Bill Clinton

Guilty Conscience? Trump Rattles Off Four Times ‘This Has Nothing to do with Russian Collusion’

Posted by on August 21, 2018 at 3:30 pm. 4 Comments :

Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and personal attorney/fixer are both officially felons. And now that there are verdicts in two of the most closely watched criminal cases of the year, Everyone was anxious to hear what the Unindicted Co-Conspirator-in-Chief would have to say about it. And if you were expecting a message of respect for the judicial process and the rule of law, you are going to be bitterly disappointed.

Donald Trump

Trump spoke briefly after the convictions of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen as he deplaned for a rally in West Virginia. His comments were a mix of sympathy, defiance, and self-serving bluster that demonstrated his contempt for the legal system that is still closing in around him:

After briefly expressing how sad he is about Manafort, who he said is “good man,” Trump launched into a defense of himself that no one asked him about. He had a desperate need to make sure that everyone knew that “It doesn’t involve me” and that “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion.” In fact, he mentioned the Russia affair four times in less than one minute. He closed by repeating that Manafort’s conviction had nothing to with Russian collusion, and then called it a “witch hunt” for the second time in this short clip.

Any first-year psychology student would recognize Trump’s anxiety and repetitious dialogue as the ravings of someone consumed by fear and knowledge of guilt. He continuously yowled his self defense more than he did any support for his former campaign chairman, Manafort. What’s more he didn’t mention Cohen’s name at all. That could signal his preference for Manafort, who some speculate will get a pardon. As for Cohen, he explicitly incriminated Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money affair, so his prospects are much gloomier. That may explain why Trump couldn’t even say his name.

For the record, this does involve Trump. Cohen’s plea deal references him as the “candidate” with whom he conspired to suppress the Daniels story. And it surely has something to do with Russian collusion from the standpoint that Manafort convictions might persuade him to be more cooperative with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

It will be interesting to see what the Republicans in Congress have to say about Cohen’s pleading guilty to eight felony counts. During the Clinton administration they thought it justifiable to impeach the President for having lied about an extramarital affair. But Trump has now been implicated in both an affair and an illegal conspiracy to cover it up. Shouldn’t that warrant at least one of the Articles of Impeachment to be brought against him?

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

Trump’s Flagrant Lies About Sexual Affairs is Okay with Fox News Because Everybody Does It

Posted by on July 25, 2018 at 4:17 pm. 1 Comments :

The relentless efforts by Fox News to defend Donald Trump for anything and everything he does and says is well known to anyone paying attention by now. Their duties as the official State TV of the Trump presidency require them to abandon all reason and principle in order to prop up the President and crush his critics. And they fulfill these obligations with determined devotion, if not much in the way of logic or adherence to facts.

Donald Trump, Playmates

On Wednesday’s episode of Outnumbered, the four right-wing co-hosts welcomed former GOP congressman, and Benghazi fetishist, Jason Chaffetz to group as their so-called “One Lucky Guy.” The discussion included a venture into the breaking news about Trump’s “fixer” Michael Cohen and the tapes that were just released of him plotting with Trump to pay hush money to Playboy model Karen McDougal, with whom Trump had a longstanding affair.

As the conversation developed it was clear that there was no way to deny Trump’s bad behavior. He was cheating on his third wife who had recently given birth to his son, Barron. So the Fox crew had to shift to a defense that consisted of excusing the behavior, no matter how repugnant. And so that’s just what they did, beginning with co-host Melissa Francis, who tried to employ some classic “whataboutism” by maligning former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis (video below):

Francis: I think it’s a bit rich when you have the Clinton cleaner out there talking about the Trump cleaner. It makes you wanna jump in the shower and wash it all off and wash it off your brain. I guess Lanny Davis says ‘What’s the point? What’s this all about?’ It’s about truth and that the President lied.

Okay. I kind of assumed that from the beginning. I don’t know what this does for us.

Kennedy: I think most people have. That was the thrust of the whole Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti soap opera. It was somehow getting at the mysterious truth as though we’re being trolled and living in an episode of political X-Files: The truth is out there.

See what they did there? Since other people have behaved badly in the past, it doesn’t matter that Trump does it too. But it is a little surprising that Francis shrugs at Trump’s dishonesty as something that she assumes as a matter of course. And then Kennedy went into a rant about how all of this is just a series of distractions from both sides. She cites everything from the fallout of the Helsinki summit to Trump considering the revocation of security clearances of former Obama officials. These, of course, are all melodramas created by Trump himself that Kennedy is now insisting are distractions. And the fact that Trump lied isn’t newsworthy because everyone already knows that he’s a liar. This is Fox News making that argument.

They go on to defend Trump’s lying because “people who have affairs lie about it.” And somehow they are completely oblivious to the fact that these Fox News shills, and the whole Republican Party, supported the impeachment of President Clinton for that very thing. But now it’s such a minor point it should be tossed aside as a mere diversion that doesn’t warrant our attention.

You can be sure that if it were President Obama who was having an affair and was caught in a taped discussion about covering it up with hush money, they wouldn’t have written it off so gleefully. But their Dear Leader in the White House is so sacrosanct that he’s allowed to commit any sin or crime he wants to. That’s the privilege of demagogic cult leaders like Trump who command blind devotion from their disciples. Must be nice.

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

Fox News in a Coma: ‘Nobody Was Asking Hillary Clinton About the Guy that She’s Married To’

Posted by on April 23, 2018 at 1:40 pm. 2 Comments :

If you thought that Fox News had run out of ways to shock people with examples of acute obliviousness, you might wanna sit down. The network that relentlessly pumps out provably false stories despite having been debunked – sometimes by their own reporters – still manages to find ways to sink ever lower into states of purposeful amnesia. Their corporate mission has always been to accuse other news networks of bias, ignoring the fact that they were created to be a flagrantly partisan mouthpiece of conservatives and the Republican Party.

Hillary Clinton

On Sunday’s “State of the Union” on CNN, Donald Trump’s Senior Shill, Kellyanne Conway, was interviewed by Dana Bash. Part of the discussion included an inquiry about Conway’s husband, George, who had curiously posted a number of tweets that were critical of Donald Trump. Conway feigned offense to this question and replied:

“We’re now going to talk about other people’s spouses and significant others just because they either work at the White House or CNN? Are we going to do that? You just went there. […] There has been a different standard for me than there have been for other people.”

Conway’s complaint is particularly absurd considering that less than a week ago she brought up the political leanings of the spouse and children of former FBI Director James Comey in an attempt to discredit him. However, there is plenty of available evidence that other political spouses have encountered the same line of questioning. The notion that she was subject to a double standard could not be more ridiculous.

Well, perhaps it can get more ludicrous. And leave it to Fox News to find a way to achieve that. On Monday morning, anchor Jon Scott led a panel in a discussion of Conway’s weekend remarks. His defense of Conway was typical of the wingnut cognitive breakdown that Fox News specializes in. He actually said that:

“Nobody was asking Hillary Clinton about the guy that she’s married to. It does seem that sometimes there’s a double standard in that regard.”

Did have a stroke? Was he in a Turkish prison for the last few years? There is something terribly wrong with someone who is supposed to be familiar with politics and current events who could make such a statement. Hardly a day went by when Hillary Clinton was not asked about her husband, Bill. And one of the most prominent inquisitors was Donald Trump. He even brought four women who alleged that Bill Clinton sexually harassed them to a debate in St. Louis.

And it wasn’t just Trump asking about Bill. The media was all over it. Two months before the election Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted an article by Buzzfeed that she said was a “Pretty detailed read on Juanita Broaddrick’s long-ago allegations against Bill Clinton.” That’s the same Maggie Haberman who Trump attacked this weekend as being “a third rate reporter” and “a Crooked H flunkie.”

How Jon Scott could not know that Bill Clinton was a constant topic of both the media and the Trump campaign during the election is unimaginable. Which is probably the best evidence that he does know, he’s just lying. And the sad thing is that Fox News viewers are so delusional and hypnotized by their Tele-Master that they won’t question this glaringly preposterous comment. They’ll just nod obediently and absorb the lies like they always do.

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

Lying Trump confidant inadvertently makes case for Trump’s impeachment on Fox News

Posted by on October 14, 2017 at 2:17 pm. 3 Comments :

Republicans are known to be fond of making brash and false accusations about Democrats. In fact, it’s an obsession. They generally deploy this tactic when they are desperate to create a distraction from something horrible they did or said. And lucky for them, they have Fox News to broadcast their diversions and lies to millions of their glassy-eyed disciples.

Fox News

A perfect example of this took place Saturday morning on Fox and Friends. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes invited Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, and devoted bootlicker, Corey Lewandowski to talk about a variety of current events (video below). Among them were the allegations against Trump for sexual harassment and abuse. The segment featured a graphic that said “HRC Falsely Claims Trump is “Sexual Assaulter.” But the claim is factual based on Trump’s own words. They played video of Hillary Clinton’s BBC interview pointing out the similarities of Trump’s behavior to that of Harvey Weinstein. She correctly noted that:

“This kind of behavior cannot be tolerated anywhere. Whether it’s in entertainment, politics… After all we have someone admitting to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office.”

Indeed. No one should be excused from committing these atrocious acts, Democrat or Republican. But that’s not how Fox News sees it. Not only did Trump admit to his abuse, at least a dozen women have come forward with credible allegations. But Clinton’s remarks set Lewandowski off on a tangent that hardly exonerates Trump:

“There was a sexual assaulter in the White House and he was called Bill Clinton. He had to pay a $750,000 fine for abuses that he perpetrated while he was President of the United States. He was disbarred. He lost his law license. He lied under oath and he was impeached.”

First of all, let’s address the cluster of outright lies in Lewandowski’s comment. Nearly everything he said was demonstrably false. Politico covered these claims last year and debunked all of them:

“[Paula] Jones sued Clinton for allegedly exposing himself to her in a hotel room in 1991. The Jones suit, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, was ultimately dismissed by a judge on the grounds Jones could not show damages. While it was on appeal, Bill Clinton paid $850,000 to settle the suit without admitting liability.” […]

“An earlier version of this piece falsely stated that Bill Clinton was disbarred and prohibited from practicing law in Arkansas and in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, Clinton’s law license was suspended in Arkansas and he resigned from the Supreme Court bar; he was not disbarred.”

So the incident Lewandowski referred to did not happen while Clinton was president. The payment was a settlement, not a fine. There was no judicial finding against him. He was never disbarred. The House of Representatives did impeach Clinton, but that’s a political action, not a legal one. And the Senate declined to convict or remove him from office.

Lewandowski unleashed a tortured stream of lies to divert attention away from Trump’s gross and illegal behavior. But his argument wasn’t that Trump was innocent. Only that Clinton was guilty. What’s more, he seemed to agree with the punishment he wrongly asserted was carried out against Clinton. Therefore, he is essentially advocating that punishment for anyone guilty of these crimes. Presumably that includes his buddy in the White House. In other words, he’s in favor of fining and impeaching Trump. A plurality of Americans agree.

Of course, to expect an ultra-partisan hack like Lewandowski to grasp the logical extensions of his own argument may be too much to ask. And even if he did, he would likely struggle to find an exception for his right-wing confederates. Democrats weren’t shy about denouncing the behavior of Clinton or Weinstein. It’s too bad that Republicans can’t do the same about Trump. After all, as Fox’s Abby Huntsman said at the end of this segment: “It’s so important to point out the hypocrisy.” Of course, she was referring only to Democrats.

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

[The Clinton discussion begins at about 3:50]

GOP Chair Lies to CNN Saying ‘Women Never Came Forward’ to Report Trump’s Sexual Abuse

Posted by on October 9, 2017 at 2:48 pm. 5 Comments :

Let’s get one thing straight at the start. Harvey Weinstein’s actions were inexcusable. They were gross and demeaning and exploitative. He was right to apologize and seek professional help. But that wasn’t enough. It was also right for the board of directors of the company he founded to fire him.

Donald Trump

In light of that, it is downright nauseating that the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna Romney McDaniel, would turn up on CNN and dismiss the grotesque behavior of Donald Trump by comparing him favorably to Weinstein. Trump is actually much worse. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer (video below), McDaniel had the gall to assert that:

“It’s not even comparable. Harvey Weinstein brought women into his hotel room. I mean to even make that comparison is disrespectful to the President. He didn’t have eight settlements. He didn’t have women coming forward. Harvey Weinstein admits that he did that.”

It’s not even comparable? Everything that McDaniel specified regarding Weinstein is directly comparable to Trump. Her statement that “He didn’t have women coming forward” was a blatant lie. At least a dozen women have come forward with accusations about Trump’s abusiveness. McDaniel also lied about there being no settlements. Numerous women have filed complaints against Trump that resulted in settlements that Trump legally suppressed with binding non-disclosure clauses. He used the same tactic to hide complaints that never made it to a courtroom. Despite these obvious similarities, McDaniel went on to explain the alleged differences anyway. But she directly responded only to the infamous “pussy grabbing” videotape:

“Here’s the difference, Wolf. The President apologized for that and many Republicans came out and said those comments were not appropriate. The difference is that Harvey Weinstein is a major bundler for the DNC. They have embraced him him. He has admitted to these instances when he put women in a completely inappropriate situations. That he was a sexual predator.”

Once again, in each specific reference made by McDaniel the differences she asserts are only visible to someone who is purposefully dishonest. In his belligerent “apology” Trump mainly said he was sorry for having been caught. He never apologized to his victims. And he quickly changed the subject to attack Bill and Hillary Clinton. While some Republicans did repudiate his comments, many actually defended him. And Trump is unarguably the most prolific bundler of campaign financing for the GOP. They embrace him even though he admitted to being a sexual predator.

The only real difference is that Weinstein is now unemployed and Trump continues to reside in the White House (when he isn’t at one of his golf resorts, that is). Republicans are perfectly agreeable to allowing Republican perverts to retain the powerful positions they hold if they make an insincere apology. But if you’re a Democrat you must be impeached and all other Democrats must renounce everything you ever did or said.

The hypocrisy is on an atomic scale. If McDaniel and her party had any sliver of integrity they would abandon their support for Trump and demand that he resign. And they have plenty of other reasons for doing so. Trump is not only a monstrous sexual deviant. He is a traitor for his collusion with Russia to subvert our democracy. He is also corrupt financially as he unconstitutionally enriches himself through his government position. And his reckless incompetence is an imminent danger to the nation and the world by inciting nuclear conflicts with both North Korea and Iran. Have there ever been more reasons to impeach a president than Trump has provided in less than a year in office?

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

Trump’s Gonna Hate This: His Congressional Speech Ratings Fall Below Obama’s

Posted by on March 2, 2017 at 8:12 am. 1 Comments :

The infamous ego of Donald Trump is going to take a severe blow when he gets wind of this. His highly anticipated maiden address to Congress may have enchanted much of the media, but the ratings reveal far less adoration than he will be comfortable with. Even with Brian Kilmeade of Fox News telling him that “you’ll have the biggest audience for a State of the Union-like address this year, bigger than any other year,” reality has a way of intervening.

The Nielsen ratings for Trump’s speech came in at about 48 million. That’s a respectable number for anyone else, but Trump is likely to pound a hole in the Oval Office wall when he finds out. The reason for his outrage will be that he failed to snag the top spot for such events. To make matters worse, he lost to both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Compared to Obama’s first address in 2009, Trump’s pull is down by 8 percent.” Rankings for first-time speeches to Congress are – Clinton 1993: 66.9 million. Obama 2009: 52.4 million. Trump 2017: 48.0 million.

Congressional Speech Ratings

Knowing Trump, one of two reactions can be expected. Either he will lash out at Nielsen and the “fake” ratings establishment that is determined to destroy his presidency. Or he will simply insist that he had higher ratings and everyone tells him so. Then he’ll send Sean Spicer out to confirm it and yell at the press.

Trump flew into a rage after the election when results that showed Hillary Clinton received nearly three million more votes. Defying reality again, Trump insisted that he would have had more popular votes were it not for millions of illegal voters. Then when he delivered his inauguration speech he invented millions of attendees that were invisible to the cameras.

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

It goes without saying that Trump will be furious when he learns of his latest failure. His handlers may try to keep him from finding out, but someone on Twitter will probably spill the beans. Then just wait for all hell to break loose. Trump is failing in the field he knows best – TV. He previously mocked Arnold Schwarzenegger for not matching his ratings on the new Celebrity Apprentice. Let’s see if Arnold has anything to say about this.

Wingnuts Spin Trump’s Sexual Assault As OK Because – Oh Look, It’s The Clintons

Posted by on October 8, 2016 at 9:03 am. 1 Comments :

By now everybody has heard Donald Trump describe how easy it was for him to sexually assault women. His comments were a grotesque and candid display of his real character, or more correctly, lack of it. Following the release of the recordings, Trump attempted to dismiss them with a typical non-apology apology that shifted the blame to others. He released the following statement:

Donald Trump

“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended.”

So Trump is apologizing only “IF” someone happened to be offended, but not “FOR” his offensive remarks. It’s an old method of placing responsibility on the poor sap who was foolish enough to listen to him. What’s more, this is not anything like the locker room banter that I’ve ever witnessed. This a confession to criminally aberrant behavior.

However, perhaps the worst part of his dodgy apology is that he couldn’t refrain from using it as an opportunity to smear his political foes. Bill Clinton had nothing to do with this, and Trump’s accusation was arbitrary and utterly unprovable. But that didn’t stop him or his surrogates from leaping feet first into politicizing his boorishness. And most of them employed the same faulty defense. For instance:

Sean Hannity sought to whitewash Trump’s ugliness by first saying that “Nobody’s gonna defend this. You can’t defend – it is wrong, it is inappropriate, it is outrageous. I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue with that.” After which Hannity argued with it for the remainder of his show. Along with his guests, Monica Crowley and Jeanine Pirro, he waived off Trump’s tales of sexual assault and weaved in the affairs of Bill Clinton that have already been worked over in the media for years.

Then there was CNN contributor Scottie Nell Hughes who said that “The words of Donald Trump are bad. But they’re not near as bad as the actions of Hillary Clinton since she’s been in office. There are four soldiers in Benghazi right now, that are not with us right now because of Hillary Clinton’s actions.” Aside from that having been proven untrue by at least four Republican led congressional committees, it has no bearing on Donald Trump.

But no one came close to Trump’s ex-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who now works for CNN. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer he made the insanely audacious claim that “What we don’t know, and I’m not trying to change the subject here, we don’t have any understanding of what Hillary Clinton has said in those meetings with Wall Street where she was paid for these speeches. She’s never released those transcripts. For all we know, the same things are being said in that regard.”

Let that sink in. Lewandowski is actually implying that Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street executives might have been about how she sexually assaulted people. No wonder they paid her so much. You can’t get porn like that from a former Secretary of State on the cheap. And note also that Lewandowski wasn’t trying to change the subject. It makes you wonder what he thought the subject was. And while your wondering, WTF was Blitzer doing when Lewandowski made that disgusting accusation? He thanked him and went to commercial.

There was one thing that Lewandowski said that actually made sense. In defending Trump he asserted that America isn’t electing a Sunday school teacher, they’re electing a leader. And Trump’s remarks show the nation that “You’ve got a leader who talks tough. He’s been very bold. He speaks from the heart. People understand that. They know Donald Trump.” Indeed, he speaks from the heart. And apparently his heart is poisoned with perversion and hate. And yes, that is the Donald Trump that we know all too well unfortunately.

Finally, Trump himself made a video to take another crack at expressing remorse. This time he admitted that he was wrong and apologized. However, he continued his effort to minimize his grossness and redirect the outrage to his mortal enemies, the Clintons:

“This is nothing but a distraction from the important issues we’re facing today. […] I’ve said some foolish things. But there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days.”

Once again, the Clintons have nothing to do with his bad behavior. Additionally, the problem with all of this is not his words. It is, in fact, his actions as he himself describes them. He was not simply spewing profanities, he was talking about things he actually did. His video apologia also contained his “pledge to be a better man tomorrow.” That’s all well and good, but it’s something he should do on his own time, not while residing in the White House.

These are just a few examples of the coordinated spin from Trump and his allies. Clearly they have decided that the way to approach this is to pretend it doesn’t matter and besides the Clintons did it too. That’s a defense worthy of nine year old, which may be the emotional age of Trump.

The video itself was embarrassing. And the proof of that is that after it was aired on Fox News, anchors Gregg Jarrett and Arthel Neville noted that Trump was awkwardly reading the statement and said that it was “almost painful” to watch. They observed that he was clearly reading something that his speechwriters had written for him. And when you’ve lost Fox News…

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

See for yourself:

Watch A Deranged Trump Fan Video Bomb Fox News Screaming ‘Bill Clinton Is A Rapist’

Posted by on October 1, 2016 at 4:23 pm. 1 Comments :

Live television always holds out the possibility of unanticipated “contributions” to the program. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox & Friends found that out this morning during a remote outside the studio.

Fox News

While introducing a fluffy segment on shelter pets, a crazed figure pops up behind the hosts. He then removes his shirt and tie to reveal a t-shirt with a picture of Bill Clinton above the word “Rape.” Repeatedly shouting “Bill Clinton is a rapist,” the intruder attempts to jump over the barriers protecting the set. The hosts giggle and try to remain composed as security drags the protester away. It’s actually pretty funny, however, there is a serious subtext to the event.

First of all, the reckless and unfounded allegations against Bill Clinton are the work of nut job conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones of Infowars. In fact. Jones actually made a public offer to pay $1,000.00 to anyone who successfully got on the air wearing that shirt (which he sells on his website) and shouting that message. Presumably that guy can use the money right about mow – for bail.

More to the point, while this incident was obviously carried out by a certified fruitcake, the exact same message has played out on Fox News by their own anchors and guests. In June of last year Megyn Kelly raised the issue saying that “Bill Clinton was accused of rape. He has been accused by several women of sexually assaulting them.” F&F Anchor Steve Doocy interviewed disreputable rumor monger Ed Klein whose book charges that Bill raped Hillary. Doocy affirmed Klein’s nonsense asserting, without foundation, that his “sources are impeccable.” Frequent Fox guest Ann Coulter gave a speech at CPAC in March of 2013 wherein she ranted that “The keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention this year was forcible rapist Bill Clinton.” Fox contributor Katie Pavlich wrote that “Bill Clinton is probably a Rapist.”

If that isn’t enough, just last May Sean Hannity hosted Donald Trump as they attempted to dismiss his tawdry past. For the record, that includes three marriages and infidelities too numerous to cite. He literally bragged about them. What’s more, Trump himself is currently being sued for the rape of a thirteen year old girl. He was also accused of rape by his ex-wife, Ivana. So of course this conversation ignored all of that and quickly diverted to a comparison to Bill Clinton:

Hannity: In one case it’s about exposure. In another case it’s about groping and fondling and touching against a woman’s will.
Trump: And rape.
Hannity: And rape.

So whatever the state of mind of the wacko who tried to crash Fox’s broadcast there is one thing that is abundantly clear. He has the same political positions as the Fox News regulars. They might as well have let him join the others on the air. Who knows, maybe security took him to see someone in Human Resources and they gave him a job. Stay tuned for the Photobomber News Hour on Fox News.

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

The Sleazification Of American Presidential Politics Courtesy Of Donald Trump

Posted by on May 23, 2016 at 10:14 pm. 3 Comments :

Politics has always been a rough and tumble game with mudslinging and character attacks that test a candidates endurance. And while it often diverts from the issues that voters care about, those types of tactics are usually short-lived distractions and the public debate generally returns to the primacy of a candidate’s policies and proposals.

Donald Trump

But this year it’s different. One of the candidates is a former reality TV game show host with a long history of making tabloid melodrama the centerpiece of his celebrity. Donald Trump is a rich, spoiled, thrice married playboy who flaunts his infidelities, and isn’t shy about slandering anyone he perceives as an enemy. And he has brought his crass demeanor and inflated ego to his candidacy for president.

It is precisely because Trump is so ignorant when it comes to the pressing matters of state that he needs to rely so heavily on smear campaigns and juvenile name-calling. It has been nearly a year since he announced his entry into the race and he is no more knowledgeable today than when he began. Consequently, we can expect to see a continuation of the empty-headed insults and bullying that are the hallmarks of Trump’s campaign. And today there were two frightening examples of what the next five months are going to look like on the campaign trail.

The first came in the form of a Trump video dredging up an old and discredited allegation about Bill Clinton. The accuser, Kathleen Willey, had told her story to the Independent Counsel investigating Clinton back in the early 1990’s, as well as the FBI, who dismissed it as inconsistent, unverified, and riddled with lies. As Media Matters reported, she also told it to conspiracy fruitcake Alex Jones and Donald Trump.

The video Trump is now distributing shows Willey recycling her assault charges with no more evidence today than she had twenty-three years ago. The difference is that now she has Donald Trump paying her to repeat this rotting pile of salacious gossip. Although it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump, a still festering birther, would hype such obvious garbage. Willey has also accused the Clintons of killing her husband and her cat.

The second steaming heap was reported by the Washington Post and also attempts to reanimate a scandal that has been dead for a quarter of a century. Trump spoke to the Post today and unprompted resurrected the ghost of former White House aide Vince Foster. Foster committed suicide in 1993, which led to a flurry of ludicrous conspiracy theories mainly accusing Bill and/or Hillary of murdering him.

So today Trump told the Post that he considered Foster’s death to be “very fishy.” Continuing, Trump said of Foster that “He had intimate knowledge of what was going on. He knew everything that was going on and then all of a sudden he committed suicide.” Trump never reveals what might have been going on that would make him a target for assassination. He also neglects to mention that Foster’s death “was ruled a suicide in investigations conducted by the United States Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Kenneth Starr and Congress.”

The fact that Trump is bringing up these bizarre and stale smears of yesteryear shows that he intends to drag the campaign down to levels never seen before. He will continue to avoid substantive issues like national security, economics, healthcare, and equality because he simply doesn’t comprehend any of them. So prepare to be inundated with assertions that Hillary Clinton is a lizard-person from outer space who is plotting to devour your children. Because that’s as close to reality as Donald Trump is capable of getting.

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

And what’s really sad is that Trump’s glassy-eyed followers won’t see anything wrong with this style of campaigning. They don’t care if he talks about ISIS or Martians as long he says he’s gonna obliterate them in the first week of his presidency. And they certainly don’t care if he lies through his capped teeth as he has been doing for the past year (see the Trump Bullshitopedia). His fans love nothing better than the tales of murder and lust that are more at home in the cheesiest of soap operas. So that’s what they will get and most of it will be happily delivered by Fox News. They will never ask him to demonstrate any of the intelligence or ability to govern the most powerful nation on Earth – Lucky for him.

On Fox News, Republican Losers Get Credit For Democratic Successes

Posted by on May 19, 2016 at 4:08 pm. 4 Comments :

One of the most consistent fallacies presented by Fox News on a daily basis is the assignment of blame for for anything that goes wrong exclusively to President Obama. If it can be cast as negative, Obama did it. Some of the laughable liabilities attributed to the President include the riots in Ferguson, MO, California’s drought, Ebola, and even Hurricane Katrina (which happened three years before he was elected. They have blamed him for high gas prices that hurt consumers, as well as for low gas prices that hurt oil companies. There is simply no way Obama can win with these partisan hacks.

Bush Blame Obama

Fox News’ Stolen Honor

Now, in addition to making Obama shoulder the responsibility for the failures of incompetent Republicans, Fox News is also stealing the credit for anything good that happens during any Democratic administration. This week alone has provided two glaring examples of this stolen honor by Fox pundits who can’t seem find anything that Republicans have done that actually helped the nation.

First we have Eric Bolling, a co-host of Fox’s The Five. During a segment devoted to bashing Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Bolling sought to diminish her husband’s success in orchestrating what was at the time the longest period of non-wartime economic growth in the nation’s history. Since he couldn’t plausibly deny that it was an era of unprecedented prosperity, Bolling served up this pretzel logic: “The reason why Bill [Clinton] did so well is because of Ronald Reagan.”

Of course it was. Never mind that Reagan was followed by four years of his vice-president George H.W. Bush who ran the economy into the ground and was summarily booted out of office. And perish the thought that Bolling would provide any substantive argument to support his made up theory. According to Bolling Reagan deserves the praise simply for being Reagan.

Following that, Fox’s senior political analyst, Brit Hume, made an appearance on Special Report to deliver his explanation for the political successes of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Eventually the discussion diverted to the state of the economy under President Obama. Hume began by asserting that the economy isn’t really in very good shape, but then shifted to proclaim that whatever was good about it wasn’t Obama’s doing, saying that “The credit for rescuing the economy, if it belongs with government, has got to be shared, at least [with George W. Bush].”

And why not? After all, Bush merely presided over the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And his response was a basket of bailouts for the banks that were instrumental in the market’s downfall. It wasn’t until Obama came into office that efforts were made to stimulate the economy, and even that was opposed and obstructed by the Republicans in Congress.

It’s Hillary’s Fault Too

In both of the cases above the inspiration for these self-serving assumptions of economic glory stemmed from a comment Hillary Clinton made on the campaign trail. She said that if elected president she would put her husband Bill in charge of revitalizing the economy, something he is demonstrably good at. That comment sent the conservative pundits into a frenzy. They couldn’t abide her reminding people about the boom-time economy over which Clinton presided. So they endeavored to clumsily steal the credit for themselves.

This is just more proof that if Republicans had anything to be proud of they wouldn’t be trying to take credit for things they didn’t do – for things they affirmatively tried to prevent. They are, in effect, admitting that there are no accomplishments attributable to GOP administrations, so by necessity they have to swipe them from Democrats. It’s dishonest and unethical, but that’s never stopped them before.