Associated Press

DELUSIONAL: Trump Thinks He Won a Lawsuit Against the Associated Press that He Actually Lost

Posted by on October 6, 2025 at 8:05 am. 1 Comments :

Concern abut the noticeably deteriorating mental acuity of Donald Trump has been an active topic of discussion for months (years?). And since his reoccupation of the White House this year, it has only accelerated. This is a problem that puts the nation – and, in fact, the whole world – at risk.

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Donald Trump, Insane, Straight Jacket

The past few weeks have seen Trump delivering speeches that have raised questions about his ability to perform the duties of the presidency. At the United Nations he rambled aimlessly about subjects that have nothing to do with the state of the world’s affairs or the foreign policy of the United States. At a celebration of the Navy’s anniversary he wandered off into some of his purely political fixations. And throughout all of it Trump lied and whined petulantly about his imagined victimhood.

SEE THIS: Trump Whines that ‘All They Do Is Hit Trump’ and Decrees That ‘They’re Not Allowed To Do That’

The troubling spectacle of watching a president devolve cognitively has renewed talk of his removal from office via the 25th Amendment of the Constitution. His flagrant lying, seething hostility, and thuggish threats are all symptomatic of mental illness. And much of what Trump says is just plain delusional. For example, one of the bizarre statements he made at the Navy event was entirely removed from reality.

“We got sued by the Associated Press, and they lost. In fact the judge was so good, he’s calling it the Gulf of America. He’s got all of the approvals. You have to do that too. To the very liberal Associated Press. They got thrown out of court. In fact they’re almost not allowed to cover me anymore because of that.”

Trump: "We got sued by the Associated Press, and they lost. In fact, the judge was so good he said, 'He's calling it the Gulf of America. He's got all the approvals' … they got thrown out of court. In fact, they're almost not allowed to cover me anymore because of that. It was a big hit."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-10-05T20:56:22.814Z

All of that is simply untrue. Although it is consistent with Trump’s animosity toward the free press that he has repeatedly maligned as “the enemy of the people.” He began attacking the AP after they refused to comply with his preposterous attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. In a fit of fury he banished them from the White House and other presidential press access. The AP filed a lawsuit to restore their rights. And contrary to Trump’s assertion, they did not lose. As reported by – appropriately – the AP…

“[A] federal appeals panel handed The Associated Press an incremental loss on Friday in its continuing battle with the Trump administration over access by its journalists to cover presidential events. By a 2-1 margin, judges on the three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington granted Trump a stay in enforcement of a lower-court ruling that the administration had improperly punished the AP for the content of its speech.”

To be clear, the AP actually won their lawsuit against Trump in a lower court that ruled that he could not block them from access to Trump in places like the Oval Office or Air Force One. A three judge panel of the appeals court only granted Trump a stay on that ruling pending his appeal. The ruling was not overturned. The AP did not get thrown out of court. And Trump’s claim that “they’re almost not allowed to cover me anymore,” is just plain nuts.

The AP isn’t the only media outlet that Trump has sought to ban. He also evicted the Wall Street Journal from certain press events after they published a birthday note that Trump wrote to his pedo-pal, Jeffrey Epstein.

What’s more, Trump has filed numerous lawsuits against the press, including ABC News, CBS News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN, for what amounts to hurting his feelings. But what else would you expect from an aspiring authoritarian who began his second term by declaring himself the king of the White House press corps?

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Trump’s Propaganda Secretary Lies to Fox News About Terry Moran, the AP, and the Constitution

Posted by on June 8, 2025 at 12:57 pm. 1 Comments :

The shamelessness of how Donald Trump is advancing his intentions to reign as a supreme monarch over the United States continues to rocket to new heights of abhorrent anti-Americanism. He ignores every principle upon which this nation was founded as he rolls roughshod over them. Which he will do literally on June 14, with his North Korean style military birthday parade in Washington, D.C.

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Donald Trump and Karoline Leavitt

This week Trump celebrated what he said was a big win over the Associated Press when a three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court voted 2-1 to allow him to continue to ban the Associated Press from presidential press events in the Oval Office and other locations that he deemed private.

Trump’s problem with the AP was their refusal to comply with his vain decree that all media refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Which other countries do not recognize. So in retaliation he took over the White House press pool, which was previously determined by the independent White House Correspondents Association. Under Trump the pool became populated by slobbering pro-Trump hacks.

SEE THIS: Trump Declares Himself King of the White House Press Corps, Will Now Decide Who Can Question Him

The ruling that thrilled Trump so much was actually just a temporary stay of a prior federal court ruling that declared Trump’s ban unconstitutional. The stay was a 2-1 decision issued by a three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court and is in effect until the full court hears the case. The two judges deciding in Trump’s favor are Trump appointees. The AP is expected to appeal the ruling to the full court or the Supreme Court. D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote that…

“These restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion. No one suggests the Oval Office is a traditional public forum such as a park or sidewalk held in trust for expressive activity.”

That’s a twisted conclusion that ignores the fact that anywhere that the media is permitted general access, there may not be any exclusions based on viewpoint discrimination. That would be a violation of the First Amendment whether it is in the Oval Office or a park.

On Sunday morning, Trump’s Propaganda Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, took up her usual position on Fox News (where she spends most of her time) to flagrantly lie about several matters related to the media (video below). Among them was her defense of how Trump has reshaped the White House press corps to mirror his totalitarian image. Leavitt told Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, Maria Bartiromo, that…

“In president Trump’s White House we have made so many significant and much needed changes to press access and transparency in the White House. We have invited in new media. We have shaken up the White House press pool.”

Indeed, They have “shaken up the White House press pool” by limiting the access of credible journalists and replacing them with fringy Internet trolls who worship Trump. And that includes a Russian funded MAGA podcaster. That isn’t transparency as much as it is blatant promotion of Dear Leader’s manifesto. And it has resulted in some painfully comical episodes of bullshittery.

FOR EXAMPLE: Trump Escalates His War on the Press – and the Courts – with Predictably Preposterous Results

Leavitt also addressed the Associated Press affair, bragging about the imaginary “major victory”. She mocked the AP for thinking that “they had a constitutional right to walk into the Oval Office or to fly on Air Force One,” which they do. She went on to say that “those are privileged spaces that belong to the president of the United States,” and calling it “a great ruling for democracy.” Which is the polar opposite of the truth. It’s grotesquely arrogant to suggest that the Oval Office is a “privileged space” for the president. And censoring journalists hardly makes it a banner day for democracy.

Finally, Leavitt complained about a commentary posted by ABC News correspondent Terry Moran, who engaged in some courageous truth-telling about Trump and his designated Goebbels aide, Stephen Miller. Moran said of Miller that “It’s not brains. It’s bile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater [and that] his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.” And about Trump Moran wrote that “his hatred is only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”

It would be hard to argue with Moran’s assessment. But Leavitt managed to find a way. She told Bartiromo that…

“ABC is gonna have to answer for what their so-called journalist put out on Twitter in the wee hours of the night […] Hopefully this journalist will either be suspended or terminated. You cannot go on these unhinged rants against administration officials and the president of the United States.”

Moran later deleted the tweet. It is impossible to discern if that was because of the complaints by the Trump administration. However, ABC did suspend Moran pending further review. But it’s notable that ABC is also in the middle of a lawsuit filed against them by Trump that is complicating their proposed merger with another media company.

That, however, doesn’t justify Leavitt’s threat that you can’t go “against administration officials and the president of the United States.” Never mind that the Constitution says that you can. This fascist-leaning administration won’t permit it. And if the media doesn’t start defending itself – and the Constitution – they will soon be unable to do anything but praise Dear Leader.

Leavitt: "ABC is gonna have to answer for what their so-called journalist put out on twitter … we have reached out to ABC. They have said they will be taking action, so we will see what they do … hopefully this journalist will either be suspended or terminated."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-06-08T14:21:49.375Z

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Trump Escalates His War on the Press – and the Courts – with Predictably Preposterous Results

Posted by on April 14, 2025 at 2:28 pm. 1 Comments :

The road toward totalitarianism that Donald Trump has taken since he was reelected last November is becoming ever more clear with each day of his reoccupation of the White House. Despite being reprimanded and constrained by judicial injunctions, Trump continues to ignore the courts and forge his own unlawful path to satisfy his autocratic cravings.

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Donald Trump

Earlier this year, Trump acted out his aspirational dreams of being America’s first dictator by banning the Associated Press from presidential events because they refused to obey his petty and unconstitutional demand to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. It was a blatant violation of the First Amendment’s protection of the free press.

SEE THIS: The Media Must Boycott Trump’s Phony Press Conferences Until He Stops Censoring Journalists

Undaunted by the principles of press freedom and the rule of law, Trump has now defied a court ruling to allow the AP into his media avails. According to Mediaite…

“Despite a recent injunction reinstating access, an AP spokesperson confirmed their journalists were denied access to an Oval Office press event on Monday. ‘Our journalists were blocked from the Oval Office today. We expect the White House to restore AP’s participation in the pool as of today, as provided in the injunction order.’”

The AP is being extraordinarily naïve if they really expect Trump to comply with the law. He has already demonstrated his disrespect for law and order by refusing to comply with a judge’s ruling to facilitate the return of a Maryland father that Trump’s immigration regime unlawfully sent to a gulag in El Salvador.

As a result of Trump’s efforts to banish credible journalists from the White House press pool, we are seeing more questions like the one that Trump received on Monday about his recent physical examination. Brian Glenn, a “reporter” from the rabidly right-wing MAGA outlet, Real America’s Voice (and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend), raised the subject with an adoring preface and a sickly sycophantic slant in the following exchange…

Reporter: You got a perfect health report. Everybody in the press wants to know this. How do you do it Mr President? … How do you stay so healthy? … How in the world do you do it? I’m 55 years old and I can’t keep up with you.
Trump: Because I enjoy what I’m doing […] Thank you. That’s a nice question. I like this guy!

Q: You got a perfect health report. Everybody in the press wants to know this — how do you do it Mr President? How do you stay so healthy?TRUMP: Because I love what I'm doing

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-04-14T15:26:26.285Z

HOLY SHIH TZU! Could this get any closer to parody? Why didn’t the reporter just ask why Trump is so handsome, smarter than Einstein, and better fit than an NFL quarterback? Which is not far from what Trump’s alleged physical report claimed. It says that he is 6’3″ and 224 pounds. Which is almost identical to that of Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs.

The question above was not the first of its kind. Last week a “reporter” from MyPillow’s Mike Lindell network asked…

“Trump looks healthier than ever before. I’m sure everybody in this room could agree. Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy and is he eating less McDonald’s?”

Are these reporters so infatuated with Trump that this is their way of asking him out on date? Notice that in both questions the reporter spoke for everyone else in the press pool, asserting that they all agree that Trump is a superior human specimen. However, most of the rest of the country doesn’t hold these perverse views. In fact, they are increasingly repulsed by Trump and his performance in office.

According to a new CBS News poll, “Most Americans recognize that the economy is getting worse.” Although there is a sharp partisan divide showing that 80% of Democrats say the economy is “bad” while 62% of Republicans say it’s “good.” Overall, Trump’s disapproval rating shot up to a majority 53% from 47% two short months ago.

What’s more, the percentage of Americans who say the economy is getting worse rose 11 points from 42% to 53% between November and March. And who is to blame for the worsening economy flipped in the past month from Biden by 4 point to Trump by 33 points – a 54% majority saying Trump is to blame.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to attack the media. His latest salvo is another swipe at CBS 60 Minutes over Sunday’s program that featured an interview of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, and a story about Greenland. Trump posted a rambling rant on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“I am so honored to be suing 60 Minutes, CBS Fake News, and Paramount, over their fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting. They did everything possible to illegally elect Kamala, including completely and corruptly changing major answers to Interview questions.” [And that…]

“They should lose their license! Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.”

This psychotic scrambled egghead is still obsessed with Kamala Harris. And he is imagining “unlawful and illegal behavior” where none exists. Over which he has given orders to his FCC chair to commence some sort of punitive proceedings. These are the acts of an aspiring authoritarian who seeks to muzzle the media and ship his critics off to foreign prisons. And if the American people don’t rise up to reject it, many of them may find themselves in the same boat.

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The Media Must Boycott Trump’s Phony Press Conferences Until He Stops Censoring Journalists

Posted by on February 12, 2025 at 12:32 pm. 2 Comments :

There have been a disturbing amount of firsts achieved by Donald Trump as he commences his second occupation of the White House. None of which would foster pride in any honorable man or woman. They include his being the first president convicted of felonies; the first adjudicated as a rapist; the first barred from running a charity; and the first to openly admire, praise, and seek to emulate vile dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and even Adolf Hitler.

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Donald Trump TV Set

Trump is also the first president to hold the free press in such contempt that he repeatedly refers to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” And no American leader before him has sought so aggressively to undermine the constitutional protections of the press provided in the First Amendment. The white hot intensity of Trump’s hostility toward the media is reflected in his nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel…

SEE THIS: Trump’s Free Press? His FBI Flunky Kash Patel Threatens to ‘Come After the People in the Media’

The latest example of Trump’s anti-press obsession is his response to a perfectly reasonable editorial decision by the Associated Press concerning Trump’s preposterous plan to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” The AP noted that “Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States.” Then they elaborated saying that…

“The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”

That decision is entirely within the rights of the AP to make as they see fit, and within the principles of professional journalism. However, in Trump’s egomaniacally twisted view, he imagines that he has the right to punish the media whenever they do something that offends him personally. Consequently, Trump issued an order banning the AP from Oval Office media events. That is pure, unadulterated censorship that violates the Constitution. The AP responded saying that…

“Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

The AP was not the only media enterprise that was appalled by the tyrannical behavior of Trump. Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said that…

“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions. The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.

“The WHCA stands with The Associated Press and calls on the administration to immediately change course.”

Craig Aaron, President and Co-CEO of Free Press Action, testified before Congress Wednesday and enumerated the attacks on the free press by Trump and his administration that “is using the power of the government to shake down the media and quash dissent.” Including…

  • Trump’s FCC chairman (and Project 2025 co-author), Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke broadcast licenses because he doesn’t like the viewpoints he sees on TV.
  • Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News for $20 billion because he didn’t like how 60 Minutes chose to edit an interview with Kamala Harris.
  • Disney/ABC, Meta, maybe now CBS — paying tens of millions of dollars to settle specious lawsuits. They appear to be paying off the president to shield themselves from reprisal or gain regulatory favors.
  • All the billionaire owners of these companies line up on the dais at the president’s inauguration clutching million-dollar checks to show their loyalty.

MORE HERE: Trump Hurls Hate and Fear at All of the Media He’s Suing Following the ABC News Capitulation

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also made an impassioned speech defending the free press and condemning Trump’s censorious assault on the AP…

“Yesterday, Donald Trump banned the Associated Press, a 179-year-old newspaper organization, from the White House because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America.’ This is straight up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination. Trump’s DoD kicked out eight newsgroups that had space in the Pentagon, but which asked skeptical questions of the new Secretary. Including the New York Times, NBC News, and the Washington Post. All ousted in favor of outlets willing to faithfully advance the party line of the state, like Breitbart and One America News Network.”

Raskin: "Yesterday, Donald Trump banned the Associated Press, a 179-year-old newspaper organization, from the White House because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America." This is straight up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-02-12T15:24:14.097Z

For these, and so many other reasons, the media needs to stop pussy-footing around with Trump. He is virulently opposed to the mission of the free press in America, and he couldn’t care less about the Constitution’s explicit protections. And now that he has escalated his attacks to actually banning journalists for doing their jobs, the press must stop giving him the attention he craves to disseminate pure propaganda.

His press conferences are nothing more than staged photo-ops where he badgers and bullies reporters without answering their questions. Instead he replies with known lies, infantile insults, and noxious self-exaltation. Then he filibusters until his nannies usher the reporters out of the room.

News outlets don’t need to be present to suffer that disrespect and abuse. They can send interns to record the nonsense that he spews, and then report on it later with proper context and fact-checking. That will surely drive Trump crazy(er), as he seethes in an empty room yearning for the adulation he covets to satisfy his narcissistic lust.

UPDATE 2/14/2025: Trump has escalated his war on the AP. They have now been banned indefinitely from the Oval Office and Air Force One.

UPDATE 2/22/2025: The AP is suing the Trump administration to rescind its unconstitutional ban on their reporters.

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Trump Says Ye and Fuentes Weren’t Vetted Because ‘My Guests [Won’t Be] Strip Searched and Beaten’

Posted by on December 1, 2022 at 4:28 pm. 11 Comments :

The aftermath of Donald Trump dining with a flagrant anti-Semite (Ye, aka Kanye West) and a notorious white supremacist (Nick Fuentes) continues to roil the political firmament. While a few of Trump’s Republican allies have criticized him, Trump himself has yet to condemn the hate mongering of his Mar-a-Lago dinner companions.

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Donald Trump, MAGA

On Thursday afternoon Trump took to his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, to attempt to justify his inexcusable fraternization with the blatantly bigoted cretins that he was so comfortable with that he didn’t feel it necessary for his security team to vet them. Never mind that Fuentes is a leader of the American neo-Nazi movement and Ye’s loathsome prejudices were well established.

RELATED: Kanye West Seeks to Buy Parler, the Virulently Racist and Anti-Semitic Twitter Clone

With that as the backdrop, Trump lashed out a reporter for the Associated Press, Jill Colvin, who wrote an article documenting how “Trump’s dinner disaster sparks new rules for his campaign.” Trump raged that…

“The story in AP, written by the untalented and very unreliable Jill Colvin, who I unfortunately got to know at the White House, is Fake News. We have very strong security, especially with the extremely talented Secret Service Agents on premises, but when I know someone, as I did Ye, we’re not going to have my guests strip searched, thrown against walls, and otherwise physically beaten. The anonymous sources don’t exist. Stories to the contrary are FAKE NEWS!”

Really? Let’s set aside Trump’s customary lambasting of any reputable journalist that dares to tell the truth about him. What’s notable here is his willingness to allow strangers into his inner sanctum. This is, of course, the same place where he hoarded the classified documents that he stole from the White House. So imagine all the other nefarious characters who might have had access to them due to Trump’s dangerously casual attitude toward security.

Furthermore, Trump is asserting that anyone who does actually get vetted by his security team is routinely subjected to being “strip searched, thrown against walls, and otherwise physically beaten.” If that’s the standard operating procedure at Mar-a-Lago, you have to wonder where he’s hiding all the bodies.

The AP article that triggered Trump’s temper tantrum reported that…

“[Trump’s] dinner with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and a rapper who has spewed antisemitic conspiracies … underscores the dangers of his limited campaign operation and leaves the former president subject to stinging criticism from fellow Republicans who increasingly see him as a liability.” […]

“Trump’s campaign is putting new protocols in place to ensure that those who meet with him are approved and fully vetted, according to people familiar with the plans who requested anonymity to share internal strategy. The changes will include expediting a system, borrowed from Trump’s White House, in which a senior campaign official will be present with him at all times, according to one of the people.”

According to Colvin’s sources, Trump’s staff has determined that he needs a chaperone at all times in order to prevent another dining catastrophe or other humiliation. That’s been apparent to Trump watchers for years. However, Trump disputes this story and calls it – what else – “fake news.” So apparently he thinks his operational practices are working just fine, despite the repugnant guests he just hosted and the turmoil it’s caused.

Trump’s brilliant excuse for the unsavory dinner party is that he had “never heard of” Fuentes and that he “had no idea what his views were.” Which in some ways makes the whole affair worse. The aspiring leader of the free world really ought to know the most prominent hate mongers in America, especially if he’s inviting them into his home. But then, Trump has a history of not knowing people that he obviously knew. Here are some of his past denials…

  • I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia
  • I don’t know who the Proud Boys are
  • I don’t know Matt Whitaker (his former acting Attorney General)
  • I don’t Know [Gordon] Sondland (his former US Ambassador to the EU)
  • I don’t know [Alexander] Vindman at all (his National Security Council aide)
  • I don’t know who Lil Jon is (a Celebrity Apprentice contestant).
  • I never met former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He knows nothing about me.
  • I don’t know [George Papadopoulos] (his foreign policy advisor)
  • I know nothing about WikiLeaks (after saying “I love WikiLeaks.”)
  • I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is. (former aide to his WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who testified before the January 6th Committee)

Whatever nonsense Trump wants people to believe about his fore-knowledge of Fuentes, he is not denying his knowledge and friendship with Ye. So just to put a fine point on what that means, here is Ye telling Alex Jones that he “sees good things about Hitler,” and later says that he likes him…

If this is any indication of how Trump is going to manage his 2024 presidential campaign, we can rest assured that there will be an abundance of similarly grotesque episodes. And you can also be confidant that Democrats will be watching eagerly to witness the meltdown with plenty of popcorn on hand.

RELATED: Truth Social Traffic Flames Out Just as Trump is Trying to Fire Up His Next Losing Campaign

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GOP Sen. Tom Cotton Baselessly Accuses the Associated Press of Colluding with Hamas

Posted by on May 17, 2021 at 5:17 pm. 7 Comments :

There has been a measure of devolution observable in the United States Congress. Some of its newer members on the Republican side are adherents to preposterous conspiracy theories and have a disturbing aversion to facts and/or truth-telling. Names that rise to the top of that list include Lauren Boebert (who recently blamed President Biden for a shortage of Chick-fil-A dipping sauce), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is a committed devotee of QAnon).

Tom Cotton

Another Republican conspiracy crackpot is Sen. Tom Cotton. On Monday Cotton took the Senate floor to do his best Tucker Carlson impersonation. That’s a talent that consists mainly of asking a bunch of stupid questions without providing any answers, but making sure that whatever is being insinuated will stick in the gullible minds of his target audience.

Cotton’s topic was the Israeli bombing of a building in Gaza that housed offices of the Associated Press, and also, allegedly, a Hamas military facility. The bombing was highly controversial and was covered by the media in detail. However, the press missed some of the questions that Cotton raised, mainly because they were really stupid questions:

“Whys is the Associated Press sharing a building with Hamas? Surely these intrepid reporters knew who their neighbors were. Did they knowingly allow themselves to be used as human shields by U.S. designated terrorist organization? Did the AP pull punches and decline to report for years on Hamas’ misdeeds? I submit that the AP has some uncomfortable questions to answer.”

Let’s take this from the top. Whether the AP was sharing a building with Hamas is not an established fact. Cotton has no evidence of it, nor does U.S. intelligence (at least as far as they’re admitting). Israel says they have evidence but have delayed releasing it while they are preoccupied with the ongoing conflict. So Cotton’s first question is based on an assumption for which he has no facts.

Cotton goes on to make a back-handed compliment suggesting that the “intrepid reporters” at AP would know all of their neighbors. Again, there is nothing to support that assertion. And there is no reason to assume that the AP had investigated every other tenant in the building. What’s more, if Hamas occupied an office there, they would likely have kept it secret and wouldn’t have been running around with Hamas armbands or other identifying insignia.

From there Cotton makes a repulsive charge that the AP might have been allowing themselves to be used as human shields. WTHF? It is profoundly irresponsible and reckless to make such a charge without irrefutable proof. He is, in effect, accusing journalists of engaging in terrorism.

Finally, Cotton implies that because of the alleged proximity of a Hamas office, the AP would deliberately distort their reporting to benefit Hamas. Again, Cotton is making a horrific accusation without a shred of evidence. He doesn’t even supply any AP stories that he thinks might have soft-peddled Hamas. He’s just taking wild swings in the dark.

This is the sort of thing you would expect from a disreputable cretin like Tucker Carlson. But for a U.S. senator to be flinging unsupported allegations as serious as these from the Senate floor is a grotesque abuse of his position.

Unfortunately, that is what we have come to expect from a Republican Party that still believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and that his victory was stolen from him by a massive cabal of Democrats, Republicans, journalists, election officials, voting machine manufacturers, Venezuelans, Germans, and Ukrainians. So if anyone should have to answer some uncomfortable question it’s Cotton and his GOP confederates who actually did support the domestic terrorists who invaded Congress on January sixth.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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A Brutal AP Fact Check Exposes Trump’s Intellectual Laziness and Hostility Toward the Truth

Posted by on December 1, 2018 at 6:44 pm. NO Comments :

If there is anything that we’ve learned from Donald Trump’s first two years in the White House it’s that he is utterly uninterested in educating himself about the issues a president is required to know. Even worse, he has a stifling aversion to the truth and will callously lie to advance whatever message he’s pushing at the moment.

Donald Trump

The Associated Press took inventory of some of the President’s recent public remarks and compared them to reality. The result is a pathetic and troubling expose of a man completely unfit to lead a remedial scout troop, much less the most powerful nation on the planet.

The AP described Trump’s failings as a “slippery grasp of science as well as trade policy.” But their observations go way beyond that, covering most of the subjects that will eventually touch every American’s life. What follows are a few choice selections from the article that illustrate just how dangerous Trump’s willful ignorance is:

TRUMP: “Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China, and there is a long way to go. If companies don’t want to pay Tariffs, build in the U.S.A. Otherwise, lets just make our Country richer than ever before.”
THE FACTS: That’s not how it works. Yes, money from tariffs is going into the federal treasury, but it’s coming from U.S. businesses, not from overseas. Tariffs are paid by the importer, not the exporter or government in another country. Beyond that, tariffs paid by U.S. companies tend to result in higher prices for consumers. So a tariff is a transfer of wealth from business to government, and sometimes from consumers to government as well. It is not a foreign payment to the U.S.

TRUMP: (On the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement): “The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly. It is probably the largest trade deal ever made, also. ”
THE FACTS: It’s not the largest trade deal ever made. It covers the same three countries as its predecessor, NAFTA.

TRUMP: “Our steel industry a year ago was dead, and now it’s one of the most vibrant anywhere in the world. Big Steel is opening and renovating plants all over the country.”
THE FACTS: Construction spending on factories has yet to take off significantly after having been in decline between 2016 and much of 2018. […] A year ago, the steel industry employed 141,200 people, says the Labor Department. Now, 145,100. That’s a gain of 3,900 jobs during a period when the overall economy added 2.5 million jobs.

TRUMP: “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.”
THE FACTS: Last year had the most unhealthy soot days since 2011. The number of days with unhealthy smog levels was down from 2016, but higher than 2015, 2014 and 2013.

TRUMP: (On the confrontation between migrants trying to rush into the U.S. and authorities who used tear gas to drive them back): “Three Border Patrol people yesterday were very badly hurt, getting hit with rocks and stones.”
THE FACTS: This didn’t happen, according to the account by the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan. He said there were no “reported serious injuries on either side of the border.”

TRUMP: (Retweet): “Illegals can get up to $3,874 a month under Federal Assistance program. Our social security checks are on average $1200 a month.”
THE FACTS: Wrong country, wrong numbers, wrong description of legal status of the recipients. The $3,874 refers to a payment made in Canada, not the U.S., to a legally admitted family of refugees.

TRUMP: “Obama had a separation policy; we all had the same policy. I tried to do it differently, but Obama had a separation policy. But people don’t like to talk about that.”
THE FACTS: Obama did not have a separation policy. The Trump administration didn’t, explicitly, either, but that was the effect of his zero tolerance policy, which meant that anyone caught crossing the border illegally was to be criminally prosecuted, even if they had few or no previous offences. The policy meant adults were taken to court for criminal proceedings and their children were separated.

The AP article (posted on the Fox Business website) goes into greater detail and has some additional examples of Trump’s lies. However, this is a representative sampling of how little regard Trump has for conveying facts to his dimwitted cult followers. It’s this sort of dishonesty that makes it difficult for average Americans to engage in rational discourse with Trump supporters. His glassy-eyed disciples live in a world of make believe that turns them into regurgitation machines for his deliberate falsehoods. And that blind devotion to Trump’s manufactured unreality poses serious risks for the future of the country – and the world. Which makes it incumbent on the rest of us to redouble our efforts to correct the record and spread knowledge.

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

In Defense of Fox News (?): Trust in Media Graphic Was Early, Not Censored

Posted by on April 9, 2018 at 11:44 am. NO Comments :

There is no question that Fox News is the most brazenly biased right-wing distorter of reality that has even been broadcast. It’s executives, hosts, and contributors are almost entirely devoted to disseminating conservative propaganda, much of it dictated by Donald Trump’s White House. Even worse, Trump’s positions are often dictated by Fox News.

Fox News Lies

That said, there has been a story circulating around the InterTubes that is just plain wrong. It asserts that Howard Kurtz, host of Fox’s MediaBuzz, was surprised by a graphic that showed Fox News as being the least trusted cable news network, and that he called for it to taken down in order to suppress that anti-Fox information. There is a lot wrong with that assertion.

First of all, there was a graphic that appeared during Kurtz’s program that was out of place. Kurtz did ask that it be taken down. But that’s only because it was out of sequence. When that part of the discussion came up a couple of minutes later, he showed that graphic again at the proper time. There was no attempt to censor it. (See video below).

Also, the argument that this graphic was taken down because it showed Fox News as trusted less than MSNBC and CNN is not accurate. The Monmouth University survey that was the basis for the graphic’s data did not compare the networks’ trustworthiness. It compared whether respondents trusted Trump or the media more. That’s actually worse from Trump’s perspective. Although that misreading is largely the fault of Fox News. The graphic needs to be read left to right, not top down. By highlighting the column instead of the rows Fox invited the misinterpretations. As News Corpse previously wrote about this poll:

“Like other polls before it, Monmouth found that Americans trust the media more than they do Donald Trump. That’s gotta sting the President who has been striving furiously to turn the nation against the press. The detail shows that 48 percent of Americans trust CNN more than Trump (35% trust Trump more). Forty-five percent trust MSNBC more than Trump (32% for Trump). Even 30 percent trust Fox News more than Trump (20% for Trump). Although the Fox numbers also show that a plurality of 37 percent trust both equally. This affirms that Trump’s base is still immovably stuck in the low thirties.”

The original story asserting that Fox News was embarrassed by an errant graphic and deep-sixed it appears to have been published by the Associated Press. They have since corrected their story. But it’s important that the record be correct in the progressive media so as to preserve our moral claim to being reality-based. There are more than enough legitimate examples of Fox News lying. And the findings in the poll are bad enough for Trump that they don’t need to be muddied up with misunderstandings.

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

Trump is Frantically Looking to Hire Fox News People to Staff His Flailing Press Office

Posted by on May 13, 2017 at 4:11 pm. 4 Comments :

The controversy over Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey continues to unfold. And the President insists on making matters worse with comments that are implicit admissions of impeachable offenses. For instance, Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt that he asked Comey if he was a subject of an FBI investigation. He also asked Comey to pledge an oath of loyalty and threatened him with releasing secret tape recordings. All of these could be regarded as ethical breaches sufficient to warrant an impeachment inquiry.

Donald Trump Sean Spicer

While the core story is as disturbing as anything that’s come out of Washington in decades, there are spin-offs that are equally unsettling. Among them are recent reports concerning the toxic status of Trump’s White House Press Office. Sean Spicer and company have been taking a severe beating over their inability to communicate a consistent, coherent message. They have lost credibility among their peers and, apparently, their bosses as well. On Friday Jeanine Pirro of Fox News asked Trump if Spicer’s job was secure. He pointedly declined to give a straight answer.

Trump is so upset that he actually proposed eliminating the daily press briefings and communicating via Twitter. He also suggested that he might just hold weekly press conferences by himself. An article in the Associated Press noted that Trump “increasingly sees himself as the White House’s only effective spokesperson.” While the absence of regular press avails would ordinarily be an unprecedented insult to the public trust, in the case of this White House it hardly matters. Very little of substance, or truth, is derived from their daily get-togethers.

Now there are reports that Trump is sending out feelers to reshape his press operation more to his liking. In the same AP article there was a line that revealed where Trump’s thinking is headed for the near future:

“Trump is mulling expanding the communications team and has eyed hiring producers from Fox News, according to one White House official.”

That should fix everything. When your press office isn’t lying well enough, get yourself some professionals to do it. For the record, Trump has already tapped Fox News for several administration appointments. Former Foxies on the White House payroll currently include K.T. McFarland, Ben Carson, Sebastion Gorka, Heather Nauert, Richard Grennell, and Jonathan Wachtel. There has never been an administration that was so packed with people from a major news enterprise. And now that’s going to get even worse.

Among the rumored changes is one that predicts the departure of Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Trump insiders are telling the media that Trump “wants Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle to take his place.” Guilfoyle was an attorney who is currently a co-host of Fox’s right-wing gab-fest, The Five. She has never been a journalist and has no experience in press relations. That surely won’t bother Trump who regards inexperience as an asset. Trump may also appreciate Guilfoyle’s admiration for Vladimir Putin, who she thought would be a better president than Barack Obama. And if you don’t believe the anonymous sources speculating about Guilfoyle, the story broke two days earlier on Alex Jones’ Infowars. So that should settle it.

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

By bringing in Fox News producers and presenters, the White House press office would take on a new identity as an overtly partisan purveyor of propaganda. So one might ask, what’s the difference? Well, it would also cement Trump’s image as a TV character who relies on the fakery of entertainment values over honest journalism. And it would reinforce the relationship between Trump and Fox, which is already a marriage of political convenience and ideology. But most of all, it would abandon any hope of securing the respect of the American public or the world at large. It would turn the press office into a punchline. And considering that the Trump administration is already a bad joke, they don’t really have that far to go.

RIGGING THE DEBATES: Media Admit They Are ‘Setting A Low Bar’ For Dumbass Donald Trump

Posted by on September 7, 2016 at 3:17 pm. 2 Comments :

As the campaign season enters its final stretch the most impactful remaining scheduled events are the candidate debates. The first one is less than three weeks away (September 26). This will be the first time that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will confront each other face to face.

Donald Trump

One thing the media has no problem with is endless speculation about the outcomes of future events. Consequently, there is no shortage of analysis of how they expect the candidates to perform. The expectations game in the media, however, is always being prodded by the candidates in order to shape the public perception after the fact. By lowering expectations the candidate can claim victory by simply not blurting out obscenities or drooling.

To that end, Donald Trump is getting a significant boost from the media who are already staking their position on the inferiority of Trump. Ordinarily that would appear to be a realistic assessment. Trump is obviously ill-equipped to debate Hillary Clinton. He is woefully ignorant of domestic policy and world affairs. Match that with his inability to articulate a coherent solution to any problem. The result is a candidate who represents a truly dangerous prospect for national leadership. On the other hand Clinton has a profound depth of knowledge related to the specific prerequisites for governing.

However, in the debate expectations game Trump has the advantage because no one thinks he can compete effectively with Clinton. Unless, that is, you believe that childish insults and deliberate lies are valid methods of scoring points. And the media is taking the lead in propagating Trump’s shortcomings. Some prominent members of the allegedly liberal press are admitting that they have lowered the bar for Trump’s performance. Here are examples from CNN, the New York Times, and the Associated Press:

Dana Bash, CNN: I think the stakes are much higher in this debate and all the debates for Hillary Clinton because the expectations are higher for her because she’s a seasoned politician. She’s a seasoned debater. You know, yes we saw Donald Trump in the primaries debate for the first time, but he is a first-time politician. So um, for lots of reasons. Maybe it’s not fair, but that’s the way it is. The onus is on her.

Maggie Haberman, New York Times: What hurts Hillary Clinton is the bar has been lowered for Trump repeatedly because he keeps getting graded on a curve as her supporters would say and which I think you’ve seen. The question is does he merely pass and have that recorded as, yes, he did very well.

Julie Pace, Associated Press: By virtue of her long political resume, Hillary Clinton will enter her highly anticipated fall debates with Donald Trump facing the same kind of heightened expectations that often saddle an incumbent president. Trump, as the political newcomer, will be more of a wild card with a lower bar to clear.

So poor Donald Trump is such a buffoon that needs to be given “special” consideration. The golf resort baron has a debate handicap that’s higher than his IQ (which isn’t saying much). Never mind that he will tell you he has a tremendous brain and knows more than anybody about anything. He boasted that he won all twelve of the GOP primary debates. And he only participated in eleven of them. His opponents included several people highly regarded for their debating skills. The sharp tongued Chris Christie, senate whiz kid Marco Rubio, and Princeton’s North Amer­i­can Debat­ing Cham­pi­on of 1992, Ted Cruz.

Still, the media is portraying Trump as a child with a learning disability being forced to compete with Albert Einstein. It’s a flagrantly dishonest assessment that tilts the balance in his favor. It also trivializes the presidency by pretending that Trump’s intellectual inadequacy isn’t an obstacle to serving. And they are only doing it to make more of a horse race out of the election. When the race is tighter people are more engaged, which translates into more viewers and higher ratings. So if one candidate needs a (bone)head start, they’ll give it to him.

Donald Trump has been whining about the debates from the start of his campaign. He complained about the moderators, the length of time, and the participants. After winning the GOP nomination he complained that the general election debate dates were unacceptable and that he wouldn’t participate unless he approved of the moderators. His animosity toward the press is legendary. He blacklisted many news organizations (i.e. Washington Post, Univision, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and more), prohibiting them from covering his events. Although he just announced that he would end his practice of blacklisting saying “I figure they can’t treat me any worse!”

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

Americans are going to make an important decision in November. Their only criteria should be whether the candidate is qualified to do the job and represents their interests. Being an idiot does not grant you special privileges or a leg up to the White House. If only one candidate can engage in a substantive discussion, then she deserves to win.