Joe Biden

After a Ludicrous Litany of Lies, Trump Admits He Pressured Ukraine to Smear Joe Biden

Posted by on September 22, 2019 at 12:05 pm. 5 Comments :

The President is drowning in his own flop sweat. What Donald Trump has asked us all to call the “Ukraine Witch Hunt” is boiling over with new revelations of his criminality and his own absurd utterances that, more often than not, just get him into even hotter water. His behavior illustrates how desperate and fearful he is. On Saturday he posted twenty (20!) tweets on this subject alone, including one that completely contradicted his flagrantly false allegations against Joe Biden and the media.

Donald Trump Sweating

Trump’s charges against Biden are widely repudiated by credible journalists and people with inside knowledge of the matter. There have been investigations that found no wrongdoing on the part of Biden or his son, Hunter. Biden’s role in lobbying for the dismissal of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was only to inform the Ukrainians of the official diplomatic position of the United States, as well as that of the European Union and Ukraine’s own parliament. At no time did Biden press for any action that inured to the benefit of himself or his family.

That’s in stark contrast to Trump threatening to withhold foreign aid that was allocated by Congress unless Ukraine complied with his demand to fabricate dirt on Biden. Trump was extorting Ukraine to actively interfere in the U.S. election to help him malign a possible opponent. That violates at least half a dozen laws and is an abhorrent act of betrayal.

However, that hasn’t stopped Trump and his cadre of worshipful defenders in politics and punditry from concocting and disseminating ridiculous conspiracy theories that challenge rational thought. Naturally, Fox News took the lead with surreal presentations from the usual suspects (Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends). For his part, Trump unleashed at least eight different excuses for the Ukraine story on Twitter. And each one is wholly without foundation or any semblance of sanity. For instance:

  • The media is making up facts and sources
  • They’re turning a Biden scandal into a Trump scandal
  • Someone was spying on the president
  • A seditious effort to protect the Obama/Clinton gang
  • The whistleblower was “highly partisan”
  • It’s the “Deep State”
  • The whistleblower wasn’t really a whistleblower
  • It’s a Witch Hunt
  • Trump’s conversations were “perfectly fine”

Notice that none of these wild-eyed rants actually deny that Trump pressured the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on Biden. That should be the first signal that Trump is lying and is conscious of the risk that his lies will be discovered. But we didn’t have to wait long for Trump to out himself. On Sunday morning’s episode of “Chopper talk,” Trump finally admitted that he did indeed talk about Biden with Zelensky. Trump said that…

“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place. It was largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.“

https://twitter.com/Politidope/status/1175788903795703809

Setting aside Trump’s mangling of the English language, he is unambiguously admitting that the Biden matter was raised in his conversations with Zelensky. So now we have both Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, confessing that they strong armed Ukraine’s leaders into a conspiracy to undermine U.S. democracy.

In Trump’s Sunday morning rant he also made a point of repeatedly saying that he was not looking to hurt Biden or his family. But every time he said that he followed it up with baseless accusations that Biden had done something terrible. It’s the Trump version of a schoolyard bully assaulting his victim and asking “Why do you keep hitting yourself.” And it’s a textbook example of a passive/aggressive personality seeking to distance himself from his own viciousness.

Trump has too many psychoses to enumerate, the most prominent being his malignant narcissism. So we can expect more of this bizarre behavior as Trump finds himself sinking ever deeper into the abyss of his own immorality. We can count on him charging his perceived enemies with the crimes that he is committing. And we can reliably predict his manic meltdowns and infantile reactions whenever he feels threatened. Which will be occurring more frequently as his lies and misdeeds continue to unfold.

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

President Idiot: Trump Posts a Video that Actually Contradicts His Lies About Joe Biden

Posted by on September 21, 2019 at 12:05 pm. 1 Comments :

The revelation that Donald Trump tried to strongarm the President of Ukraine into manufacturing campaign dirt on Joe Biden should be the final chapter of the Trump Horror Story. It doesn’t even matter if the allegations against Biden are true. Trump’s conspiracy to rope a foreign government into his political hit job is impeachable by itself. And using taxpayer funds in an international bribery scheme exacerbates the crime.

Donald Trump

Nevertheless, Trump continues to smear Biden, despite the fact that the allegations against him have already been investigated and no evidence of wrongdoing was found. The allegations against Trump, however, have not been investigated and he’s doing everything possible to suppress any probe into his unsavory communications with Ukraine. He claims that his conversations were “beautiful” and “perfectly fine,” but he refuses to release a transcript. He’s also withholding the whistleblower complaint that is required by law to be turned over to Congress. What’s he so scared of?

Now, in a desperate attempt to deflect from his own abhorrent and unlawful behavior, Trump posted a video on Twitter with the intention of redirecting attention to the already debunked charges against the Biden family (video posted below). The video features a montage of deceitfully edited clips from the media that Trump says make his case. That’s the same media that he calls “the enemy of the people.” The only problem for Trump is that none of the clips offer any evidence that Biden did anything wrong. They simply report that allegations were made. And in many cases they go on to disclose that the allegations were baseless and unproven, but Trump cut those parts out.

The video begins with Biden saying that “Not one single credible outlet has given any credibility to his assertion.” Then it stitches together a bunch of clips, many of which have the source cropped out, so it’s impossible to assess their credibility. And it ends with an out of context clip of Biden saying “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” What Trump is not showing is that Biden was articulating the position of the United States government, not his own personal position. Plus, he was referring to a corrupt prosecutor whose dismissal had been demanded by a majority of the Ukraine parliament, as well as the European Union and other institutions. And as for the money, Biden was referring to loan guarantees, not allocations from the U.S. Treasury.

So Trump’s video not only fails to prove his premise, it actually contradicts it. What’s more, much of his whining has been focused on his complaint that the media has failed to cover the allegations against Biden. But with this video Trump is providing proof that the media has covered this story extensively.

Finally, Trump may be violating election laws by even posting the video. The prominent appeal at the top of the video to send him a text would serve as your consent to receive text messages from his campaign. That’s an improper melding of the presidency with political operations. The video itself says it was produced by Trump/Pence 2020. So Trump is using his official Twitter page to post free advertising for his reelection. But he’s kind of ripping himself off by having produced such an awful, dishonest ad.

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

Fox News Defends Trump’s State-Sponsored Political Extortion as Just ‘The Art of the Deal’

Posted by on September 20, 2019 at 2:00 pm. 6 Comments :

The news that Donald Trump may have promised the president of Ukraine hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid if he would open a bogus investigation into Joe Biden has captured the attention of the press. And rightfully so. This would amount to state-sponsored extortion by Trump in order to smear a political opponent. And it wouldn’t even be the first time that Trump has conspired with a foreign country to steal an election (see: Russia, 2016).

Donald Trump, Fox News, White House

As this scandal continues to build steam, Trump is managing to get himself into even more hot water. In a press avail with the Prime Minister of Australia, Trump gave contradictory answers about what he knew about the affair. In fact, when asked if he read the report he contradicted himself in the space of a single sentence saying, “No I haven’t. I just – I tell you, everybody’s read it. They laugh at it.” He went on to attack the press, as usual, saying that “Our media has become the laughingstock of the world […] You’re a joke.” Which only proves that he is pitifully incapable of recognizing who the world is actually laughing at.

In the midst of this unfolding melodrama, Fox News is adopting their routine position as Trump-fluffing propaganda disseminators. And taking the lead is Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox and Friends. Their defense of Trump is a bizarre spectacle of ludicrous justifications for Trump’s potentially treasonous behavior (video below). Co-host Steve Doocy began by telling his dimwitted viewers to…

“Keep in mind this whistleblower filed this report with the inspector general of the Intel community on August the 12th. That was over a month ago. Then they kicked it around, sent it to the Department of Justice, and said ‘We do not have to hand it over to Congress.'”

First of all, it is entirely improper for the Justice Department to interfere in this process in any way. It negates the whole purpose of the Whistleblower Protection Act if the President’s henchmen (Attorney General William Barr, et al) can suppress information provided in good faith by insiders concerned about national security. And it endangers the welfare of the whistleblower whose identity is disclosed to people who have motive to retaliate.

That said, after having improperly interfered, the Justice Department has no authority to rule that the complaint can’t be turned over to Congress. The law says unambiguously that it “shall” be turned over. So the Justice Department is wrong, and Fox News is wrong to excuse this breach of the law. But Doocy wasn’t finished. He continued…

“The reason the whistleblower apparently said that it was ‘serious’ and ‘urgent’ is because that designation usually automatically triggers it getting to Congress. The Department of Justice says that that is not appropriate, so we don’t have to give it to the Committee. Well, somebody with knowledge of this person’s story didn’t like the fact that Congress wasn’t gonna get it and it wasn’t gonna become public. So they leaked the story to the Washington Post.”

Again, none of this is the Justice Department’s call. But Doocy is also introducing something that was never a part of this. He implies that somebody wanted this to become public. But had the complaint been turned over to Congress, they would have reviewed it privately. The only reason any of this is becoming public is because the process was breached by the administration.

It’s ironic that Fox News is more worried about this complaint leaking than the substance of the complaint which is Trump’s attempts to extort and/or bribe a foreign country and to pressure them into aiding his election fraud. But if you thought that Fox was bothered by any of that, here’s what Doocy’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt had to say about it:

“They say the President was making promises, leaking delicate information to another heads of state. But this is what they do. They talk. They negotiate. And the President’s known for that. The art of the deal. Who’s leaking this? Is it someone that works at the White House?”

So to Fox News this is standard operating procedure in negotiations. They consider it acceptable for Trump to bully foreign leaders into manufacturing political dirt on his opponents. They regard it as simple dealmaking, despite the fact that there are no components of this deal that are in the interests of the United States. It is a purely hostile swipe at Biden, who Trump expects to run against next year. So Earhardt is defending dealmaking that is only intended to disrupt an election. But then again, that’s what Fox News does every day. Disrupting elections by airing distortions and lies is the whole reason Fox News exists.

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

Serious Question: Is Donald Trump the Nastiest Phuckwit to Ever Stain the Presidency?

Posted by on August 8, 2019 at 9:06 am. 9 Comments :

On Wednesday Donald Trump defied all of of his critics – and coherent rationality – to visit the grief stricken cities of El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. These communities have already suffered unbearable tragedy and loss of life. The prospect of hosting a president who is best known for the obsessive self-interest of a malignant narcissist seems like an unfair additional burden. Particularly since it’s his own reckless ravings that contributed to the slaughter.

Donald Trump Red Face

Unfortunately, Trump lived up to his loathsome billing. On a day when all he had to do was plaster a concerned look on his mango-tinted mug, shake a few hands, and wish people well, Trump failed utterly to fulfill his temporary duty as Consoler-in-Chief. He turned every stop on his self-serving photo-op tour into either a wholly inappropriate political harangue or an exaltation of himself and his perception of the universal love that he thinks he deserves.

Trump apparently already forget his own words from a White House address to the nation two days prior when he said that “Now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion, and love.” And in the spirit of turning that sentiment into the disingenuous bunk that he surely believed it to be, Trump lashed out in barrage of bombastic and belligerent tweets that reeked of callous insensitivity and conceit. He began with a typically immature swipe at Joe Biden:


As an affirmation of his increasing senility, Trump’s nicknames for his opponents get more childish and unconnected to reality as he ages. Here he was reacting to what may be Biden’s most passionately delivered speech since he announced his candidacy. It was an accurately critical review of Trump’s fatally flawed character, but all Trump saw was an enemy being mean to him, so he went haywire. Shortly following that he began sputtering about some slight he imagined by elected officials in the cities he supposedly came to comfort:


Notice that his recollection of the visit was entirely limited to how beloved he thinks he is. From there he found it necessary to whine about not being sufficiently flattered. Of course, this was another affair that he warped into an unrecognizable mush in his mind. Neither Sherrod Brown nor Mayor Whaley ever said anything remotely similar to what Trump alleged. Now his paranoia has him inventing criticisms that never happened. Not to worry though. Trump still had plenty of wrath to dispense. And this time it was aimed at Fox News anchor Shepard Smith.


The line that Smith crossed was to forcefully condemn white supremacy and the culture of hate. That irked Trump because he is still trying to pretend that none of that exists, even while he is it’s national spokesman. This led to yet another assault on a local Texas Democrat, Joaquin Castro.


This is one of those times that Trump pounces on someone without ever telling anyone why. It’s just a blind scattershot of bile. In this case Trump was upset that Castro had posted a graphic on Twitter that identified some Trump’s donors. It’s telling that being pegged as a Trump supporter is so distressing to those supporters, and to Trump, that it requires this sort of counterpunch. They’re acting like they were outed for supporting Hitler (and that’s not too far off). As the day wore down, Trump found it necessary to again remind everyone how much he is adored:


To top off his day of vitriol and egomaniacal vanity, Trump posted a tweet that could only be regarded as his determination to kill the bipartisanship he recently pretended to advocate, along with an overt threat:


Calling the Democrats “disgusting” isn’t going to help him get support for his legislative agenda. But it isn’t any worse than when he retweeted a meme a few days ago that said that “Democrats are the true enemies of America.” What was that he said about bipartisanship a couple of days ago?

When Thursday morning rolled around it found Trump still in an ornery mood. But it also revealed a measure of distress and fear so intense that he actually admitted to watching MSNBC and CNN. Of course it was in the process of whining impotently about their coverage, but not citing a single thing that was wrong. It was just an eruption of pure mentally unbalanced malice toward the free press.

In addition to the above examples of Trump’s nauseating lack of character, diplomacy, and decency, he posted a trio of cheesy propaganda/campaign videos compiled from his visits with grieving families and victims. This is not only a corrupt misuse of taxpayer funds for political purposes, it is an abuse of the trust and decency that the suffering people of El Paso and Dayton deserve. They should not be exploited as extras in Trump’s self-promotional PR videos where he is seen smiling inappropriately throughout as they grieve.

It is quintessentially Trumpian to not be able to control his worst impulses for one damn day in order to allow some healing to occur. Rather, he made his own vileness the story of the day again. But why should any of that bother Trump, who is focused so intently on retaining his crown as the nastiest phuckwit to ever stain the U.S. presidency. But he needn’t worry. If it makes him feel any better, he’s got that prize locked up.

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

SRSLY? Trump-Bot on Fox News Says ‘I Don’t Remember Us Electing an Angry President’

Posted by on August 2, 2019 at 1:12 pm. 6 Comments :

A few weeks ago Donald Trump whined about his State TV network (aka Fox News) hosting a couple of town halls with Democratic presidential candidates, saying that “Something strange is going on at Fox, folks.” It might have been a little strange, except for the fact that Fox predictably used the appearances to disparage them in every segment that followed.

Donald Trump

However, Trump is probably over that momentary episode of angst now that he can see Fox faithfully fulfilling its mission to exalt him and brazenly lie on his behalf. Fox’s overt adoration of Trump was displayed in yet another staged “interview” of one of their stable of Trump-fluffing contributors. This time it was frequent Fox shill, and disgraced, ousted GOP House Speaker, Newt Gingrich. In a segment about the recently broadcast Democratic debates, Fox called on Gingrich to provide his relentlessly partisan analysis. And his opinion of where the Democrats are going wrong couldn’t have been more asinine (video below):

Gingrich: It was amazing the level of anger you got out of Bernie Sanders and Sen. Warren. I mean, these are really angry people and it was kind of amazing to watch them. It’s the opposite of how people normally win the presidency. You watch Barack Obama with a big smile. You watch Ronald Reagan with a big smile. I don’t remember us electing an angry president literally in my lifetime.

Newt Gingrich is either suffering from a severe case of selective amnesia, or he is deliberately peddling some of the most ludicrous lies ever told on Fox News. First of all, while Sanders and Warren (and all decent human beings) are often noticeably upset with the abhorrent words and deeds of Trump, they were also hopeful and positive and bearing bright smiles.

More to the point, while Gingrich’s “amazement” that Democrats are “really angry” fails to put their mood in context to the horror of Trumpism, his inability to recall the election of an angry president is downright delusional. Donald Trump is America’s ranking rage-aholic. He has a temperament range that runs from outrage to fury. The only time that he isn’t in the midst of a frothing tirade is when he’s stroking his own bloated ego.

Trump uses his anger mainly to malign his critics. He routinely taunts them as “stupid, ugly,” or other similarly infantile insults. His rants are purposely intended to incite hatred, division, and distrust among otherwise united citizens. And yet he has the audacity to charge that “The rage filled Democrat Party is trying to tear America apart.” He recently retweeted a meme that said that “Democrats are the true enemies of America.” Nah, he aint angry at all, is he?

So Gingrich can’t remember the election of an angry president even though the current one that he obediently reveres is a seething cauldron of bile and hostility. And despite Gingrich’s blindness to Trump’s acid acrimony, Trump himself regards it as an asset:

To put it mildly, Gingrich and Fox News are such glassy-eyed disciples of Trumpism that they have lost all connection to reality. In the very segment where Gingrich claims Democrats are angry, Fox runs runs video of them smiling at the debate. And Fox also had a chyron that affirmed Trump’s anger that read “Trump Tears Into ‘Radical’ 2020 Democrats In Ohio.” Which was portrayed as a show of strength.

Another example of this dementia inducing adulation took place on Trump’s favorite Fox program, Fox and Friends. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt sought to gaslight (or more accurately, “Foxlight”) her viewers with a comparison of Trump to Joe Biden. She said that “They’re both rust belt people though. They’re both, like, blue collar workers that have money, but blue collar.”

WHUT? To be fair, no ever ever accused these “Curvy Couch” potatoes of being Mensa members. But Earhardt has to know that Trump was born to a wealthy father in New York City, while Biden was a middle-class kid from Scranton, PA. This purposeful lie, as well as the ones by Gingrich, can only be taken as deliberate attempts to mislead the easily confused Fox News audience who seemingly yearn to be lied to. And the profiteers and propagandists at Fox know enough to give the Deplorables what they want.

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

Trump Suffers Fit of Hysterical Projection Syndrome in Desperate Attack on Joe Biden

Posted by on July 6, 2019 at 12:24 pm. NO Comments :

For nearly two and a half years Donald Trump has been a walking textbook of debilitating psychoses. He has displayed symptoms of malignant narcissism, dementia, senility, paranoia, and antisocial personality disorder (aka sociopathy). He is a sexual predator and a bully who resorts to infantile behaviors when angry or afraid. And a group of psychiatric doctors and academics at Yale University deemed him “too mentally ill to serve.”

Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Now a new diagnosis can be made that describes Trump’s relentless determination to accuse others of what he does himself. The surest indicator of whether Trump has committed a crime is when he blasts out charges at someone else for the same criminal activity. And when that tendency reaches absurd levels of mania, as it so often does with Trump, we can call it Hysterical Projection Syndrome. And history will record Trump as Patient Zero for this malady. He presented a perfect example of it on Saturday morning with a frantic tweet (of course) aimed at Joe Biden, which we can break down to fully observe the depths to which Trump’s illness have driven him.

First of all, there’s no way Trump wrote this tweet. Too many syllables. More to the point, Trump begins by disparaging Biden as “a reclamation project” who is “not salvageable.” Both of those terms are thinly veiled insinuations about his age. Trump has also attached one of his childish nicknames – Sleepy Joe – to Biden. However, while Biden is 76 years old, Trump is 73 years old. And he is the laziest president in history. It has been reported that he doesn’t start his work day until 11:00 am, after his morning routine (executive time) of watching Fox News. And he has played more golf (at his resorts from which he profits) than any president before him.

Secondly, Trump says of Biden that China is “begging for him.” We’ll set aside the fact there is no evidence to support that charge. Trump is implying that China likes Biden and wants to deal with him. But that’s exactly what Trump says about his own relationship with China’s Xi Jinping. How can he criticize Biden for allegedly having the sort of relationship that he brags about having himself?

Third, Trump says that Biden “deserted our military.” Again (and as is true about almost everything Trump says) there is no support for that charge against Biden. Although there is abundant support for it against Trump. He is a five-time draft dodger. He insulted all POWs for having been captured. He denigrates Gold Star families who are not Trump sycophants. He terminated healthcare and other services for vets. And he deported veterans who served in combat despite not being citizens.

Fourth, Trump also baselessly said that Biden deserted law enforcement. However, it is Trump who has viciously attacked the FBI, the Department of Justice, and others in law enforcement. Notably, he does that primarily to tarnish their reputations when he is the subject of an investigation – of which there are many. Trump is against cops for the same reason bank robbers are: They make it harder for him to get away with his crimes. So he goes ballistic. His vile attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller have included charges of lying, corruption, conflict of interest, and even treason.

Fifth, Trump also said that Biden deserted healthcare. Of course, he was at President Obama’s right hand when the Affordable Care Act was passed. Trump, on the other hand, has worked hard to sabotage it and is currently supporting a lawsuit that could result in killing it entirely. He has no plan to replace it or to preserve the most popular provisions, including coverage for those with preexisting conditions.

Sixth, Trump complains about the national debt, which is rising to a record $22 trillion dollars under his administration. Much of that is due to his own tax bill that provided corporations and the wealthy with steep and undeserved tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Trump could add roughly the same amount of debt as Obama over two terms. However there’s a big difference between the two. Obama took office in the depths of the Bush recession when deficit financing was required to spur the recovery.

Trump, on the other hand, inherited a booming economy, which is the best time to pay off debt. But he nevertheless managed to increase it without any discernible gain. As Forbes Magazine (not exactly a bastion of liberalism) reported, “Trump’s deficits as a percent of GDP will exceed any other President’s during a time of economic expansion.” And the stock market, which Trump likes to use as a gauge of his success, performed far better during Obama’s term. The S&P 500 rose 66.2 percent under Obama, but less than half that (31.1%) under Trump.

Finally, Trump closed this tweet with the exclamation that Biden “Won’t win!” Well, that may be true. He may not even be the Democratic nominee. But the likelihood that Trump will win is pretty low considering that he is currently trailing all of the top Democratic contenders. And his approval rating is historically low. He is the first president ever to never crack 50 percent in approval.

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

That’s a lot of flaming wrongness by Trump in one little tweet. And all of the whining about Biden actually applies much better to Trump. It’s important to acknowledge just how delusional he is as we approach the coming 2020 election. Trump’s psychological infirmities need to be a part of the campaign for all Democrats. He must be exposed as not just another callous and greedy Republican, but as an incompetent whose ignorance, hostility, and mental imbalance puts the whole nation – and world – in danger.

Trump Floats Ludicrous ‘Big Secret’ Theory for Obama Not Endorsing Biden

Posted by on June 25, 2019 at 12:51 pm. 1 Comments :

Donald Trump’s opinion on the candidates in the Democratic presidential primary is about as useful as Bill Cosby’s dating tips. Trump is a notorious pathological liar who uses any opportunity to disparage his political foes as an invitation to spin lame, and often profane, fairy tales that have no relationship to reality. Why any reporter would ask him for his opinion on this subject is a mystery.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump Baby, Fake News

Nevertheless, that’s what a reporter from The Hill did on Tuesday morning. Trump was asked about the prospect of facing Vice-President Joe Biden in the general election, and his response was typically shallow, insulting, and untrue (video below):

“How he doesn’t get President Obama to endorse him. There has to be some reason why he’s not endorsing him. He was the vice president. They seem to have gotten along. And how President Obama’s not endorsing him is rather a big secret.

“Then he goes and lies and said, ‘I asked the president not to endorse me.’ Give me a break. He’s embarrassed by the fact that Obama’s not endorsing him, so he goes out and says, ‘I asked President Obama not to endorse me.’ Well, he was trying to get the endorsement. So it could be that President Obama knows something. But there is something going on in that brain of his.”

The “big secret” is that former presidents, and most party leaders, never endorse candidates during a primary. It would be considered bad form to discriminate between members of your own party. So they generally remain neutral until a nominee is selected by voters, whereupon, they issue their endorsement. Were they to endorse one candidate, but another eventually wins the nomination, the nominee would be diminished as a second choice for not having had the original endorsement.

It isn’t surprising that Trump doesn’t know this, because it’s just one of the many things his universal ignorance encompasses. But what is a bit surprising is that he seems to forgotten that he refused to endorse his own vice-president, Mike Pence, when asked. During an appearance on his favorite Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends, he awkwardly babbled that “You can’t put me in that position. But I certainly would give it very strong consideration.”

So what is Trump’s “big secret” for not endorsing Pence? There has to be some reason why he’s not endorsing him. He’s the vice president. They seem to have gotten along. So it could be that Trump knows something. But there is something going on in that “brain” of his.

Trump is not the best person to bring up big secrets. After all, he has been fighting for years to keep his tax returns secret. Likewise his college transcripts. He buries reports by his own administration that reveal the dangers of climate change and the mistreatment of immigrant children. He pays hundreds of thousands of dollars to silence his mistresses. And he is currently prohibiting members of his administration, and other close associates, from testifying before Congress. You don’t think he has something to hide, do you?

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

Despite Preposterous Denials, Trump Has a History of Calling People (Particularly Women) ‘Nasty’

Posted by on June 2, 2019 at 12:59 pm. 5 Comments :

Whenever Donald Trump embarks on some foreign escapade, the prospects for his creating an international incident are impossible to ignore. Case in point, he just returned from Japan where he launched a political attack on Joe Biden, a potential election opponent, in violation of the diplomatic maxim that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” Even worse, he cited his murderous friend and dictator, Kim Jong Un, to reinforce the infantile insult he aimed at Biden’s intelligence.

Donald Trump, Nasty

That was last week, This is now. Trump is heading next to the U.K. And he has outdone himself by embarrassing America before he even got there. In an interview with a British newspaper Trump responded to a question about some critical remarks that Duchess Meghan Markle made about him in 2016. Claiming ignorance (which is believable), Trump replied “No, I didn’t know that she was nasty.”

It’s bad enough that Trump would malign an American member of British royalty in comments to the English press, but Trump only made matters worse by later denying that he ever said what he is on video saying. He really does believe that his glassy-eyed disciples will obey his edicts to ignore their own eyes and ears and listen only to what he tells them. He tweeted that…

Never mind the video evidence of his childish trash talk. Trump has his own version of reality cultivated from decades of self-delusion and narcissistic indulgence. And it’s especially comical that Trump thinks he’s entitled to an apology from the press that correctly reported precisely what he said. His behavior is completely in line with his past where his tendency to disparage women as “nasty” has been demonstrated over and over again. For instance:

Clearly Trump is comfortable characterizing strong, independent women as “nasty” just for daring to challenge his chauvinistic misogynism. That’s a sign of a pitifully weak man who is afraid of honest encounters with people who obviously have more intelligence and integrity. But just for the sake of balance, it should be noted that Trump has also cast the same insult at some of his sycophantic male suck-ups:

This is the humiliation that America is currently having to endure for the sin of allowing this cretin to get anywhere near the White House. His petulant antics would shame a twelve year old. But Trump is apparently impervious to shame. It’s that unique immunity that allows him to lie, cheat, insult, whine, and generally behave in a manner that really can only be described as pretty damn nasty.

LATE ADDITION: This is on surprise. Trump has now added House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list of women he says are “nasty.”

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

Trump Cries ‘Fake News’ Over a Joke that Nailed His Hate for Biden and Love for Kim Jong Un

Posted by on May 27, 2019 at 2:19 pm. 2 Comments :

There is something particularly abhorrent about a political leader who disparages his fellow citizens on foreign soil and takes the side of murderous tyrants over American patriots. But that is precisely what Donald Trump has been doing while on his golf and sumo junket to Japan. He explicitly lashed out at his political foes in a way that borders on disloyalty and even betrayal.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump Baby, Fake News

When Trump landed in Tokyo, he almost immediately launched a hostile assault on Joe Biden, one of his potential opponents for president in 2020. In doing so he gleefully took sides with the America-hating North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. Trump tweeted that he “smiled when [Kim] called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual.” Let’s set aside the fact that this exchange almost certainly never happened. It’s even worse if Trump invented it in his own diseased mind.

Trump later doubled down on these vile insults with comments during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He told the world’s media that “I don’t take sides as to who I’m in favor of and who I’m not, but I can tell you that Joe Biden was a disaster.” Notice that he contradicted himself in the space of a single sentence by claiming to not take sides, and then taking sides against Biden.

Then on Monday morning – Memorial Day – Trump tainted the holiday of reverence for departed patriots by once again raising the issue of his preference for Kim over Biden. This time he couched his animus in a tweet that attempted to celebrate some imaginary victory over what he routinely refers to as the “Fake News.”

As he does frequently, Trump fails to let anyone know what the heck he’s talking about. He cites an alleged admission of error by an Ian Bremmer, but doesn’t say who that is or what his misstatement was. As it turns out, Bremmer is a political scientist who posted a humorous tweet the day before. It said “President Trump in Tokyo: ‘Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden.'” Most people would have seen that this was a satirical comment that was based on Trump’s actual stated opinions. Nevertheless, because it was presented as a “quote,” Bremmer deleted the tweet and apologized for not having been clearer about it being a joke. That was hardly necessary. Not only was the humor obvious, the message was accurate.

None of that, however, stopped Trump from exploiting the matter in his own indignant tweet. He referred to it as “completely ludicrous,” which it definitely was not. Then he tried to smear all of the media as “fake,” despite the fact the Bremmer is not a journalist and does not represent any media organization. And then Trump complained about people getting away with saying anything they want. Apparently he would prefer that we abolish free speech and only permit officially approved statements. What’s more, for someone who has been documented to have lied more than 10,000 times, Trump’s complaint comes off as a rather hysterical hypocrisy.

Finally, Trump once again advocates for reforming libel laws so that he can sue those he believes have offended him. He has been doing this since his presidency began, and probably before that. News Corpse reported one especially notable meeting last year wherein Trump said that his administration would “take a strong look” at libel law reforms, which he apparently forgot to do. Not that it was really necessary. There are adequate laws already in place that prohibit the media from knowingly making false statements. But what Trump is proposing would very likely blow up in his face, as noted in the article linked above:

“No one has exposed himself to more potential libel allegations than Donald Trump. Every time he calls a reporter a liar, or asserts as fact that unnamed sources don’t exist, or alleges that a story was deliberately made up, Trump is slandering those reporters and harming their reputations and careers. Every time he lashes out with his juvenile nicknames at people he is claiming are ‘lyin,’ ‘failing,’ or ‘crooked,’ he is asserting a falsehood that could trigger litigation under his reforms.”

Trump couldn’t really care less about libel laws. All he wants is the ability to suppress dissent by intimidating his critics with threats of bogus lawsuits. He views everything in terms of the mob-style thuggery that he was accustomed to using in his Manhattan real estate business. And he thinks he can transfer that to White House politics. But he is likely to be sorely disappointed. His efforts to malign the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” along with his displays of affection for foreign dictators over Americans, is not likely to be a successful strategy. That isn’t how you win the hearts and minds of the nation. And Trump’s historically low approval ratings are pretty good evidence that his hate-spewing methods don’t work.

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

In Japan, Trump Finds Time to Golf, Become a National Embarrassment, and Betray America

Posted by on May 26, 2019 at 8:40 am. 3 Comments :

The national shame that is Donald Trump has outdone himself again during his junket to Japan. Ordinarily American leaders will suspend their partisan infighting while traveling abroad. There is an unwritten rule that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” But Trump has never been one to follow rules – or even bother to learn them. His only guidance is what’s in his own selfish best interests. It’s a symptom of his malignant narcissism and myriad other psychoses.

Donald Trump, Mocking Disability

So not surprisingly, Trump shattered all precedent for diplomatic encounters when he arrived in Japan. He also broke with the traditions of patriotism and honesty that the American people expect of their leaders. And what’s worse, he did it with a deliberate and hostile disrespect for his fellow Americans. In the early morning hours of a Memorial weekend Sunday, Trump posted this shockingly inappropriate tweet:

In that brief commentary Trump managed to degrade the presidency on multiple levels. First of all, he contradicted his own national security team by dismissing North Korea’s testing of missiles that violate United Nations Security Council resolutions. His insistence that he isn’t disturbed by such breaches of international law should worry all Americans. But what’s worse is his stated “confidence” in the broken promises of dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump is proving that he is an easily suckered rube who will fall for the most transparently deceitful foreign tyrants, so long as they send him charming letters Remember, Trump publicly declared that he and Kim “fell in love“ as a result of those correspondences.

Secondly, Trump says that he was amused by Kim’s disparagement of “Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse.” The spectacle of an American president laughing as a foreign adversary insults a former vice-president (and possibly future president) is reprehensible. Although this humiliation is tempered by the fact that it almost certainly never happened. It’s highly unlikely that Kim would use the exact phrasing that Trump frequently uses to demean a critic’s intelligence. So in this remark Trump is not only embracing the vitriol of an anti-American despot, he’s flagrantly lying. He also misspelled Biden’s name as “Bidan” in a first attempt at this tweet, which he deleted.

On a side note, he also misspelled his thanks to “John” Voight for posting a Trump-fluffing video earlier in the day. It’s typically pathetic that Trump would demonstrate his own stupidity while trying to knock someone else’s intelligence. Nevertheless, Trump not only expects us to believe his obvious nonsense, he pretends that there’s a super secret message to him from his BFF Kim. And if that weren’t enough to make Americans ashamed of his antics, he posted another tweet that further exhibit his utter disrespect and anti-patriotism:

Anyone who believes that Japanese officials said those things about American politicians is terminally naive, and even dumber than Trump. It’s clear that Trump is inventing these remarks because it’s the way he feels about his political foes. He regularly resorts to infantile tirades aimed at those who dare to challenge him. The only way that anyone might think that American citizens have a “Death Wish” is by seeing who they elected President in 2016. But even so, Democrats are hopeful that our nation will be able to survive that nightmarish mistake, and rectify it. Whether by impeachment (preferably) or the election of a sane president, the end of Trump’s reign of error cannot come too soon.

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