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Fox News Buries Reports of Trump’s Unsavory, Unqualified Defense Secretary Pick, Pete Hegseth

Posted by on December 3, 2024 at 1:06 pm. 1 Comments :

One thing that can be said about Donald Trump is that he has a deep affinity for people who share his noxious personality and absence of ethical values. He consistently surrounds himself with other wealthy narcissists who are devoted to serving their own interests and greed at the expense of everyone else.

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Fox News, Pete Hegseth, Cleared

For an example of this Trumpiness in his toadies, one needs to look no further than his current nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. The abhorrent nature of Trump is readily apparent in Hegseth’s conceited certainty that he has the experience and skills to run the Pentagon. What he does have is unwavering fealty to Trump and a Fox News resume.

SEE THIS: Trump is Stacking His Cabinet with Fox News Trump-Fluffers

Hegseth’s history as the weekend host of Fox and Friends has not only won him the attention of Trump, it has resulted in the stories of his decadent past behavior being blacked out on Fox “News.” CNN’s Brian Stelter reviewed Fox’s programming and discovered that they have utterly ignored some bombshell revelations about Hegseth…

“What’s a media outlet supposed to do when its longtime host is picked to run the Pentagon, and then a series of eyebrow-raising news stories trigger doubts about his appointment? If you’re Fox News, evidently, you just pretend the stories don’t exist. […] On Fox, Hegseth’s former colleagues aren’t raising alarms about the allegations or defending him – they’re just not talking about the issue at all.”

This is typical of Fox News, a network whose mission from its inception has been to advance right-wing politicians and policies. Among the revelations that have recently been reported about Hegseth by actual journalists are…

  • Emails by Hegseth’s mother who wrote to him “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself. I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
  • And that “A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report”
  • And a whistle-blower report that Hegseth “was forced out of previous leadership positions for financial mismanagement, sexist behavior, and being repeatedly intoxicated on the job.” The report detailed multiple accounts of Hegseth being so drunk he had to be carried back to his hotel room. It also revealed incidents like the one where he “had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.”

Jane Mayer, the author of the New Yorker story about the whistleblower, was interviewed on CNN Monday, where she outlined much of the atrocious behavior by Hegseth. In addition to his alcohol-fueled debauchery, she calls into question whether someone who could not manage a small charity (actually two of them) with a handful of staffers would be able to run the Pentagon with a budget of $850 billion and more than three million people.

What this tells is that Hegseth is absolutely unqualified to be Secretary of Defense, or to be considered for any position in government. But it also tells us that he should not have been employed by Fox News either, and that they should not consider rehiring him if his nomination is rejected by the Senate, as it must be.

Hegseth is incompetent and is an unrepentant abuser of women and liquor who, like Trump, is on his third marriage, after his cheating and lying and abuse resulted in the first two failing. Although it is just that sort of deplorable behavior that explains why Trump likes him so much. They are two of a kind.

UPDATE: NBC News is now reporting that “as many as 6 Senate Republicans are currently not comfortable supporting [Hegseth’s] bid.” If only half that many say “NO” Hegseth cannot be confirmed.

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CNN’s Republican Shill Says Tariffs Are Not Enough, Proposes Starting a Drug War with Mexico

Posted by on November 27, 2024 at 2:14 pm. 0 Comments :

One of the absolute worst ideas that Donald Trump has proposed since becoming president-elect is his promise to impose new tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners. His justification for this is that it would serve as a lever to make them end the trafficking of drugs into the United States.

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General Donald Trump on CNN

Never mind that economists and trade experts agree that such a reckless and ill-considered act “would significantly increase U.S. inflation next year [and] curtail economic growth.” Trump doesn’t really care about the welfare of the American people. If he did he wouldn’t lie to them so flagrantly and frequently.

SEE THIS: OUCH! Trump’s Flagrant Lies About 14,000 ‘Criminal’ Migrants Gets a Devastating Fact-Check

If the gullible rubes who voted for Trump think that he is going to lower the price of gas or eggs, they are going to be woefully disappointed. To the contrary, his plans will increase the costs of everything from fruit to toys to shoes to cars, and more. And to rub some salt into those wounds, it won’t have the slightest impact on drug trafficking.

Which makes the following exchange about Trump’s initiatives on CNN, between economic contributor Catherine Rampell and Republican hack Scott Jennings, all the more troubling…

Rampell: Mexico has actually put a lot more border security on its southern border.
Jennings: It’s really working wonders. This is crazy.
Rampell: Yes, again, border crossings are down 75 percent. They’re back to what they were under Trump.
Jennings: If I were [Mexican President Sheinbaum], I would be prepared for my country to possibly have United States military incursions to take out the drug factories and the people who do this to us too.
Rampell: So, you think we should not only have a trade war, we should have a military war with Mexico?
Jennings: I think we have to do what we have to do to stop the drugs.

So Jennings, who has previously supported deploying the military within the U.S. to round up immigrants for mass deportation, now also wants the Army to invade our allied neighbor to South to put an end to the Fentanyl crisis at home. The minions of MAGA have become the foremost advocates of military engagements. Unless, of course, it is aimed at preventing Vladimir Putin from invading and annexing our friends in Ukraine.

Rampell was correct to note that border crossings are down 75 percent. What’s more, most of the Fentanyl coming into the U.S. is brought in by American citizens through legal ports of entry. And there is a reason for the flood of drugs into the U.S. There’s a huge market for it. Fentanyl trafficking would end if Americans would stop buying it. It isn’t an international crime problem. It’s a domestic public health problem. These and other concerns were addressed by President Sheinbaum following Trump’s tariff threat…

“Mexico’s main exporters to the U.S. are General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Company, which came to Mexico 80 years ago. Why put a tax on them that puts them at risk? It is not acceptable and would cause the U.S. and Mexico inflation and job losses.” […]

“Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours.”

The military “solution” that Jennings proposed would be worse than ineffective. It would be objectively harmful. It would put the lives American soldiers, as well as innocent Mexican civilians, at risk. It would do nothing to reduce drug trafficking because, as long as there is a demand, the traffickers will seek to fill it. They would just raise their prices along with the legal businesses who respond to the tariffs.

Worst of all, it would destroy the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, it’s biggest trading partner. It would accelerate inflation at home, and waste billions of dollars and military resources.

Yet somehow CNN is comfortable having a regular contributor on their air making these preposterous and dangerous proposals. Jennings is not a serious conservative commentator. He is war mongering fanatic whose opinions are not worthy of being disseminated by any reputable news enterprise. And if CNN wants to be regarded as “reputable,” they need to dispose of Jennings.

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So-Called ‘Christian’ Mike Johnson Does the ‘Weave’ When Asked if Morality Matters to the GOP

Posted by on November 17, 2024 at 2:54 pm. 4 Comments :

As Donald Trump unveils the principle personnel of his upcoming administration, it is becoming clearer every day just how bereft of principles, knowledge, and experience will be available in some of the most critical positions in the United States government.

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Donald Trump, Congress, Mike Johnson

Unfortunately, it isn’t just a problem of ignorance and incompetence, but one of downright malice by nominees who have expressed ideas and intentions that are contrary to American policies and values.

Among those nominees are an accused sex trafficker (Matt Gaetz) for Attorney General, a health conspiracy crackpot (Robert Kennedy Jr) for Secretary of Health and Human Services, a TV host who has defended war criminals (Pete Hegseth) for Secretary of Defense, and a suspected Kremlin sympathizer (Tulsi Gabbard) for Director of National Intelligence. What they all share is an unwavering devotion to Trump, whose own values are wanting and/or warped.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Refusal to Sign the Required Ethics Agreement is His Virtual Promise to Violate It

America’s founders designed a system of government that anticipated some of the potential pitfalls that we face now. However, that system of checks and balances doesn’t work if the equal branches of government are run by lily-livered supplicants to an aspiring totalitarian. Which is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today as revealed in an interview of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson by Jake Tapper of CNN…

Tapper: You’re a man of faith. You’re a man of God. You’re a man of family. With some of these nominees, Gaetz, Hegseth, RFK Jr., I wonder does it matter anymore for Republicans to think of leaders as people who are moral in their personal lives? Is that still important to the Republican Party?
Johnson: Sure. It’s an important issue for anyone in leadership. This is what I’ll say about the nominees that the president has put forward, is that they are persons who will shake up the status quo. And I think what the American people have believed, and what they’ve delivered with the mandate in this election, is a demand that we shake up the status quo. […] Any president has the right to name their own cabinet to nominate persons that they think the people that will fulfill their agenda. And the people that are on this list will do that.

First of all, Tapper was exceedingly generous in his description of Johnson’s alleged piety. There has been little of that demonstrated in his public life, outside of vacant rhetoric.

More to the point, Johnson conspicuously avoided any coherent response to Tapper’s question. After a perfunctory concession that morality matters, he “weaved” (as Trump might describe it) into a lengthy, but unrelated, discourse on “shak[ing] up the status quo.” He further claimed that Trump had an electoral mandate that is a figment of his – and Trump’s – imagination. He won by one of the smallest margins in history, and failed to get a majority of votes.

Johnson’s justification for supporting the morality deprived candidates nominated by Trump is that “Any president has the right to name their own cabinet.” That’s true. But it is the Senate’s right to confirm those that the president names, or to decline to do so. And there has never been better justification to refuse confirmation than with the cretins Trump has named.

Will Johnson take a principled stand on these nominees? Don’t hold your breath. To the contrary, he has already stated his intention to object to the release of a report by the House Ethics Committee detailing their investigation of Gaetz for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. And he made his announcement of that objection after visiting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago where he likely got his marching orders from Dear Leader.

That’s about all that can be expected by Johnson as Speaker of the House, as well as by Sen. John Thune as GOP leader of the Senate. Hopefully there will be a few Republicans with the minimum measure of morality to join with Democrats and block Trump’s worst nominees. But that may be a thin lifeline to cling to. Time will tell.

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Dictator on Day One! Trump Nixes FBI Background Checks for his Unqualified, Anti-American Cabinet

Posted by on November 15, 2024 at 1:32 pm. 5 Comments :

In the heat of the 2024 presidential election season, Donald Trump sat for one of his many tongue bathing “interviews” with Sean Hannity on Fox News. On one particular occasion, Hannity sought to handhold Trump through a controversy wherein he had been accused of aspiring to be a dictator. But true to form, Trump was oblivious to the answers that Hannity tried to pass to him in his questions.

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Donald Trump

Despite Hannity’s repeated attempts, Trump insisted on expressing his abhorrent authoritarian aspirations. He stubbornly affirmed his deep desire to be a “dictator on day one.” And the limitation of his tyrannical reign to a single day provides little comfort to those who know that dictators never relinquish power voluntarily once they assume it.

SEE THIS: Trump Cloddishly Dodges Hannity’s Softball Questions About Whether He Would Be a Dictator

Validating Trump’s totalitarian tendencies, it is now being reported that he intends to bypass the routine FBI background checks that are conducted on prospective presidential Cabinet candidates. According to CNN…

“President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is?bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say.

“Trump and his allies believe the FBI system is slow and plagued with issues that could stymie the president-elect’s plan to quickly begin the work of implementing his agenda, people briefed on the plans said. Critics say the intrusive background checks sometimes turn up embarrassing information used to inflict political damage.

“The discussions come as Trump has floated several controversial choices for high-level positions in the US government – including Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.”

There are reasons that the FBI has been tasked with these background checks for decades. The positions that Cabinet heads hold grant them access to sensitive national security information. If they are compromised in any way it could make them vessels for foreign agents to acquire classified data, or even make them vulnerable to blackmail attempts. And that’s presuming that they aren’t purposefully acting on behalf of enemy regimes.

So why would Trump want to forego background checks on his nominees? Does he know something about them that we don’t? Are his own motives suspect? Even if they are not themselves foreign assets, do they have connections that would be concerning? Could they be unwitting dupes?

These are all questions that take on extraordinary significance when Trump himself has been so chummy with foreign despots like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orbán, and Kim Jong Un. Will those questions be asked? Will Trump be able to delay the process until he is able to install his own nominee for FBI director (possibly Trump flunky, Kash Patel)?

Many of Trump’s nominees to date have glaring issues that would raise red flags in any probe for security clearances. His attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz, has been credibly accused of sex trafficking of a minor and illicit drug use. His Health and Human Services nominee, Robert Kennedy Jr, is a serial adulterer with a dead worm in his brain who holds crackpot conspiracy theories regarding medicine and vaccines. His nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has advocated bombing Iran and North Korea and argued in support of war criminals. His nominee for director of national security, Tulsi Gabbard, has ties with Putin and Russia.

What they all have in common is a worshipful cult attachment, and unwavering loyalty, to Trump, and no experience whatsoever in the jobs that he is proposing they fill. If it were Trump’s mission to undermine the stability of the United States, he couldn’t have picked a better team. So naturally, he wouldn’t want any of his co-conspirators to be subject to scrutiny.

Trump has been angling to give his nominees “recess appointments” so that they can bypass the Senate hearings as well. Hopefully Republicans in the Senate will grow a spine and insist that these nominees be required to submit to both background checks and Senate hearings. But resting our hopes on the strength of GOP spines is not exactly reassuring.

This leaves any hopes of preserving our democracy to Democrats, who are in the minority in both houses of Congress, and the media, who have been grossly deficient in their duty to inform. Which means that the only remaining path to salvation rests with the people. Are we up to it? We better be!

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‘We’ve Got Hulk Hogan’ – GOP Pundit’s Consolation After Bruce Springsteen Endorses Kamala Harris

Posted by on October 4, 2024 at 1:53 pm. 1 Comments :

The Republican Party has always been a morass of mendacity and hypocrisy. But it has gotten immeasurably worse since Donald Trump took it over, making it a cult of personality disorders, and a haven for greedy grifters, who appeal to the lowest uncommon deplorable.

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Kamala Harris, Donald Trump baby

The Trump cult is propped up by the MAGA minions who fluff him in the media. Their purposeful deceptions make them even more disgraceful than the willfully ignorant, glassy-eyed disciples who habitually attend Trump rallies. And yet, Trump engages in pure projection to malign the rational Americans who prefer the democracy championed by Kamala Harris to the tyranny aspired to by Trump.

SEE THIS: ATTN: Trump Says Pretty Much Everyone Who Supports Kamala Harris Must Have Their Heads Examined

On Thursday night CNN’s Republican pundit, Scott Jennings, addressed the recent endorsement of Kamala Harris by rock superstar, Bruce Springsteen. Jennings attempted desperately to assuage his fears by trying to convince himself that Trump has the upper hand with more admired and influential celebrity supporters…

“I can’t think of anything I care about less than some moron celebrity…we’ve got Hulk Hogan, and that’s all I need.” […] Jennings said he wants to see “directionally a center right government, and I don’t give a crap what some celebrity thinks about it.”

Seriously? Jennings thinks that Springsteen – an artist with a catalog of brilliant compositions that millions relate to – is a “moron celebrity,” but that Hulk Hogan – a jock who performed in phony wrestling matches – is some sort of Rhodes Scholar? Does Jennings really believe that an endorsement by the “The Hulkster” is as valuable as one by “The Boss”?

Apparently the answer to that question is a resounding, “NO!” Because immediately after bragging about Hogan, Jennings admits that “I don’t give a crap what some celebrity thinks about it.” So that must include Hogan, right?

Republicans love to pretend that they aren’t interested in celebrity endorsements. So you have to wonder why they keep promoting them from losers like Kid Rock, Scott Baio, and Roseanne Barr. It’s a contest that they can’t hope to win when Harris has supporters like Taylor Swift, George Clooney, John Legend, and Oprah.

For the record, Springsteen’s endorsement was an eloquent and moving expression of why Harris is fundamentally superior to Trump. He touches on both Trump’s fatal flaws and Harris’ distinguished assets…

“Donald Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. His disdain for the sanctity of our Constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law, and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president ever again. He doesn’t understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply American.”

Celebrity endorsements, of course, should not be used to determine how to vote for any candidate. But they can be good reference points by creative people who have a demonstrated ability to connect with others. Their insights are appreciated specifically because they are adept at envisioning and expressing what many others see and feel. Their opinions often have just as much merit as the paid partisan “experts” who populate news programs. And in the case of Jennings, infinitely more merit.

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Trump Whines that the Media Didn’t Praise Him Enough After His Lie-Riddled Debate with Biden

Posted by on June 29, 2024 at 1:08 pm. 3 Comments :

The first presidential debate of 2024 is now history – in more ways ways than one. It is the first ever presidential debate where one of the candidates – Donald Trump – was a convicted felon, with 54 more felony charges pending, and was ordered to pay $454 million for financial fraud, and who incited a violent coup, and was adjudicated as a rapist.

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Donald Trump, Wah

Those uniquely distinguishing characteristics of Trump, however, were not the only things that guaranteed the CNN debate with President Biden a place in the history books. It was also a debate wherein Trump likely set a new world record for telling the most lies in a 90 minute slice of political television. And the record he beat was probably his own.

SEE THIS: FTR: Felonious Trump Gave 3 Times as Many False Statements as President Biden in the CNN Debate

In the days following the debate, the media has decided to place their focus on what many of their pundits are describing as the substandard performance of Biden. Ordinarily, when the press is criticizing your opponent, most politicians would be satisfied to let that criticism go on without interruption. But Trump is most certainly not “most politicians.”

Consequently, Trump is complaining about the bad press that Biden is suffering. Not because he thinks it is unwarranted. But because it is deflecting media attention from himself. And there is no greater offense one can commit against Trump than to fail to be thoroughly engrossed with his every word and deed at all times. He is the most sickly, egotistical, manifestation of Glenn Close’s character in the movie “Fatal Attraction,” who declared that “I will not be ignored.”

On Saturday morning Trump took to his floundering Social media scam, Truth Social, to lash out the press for failing to obsess over him. He wrote that…

“As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reporters and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of Presidential Debates. They all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!’ This theme was universal, even at CNN & MSDNC, but by Friday evening it was all about the poor performance of Crooked Joe, and not so much about how well I did. Oh well, that’s the way it is but, importantly, the result is the same!!!”

There is so much wrong with that puerile outburst that it requires a deeper dive into its derangement. Beginning with Trump’s utterly delusional assertion that all of the anchors and political reporters “screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance” in history. He was probably right about the screaming, but not for the reasons he suggests. And they surely didn’t regard his litany of flagrant lies as “fantastic.”

What’s more, how would Trump know what CNN and MSNBC – two networks that he insists he would never watch – were saying about Biden’s debate performance? If he had watched them he would have seen them talking about both Biden’s shortcomings and his own brazen and shameless dishonesty.

However, Trump makes it clear that his biggest problem with the press coverage of the debate was that it was “not so much about how well I did.” One explanation for that might be that he didn’t do what any rational person would describe as “well.”

More to the point, Trump is exhibiting his flaming narcissism by squealing about the press failing to devote all of their attention to him, even at the expense of their determination to bash Biden. Meanwhile Biden, while not delivering his best performance, was at least honest and, unlike Trump, stuck to the facts in his responses that actually related to the questions he was asked.

It is illustrative of the bizarre nature of our times that a candidate who appeared somewhat slow and detached during one debate is being urged to drop out of the race, but not the candidate who has been convicted of 34 felonies, surrounds himself with fellow felons, lies pathologically, exudes hostility and racism, and was affirmed by a judge to be a rapist. When these pundits start to call for Trump to drop out, we can start to take them seriously.

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FTR: Felonious Trump Gave 3 Times as Many False Statements as President Biden in the CNN Debate

Posted by on June 28, 2024 at 11:51 am. 2 Comments :

Lets get this out of the way… President Biden had a bad night, and it was a serious missed opportunity. That said, Donald Trump is still a convicted felon, a rapist, a bigot, a flaming idiot, and an aspiring authoritarian who is an imminent threat to democracy. And, as emphatically demonstrated in last night’s debate, Trump is a also pathological liar.

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Trump Lies

So after the CNN debate, the choice for president remains one between an honorable, intelligent, elderly man with a poor memory who stutters, or a psychotically hostile wannabe dictator with the morals of an alley cat. That shouldn’t be a difficult choice for most Americans. And the coming days will affirm Trump’s unfitness for office as he is sentenced for the 34 felonies he was recently found guilty of, followed by the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city he regards as “horrible.”

SEE THIS: Trump Horribly Bungles His ‘Horrible City’ Swipe at Milwaukee with Help from a Fox News Flunky

There are factions within the Democratic Party that are panicking and now believe that Biden should step aside. Meanwhile, Republicans are ecstatic about Trump flooding the zone with flagrant falsehoods. Something is very wrong with American politics if Democrats will panic when Biden stutters a bit, but Republicans will celebrate when Trump lies constantly.

CNN made the astonishingly irresponsible decision to refrain from fact-checking during the debate. That played into Trump’s hands, allowing him to lie incessantly for 90 minutes without consequence. After the debate, CNN got around to fact checking, and the results, while predictable, couldn’t be worse for Trump. They found that Trump lied at least 28 times – about once every three minutes. Which means that virtually every response he gave contained a lie. Biden, on the other hand, was found to have made only nine disputable comments.

The difference between the character of the falsehoods was also notable. Trump’s were serious misstatements of irrefutable and consequential facts. However, Biden’s contained some items that clearly didn’t belong on a list of false statements. For instance…

  • CNN disputed Biden’s claim that Trump wants to get rid of Social Security. But Trump has said that he would make cuts to the program that he falsely claims is an entitlement.
  • CNN disputed Biden’s claim regarding Trump’s proposal to inject bleach as a cure of COVID. But Trump did make such a suggestion, just using the word “disinfectant,” rather than “bleach.”
  • CNN disputed Biden’s claim that billionaires pay 8.2% in taxes. Which is true if you factor in their unrealized investment income. And often they pay less, or even zero.

The list of Trump’s lies, however, was far longer and more substantive, including…

  • Trump’s lie that “everybody” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, including Democrats.
  • Trump’s lie that Democrats support killing babies “after birth.”
  • Trump’s denial that he had called fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers.”
  • Trump’s claim that his 10% tariff on all imported goods would not raise prices on Americans.
  • Trump’s lie that Biden and his Justice Department were behind his four indictments.
  • Trump’s relentless repetition of his “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen.”
  • Trump’s attempts to blame former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the January 6th insurrection.
  • Trump’s taking credit for the Veterans Choice health care law that was signed by Obama.
  • And 20 more lies…

The disappointment over the performance of Biden during the first debate will dissipate in a matter of days. And Biden will have more opportunities to demonstrate his wisdom and compassion. But the lies that are continuously being disgorged by Trump will persist in the minds of voters who actually care about the welfare of the nation. And on November 5th they will reject him, just as they did four years ago.

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Trump and His MAGA Minions are ‘Working the Refs’ for the CNN Debate. Will CNN Fall for It?

Posted by on June 25, 2024 at 12:46 pm. 2 Comments :

The pre-game banter in advance of the big Biden/Trump debate has begun and is consuming an inordinate amount of airtime on every news network. For the most part that time is spent with partisans and pundits speculating wildly about how they think the debate will unfold and who will emerge victorious.

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Biden, Trump Debate

The Biden team has been conspicuously quiet throughout this promo extravaganza. That’s because the President is too busy being President for such games. And when he isn’t performing his duties as Leader of the Free World, he is preparing for the debate in a responsible manner by studying the issues and polishing his message. Meanwhile, Trump and his team are preparing by reenacting his rally rants, engaging in puerile propaganda, and demonstrating just how truly terrified they are of facing Biden.

SEE THIS: CNN Bumps Flaky Trump Flack, Giving Steve Bannon and Trump Another Excuse to Dump Biden Debate

Much of the focus of Trump’s tirades is aimed at the debate hosting network, CNN. That should come as no surprise as Trump has been attacking them for years as “fake news” and has relentlessly predicted their failure. Which, like every other Trump prediction, has not come to pass.

As debate night approaches, Trump and company are furiously laying the groundwork to explain why Trump is going to lose the debate to Biden. Among other things, they are accusing him of using performance enhancing drugs. Although if there were drugs that could improve a person’s intelligence and communication skills, shouldn’t we all be using them? Certainly every president should be required to use them.

SEE ALSO: WATCH: Trump’s ‘Doctor’ Ronny Jackson Tells Fox News What Kinds of Drugs Trump Could Be Taking

However, that isn’t the only objective of the StormTrumpers. They are also “working the refs.” They believe that by accusing moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of being biased against Trump before a single question has been asked, they can influence (i.e. intimidate) the moderators to alter their questions so that they can’t be criticized for allegedly favoring one candidate over the other.

What that means in practice is that they would formulate questions that are overtly hostile for Biden. In order to project a phony sense of “balance” they might require Biden – but not Trump – to comment on whether he is too old to serve. Or they might ask him about the conviction of his son Hunter, which has nothing to do with the presidency or the welfare of the American people. And again, they won’t seek any comments from Trump about his corrupt family that has been found liable for running a fraudulent charity, university, and for receiving billions of dollars from a Saudi prince.

Other biased questions that CNN’s moderators could be coerced into asking might involve Biden’s possession of classified documents, or his alleged profiteering from his White House position, or the flagrant lie that he supports open borders. Never mind that it is only Trump who deliberately stole and lied about having classified documents, willfully profited by extorting funds from foreigners, and brags about having killed a bipartisan immigration bill.

In light of all of that, it is patently absurd for Trump’s team to be working so hard to disparage the fairness of the journalists at CNN. Particularly when they have a virtual Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) covering for them 24/7. Although, they are not even satisfied with that level of glassy-eyed sycophancy. If Fox fails to behave with unflinching adoration, they get hit by Trump…

SEE THIS: TRUMP IS RIGHT! In a Mad Rage, Felon of Foy Declares that ‘Nobody Can Ever Trust Fox News’

One thing that can be relied on is that Trump, if he bothers to show up, will whine petulantly when he loses. He will blame everyone but himself. He will assert that the whole debate was “rigged” against him, just like the election, the polls, the trials, etc. That’s an argument that they are already planting in the press. GOP Speaker, MAGA Mike Johnson recently complained that he “expects that CNN is going to rig it as much as possible and make it as favorable as they possibly can for President Biden.” See? Everything is rigged. Trump isn’t is a loser. He’s a victim. And that’s something we’re supposed to want as a president?

CNN must resist these attempts to coerce them into skewing their moderation of the debate. It is perfectly acceptable to ask both candidates tough questions and seek responsive answers with directed follow-ups. But it is not acceptable to come down harder on one candidate because the other is a big, orange-hued baby who orders his cohorts to try to slant the playing field. Can CNN hold steady? We’ll see on Thursday.

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CNN Bumps Flaky Trump Flack, Giving Steve Bannon and Trump Another Excuse to Dump Biden Debate

Posted by on June 24, 2024 at 12:56 pm. NO Comments :

One of the most destructive aspects of modern media has been its casual tolerance of flagrant dishonesty by deliberately deceitful politicians and pundits. They justify their submission to liars as a commitment to “balance,” a phony objective that obscures a proper journalistic commitment to truth.

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Donald Trump, CNN

On Monday morning, Donald Trump dispatched his campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, to unfurl a litany of lies on CNN. In her typical fashion, Leavitt attempted to dodge every substantive question and replace coherent answers with infantile insults.

SEE THIS: HYPOCRISY UNCHAINED! Trump Flack Whines that Biden’s Campaign is Making Trump’s Trial Political

Since the Trump team has no reality-based criticisms of President Biden, they have to rely entirely on childish personal attacks and wholly manufactured controversies that invariably complain that poor crybaby Trump is a victim of vast cabals that are “rigging” everything from elections to trials, and now to debates. On this occasion, Leavitt griped that Trump is…

“…knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN, with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years and their biased coverage of him.”

So why did Trump agree to this debate, with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as moderators, and all the rules, when he’s convinced that they are all aligned against him? He can’t claim that he’s bravely entering the lion’s den if he does nothing but whine about it. Which is all that Leavitt was doing. To her credit, Hunt replied, “Ma’am, we’re going to stop this interview if you’re going to keep attacking my colleagues.”

Leavitt did not budge from her mission to malign Tapper and Bash. And true to her word, Hunt ended the interview. That’s exactly how a credible journalist should deal with determined liars. They should do it more often. In fact, they shouldn’t even invite people known to dispense blatant lies on their programs in first place.

This so outraged Leavitt that she scampered off to the safety of Steve Bannon’s “War Room” Internet show to unburden herself of the unpleasantness she endured on CNN. And Bannon provided precisely the sort of sympathy and consolation that Leavitt was seeking in the following exchange…

Leavitt: CNN showed their hand with me on their network this morning. The fact that they cut off my microphone simply for repeating words that Jake Tapper himself has said. Lies about President Trump. […]

Bannon: CNN owes you an apology today. And if we don’t get that apology to Karoline Leavitt and to the Trump campaign and to MAGA today, President Trump should cancel this.

First of all, Leavitt was not simply repeating Tapper’s words. She was purposefully mischaracterizing them and sanitizing Trump’s noxious adoption of Hitlerian rhetoric. Surprisingly, an excellent example of this was posted by White nationalist Jack Posobiec…

Furthermore, Bannon’s threat that Trump should back out of the debate with Biden if MAGA doesn’t get an apology is a transparent excuse for Trump to chicken out. And the frequency with which Trump’s sycophants keep coming up with these excuses is the best evidence that he is scared witless and is desperately searching for an escape clause, or at least an explanation for why he’s going to lose. For instance…

WATCH: Trump’s ‘Doctor’ Ronny Jackson Tells Fox News What Kinds of Drugs Trump Could Be Taking

Trump’s Fear and Desperation Show as He Says Biden is Both ‘The Worst’ and ‘A Worthy’ Debater

SCAREDY TRUMP? Sean Hannity Concocts an Excuse for Trump to Chicken Out of Debate with Biden

Adderall J. Trump Thinks He Can ‘Demand’ Biden Take a Drug Test Before the Debates – Or What?

Fox News Floats Conspiracy Theory that Biden is Plotting to Assault Trump to Avoid Debating Him

Trump Calls Biden ‘the WORST Debater’ Despite Biden Crushing Him in the 2020 Debates and Election

Sean Hannity of Fox News is Already Making Excuses for Why Trump Will Lose Debates to Biden

That’s a pretty thorough campaign of complaining and excuse-making for someone who wants to present himself as a strongman taking on a senile commie. And it’s equally notable that Biden is the one who appears to be confidant and strong and mentally stable. He doesn’t need to do any of this pathetic whimpering because he knows his stuff. And he knows that Trump has always been a coward and weakling and he will be seen as such by the nation on Thursday’s debate.

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POOR BABY: Trump Insists He’s a ‘Legitimate Person’ Who is ‘Under Siege’ in a ‘Banana Republic’

Posted by on June 6, 2024 at 2:02 pm. 1 Comments :

This week the Wall Street Journal published an article with a brazenly biased headline saying that “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.” The article featured quotes and baseless allegations that were almost exclusively by partisan Republicans known for their tendency to shamelessly lie to malign President Biden.

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Fox News Sean Hannity

CNN’s Oliver Darcy delivered a detailed and damning dissection of the Journal’s purely political hit piece. They could have covered Trump, a candidate showing actual signs of a degenerating grip on reality, but no. That would have meant being honest journalists, which is contrary to their corporate mission.

SEE THIS: Crybaby Trump Whines that ‘I Am a Political Prisoner,’ then Proves He Has No Idea What that Means

After breaking down the numerous journalistic flaws in the Journal’s “reporting,” Darcy asked “Where are the stories about Trump’s former inner circle raising questions about his mental fitness?” Those stories could have included actual on-the-record sources that know Trump well, such as his former communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin, or his former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley. Darcy also wrote that…

“Republicans accusing their political foe of lacking the mental fitness to hold office is nothing surprising. Such accusations are made every night on Fox News. And Donald Trump, who at 77 years old has also shown plenty of signs of waning mental faculties, including repeatedly falling asleep at his own high-stakes hush money trial, has made the accusation a centerpiece of his campaign. In other words, these accusations from the right aren’t exactly news.”

It may be too much to expect that a Rupert Murdoch rag like the WSJ would actually produce fair coverage of the candidates in this year’s presidential election. Although, Democrats hardly need any help from right-wing propagandists to demonstrate the mental unfitness of Trump. He does that exceptionally well all by himself. Virtually every word that comes out of his mouth is evidence of his acute cognitive decline.

A perfect example of this occurred on Wednesday during an interview of Trump by his bestie, Sean Hannity of Fox News. Hannity spent half of his time trying guide Trump through leading questions that Trump was too dense to pick up on. For instance, Hannity would pose questions like “You wouldn’t engage in retribution against your political enemies, would you?” To which Trump would equivocate saying that “It has to stop,” but adding that “I would have every right to go after them.”

Despite his hedging, Trump has every intention of persecuting Biden and other Democrats. He and his MAGA confederates have been explicitly calling for the arrest, incarceration, and even execution of Democrats and other critics.. It’s literally laid out in their horrifyingly totalitarian Project 2025 Agenda.

However, Trump’s latest affirmation of how he is showing “Signs of Slipping” is not even behind closed doors. It’s right out in the open, and broadcast on Fox News. During the segment with Hannity wherein Trump embraced his hostile and imaginary “right to go after” his foes, he unleashed the following stream of nonsensicality…

“Look, what I’ve gone through nobody’s ever gone through. I’m a very legitimate person. I built a great business. Everything’s been…I’ve been under siege. Nobody has ever seen anything like this in this country. Now in other countries, in other third world countries, or Banana Republics as they say, a Banana Republic. We’ve become a Banana Republic. At the border we’ve become a Banana Republic. With so many other elements of our country we’ve become a Banana Republic. You take a look at what’s happening with inflation. That’s a Banana Republic inflation what we have.”

Holy Shih Tzu! It appears that Trump learned a new phrase – Banana Republic – so he felt compelled to repeat it six times in less than twenty seconds. It’s behavior that is more commonly observed in proud toddlers who are eager to show off what new knowledge or skill they acquired. In toddlers, it’s kind of cute. In 77 year old malignant narcissists, with a weakening grasp on reality and aspirations of authoritarian power, it’s sad and somewhat frightening.

Trump’s remarks also display the severe anxiety and gnawing victimhood (“under siege”) that has become a hallmark of his perverse persona. In his mind there is no one that has ever lived who was ever more tormented by evil forces, despite the abundance of magnificence that he believes he is responsible for. He is, after all, a “legitimate person.” As opposed to what? A Looney Tunes cartoon character? (Okay, that example may be a little too on the nose).

Finally, Trump has proven that he has no idea what the phrase “Banana Republic” means. He just uses it as an all-purpose pejorative. He mistakenly believes that only small impoverished nations hold their former leaders accountable when they violate the law. And now he’s learning the hard way that even America has standards for legal conduct that do not permit him to get away with criminal acts, like he has for much of his business career. And unfortunately for him, his legal problems have only just begun.

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