Robert Mueller

AG Barr’s Bastardization of the Mueller Report Cements His Reputation as a Trump-Fluffing Shill

Posted by on April 18, 2019 at 9:06 am. 3 Comments :

On Thursday morning Donald Trump got just what he wanted when he planted William Barr as his obedient lackey in the Justice Department. Barr held what he called a “press conference,” but was more of public sanitation of Trump’s clear and obvious criminal behavior, much of which was done in full view of the public. This will go down in history alongside the legal mendacity Nixon’s accomplices in Watergate.

Robert Mueller Trump

Much of What Barr said in his remarks was the best evidence that he was being flagrantly servile to Trump. He began by describing the Mueller report as concerning “matters related to Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.” And then he nearly ignored that entirely for the remainder of his remarks. Barr never explicitly mentioned incriminating activities like the meeting between Don Trump Jr and Paul Manafort with Russians in Trump Tower. Nevertheless, he did conclude that “no evidence that any Americans – including anyone associated with the Trump campaign – conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.” How does he square those two facts? Barr doesn’t say.

Barr did bring up the fact that Russians were found to have hacked into the emails of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. But he let’s Trump off the hook by saying that the Mueller report “did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations.” That, of course, was never alleged by anyone. What Trump and company did was to aid and abet the Russians in disseminating the product of that illegal hacking. All the while denying that it ever occured.

Barr noted that “Wikileaks then made a series of document dumps,” but he absolved Trump of any wrongdoing by stating that “Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign.” The public evidence to the contrary is undeniable. Trump promoted WikiLeaks’ stolen data over 140 times and said explicitly that “I love WikiLeaks.” Then he later denied this reality by saying that he “knows nothing about WikiLeaks.” Again, that contradiction is another example of his consciousness of guilt.

Barr did address the fact that “the Special Counsel investigated a number of ‘links’ or ‘contacts’ between Trump Campaign officials and individuals connected with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.” But he’s trivializing what were actually hundreds of contacts by dozens of Trump associates. And he cavalierly dismissed those contacts saying that he “did not find any conspiracy to violate U.S. law.” Well, then what else would he call it?

Barr’s “bottom line” was that the report concluded that “the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.” But what he isn’t denying is that Trump and his campaign abetted those schemes by promoting their narratives while pretending they didn’t exist.

Additionally, Barr cleared Trump of obstruction of justice by asserting that there was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” That’s Barr’s conclusion, not Mueller’s. And it ignores all of the evidence to the contrary, including Trump’s innumerable lies to cover up his activities and even his television confession that he fired FBI director James Comey because of “the Russia thing.”

Proof of Barr’s bias was evident in his comments that Trump “was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” How does Barr know that Trump was frustrated and angry? He never testified. And as for his having “a sincere belief” that he was the subject of “presidential harassment” (as Trump calls it), that’s a brazenly subjective view that reveals prejudice on Barr’s part.

What’s more, Barr claimed that “the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation [and therefore had no] corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.” It’s absurd to say that someone who refused to be interviewed had fully cooperated. And Trump’s corrupt intent was evident nearly everyday in his tweets that maligned Mueller and his team as virtual traitors who were acting with purposeful deceit to stage a coup against Trump. Additionally, it’s impossible to ignore Trump’s witness tampering with both threats and the dangling of possible pardons.

This release of the redacted Mueller report, and Barr’s obsequious presentation of his deceitful version of facts, produces more questions than it answers. And the fact that Trump required this improper defense by the Attorney General just makes him look more guilty. There are still some sixteen other investigations of Trump in progress that encompass potential crimes related to his campaign, his inauguration, his businesses, his sexual affairs and assaults, and his presidency. So if Trump thinks this is “Game Over” as he tweeted following Barr’s press conference, he is not only wrong, he’s downright delusional.

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

Choosing Ignorance: Majority of Republicans (and Trump) Oppose Full Release of Mueller Report

Posted by on April 17, 2019 at 1:08 pm. 4 Comments :

On Thursday a version of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller will be released by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. It will be heavily redacted by Barr to prevent the American people from seeing all of the facts accumulated during the investigation that they paid for.

Donald Trump

Even before the release of the redacted Mueller report, there has been enough voluminous evidence of Trump’s conspiracy with Russia, WikiLeaks, and other nefarious characters, to warrant impeachment and/or indictment. But the report almost certainly contains new information that likely further incriminates Trump, his family, and associates. Even the senior legal analyst at Fox News said so. Which explains why Trump is so panicked by the impending release. He is exhibiting a palpable fear of what might come out, and he feverishly expresses that fear in his Twitter rampages. But he isn’t the only one who is consumed with the dread of imminent truth.

A poll by Monmouth University asked voters if the Justice Department should “provide the full Mueller report to Congress.” The response overall was a resounding majority (60%) saying that the full report should be made public. That’s in line with every other poll on this subject. What’s more interesting is the breakdown by political affiliation. The poll found that Democrats were overwhelmingly in favor (81%) of an unfettered presentation of the facts. Which speaks to their confidence in Mueller and their appreciation for openness no matter the results. Likewise, a solid majority of Independents (61%) also favor full disclosure.

On the other hand, Republicans were committed to burying their heads in the sand to avoid what they must be assuming will be bad news for their Dear Leader. Only thirty-three percent said they want the full, unredacted Mueller report released to the public. In other words, two-thirds of GOP voters are choosing to remain deliberately ignorant. They have no problem with wanting to see all of Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails, or President Obama’s thirty year old school transcripts, but the sight of the product of a two year investigation of the current president by Republican law enforcement officials is too much for them to bear.

Trump is also terrified by the prospect of this information becoming public. His comments on it reflect a man who is deeply disturbed and irrational as a result of this publicity. He has tweeted about Mueller nearly every day this month and over three dozen times just this year. He wavers wildly from insisting that he has been “totally exonerated” to hostile assaults on Mueller’s team (who he says exonerated him) as being corrupt and biased. Sometimes in a single tweet:

So Trump thinks that Democrats in Congress – and by extension all of the American people – don’t have the right to see what he himself calls the “No Collusion Mueller Report.” Why wouldn’t he want everyone to see a report that he says proves his innocence? What’s more, he absurdly claims that Democrats have abandoned their respect for Mueller, even though this poll proves that they still look forward to seeing what his report says:

Clearly Trump is lashing out blindly in all directions at once and making no sense at all. Even his complaint about the cost of the probe is completely off-base. It was more than paid for by just the asset forfeitures from convicted Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. But the opposition by Trump and his Republican Nationalist constituents to the release of the full, unredacted report, along with the underlying documents, is proof that they have something to hide.

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

Consequently, they are taking the peculiar position of begging to be kept uninformed. It’s not an unfamiliar state of affairs with the Republican base (remember the Tea Party?). And to an even greater extent, enforced stupidity is a sacrament to the right-wing cult followers of Trump. After all, they still regard him as an honest, faithful, law-abiding, humble, diplomatic, brilliant, successful, family man, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Trump Whines that Congress Has NO RIGHT to See Mueller Report that He Said Exonerates Him

Posted by on April 13, 2019 at 12:35 pm. NO Comments :

The smouldering fear that Donald Trump has been emanting for the past several months is escalating to a five-alarm fire. He is becoming ever more frantic about the legal jeopardy he faces if the report by special counsel Robert Mueller actually sees the light of day. Consequently, he is lashing out with renewed ferocity at Mueller, Congress, and the American people who overwhelmingly (87%) want the report released.

Donald Trump, Robert Mueller

In an unusually light fit of Saturday morning rage-tweeting (he’s golfing), Trump reiterated his adoration for Kim Jong Un, whose leadership Trump praised for its potential to make North Korea “one of the most successful nations of the World!” It’s interesting that he has such confidence in this murderous, communist dictator, while he’s maligning American Democrats as “treasonous” and “socialists” who will destroy the nation.

Trump also retweeted his disgusting video associating Rep. Ilhan Omar with the terrorists of 9/11, despite the fact that he had already pinned to the top of his Twitter page. Apparently he wasn’t satisfied that enough of his Deplorables would see it and be incited to make more racist attacks and death threats.

In addition to those Twidiocies, Trump returned to his obsession over the investigation into his nefarious associations with Russia and obstruction of justice. It’s clear by the content and tone of his ranting that he is riddled with fear. And that all-consuming dread has driven him to a new level of panic and outrage:

There’s a lot of psychoses to unpack in that short spasm of bullpucky. First of all, there are no “Radical Left Democrats” in Congress. Secondly, the Democrats who are there were elected in a Blue Wave by citizens who specifically sent them to Washington to hold Trump accountable. Third, the cost of the investigation was more than paid for by the asset forfeitures assessed against Paul Manafort, Trump’s convicted campaign chairman. Fourth, there is zero evidence of any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, the DNC, or the FBI, who Trump is once again insulting as criminals. And fifth, Trump is signaling that he has ordered his stooge in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, to launch an illegal persecution of his political foes.

But that’s not all. The language in Trump’s tweet was deliberate and highly disturbing. He is now saying that Congress has no right to examine the Mueller report. In his previous statements on this subject he has said that he had no problem with the report being released. He even said that Mueller had acted “honorably.” And why not? He insists that the report “totally exonerates” him. Of course, Trump is nothing if not contradictory. He has also bitterly condemned the report that he hasn’t even read.

Something must have changed that made Trump go from “Let it come out, let people see it,” to it was “a hoax from day one” by “13 angry, Trump hating Dems” and “a total waste of time.” And whatever changed more recently must have been even more troubling, because this is the first time that Trump has asserted that the Congress – and by extension the American people – have no right to see the report.

Trump continues to maintain that hasn’t read the Mueller report. That’s believable because there’s credible doubt that he can read. At least he’s known to be averse to it and has his aides summarize most documents for him with short paragraphs and lots of pictures. But he has never said that he hasn’t received a briefing on the contents of the Mueller report. So he may know what’s in it, and that may be what’s driving his fear. Because his public comments, and these panicky tweets that seek to deny the rights of the people, indicate that he’s desperately worried about something. And from all of the evidence that’s already public, he should be.

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

Attorney General William Barr Parrots Trump’s ‘Spying’ Lie, Triggers a Cable News Freak Out

Posted by on April 10, 2019 at 12:16 pm. 7 Comments :

The frequent exhibitions of narcissism and paranoia by Donald Trump have become a such a common occurrence that they are at risk of becoming passe. His frantic outbursts are getting more intense and irrational everyday, as witnessed by a bizarre Obama Derangement fit on Tuesday. But the risk that others in his sphere of influence are being infected by the same disease is all too real and dangerous.

Donald Trump, Deep State

On Wednesday morning Trump’s newly confirmed plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, testified in the Senate about his mischaracterizations of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. And if there were any doubt that Barr would serve as Trump’s obedient lackey and shield from legal jeopardy, that was eliminated entirely by his profoundly smarmy puppet act.

There were numerous occasions when Barr simply refused to respond to questions for no other reason than that he didn’t feel like it. That included questions concerning his own conclusions about the Mueller report that he conveyed in his enfeebled four page “summary” to Congress of the 300+ page report. But perhaps the most troubling part of Barr’s obsequious testimony was when he brazenly adopted Trump’s own delusional rhetoric regarding the Mueller probe that he has repeatedly maligned as a “witch hunt.” Barr was asked about whether he would be reviewing allegations that Mueller and the FBI improperly “spied” on Trump:

“I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. […] I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. I’m not suggesting it was not adequately predicated, but I need to explore that.”

Barr is taking up the mantle of Trump, and his thoroughly dishonest defenders on Fox News, who have been ranting for months that Mueller and others in law enforcement were corrupt and even treasonous. They’ve been smearing Mueller for doing his job, which was to examine the abundant evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 presidential intended to benefit Trump and harm Hillary Clinton. And there is nothing ambiguous about Barr’s partisan intentions. He is literally using the same charged language that Trump himself uses to vilify his critics. Trump has been fuming non-stop about his perceived enemies “spying” on him. He has posted thirty-six tweets making that utterly false assertion. For example, here’s one from more than a year ago that incorporates the full range of conspiracies in his twisted imagination:

Barr was given an opportunity to review his words by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who warned that “the word ‘spying’ could cause everybody in the cable news ecosystem to freak out.” Barr responded by by saying that “I want to make sure there was no unauthorized surveillance.” Of course, there was zero evidence that any surveillance was unauthorized, and Barr conceded that fact. What’s more, the investigations could not be remotely portrayed as spying. They were counterintelligence operations aimed at Russia’s activities. The FBI couldn’t help it if people associated with Trump kept showing up.

Sen.Schatz, however, was right on point with respect to the reaction in the cable news universe. It began almost immediately with Fox News launching furious attacks on the law enforcement community based on Barr’s weasley testimony. Although the full frontal assault won’t come until primetime when Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson will bellow out their prepared diatribes. But Trump wasn’t waiting for them. He already pounced with this batty outburst:

“This was an illegal witch hunt, and everybody knew it. And they knew it too. And they got caught. And what they did was treason. What they did was terrible. What they did was against our Constitution and everything we stand for.”

So Trump is already getting his money’s worth from Barr. The Attorney General’s parroting of Trump’s paranoid lingo could only have been a deliberate attempt to advance the propaganda that the White House was hoping for when they put Barr in charge of the Justice Department. And there will surely be more lies to come when Barr’s heavily redacted version of the Mueller report is released in the next week or so. Count on any incriminating findings to be left on the cutting room floor.

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

The only way the American people will find out what really happened is when Democrats in Congress are successful in subpoenaing the full report, which they are already preparing to do. Then the real fun begins, and Trump-fluffers like Barr won’t be able to do anything about it. That’s when we’ll see the real freak outs by Fox News as they try to spin Trump’s crimes into victories for MAGA.

Self-Abuse? Trump Promised to Release His Taxes, Now Calls Requests ‘An Abuse of Power’

Posted by on April 7, 2019 at 11:36 am. 3 Comments :

The still simmering controversy over whether or not Donald Trump should release his tax returns is emblematic of the march toward Idiocracy by the Trump administration, his cult following, and his State TV affiliate, Fox News. The arguments made by the tax suppressors are an affront to logic and democracy. In other words, quintessentially Trumpian.

Donald Trump

The first and foremost point to be made is that Trump himself promised to release his tax returns prior to the election saying that “I’ll produce my tax returns, absolutely. And I would love to do that.” He never delivered on that promise of transparency that every presidential candidate for the past forty years has complied with.

Trump’s original breach of his pledge was an invented excuse that he couldn’t release his taxes because he was being audited. Let’s set aside the fact that there is no evidence of any such audit taking place. More to the point, the IRS does not prohibit – or even care – if a taxpayer chooses to release their own tax returns during an audit. And it wouldn’t affect the audit in any way. After all, the IRS already has that data, so there wouldn’t be any surprise disclosure. How could a public release change anything?

Now Trump is whining about efforts by Democrats in Congress to acquire his tax returns as part of their constitutional oversight responsibilities. And his complaint is typically broiled in hyperbole. He is accusing Democrats of “a gross abuse of power.” In fact, they are performing their duties in conjunction with all applicable laws. And there is a glaring need to probe Trump’s finances given all of the evidence of corruption in his businesses and political activities.

What’s more, Trump is exacerbating the suspicions that surround him by being so evasive and adamant that his taxes remain secret. There is a distinct odor of criminality and consciousness of guilt. What is he struggling so hard to conceal? His “acting” chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was on Fox News Sunday morning and participated in this exchange with anchor Bill Hemmer:

Hemmer: To be clear, you believe Democrats will never see the President’s tax returns?
Mulvaney: Oh no, never. Nor should they. Keep in mind that that’s an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the President could’ve given his tax returns, they knew that he didn’t, and they elected him anyway.

To be clear, Trump told voters that he would “absolutely” release his taxes, he lied, and a minority of voters elected him anyway via the fatally flawed Electoral College. And it’s the American people, not just the Democrats in Congress, that Trump is most worried about, prompting his obsession with preventing them from seeing the shady dealings in his tax returns.

Trump frequently takes both sides of any issue he addresses. That’s mostly because he doesn’t understand anything and forgets what lies he told previously, or finds a new lie more advantageous at the moment. For instance, his initial assertion that he welcomed the release of the full report by special counsel Robert Mueller, and later dismissing it as an illegal hoax. But for him to call requests for his taxes a “gross abuse of power,” after vowing to release them himself, suggests that he was engaging in a perverse act of self-abuse when he made his initial promise. Democrats now are only asking that he keep his word. Which, based on his prior record, may be way too much to hope for.

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

Signs of Dementia? Trump Bashes the Mueller Report He Hasn’t Read But Says Exonerates Him

Posted by on April 6, 2019 at 12:05 pm. 2 Comments :

One of the things that Donald Trump is most fixated on is his insistence that he is superior in every way to anyone on any matter. (see the video below) He has the best words, knows more about war than his generals, and gets the biggest crowds. That’s a textbook symptom of Malignant Narcissism, which many psychiatric professionals are convinced he suffers from. And those experts are worried that he’s getting worse every day.

Donald Trump

On this particular day Trump is providing ample evidence that his mental condition is seriously deteriorating. But he will be pleased to hear that he’s more nuts than any president in American history. In his regularly scheduled Saturday tweetstorm, the President fired off a flurry of utterly inane and contradictory tweets that should make all Americans concerned. The subject was a familiar one: The Russia Witch Hunt Hoax. He simply can’t control his outbursts about this, and for good reason. The more we learn, the more it’s apparent that Trump is guilty of both conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Even the senior legal analyst at Fox News agrees with House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Adam Schiff, that there is evidence of Trump’s collusion and obstruction.

In his latest rage-tweeting fit, Trump was tightly focused on the credibility of special counsel Robert Mueller and what he might have concluded in his final report. Even though he has a biased Attorney General that he planted in the Justice Department, Trump is obviously still frightened and desperate. But his complaints are a hodge-podge of whining, self-vindication, and insults.

The most striking part of this Twitter rant is that Trump is flailing in all directions at once. He admits that he hasn’t read the report, but also asserts that it exonerated hm. And while he’s basking in what he considers a decree of innocence, he also maligns the Mueller, the author of the alleged decree. What follows are the five tweets (so far) that Trump posted with the intention of clearing himself, but only making things worse:


Really? A hoax that has already produced hundreds of indictments, several guilty verdicts, and the disclosure of dozens of contacts between Trump and his associates that they all lied about prior to eventually admitting it.


Indeed, no one outside the top ranks of William Barr’s office have read the report. So no one can credibly assert that they know the conclusions of a 400 page report based on a biased four page summary.


First of all, the asset forfeitures from just Paul Manafort alone more than pay for the entire investigation. And if Trump is so concerned about what the Democrats think, why doesn’t he just release the full report that he says proves his innocence?


Here Trump is trying again to shift blame to Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that she had no impact on what Mueller concluded. And he takes another swipe at the team of investigators that he says cleared him.


What must never happen again is for America to elect a president who was so obviously tied to Russian agents and oligarchs for his political and financial benefit.

The spectacle of Trump being so fiercely critical of an investigative team that he claims proved his innocence is more than curious. It’s alarming from the perspective of his mental health. He is a man who both viciously condemns Mueller and pays tribute to him as having “acted honorably.” He’s like a Nobel prize winner who insults the Nobel committee as corrupt idiots for awarding him the prize. And having someone with that degree of mental illness running the country is absurd and dangerous.

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

And for your entertainment (?) pleasure, here are “24 Things Nobody Does Better Than Trump (According To Trump).”

Trump is Trippin’ on ‘God-Like’ Mueller and ‘Shifty’ Democrats and his ‘No Collusion’ Delusion

Posted by on April 2, 2019 at 1:27 pm. 1 Comments :

It’s only Tuesday, but Donald Trump is getting ahead of his regularly scheduled weekend tweetstorming with a series of utterly deranged posts expressing his fevered fetish with the investigations into the criminal connections to Russia by his campaign, his administration, his family, and of course, himself. The evidence of both conspiracy and obstruction of justice is so apparent that even the top legal expert on Fox News noticed.

Donald Trump, Twitter

Nevertheless, Trump continues to sing “la la las” with his tiny fingers in his ears rather than acknowledge the fact that special counsel Robert Mueller has likely produced a report that is filled with incriminating data. To date, no one but Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, has seen the report. But Democrats are more insistent with each passing day that it be released. And the more Democrats advocate for its release, the more Trump shudders and stomps in an effort to suppress it. Which only raises the question: What’s he so scared of?

In his Tuesday rage-tweeting, Trump first struck out against Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee:

This is a flagrant misrepresentation of reality. The only opposition Nadler had to releasing any portion of the Starr report was after it had already been given to Congress. And even then he only sought to keep confidential sources, methods, and grand jury testimony secret. That is pretty much the same position Nadler holds today with regard to the Mueller report. He wants it released to Congress first, and then any sensitive material can be evaluated and redacted, if necessary, before making it public. But like most things more complex than checkers, Trump doesn’t understand. So he then tweeted this:

Trump approaches a measure of truth – albeit exaggerated – in his assessment of the admiration that Democrats (and all patriotic Americans) have for Mueller, a true American hero and life-long public servant. But that’s where Trump’s ability to remain inside the bounds of sanity end. While there are some critics who think Mueller should have taken a more affirmative stance with regard to Trump’s potential illegality, no Democrats have become hostile or disrespectful toward Mueller since the completion of his probe. And none are hesitant to say his name in generally flattering terms.

What’s more, Trump’s assertion that Mueller “ruled No Collusion” can only be based on panicky voices in his head. Trump, like everyone else, has not seen the report unless the AG is more corrupt than we thought. Also, the cost of the Mueller probe was more than paid for by the asset forfeitures from the conviction of Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, alone. So failing to make any coherent points in his previous tweets, Trump added this:

We ought to be grateful that Trump softened his name-calling for Rep. Adam Schiff to merely “shifty.” He previously maligned him as “Adam Schitt.” However, Trump seems to be tuckered out and unable to even come up with an insulting nickname for Nadler. It shouldn’t have been that hard considering some obvious options for the sort of childish digs Trump prefers. For instance: Bad Nadler, Mad Nadler, or maybe a gender-based burn like Gonad-ler.

Trump’s current resistance to letting the American people see what’s in Mueller’s report is a 180 degree flip-flop from recent statements he’s made suggesting that he would support a full release of Mueller’s findings. Apparently, as that prospect becomes more likely, Trump is getting cold feet and swinging back against the transparency he previously pretended to support.

In other words, his fear is rising to the surface and guiding him back to the bunker mentality that he believes best serves his legal interests. Expect him to become even more frantic as Nadler, Schiff, et al, issue their subpoenas and compel Trump’s insiders to testify under oath. Trump may want all of this to end yesterday, but his eventual and inevitable reckoning and accountability has only just begun.

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

Judge Jeanine Pirro Returned Saturday Night – on Fox News and SNL – And Both Were Hysterical

Posted by on March 31, 2019 at 8:55 am. 1 Comments :

Two weeks ago “Judge” Jeanine Pirro was suspended from her weekly perch on Fox News after she made comments so reprehensible that they even offended the suits at Fox. Pirro attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar whose Muslim faith, according to Pirro, was incompatible with the United States Constitution. Despite the nearly universal disgust for Pirro’s hate speech, she retained the fervent support of Donald Trump. who begged Fox News to return her to the air.

Jeanine Pirro Fox News

On Saturday night Trump got his wish. Pirro once again hosted her Trump-fluffing White Nationalist Hour with all the drooling ferocity she had before her brief suspension. She obviously learned nothing from her time-out, and offered no apology. Her “Opening Statement” segment addressed the release of the “summary” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report by Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. However, it began with a torrid tirade that might better have been directed at Trump:

“When someone lies to you, do you just say ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it’? Well that’s not how our system works. There has to be accountability. There has to be a consequence. Because as the President himself said ‘This should never happen again.’ And I can guarantee you it will happen again unless we make an example of the traitorous, treasonous group that accused Donald Trump of being an agent of the Russian government.”

Except for that last line that disputed accusations of Trump being a Russian agent, Pirro’s rant could have been a righteous assault on the relentless dishonesty of Trump. His flagrant lies and avoidance of accountability really is not the how system ought to work. And there definitely should be consequences for Trump and his vast army of criminal accomplices.

Pirro went on to warn that investigations like the one Mueller conducted could become “a blueprint for a future effort to overthrow the government.” But she got it completely backwards. Mueller was probing activities that included undermining our democratic election by Trump and a hostile foreign country. He was the one working to prevent government corruption. She further advised her viewers not to be “satisfied with the Mueller report,” which makes sense considering the fact that neither she nor any of her viewers have seen it. What’s more, what little we do know about the report is insufficient to vindicate the President. But what she meant was that they shouldn’t be satisfied with what she claimed was Trump’s exoneration, a conclusion that the report explicitly denied. And finally, she closed with a demand to stop all of Trump’s critics, by throwing them in jail, with what she called “behind the bars justice.”

A little later in the evening, Saturday Night Live weighed in with an appearance by Pirro (as played by Cecily Strong) during the Weekend Update news segment. It was a nearly identical portrayal of the injudicious judge who is pretty funny herself, albeit unintentionally. She made a point of thanking her superfans, the “mean, horny men laying on in-home hospital beds and white prison gangs who control the remote on Saturdays.” And I defy anyone to differentiate between Pirro’s wild-eyed raving and Strong’s satirical take on it. If anything, Strong’s impression was too understated.

Poor Fox News is Pathetically Bragging About a Few Days of Beating MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow

Posted by on March 29, 2019 at 2:49 pm. 1 Comments :

Fox News was once the dominant news network on cable TV. It was so far ahead of its competition that it seemed unthinkable that it could be challenged. That’s mainly because they corralled all of the Deplorable right-wingers into one barnyard pen, while the rest of the television news was dispersed across many other channels. But it was still a marketing angle they could use as a cudgel against their competitors.

Fox News, Rachel Maddow

In recent years that domination has has dissipated substantially. And particularly in the past few months, MSNBC has caught up, and quite often surpassed Fox news in the ratings. Rachel Maddow’s program has been crushing Sean Hannity, her direct time period competitor, on a nearly nightly basis ever since the midterm elections last November.

In what seems to be a reaction to the surging performance of MSNBC, Donald Trump took measures to prop up Fox News which acts as his personal, state TV mouthpiece for propaganda. He’s has fervently promoted his fave hosts including Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Jeanine Pirro. He even did so on Thursday night at his latest cult rally in Michigan. It’s often hard to tell whether Trump thinks he’s working for the American people or for Fox’s PR department.

Fox News has also started to boast about their ratings. They featured a story on their website’s home page that celebrated what they called “Maddow’s Deep Dive.” What makes this extraordinary is that this isn’t the sort of thing that any network does. When was the last time anyone has seen CBS or CNN make a story about their ratings a news item? That’s generally reserved for the TV trade press. But even more embarrassing for Fox is that they have to do this at all. They are effectively conceding that they have been the big losers of late and now are proud that they’ve had a few days where they aren’t in the ratings cellar. It’s an admission that they are underperforming MSNBC and it is therefore cause for joy that they came out on top for a while.

It should be noted that this “success” for Fox News is occurring just after the release of a four page letter by Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. The letter purports to be a summary of the 400+ page report by special counsel Robert Mueller. But it is a gross misrepresentation of that document by all accounts. And that includes the account of Fox’s senior legal analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, who says that there is evidence of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the full report. So it’s natural for Maddow’s viewers to take a break from what can be considered a slow news cycle, while Fox’s viewers pile in to get their pro-Trump fantasies gassed up.

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

Whether or not this constitutes a trend in the ratings, or is a temporary blip remains to be seen. But the fact that Fox News was compelled to throw a party simply because they edged out Maddow – who rose from nowhere to become a giant killer – just proves that Fox is worried and has to brag about briefly beating a show that they used to ignore as unworthy of their attention. Maddow and MSNBC are clearly making Fox so nervous that they can’t even hide it. That’s great news for MSNBC.

Fox News Senior Legal Analyst: Adam Schiff is Correct on Evidence of Trump Conspiracy and Obstruction

Posted by on March 28, 2019 at 2:46 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republicans in Congress have been going absolutely batty over what they regard is the total exoneration of Donald Trump by the Mueller Report – which none of them have seen a single page of. They are even escalating their attacks on Trump’s Democratic critics to include absurd demands for apologies and the resignation of House Intelligence Committee Chair, Adam Schiff. Trump even weighed in on that matter in a typically reckless, dishonest, and hostile tweet.

Donald Trump, Robert Mueller

So you have to wonder how Trump and his MAGA Martinets will respond when they hear that the senior legal analyst at fox News agrees with Rep. Schiff. In a conversation with host Neil Cavuto (video below), Andrew Napolitano presented the bare legal facts that demonstrate Trump’s complicity in conspiratorial endeavors with Russia and efforts to cover them up. Napolitano noted that special counsel Robert Mueller “must have found some evidence of a conspiracy,” and that “there obviously is evidence of obstruction of justice.” He elaborated on those points during the interview:

“I think that Congressman Schiff is correct. In that report will be evidence of the existence of a conspiracy. Not enough evidence to prove the existence beyond a reasonable doubt. In that report will be evidence of obstruction of justice, interfering with an FBI investigation for a personal gain. But not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

That just happens to be precisely the case that Schiff has been making for months. He told CNN that:

“There was a big difference between whether there was evidence of collusion – and I think that evidence is in plain sight – and whether you can establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a criminal conspiracy.”

So all the hoopla by the right and the devoted cult followers of Trump is, as usual, just the yammering of ignorant partisans who are more interested in feeding their fantasies than in accepting reality. And the reality is that there is abundant evidence of criminality by Trump and his associates. Whether a prosecutor could obtain a conviction by the standards that apply in a courtroom is irrelevant to the discussion of whether the President’s activities were immoral, unethical, or proof of his unfitness for office.

The key point here is whether there is sufficient cause to proceed with efforts to release the Mueller Report in full and complete the investigation into Trump and Russia’s documented interference with the 2016 presidential election. Some of Schiff’s colleagues in Congress expressed their rage that anyone would continue to doubt that the President was vindicated. But Schiff masterfully put them in their place with an emotional and fact-filled response to their personal disparagement of him. “You may think it’s OK,” Schiff said, “how Trump and his associates interacted with Russians during the campaign. I don’t.”

And the America people don’t think it’s OK either. Which is why Schiff and the Democrats in Congress need to continue their efforts to bring light to the nefarious affairs of Trump et al, by demanding the release of the full Mueller Report and issuing subpoenas, if necessary, for Mueller and Attorney General Barr. The nation deserves to know, as another unscrupulous president once said, whether or not their president is a crook. Because if we don’t stop him now, he’ll just do it again (which he probably already is).

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