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Fox News Edits Trump Video in the Same Way that They Accused CBS, Which Trump Said Was Illegal

Posted by on October 24, 2024 at 2:42 pm. 1 Comments :

The bar for hypocrisy by Donald Trump and his MAGA media apologists has been set so low that a cockroach couldn’t limbo underneath it. But that doesn’t stop them from trying. Case in point… Fox News has been revealed to have engaged in behavior that they previously castigated CBS for, even though CBS did not do what Fox alleged, but Fox did.

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Fox News, Fake News

A couple of weeks ago, Vice-President Kamala Harris was interviewed on CBS’ 60 Minutes. This interview has been an annual tradition for presidential candidates of both parties for fifty years. This year, however, Trump chickened out, which was probably a rare wise decision on his part given the increasing frequency of his abhorrent commentaries and humiliating mental glitches that has caused him to cancel multiple media events.

SEE THIS: Scaredy Trump Has Retreated to the Safety of His Fox News Bunker While Canceling Other Media

Following the Harris interview, Trump lashed out at CBS with a preposterous accusation that the network had improperly edited the discussion in order to make her look better. Trump raged that the interview was “A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes…which is totally illegal.” He called for CBS – and all the other broadcast news networks – to have their licenses revoked (FYI: broadcast TV networks are not licensed by the federal government). But even that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He also demanded that Harris drop out of the race.

MORE HERE: Tyrant Trump Demands ALL TV News Licenses Be Revoked and Kamala Harris Concede the Election

As it turns out, there is a network that improperly edited a campaign event for a presidential candidate. And no one will be surprised to learn that it was Fox News and the candidate was Donald Trump.

Trump staged a totally phony photo-op at a barbershop in the Bronx. The shop, and all of those present in it, were pre-screened Trump supporters. And now the segment that Fox News produced there has been exposed for its blatant deceit. As reported by CNN…

“Trump was seen taking questions and making small talk with Black and Hispanic barbershop customers and workers [but] Fox edited out many of Trump’s rambling comments and false claims. Participants had to repeatedly follow up when Trump meandered away from the original point of their questions.

CNN reported that the editing by Fox News deliberately excised some of Trump’s most noxious comments. They included his repeating the nonsense about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating cats and dogs, his incoherent rambling in response to a question about taxes, and his gushing praise for Hungarian dictator, Viktor Orbán.

A Fox News spokeswoman admitted that the barbershop segments “were pre-taped and edited…for time and clarity.” Which, according to CNN’s analysis of the raw footage, is false. There was a clear attempt to alter the impression made by Trump at the fake campaign stop. However, Fox’s excuse is exactly what CBS said about its editing of the 60 Minutes segment, which Trump insisted was illegal. So it’s apparently okay for Fox News to do it, but a criminal offense if CBS does.

An attorney for CBS replied to the threat made by Trump to sue the network, saying that…

“‘It begs logic to argue that 60 Minutes hid the first part of the Vice President’s answer to the question,’ [CBS SVP Gayle C.] Sproul wrote. ‘It did not. The public is aware of that part of her answer because 60 Minutes itself publicly distributed it by providing it to Face the Nation for promotional purposes and posting it on X and other 60 Minutes-branded social media for the same reason.'”

This isn’t the first time that Fox News has manufactured such a brazenly biased charade and passed it off as “news.” They recently aired a program that they promoted as a citizens town hall with Trump. However, the audience was stacked with MAGA devotees whose questions were marinated in a glutinous purée of adoration for Dear Leader.

SEE ALSO: Fox News Hosts a MAGA-Only ‘Town Hall’ that is Actually a Lie-Riddled Trump Campaign Infomercial

The fact that Fox News is so committed to shilling for Trump and other MAGA Republican politicians and policies is not exactly a new discovery. But the fact that they are so bad at it after so many years of practice is pretty pathetic. And as their partisan goals get farther from reach – such as Trump’s candidacy – we can expect them to crawl even farther out on the limb of dishonesty and journalistic misconduct.

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Trump Threatens CBS Over Kamala Harris Interview on 60 Minutes He Says Was ‘Possibly Illegal’

Posted by on October 9, 2024 at 1:19 pm. 4 Comments :

Donald Trump has spent the past nine years castigating the media in the most vile terms. He regularly insults journalists as “stupid,” “lying,” “corrupt,” and biased against him, simply because they report the things he actually does and says. He maligns them with the same language that Stalin used, calling them “the enemy of the people.”

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Donald Trump, Constitution

Trump’s fear and fury at the press is a core feature of his perverse persona. He labels any reporting that isn’t sufficiently worshipful “fake news.” Even his official Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) isn’t safe from his seething animosity. And his anger extends far beyond mere insults and tantrums. He often issues impotent threats if a news network has the audacity to engage in responsible journalism. For example…

SEE THIS: Wannabe Dictator Trump Threatens to Revoke ABC News Broadcast License in Fox News Interview

On Wednesday morning Trump was so bothered by a recent media event that he unleashed a rambling and rancid rant on his failing social media scam, Truth Social. The object of his outrage was the 60 Minutes interview of Vice-President Kamala Harris on Monday. Trump had agreed to participate at first, but later chickened out because he objected to their insistence on {gasp} fact-checking. And now, after the fact, Trump is lashing out with another lame and utterly preposterous threat. He raged that…

“I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (‘cut and pasted’) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought, all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the ‘News Division,’ which must be licensed, to make her look ‘more Presidential,’ or a least, better. It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation.”

What Trump is whining about is that 60 Minutes edited the Harris interview, something that is done routinely in television journalism for legitimate reasons, including time constraints, clarity, and relevance. Trump’s assertion that some answers were edited “four times in a single sentence” is downright bonkers. And there is no indication whatsoever that Harris’ answers were altered to effect some political advantage. Trump’s complaint doesn’t even make sense, because he’s accusing CBS of edits that resulted in the answers being “virtually incoherent.” How would that help Harris?

Most troubling is Trump’s charge that the 60 Minutes interview was in some way “illegal.” As usual, Trump doesn’t provide any evidence of a crime, nor any statute that has been violated. He simply believes that if it bothers him it must be against the law. So he latches onto the fact that TV stations (not network “news divisions”) must be licensed to use the public airwaves. Which is his way of threatening CBS with the revocation of its license if they do not comply with his tyrannical demands.

This threat is consistent with Trump’s abhorrence of the free press. And it’s also consistent with his flaming hypocrisy. He has never complained that Fox News regularly (albeit futilely) edits his interviews to make him look better. He has never accused Newsmax of campaign finance violations for their slobbering sycophancy. And he doesn’t seem to object to the constant “sane-washing“ of his demented speeches by the rest of the so-called “mainstream” media. Which leads us to the rest of his Truth(less) (anti)Social comment…

“This is a stain on the reputation of 60 Minutes that is not recoverable – It will always remain with this once storied brand. I have never heard of such a thing being done in ‘News.’ It is the very definition of FAKE NEWS! The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY! This is an open and shut case, and must be investigated, starting today!”

The public is indeed owed an apology – from Trump. His hostility toward the press is another example of his imminent threat to democracy. And his attempts to intimidate the media are antithetical to the Constitution that he has said he would “terminate.”

If this is “an open and shut case,” why is Trump yammering about it on his website that no one but his glassy-eyed cult followers read, rather than filing a complaint with the FCC or the Justice Department? Maybe because even he knows that he’s full of **it.

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Trump is Running for President So He Can Appoint More People He Will Eventually Call Losers

Posted by on April 18, 2023 at 2:21 pm. 3 Comments :

Among the first notable lies that Donald Trump told was that he would always make appointments in his administration from among “all the best people” that he pretended to have personal relationships with. As it turned out, his appointments were notoriously incompetent, unqualified, and utterly unfit for the jobs to which Trump appointed them.

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Donald Trump

That assessment of Trump’s appointees is not just criticism from his political foes. Those are Trump’s own opinions of them. The long list of former Trump administration staffers that he has later trashed in the most brutal terms is a stark condemnation of his management skills, or lack thereof. Often he couldn’t recall even knowing the people at the highest levels of his team.

RELATED: Trump’s Ignorance of His Own Staff is Another Red Flag for Dementia

On Tuesday Trump lashed out again at a former aide. This time it was his former Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney. Trump must have seen Mulvaney on television saying something less than total adulation, so he posted the following comment on his floundering Twitter ripoff, Truth Social…

“Since leaving Washington, I haven’t heard much about Liddle’ Mick Mulvaney, perhaps the dumbest person, along with John Bolton, working at the White House. He was ‘Acting’ Chief of Staff because I never would have named him to the permanent position. Merely a ‘backbencher,’ who once gave a news conference that was legendarily bad, he is now with CBS Fake News, and should be grateful to the man who made him ‘famous.’ This guy was uncharismatic, a born loser. No wonder they have No Ratings!”

You have to wonder why Trump repeatedly hired “the dumbest” people to serve in his White House. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure that he was the smartest person in the room, and that’s an exceptionally low bar. Not that he was wrong about Mulvaney being dumb and a loser. After all, he worked for the dumbest loser who ever occupied the White House. And Trump wasn’t the only one who criticized CBS for hiring Mulvaney after his government job ended.

SEE THIS: Stephen Colbert Hysterically Rips His CBS Bosses for Hiring Lying Trump Flunky Mick Mulvaney

Trump’s assertion that he only made Mulvaney an “Acting” Chief of Staff because he “never would have named him to the permanent position,” is a flat out lie. The reason Mulvaney was never officially named Chief of Staff is because Trump was afraid to seek his confirmation by the Senate.

Nevertheless, despite Trump’s be-liddling, Mulvaney was still Trump’s second longest serving Chief of Staff (one year, three months). His longest was Gen. John Kelly (one year, five months). His first chief, (Reince Priebus) and last (Mark Meadows), both served less than one year.

However, all of Trump’s chiefs have been dragged through the mud by Trump after they were summarily dumped. For instance, Trump said Gen. Kelly “was way over his head.” He called Meadows book “fake news.” And these are typical of the sort of the insults that Trump hurls at his former associates. He is a stridently vengeful person who is quick to hate anyone he deems insufficiently adoring. Some of his vile has been aimed at these former appointees…

  • John Bolton: “a disgruntled boring fool.”
  • James Mattis: “the world’s most overrated general.”
  • Jeff Sessions: “He’s not mentally qualified to be attorney general.”
  • Rex Tillerson: “was dumb as a rock.”
  • Bill Barr: “was a weak and pathetic RINO.”

To be sure, many of Trump’s former staffers also came to hold harshly negative opinions of him. And now Trump is asking voters to send him back to Washington where he can hire some more losers who think he’s an idiot. Of course, he is also running in order to avoid the legal consequences of his criminal activities. As for Mulvaney, he has previously characterized Trump in unflattering terms, even when he was trying to flatter him…

SEE THIS: Trump’s Chief of Staff Describes Him as Having a Severe, Debilitating Illness

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Interview on 60 Minutes Was a Propaganda – and Ratings – Flop

Posted by on April 3, 2023 at 1:46 pm. 2 Comments :

On Sunday night CBS News humiliated itself by presenting a sappy personal profile of Republican QAnon representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, on its perennial news magazine, 60 Minutes. The interview was conducted by Lesley Stahl who, while having a renowned reputation as a journalist, made some amateurish mistakes in both her questioning and framing of the extremist congresswoman.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon

The interview was rife with flagrant falsehoods by Greene, along with her attempts to rewrite history (videos below). She denied her grossly offensive comments about Democrats, about whom she used tortured and twisted logic to malign as pedophiles. She refuted her prior statements approving of shooting Nancy Pelosi. She pretended that she had nothing to do with posts on her Twitter account asserting that the mass shooting at the Parkland school was a “false flag” operation by gun safety advocates. That’s not the first time that she made that charge. She said the same thing about the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

All of these, as well as many other disgusting sentiments, were well documented and a few were displayed on screen as Greene issued her denials. And anyone who has been paying attention knows the depths to which Greene’s extremism descends.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene Floats Fascist Proposal for Red States to Prohibit Democrats From Voting

The good news is that Green’s interview was not widely disseminated. The Nielsen ratings for 60 Minutes Sunday night were the second lowest for the season to date. And this episode was 33% lower than last weeks episode. Greene was the headliner for the program and, thus, is entitled to full credit for its failure.

Apparently America wasn’t interested in tuning in to her bullpucky. Perhaps fittingly, Nielsen reported that 6.66 million people watched the show. That’s an audience figure that should please the demonic demographic within the Republican Party.

It was irresponsible for CBS to give Greene a virtually unchallenged platform to advance her crackpot conspiracy theories. Stahl should make a point of following up the interview with a fact check and rebuttal on next week’s program. That probably won’t happen. But at least we can be encouraged by the low interest of American TV viewers in Greene’s gibberish and lies. Hopefully the only thing that people remember from this interview is how nuts the GOP has become to elevate someone like Greene.

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Stephen Colbert Hysterically Rips His CBS Bosses for Hiring Lying Trump Flunky Mick Mulvaney

Posted by on April 1, 2022 at 10:44 am. 1 Comments :

In the annals of American presidencies, there are few administrations who were more devoted to dishonesty and deliberate distortions of reality than the one presided over by pathological liar, Donald Trump. And within that council of cretins one man stood out for his shameless flow of flagrant falsehoods: Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney.

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Stephen Colbert, Mick Mulvaney, CBS

Mulvaney distinguished himself despite the tough competition he faced from Trump’s other chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus, John Kelly, and the closer, Mark Meadows, who was just revealed as a coup plotter with Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Now CBS News has announced that they have hired Mulvaney as a political “analyst” (with an emphasis on the anal). It’s a move that quickly drew the condemnation of CBS staffers who regard the hiring as an embarrassment. Some of those who expressed their dismay publicly said that…

“‘I know everyone I talked to today was embarrassed about the hiring,’ mostly due to Mulvaney’s history of inaccurate comments, one CBS News employee told the [Washington] Post. Another employee said ‘everyone is baffled’ by the hire.”

Among those who were appropriately disgusted by the Mulvaney hiring was Keith Olbermann. He presented a moral challenge to Stephen Colbert, who will become a corporate colleague when Mulvaney assumes his position. Olbermann tweeted…

Well, Colbert was up to the challenge. On his Thursday night program he addressed CBS and Mulvaney in his monologue saying that…

“Recently my network has gotten a lot of criticism, much of it from itself, because CBS News has hired the ex-president’s former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. to provide ‘political analysis across the network’s broadcasts and platforms.’ For more, we go to the Late Show’s own media analyst, Stephen Colbert. Stephen, your thoughts? WTF?

“I for one can’t wait to hear Mulvaney’s trenchant and objective political analysis considering that back in 2020 he suggested that coronavirus was the media hoax of the day. And after his boss extorted Zelenskyy for dirt on his boss he said ‘Get over it.’ And just days after the election he announced that, if he loses, the former president ‘will concede gracefully.'”

Colbert went on to tag Mulvaney as “Nostradumbass” and asked “Why would the Tiffany network’s venerable news division put this craven toady to a tyrant on their payroll?” That’s a good question, to which the president of CBS, Neeraj Khemlani, provided an absolutely terrible answer:

“If you look at some of the people that we’ve been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms.”

Really? First of all, there are plenty of Republicans who could provide commentary and aid in access who were not professional liars for the Trump regime. But it is utterly beyond the pale for an executive at a news network to make decisions based on partisan prophesies about political circumstances that have not – and may never – come to pass. Journalists report the news. They do not presume to “know” what it will be in the future and act on that imaginary knowledge.

This is sadly reminiscent of a previous CBS president, Les Moonves, who once said of Trump, “Who would have thought that this circus would come to town. It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

There really isn’t any rational justification for hiring a known liar to pontificate about political news on a news network. That’s the sort of anti-journalism practiced at Fox News where hiring liars is a core feature of their mission. They have already brought aboard former Trump staffers Mike Pompeo, and Kayleigh McEnany, and Larry Kudlow, and even Lara Trump.

Mulvaney has nothing to offer CBS News but his partisan spin and documented dissemination of “alternative facts” (coined by his fellow Trumpster, Kellyanne Conway). And if they actually end up turning to him for analysis, they will only succeed in disinforming their viewers and alienating everyone who values honesty in journalism.

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Why is CBS News Still Obsessed with Dredging Up Braindead Trump Voters?

Posted by on September 20, 2021 at 2:54 pm. 7 Comments :

For some unfathomable reason, much of the mainstream media has an uncontrollable fixation on the muddled mindset of Donald Trump’s Legion of Losers. Despite being a shrinking minority of the populace who have set aside all semblance of reason, the press feels compelled to get their opinions about the current political landscape that they obviously can’t comprehend.

Donald Trump Rally, Sieg Heil

On Monday morning CBS News dispatched Ted Koppel to Mt. Airy, North Carolina, to engage the passengers on a Magical Mystery Tour of sorts. Their tour bus was headed for the fictional inspiration for “The Andy Griffith Show,” Mayberry, NC, where the sheriff, Andy Taylor, refused to carry a gun. And what could be a better metaphor for country hicks who believe in fantastical fairy tales, whether told by classic TV characters or crackpot conspiracy theorists?

This compulsion to explore the bitter psyches of voters whose candidate was decisively defeated by Joe Biden has precisely zero news value. And it is notable that there is almost never an effort to balance the record by interviewing Biden voters at a backwoods Waffle House who comprise the electoral majority. The press only seems to care about the Trumpian yokel worldview. Which led to this enlightening discussion (video below):

Koppel: Tell me what you think happened on January 6th at Congress.
Trumper 1: They showed truckloads of people that they were bringing in for this. It was all staged. And that’s how that happened. They even showed pictures of it from the news about these vehicles coming in with all these BLM [Black Lives Matter] people.
Trumper 2: We don’t even watch news on TV anymore. We don’t feel like that we are being told the truth. And we find our truth in other ways. And I won’t say what those other ways are, but I feel like we aren’t being told the truth because we’re trying to be swayed in a direction that we know is not the right direction.

It is frightening and sad that there are still delusional Trump cultists who believe that the January 6th insurrection was staged by radical lefties outfitted with Trump flags and fashion. That’s when they aren’t claiming that there was no insurrection at all and that the whole affair was peaceful. Trump himself said that “It was zero threat, right from the start… Some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police.”

And never mind that scared Republicans in Congress, including the GOP minority leader Kevin McCarthy, were pleading with Trump to call off his brigades while the riots were still in progress. And forget about all the rioters who have bragged about their Capitol invasion adventure.

The “truckloads of people” brought in were not BLM moles. And the Trumpers never saw that on TV. We know that in part because it didn’t happen, and in part because they admitted that “We don’t even watch news on TV anymore.” And it’s cute that they claim to have “other ways” to find truth, but that they won’t say what they are.

The Trumpists can’t seem to decide whether the insurrection occurred, or was just a love-in, or was a righteous protest, or was – according to Tucker Carlson – orchestrated by the FBI. In the meantime, Koppel’s bus blather continued…

Koppel: When President Trump talked about the press being the enemy of the people…
Trumpers: They are. I love President Trump. I love that man. I do.
Trumper 3: I just hope that when this airs it won’t show Southerners as a bunch of dumb idiots like so many parts of the country do. We have a lot of love in our hearts. We love our country. We love our follow man. And if the rest of the country felt like that, it would be a better place.

So the answer to the question about whether the press is the enemy of the people is that they love Donald Trump. And after that utterly inane comment they worry about being perceived as “a bunch of dumb idiots.” Well, if that ship hadn’t sailed before, she just cast it off.

What’s more, if they want people to believe that they have Love in their hearts, they probably shouldn’t be accusing Black Americans of being violent provocateurs, or calling journalists enemies of the people, or defending Trump’s lies and disinformation that is dividing the nation and undermining democracy. Those are hardly expressions of either love or patriotism.

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

Stupid Reporter Tricks: Question About ‘A Lot of Americans,’ Turns Out to Be Just Trump

Posted by on March 6, 2021 at 12:48 pm. 8 Comments :

Joe Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, has brought back the daily press briefings that were canceled during the anti-press administration of Donald Trump. This White House no longer believes that the press is “the enemy of the people.” But that doesn’t mean that the questions posed are going to be particularly enlightening.

Jen Psaki

We can rely on Fox News to ignore the Biden presidency (as they have been doing thus far). Likewise, Fox will continue to be antagonistic toward Biden and the Democrats (as their CEO admitted is the network’s mission). But they won’t be alone. On Friday CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang had an interesting framing for her questions:

Jiang: A lot of Americans are saying that, you know, the [immigrant] surges are happening under President Biden’s watch after he reversed some previous policy. So does the administration take any accountability for what’s happening?
Psaki: Who are the Americans?
Jiang: Well, I know you don’t want to answer to him, but the former President just released a statement saying that, “The Biden Administration must act immediately to end the border nightmare that they have unleashed onto our nation.”
Psaki: Former President Trump? We don’t take our advice or counsel from former President Trump on immigration policy, which was not only inhumane but ineffective over the last four years.

OUCH! That was a rookie mistake trying to pass off Trump as “a lot of Americans.” The White House press corps needs to come better prepared than that for future interactions with this press secretary. Psaki obviously isn’t the airhead propagandist that they became accustomed to under the Trump regime.

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

Stuperbowl Interview: Dotard Trump Talking About ‘Intelligence’ is Downright Frightening

Posted by on February 3, 2019 at 12:33 pm. 1 Comments :

It’s Superbowl Sunday and the annual tradition of having the president give an interview to the network broadcasting the game is one of the few that Trump isn’t scrapping. Never mind that he recently told his press secretary “not to bother” with holding daily press briefings anymore. Trump agreed to sit down with Margaret Brennan of CBS News for a few minutes of lying and casting insults.

Donald Trump, Padded Cell

Among the atrocious outbursts in this interview were Trump’s remarks about what he had learned from negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. His unresponsive reply was that she “doesn’t mind human trafficking,” and that “people [are] dying all over the country because of” her. Apparently he learned nothing as he stuck to his routinely hostile behavior of slandering his perceived enemies. But his childish acting out is evidence that he learned what he feels like to get beat to a pulp by a smarter, more experienced political opponent.

Trump also made some ludicrous assertions like claiming that the report by special counsel Robert Mueller exonerated him (Mueller has not published any report). And he admitted that stories about Secretary of State Pompeo talking to Mitch McConnell about running the Senate were true just seconds after calling them “fake news.” Then he characterized the fact that much of his cabinet consists of people serving in an “acting” capacity as a good thing because it gives him more flexibility. It also gives the nation a bunch of hacks who have never been vetted or confirmed by the Senate as the law requires. And he said that his indicted pal Roger Stone never worked for his campaign except for the time that he did.

There were a great many more examples of Trump’s deranged take on a variety of subjects. But perhaps the most disconcerting were those related to national security and his relationship with his own Intelligence team. When asked if reads the reports they prepare for him, Trump said that he did. But his responses revealed that that wasn’t true. Brennan asked him what he found wrong with those reports, and Trump gave this disjointed word salad of a reply: “I think- let me just say it wasn’t so much a report. It was the questions and answers as the report was submitted and they were asked questions and answers.”

HUH? They were asked questions AND answers in this report that wasn’t a report? He went on to provide provably false information about the presence of ISIS in Syria, saying they were ninety-nine percent gone. When Brennan pointed out that Republicans in Congress had just voted to repudiate his positions on abruptly withdrawing from Syria, Trump’s answer reached back to the GOP primary in 2016, where he bragged about beating the Republicans who ran against him. That, of course, had nothing to do with the question.

Shortly thereafter Brennan asked Trump if he is “going to trust the intelligence that you receive?” He gave a qualified “yes,” adding that “if they said in fact that Iran is a wonderful kindergarten, I disagree with them 100 percent.” No one ever said anything remotely like that. And in a direct rebuke of his Intelligence team, Trump said that:

“I have intel people, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree. President Bush had intel people that said Saddam Hussein in Iraq had nuclear weapons – had all sorts of weapons of mass destruction. Guess what? Those intel people didn’t know what the hell they were doing.”

Bush’s intel people told Bush exactly what he told them to say. They didn’t get it wrong. They lied at Bush’s direction. However, Trump is correct that he doesn’t have to agree with this Intel staff. But you have to wonder what the basis is for his disagreement. If he isn’t getting advice from them, from whom is he getting it? All we know is what he said next: “When my intelligence people tell me how wonderful Iran is – if you don’t mind, I’m going to just go by my own counsel.” So far as anyone can tell, Trump’s counsel is either Vladimir Putin or Fox News – or both.

Finally, Trump also dismissed the advice of his Intel team when they told him that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is unlikely to give up his nuclear capabilities. Trump disagreed on the basis of their personal relationship:

“I like him. I get along with him great. We have a fantastic chemistry. We have had tremendous correspondence that some people have seen and can’t even believe it. They think it’s historic. And we’ll see what happens.”

Seriously? Kim is a brutal dictator who murders his foes – even family members – and oppresses his people. But Trump gleefully brags about having “fantastic chemistry” with this tyrant? And this opinion comes long after their summit wherein Kim totally played Trump and has failed to deliver on anything they discussed at the time. In fact, Kim has actually expanded his nuclear facilities and arsenal.

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

The one thing that Kim has that Trump truly envies is the blind adulation of his people. And on that Trump openly expressed his desire for the same sort of cult worship from the American people. He isn’t going to get that. At the moment he is the most unpopular president of all time. And judging from recent events like his government shutdown and the arrest and indictment of his closest associates, that isn’t going to show much improvement any time soon.

OH REALLY? Trump Holds Putin Responsible for Election Meddling, And Himself for What Happens in U.S.

Posted by on July 18, 2018 at 5:20 pm. NO Comments :

Donald Trump was interviewed by Jeff Glor of CBS News on Wednesday afternoon. It’s gotten to the point where it is almost irrelevant when Trump says things in any public forum due to the increasing frequency of his lies and deliberate attempts to disseminate disinformation. But when he ventures out from the safety of his Fox News cocoon or his Twitter feed, we may want to pay a little attention.

Donald Trump

There wasn’t much news made during this interview. But Trump is frantically trying to do some damage control following his disastrous flop in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin. His first efforts to walk back the overtly treasonous statements he made failed miserably. So he’s spreading it even thicker now. When Glor asked Trump directly, “Do you hold [Putin] personally responsible” for the 2016 election hacking, Trump replied (video below):

“Yeah, I would because he’s in charge of the country. Just like I consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country. So certainly, as the leader of a country, you would have to hold him responsible. “

Oh really? Does that mean that Trump holds himself responsible for the 2,000+ children who were ripped from their parents arms, frightened and crying? Does he hold himself responsible for not being able to reunite those families now, and not even knowing where some of the children are? How about the opioid epidemic? Is he responsible for its growth and the lack of suitable care? And speaking of care, does Trump take responsibility for having sabotaged ObamaCare, putting millions of American lives at risk?

Is Trump going to take responsibility for the jobs lost because companies like Harley Davidson and BMW are moving their operations out of the U.S. because of Trump’s trade wars? Will he fess up to being responsible for the trillion deficits that are coming due to his tax “reform?” And while he’s at it, he might take some of the blame for stocking the Washington swamp with low life cretins like Scott Pruitt, Tom Price, Ryan Zinke, Betsy DeVos, etc.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Trump to actually live up to his claims of being a responsible head of state. He has distinguished himself as the biggest whiner to ever occupy the Oval Office. He actually bragged about it. He blames shamelessly everyone else for his screw-ups while exalting himself as the Second Coming of the Messiah. Glor also asked Trump if he thought Putin lied to him, since Putin denies interfering with our election. Trump said that he “didn’t want to get into” whether or not Putin lied. Isn’t that sweet? He doesn’t want to hurt Vlad’s feelings. How’s that for taking responsibility?

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

The Sunday Morning Trump (Not So) Funnies: Donald Trump’s Senile Dementia Kicked in Bigly

Posted by on July 15, 2018 at 12:35 pm. 4 Comments :

This weekend Donald Trump massively accelerated the level of nonsense that has been the hallmark of his presidency. Among the cognitive lapses he displayed while embarrassing America in Europe were his defensive response to the indictment of twelve Russians for interfering with the 2016 presidential election, and his anti-First Amendment rebuke of the the “fake news” network CNN in favor of the “real” network, Fox News. But he was just getting started.

Donald Trump

There were several instances of acute mental confusion that Trump exhibited this weekend. But let’s begin with the most disturbing one, even though it may not be the most substantive. In an interview with British Trump-fluffer Piers Morgan, the President was asked “What is the incentive for America to do a great deal with the United Kingdom?” And this was Trump’s – – – answer?

“We would make a great deal with the United Kingdom because they have product that we like. I mean they have a lot of great product. They make phenomenal things, you know, and you have different names — you can say ‘England’, you can say ‘UK’, you can say ‘United Kingdom’ so many different — you know you have, you have so many different names – Great Britain. I always say: ‘Which one do you prefer? Great Britain?’ You understand what I’m saying?”

No. Nobody understands a single thing that you’re saying. But that’s only because you aren’t saying anything that is remotely intelligible. But other than that, it’s perfectly clear.

From there we go on to an interview Trump gave to CBS anchor Jeff Glor. Trump made several bits of “news” in this brief dialog. Like when he said that his father was born in the EU (Germany). Except that his father was born in New York. Trump will literally lie about anything. There are no limits to the outright absurdity of his frightening foolishness. For example:

GLOR: “What’s your goal from the Putin meeting?”
TRUMP: “I’ll let you know after the meeting.”

Well, that’s comforting. It shows how seriously Trump is taking this summit with the dictator of the nation that is occupying Crimea, helping Iran in Syria, and that attacked America’s democracy. And then there’s this:

GLOR: “The Russians who were indicted. Would you ask Putin to send them here?”
TRUMP: “Well I might. I hadn’t thought of that. But again — this was during the Obama administration.”

He hadn’t thought of the most obvious response to a historic indictment of a foreign nation’s criminal cyberwar against the United States? What the hell is he thinking of? Pee-pee tapes? And even after being given the idea, Trump still only says that he “might” bring it up. Then he goes on to blame President Obama for the whole mess. It may have happened DURING the Obama administration, but it was being done FOR (and with?) the Trump campaign. And then there’s this:

TRUMP: “I think the DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked. They had bad defenses and they were able to be hacked. But I heard they were trying to hack the Republicans too, but — and this may be wrong — but they had much stronger defenses.”

So now the DNC is responsible for Putin’s hacking of Democrats on behalf of Donald Trump. Classic “blaming the victim.” And Trump has the audacity to make this allegation even while admitting that “this may be wrong.” What sober-minded world leader would say things publicly that he doesn’t know are true? BTW, according to the Justice Department, the GOP was hacked, so their defenses were no better than the DNC. But Russia was only using hacked info against the Democrats. Whatever they hacked from Republicans is probably being used to blackmail Trump. And then there’s this:

GLOR: “Who is your biggest competitor? Your biggest foe globally right now?”
TRUMP: “Well I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union but they’re a foe.”

Indeed, we do have a lot of foes. Especially many of our former allies since Trump took office. But the first one he thinks of to mention is the European Union? Certainly not China, or North Korea, or Iran. And as for Russia, last week Trump referred to Putin only as a competitor, saying explicitly that he was “not my enemy.” Trump even went out of his way to congratulate Russia on Twitter Sunday morning. But the EU is a foe? And then there’s this:

TRUMP (On UK protests): “There are many, many protests in my favor.”

Um OK.

Following the Putin/Trump performance review on Monday, Trump is now scheduled for a lavish tongue bathing by Fox News shills Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Because who else would he turn to? And Vladimir Putin will also be visiting Fox News for an interview with Chris Wallace. So it’s an all-Fox, All Russia, all Trump festival of flagrant propaganda. I can hardly wait.

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