Twitter

Trump’s Manic Twitter Tantrum Displays Contempt for the Constitution and Democracy

Posted by on May 27, 2020 at 12:18 pm. 8 Comments :

The United States is currently being tested in a manner that no one could ever have anticipated. During a global pandemic that has been most devastating for the U.S. (100,000+ now dead), the nation is burdened with a “president” who not only couldn’t care less, but is certifiably insane. His malignant narcissism, vicious hostility, infantile conduct, moral depravity, and cringe-worthy ignorance, make him uniquely unfit and dangerous.

Donald Trump

In recent days Trump has upped his crazy with nauseating and morbid attacks, including accusations of murder directed at Joe Scarborough of MSNBC, and sick meme postings of a coffin with Joe Biden’s name on it. Trump’s psychotic behavior has resulted in rapidly declining approval ratings, along with plummeting electoral prospects. Politico’s Morning Consult poll has Trump at 40% approval. Fox News has him at 44%. Even his favorite pollster, the notoriously biased Rasmussen, has his approval at 42%, the lowest in that poll since January of 2018, two and a half years ago. And Trump is trailing Biden in every recent national poll at RealClearPolitics, as well as in most of the crucial swing states.

Reality has taken its toll on Trump’s emotional state. He is becoming more unhinged and uninhibited in his rabid lunacies. That’s precisely what psychological professionals would predict for someone with Trump’s acute mental malfunctions who is trapped in a downward spiral over which he has no control. And naturally, Trump’s derangement is getting flushed out on his Twitter feed. For instance…

This is pure hallucination on Trump’s part. There is no evidence – none – of the election fraud he is asserting. It reads more like his strategy for the his own campaign (“Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed”). Furthermore, California is not sending ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.” Only registered voters will receive them. Trump appears to be laying the groundwork for disputing the election results in November when he loses.

The lies embedded in these tweets were so abhorrent that Twitter was finally moved to act, albeit in baby steps. They attached a link to the tweets that says “Get the facts about mail-in ballots,” and directs the reader to some of the sources debunking Trump’s disinformation. But even this wrist-slapping was too much criticism for the Snowflake-in-Chief. He embarked on a multi-tweet rant whining about Twitter’s fact-checking and making bizarre and frightening threats:

And as if that weren’t enough, Trump continued his threatening outbursts on Wednesday:

Trump still wasn’t satisfied. He followed up these schizoid remarks in another tweet by promising that there would be “Big action to follow!”

UPDATE:What that “big action” turned out to be was a vengeful, retaliatory Executive Order that would make it impossible for sites like Twitter and Facebook to operate. The EO is plainly unconstitutional and will not pass legal muster, but it further reveals Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and his intention to suppress free speech. He also said about Twitter that “If it were legal, if it could be legally shut down, I would do it.” And if that brazenly tyrannical remark doesn’t frighten you, you are so deeply indoctrinated into the Cult of Trump that you no longer value what America stands for.

What all of this bombastry has in common is a distinct contempt for the Constitution. Trump’s assertion that Twitter is “stifling FREE SPEECH” fails to recognize that the First Amendment only applies to governmental censorship. You know, like what Trump is trying to do to Twitter with threats of regulating them or even shutting them down. As a private company, Twitter has the right to moderate the content on their platform. What’s more, Twitter hasn’t censored Trump at all. His tweets are still available and unedited. What Trump is whining about is that actual facts are being place adjacent to his lies. That’s something that someone with more than 18,000 documented falsehoods will surely object to.

Nevertheless, Trump believes that he has the totalitarian authority to command Twitter, and other social media, to obey his orders. When he says that “I, as President, will not allow” Twitter to provide access to truthful information, and that there is “Big action to follow,” Trump is staking a claim to dictatorship. He doesn’t have any such authority and he knows it. When asked to cite this authority on Tuesday, he dissembled and dodged the question.

That, of course, is Trump’s customary method of answering almost any question. But the mere suggestion that he could exert that sort of tyrannical control is an insult to the freedom and democracy that is enshrined in the American ethic. And therein lies the problem. Trump is as utterly devoid of ethics as he is ignorant of, and averse to, American principles. And the American people have had enough!

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

While Americans Suffer, Trump is Laser Focused On – His Polling?

Posted by on May 3, 2020 at 12:24 pm. 2 Comments :

The voracious ego of Donald Trump continues to run roughshod over our nation. He seems unfazed by the latest reports of 1.1 million Americans infected by the coronavirus, and more than 67,000 dead. And he’s equally unmoved by the news that more than 30 millions Americans have lost their jobs. Trump posted 19 tweets on Sunday morning and hardly mentioned pandemic or it’s consequences at all. So what did he mention?

Donald Trump

It’s all too apparent what is consuming the thoughts of our “president” these days. He makes his priorities known by expressing them unabashedly on Twitter. And on this Sunday morn he revealed that his primary interest is – as usual – himself. The most frequent subject of his tweets was his approval rate polling, with four addressing that one fetish:

It needs to be said that what Trump is bragging about repeatedly is a Gallup poll that is a conspicuous outlier. Most other polls put Trump in the low forties. It is also notable that Trump is excited about this being the highest number Gallup has posted for him, even though it is still below 50% which he has never achieved.

For some reason Trump tempers his giddiness over this poll with a swipe at the “Fake News,” “Lamestream” media that he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” But whining that the press “doesn’t show real polls” while celebrating a Gallup poll that the press always shows is a strange way to boast about his alleged popularity. He’s tearing it down even as he’s using it to lift himself up.

Additionally, Trump twice makes reference to a “96% Approval Rating in the Republican Party” that he fails to back up with a link or even a name for the pollster. The fact is, that poll doesn’t exist. Nor does Trump offer a source for his assertion that he’s beating Joe Biden. Which is likewise not supported by reality. Biden is shown ahead of Trump both nationally and in critical swing states.

For contrast, the rest of Trump’s morning tweetstorm was littered with tributes to himself and bizarre divergences from the matters that are of interest to most Americans. For instance:

  • Whining that George Bush didn’t speak out against his impeachment.
  • Some guy who wrapped his boat in a Trump ad.
  • How much he misses his cult rallies.
  • Two propaganda videos (here and here)
  • Mike Tyson (?)
  • An old propaganda video attacking Democrats.
  • A shout out to his Turnberry golf course in Scotland.

And then there’s whatever the heck this is:

So rest assured that Trump is on the case, working to ensure that the American people don’t suffer from any deficiency in impotent Trump exaltations and syrupy propaganda. This is how a reality TV game show president thinks governing is done. When he isn’t neck deep in mounds of his own PR manure, he’s maligning the free press or the political foes that he is so transparently afraid of. and naturally, he’s always upselling, such as with these Trump-branded coronavirus face masks. This would all make an entertaining social satire if it weren’t for the corpses that are piling up due to Trump’s negligence and incompetence.

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

Trump Unleashes a Rage & Ego-Soaked Twitter Rant that Utterly Ignores the Coronavirus

Posted by on April 30, 2020 at 12:10 pm. 5 Comments :

It seems that every time Trump does or says something dishonest, ignorant, or just plain preposterous, he manages to compound his rhetorical fiasco with commentaries that only serve to affirm his flaming idiocy. It’s a downward spiral to which Trump is apparently oblivious.

Donald Trump, Twitter

Trump’s pitiful and tragic mishandling of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic is rife with examples of how he has made things worse by talking (or tweeting) about them. For instance, Trump’s suggestion that ingesting bleach would be an appropriate cure for the virus turned into a multi-day news story as he flagrantly lied about what he said, that was all on video. It has gotten so bad for Trump that even his allies were embarrassed by his antics at the Coronavirus Task Force briefings (aka the Trump 2020 Reelection Campaign Infomercials). He was even briefly persuaded to abandon the daily briefings due his rapidly declining approval ratings.

However, nothing has been able to dissuade Trump from devoting copious amounts of time to his favorite media platform, Twitter. And on Thursday morning Trump suffered another painful breakdown with a barrage of 49 tweets, all before noon. What was especially notable about this tweetstorm was Trump’s singular fixation on a story from last year: The conviction of his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who he fired for lying.

There was some news regarding this story related to a few handwritten notes that were released by Attorney General Bill Barr’s blatantly biased Justice Department. The notes themselves contained nothing newsworthy. They were merely the musings of FBI agents on how best to interrogate Flynn who later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. But there was no evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever on the part of the agents. The only purpose Barr might have had to selectively leak this info was to provide chum for the sharks on the right to get hysterical about, and for Trump deflect from his much more serious problems concerning the coronavirus.

Trump took the bait. His Twitter feed was flooded with retweets of bootlicking Republicans, wingnut media shills, random Twitter bots, and notorious Internet conspiracy kooks. Among them were 27 tweets hyping the non-story about Flynn, and just handful of partisans praising Trump’s pitiful pandemic response. But of Trump’s 11 direct tweets, not a single one addressed the coronavirus. There was literally zero out of 49 that had any constructive comment regarding the crisis that has infected more than a million Americans – and killed more than 60,000 – in just two months.

This is how Trump spends his time. When he isn’t watching Fox News or playing the lead role in his daily reality show style briefing, he embraces his Twitter machine and unloads in a scattershot fashion, hitting none of his intended targets. But he is nothing if not persistent, and tediously repetitive, as demonstrated in this frenzied tweet:

Not surprisingly, much of Trump’s ammo is aimed at the media that he detests for telling the truth about him. And it’s ironic that, as lazy and disoriented as Trump is, he once again trots out his lame “Do-Nothing Democrats” label. Meanwhile, Trump’s suggestion that Democrats and the media are trying to steal the election is pure projection. That’s precisely what he did, with Russia’s help, in 2016, and again last year with his attempts to extort Ukraine, for which he was impeached. And, of course, he offers no evidence whatsoever of any Democratic election misconduct.

The American people need to remember that Trump consistently behaves in this manner wherein he focuses intently on his own egocentric cravings. While the rest of the country is hunkering down in their homes, 30 million plus have lost their jobs, the economy is free fall, and the toll on human suffering and lives continues to rise, Trump can’t be bothered with even making mention of it in 49 tweets. And if anyone is still wondering how we sunk to this low, Trump’s latest tweet-splosion should clear that up. He just doesn’t care about anything but himself.

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

This Trump Tweetstorm is a Frightening Display of a Psychotic Meltdown in Real Time

Posted by on April 26, 2020 at 12:42 pm. 3 Comments :

The downward spiraling mental state of Donald Trump has been observable for many months (years?). However, it has never been as unmistakably deranged as is evident in his latest Sunday tweetstorm. This is behavior that ought to be of concern to every America, even the presidential bootlickers in Congress and the Trump-fluffers at Fox News.

Donald Trump Zombie

The bizarre rhetoric that Trump unleashes in this Twitter tantrum comes shortly after he bailed out of his Coronavirus Task Force briefings (aka Trump 2020 Reelection Campaign Infomercials). Having proposed one of the most preposterous notions of his presidency – that ingesting disinfectants could cure COVID-19 – Trump reportedly has chickened out of appearing at future briefings. And in anticipation of the loss of that platform, Trump is now lashing out wildly at the free press.

In fifteen tweets Trump never once mentions the coronavirus pandemic. This departure from sanity really speaks for itself. So here it is with minimal annotations (Note: Trump has already deleted some these tweets, but you can search for them here):

“The people that know me< and know the history of our Country say that I am the hardest working President in history. I don’t know about that, but I am a hard worker and have probably gotten more done in the first 3 1/2 years than any President in history. The Fake News hates it!"

“…the hardest working president…”? No one is saying that but his glassy-eyed disciples who regard temper tantrums and insults as “work.”

“I work from early in the morning until late at night, haven’t left the White House in many months (except to launch Hospital Ship Comfort) in order to take care of Trade Deals, Military Rebuilding etc., and then I read a phony story in the failing @nytimes about my work….”

What Trump thinks is work is tweeting and watching Fox News. Also, Trump left the White House< numerous time in February and March to attend his cult rallies.

“….schedule and eating habits, written by a third rate reporter who knows nothing about me. I will often be in the Oval Office late into the night & read & see that I am angrily eating a hamburger & Diet Coke in my bedroom. People with me are always stunned. Anything to demean!”

You have to wonder who these “people” in his bedroom are. Trump doesn’t bother to name the reporter or link to the article because he knows it’s all true. And it’s notable that he frequently claims that any story that doesn’t name its sources is fake news. Therefore, we can assume that this tweet is as well.

“When will all of the “reporters” who have received Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong (and, in fact, it was the other side who committed the crimes), be turning back their cherished “Nobles” so that they can be given….”

Trump, of course, was impeached (forever) due to his crimes. Not only have they not been proven wrong, they have been confirmed with additional evidence. And it isn’t “Noble,” it’s Nobel, you ignorant dotard. Also, there is no Nobel prize for journalism. Trump is probably thinking of the Pulitzer, if you call what he does “thinking.”

“….to the REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS who got it right. I can give the Committee a very comprehensive list. When will the Noble Committee DEMAND the Prizes back, especially since they were gotten under fraud? The reporters and Lamestream Media knew the truth all along….”

Indeed the media knows the truth, which why they were awarded “Nobles.” The problem is that Trump hates the truth, particularly when it is applied to him.

“….Lawsuits should be brought against all, including the Fake News Organizations, to rectify this terrible injustice. For all of the great lawyers out there, do we have any takers? When will the Noble Committee Act? Better be fast!”

Here Trump is once again attempting to intimidate the free press with bogus legal harassment. I hope he follows through because it would be entertaining to see him get laughed out of court.

The quantity of certifiably insane dialog in these tweets may set new records for Trump. His malignant narcissism, sociopathy, hostility, pathological lying, and obvious desperation and fear jumps out at readers who aren’t unreachably brainwashed. Trump is clearly suffering new lows in his mental decline. And his continuing in office is becoming ever more perilous for the nation. Especially during an ongoing pandemic crisis. If there were ever a time to invoke the 25th Amendment it is NOW!.

UPDATE: As if the above weren’t enough, Trump’s paranoid hysterics continued through the afternoon with specific rage against his most sycophantic cable TV shills at Fox News:

“@FoxNews just doesn’t get what’s happening! They are being fed Democrat talking points, and they play them without hesitation or research. They forgot that Fake News @CNN & MSDNC wouldn’t let @FoxNews participate, even a little bit, in the poor ratings Democrat Debates…..”

“….Even the Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats laughed at the Fox suggestion. No respect for the people running @FoxNews. But Fox keeps on plugging to try and become politically correct. They put RINO Paul Ryan on their Board. They hire “debate questions to Crooked Hillary”….”

“….fraud @donnabrazile (and others who are even worse). Chris Wallace is nastier to Republicans than even Deface the Nation or Sleepy Eyes. The people who are watching @FoxNews, in record numbers (thank you President Trump), are angry. They want an alternative now. So do I!”

Hasn’t he hit rock bottom yet? He’s gonna zone out and fall into a hysterical coma. Or overdose on Adderall. Bear in mind that Trump is engaging in these egomaniacal, manic outbursts on Melania’s birthday. Not to mention a global pandemic.

UPDATE II: This is getting ridiculous. Trump just tweeted that his misspelling of Nobel (as Noble) was intentional sarcasm. Yeah, sure. The last time he tried that excuse (Friday) he later admitted that he was lying. And it’s notable that he deleted all of those allegedly sarcastic tweets.

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

Rude and Nasty? Trump Panic-Tweets at the Media for Not Fawning Over His Failures

Posted by on April 18, 2020 at 2:45 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s Saturday and time, once again, for the regularly scheduled Donald Trump Twitter Tantrum. The Tweeter-in-Chief didn’t disappoint his glassy-eyed disciples this weekend. He blasted out 48 tweets before mid-afternoon, 29 of which were retweets devoted to falsely accusing Democrats of blocking new funding for small businesses. As is often the case, Trump is just venting because he’s utterly incapable of accomplishing anything via reasoned persuasion or bipartisan compromise the way an intelligent, experienced president would.

Donald Trump

In fact, it’s the Republicans who are living up to their reputation for callous indifference to the needs of the people by refusing to negotiate over including funds for hospitals and workers. Trump’s four dozen tweets were somehow pounded out while he says he was “Spending the morning speaking to @fema and Military relative to CoronaVirus. Also, spoke to leaders of various countries including Poland, South Korea and Bahrain.” They must have been brief conversations, because he was simultaneously suffering a hemorrhage of media madness. He began with a typical lament that members of Congress were not being sufficiently grateful for the generosity he shows them by pretending to do his job:

So Trump is once again upset that Congress and the press have failed to genuflect before his majesty and “total authority.” His Tweet thread continued with a complaint on behalf of Vice-President Pence, who Trump says spoke with Democratic Senators and “gave them everything that they would have wanted.” Now really, what’s the likelihood of that being true?

Trump concluded that “nothing that anyone could have said … could make [the Democrats] happy.” Then he accused them of being “RUDE and NASTY.” Which seems improbable considering that’s the standard emotional status of Trump himself. What’s more, he said that this was the Democrats’ “political playbook” that they intended to use “right up to the election on November 3rd,” because “they feel that this is the only way they can win,” and that “America will not be fooled!!!” (Trump’s exclamation points). In other words, history’s most bitterly partisan White House occupant is accusing others of being partisan, albeit with zero evidence other than his petulant whining. However, he’s right that most Americans will not be fooled, which is precisely why he’s so scared.

Trump capped his rage-ranting with a post that rehashed his familiar and false blathering about the media’s use of unidentified sources and “officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” Never mind that his own White House communications Office regularly gives “background briefings” that prohibit reporters from attributing the comments to anyone but “senior administration officials.” It’s also notable that no one uses anonymous sources more than Trump, who is constantly claiming that “some people say” some ludicrous things that support whatever lie he’s in the midst of telling.

Trump’s harangue goes on to assert that the media will “make up a phony quote from a person who doesn’t even exist,” and that “The American people should demand NAMES!” Of course, Trump has never been able to document a single case of a non-existent source. To the contrary, he frequently threatens to uncover the “leaker,” which is an admission that one exists and is telling the truth. Otherwise, why would he bother to investigate?

As for the American people demanding names, Trump is wailing impotently into the void. The American people are satisfied that the media is doing its job. They understand that the use of unidentified sources is a long established and necessary means of acquiring inside information that politicians often want to keep concealed. And polls show that people trust the media more than they trust Trump.

Even so, Trump’s desire for a public demand for named sources is less objectionable than one he floated last month when he proposed that the media be forced to reveal their sources. That’s a flagrantly unconstitutional proposal and an assault on the free press. But it isn’t surprising coming from Trump who frequently refers to the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” Talk about rude and nasty.

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

How Does Trump Have Time to Post Dozens of Tweets During a Raging Pandemic?

Posted by on April 4, 2020 at 2:29 pm. 5 Comments :

It’s Saturday and time once again for the regularly scheduled Trump Tweetstorm. On this episode, our reality TV game show president posted fifty (50!) self-serving, lie-riddled, insult-laden tweets, all before mid-afternoon.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

It’s bad enough that the American president finds it necessary to constantly lash out with such childish egocentrism on a frivolous social media site. But during a pandemic that is causing hundreds of thousands of illnesses in the country, and thousands of deaths, it is mind-boggling that he even has the time. Trump has never been a particularly efficient manager, having spent more time playing golf than any other president. And that’s when he isn’t watching Fox News or staging cult rallies. But you would think that his days would now be consumed with finding ways to mitigate the hardship – physical, emotional, and financial – that our fellow citizens are enduring.

Instead, Trump is tweeting interminably. With 50 tweets in seven hours (that’s about a tweet every eight minutes), Trump really needs to explain how that benefits a nation in distress. And you also need to factor in the time it took him to read the content that he’s retweeting prior to posting it.

Among this morning’s retweets were eight by John Solomon, a disgraced, ultra right-wing conspiracy crackpot. But even more egregious, there were 16 tweets that featured Trump’s daughter Ivanka. They covered a variety of subjects, but were mostly attempts to pay tribute to her and whatever project she’s pretending to be involved with. That’s a lot of tribute to someone who is only in the White House because of her family name.

The tweeting appears to have stopped just as Trump took to the podium at today’s Coronavirus Task Force briefing. Unfortunately, these briefings have not served their purpose from the start. Trump has hijacked them to boost his 2020 reelection campaign. So he commandeers the microphone to exalt himself, malign his critics, and shout manically at the press.

In fact, Trump opened today’s briefing by haranguing the media in some vague sense without ever explaining what he’s talking about. He later spent several minutes defending his firing of the intelligence community Inspector General, which led into several more minutes lying about the conversation wherein he extorted the president of Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden. Again, this obsession with himself does nothing to advance the fight against the coronavirus.

The bottom line is that we have a president who is flagrantly negligent. A competent leader wouldn’t have time to cast himself as the star of a daily press conference. He wouldn’t have time to bicker with reporters for whom he harbors a bitter hatred. And he surely wouldn’t have time to tweet dozens of times, predominantly about his own daughter, while the American people are suffering.

We need a president who will assemble the best and brightest experts to attack this pandemic, and then let them do that while he attends to a bigger picture agenda and the multitude of other presidential responsibilities. Trump has dropped the ball on virtually everything. And with respect to COVID-19 that has been a deadly dereliction of duty.

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

WTF? While Americans Suffer, Trump Brags (and Lies) About TV ‘Ratings’

Posted by on March 29, 2020 at 1:54 pm. 5 Comments :

Well, it had to come to this. With more than 132,000 cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) confirmed in the United States, and 2,300 plus deaths, Donald Trump is showing us what really matters to him. He isn’t expressing condolences to those who have lost loved ones. He isn’t implementing a coherent strategy for combating the pandemic. He isn’t even adhering to the social distancing orders his own task force is recommending.

Donald Trump TV Set

Nope. What matters to Trump now – and always – is his ratings. Trump’s ego is voracious. Throughout this ordeal he has spent more time paying tribute to himself than he has executing a national plan. Whenever he does address things his administration is doing, he prefaces those remarks with superlatives that applaud his actions as “the biggest,” “the most,” and “the best ever.” He simply cannot describe any effort on his part without asserting that it broke some imaginary record for fabulousness.

On Sunday morning Trump went even further to essentially admit that he’s exploiting this pandemic as a means to get free airtime to promote himself and his 2020 reelection campaign. In a flurry of frantic tweets, Trump shamelessly boasted about the ratings for the televised Coronavirus Task Force briefings. He began with a typical swipe at the media that he despises saying that “The Lamestream Media wants us to fail. That will NEVER happen!” And that “Polls are showing tremendous disapproval of Lamestream Media coverage of the Virus crisis. The Fake News just hasn’t figured that out yet!”

Trump’s assertion that the media (which he is now maligning as “lamestream” ala Sarah Palin) “wants us to fail” is not supported by reality. And Trump, as usual, doesn’t provide a single example to prove that reckless claim. Reporting accurately that Trump’s response is failing is not the same as wanting it to fail. As for polls on the public’s approval of coverage of the pandemic, they predominantly show that the majority of Americans don’t trust Trump on the subject of the virus. Even worse for Trump’s fragile ego, Americans trust the media more than they trust Trump. And then there was this:

Notice that Trump refers to the ratings of “my news conferences.” That is not what these briefings are supposed to be, They are supposed to be opportunities to keep the public informed and have questions answered by experts. They should be used to educate the public honestly about current circumstances, and to disclose what the government is doing to keep them safe. But Trump has never been a source of reliable, truthful information. As an example there’s the quote in this tweet from an unnamed “lunatic” whose existence is doubtful. That’s particularly ironic since just yesterday Trump was mightily perturbed about the use of unnamed sources.

However, Trump had only just begun saluting his ratings prowess. Not satisfied with his earlier accolades to himself, Trump unleashed a four-tweet rant quoting an article in the New York Times. Or should I say misquoting? The first tweet stated that…

“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise…”

However, here is what the article actually said with the parts Trump excised in bold:

“President Trump is a ratings hit, and some journalists and public health experts say that could be a dangerous thing.

“Since reviving the daily White House briefing — a practice abandoned last year by an administration that bristles at outside scrutiny — Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.'”

So Trump left out crucial information, but still put his edits in quotation marks. That is both dishonest and unethical. It should also be noted that viewers who both support and (mostly) oppose Trump watch these briefings. So the ratings are not an indication of Trump’s popularity. What’s more, they air on multiple networks simultaneously and, therefore, are not comparable to any single network program rating such as The Bachelor. Moving on to the second tweet…

“…On Monday, nearly 12.2 million people watched Mr. Trump’s briefing on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, according to Nielsen — ‘Monday Night Football’ numbers. Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC and online streaming sites, and the audience is expanding. On Monday, Fox News…”

And now for the actual quote from the article with relevant edits in bold:

“Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC and online streaming sites. […] And the audience is expanding even as Mr. Trump has repeatedly delivered information that doctors and public health officials have called ill informed, misleading or downright wrong.“

Most Americans would probably be interested in the fact that Trump is regarded as ill informed by doctors and public health officials. But Trump decided that they shouldn’t know that. Then, in the third tweet Trump said that Fox News…

“…alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing — an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom…”

Really? Does Trump really want to associate his pandemic briefings with sitcoms? In the fourth tweet Trump said that…

“…The CBS News poll said 13 percent of Republicans trusted the news media for information about the virus. Michael M. Grynbaum @NYTimes”

Now don’t be surprised, but Trump left out pertinent information about this as well:

“The CBS News poll said 13 percent of Republicans trusted the news media for information about the virus, versus 72 percent of Democrats.”

What this tells is something we already know if we’ve been paying attention. Donald Trump is an egocentric, malignant narcissist who will lie about all things great and small in order to exalt himself. And he couldn’t care less about the suffering of the people, about whom he rarely expresses any sympathy or condolences. In this Sunday tweetstorm Trump has proved that he is only interested in his ratings. And that, sadly, explains why he has failed so tragically to protect the nation from a pandemic that could have been averted.

UPDATE: A reporter from the ultra-right OANN asked Trump about speculation that networks would cease coverage of these briefings and if his ratings were connected to that. After complimenting the question, Trump replied that “I don’t want high approval ratings from this.” Yeah, right. So what were these tweets all about?

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

The Most Flagrantly Dishonest and Idiotic Trump Tweet of 2020 (So Far)

Posted by on March 18, 2020 at 3:28 pm. 15 Comments :

In recent days Donald Trump has shifted his tone on the COVID-19 (coronavirus) to one that appears more appropriately concerned about the threat that it poses to Americans and the world. But while he seems to be reluctantly recognizing the risks going forward, he is still fixated on assigning blame to others and paying undeserved tribute to himself.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

When asked how he would rate his response to the coronavirus crisis, Trump inconceivably gave himself a “10.” Sure, if that’s out of 100. He also claimed, in an epic feat of gaslighting, and after downplaying the matter for weeks, that “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic” (see video below that documents his lies). But for sheer stupidity and/or rabid dishonesty, Trump has still not surpassed this tweet from February 24:

In that one Twantrum, Trump managed to get two very consequential things horribly wrong. First of all, as noted above, the coronavirus was very much NOT under control. On February 24, there were only 42 confirmed cases and zero fatalities in the U.S. That has now risen to more than 7,300 infected people and 135 deaths. If that’s what Trump considers “control” we are all gonna die.

Trump’s management of this crisis has been an unqualified disaster. He ignored the peril for far too long. He disbanded the pandemic office at the National Security Agency. He refused to use the test kits provided by the World Health Organization. He relied more on his Fox News sycophants than on scientists. He trivialized the matter as a political “hoax” that he imagined was perpetrated by Democrats. And he sought to blame previous administrations (translation: Obama) for burdening him with an archaic and inefficient system. The truth is that he gutted the system himself and did nothing to restore it.

As for his investment advice, it’s hard to image that it could have been worse. The stock market that was “starting to look very good” to Trump on February 24, has dropped more than 7,000 points (30%) since then. And that was after the Federal Reserve gave Trump the ill-advised interest rate cut he lusted after. All of the gains for the past three years – the whole of Trump’s presidency – have been wiped out. Anyone who acted on Trump’s analysis has lost a fortune. But then, it’s hard to sympathize with anyone who would take financial advice from a trust fund baby with six bankruptcies, a long list of defunct companies, a failed, phony “university,” and a charitable foundation that was found to be fraudulent?

There is, however, a bit of relatively good news. The American people aren’t buying Trump’s BS. A recent poll found that only 37% trust what he says about the coronavirus. That’s the predictable result of having lied more than 16,000 times since he was inaugurated.

Unfortunately, that’s a dangerous position for a nation to be in when it faces the sort of hardships that the U.S. faces today. Under the circumstance, we should have someone at the helm that isn’t a malignant narcissistic and a pathological liar. And with any luck (and a lot of hard work) we will have new, respectable leadership by next January. That is, if Trump hasn’t killed us all before then.

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

Trump Violates Whistleblower Protection Laws with Retweet of Suspicious (Fake?) Twitter Account

Posted by on December 28, 2019 at 11:58 am. 2 Comments :

You have to wonder if Donald Trump is now actively seeking additional Articles of Impeachment that can be filed against him. Apparently “Abuse of Power” and “Obstruction of Congress” are not stigmatizing enough for a malignant narcissist who considers himself the greatest [fill in the blank] that the world has ever seen, not to mention the Earthly personification of “The Chosen One.”

Donald Trump, Prison

Late on Friday night Trump embarked on a three hour Twitter-palooza that included panicky attacks on his perceived foes, fear-soaked cries of unfair persecution, and featured a random assortment of worshipful Twitter defenders, including QAnon crackpots. Trump tweeted until midnight, saving what he must have considered the best for last. The final post of this 40-plus, witching hour harangue was a tweet that could land Trump in even deeper impeachment trouble. The posting that Trump retweeted will not be linked here because of its profoundly illegal content and reckless endangerment of the innocent. But here is a graphic with appropriate redactions:

Donald Trump Whistleblower Tweet

This tweet includes the name of someone that the original tweeter (Sophia), and Trump, are asserting outright is the whistleblower. Of course, they have no evidence to make such an assertion, and there is no credible validation of its accuracy. Nevertheless, Trump is disseminating this rumor as if it were true. There are two big problems with this.

The first problem is that it is unlawful to expose the identity of an anonymous whistleblower. The whistleblower statute is provided to protect the individual from harm and/or retaliation, and to maintain the right for others to safely come forward when they encounter government waste, fraud, abuse, and to protect public health and safety.

The second problem is that, because the identity of the whistleblower is still unknown, the person identified in this tweet could have nothing to do with this, but his/her welfare is still put in jeopardy. That is an act that is beyond reckless. It would be irresponsible for anyone to post this sort of information. but it’s far worse that a president would participate in such a potentially harmful act.

Trump is not only speculating about someone whose identity he doesn’t know, he is threatening the person with prosecution for perjury. That’s precisely the sort of retaliation that the Whistleblower statute prohibits. What’s more, there is no evidence of perjury. While Trump has repeatedly claimed that the whistleblower’s report was untrue, a simple comparison of the filing to the summary memo (what he falsely calls a transcript) of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president shows that the whistleblower was correct on every point made. Trump himself has corroborated the whistleblower’s account.

But there is even more wrong with this tweet. For one thing, Sophia is not exactly a credible source. The picture in her Twitter profile is, in fact, a stock photo available from Getty Images. Furthermore, the text of her tweet is a verbatim copy from a three week old posting on the blog of a notorious, right-wing conspiracy nut, Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit). The text of the tweet of her own that she retweeted was also copied from Hoft’s page. And it bizarrely claims that “secret” hearings exonerate Trump. But how could Sophia (Hoft) know that if they’re secret? And for the record, those hearings were open to both Democrats and Republicans.

Clearly Sophia is a dubious character who is endeavoring to plant and disseminate disinformation on the Internet. And Trump somehow managed to stumble upon this bogus account and retweet it. Coincidence? Who knows? But what is know for certain is that Trump has put an innocent person’s life in danger. (Note: the person is innocent whether or not he/she is the whistleblower). And he has also added to the potential list of legal breaches for which he can be impeached. If only the Senate would do its job with integrity and concern for the nation, rather than coddling the criminal occupying the White House.

UPDATE: This is bizarre. The Twitter account for “Sophia” (Surfermom77) has been deleted entirely. But when that name is entered it redirects to someone named “Emma” (2Samson67) that has all of the exact same content as Sophia. The tweet that Trump retweeted is still in the same place on his Twitter timeline, but now says it’s from Emma.

UPDATE II: Now Emma’s account is deleted and was replaced with “Leona” (2Leona65), which was also deleted and replaced with a second “Leona” (4Shereene4). All of these accounts have the same content (tweets) and say they are “100% Trump supporters” in California and joined Twitter in July 2013. They seem to be trying to evade detection and suspension by Twitter.

UPDATE III: And the parade of fake accounts continues. The second Leona has been deleted and replaced with “Gigi” (LovelyGigi33). Stay tuned.

UPDATE IV: The mysterious tweet that kept changing identities is now gone. But the damage was done, and Trump’s complicity in this deceit – and illegal naming an alleged whistleblower – needs to be fully investigated.

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

Trump Goes on Holiday Twitter Tantrum Against Nancy Pelosi – and the Constitution

Posted by on December 26, 2019 at 11:55 am. 4 Comments :

STOP THE MADNESS! During his campaign, Donald Trump promised that he would work every day in The White House because there was so much that needed to be done. Instead, he has spent more time at his golf resorts, watching Fox News, and tweeting, than anything else. In fact, when it comes to those wasteful, childish diversions, he never takes a day off. Not even for Christmas.

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

Trump’s holiday tweet-o-rama was narrowly focused on matters that have consumed his consciousness for weeks. While he pretends not to be worried about having been impeached, it’s practically the only thing he is paying any attention to. It’s an obsession that is gnawing at him to the exclusion of everything else. And his Twitter tantrum is evidence of just how haunted he is by this permanent stain on his legacy. He began on Christmas day by tweeting that…

There’s a lot to unpack in that brief tirade. On the same day that Trump released an eerily morose Christmas message that called for “deeper understanding and respect,” he’s posting insults to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling her “crazy.” And he is also exhibiting his painfully weak grasp of the Constitution that unambiguously grants the House of Representatives the “sole power to impeach.” What’s more, he doesn’t understand that a majority of any size gives that party parliamentary control. Even so, a 34 seat majority is not “slight.” And he has apparently forgotten that the Republican majority in the Senate is only four seats.

Trump goes on to dismiss the impeachment because no Republicans voted for it. But that only reinforces the fact that the GOP acts as a monolithic and partisan unit that doesn’t care about the truth. Which puts them in alignment with Trump who then proceeds to lie about his allegedly “perfect,” “no pressure” phone call with the president of Ukraine.

From there Trump wanders off into a diatribe about “due process,” which is only relevant in a court of law. Nevertheless, Trump did have the opportunity to appear in his own defense and to have his attorneys plead his case. It was not disallowed. He declined. Now Trump is refusing to allow witnesses and documents in the Senate hearing that he has whined about not having in the House.

Let’s set aside the false assertion that any particular part of this is “supposed” to be in one body or the other. What Trump is complaining about here is that the testimony that he actively obstructed wasn’t made available. Maybe he should stop obstructing it. Maybe he should also stop pretending that Democrats want to slow down the process, as he says in his next tweet. It’s Trump and the GOP who are gumming up the works by refusing to set the terms for the Senate hearing.

Finally, Trump acts out in his typically infantile way with a multi-tweet attack on Pelosi and the district she represents in California. Just like he has done previously with Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and others, he maligns them for problems that exist in all cities. But he blames Pelosi as somehow being responsible.

LATE ADDITION: Trump tweeted…

Trump actually believes that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally edited him out of a cameo in Home Alone 2. Never mind that this edit was actually made five years ago, before Trump was even a candidate. The reason Trump believes that Trudeau is responsible is because it’s what he would do in similar circumstances. Trump thinks that national leadership includes the power to exact petty vengeances on your enemies. In fact, he has even exercised that corrupt power by redirecting a federal contract from Amazon (because Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post), to Microsoft. Which is blatantly illegal.

There is simply no denying that Trump is terrified and desperate. The whole of his attention is on the impeachment and what he considers unfair treatment. And it manifests in these furious Twitter rampages that only make him look even more deranged. So it’s not surprising that public support for his impeachment and removal from office has hit a new high. And if he continues on this disastrous course, he should expect it get even worse.

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