Adam Schiff

Tucker Carlson: US is Only Aiding Ukraine to ‘Punish Russia’ for ‘Stealing Hillary Clinton’s Coronation’

Posted by on May 3, 2022 at 1:03 pm. 4 Comments :

Fox News has a roster of ultra-regressive shills who provide a daily dose of diatribes that are drenched with dishonesty. But on any given day you can rely on one pundit in particular to sink below the rest and unleash the most repugnant distortions of reality and flagrant conspiracy theories contrived on the manically right-wing network. And that dishonor is bestowed upon Fox’s Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson.

Hillary Clinton

Leave it to Carlson to find the scum-slathered bottom of every issue with his smug sermonizing and deliberate disregard for facts. The latest example of his Olympic-grade assholery was presented on Monday night during a segment on the Russian war in Ukraine. Carlson took his standard position in support of Russia and its genocidal dictator, Vladimir Putin.

RELATED: Fox News Senior Putin Apologist, Tucker Carlson, Pleads to Keep the Russian Dictator in Power

However, on this occasion Carlson went even further down the rabid hole with his warped analysis of why the United States is providing aid to Ukraine. And in his perverse perspective it had nothing to do with saving lives or defending a democratic ally. Carlson ranted that (video below)…

“Democrats have convinced themselves Russia stole the presidency which rightfully belonged to Hillary Clinton. And they mean it when they say it. And that’s why they are taking us to war with Russia. [..] The war in Ukraine is not about saving democracy. Please.”

WHUT? Democrats are taking the U.S. to war because “Russia stole the presidency” from Hillary Clinton? That’s the sort of unique perspective that one would expect from a schizoid street preacher on meth. Carlson asserted that “We know the Biden administration doesn’t care” about the Ukrainian people or democracy and that “Many more Ukrainian civilians will die, certainly, thanks to the Biden administration’s policies.” He continued his rant saying that…

“If you wanted to save Ukraine, its people, its infrastructure, you would push for a settlement now. You would have done it two months ago. But they’re not doing that. […] Instead, the war in Ukraine is designed to cause regime change in Moscow. They want to topple the Russian government. That would be payback for the 2016 election. So this it the logical, maybe the inevitable, end stage of “Russiagate.” Now we should have seen this coming because they said it out loud years ago. Here’s Adam Schiff from two years ago predicting it, saying it. Watch this…”

Here we have Carlson unambiguously advocating for appeasement with the Russian invaders. He seriously believes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should negotiate with Putin – who is murdering Ukrainian civilians – to concede part of Ukraine to Russia simply because Russia demands it. And Carlson’s claim that “the war in Ukraine is designed to cause regime change in Moscow” is utterly absurd. The war was started by Russia. So is Carlson saying that Russia designed the war to cause regime change in Russia?

RELATED: Trump’s ‘Solution’ to the War in Ukraine is to Appease Russia and Quash Any Criticism of Putin

Carlson then switches gears to assert that the war is actually “payback for the 2016 election.” And his justification for that ludicrous notion comes from something he clipped from Rep. Adam Schiff’s opening remarks of the first impeachment of Donald Trump:

Schiff video: As one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry, “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there and we don’t have to fight Russia over here.

As usual, Carlson edited that video to remove the context. Carlson is trying to portray the motivation for American aid to Ukraine as solely based on antipathy toward Russia. But in Schiff’s unedited remarks it is apparent that the concern for Ukraine was paramount:

“Trump conditioned hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally appropriated, taxpayer-funded military assistance for the same purpose: to apply more pressure on Ukraine’s leader to announce the investigations. This military aid, which has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support, was designed to help Ukraine defend itself from the Kremlin’s aggression. More than fifteen thousand Ukrainians have died fighting Russian forces and their proxies, and the military aid was for such essentials as sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, radar, night vision goggles and other vital support for the war effort.

Most critically, the military aid we provide Ukraine helps to protect and advance American national security interests in the region and beyond. America has an abiding interest in stemming Russian expansionism, and resisting any nation’s efforts to remake the map of Europe by dint of military force, even as we have tens of thousands of troops stationed there. Moreover, as one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry: ‘The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.'”

It’s also notable that it wasn’t just Democrats who supported aid to Ukraine. Republicans, then as now, voted to appropriate funds and military support. So that’s another reason that Carlson’s claim that Democrats plotted all of this to topple Putin doesn’t make any sense. But making sense clearly isn’t the objective of someone who claims that…

“We don’t arm Ukraine so we can help Ukrainians. They are merely unfortunate pawns in all of this. We arm Ukraine so that we can punish Russia. Why? For stealing Hillary Clinton’s coronation.”

So it’s still all about Hillary Clinton? REALLY? Notice that nowhere in Carlson’s harangue does he ever acknowledge that Russia initiated this heinous invasion against a peaceful neighbor. Or that, contrary to being pawns, Ukraine has been begging for help to fight Russia. To Carlson, just as to Trump, this is merely a negotiable difference of opinion that should be resolved by reaching a compromised settlement wherein both parties make concessions.

Never mind that it’s Putin who is the aggressor and refuses to negotiate. There is simply no way that Carlson will criticize Putin or demand that Russia cease its monstrous assault and leave Ukraine. And rather than acknowledge reality, he’s venturing even farther from it with his bizarre allegations about Hillary Clinton. Carlson is as cognitively deficient as Trump.

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UPDATE: Here is the same Carlson segment as presented on Russian state television…

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Trump’s Republican Coup Supporters are Attacking Adam Schiff for Accurately Quoting Jim Jordan

Posted by on December 15, 2021 at 4:15 pm. 0 Comments :

Things have really sunken to unbelievable depths when right-wing dimwits have to blatantly fabricate pseudo-scandals in order to diminish political foes that they don’t have the intellect to engage honestly. It’s bad enough that Donald Trump and his Republican confederates are relentlessly peddling lies about the January 6th insurrection, but now they are also pulling utter garbage allegations from their asinine imaginations.

Donald Trump, Adam Schiff

The ultra-rightist Federalist website published a ludicrous alleged “exposé” of what they considered a shocking misrepresentation of a text sent to Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. They introduced this abomination saying that…

“During a hearing Monday night on the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Adam Schiff claimed to have proof that a member of Congress texted former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to instruct former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“Not only did Schiff misrepresent the substance of the text message and its source, he even doctored original text messages, which were obtained and reviewed by The Federalist in their entirety.”

The charge of “doctoring” is laughably over the top. What the Federalist is so outraged by is that the quote Adam Schiff read was slightly condensed for relevance and clarity. Here is both the quote as Schiff presented it, followed by the unedited text:

Schiff’s quote: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”

The unedited text: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence”

Note that the only difference is that Schiff’s version didn’t include the part about Alexander Hamilton, and it placed a period at the end. None of that changed the context or meaning of the quote. Nevertheless, the Federalist went berserk with charges that Schiff “doctored” the quote with some nefarious intent. Quotes are often edited to be concise and to focus on the subject at hand. For instance, no one expects a quote from the Declaration of Independence to repeat the entire document when the discussion only concerns the part that says “all men are created equal.”

The original intent of the text was to pass along a legal opinion that would justify throwing out electoral votes for Joe Biden simply because Republicans didn’t want Biden to win. That message was conveyed in both versions of the quoted text. In Schiff’s remarks he affirmed that saying that…

“You can see why this is so critical to ask Mr. Meadows about. About a lawmaker suggesting that the former vice president simply throw out votes that he unilaterally deems unconstitutional in order to overturn a presidential election and subvert the will of the American people.”

Indeed, the purpose of the text was to advocate for overturning a valid election and installing Trump as an unelected, authoritarian dictator. While Schiff identified the author of the text as simply a “lawmaker,” the Federalist outed the author, revealing that it was Rep. Jim Jordan.

This triggered further outrage by the Federalist. They complained that Schiff attributed the text to a member of Congress, but that Jordan actually forwarded a text he received from the lawyer who wrote the anti-democratic legal opinion. In the view of the Federalist it was improper to attribute the text to the congressman. To the contrary, it was, in fact, an entirely proper attribution because Jordan was the person who sent it Meadows.

What’s important about this is that Jordan, a member of Congress, was advancing a dangerous and undemocratic legal theory, and passing it on to the president’s chief of staff. They were a part of the coup attempt that was being plotted by Trump and his traitorous accomplices.

However, since they couldn’t find anything wrong with the presentation of the evidence by Schiff, they built up a bizarre fantasy of some imaginary breach of ethics – and misplaced periods – and offered that as a distraction from the actual crimes committed by Trump and others in his cabal. Clearly they have given up trying to be rational, or even coherent.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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Big Baby Trump Lashes Out at Adam Schiff for Urging the Justice Dept to Probe His Crimes

Posted by on December 5, 2021 at 1:36 pm. 8 Comments :

The best way to gauge what Donald Trump is most afraid of at any given point in time is to observe whatever he is ranting about at that time. And more often than not, Trump is ranting about his decisive loss to President Biden in the 2020 election.

Donald Trump, Adam Schiff

Ever since Trump’s humiliating rejection by a significant majority of the American people, he has persisted in lying about the election being “rigged” and “stolen” from him. Never mind that in more than a year – and sixty plus court cases – he has failed to produce a shred of evidence of his delusional charges.

A few weeks ago House Democrats formed the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Insurrection. Trump’s role in that atrocity has been well documented. So naturally he has taken to slandering the Committee and its members. He even issued a hysterical debate challenge to anyone willing to sully themselves by pandering to his lunacy. Of course, if he really wants to debate members of the January 6th Committee, he could just volunteer to show up and testify under oath. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. FYI: Trump is now dodging the debate his proposed.

At the forefront of Trump’s diseased mind is Rep. Adam Schiff, who was also a key figure during Trump’s first impeachment. His closing arguments were a brilliant and moving summation of the offenses Trump committed that warranted his impeachment and removal from office. But now Trump is lashing out in his typically infantile manner at Schiff. He tweeted (via his Twitter ban defying spokes-shill)…

“Do you believe that Shifty Adam Schiff is on the Committee concerning the 2020 protest when he was the one that scammed America and the World on the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax? He’s a sleezeball that has no credibility and is so bad for our Nation!”

Notice that Trump is calling the deadly riots in Washington, D.C., that he incited a “protest.” And he continues to refer to the verified accounts of his unsavory connections to Russia as a “hoax.” As for the childish insults he hurled at Schiff, as usual they apply more accurately to himself.

This latest Trump tantrum was likely triggered by reports that Schiff is concerned that Attorney General Merrick Garland is not pursuing indictments against Trump and his crime syndicate. Schiff has been making the rounds on television news programs to promote his new book, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could. During those interviews Schiff has made a point of expressing his disappointment with the Attorney General:

“I think there’s a real desire on the part of the attorney general, for the most part, not to look backward,” Schiff said on the podcast. “Do I disagree with that? I do disagree with that, and I disagree with it most vehemently when it comes to what I consider even more serious offenses.”

Schiff’s views are shared by millions of Americans who are anxious to see Trump and his cronies held accountable for their anti-democratic activities. There is more than enough evidence to indict and convict Trump. Some of the evidence comes from Trump himself. There’s even an account from his coup plotting co-conspirator Alex Jones implicating him.

So Trump’s Twitter freak out is understandable. But it isn’t going to make things any better for him. To the contrary, it only affirms his consciousness of guilt. Hopefully Garland will heed Schiff’s warnings and get moving on the Trump investigation. There is little time to spare. Republicans are hoping to run out the clock. But for the sake of democracy, and the future of the country, Garland must not allow that to happen.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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Adam Schiff Deftly Dodges Trump Shill’s Ambush and Puts the Focus on Trump’s Crimes

Posted by on November 9, 2021 at 2:50 pm. 2 Comments :

Rep. Adam Schiff has long been a thorn in Donald Trump’s side. As the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, as the lead manager in Trump’s first impeachment, and now as a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. Schiff has an insider’s experience of Trump’s anti-democratic crime spree, and a vast store of detailed knowledge and legal expertise.

Donald Trump, Adam Schiff

Schiff is currently promoting his new book, “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could,” that provides his unique perspective of Trump’s attempted coup. He appeared on ABC’s The View Tuesday (video below) to discuss the book and the harrowing events that it describes.

Part of the segment included questioning by guest co-host, Morgan Ortagus. She was a contributor at Fox News who Trump tapped to be a spokesperson for the State Department. From the beginning, Ortagus was intent on maligning Schiff. She led off with a line of questioning that insinuated he was responsible for falsehoods contained in the infamous Steele dossier. But Schiff wasn’t having it:

Ortagus: We know last week the main source of the [Steele] dossier was indicted by the FBI for lying about most of the key claims in that dossier. Do you have any reflections on your role in promoting this to the American people?
Schiff: Well, first of all, whoever lied to the FBI or lied to Christopher Steele should be prosecuted, and they are. And unlike in the Trump administration, if they’re convicted, they should go to jail and not be pardoned. So Donald Trump pardoned Roger Stone for lying. He pardoned Michael Flynn for lying. If people lied to the FBI they should go to jail.

But at the beginning of the Russia investigation I said that any allegations should be investigated. We couldn’t have known, for example, people were lying to Christopher Steele. So it was proper to investigate them. And let’s not forget what we learned in that investigation. We learned that the Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was giving internal polling data, campaign polling data, to Russian intelligence while Russian intelligence was helping the Trump campaign.

First of all, Igor Danchenko, one of the sources refenced in the dossier, was not indicted “for lying about most of the key claims in that dossier.” The indictment was only for allegedly false statements about a couple of his sources of information. That said, Schiff correctly noted that anyone who lies to the FBI should be held accountable. Then he cites Trump associates who confessed to lying as examples. And he makes the point that Trump pardoned those admitted felons.

Schiff continued with a reminder of the crimes that Trump’s cohorts, including his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, were found guilty of. And he didn’t let Trump off the hook for requesting and receiving Russian campaign help. That led to Ortagus actually accusing Schiff of “spread[ing] Russian disinformation.” To which Schiff replied…

Schiff: Well, I completely disagree with your premise. It’s one thing to say that allegations should be investigated, and they were. It’s another to say that we should have foreseen in advance that some people were lying to Christopher Steele, which is impossible, of course, to do. But let’s not use that as a smoke screen to somehow shield Donald Trump’s culpability for inviting Russia to help him in the election, which they did; for trying to coerce Ukraine into helping him in the next election, which he did; into inciting an insurrection, which he did. None of that is undercut, none of that serious misconduct is in any way diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele.
Ortagus: No, I think just your credibility is.
Schiff: Well, I think the credibility of your question is in doubt.

Once again, Schiff flipped the tables on Ortagus and used her slanderous question to reiterate Trump’s treachery with respect to Russia, Ukraine, and January 6th. Schiff has distinguished himself as an articulate prosecutor who displayed that talent in his summation as impeachment manager. Making a plea for a guilty Senate verdict, Schiff asked senators to remember why America’s Founders included impeachment as a remedy in the Constitution. It was…

“For a man who would sell out his country for a political favor. For a man who would threaten the integrity of our elections. For a man who would invite foreign interference in our affairs. For a man who would undermine our national security and that of our allies. For a man like Donald J. Trump.”

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:
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It Wasn’t Just Democrats: Trump Also Spied on Don McGahn, His Own White House Counsel

Posted by on June 13, 2021 at 12:31 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week it was disclosed that Donald Trump’s Department of Justice secretly seized phone data from Democratic opponents in what amounts to an authoritarian style inquisition. The targets of the probe included Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and impeachment manager Eric Swalwell. It was an unprecedented abuse of power triggered by Trump’s acute paranoia and dictatorial aspirations.

Donald Trump Red Face

The reports revealing the DOJ’s pursuit of data from members of Congress followed similar reports of secret data seizures from the press, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN. The accumulation of such discoveries prompted people to wonder what else was going on during the Trump years that was still unknown. And now we know at least a little more. According to CNN…

“Former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife received disclosures from Apple last month that their account records were sought by the Justice Department in February 2018, while McGahn was still the top lawyer representing the presidency, according to a person familiar.”

That’s right! Trump was actually spying on his own White House counsel and his family. It’s notable that the DOJ’s probe took place shortly after media reports that Trump had asked McGahn to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. McGahn refused to do so, and even threatened to resign. This affair became even more bizarre when Trump went on TV and accused McGahn of perjury. McGahn was still his counsel at the time. Subsequently, Trump tried to pressure McGahn to cover up the request.

It’s one sort of gross malfeasance for Trump to go after his political foes. It’s another thing entirely to go after his allies and current staffers. This revelation should make everyone who ever worked for Trump wonder if they were – or will be – victims of his snooping. In fact, they should assume so.

Trump has no sense of boundaries whether it comes to loyalty, morality, or the law. His malignant narcissism compels him to regard only his own welfare as relevant. And his behavior as observed over decades – and especially in the White House – affirms that he will throw anyone and everyone under his fleet of vengeance seeking buses.

NOTE: Twitter recently 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.

Trump Hails Stock Market Whose Rise is a Rejection of Him

Posted by on October 12, 2020 at 1:21 pm. NO Comments :

The manic frenzy that is displayed daily on the Twitter feed of Donald Trump is especially heated this Monday morning. He posted 75 tweets before 3:00pm in what may break his all time record of 123 tweets in single day. It’s impossible to say at this point whether the reason for this crazed output is his acute panic at the prospect of a landslide electoral loss to Joe Biden in three weeks, or the side effects of the drugs he’s been taking to treat his coronavirus. Or maybe a catastrophic combination of both.

Donald Trump, Stock Market Crash

The flurry of frantic and anxious outbursts that make up this tweetstorm run the gamut of Trump’s paranoid psychoses. For instance, Trump tweeted about a “Big spike in the China Plague in Europe,” in an attempt to compare it to the U.S., which he apparently doesn’t know is suffering from a similar or worse spike. He tweeted that New York and California are “going to hell.” Which is an odd campaign strategy of maligning the biggest states in the country that you’re supposedly leading. He tweeted that he is “winning BIG in all of the polls that matter.” Which I guess are the polls of boaters and maskless bar patrons. But he wasn’t through.

Trump also tweeted that “We will have Healthcare which is FAR BETTER than ObamaCare, at a FAR LOWER COST.” Which is documented in the invisible plan that he has been saying for three years that he will release in two weeks. And as an indication of what is most important to him, Trump posted ten tweets in support of Eric Early, who running a laughably futile campaign against Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff may be the member of Congress Trump despises most after Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That’s more tweets than he posted in support of his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

However, perhaps the most enthusiastic of Trump’s twittery concerned the performance of the stock market. He managed to get something right for once by noting that it was going up. However, he has no idea why it’s doing so. He, of course, thinks he’s responsible for it. And in a way he is, but not in the way he thinks.

Trump has been shouting from the White House rooftop for weeks that a Biden presidency will thrust the nation into a depression. Let’s just set aside the fact that we are already in a recession during the Trump presidency. Trump’s tweets are cheering on the market’s rise along with fear mongering about a collapse if Biden is elected. Never mind that Obama and Biden presided over a much more robust economic recovery and market advance than Trump has. The five tweets he posted on this subject were evidence of nothing more than Trump’s ignorance and ego. For example…

What Trump is missing is that the rise in the market is occurring simultaneously to the rise in Biden’s polling against Trump. The greater the margin of Biden’s lead, the higher the market goes. That’s the market indicating that it is looking forward to a Biden victory. The market is always representative of the future. And this isn’t just a coincidental observation. According to Goldman Sachs, “A Democratic sweep would mean faster economic recovery.”

“…’a blue wave would likely prompt us to upgrade our forecasts,’ Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius wrote in a Monday report.”

Hatzius went on to note that a blue wave would increase the likelihood of a coronavirus relief bill. He also noted the positive impact of Biden’s spending plans on infrastructure, climate, health care and education. But that isn’t all. Moody’s also weighed in saying that…

“Moody’s Analytics found that Biden’s economic proposals, if enacted, would create 7.4 million more jobs than would Trump’s. The economy would return to full employment in the second half of 2022, nearly two years earlier than under Trump’s plan, Moody’s said.”

Of course, none of this is a guarantee that the market will continue going straight up. There are distinct warning signs for a down turn. The market is already over-valued in some analysts opinions. And the overweighting of just a few stocks (more than 20% of the S&P) that uncharacteristically benefit from the current conditions (Apple: 7.3%, Microsoft: 5.9%, Amazon: 5.3%, Google: 2.4%, and Facebook: 2.4%) don’t tell the market’s whole story. And as anyone with the slightest inkling of knowledge is aware (which leaves Trump out), the stock market is not the economy. Most Americans do not own stocks.

There is, however, one thing that can’t be denied. If Trump’s fear mongering were correct, the market would have been on a downward trend for at least the past couple of months. Clearly the financial institutions that drive the market don’t agree with Trump. The fact that it’s strong and rising is a testament to the market’s confidence in, and preference for, a Biden presidency.

So keep that in mind when voting. And tell your friends and family. It is Trump who has proven to be an economic imbecile who declared bankruptcy on six separate occasions, lost billions of dollars during the boom times, and currently owes more than $400 billion to – well, we don’t know who because he refuses to release his tax returns. That by itself is reason enough to remove Trump from office. And also to investigate him for criminal activity and crimes against the state.

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

Trump Reveals to Fox News His Plan to Get the Supreme Court to Declare Him President

Posted by on September 21, 2020 at 12:16 pm. 2 Comments :

This year appears to have a rather sadistic bent as it relentlessly piles on melodramas and anxieties. It’s not bad enough that we are suffering through a deadly pandemic that is being dreadfully mismanaged by Donald Trump. We are also having to deal with an economy in recession and civil unrest triggered by systemic racism. And all in an especially contentious election year.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

Adding to those national migraines is the tragic passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Not only has America lost an iconic figure who has made innumerable contributions to civil liberties and equal justice, but it thrusts the nation into a bitterly partisan battle to replace her. Republicans are shamelessly contradicting their previous insistence that the president shouldn’t nominate a Justice during an election year. Apparently that principle only applies to Democratic presidents. The GOP is perfectly OK with nominations by an impeached president who still has multiple criminal and civil indictments hanging over his head.

Making matters worse is Trump himself (as usual), who was “interviewed” twice in two days by Fox News. In a sit-down with Fox’s Mark Levin on Sunday night Trump whined that Fox News wasn’t sufficiently worshipful, and that they catered too much to Democrats. Are we sure that Trump even knows what channel he’s watching?

On Monday Trump visited the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. This is apparently his new regular gig that he leaked last week. It was there that he unleashed some wild speculations and disturbing revelations. When the subject to Ginsburg’s replacement came up, Trump led off with a thoroughly disgraceful allegation maligning the integrity of Ginsburg and her family:

Ainsley Earhardt: Then you have Ruth Bader Ginsburg who told her granddaughter on her death bed, allegedly, that her dying wish was to have the next president choose her successor. How do you think all this plays out?
Trump: I don’t know that she said that, or was that written out by Adam Schiff and Schumer and Pelosi. I would be more inclined to the second. Okay, it came out of the wind. It sounds so beautiful. But that sounds like a Schumer deal or maybe a Pelosi or Shifty Schiff. So that came out of the wind. Let’s see. I mean maybe she did and maybe she didn’t.”

Trump’s assertion is entirely without foundation – or decency. He is of such weak character that he can’t help politicizing this tragedy by invoking the names of his favorite foils in Congress. Rep. Schiff replied on Twitter, telling Trump that “This is low. Even for you.” But how difficult would it be to believe that Ginsburg had such feelings. She said so many times before. Unfortunately, Trump has an insatiable need to drag everything down to his loathsome level, even if it means desecrating the memory of a universally respected and honorable American. Even if it means despicably disparaging Ginsburg’s last wishes as a Democratic hoax.

Perhaps Trump can’t believe that Ginsburg would make what he curiously concedes is a “beautiful” statement (that “came out of the wind,” whatever that means) because it so far outside anything he is capable of. But he went on to expose his true agenda that reeks of the totalitarian aspirations for which he is well known:

“The bottom line is that we won the election. We have an obligation to do what’s right and act as quickly as possible. We should act quickly because we’re gonna have, probably, election things involved here, you know, because of the fake ballots they’ll be sending out. A terrible situation.”

Oh My! Our infamously inarticulate president is recognizing the threat of “election things” involved here. Never mind that those “things” are manufactured lies about mail-in voting that Trump has been telling for months without ever bothering to provide a scrap of evidence.

More importantly, Trump is confessing that his obsession with confirming a new Supreme Court Justice is rooted in his determination to steal the election. He is anticipating a legal battle for which he wants to make sure that he has a majority on the Court to rule in his favor and, if necessary, declare him the winner. This is the sort of court manipulation that is more common under dictators who pack their courts with subservients and sycophants.

What’s more, this is not an aberration or careless misstatement. Trump made similar remarks on Saturday at his latest cult rally and Super Spreader event in North Carolina. Worried about the prospect of there not being a declared winner on election night, Trump expressed his nefarious desire to put the decision in the hands of a court system that he has packed with allies:

“Now we’re counting on the federal court system to make it so that we can actually have an evening where we know who wins. Not where the votes are going to be counted a week later or two weeks later.”

This is Trump’s way of disenfranchising citizens who vote by mail. If their ballots are postmarked on or before election day, but the ballot processing and counting is not completed until some time after, Trump wants all of those votes to be invalidated. He is literally calling for the suppression of voter’s rights. And since more Democrats vote by mail, it’s easy to see why Trump is pursuing this. It is just the logical progression of his yearning for unchecked tyrannical power. And it must be vigorously challenged if America is to remain a free democratic republic.

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

Hannity Freaks Out Over Holding Trump Accountable for His Coronavirus Death Toll

Posted by on May 2, 2020 at 1:11 pm. 3 Comments :

Donald Trump is without question the most reckless, ignorant, and incompetent president in America’s short history. Nevertheless, he is renowned for failing to take responsibility for any of his calamitous failures. Trump will vainly shift blame to others, employ awkward deflections, and lie shamelessly to avoid being held accountable. With Trump, the buck is always handed off to an innocent political foe or some hapless flunky.

Donald Trump Sean Hannity

Fortunately for Trump, he has a cadre of glassy-eyed disciples in right-wing media who will cover for him no matter how ludicrous the circumstances. Most of them reside at State TV (aka Fox News), such as his shadow chief-of-staff-infection, Sean Hannity. Trump relies on Hannity as a defensive shield against uncomfortable facts, propaganda dissemination, and contorted political strategy. And on Saturday Hannity fulfilled all three of those roles in a brief blog post.

The headline on Hannity’s harrangue was “A NEW LOW: Schiff Says ’50,000 Americans Are Dead’ Because Trump Wasn’t Impeached and Removed.” He lashed out at Rep. Adam Schiff for what he said were “Schiff’s vicious comments.” Elaborating, Hannity charged that…

“Congressman Adam Schiff escalated his war-of-words with the Trump administration Saturday; saying “50,000 Americans are dead” because the President was not impeached and removed from the Oval Office.”

What Hannity was referencing was a portion of a Schiff interview on Friday with Chris Hayes on MSNBC (video below). Schiff accurately observed about Trump that “A man with no moral compass will never find his way, and this president certainly hasn’t.” The subject of the segment was Trump’s tragically negligent response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Hayes asked Schiff about comments he made at the conclusion of Trump’s impeachment that speculated about the grave necessity of removing Trump from office to avert future catastrophes. Schiff’s response speculated about the degree of damage Trump would still be capable of if he remained:

“How much damage could he really do? We posed that question to the Senate and we answered it by saying that he could do an awful lot of damage. But frankly, Chris, I don’t think we had any idea how much damage he would go on to do in the months ahead.

There are 50,000 Americans now who are dead in significant part because of his incompetence. Because of his inability to think beyond himself and put the country first. I don’t think we would have ever anticipated that his brand of narcissism and his brand of incompetence, sometimes his brand of malevolence, would be so fatal to the American people.

To be clear, Hannity’s assertion that Schiff said 50,000 Americans are dead because Trump wasn’t removed from office is inaccurate. What Schiff is that the deaths were because of Trump’s incompetence. Of course, those deaths would not have occurred had he been removed, but neither would they have occurred had he not been incompetent. What’s more, the severity of the coronavirus casualties is being under reported. The death toll is now over 65,000 with more than 1,100,000 infected.

A month ago Trump said that he would consider a total of 65,000 deaths to be a “victory.” That was an estimate for August that we reached in April. A few days ago his son-in-law (and senior advisor), Jared Kushner, called it “a great success story.” But yesterday Trump was busy tearing down and reconstructing the goal posts at 100,000 fatalities. Expect those posts to be pushed back further in a few weeks.

As for Hannity, his concern about not holding Trump accountable for the death toll isn’t surprising. But he is also failing to hold himself accountable. He spent the past couple of months dismissing the coronavirus as an insignificant form of the flu. As a result, a recent study revealed that watching Hannity actually increased one’s likelihood of dying from the disease. So it would be wise to practice social distancing from Hannity as well as all other Fox News viewers and Trump supporters. You can’t be too careful these days.

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

Trump Chokes When Asked ‘What’s Your Message to Putin’ on Election Interference

Posted by on February 23, 2020 at 1:25 pm. 5 Comments :

Democrats are currently engaged in heated primary season with multiple candidates still jockeying for position. And the media attention on this is having a severe effect on Donald Trump. Narcissists don’t like it when they are not the center of attention. Consequently, Trump is ratcheting up his psychotic outbursts in order to seduce the press to stay focused on him.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

Trump’s latest plea for attention is a desperate and bizarre appeal for what he portrays as fairness for Bernie Sanders in the primaries. Of course, Trump couldn’t care less about how the Democratic primaries are conducted, other than to slather them with mud and lies. His phony concern for Sanders is actually a play straight from the Russian playbook and intended to sow discord and chaos. And running his defense is Fox News who are making ludicrous assertions that the media and Democrats are the “Agents of Russia.”

Recent reports revealed that American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia is, once again, interfering with the presidential election. The reports detailed Russia’s efforts to tip the scales in favor of Trump and Sanders. Trump’s own Office of the Director of National Intelligence, led by Joe Maguire, sent a deputy to brief Congress about this a couple of weeks ago. This news made Trump irate. Not the news that Russia was attacking our democracy, but the news that Congress was told about it. So Trump fired Maguire and replaced him with Rick Grennel, a Trump toady who has no experience whatsoever in intelligence.

So with an impending national crisis involving a hostile foreign enemy attempting to subvert our election, Trump was confronted by a reporter who asked a simple, but significant question:

“Have you been briefed that Russia is trying to help Bernie Sanders and, if so, what’s your message to Putin?”

Pay close attention to that question, and then consider Trump’s reply (video below):

“Nobody said it. I read where Russia’s helping Bernie Sanders. Nobody said it to me at all. Nobody briefed me about that at all […] They leaked it. Adam Schiff and his group, they leaked it to the papers. And, as usual, they ought to investigate Adam Schiff for leaking that information. He should not be leaking information out of intelligence. They ought to investigate Adam Schiff.”

So Trump’s response to a question on what message he has for his pal Vladimir Putin, who is trying to foul our election is “They ought to investigate Adam Schiff.” Really? Trump had absolutely nothing to say to Putin. His only interest is in persecuting an elected member of Congress who is complying with his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Putin, on the hand, is held harmless as he continues to attack this country. As long as Putin’s anti-American plots are designed to benefit Trump, Trump is content to allow them to proceed.

What’s more, Trump’s remarks are wholly unfounded and reckless. He has no evidence that Schiff leaked anything. It’s more likely that it was a Republican congressman (Devin Nunes?) who spilled to the press. And Trump doesn’t specify who he thinks should be investigating Schiff. Russia? Attorney Genuflect Bill Barr? Rudy Giuliani? Fox News? And if that’s not enough, Trump is also admitting his ignorance of Russian activity that everyone else already knows. Either his national security team is serving him poorly, or he’s lying (or both).

Trump followed up those remarks with a tweet that made things even worse:

Once again, Trump is baselessly accusing Schiff of leaking classified information. However, Trump also suggests that the “information” that Schiff allegedly leaked was made up. In which case, it wouldn’t be classified. But worst of all, Trump overtly threatens Schiff with being “caught” and suffering “a very unpleasant experience!” All without a hint of evidence that Schiff did anything wrong.

This is part and parcel of Trump’s psychopathy that drives him to seek vengeance and to persecute his perceived enemies. It’s a frightening descent into fascistic totalitarianism. And with each passing day Trump is less and less worried about exposing those tendencies and acting on them. This is precisely the behavior that many warned Trump would engage in if Senate Republicans didn’t have the guts to expel him from office. And as it worsens, the blame needs to be evenly spread around from Trump to the GOP to Fox News and the rest of the Reich-wing media.

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

Trump Orders Justice Dept to Persecute His Critics and Pamper His Accomplices

Posted by on February 12, 2020 at 12:53 pm. 3 Comments :

There really is no bottom. Now Wannabe Dictator Donald Trump is bringing fascism to America. He is directing his corrupt Justice Department to investigate and prosecute (persecute) his critics. Meanwhile, he lobbies for light sentences and dangles pardons for his bootlicking sycophantic criminal accomplices. This is not normal. And it demonstrates that Republicans who thought Trump might learn from his impeachment were frighteningly mistaken and/or deluded.

Donald Trump

Trump’s Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, announced that he will be revising the sentencing recommendations for convicted felon Roger Stone. The prosecutors who tried the case recommended seven to nine years based on established legal guidelines. But Barr’s intervention is based on nothing more than Trump’s angry tweets. And if that’s not bad enough, Barr is assuming control of virtually everything that comes into the Justice Department that involves Trump. And Trump is obviously pleased…

The spectacle of seeing a president congratulate his toady AG for letting a convicted criminal off the hook should send shivers up the spines of the American people. Stone was found guilty of five counts of lying to Congress, and one count each of witness intimidation and obstruction. But his friend in the White House is pulling strings so that he doesn’t have to pay the price for his crimes. As a result of Barr’s interference, all four of the federal prosecutors who tried the case have quit.

What’s more, Trump’s tweet also makes a dangerously reckless and baseless accusation that former special counsel Robert Mueller “lied to Congress.” Trump doesn’t bother to cite any alleged falsehood, probably because he just made it up to slander Mueller. In a subsequent tweet Trump asserted, also without any foundation, that the career DOJ lawyers who tried Stone are “Rogue prosecutors.”

Trump has frequently weighed in on the criminal prosecutions of his associates. Just the fact that he has so many associates who have been prosecuted and found guilty is horrifying. But his reaction has been to lobby for lighter sentences or to issue pardons himself. Some of this confederacy of felons include his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, his deputy campaign manager, Rick Gates, his National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and more.

On the other side of that legal coin, Trump has accused many of his political adversaries of crimes without any evidence whatsoever. In addition to Robert Mueller, Trump charged that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff “is a corrupt politician and a criminal;” that “Nancy [Pelosi] is every bit as guilty;” that “Hillary Clinton lied to the FBI;” and that “The Biden family was PAID OFF.” None of these allegations have an iota of evidence for support. They are purely driven by the animosity and vengeance of a wrathful president.

It has been widely known for years (decades?) that Trump is a vile and vindictive person who relishes punishing his perceived enemies. And he perceives enemies virtually everywhere, as he himself recently confessed. But the fact that he has an administration full of glassy-eyed cult followers who will obediently serve his will makes him all the more dangerous. And the Department of Justice is at the top of that list.

What this means is that there is nothing left to separate America from the totalitarian regimes and their tyrants that Trump so admires. This was articulated well by Sen. Chuck Schumer Wednesday on the floor of the Senate. It cannot be overstated how unusual it is for a speech like this to take place. but his words should be taken seriously if this country is to restore justice and preserve democracy:

“The President is claiming that rigging the rules is perfectly legitimate. He claims an absolute right to order the Justice Department to do anything he wants. And the President has as his Attorney General an enabler. And that’s a kind word. Does anyone think it’s out of the question that Pres. Trump might order the FBI to investigate Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or anybody else without any evidence that supports such an arbitrary violation of individual rights?

“Oh, I know. Some far-right conspiratorial writer, who has no credibility and who just makes things up, writes it, Fox News puts it on, Sean Hannity or someone talks about it, and then the president says ‘Investigate.’ That is third world behavior – not American behavior.”

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