Climate Change

Kellyanne Conway Whines on Fox News that Biden Issued an Executive Action on Climate Change

Posted by on July 21, 2022 at 12:10 pm. 0 Comments :

The “hottest” story making the rounds in the media this week has been the record-breaking heatwave plaguing the world. The unprecedented temperatures are shutting down energy grids, melting infrastructure, and causing untold suffering and death. This extreme weather is directly attributable to Climate Change and requires immediate action on the part of world’s governments to stem further tragedies.

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Kellyanne Conway, Fox News

Meanwhile, Fox News continues to pretend that Climate Change doesn’t exist or isn’t a problem that requires attention. Instead, they are exploiting the crisis to shovel political dirt unto President Biden because he is actually taking steps to address the problem. On Wednesday Biden issued an executive action wherein he reiterated “that climate change is a clear and present danger to the United States [and that] Since Congress is not acting on this emergency, President Biden will.”

RELATED: Fox News Blatantly Lies that Biden ‘Praised’ High Gas Prices When He Actually Criticized Them

That was all the impetus that Fox News needed to trigger their climate denialism and flurry of partisan political assaults. They invited Donald Trump’s former senior counselor and “Alternative Facts” disseminator, Kellyanne Conway, to deflect from the harsh reality that is afflicting millions of Americans. And she obediently set about on her nefarious mission. Rather than addressing the problem at hand, Conway launched an attack on Biden, saying that…

“If the president actually takes executive action, as he is threatening to do, it means he has subverted the process of our elected representatives who were put there by the people and instead, an unpopular president is basically acting alone. And it comes with tons of money that he can repurpose for these climate reasons that the vast, vast majority of Americans, all but a handful of Americans, do not think should be a top priority.”

There’s a lot of lying to unpack in that brief outburst. Let’s start with the fact that Biden is not “subvert[ing] the process” by exercising his authority to take executive action. It’s what he was elected to do. It would be far more accurate to criticize Republicans in Congress for obstructing the will of the majority of the people’s representatives.

For the record, Trump issued 894 executive actions during his one-term occupancy of the White House. 220 of those were executive orders. And 26 of those were issued after he lost the 2020 election. Among Trump’s first executive orders was to weaken Obamacare, shorten the environmental review process, and make an emergency declaration in order to fund his useless, vanity border wall. And all of his executive actions were made as “an unpopular president [who] is basically acting alone.”

With respect to Climate Change, Trump’s grasp was, and is, frighteningly ignorant. He regarded it as “hoax” created by China, and early in his term he removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords.

RELATED: WHUT? Asked How He Sees the Ukraine War Unfolding Trump Replies that ‘Windmills Don’t Work’

Conway was also flagrantly distorting the truth about the people’s support for taking action on Climate Change. Every poll shows that majorities of the American people want the government to do more to mitigate the harm being done to the environment. An extensive survey by the Pew Research Center found that…

“At a time when partisanship colors most views of policy, broad majorities of the public – including more than half of Republicans and overwhelming shares of Democrats – say they would favor a range of initiatives to reduce the impacts of climate change. […] 60% view climate change as a major threat to the well-being of the United States.”

And that…

“Most Americans also support tougher restrictions on power plant emissions (80%), taxing corporations based on the amount of carbon emissions they produce (73%) and tougher fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and trucks (71%). […] half or more of Republicans say they would favor each of these policies.”

So once again the High Priestess of Alternative Facts is spreading bull manure that is both false and dangerous. And Fox News is the preferred platform for this propaganda. And while Conway is appalled that Biden is behaving responsibly and in accordance with the will of the people, don’t expect to see her express any objection to Trump’s blatant abuse of power that was contrary to the nation’s wishes.

That’s the Republican way. They routinely endeavor to force their unpopular agenda down the throats of the people they are hardly even pretending to represent. Just like gun reform and reproductive choice and voting rights, the GOP is the anti-democratic, pro-totalitarian party. Hopefully the people will elect better representatives this November.

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COVID Gets Even Redder, While Trump Worries More About Windmills (Not) Killing Birds

Posted by on November 8, 2021 at 4:08 pm. 3 Comments :

An exhaustive analysis of COVID-19 data by David Leonhardt of the New York Times has found that the efforts of right-wing media like Fox News to deceive their audience about the coronavirus have been remarkably effective. The result confirms previous studies that show that those who rely on Fox News for information are significantly more at risk for contracting COVID than those who do not.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

The article in the Times is validation that trusting Fox News is dangerous to your health, as well as that of your family, your community, and your nation. Leonhardt goes into detail in the article, but he summarized some of his findings in a handy Twitter thread beginning here (with some key points following):

“The true explanation is straightforward: The vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing severe COVID, and almost 40 percent of Republican adults remain unvaccinated, compared with about 10 percent of Democratic adults, per @KHNews polls.”

“As a result, COVID deaths have been concentrated in counties outside of major metropolitan areas. Many of these are in red states, while others are in red parts of blue or purple states.”

“This situation is a tragedy, in which irrational fears about vaccine side effects have overwhelmed rational fears about a deadly virus.”

“It stems from disinformation — promoted by right-wing media, like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcast Group and online sources.”

“[C]onservative Americans will probably continue to suffer an outsized amount of unnecessary illness and death.”

This is indeed a tragic situation. And the problem is not limited to conservatives and Fox News viewers. Their stubborn refusal to accept the science has the potential of allowing the virus to mutant into new variants that are vaccine resistant. So they are putting everyone else at risk to satisfy their partisan blindness and selfishness. What’s more, they are preventing businesses and schools from fully opening up so that we can return to some semblance of normalcy.

In the meantime, Donald Trump has not even mentioned this matter, even though it is affecting his supporters more than anyone else. But he did have the time to tweet (via his Twitter ban defying spokes-shill) that energy generating windmill turbines are “Destroying our oceans, landscapes, and birds!” He forgot to mention his ludicrous belief that they also cause cancer.

Trump’s tweet linked to a three week old article in the New York Times about the Biden administration’s plans “to build 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030.” The article said nothing about birds. That was another of Trump’s tropes that has no basis in reality, but which he frequently repeats to keep his cult disciples in a perpetual state of fear. For the record, according to the Sierra Club…

“Estimates of up to a million or more birds a year are killed by turbines in the US, but that is far exceeded by collisions with communications towers (6.5 million); power lines, (25 million); windows (up to 1 billion); and cats (1.3 to 4.0 billion); and those lost due to habitat loss, pollution and climate change (American Bird Conservancy, Nature). Even if there were twenty times more wind turbines, enough to supply the US with electricity, the number of birds killed, assuming no improvement in wind turbine design, would be about 10 million–still far less than most other causes of bird deaths.”

So apparently Trump is more worried about his false notion that windmills are killing an excessive amount of birds, than he is about COVID actually killing people – particularly Republicans, the people who he purports to represent and who worship him. It’s a grotesque mangling of priorities that rests on a foundation of lies.

And if that weren’t bad enough, Trump and his GOP confederates are so utterly incapable of responding to the recent good news for Democrats and America (infrastructure bill, jobs report, climate conference, COVID decline), that they are resorting to attacking (the fictional) Big Bird of Sesame Street for having the audacity to educate children about vaccines. There goes his pretense about caring for birds.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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SRSLY? GOP Senator Vows to Fight Back Against ‘The Left’s War on…’ Meat?

Posted by on July 10, 2021 at 5:29 pm. 2 Comments :

The election of Joe Biden not only sent Donald Trump packing back to Mar-All-Ego, it also launched a months long state of desperation by the Trumpified Republican Party that has been utterly incapable of attaching their manufactured “scandals” to the new President.

Donald Trump, Republican, GOP

Try as they might, the GOP has failed miserably at tarnishing Biden’s image or his broad approval by the public at large. They have floated conspiracies about vaccine outreach programs. They have fear mongered about Critical Race Theory. They have even attacked the romance of the Bidens 44 year-long marriage.

On Saturday Republican Senator Joni Ernst took another swing at muddying up Democrats. She posted a tweet warning her followers about the horror of the alleged “Left’s War on Meat,” an altercation that exists only in her diseased and paranoid mind.

Does Ernst really believe that this is the issue that will galvanize voters and motivate them to turn out for Republican meat saviors? Well, having observed the intellectual state of the GOP lately, she might be on to something.

However, there is simply no truth to the claim that Democrats are waging a war on meat. In fact, they are as enamored of burgers and bacon and McNuggets as any Republican. And there aren’t any bills in Congress to ban or limit meat production or consumption. Although there was a previous attempt by GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-QAnon) to peddle a ludicrous lie about Biden proposing a 90% cut in meat from America’s diet. That, of course, never happened. So where is Ernst’s evidence of a war?

Despite the fact that she is battling a mirage, Ernst has introduced a bill to fight back against her imaginary foes. The TASTEE Act is a bizarre and unnecessary piece of legislative nonsense that states that “An agency, or a contractor of an agency that provides food services to a dining facility of the agency, may not establish a policy that prohibits a dining facility of the agency from serving a particular type of food.”

Really? So an agency cafeteria would be prohibited from establishing their own menus? Would they be forced to serve every type of food, whether anyone wanted to eat it or not? Would this bill take precedence over the cuisine preferences by patrons? And isn’t this the sort of federal government interference in commerce that the GOP usually opposes?

The article that Ernst’s tweet linked to supports her fear of meat discrimination, up to a point. It began by asking “Have you noticed that meat is always the ‘culprit’? Obesity. Environmental degradation. Cancer. Animal abuse. Climate change.” Which is a pretty good question, considering that meat actually is responsible for obesity, environmental degradation, cancer, etc. And it is also, according to Forbes, a prominent contributor to the climate change crisis. Plus, the article also made this rather salient point:

“Michigan State University’s 2021 Food Literacy and Engagement poll found that 41 percent of Americans were likely to buy faux meat that looks and tastes like real meat. That’s up from only 33 percent in 2018.”

So consumers are trending toward meat alternatives in big way. Why is Ernst against free market capitalism? The American people appear to be capable of making their own dietary choices without Ernst or the feds mandating menus by law. But more to the point, Why is Ernst ginning up alleged “atrocities” by Democrats that have no basis in reality. Like the Impossible Burger, it seems that Ernst is taking a big bite out of Impossible Facts – her own family recipe of alternative facts.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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Russian Agent? Sean Hannity’s Infantile, Anti-American Attacks on Biden are a Gift to Putin

Posted by on June 10, 2021 at 11:09 am. 4 Comments :

The relentless – and mostly impotent – attacks on President Biden by Fox News have escalated steadily ever since his inauguration. But they are not merely petulant political broadsides by sore losers. They are also benefiting America’s enemies at a time when our domestic institutions are uncommonly fragile due to Donald Trump and his Republican confederates’ assault on democracy.

Fox News, Sean Hannity, Vladimir Putin

In an effort to maintain his position as Fox’s Senior Trump-fluffer, Sean Hannity is ratcheting up his rancid rhetoric. On Wednesday night he launched into an anti-Biden tirade that can only be characterized as pro-Russian propaganda (video below, if you can stomach it). Hannity began with his now tediously routine, and utterly infantile, insults aimed at Biden’s mental acuity (a debate the American people ended long ago):

“According to our Commander-in-Chief, the greatest threat to our service men and women, it’s not China, it’s not Russia, it’s not Iran and North Korea, it’s not radical Islamic terrorists, it’s not nuclear war. No, according to President “sippy cup Joe” the greatest threat to our military is global warming, and he was not joking. Take a look.”

Hannity’s grade-school “sippy cup” taunt has become a fixture on his clown show, despite his having been brutally humiliated for prior references to it. He followed up his baby talk with a video clip of Biden rationally and responsibly relating the climate change warnings of Pentagon officials:

“We must all commit to an ambitious climate action if we’re going to prevent the worst impact of climate change, limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. We need the global transition to clean energy technology.

“You know, when I was over in the Tank [Joint Chiefs of Staff conference room] in the Pentagon, when I was first elected Vice-President with President Obama, the military sat us down to let us knw what the the greatest threats facing America were. The greatest physical threats. This is not a joke. You know what the Joint Chiefs told us the greatest threat facing America was? Global warming.”

This isn’t a new concept. Climate change was cited as a serious threat to American national security by Donald Trump’s secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, George W. Bush’s secretary of defense, Don Rumsfeld, and by at least four other defense secretaries of both parties. Hannity is either too stupid to know this, or is deliberately ignoring it. So he just rambled on saying…

“Okay. In just a few days that guy will sit down with the hostile actor with the hostile regime of Russia, Vladimir Putin. You know, the country that just hacked our energy and our beef industries, and I fear that Vladimir will eat Joe’s lunch. Embarrass us all. That is not good for this country. It is not good for the world. And Vladimir will see what we all see. That Joe Biden is frail, weak, and a cognitive mess who can do little more than read far-left talking points on a TelePrompTer. And he actually struggles to do that.

What isn’t good for the country or the world is taking Putin’s side, and disparaging America’s President, just days before a crucial summit meeting (and this isn’t the first time). Hannity is obviously in the service of his master, Vladimir Putin, with his hateful demeaning of Biden. This vile screed couldn’t be more helpful to Russian interests if the Politburo had written it themselves. And what ever happened to the maxim that “politics end at the water’s edge,” meaning that criticisms of the President pause when he or she is overseas on the nation’s business?

Clearly Hannity isn’t interested in what’s good for the country. He is only interested in maligning Biden, no matter how detrimental it is to American interests. And Fox News has made it clear that they stand firmly behind Hannity’s treasonous rants. This sort of strident anti-Americanism is riddled throughout the day on Fox News programs. And it should make it abundantly clear to every decent citizen what we’re up against.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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COLD-HEARTED LIES: Fox News Callously Exploits Deadly Winter Storms to Attack Green New Deal

Posted by on February 17, 2021 at 1:09 pm. 8 Comments :

Apparently Fox News wasn’t satisfied with lying about the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Even though their deliberate, politically motivated distortions resulted in untold thousands of deaths that could have been avoided. That isn’t hyperbole. Studies have actually proven that watching Fox News increases COVID-19 fatalities. Some studies singled out watching Sean Hannity as being linked to higher rates of coronavirus deaths.

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Fox News

Now that there are historically severe winter storms ravaging much of the country, Fox News has made a typically idiotic, right-wing based, editorial decision to lie about that as well. Rather than just reporting the facts about the storm and how those battered by it can get help, Fox News is spreading ludicrous falsehoods and laying blame on their political foes.

The narrative that Fox is adopting is that somehow the Green New Deal and wind turbines are responsible for the power outages that have devastated Texas. Never mind that wind power represents a small portion of the power generation in Texas which is run by Republicans who have always been opposed to alternative energy sources. Fox News wants their viewers to believe that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in charge of the Texas power grid and is conspiring to undermine it. That narrative was evident during an interview of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Hannity, where he said that…

“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy such as natural gas and nuclear, as well as solar and wind. Our wind and our solar got shot down and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where we’re lacking power on a statewide basis.”

That is an unvarnished, flat out lie. Even if wind and solar “got shot down,” their contribution to the total energy supply in Texas would have had a negligible impact. Abbott’s own administration expert agreed as reported by the Daily Beast:

“A senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, however, said hours earlier that frozen wind turbines during the deadly winter storms have been ‘the least significant factor in the blackouts,’ noting that the main factors are ‘frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and even nuclear facilities.'” [More info here]

Meanwhile, fresh from his pathetic attack on Jill and Joe Biden’s marriage, the undisputed Champion of Fox News Assholery, Tucker Carlson, added to the avalanche of bullpucky by babbling out this barrage of nonsense:

“Unbeknownst to most people, the Green New Deal came to Texas. The power grids became totally reliant on windmills. Then it got cold and the windmills broke. Cause that’s what happens in the green new deal. You’re without power. Millions are still without power tonight. Several have died. Now the same energy policies that have wrecked Texas this week are going nationwide. They’re coming to your state.”

Nearly every word of that rant is deliberate deceit. The Green New Deal has not come to Texas, or anywhere else in the United States. It is currently a draft of bill in Congress that hasn’t been introduced or voted on. As noted above, the power grids in Texas are not “totally reliant on windmills,” or even minimally reliant. They didn’t break. They just need to be de-iced. That isn’t what happens in the Green New Deal. People are still without power because the fossil fuel sources have failed. And the energy policies that wrecked Texas were entirely the work of Republicans beholden to the fossil fuel industry.

The only things Carlson got right are that people have died (which he couldn’t care less about), and that eventually, with luck and hard work, the Green New Deal will be implemented across the country. Which will be a huge improvement over the archaic Dirty Old Deal. In the meantime, Fox News will continue to exploit tragedies in their zeal to advance a heartless, destructive, ultra-conservative agenda. And, of course, to juice their sagging ratings.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Big Baby Trump Says AOC has ‘the Mind of a Child’

Posted by on September 1, 2020 at 4:20 pm. NO Comments :

In another demonstration of pure projection, Donald Trump is maligning Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a manner consistent with his well documented misogyny. His notorious disrespect for strong women who have the audacity to challenge him has been aimed at political opponents, journalists, and those who have been unfortunate enough to crossed paths with him in their personal lives.

Donald Trump

On Monday Trump was “interviewed” by Laura Ingraham on Fox News. It was another embarrassing tongue bath by a devoted sycophant whose job is to promote Trump’s propaganda and disinformation. In the course of the program Trump began to dispense his routine lies about Joe Biden’s tax proposals. However, Trump’s mental infirmities prevent him from engaging in a coherent discussion or staying on any topic for more than ten seconds. So we end up with this bizarre blowup (video below):

“[Biden’s] going to do $4 trillion in tax increases. He’s going to do things that are going to cost so much on the Green New Deal, which is — which is done by a child, OK? That’s the mind of a child. Because the Green New Deal is ridiculous. It doesn’t work. They’re going to do things under the Green — you know, the Green New Deal, if you actually did it, is $100 trillion. That’s more money than this country could make in a thousand years.”

First of all, Biden has no plan to raise $4 trillion in taxes, He has said that he will reverse Trump’s tax scam, which was a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, and drastically inflated the national debt. But that is not a $4 trillion dollar plan and it is only going to raise taxes for those making more than $400,000 a year.

More to the point, Trump’s remarks about Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, one of the key congressional proponents of the Green New Deal, are blatantly insulting and reflect his hatred for women. And it isn’t the first time he insulted Ocasio-Cortez’ maturity. Last month he said that her Green New Deal proposal was “written by a foolish child.” However, the woman he says has “the mind of a child” (and whom he previously said is “dumb as a rock“) is an elected representative from the state New York. She also graduated cum laude from Boston University with degrees in international relations and economics. And, unlike Trump, she didn’t have to get someone to take her SATs for her to get into college.

Ocasio-Cortez has both the academic background and professional experience to advocate for the Green New Deal and other initiatives to address the climate crisis. Trump, on the other hand, has no idea what he’s talking about and believes that climate change is a hoax. His assertion that it would cost $100 trillion dollars was pulled straight out of his astonishing supply of ignorance. The same is true for his claim that the United States couldn’t make that much money in a thousand years.

Fact Check: Trump didn’t specify what he meant by how much the country could make. So here are a couple of likely scenarios: The gross domestic product of the United states is about $20 trillion dollars, so by that measure it would only take five years. Annual federal tax revenue is about $3 trillion, so by that measure it would only take 33 years. In either case, it wouldn’t take a thousand years no matter how you figure it.

The bottom line is that Trump is the one acting like a child. He has these ludicrous outbursts that are completely removed from reality. He is focused intently and solely on his egomaniacal needs. He attacks critics in the most infantile manner imaginable. He throws tantrums if he doesn’t get his way. And his capacity to understand complex ideas is stuck at about a second grade level, if that. To say that he has the mind of a child would an an insult to children.

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

Fox News Flat Out Lies that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Compared Climate Change to 9/11

Posted by on March 30, 2019 at 2:56 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s never exactly breaking to news to report that Fox News has broadcast something that is blatantly contrary to reality. In fact, it would be easier to point out when they say something that’s even marginally true. Nevertheless, it’s important to set the record straight lest we allow their lies to linger and get a foothold on the weaker minds that populate their audience of Deplorables.

Fox News, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

On Saturday morning, Donald Trump’s favorite breakfast club, Fox and Friends, put together a segment that was obviously intended to deceive. The target of their dishonesty was a familiar one: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), for whom they have developed a perverse obsession. The subject of the segment was emblazoned on their chyron which read “Ocasio-Cortez Compares Climate Change to 9/11.” There’s just one little problem with that. AOC never did anything of the kind.

The “Curvy Couch” potatoes began the segment with a clip (video below) of AOC making a point about the of the Trump administration’s utterly incompetent response to the tragic hurricane in Puerto Rico. She said that:

“On the events on September 11, 2001, thousands of Americans died in the largest terror attack on US soil. Our national response was war in one, then eventually two countries. Three thousand Americans died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria. Where is our response?”

So AOC did make some mention of 9/11, but it had nothing to do with climate change. And it wasn’t even a comparison to the devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico. She was only observing that this country can devote resources to a disaster when it has the will to do so. She was comparing the response, not the event. But the hosts of Fox and Friends were more committed to attacking AOC than to reporting what she actually said. Not that she didn’t address climate change in the hour long town hall she did with Chris Hayes of MSNBC. She did, and in a very profound and compelling manner. But Fox News never played that part:

“Our greatest existential threat is climate change. And to get us out of this situation – to revamp our economy, to create dignified jobs for working Americans, to guarantee healthcare, and elevate our educational opportunities and attainment – we will have to mobilize our entire economy around saving ourselves and taking care of this planet.”

The producers of this Fox program also appended a bit of video to the end of their clip that was unrelated to the rest of it. It showed her commenting about the critics of the “Green New Deal,” saying that she “didn’t expect them to make total fools of themselves.” That comment was actually a response to a video montage of Republicans and Fox News shills (which is redundant, I know) attacking her. And after maligning and misrepresenting her for the whole piece, the Fox hosts suggested that she should come on their show. Yeah, right. At least Fox didn’t compare her to Hitler and Stalin like it did a couple of months ago.

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

The Trump Effect: More Countries Now View the Influence of the U.S. as a ‘Major Threat’

Posted by on February 12, 2019 at 11:57 am. NO Comments :

One of the most recognizable personality flaws of Donald Trump is his compulsion to brag about everything he does as the bestest, most awesomest of whatever it is in the history of mankind. To be fair, he is entitled to some credit in specific areas. For instance, no president has ever been documented as telling more lies (8,000+) than Trump.

Donald Trump

However, pretty much everything that Trump has done more of than anyone else has had a decidedly negative impact on the country and the world. They include his withdrawal from the Paris Accords on Climate Change, his ditching the Iran nuclear treaty, his tax scam that benefitted only corporations and the wealthy, and his shutdown of the government over a useless and ineffective vanity wall along the southern border.

To this list we can now add a new accomplishment. According to a worldwide survey by the Pew Research Center, The United States is now seen by more nations as a “major threat” than prior to Trump’s presidency:

“More people now say [the U.S.] is a threat than in 2013 and 2017. Indeed, in 10 countries, roughly half or more now claim that American power is a major threat to their nation.” […]

“The largest change in sentiment among the global threats tracked are for those who see U.S. power and influence as a major threat to their countries. In 2013, only a quarter across 22 nations saw American power as a major threat to their country, but that jumped substantially to 38% in 2017, the year after Trump was elected president, and to 45% in 2018.”

That represents a twenty-five percentage point increase from the presidency of Barack Obama to the Trump regime. Many of the countries with the highest increases are neighbors and allies like Mexico (64%) and Japan (66%). Germany, France, and even Canada reported significantly greater concerns about the threat of U.S. influence. And all of these numbers rose in sync with survey results showing “a strong connection between seeing America as a threat and lack of confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump.”

It’s notable that this PEW study focuses on what the global community regards as threatening, and that most of them cite Climate Change at the top of their list. Of the twenty-six countries surveyed, fifty percent consider Climate Change to be the most serious threat they are facing. That compares to less than a third who named ISIS. And the perception of Climate Change as a threat increased by eleven points worldwide, a gain that is second only to the the U.S. It’s not surprising that this rising concern coincides with Trump’s dismissal of Climate Change as a hoax.

Clearly, there is no ambiguity about the cause of this decline in the international reputation of the United States. Trump is driving America to a new low in the world, particularly with our longtime allies. It is not only embarrassing and disruptive, it is dangerous. And it is deliberate on the part of an ignorant narcissist whose only goal is to glorify himself and disparage the majority of Americans who disagree agree with him.

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

Is Paris Burning? Donald Trump’s Flaming Lunacy Abounds in Bonkers Fox News ‘Interview’

Posted by on December 13, 2018 at 7:41 pm. 2 Comments :

The Big 4-0. That’s what Donald Trump has hit with his latest infomercial (aka interview) on Fox News. It’s his fortieth since becoming president. As usual it was a slobbering love-fest with Fox host Harris Faulkner hand-holding Trump through a series of softball questions. And when he wasn’t filibustering with barely comprehensible blather, he was interrupting with almost relevant filler (video below).

Donald Trump Climate Change

The Oval Office affair covered a few pertinent subjects with the thinnest veil of substance. Harris asked about Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen and his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, but she never pressed him to answer for their criminal activities or how they implicated him. Nor did she challenge any of his meandering obviously deflecting replies.

However, she did bake up some sweet questions that displayed her sincere devotion to her guest. Faulkner never once challenged any of Trump’s dishonest answers. She prefaced a question about the disclosures in Michael Cohen’s sentencing by quoting a former anti-Clinton special counsel saying that “he couldn’t see grounds for impeachment over that.” Then she described Cohen as “someone who has surreptitiously recorded you and is now known as a criminal liar.”

It seems every question was waterdown with platitudes before Trump even had to answer. When referencing a new Fox poll showing that Trump is still underwater at 46-52 percent, she spun it as being “just a couple tics off your highest point.” Which means, of course, that he has never risen above fifty percent. But she wouldn’t say that. Although she did let him get away with bragging about how well he did with women in 2016 (he lost women).

When he lied about how well he’s doing with China and trade, Faulkner chimed in that “that takes the pressure off the economy a little bit.” She did note that all of the gains for 2018 in the market are gone, but then added with a big smile that the market is still up since his inauguration (due to the record bull market that began in 2009 under President Obama). While discussing the economy and jobs, Faulkner got nearly teary-eyed about her impression of Trump going after companies that have had to impose layoffs, saying “I love this, cause I hadn’t planned to ask this, but your you’re calling out companies and what not. And the nation got to see you.” After his incoherent non-response she praised him saying that “This is your wheelhouse. Everybody knows this. I mean, to see the energy and the electricity as you talk about these issues.” Does anyone else need a towel?

As Faulkner wrapped things up she couldn’t help but show more unconditional love by asking him “What do you love about being President?” Trump’s reply was a vague “I love getting things done for the people,” but that it’s “a nasty job because I get hit so hard.” And Faulkner closes by sucking back the drool and telling Trump that “You have such energy for this.”

But perhaps the most disturbing part of this extended fluffing session was Trump’s insistence that he’s been a fantastic steward of the environment. His justification for that delusional self-appraisal was this disjointed nonsense:

“The Paris Accord is not working out too well for Paris. Take a look at what’s happening over there. Because of the Paris Accord that whole country is burning down, OK? And I was the one that kept us out of the Paris Accord. If I was in the Paris Accord we would be paying trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars for nothing.”

It’s somehow appropriate that Trump would come so close to the question that Adolf Hitler reportedly asked about Paris after ordering his troops to destroy the city rather than let it be re-captured by the Allies: Is Paris Burning? Well, no. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. While there is some civil unrest, the city is not a charred wasteland. And the protests have nothing to do with climate change, despite Trump’s deranged attempt to conflate them. Also, the trillions of dollars he said would have been spent are a figment of his diseased imagination.

Sadly, this is the sort of warped dialogue that America is forced to engage in with a president who is too demented to grasp any subject that might come across his desk – or reality. And it doesn’t help when an alleged “news” network acts like the propaganda arm of a White House determined to mislead the public and work against the interests of the nation.

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

Make California Rake Again: Trump’s Fire Propaganda Video Callously Ignores the Victims

Posted by on November 18, 2018 at 8:59 am. 3 Comments :

On Saturday Donald Trump took a trip to California to see for himself the devastation caused by the fires that have taken dozens of lives and destroyed thousands of homes. It was a purely PR affair that he thinks will make people forget his insensitive threat – while people were still suffering – that he would make “no more Fed payments” to the state. Those were his first public comments on the conflagration that he absurdly blamed on poor forest management.

Donald Trump Rake

Apparently someone on his White House Nanny Brigade eventually convinced him that insulting the victims was a bad idea. Particularly since his assessment was so idiotic and ill-informed. He was schooled by everyone, from the head of the California firefighters union (who called Trump’s comments “demeaning”), to prominent scientists, that forest management had nothing to with this blaze and that “raking the forest floor,” as Trump advised, was a ludicrous proposal to prevent future tragedies.

So Trump boarded Air Force One and ventured off to the West Coast that he is so fond of disparaging. He brought along a few Republican Nationalist Party pals, but no Democrats were among the delegation. Although he did meet with California’s Governor Jerry Brown, and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom (who was married to Don Jr’s current girlfriend), both of whom are Democrats that Trump has frequently and viciously maligned. And afterward he posted a video on Twitter of his time in the Golden State:

Well, isn’t that a pretty propaganda piece? Complete with emotional music and heart-tugging scenes of destruction and the charred remains of people’s lives. What less would you expect from the White House whose new Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications is Bill Shine, the former president of Fox News? This is exactly the sort of Trump-fluffing disinformation that Shine was brought aboard to manufacture. The public relations purpose of this video is painfully obvious. Along with the burnt out buildings and countryside, it featured numerous clips of Trump standing near some piles of ashes and conferring with firefighters as if he were actually directing these “great heroes” on how to proceed.

However, there is something fairly important that this video has left out. There is not a single shot of any of the victims or survivors of the fire. There are no images of Trump consoling the people who were hurt or meeting with those who lost their life’s possessions, work, or family. The absence of Trump engaging in activities that any other normal person would regard as essential – or human – under the circumstances is emblematic of his profoundly callous and neglectful behavior throughout his public life. And it underscores his comments to date that belittle the victims and distort the reality of the tragedy and its causes.

In his own words, this experience in no way altered Trump’s stubbornly twisted view of the world. He told reporters that it didn’t affect his opinion about climate change, which experts agree was a critical factor in these fires. But he did utter this rhetorical mutation: “I want great climate,” as if it were something that could be served up like a cup of coffee or built in a factory. And he reiterated his nonsense about forest management, comparing California’s situation to Finland, a tiny frozen nation that gets more than 200 days of rain annually, with sixty-four of those days in the summer. Even Finland disputed Trump’s comparison.

That’s the sort of ignorance that America has to put up with every day. But on days when Americans are grieving over painful losses it would be nice if we had a president who wasn’t so selfish and uneducated and bullheaded about his factless prejudices. Instead we are stuck with Trump and his Fox News production team making these lame videos for an audience of dimwits who think they display leadership.

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