CNN’s Jim Acosta Righteously Nails Tucker Carlson as a ‘Human Manure Spreader’

Posted by Mark NC on September 5, 2021 at 5:28 pm. 6 Comments :

Last week President Biden succeeded in completing a mission that four presidents before him failed to accomplish. He finally ended America’s involvement in the twenty year long war in Afghanistan. And in doing so he pulled off the largest personnel airlift in history, evacuating more than 120,000 people, including about 6,000 Americans.

True to form, Fox News condemned all of that, and especially Biden, as a miserable failure. They focused on the few adversities – including a tragic terrorist bombing – while ignoring the exemplary deportment of our armed forces and diplomats who brought tens of thousands to safety and brought a futile foreign engagement to a close.

While more current events where taking place here at home (i.e. Hurricane Ida, a surging COVID pandemic, and a draconian Texas law setting reproductive rights back fifty years), both Fox News and Donald Trump wanted the press to cover only the bad news from the region.

On Saturday CNN’s Jim Acosta took aim at Fox’s Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson, in a segment that was particularly cutting. He referred to Carlson as a “human manure spreader.” Which is better than if he simple stopped at Carlson being human manure. Acosta said…

“Over on Fox, human manure spreader Tucker Carlson, has floated yet another race baiting conspiracy theory that tens of thousands of Afghan refugees are being welcomed into this country in order to change the outcome of future elections.”

Acosta then played a clip of Carlson disgorging his racist “white replacement theory” diatribe about Afghan refugees being brought to the U.S as part of a “Change America Forever” plot to pack the electorate with foreigners. Never mind that refugees cannot vote and it will be many years before they can even become citizens. It’s something Carlson has been fear mongering frequently. Then Acosta continued…

“Did he say ‘change America forever’? I think change is already in the air. We had an insurrection nearly eight months ago. An insurrection that, let’s face it, hasn’t really ended.”

CNN Anchor Jim Acosta calls Tucker Carlson a “human manure spreader” for floating “another race baiting conspiracy theory”. pic.twitter.com/mtfnk46qUP

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 4, 2021

Carlson believes – or wants his audience to believe – that the Afghans who helped Americans through difficult times in a foreign land are actually threats who must be feared and scorned. And if they come to America they aren’t just random threats on a vast continent. Nope. They are “probably” moving in next door to you by the millions. In other words…Be afraid America. That’s Carlson’s message.

Acosta’s words put all of that into the proper perspective. Except that what Carlson and Fox News are spreading is even too toxic for your suburban lawn. While fertilizer is intended to help things grow, the bullpucky that is being spread here is meant to kill whatever it comes into contact with. Which is why we need more word weeders like Acosta to cultivate common sense and promote a fertile environment.

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

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

Twitter Trolls are Lying About Rachel Maddow Spreading COVID Misinformation

Posted by Mark NC on September 5, 2021 at 1:12 pm. 6 Comments :

Donald Trump and his Republican Party have embraced lying as an indispensable tool in their political tool chest. Their brazen disregard for honesty is demonstrated with nearly every public utterance they make. Trump alone has racked up an appalling record of more than 30,000 lies during his single term as president. All of which is obediently disseminated by their Ministry of Disinformation (aka Fox News).

So naturally, these Olympic-grade truth manglers are anxious to project their reality warping antics onto the Democrats and liberals they so fervently despise. And, unsurprisingly, one of their primary targets would be MSNBC’s star host, Rachel Maddow.

On Sunday morning Maddow’s name was trending on Twitter. However the reason was typically devoid of facts or logic. The conservative Twitter trolls were all a flitter because they thought they had caught Maddow in a gross misrepresentation of coronavirus information. The subject concerned the dangerously inappropriate use of a horse dewormer, Ivermectin, to “cure” COVID. That’s a subject that Maddow has covered in detail. But the latest melodrama all sprung from this tweet by Maddow and the right-wing’s knee-jerk rebuttal:

Why isn’t @TwitterSupport warning people this is 100% false? pic.twitter.com/rVO0Hql4AB

— Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr) September 5, 2021

The tweet by Maddow linked to a story by KFOR, a local Oklahoma television station. So right off the bat, she was not making any statements for which she could be blamed if they were inaccurate. And spoiler alert: They were not inaccurate. The station’s newscast interviewed a rural Oklahoma doctor who gave his account of how the state’s health systems were holding up during the COVID Delta variant surge that has been ravaging mostly Republican led states like Oklahoma. KFOR reported that…

“Dr. [Jason] McElyea said patients are packing his eastern and southeastern Oklahoma hospitals after taking ivermectin doses meant for a full-sized horse, because they believed false claims the horse de-wormer could fight COVID-19.

“‘The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated. […] All of their ambulances are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so they can take the patient in and they don’t have any.'”

While all of that is easily verifiable, the Twitter trolls latched unto a statement released by a hospital network with which Dr. McElyea was affiliated. The statement said that…

“Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room. With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months. NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin.”

From that statement the wingnut contingent immediately started blasting Maddow as the great falsifier. They charged that the entire story was sham because the doctor was not an employee of the NHS. They demanded that Twitter punish her with a suspension or a total ban for allegedly disseminating COVID disinformation. Glenn Greenwald was among those clamoring for Maddow’s head. GOP Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance ranted that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source” than Maddow. Trump crony Sebastian Gorka railed “Hey Maddow you lie.”

There’s just one problem. The statement by the NHS was completely irrelevant. Neither KFOR nor Dr. McElyea ever mentioned the NHS or the circumstances at that particular hospital. The doctor did not claim to be speaking as an NHS employee, but instead as an observer of Oklahoma’s health system. And multiple sources affirm what Dr. McElyea said. for instance…

“Oklahoma health officials are choosing to keep hospital capacity data under wraps as some of the state’s major health systems announce they have zero ICU beds open.”

“According to Oklahoma Hospital Association President Patti Davis, ‘We know that patients are being transferred out of state for beds.'”

The situation in Oklahoma is unquestionably dire, despite the Republican governor’s efforts to hide the facts. The medical professionals in the field know exactly what’s going on, and they aren’t afraid to talk about it. That includes Dr. McElyea.

But reality has never stopped conservative deceivers from muddying the water and misleading their dimwitted followers who will never do their own research. Which is how they get roped into ingesting poisons like Ivermectin in the first place. And as usual, Fox News couldn’t care less if they live or die. And neither does Donald Trump.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Fox News joined the Twitter Trolls who falsely claimed that the KFOR story was false. They relied heavily on tweets by Drew Holden, an independent, right-wing “reporter” who ironically chastises Maddow and “the left” for not researching the story, when obviously he didn’t. Fox News didn’t either.

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

Fox News CRUSHED that the Media is ‘Moving On From Afghanistan’ to Cover Actual News

Posted by Mark NC on September 4, 2021 at 5:50 pm. 4 Comments :

The past week has been one of profoundly significant world events. The United States finally ended a twenty year long war in Afghanistan. The COVID pandemic surged to record levels due to the Delta variant. The Supreme Court declined to block a draconian abortion rights law in the state of Texas. And a hurricane ravaged many parts of country from the Gulf Coast to New England.

Each of those stories are important to the American people and deserve coverage by the media. Unless you’re Fox News where the only stories that warrant being told are those that reflect poorly on President Biden or Democrats in general.

Which explains why Fox News posted a story on their website giddily proclaiming that “Liberal media blasted for moving on from Afghanistan crisis.” Yes, Fox News couldn’t have been happier about this criticism of what they regard as the “mainstream media.” The article griped that…

“The liberal media seems to be moving on from President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, skipping key details and largely ignoring a bombshell report of a leaked July phone call between President Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. […] Hurricane Ida, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the Texas abortion law have seemingly pushed Afghanistan aside.”

That’s right. Fox News is appalled and saddened that the media is covering actual news. To Fox News Afghanistan should be still be the dominant story, despite the fact that there hasn’t been any breaking news from there in a week. The press was all over Afghanistan a week ago when thirteen service members, and an estimated 150 Afghans, were tragically killed in a terrorist bombing. And the press was there when the last of the American troops were evacuated from the country, along with 120,000 Afghan allies, in an unprecedented and successful airlift.

However, in the past week there have been other events that warranted coverage. The COVID pandemic was taking the lives of more than 1,000 Americans every day. The Supreme Court handed down a ruling that effectively overturned the fifty year old Roe v Wade precedent on reproductive rights. And Hurricane Ida tore a path across the Eastern United States that resulted in more than 60 American deaths (nearly five times those in Afghanistan) reported so far. But to Fox News, those are mere distractions from Afghanistan.

The reason that Fox is so obsessed with Afghanistan is that it is a “crisis” that they think they can blame on Biden. Surely Biden isn’t responsible for a hurricane, the surging pandemic that is largely due to unvaccinated Fox News viewers, or the laws coming out of Texas. Consequently, those other stories need to be set aside in favor of finding more ways to attack the President.

With that in mind, Fox set about to contrive tales to tell that would cast mud on Biden. But the only ones that they could find were stories about the few Americans still in Afghanistan, and an utterly unnoteworthy phone call between Biden and Afghan President Ghani.

Undeterred, Fox news devoted most of the article to the “blasting” they claimed that the “liberal” media was taking. However, the article quoted only five alleged blasters, all of whom were staunchly right-wing propagandists. For instance…

Fox News contributor Joe Concha who wrote about the media “serving at the pleasure of the White House communications team.”
Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor whining that “Their bias is disgusting.”
Former Daily Caller columnist, Jackson Richman who prefaced his comments with “The Biden-friendly mainstream media…”
Federalist columnist Eddie Scarry lamenting because “The media will wound [Biden] but they will not kill him.”
White House press secretary-turned Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany bragging that “You can guarantee at Fox News we’ll cover when an American president tells a foreign leader to change the perception.”

Poor Fox News is very upset that the story they want to hype because they can use it to bash Biden has been overshadowed by other more urgent and current stories. They think that a week old story – while still important and still being covered – should take precedence over a national weather emergency that killed dozens of people and is still posing extreme hardships for millions of Americans who are displaced from their homes and without power, water, or food.

What’s more, Fox News was so disinterested in the Texas abortion law story that they hardly covered it all in the first few hours. And consistent with their reporting for the past year and a half, the coronavirus barely merited a mention, unless it was to applaud Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for making his state the national Hot Zone for the pandemic.

We can expect this sort of biased coverage to continue at Fox News. They have never been interested in journalism. Their foundational mission was to manufacture “news” to boost their right-wing agenda. And nothing illustrates that better than how they are covering current events this week.

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

Tucker Carlson of Fox News Advocates Getting Fake Vaccination Cards – Which is a Felony

Posted by Mark NC on September 3, 2021 at 12:33 pm. 7 Comments :

Fox News has been at the forefront of the pro-COVID, anti-vax movement for more than a year and a half. Their callously political aversion to common sense methods of mitigating the harm of the deadly coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the latest surge that can be accurately attributed to the “Fox News Variant” that is infecting and killing Americans at record levels.

While most of the Fox News roster is spreading disinformation about COVID, no one is more committed to propagating lethal lies than Tucker Carlson. He has promoted the use of quack cures, espoused paranoid conspiracy theories that the vaccines don’t work, and even exhorted his viewers to make false police reports of child abuse against parents whose children wear face masks.

On Thursday’s episode of Carlson’s White Nationalist Hour on Fox News, he went farther over the cliff of sanity than ever before (video below). In a border line criminal tirade, Carlson appeared to advocate that his dimwitted audience commit felony counterfeiting, fraud, and unlawful use of a government seal. He was triggered by the news that “[New York District Attorney Cyrus] Vance has just charged thirteen Americans with felonies for buying fake vaccination cards.”

“Fifteen people are facing charges connected to a fake Covid-19 vaccination card conspiracy involving the sale of forged cards and the fraudulent entry of people into New York’s vaccination database, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced in a news release Tuesday. […] They are each charged with one count of criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree. One of those people is also charged with offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree — for paying to be entered into the state’s vaccine database.”

Naturally, Carlson regards these alleged crooks as innocent victims of political persecution and even heroes. He effusively praised the felonious lunks saying that…

“In good conscience, they’ve risked their careers to preserve their right to bodily autonomy and now they’re in jail for that. Now these arrests will be used to justify digital health passports for the entire American population. That is true. Save this tape.”

Of course, Carlson’s support for “bodily autonomy” doesn’t extend to women who seek to exercise their constitutional rights to reproductive choice. Nor to children who would prefer not to be riddled with bullets while attending school. Nor to humans who like their planets to have inhabitable climates.

Furthermore, those arrested are not in jail for seeking to preserve any “rights.” They were charged with purchasing fake documents and falsifying government records. But Carlson has decided on his own that those aren’t crimes. He continued his rant by dismissing the charges by Vance that…

“‘Making, selling and purchasing forged vaccination cards are serious crimes, with serious public safety consequences,’ end quote.

“Except that’s a lie. Buying a fake vaccination card is not a, quote, ‘serious crime,’ It’s not even close to a serious crime. Buying a fake vaccination card is an act of desperation by decent, law-abiding Americans who have been forced into a corner by tyrants. You know what’s a serious crime? Forcing Americans to take drugs they don’t need or want. That’s a very serious crime. And let’s hope, in the end, someone is punished for it, severely.”

Note that Carlson began his harangue by saying that those arrested were charged with felonies. But here he’s saying that “It’s not even close to a serious crime.” Rather, Carlson is sympathetic toward these criminals because they’re “desperate.” And despite their having committed actual crimes, they are also “law-abiding.” And to Carlson, the real criminals are those who are trying to save lives by preventing the spread of the pandemic. And Carlson hopes that they are punished for it.

Carlson needs to be advised that no one is forcing anyone “to take drugs they don’t need or want.” If somebody doesn’t want to take the vaccine, they don’t have to. But there are consequences for every choice made by free people. And access to places where an unvaccinated person could infect others may be prohibited.

This isn’t unusual. If you don’t pass a driver’s test, you don’t get to drive a car. In many states, If you don’t provide identification, you don’t get to vote. If you don’t submit the proper forms to the government tyrants you can[‘t hunt or fish. If you don’t complete the school curriculum, you don’t get a diploma or a job that requires one.

Maybe Carlson would encourage you to just buy counterfeit versions of those documents as well. In one way or another they are all state or state-affiliated institutions controlling an individual’s access to certain societal privileges. But in Carlson’s world, that sort of regulatory red tape is tantamount to authoritarian oppression.

Maybe someone should examine Carlson’s vaccination card (which is required at Fox News), and his driver’s license, and his college diploma. Judging by his remarks, there’s a pretty good chance that they are all forgeries.

Tucker Carlson straight up advocates for unvaccinated people to get fake vaccine cards to avoid mandates:

"Buying a fake vaccination card is an act of desperation by decent, law-abiding Americans who have been forced into a corner by tyrants." pic.twitter.com/d0uoS1nRxz

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 3, 2021

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

LOL: Trump Resurrects His ‘Perfect’ Phone Call, that Got Him Impeached, to Bash Biden

Posted by Mark NC on September 2, 2021 at 1:28 pm. 6 Comments :

You have to give Donald Trump credit for blind persistence. No matter how ludicrous his behavior, or how damaging to what’s left of his tattered reputation, he continues to remind everyone of just how ignorant and criminally culpable he is, even when he’s trying to chastise his enemies.

On Thursday morning Trump released another one line statement via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban). On this occasion he was jumping on a wingnut bandwagon circling the conservative media drain. He said simply that…

“Biden pressed Afghan president to change ‘perception’ that Taliban was winning, ‘whether true or not’

What Trump was regurgitating was flotsam from the right-wing echo chamber about a phone call President Biden had with President Ghani of Afghanistan. Biden was conveying the importance of projecting strength in the battle against the Taliban prior to its take over of the nation. He wanted to encourage Ghani to carry on the fight, which showed the promise of success at the time. The full context of Biden’s remarks bear that out:

“You clearly have the best military. You have 300,000 well-armed forces versus 70-80,000 and they’re clearly capable of fighting well. […] We are going to continue to fight hard, diplomatically, politically, economically, to make sure your government not only survives, but is sustained and grows.” […]

“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

That was an entirely appropriate effort to motivate the Afghans to recommit to victory against their foes. But Republicans and their conservative media lackeys saw it differently. Fox News lashed out at Press Secretary Jen Psaki for declining to respond to reports about the Biden/Ghani phone call because it was unlawfully leaked to the press by an anonymous source. She told reporters that “I’m not going to get into private, diplomatic conversations or leaked transcripts of phone calls.”

Psaki’s response was immediately taken up by partisan politicians and pundits including Fox News, Newsmax, the Daily Caller, Kellyanne Conway, and GOP reps Elise Stefanik, Jody Hice, and Lauren Boebert. They all frantically tried to compare Biden’s phone call to the infamous one that Trump had with President Zelensky of Ukraine. That was the allegedly “perfect” phone call (quid pro quo) wherein Trump illegally threatened to withhold U.S. funds unless Zelensky agreed to dig up dirt on Biden.

The right-wingers pointed to a two year old tweet by Psaki that said “It is not just the call transcript. The whistleblower complaint would likely have more details. We need both. And not just the call.” They said that this request for a transcript of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky was a contradiction of her refusal to give more details about Biden’s phone call with Ghani.

There are, however, enormous and obvious differences. First of all, the information Psaki sought about Trump’s call was contained in a properly executed whistleblower complaint that went through all the appropriate channels. But the information in Biden’s phone call was illegally leaked and the sources were unknown and unvetted.

Furthermore, what Psaki was asking for was evidence of criminal activity to be considered in the impeachment of Trump. But there was nothing remotely illegal, or even improper, about Biden’s phone call. So this dust up over dueling phone calls is just a charade by Trump and his minions designed to sow confusion and lies.

For Trump to participate in this utterly dishonest media hype of a pseudo-scandal is further proof of his disreputable and deceitful intentions. But even worse, from his perspective, he is reminding people of his own crimes that got him impeached in the first place. It really does appear that Trump is committed to making a fool of himself. And at least in that pursuit, he is surprisingly adept.

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

Fox News Hypocrite Embraces Cancel Culture When Florida Restaurant Bans Biden Voters

Posted by Mark NC on September 1, 2021 at 5:57 pm. 1 Comments :

A couple of years ago Fox News popularized a thoroughly manufactured variant of political correctness that was labeled “cancel culture.” It referred vaguely to the criticism of any person or policy embraced by Fox News or their right-wing Republican confederates. And like the proponents of cancel culture, no hypocrisy was too great to prevent flinging it at who or whatever was the outrage of the moment.

On Wednesday morning’s episode of Outnumbered on Fox News, the panel introduced a segment about the DeBary Diner in Florida. The restaurant had gained local notoriety for posting a sign in the window that told anyone who had voted for Joe Biden to “take your business elsewhere.” This was received enthusiastically by the Fox News crew. The sign read in full…

“If you voted for and continue to support and stand behind the worthless, inept and corrupt administration currently inhabiting the White House that is complicit in the death of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan, please take your business elsewhere.”

Gee, they seem nice. Never mind that they are blaming Biden for a bombing carried out by terrorists, while Biden had actually presided over an unprecedented airlift of more than 120,000 people – Americans and Afghan allies – to safety out of Afghanistan.

Although the sign is actually the sort of hospitality one might expect in state that is currently the nation’s hot zone for the coronavirus, and whose governor couldn’t be more pro-COVID if he tried (and he is trying). It’s a state where asking patrons to wear face masks to protect themselves and others from a deadly virus is tantamount to communism, but banning them based on who they voted for gets a big thumbs up

When co-host Pete Hegseth was asked to comment on the subject he babbled an entirely predictable endorsement of the restaurant’s anti-Biden policy. He said that…

“Yeah, it’s a free country for now, and she’s expressing a sentiment and speaking for a lot of people. And ultimately a statement like that is a guttural scream that ‘I love my country. I love the troops that defend it. And I don’t respect those who don’t stand by that.’ So customers can make a choice and I actually think this will lead to a lot more business for her than those that turn turn away,

Right. It’s a free country , except if you voted for the “wrong” person. Then you can be denied service. And that’s acceptable to Hegseth, even though denying service to people without masks is abominable. But what’s even worse is that Hegseth is contradicting remarks made on Fox News back in July of 2018, when a restaurant declined to serve Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The person contradicting Hegseth was … that’s right… Pete Hegseth:

“What does it say about the left that they stand in solidarity with a business that kicks out a paying customer just because of their political position?”

Fox News, then and now. pic.twitter.com/1MU2AkZsZm

— Media Matters (@mmfa) September 1, 2021

So to summarize, according to Hegseth, it’s utterly contemptible for a restaurant to refuse service to a single Republican based on her specific political ideology and actions. However, it’s perfectly fine, in fact laudatory, to ban everyone who voted for a Democratic president regardless of what their positions are on any specific matter. Good to know.

For the record, Republicans are the most frequent abusers of cancel culture. For instance, a frenzy of censures were imposed on disobedient Republicans who were deemed to have betrayed Dear Leader Trump. They include Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Ben Sasse, Sen. Pat Toomey, Rep. Liz Cheney, Rep. Peter Meijer, Rep. Fred Upton, Rep. Tom Rice, and Gov, Doug Ducey, so far.

Trump himself could be crowned the King of Cancel Culture. He has called for boycotts of mostly American companies that ticked him off on numerous occasions. Here’s a batch of ten that include Harley-Davidson, CNN, Apple, Fox News, and AT&T. And here’s a batch of nine more including Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Citigroup, Cisco, and Merck.

Clearly the GOP has not been vaccinated for hypocrisy. And the shameless example provide by Fox’s Hegseth tells the tale of a network that simply doesn’t care about consistency or intellectual integrity. The only thing that matters on Fox News is whether they can use some wild allegation to attack their political foes.

Their viewers don’t seem to care either, or they are just too dimwitted to notice. Which is by design at Fox News, where they deliberately keep their audience in a cognitive stupor by administering a constant flow of fear and falsehoods.

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

Fox News, Trump, and the GOP Are Openly Threatening the Constitution and Democracy

Posted by Mark NC on September 1, 2021 at 1:05 pm. 4 Comments :

From its inception twenty-five years ago, Fox News was a malignancy on the media. The motto that launched the network – “fair and balanced” – was intended to imply that the rest of the media was neither. It was more than an advertising slogan that criticized its competitors. It was borrowed from cult doctrine that taught disciples to trust only them and no one else.

Donald Trump embraced the same indoctrination tactics as he drummed into his followers heads that “the media is the enemy of the people.” He literally instructed them in Orwellian terms that they couldn’t believe their own eyes and ears, saying that “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Consequently, the results of a new study by the Pew Research Center shouldn’t surprise anyone. It found that…

“In just five years, the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half – dropping from 70% in 2016 to 35% this year. This decline is fueling the continued widening of the partisan gap in trust of the media.”

On the other hand, an overwhelming majority (78%) of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the national news media. The difference between Democrats and Republicans is a whopping 43%. So while Democrats rely on credible outlets with verifiable sources and documentation, Republicans are slaves to Fox News, Breitbart, OAN, and other professional propagandists. And the echo chamber linking those propaganda merchants and Trump completes the right-wing media circuitry.

On Tuesday the Republican Party went even further off kilter by making threats against telecom companies should they comply with legal requests by Congress for information. The House Select Committee on the January 6th insurrection asked the companies to preserve data in the event that the Committee might later request it as part of their investigation. That set off the House GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy who warned that…

“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States, If they pursue this path a Republican majority will not forget.”

McCarthy was unable to cite what law the companies would have violated by complying with a request from Congress. But that’s only because there is no such law. To the contrary, it would be unlawful obstruction of justice if they did not comply, as pointed out by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). In addition, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene joined McCarthy’s mob-style threat and made one of her own. “These telecommunication companies,” she warned, “if they go along with this, they will be shut down. That’s a promise.”

Greene: These telecommunication companies, if they go along with this, they will be shut down. That’s a promise pic.twitter.com/YtLmZa8IPi

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 1, 2021

Green made her threat on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program. And Carlson was quick to agree. He told her that “That sounds like a threat, and we fervently hope it is. […] You should shut them down. I mean you should take those companies down.”

Carlson, McCarthy, and Greene were appropriately criticized and ridiculed on social media for their ignorant, and ultimately impotent, threats. However, something has been missing from those critiques. What no one seems to have noticed is that these were actually attacks on the Constitution and its protection of freedom of the press. Two of the biggest telecom companies are AT&T and Comcast. AT&T is the parent corporation of CNN. And Comcast owns NBCUniversal.

So the threats by McCarthy and Greene to “shut down” these press operations are blatant violations of the First Amendment that states that “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” And the collusion with Fox News and Donald Trump turns this into a cabal of anti-constitutional conspirators who seemed determined to sabotage democracy and the principles upon which this nation was founded. They are not fit to serve in either government or media. And the American people should should shut them down before they cause even more harm.

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

Tucker Carlson Warns of ‘Revolt’ if Biden Doesn’t Apologize for Ending the Afghanistan War

Posted by Mark NC on August 31, 2021 at 4:22 pm. 5 Comments :

Incendiary commentary has become a daily ritual at Fox News. When they aren’t justifying Donald Trump’s delusional allegations of an allegedly “stolen” election that already incited insurrectionist riots on Capitol Hill on January 6th, they are fomenting fear of a “socialist” take over that will put an end to freedom in America once and for all.

No one on Fox News has been more determined to spread dread to his dimwitted viewers than Tucker Carlson. He has fear mongered about “dirty” immigrants “invading” the United States and overwhelming “traditional” Americans (the White Replacement Theory). Carlson has also stirred paranoid panic with dangerously false disinformation about the COVID pandemic and the common sense methods of mitigating harm via masks and vaccines. He even went so far as to encourage his followers to report parents whose children wear face masks to the police as child abusers.

On Monday night Carlson took another step over the cliff of crackpottery by arguing that violent revolution is justified if President Biden doesn’t apologize for successfully ending the twenty year long war in Afghanistan. Carlson was terribly disturbed that he hadn’t seen anybody in the Biden administration take responsibility for the sometimes messy evacuation from a war zone that was entirely predictable.

Of course, Biden himself had explicitly told the American people that he assumed full responsibility for anything that happens on his watch. But that clear and concise message was too complicated for Carlson to grasp. So he unleashed this bit of asininity:

“This can’t go on. When leaders refuse to hold themselves accountable over time, people revolt. That happens. We need to change course immediately and start acknowledging our mistakes. The people who made them need to start acknowledging them or else the consequences will be awful.”

the most watched cable news host in america justifies a coming "revolt" unless we "change course immediately" pic.twitter.com/owHNZS3zyL

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 31, 2021

For Carlson to raise the specter of revolt is irresponsible in the extreme. He appears to be lusting for violence, and it doesn’t matter what the reason is. So even though Biden has been open and honest about the tragic circumstances in Afghanistan, Carlson still thinks his viewers should resort to the savagery of an irrational rebellion just on his say so.

Never mind that Biden pulled off one of the most remarkable military operations in U.S. history. He managed the largest personnel airlift ever, safely evacuating more than 120,000 people in less than a month. The one unfortunate incident was a terrorist bombing, but Biden retaliated swiftly and successfully within hours. And for this Carlson thinks Biden should apologize or be subject to a revolt of right-wing barbarians like those who stormed the Capitol last January 6th.

What makes this all the more preposterous is that Carlson’s rant could have been written by a progressive activist and directed at Donald Trump. Read it again and see if it doesn’t apply much more accurately to the explicit denials of responsibility by Trump for everything from the January 6th insurrection, to the 620,000+ deaths due TO COVID-19, to the horrific immigrant family separations, to the unprecedented national debt and income inequality due to his tax cuts for corporations and the rich, to the exacerbation of the climate crisis, and to so many more catastrophic consequences of his ignorance and/or deliberate malfeasance.

Trump has never taken accountability for any of the disasters over which he presided. Nor has he ever acknowledged making a single mistake. So by Carlson’s reasoning, If anyone has the right to revolt it’s America’s Democrats and progressives. And hopefully they will do just that by means of the ballot box in 2022, 2024, and beyond.

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

OF COURSE: Fox News Blames Obama for ‘Missing Huge Opportunity’ to Leave Afghanistan

Posted by Mark NC on August 29, 2021 at 12:05 pm. 7 Comments :

President Biden’s determination that the twenty year long Afghanistan war would not be handed down to another American president is a goal that the vast majority of the American people agree with. In fact, before Biden took on the task, Republicans, including Donald Trump, agreed with it.

This was never going to be a easy job, and the difficulties inherent in such an operation were tragically borne out when an ISIS terrorist took the lives of 13 American soldiers and an estimated 150 Afghan civilians. Nevertheless, Biden’s team orchestrated the largest personnel airlift in history, evacuating more than 100,000 people in less than a month. All the while Trump was slandering Biden for achieving an objective for which Trump had notoriously failed.

Naturally, Fox News couldn’t stand by and witness this unprecedented evacuation without finding some way of maligning Biden and the U.S. military, and turning the whole affair into propaganda piece for Trump and his Republican Party. Some of the attacks were vicious and bizarre, such as their attempt to blame First Lady Jill Biden for what they portrayed as a “debacle”. That ludicrous shifting of responsibility brought only ridicule to Fox News.

Undeterred, Fox News has now focused on a new culprit whom they can pin this thing on: Former President Barack Obama. Because whenever there is any problem that might reflect badly on the right-wing beneficiaries of Fox’s bullshittery, they resort to their old standby: Blame the Black guy. Thus we have a story on the Fox News website headlined, “Obama missed huge opportunity to get out of Afghanistan, general says.”

The article accuses Obama of having missed the opportunity to exit Afghanistan following the termination of Al Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden. The assumption being that with Bin Laden’s death there was no more terrorist threat at all. But even if there were some truth to the suggestion that Obama could have withdrawn U.S. troops at that time, Fox News wasn’t just faulting him for letting that opportunity slip away. They went even further charging that by not leaving then, he was “thus extending U.S. troops’ time in the country for another 10 years.”

Did you catch that? Fox News is hanging responsibility for the war continuing on Obama, not just for the remainder of his term, but for the entirety of Trump’s term. In Fox World Trump is blameless even though he campaigned on ending the war, but failed to fulfill that promise for four years.

What’s more, the article also hit Biden’s decision to finally take action, saying that it was “a decision that emboldened the Taliban.” Never mind that it was Trump who negotiated the “surrender agreement” with the Taliban, completely leaving out the Afghan government.

It was just a matter of time before Fox News got around to blaming the Black guy. They had already failed to get any traction out of fingering Dr. Jill Biden. And the President was performing too well to continuing pursuing that path. So the next target would have had to have been Hillary Clinton or Obama. Consequently, Hillary might want to prepare for some incoming attacks after the Obama assault proves to be futile.

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

Consciousness of Guilt? GOP Trump-Fluffer Seeks to Obstruct January 6th Insurrection Probe

Posted by Mark NC on August 28, 2021 at 12:11 pm. 3 Comments :

Nearly eight months ago a crazed horde of hostile Donald Trump cult disciples invaded the United States Congress in an attempt to block the constitutionally mandated certification of Joe Biden’s election. They broke windows, battered down doors, and assaulted police officers, while chanting threats to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and hang Vice-President Mike Pence.

Pelosi gave Republicans an opportunity to support an independent investigation of the January 6th insurrection, but they stubbornly refused. Pelosi then set up a House Select Committee that Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy also declined to participate in. McCarthy threw a tantrum when Pelosi nixed two of his proposed Committee members, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, due to their support for, and personal connections to, some of the insurrectionists. Those connections created the potential that they could be called as a witnesses themselves.

As the Committee prepares its investigation, it sought documents related to the events of January 6th and any communications between the insurrectionists and persons in government positions, including the White House, cabinet departments, and members of Congress. That, of course, might include Rep. Jim Banks (R-QAnon).

In what appears to be a pre-emptive move to prevent the disclosure of activities that could implicate him in crimes, Banks fired off a letter to Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson making the specious argument that it was improper to request the materials being collected. Banks also sent the letter to the general counsels of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.

“One House Republican is gearing up to fight an effort from the committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol attack to collect the communications of members of Congress.

“The pushback from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) comes after committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters this week that he plans to ask telecommunications companies to turn over the records of several hundred people, including lawmakers.”

The letter that Banks sent sounds strikingly similar to the pleading of a defense attorney trying to suppress evidence that incriminates his client. Banks gave the telecom companies unsolicited advice saying that “recipients of legislative subpoenas retain their constitutional rights throughout the course of an investigation.” So what we have here is a member of Congress (who does not serve on the committee of jurisdiction) attempting to persuade corporations that possess materials relevant to an investigation to withhold those materials. That’s not suspicious at all, is it?

Banks is taking a page from the playbook of his mentor and messiah, Donald Trump. When Trump heard about the subpoenas by the Committee, he released a statement, via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban), claiming that…

“Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation.”

You have to wonder if it’s the result of Trump’s narcissism, ignorance, or dementia that causes him to believe that he still has the power to invoke executive privilege.

Finally, it should be noted that the letter Banks sent was probably written in consultation with his communications director, Buckley Carlson. Buckley is the son of Fox News ranter, Tucker Carlson, who last month viciously slandered one of the police officers who heroically defended the Capitol on January 6th.

Banks has proven that Pelosi was right to block him from the Committee. His extremist views show that he would not have been interested in an honest investigation, but rather only in protecting Trump and defending his “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him. The very lie that Trump used to incite the insurrectionist riots in Washington, D.C. in the first place.

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

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