Robert Mueller

Trump’s Fear of Mueller’s Testimony is Exposed in Frantic, Lie-Riddled Tweets

Posted by on May 5, 2019 at 12:43 pm. 5 Comments :

There is nothing more pitiful than a criminal who is caught red-handed in the commission of his crimes and tries impotently to convince everyone that he’s innocent. That’s the sorry state in which Donald Trump has found himself as he unleashed his regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm.

Donald Trump Robert Mueller

The flurry of panic-stricken whining from Trump included a some embarrassing missives aimed at a variety of trivial targets, mostly intended to act as distractions. They included a swipe at the Kentuky (sic) Derby wherein the President, who famously cheated in order to win, came to the defense of a horse that cheated and was subsequently disqualified. He also announced his nomination of Mark Morgan to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Trump had fired Morgan in the first few days of his administration because he was an Obama appointee. But now he’s been rehired after sucking up to Trump at least forty-nine times on Fox News. And Trump also made the painfully idiotic claim (again) that China was paying the United States for tariffs. Any first-year economics student knows that tariffs are paid by the importer (the U.S. company) and passed on to American consumers.

But without question the dumbest outburst of his morning rant was a pair of tweets attacking special counsel Robert Mueller:

Let’s examine the Olympic-grade derp in these remarks one at a time:

  1. The $35,000,000 spent was less than most other independent counsel investigations. And it was more than paid for by the asset forfeitures of Paul Manafort alone. He is the Trump campaign chairman who was convicted for crimes charged by the Mueller team.
  2. Trump keeps wandering around the allegation that 18, or 17, or 13 “Trump Hating Angry Democrats” were persecuting him. Never mind that Mueller is a life-long Republican who was appointed by Republican Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by Trump while serving under Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And for the record, there are more like 65,000,000 angry Democrats.
  3. The 400 page report by Mueller never said that there was “NO COLLUSION.”
  4. The Democrats want Mueller to testify because Trump’s sycophantic Attorney General, William Barr, has refused to release the full report. and that’s after issuing a deliberately misleading four page summary, and lying to Congress about the contents of the report and his conversations with Mueller.
  5. Democrats are not looking for a redo. They are trying to get the facts about the first “do,” which both Barr and Trump are actively trying to suppress. And so is Fox News.
  6. There is no evidence whatsoever of any crimes by what Trump calls “the other side” (i.e. Hillary Clinton, the FBI) But there is ample evidence of Trump’s crimes. Even Fox News’ senior legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano, has said that evidence exists of collusion.
  7. The Mueller report was clear that there were at least ten instances of Trump obstructing justice. And the Fox News analyst agreed saying that Trump’s conduct was “Unlawful, Defenseless and Condemnable.”

Trump concluded by pleading that Mueller shouldn’t testify before Congress. That, of course, is not Trump’s call. In fact, it’s another instance of attempting to obstruct justice. But it’s also an indication of a severe mental infirmity since Trump keeps insisting that Mueller’s report was a “total exoneration” of him. He even said that Mueller “acted honorably.” If that’s true, shouldn’t Trump want Mueller to testify publicly and clear his name?

There’s a reason that Trump is so frightened by the prospect of Mueller testifying. Trump knows exactly what he did. He knows that he’s guilty. And he knows that the more public disclosure and transparency there is, the worse it is for him and his desperate efforts to avoid accountability.

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

Trump tries to pretend that he’s been cooperative throughout the investigation. But that’s a lie that is easily refuted. After all, Trump refused to be interviewed by Mueller. He’s working hard to keep others from being interviewed, including his former White House counsel, Don McGahn. And now he’s trying to intimidate those interested in finding the truth with these ludicrous demands to prevent Mueller’s testimony. This isn’t the behavior of an innocent man. It’s the desperation of a coward caught in the web of his own crimes and lies.

Fox News Host Shines a Light on The Dishonest Trump-Fluffing of AG Barr and the Fox ‘Opinion People’

Posted by on May 1, 2019 at 2:58 pm. NO Comments :

The highly anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing with Attorney General William Barr provided all the sparks and melodrama that was advertised. While the Republican members of the committee wasted their time flattering Barr and calling for ridiculously unwarranted investigations of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democrats effectively revealed just how devoutly wedded to Donald Trump the Attorney General is.

Fox News, Chris Wallace

Barr was unashamedly protecting Trump from any potentially negative perceptions he might have earned due to his flagrantly unlawful activity and obstruction of justice. Barr refused to concede some obvious failures on his part to be an objective servant of the American people, rather than a personal criminal lawyer for Trump.

Even so, Barr couldn’t remember whether or not Trump ever asked him to open an investigation into Trump’s political opponents or critics. He admitted that he didn’t review the evidence in the Mueller report before deciding that Trump was innocent. He denied that directing someone to change their testimony (as Trump did to White House Counsel Don McGahn) was witness tampering and obstruction of justice. He defended his use of the loaded, Trumpian term of “spying” during his previous congressional testimony. He couldn’t even say whether the President’s actions were consistent with his oath of office. So Barr is not just another Trump lawyer, he’s as bad at it as the rest of Trump’s legal team.

Many of these revelations were discussed immediately after the hearing by Fox News anchors Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace. Smith delivered a remarkably straightforward recap of the proceedings with all of the brutal – for Trump – truths included. He then turned to Wallace, whose assessment was equally candid, but also included some peremptory criticisms of his Fox News colleagues. He began by addressing the letter from Mueller to Barr after Barr’s bastardization of the special counsel’s report (video below):

“I know there are some people who don’t think this March 27 letter is a big deal, and some opinion people who appear on this network who might be pushing a political agenda. But we have to deal in facts. And the fact is that this letter from the special counsel … was a clear indication that [Mueller] was upset, very upset, with the letter that had been sent out by the Attorney General.”

Wallace noted that Mueller’s letter was intended to express his view that Barr was misleading and confusing the public. It would have been extraordinarily uncommon if Mueller had simply expressed those views in a personal phone call to Barr. But his decision to go further by documenting them in writing demonstrates how seriously he felt that Barr had crossed ethical lines. Mueller’s letter clearly stated that he wanted Barr to correct the record publicly.”

“He felt the Attorney General’s letter was inaccurate. He says in the conversation he was talking about media coverage. But that’s not what it says in the letter. He says in the letter that you didn’t reflect what we found in the report … Those aren’t opinions. That’s not political agenda. Those are the facts.”

Wallace is making it abundantly clear that he is concerned about how Fox’s “opinion people” are likely to distort reality when they get their turn in primetime. He’s being deliberate in his remarks to emphasize that what he’s presenting are the facts, as opposed to what shills like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are expected to say later on.

It’s amazing that a so-called “news” network can operate this way. They have people they identify as journalists openly maligning their network confederates as disreputable purveyors of rumors, distortions, and lies. There would seem to be no point to watch a program hosted by State TV mouthpieces who spew fantasy fiction that the network’s straight news reporters refute.

Yet that’s the business model of Fox News. And millions of dimwitted Deplorables tune in every night to be lied to by shameless Trump PR flacks posing as journalists. It’s the behavior of cult members who obediently believe only what the cult leaders permit them to believe. However, with the reporting by Smith and Wallace, some of these poor souls might come into contact with some actual truth. That could result in their being released from the spell of the Fox News charlatans. Or it might cause them to suffer an aneurysm that turns half of the brain into mush. Well, the half that wasn’t already mush.

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

Fox News Senior Legal Analyst: Trump’s Obstruction is ‘Unlawful, Defenseless and Condemnable’

Posted by on April 25, 2019 at 2:34 pm. 5 Comments :

Ever since special counsel Robert Mueller began investigating the President, Donald Trump has been adamant that there has been “no collusion, no obstruction,” and no other illegal or unethical activity on his part. Trump made sure to drive that point home to his Deplorable followers on Twitter nearly every day. And backing him up all the way on this was his State TV affiliate, Fox News.

Donald Trump, Andrew Napolitano

But now the bottom appears to be falling out of Trump’s defense strategy. In recent weeks a few lonely voices on Fox News have displayed some measure of independence and honesty. They are still a minority, and they are often castigated by their own network colleagues, but they are there and they are beginning to be more outspoken.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is one of those expressing views that are decidedly un-Foxian. Last month Napolitano told Fox host Neil Cavuto that he agreed with the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, that there is evidence in the public record of Trump engaging in both conspiracy with Russia and obstruction of justice. He previously said that Trump’s firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was obstruction of justice. And now Napolitano is going even further with some hard and detailed facts:

“Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump — from asking former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland to write an untruthful letter about the reason for Flynn’s chat with Kislyak, to asking Corey Lewandowski and then-former White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and McGahn to lie about it, to firing Comey to impede the FBI’s investigations, to dangling a pardon in front of Michael Cohen to stay silent, to ordering his aides to hide and delete records.”

These remarks might not get much attention were they made by Rep. Schiff, or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. They would be be dismissed by right-wingers as partisan and political. But those criticisms cannot be credibly leveled against Napolitano who is a devoted conservative and a long-time fixture on Fox News. And he wasn’t done:

“The president’s job is to enforce federal law. If he had ordered its violation to save innocent life or preserve human freedom, he would have a moral defense. But ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behavior is unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.”

That’s the sort of unambiguous statement of guilt (and from a judge no less) that you might expect from a partisan Democrat. But coming from a conservative legal expert on Fox News, it’s damn near conviction. It’s certainly justification for proceeding with impeachment hearings.

Napolitano also took Attorney General William Barr to task for wrongly defining obstruction of justice as only being applicable when it is successful or when there is an underlying crime committed by the obstructor. That’s nonsense and not rooted in the law. It is still obstruction if one attempts to interfere with the the judicial process and fails. If you try to rob a bank and don’t pull it off, you are going to jail. Likewise, it’s still obstruction if one attempts to interfere with a case that involves someone else. If you lie to the police about a crime you know you’re cousin committed, you are going to jail.

Barr’s absurd misinterpretation is a blatant attempt to cover for Trump and could be considered obstruction of justice itself. And it’s so egregiously conspicuous that even a Fox News legal analyst can see it and felt compelled to react. When this sort of blowback comes from the network that Trump regards as his own media division, it can’t be long before the damn breaks and others on Fox, along with Republicans who can no longer pretend that Trump isn’t an un-American charlatan, conclude that it’s time to put country before party – or before the naked emperor routine that Trump is trying to pull off.

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

UPDATE: Here’s video of Napolitano’s remarks. It is really worth watching.
https://youtu.be/wC-JGIXIv0Q

UPDATE II: And naturally, Big Baby Trump lashed out at Napolitano in a pair of tweets that also slammed Shepard Smith, while praising Trump-fluffer Alan Dershowitz’s utterly imbecilic argument that there can be no obstruction of justice without a conviction of an underlying crime. No reputable lawyer believes that.

Big Baby Trump ‘Welcomes’ Joe Biden to a Race that Will Be Dominated By Trump’s Fear

Posted by on April 25, 2019 at 11:57 am. NO Comments :

As might be expected, Donald Trump demonstrated today that he has still not progressed emotionally from the stage of a chollicky infant. In response to Joe Biden’s announcement that he is entering the primaries for the Democratic nomination for president, Trump lashed out with a sarcastic welcome that featured a recycled nickname that he previously gave to NBC’s Chuck Todd: “Sleepy” Joe Biden.

Donald Trump

Trump’s tweet was typically boorish and devoid of either wit or substance. It was just another one of his ad hominem harangues that he thinks are so clever, that his cult followers lap up, but that prove nothing except for how shallow and hateful he is:

For Trump to demean the intelligence of Biden, or anyone else, is truly peak irony. This is a man who thinks winter is an argument against climate change; who thinks that stealth bombers are really invisible; who doesn’t know that tariffs are paid by consumers, not countries; who says he’ll take any attempt to impeach him to the Supreme Court. And the irony continued with Trump’s assertions that it’s the Democrats who are “nasty, sick, and demented.”

However, the race that Trump is welcoming Biden into is one that will be dominated by Trump’s own fears and desperation. Immediately after the release of the redacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump declared that he had been “totally exonerated.” But ever since he has been castigating Mueller and the report as a hoax that was corrupt and illegal. And despite his lame attempts to cover it up, he clearly knows that he has been exposed as having committed crimes and for obstructing justice. Which is why he also tweeted these anxiety-riddled thoughts today:

So now Trump is calling his former White House counsel, Don McGahn, a liar. Is that another example of his hiring “the best people’? Also, Trump never fires anyone himself. He always gets some other patsy to do it for him. And as for the claim that he “respectfully allowed [Mueller] to finish his work,” that was only after he called him a “conflicted, corrupt, illegal, disreputable Trump Hater,” who was on a “Witch Hunt”? That’s Trump’s idea of respectful.

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

And we can expect more of the same as the 2020 presidential election gets into gear. Trump will continue to act like a big baby, continue to lie, and continue to malign his opponents and critics with baseless and childish insults. If America is lucky, Trump will be impeached or resign before we all have to go through more of that.

Morning Psycho? Trump’s Latest Twitter Rampage Reveals Just How Scared He is of Impeachment

Posted by on April 23, 2019 at 1:35 pm. NO Comments :

The signs are becoming more difficult to ignore with each passing day. Donald Trump is losing all control of his mental faculties. This isn’t a new revelation. Those who have been paying close attention to Trump’s deranged behavior, his memory lapses, his reversion to infantilism, and his incoherent tirades, recognized the indicators of psychological infirmity long ago.

Donald Trump

This week Trump has gone farther over the edge than ever before. On Monday he posted a record twenty-four tweets – mostly retweeting Fox News and other sycophantic Trump-fluffers – all with the purpose of exalting himself and salving his fragile ego. And then on Tuesday he unleashed another thirteen tweets (so far) that were even more symptomatic of an unsound mind. The kind of mind that twisted “Morning Joe” Scarborough’s name into “Morning Psycho.” Which, after reading his latest tweetstorm, it’s clear that it applies better to Trump himself.

These tweets also included a swipe at Paul Krugman of the News New York Times for something that Trump never defined. Although he did accuse Krugman of being “obsessed with hatred” just a before saying he was “stupid.” Then he wondered if the Times would apologize to him again, which is weird because they have never apologized to him before. This is a fantasy he’s engaged in several times in the past.

Trump also tweeted his plans to hold a rally rather than attend the annual charity event for the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). He’s skipping this event for the third time due to his abject fear of jokes about him. And then there was this:

So Trump thinks that the Republican agenda is “working” when more than half the country is going insane? That’s a standard that proves that he truly hates this country and most of the people in it. And it’s not the first time he’s said so, either. He also pined for the “old days” when he says president’s were “immune from criticism.” Yeah, right. But then those presidents didn’t conspire with Russia, use the presidency to enrich themselves, lie over 9,000 times, malign others with infantile insults, and attack the free press. Then he whined about Twitter discriminating against him by deleting his followers (who were mainly Russian bots). And naturally, he threw in some promos for State TV (aka Fox News).

The question is: What might be responsible for this eruption of inanity? It has all occurred less than a week after the release of the redacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Despite the redactions, there was a surprising amount of evidence of Trump violating the law and obstructing justice. The proof that this evidence exists is in Trump’s own response to the report. At first he insisted that it “totally exonerated” him. But ever since he has lambasted it as a “hoax” perpetrated by “Angry Democrats.” Clearly he is disturbed by the report and feels a need to discredit it. That isn’t something an innocent person does to a document he believes vindicates him.

Trump is also facing new threats arising from congressional oversight. His former White House counsel, Don McGahn, is being subpoenaed to testify. His taxes and other financial records are also being subpoenaed from his banks and accountants. Trump has been frantically trying to keep all of this hidden for years. But those efforts appear to have been exhausted.

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

Now Trump is in a panic because he knows the awful truth about him is about to become public. And the fear that is oozing out of every pore of his thin-skin is manifesting on his Twitter feed. Twitter is his nanny and he’s clinging to it for dear life as he tries to console himself, distract the nation, purge the demons that are feasting on his dread of facing reality, He thinks that these outbursts will calm the anxiety that, by all appearances, is eating him alive. But in all likelihood it will just get even more intense, until he is utterly consumed by it. And that’s actually the best case scenario.

Jeanine Pirro of Fox News Unleashes a Bizarre Trump Defense with the Clintons as Bonnie and Clyde

Posted by on April 21, 2019 at 1:09 pm. 3 Comments :

There is no one on Fox News that makes life harder for Saturday Night Live than “Judge” Jeanine Pirro. Her cartoonishly feverish harangues are nearly impossible to satirize. Pirro herself seems to be doing a mock impersonation of a paranoid schizophrenic on acid. The best way to translate that into comedy is just to yell the already incoherent excerpts from her actual commentaries.

Donald Trump, Jeanine Pirro

On the latest episode of her Saturday Trump-Fluffing Hour (video below), Pirro outdid herself with an extended diatribe addressing the release of the redacted Mueller report by Trump’s disgraced Attorney General, William Barr. She began the program by asking an ironically self-owning question:

“Are you fed up yet? More than two years of non-stop, unprecedented maligning by the mainstream media, high level Obama administration officials, and disappointed, disgruntled and deranged Democrats, of the commander in chief as the ‘agent of a foreign government,’ a ‘Putin puppet,’ a ‘treasonous dictator,’ all because they despise the outsider president WE put in the Oval Office.”

Anytime a Fox News shill to mentions Trump in the same sentence with descriptives like “agent of a foreign government,” “Putin puppet,” and “treasonous dictator,” you’ve got to consider that a win. But Pirro’s take on conclusions of the Mueller report are indicative of a mind infected by cult worship. For one thing, her assertion that the alleged “maligning” of Trump was unprecedented ignores Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office where he was accused of being a gay, terrorist-sympathizing, communist Muslim, who was born in Kenya. And most of those attacks were by Pirro herself.

What’s more, Pirro’s characterization of Trump as the “outsider president WE put in the Oval Office,” begs the question: Who is “WE”? Fox News? The Deplorables? Vladimir Putin? It certainly wasn’t the American people who favored Hillary Clinton by a margin of three million votes. Nevertheless, Pirro has had enough:

“Enough already. The system worked. The process is over. No collusion. No obstruction. Full cooperation. Enough lives have been damaged. Enough reputations ruined. Enough families destroyed. They took down people with process crimes having nothing to do with Russia.”

So what Pirro regards as a working system is one that makes the election’s loser president. But that doesn’t mean the process is over if there were irregularities such as Trump exploiting Russian interference in the campaign by disseminating stolen data. That’s collusion whether or not he did it via direct interactions with Putin. As for “full cooperation,” that’s not something you can claim when you refused to to talk to the special counsel for fear of being caught in a lie. But Pirro was far from through bloviating:

“I’m not gonna dwell on the fact that the real collusion with Russia was with the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics – Bill and Hillary – who sold our uranium to Russia and pocketed a quick $145 million dollars through their trusty charity.”

There is that textbook passive aggressive attack by saying you aren’t going to dwell on something even as you’re dwelling all over it with frothy saliva dripping from the corner of your smarmy, sarcastic smile. Never mind that there is zero evidence that Hillary engaged in any with any Russian operatives. Or that she profited in any way from the sale of any uranium to Russia. Even Pirro’s Fox News colleague, Shepard Smith, debunked that flagrant lie.

Perhaps the most nauseating part of this mental unraveling is Pirro’s comparison of Bill and Hillary Clinton to Bonnie and Clyde. She didn’t bother to actually include any explanation for why she associated two American public servants with a couple of murderous bank robbers. She probably just thought it would arouse the nether regions of her dimwitted viewers to spill out some unintelligible insults. Which Pirro continued to do as this tedious program dragged on:

“They will seize on the language that you cannot indict a sitting president. Which is simply the law. Yet Mueller comes out and says he cannot exonerate the President of obstruction. There was not sufficient evidence to bring a charge. If there’s not sufficient evidence to bring a charge that should have been the end of it. But no. In a show of political whore-manship – that’s what I said, political whore-manship – Mueller left crumbs for Congress. He added he couldn’t exonerate Trump to give the Democrats something to work with.”

First of all, there is no law that prohibits indicting a sitting president. Pirro is outright lying about that. Also, Pirro complains that a finding that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to bring a charge should be “the end of it.” Which is exactly what Mueller did. He ended his investigation and wrote a report that the Attorney General still won’t allow the American people to see.

However, even the parts that we were allowed to see are filled with evidence that Trump engaged in activities that were either unlawful or immoral. And he clearly left these questions open for Congress to deal with, as is appropriate for his role as special counsel. And for that Pirro calls him a “whore” – twice! And on that note it’s impossible to resist acknowledging that Pirro just dived into a subject that she knows all too well.

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

Thank Gawd! Trump is ‘Happy’ and ‘Content’ Because ‘YOUR’ Country is Doing So Well

Posted by on April 21, 2019 at 9:47 am. 1 Comments :

If there is one thing that the American people have anxiously been waiting to establish on this Easter/Passover weekend, it’s whether or not Donald Trump is happy and content. And now we have conclusive confirmation of the President’s emotional satisfaction despite his ever increasing legal and political jeopardy.

Donald Trump Climate Change

It’s been less than a week since the release of the heavily edited version of the report from special counsel Robert Mueller by Trump’s obedient lackey in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. Even with the numerous redactions, the report is a damning condemnation of Trump’s criminality and rampant dishonesty. But if you were wondering whether any of that reality has been a drag on his mood, fear not:

Well, that’s a relief. Trump is gleefully pursuing his duties (primarily golfing and watching Fox News) in the wake of news that affirms his campaign and presidency were riddled with corruption and collusion with Russia. And the reason he cites for his cheerfulness is that “your” country is doing so well. Notice that he doesn’t seem to consider it his country. But nevertheless, have a great day.

And why not? It’s a day when (according to Trump) 138 million people were massacred by terrorism in Sri Lanka. It’s a day when Trump was exalted in an op-ed in the New York Times that demanded an apology from the media and Democrats. Never mind that the op-ed is three days old, was written by a MAGA cultist, ignores all evidence of the crimes and lies in Mueller report, and that there are lots of conservative op-eds in Times.

What’s more, it’s a day when Trump continues to whine relentlessly about “Trump Haters and Angry Democrats,” and the Mueller report that he said “totally exonerated” him. But now he calls it a “hit job” and complains that it’s the “other side” who are the criminals, and that he was the subject of imaginary spying.

If that doesn’t sound like someone who is happy and content, then you don’t know Donald Trump. He apparently enjoys being consumed by seething outrage at his perceived enemies and wallowing in anger and self-pity. It’s pretty much all he does these days. And fortunately for him, with all of the bad news still to come, he’ll have plenty of opportunity to bask in his revelatory recreation and pretend that it makes him all tingly inside.

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

Trump Thinks the Mueller Report is a Woman, That’s Why He’s ‘Moving On It Like a B*tch’

Posted by on April 20, 2019 at 11:32 am. 2 Comments :

It’s only been three days since Donald Trump’s obedient lackey in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, released his redacted version of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Barr’s alleged “press conference” thoroughly distorted the content of the report and cemented his reputation as a dishonorable shill.

Donald Trump drinking

However, it’s Trump himself who has gone completely overboard with wild-eyed ranting about the report. He is at once lambasting it as a hoax that should never have happened, as well as a conclusive vindication of his glaringly obvious crimes. So naturally he spent his regularly scheduled Saturday Morning Tweetstorm demonstrating the severe mental infirmities that have become the hallmark of his presidency. You might say that he “moved on it like a bitch.” He began with this:

Mueller is a life-long Republican who was appointed by a Republican acting Attorney General who was appointed by Trump. But in Trump’s “very large a-brain” (his own words) it’s still some sort of deep state conspiracy against him. And now he can’t even keep track of the number of “Angry Democrats” amongst the “Trump Haters” (Fact Check: It’s about 63,000,000). And then there was this:

First of all, No one is doing more to “stir up and anger the pols and as many people as possible” as Trump. In fact, it’s practically all he does with his incessant rage-tweeting and lie-riddled comments at his staged photo-ops. And if he really thinks that the “principle conclusion” of the Mueller report was that there was “no collusion,” he’s more deranged than anyone imagined. Even Fox News’ senior legal analyst agrees with the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, that there is evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice. And for an alleged hoax that is allegedly dead, Trump can’t stop whining about it. And then there was this:

True to form, Trump praises the “Witch Hunt” against him as “the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. political history.” Of course it is. I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. No one does better witch hunt than Trump. Believe me. And, according to Trump, the “end result” of the Mueller report manages to be “no collusion” despite the voluminous references to meetings with Russians, pathological lying, and flagrant obstruction of justice. That really is “Pretty Amazing!” And then there was this:

Why is our supposedly tea-totalling president toasting (himself probably) with a cocktail? But more to the point, what’s with that cheesy propaganda video? The lies that Trump stuffed into it shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s just a tedious rehashing of what he tweets ad nauseum.

What should bother the American people is that he spends our tax dollars on bullshit like this. This is the true “Presidential Harassment,” but not the sexual kind that he’s so well known for. And not the kind that he panic-tweets about so much (here and here and here). Sadly, he has an army of Deplorables who actually suck up these perverse ravings without swallowing. Pretty Amazing!

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

Game Over? Trump’s Post-Mueller Panic-Tweets Exalting Fox News Reveal his Fear and Desperation

Posted by on April 19, 2019 at 8:37 am. 2 Comments :

Apparently the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s shill Attorney General, William Barr, wasn’t the ultimate vindication that he hoped it would be. Of course that didn’t prevent him from posting multiple tweets frantically insisting that the report showed there was “no collusion, no obstruction” – which it definitely didn’t do.

Donald Trump, Fox News

Trump went on a vindication binge featuring the usual Confederacy of Sycophants who routinely defend his every word and deed no matter how loathsome. He quoted a phalanx of Fox News fluffers like Tucker Carlson, Martha MacCallum, and Jesse Watters. And he posted some hokey propaganda videos and a Game of Thrones meme that said it was now “Game Over.” That was followed by a couple of rants about the “Crazy Mueller Report” that contained “total bullshit” even though he previously insisted that it “totally exonerated” him.

These are further signs of dementia that should not be ignored. And amidst this flaming ego eruption was one peculiar tweet (since deleted, but preserved here) that was nothing more than a promo for Fox News that said:

“It was a really great day for America! A special evening tonight on @TuckerCarlson, @seanhannity & @IngrahamAngle Will be very interesting!”

Sure, what a great day. America learned that their president fraternized with numerous Russian operatives in an effort to get dirt on his political opponent, and then repeatedly lied about it and pressured others to lie for him. He gleefully exploited stolen data and brazenly obstructed justice in order to avoid the legal and political consequences. And to celebrate, Trump suggested plopping yourself down for several hours of mindless and false propaganda provided by his favorite Fox News collaborators.

However, after tweeting and then retweeting it, for some reason Trump deleted it (it lives on here). He later posted several comments quoting some portions of those programs, but his free ad urging his Deplorables to tune in was exorcized from his feed. Did Fox News miss a payment?

Trump doesn’t have much to worry about though. Fox News will continue to prop up his presidency until news of his child cannibalism is revealed – and maybe even after that. All of Fox’s primetimers devoted their programs to parades of Trump’s innocence. Sean Hannity spent much of his show attacking the “hate-Trump media.” Tucker Carlson declared that the White House press corps had been humiliated. And Laura Ingraham went even further:

“To those who branded the primetime hosts on this network as ‘State News,’ for daring to tell the truth – not just our truth – but THE truth. You owe us an apology.”

Yeah, that’ll happen. Especially since the Mueller report actually validated most of what the media has been saying for the past two years about Trump’s nefarious and criminal activities. Everything from the press reports that Trump directed the lies about his son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, to accounts of his angry rampages when his staffers refused to break the law for him, was affirmed in the Mueller probe.

Perhaps what ticked Trump off were the instances where some Fox News personalities had the audacity to allow some real news to slip though. For instance, the time that Fox’s senior legal analyst agreed with Rep. Adam Schiff that there was evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice. Or when Fox’s chief news anchor, Shepard Smith, described as “patently false” Trump’s whining about the Mueller probe as a “witch Hunt” and a “hoax.” These are the sort of incidents that caused Trump to nervously instruct his aides to “keep an eye” on Fox News to make sure it stays loyal to him. That’s what life in the bunker feels like to Hair Trump in these dark days.

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

Fox News is Referenced in the Mueller Report Four Times, and Each Makes Trump Look Worse

Posted by on April 18, 2019 at 2:39 pm. NO Comments :

With the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, there is going to be a flurry of furious spinning by Trump’s devoted martinets in the right-wing press. Trump himself will continue his frantic robo-rant of “no collusion, no obstruction,” as he has been doing for months.

Fox News, Robert Mueller

Naturally, Fox News will assume its predictable role as the main line of defense for Trump. They will focus exclusively on any positive angles among the vague interpretations of Mueller’s report offered by Barr or other Republican partisans. And they will brazenly ignore anything in the report that is remotely detrimental to Trump, of which there is a significant amount. Even Chris Wallace of Fox News noted that “There is a lot of stuff in here that is damaging to the president, politically embarrassing to the president.”

However, Fox News itself had a place in the Mueller report with four references to Trump’s State TV affiliate. The following passages from the report illustrate just how deeply integrated Fox is with Trump and his associates. For instance:

Page 70:

“That night, the White House Press Office called the Department of Justice and said the White House wanted to put out a statement saying that it was Rosenstein’s idea to fire Comey. Rosenstein told other DOJ officials that he would not participate in putting out a ‘false story.’ The President then called Rosenstein directly and said he was watching Fox News, that the coverage had been great, and that he wanted Rosenstein to do a press conference. Rosenstein responded that this was not a good idea because if the press asked him, he would tell the truth that Comey’s firing was not his idea.”

What we have here is Trump keeping tabs on the investigation by watching Fox News, and then trying to get Deputy AG Rosenstein to lie for him about FBI Director James Comey’s firing. That’s obstruction of justice right there. The fact that Rosenstein refused doesn’t make Trump’s attempt any less illegal. And then there’s this:

Page 99:

“[Reince] Priebus recalled learning about the June 9 meeting from Fox News host Sean Hannity in late June 2017. Priebus notified one of the President’s personal attorneys, who told Priebus he was already working on it. By late June, several advisors recalled receiving media inquiries that could relate to the June 9 meeting.”

It’s rather remarkable that Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, found out about the infamous Trump Tower meeting (with Don Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and some Russian operatives) only by watching Fox News. That’s how out-of-the-loop Trump’s closest White House aide was, but also how integral Fox News is to Trump’s affairs. And that’s not all:

Page 126:

“In a Fox News interview on August 22, 2018, the President said: ‘[Cohen] makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else. And one of the reasons l respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial-you know they make up stories. People make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, they call it, I know all about flipping. The President said that flipping was ‘not fair’ and ‘almost ought to be outlawed.'”

In this “interview” with the unabashedly pro-Trump “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends, Trump is laying the groundwork for threats directed at his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, while simultaneously praising his more loyal campaign chairman, Manafort. This is a fairly clumsy attempt at witness tampering. Which he did some more of here:

Page 151:

“In January 2019, after the media reported that Cohen would provide public testimony in a congressional hearing, the President made additional public comments suggesting that Cohen’s family members had committed crimes. In an interview on Fox on January 12, 2019, the President was asked whether he was worried about Cohen’s testimony and responded:

‘[I]n order to get his sentence reduced, [Cohen] says “I have an idea, I’ll ah, tell-I’ll give you some information on the president.” Well, there is no information. But he should give information maybe on his father-in-law because that’s the one that people want to look at because where does that money-that’s the money in the family.'”

Trump made these accusations during an interview with his adoring acolyte, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. They were directed against Cohen’s family as a flagrant attempt to scare him into keeping his mouth shut.

It’s hard to see why Mueller didn’t think he had sufficient evidence to indict Trump, or at least to recommend that Congress take up an inquiry that could lead to impeachment. And as guilty as Trump now appears to be, it’s plain that Fox News was a willing accomplice every step of the way. It is not insignificant that Fox was referenced four times in the report. They were further included in twenty-seven footnotes. No other national news network was referenced in the body of the report even once. What does that tell you?

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