endlessly peculiar aspects of the timeline of political campaigns is the tendency for losing candidates to suddenly find the nerve to say what they actually believe after they have been rejected by voters. For some reason they never learn that it might be advantageous for them to be honest from start.

An excellent example of this took place yesterday as Ted Cruz came to the realization that he was not going to be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party. In an extended and rambling press conference, Cruz said at least two things that may be remembered as the most (or only) truths he uttered in ten months on the campaign trail. The first addressed a criticism of the media that has long been recognized by almost everyone but Ted Cruz until yesterday:

“Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes of Fox News have turned Fox News into the Donald Trump network 24/7.”

Donald Trump News

Indeed. Fox News has given Trump far more airtime than they have given any other candidate of either party. They broadcast his stump speeches live and in their entirety. They allow him to phone in interviews, an advantage that they don’t offer to his opponents. Their featured anchors and pundits openly endorse his candidacy. And all of that has been happening in an environment wherein Trump has been blasting Fox News, bitterly insulting many of its stars, and even promoting a boycott of the network. Not long ago Trump tweeted that…

“FoxNews has been treating me very unfairly & I have therefore decided that I won’t be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future.”

Like most of the BS spewed by Trump, he didn’t carry through on that threat and continues to dominate airtime on the network. So we are in a bizarre situation where it is now Republicans who are complaining most about how biased Fox News is. Who would have thought it?

The other Cruz attempt at truth-telling concerned his personal opinion of Donald Trump. Certainly there have been expressions of this in vague terms as the campaign has unfolded, but his latest comments were unambiguous in their detestation of Trump, who has battered Cruz as an utterly amoral, phony evangelical, philandering Canadian, whose father worked with Lee Harvey Oswald. Yesterday Cruz said of Trump…

“I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”

Welcome to reality, Ted. What took you so long? Many people have been saying this about Trump for months, including some steadfastly conservative Republicans. But the feeling is mutual on Trump’s part. Trump famously labeled Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and explicitly called him out as “the single biggest liar I’ve ever seen.”

Now that Cruz has suspended his campaign, making Trump the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, many of the questions in the press are about how the party will unify its warring factions in order to compete against the Democratic nominee. Those are good questions considering the stark animosity that has been layered on so thick. Some of the most loyal GOP voices are loudly declaring that they will have nothing to do with Donald Trump.

Trump himself, however, is trying to put on a untied front despite having previously said that he doesn’t want Ted Cruz’s endorsement. In his victory speech last night Trump said that Cruz “is one hell of a competitor. He is a tough, smart guy. And he has got an amazing future.” That’s an awfully generous sentiment for someone he thinks is “the single biggest liar” he’s ever seen.

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

Will the glassy-eyed disciples of the Trump Cult swallow this sort sort of flagrant hypocrisy? You better believe they will. They can only see as far as their lust for xenophobic discrimination, racial and religious bigotry, misogyny, and the painfully ignorant blathering about economics, health care, and national security that are the hallmarks of Trump’s blisteringly stupid campaign. And this is just the beginning, folks.

Bizarro World: Now The Republican Candidates Are Blasting Fox News More Than Democrats

Posted by on April 28, 2016 at 2:58 pm. NO Comments :

One of the most enduring and annoying characteristics of the Fox News personality is that they are quick to take offense at any criticism and express their inner pain whenever they feel the least bit insulted. They have a defense mechanism that is on a hair trigger. If you have a legitimate complaint about the network you can expect them to fire back with ferocity.

Barack Obama Fox News

When Jon Stewart was on The Daily Show, Fox News regularly went into hysterics over his comic swipes at them. Never mind that his barbs were often aimed at Democrats and liberals as well, the ones targeting Fox brought out their full armory of wrath. And if President Obama dares to make a perfectly reasonable observation that Fox News has been biased against him, Fox reacts as if they were pierced with a presidential harpoon. They cry like babies every time Obama knocks them, even if it’s just in passing and in concert with a knock on the left.

However, they have yet to show the same indignation when their comrades on the right throw mud at the network. They seem to have a special store of umbrage that’s reserved only for Democrats who hurt their tender feelings.

For several months now Donald Trump has been wailing at Fox News for being boring, dopey, dishonest, unfair fools and clowns. He has directed his insults specifically toward featured Foxies like Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Karl Rove, and especially Megyn Kelly. He has sabotaged their debates by refusing to participate and has even advocated boycotting the network.

Now Ted Cruz is also slamming Fox News. In a press conference last week he complained that Fox has been unfair to him as it obsesses over Trump. He actually has a point. Fox has given Trump far more air time than any candidate of either party. And they have also given Trump more airtime than any other network has given him. Still, it generally doesn’t matter to Fox if the incoming criticism is true or not. They usually fire back with everything they’ve got.

So we now find ourselves in the odd position of seeing the top Republican candidates for president both bashing Fox News, the top media mouthpiece for Republicans. You know you have really crossed over into weird territory when right-wing politicians are the most prominent protesters of a media platform that has paved the way for their candidacies. Where will this leave Fox after the election?

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

What’s peculiar is that Fox has not been returning fire at the Republican candidates. With the exception of one response to Trump’s “sick obsession” with Megyn Kelly, the GOP offenders are being given a pass to hammer away at Fox. For a network that is notorious for brutal and rapid responses to critics, this can only be seen as a gift to the GOP. Liberal critics like Stewart or Bernie Sanders or Rachel Maddow had better take cover before delivering uncomplimentary comments. And President Obama should prepare for a nuclear blast. Fox is all for free speech as long as it doesn’t contain any criticism of their blatantly dishonest propaganda. Unless that criticism is coming from their ideological pals.