WTF? Fox News is Now Making (Lie-Riddled) Campaign Ads For Donald Trump (VIDEO)

One of the most neglected observations about Donald Trump’s presidency is that he never wanted to be president. His stage-five narcissism and bloated ego has always found campaigning to be more to his liking. He feeds off of the mindless cheers of his glassy-eyed disciples. In his bubble-bunker he imagines (falsely) that they reflect the views of the whole country.

Fox News Trump Ad

For that reason Trump commenced his reelection campaign moments after completing his poorly attended inauguration address. It was an earlier start than any other president. And it was plain that he did it to justify holding more rallies before screaming Deplorables.

Now, in support of Trump’s reelection efforts, Fox News has stepped forward to do their part. This isn’t the typical Trump-fluffing that goes on everyday on the pro-Trump network. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes on Fox and Friends, were always expected to slobber over everything Trump does and says. No, this is something else that goes way beyond the mere contemptibility of biased journalism.

Fox News posted a video that can only be described as a campaign ad for Donald Trump. It is filled with positive imagery and clips of the President advocating American labor and goods. It even attributes laudable policies to Trump that have no factual basis. Watch for yourself:

Some of the statements in this brazenly partisan propaganda deserve more detailed analysis. For instance:

  • “President Trump has made Job creation a central focus of his administration.”
  • Where is the evidence of that? He has talked about it from time to time, but has done nothing substantive about it. His bragging about bringing jobs back from other countries has turned out to be a hoax. The companies he touted still laid off Americans and shipped those jobs elsewhere. He hasn’t even managed to get an infrastructure bill off the ground. The border wall is the only project he proposed that might create a few jobs, and the country is opposed to that.

  • “When signing the Buy American, Hire American executive order, Trump said ‘The policy of our government is to aggressively promote and use American made goods.'”
  • This order has no plans attached to it to produce anything at all. It doesn’t require any action on the part of employers or manufacturers. And if Trump were really interested in hiring Americans, he could start by hiring them to staff his luxury golf resorts. He might also consider having his ties, suits, etc. made in the U.S. instead of China, Mexico, and Bangladesh.

  • “We are building our future with American hands, American labor, American iron, aluminum, and steel.”
  • Not in Trump’s world we aren’t. He has illegally employed foreign construction workers on his buildings. He uses steel shipped in from China. And even the furnishings inside are mostly made in other countries.

Revelations about Trump lying have become so commonplace that people are beginning to tune it out. But what’s troubling about this video from Fox News isn’t just the bald-faced lies. It is that Fox News has no business producing campaign videos for any candidate for office. It is blatantly improper for an alleged “news” organization and a breach of journalistic ethics. It should be reported to the Federal Elections Commission as an in-kind contribution to Trump’s campaign. And the network should be fined and explicitly prohibited from further breaches.

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

However, it may be too much to expect the FEC to act on this. It is a notoriously toothless agency. So Fox may get away with their electioneering for now. But the more the public knows about this violation of trust, the more they will shun the network and its cast of Trump shills. That’s already happening as MSNBC, on the strength of Rachel Maddow’s superb investigative reporting, has surpassed Fox in the ratings. Rupert Murdoch recently took his own Fox News off the air in the U.K. citing lack of viewers. Let’s make him do the same here at home.

FEC Commissioner Calls Trump’s Bluff, Demands Evidence Of Voter Fraud

Three months ago Donald Trump managed to corral more electoral college votes than his opponent, Hillary Clinton. He also lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes. And he’s still whining about it. His obsession with the historically unprecedented popular vote deficit has glommed onto his psyche like a fetid leech that won’t let go. And despite having the burdens of the office weighing on him, he’s still yowling about it.

Donald Trump

Trump’s reaction to the popular vote loss was to assert that 3-5 million people voted illegally in November. That blatantly false contrivance has been thoroughly debunked. PolitiFact rated it a “Pants-On-Fire” lie months ago. Repeated requests for documentation of his claim have been ignored, but for a promise to launch a federal investigation. That inquiry, Trump said last week, would be led by Vice-President Mike Pence. Much like the claim of voter fraud itself, there is no evidence of any inquiry. Even the Republican majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is skeptical. On CNN he said that “I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that.”

Which brings us to Trump’s Friday meeting with a group of senators and former New Hampshire senator, Kelly Ayotte. Proving that he’s still controlled by his image-conscious ego, Trump offered a new version of the voter fraud lie. According to Politico, Trump blamed his loss of the state of New Hampshire on “thousands” of people who were ‘brought in on buses’ from neighboring Massachusetts to ‘illegally’ vote.” Once again, he refused to provide any documentation of the claim.

This time, however, the allegation was noticed the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Ellen Weintraub, a George W. Bush appointee to the commission, made a public request for Trump to fess up. Her letter said in part that:

“President Trump has alleged an astonishing voter-fraud scheme [that] would constitute thousands of felony criminal offenses. [And that] democracy rests on the faith of the American people in the integrity of their elections. […] I therefore call upon President Trump to immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly.”

Trump’s allegations of voter fraud are problematic for more than their dishonesty. It is irresponsible to foment distrust of the election process in ways that are demonstrably false. There are indeed flaws in the process of voting. They include gerrymandered districts, campaign financing, and voter suppression through registration obstacles. But every credible study done on voter fraud shows that it occurs so infrequently as to be irrelevant.

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

Nevertheless, Trump and his sycophants in the White House and the press continue to disseminate lies. It is part of a concerted strategy to deceive and confuse the public. They want people to doubt democracy. Just like they want people to doubt academia, science, the media, and government in general. By sowing suspicion of society’s institutions, the Trump regime aims to exert ever greater control of a frightened populace. He must not be allowed to succeed.

Right-Wingers Freak Out Over Claim That Obama is ‘Banning’ Fox News

Oh Noes! The Obamabots are at it again. Remember when they confiscated all of our guns, set up concentration camps, and handed Alabama over to ISIS? Well now they have a new plot to outlaw free speech and suppress the patriots at Fox News.

Fox News

The conservative InterTubes are afire with paranoid panic over remarks by a member of the Federal Election Commission. Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub wrote a memorandum to her colleagues with the subject “Revised Proposal to Launch Rulemaking to Ensure that U.S. Political Spending is Free from Foreign Influence.” To anyone not suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome, this would appear to be responsible election oversight. Which is the mission of the FEC. However, to hysterical right-wingers this is an assault on free speech. The offending paragraph from the memo simply asks:

“Given the ban on direct or indirect foreign national spending in U.S. elections. should any limits be imposed on corporate spending based on the percentage of the corporation’s foreign ownership?”

It is already illegal for foreign nationals and corporations to donate to U.S. candidates and political referendums. The reasons are obvious. Nobody wants hostile nations to be able to interfere with American elections. Russia or China should not have the ability to plant their operatives in our Congress. The rulemaking proposal by Weintraub is only meant to close any loopholes and to secure the integrity of our political system. The memo states exactly that:

“The FEC needs to address the real threat that foreign individuals, corporations, or governments may seek to manipulate our elections through domestic corporations they own or control. Given everything we have learned this year. it blinks reality to suggest that that there is no risk of foreign nationals taking advantage of current loopholes to intercede invisibly in American elections. This is a risk no member of the Federal Election Commission should be willing to tolerate.”

This could not be more clear cut. Weintraub is plainly seeking to prevent our enemies from corrupting our elections. So leave it to Fox News to create a controversy where none would otherwise exist. To that end, the hosts of Fox & Friends barreled headlong into the phony squabble with Brian Kilmeade introducing senior correspondent Ed Henry:

Kilmeade: Oh, in case we didn’t mention it, Fox News could be banned from covering politics. That is if Democrats on the Federal Election Committee (sic) get their way.
Henry: Democrats on the Federal Election Commission targeting Fox and other media companies who have even a tiny bit of foreign ownership, saying they should not be allowed to engage in any ‘electioneering communication.’ This could be used to muzzle free speech and it was offered by a Democratic commissioner on the FEC, Ellen Weintraub.

The segment went on to assert that the commission was enacting a regulation that “could ban Fox and others from endorsing or covering” politics. Although there is nothing in the memo that even alludes to that. In fact, the memo never even mentions the media. What’s more, it isn’t enacting anything, it is merely opening a dialog. And the dialog is wholly focused on corporations that are owned by foreign nationals or governments. The actions addressed are strictly identified as electioneering, not reporting, endorsing, or any other function of journalism. Weintrab even reiterated that in an official statement:

Did that ease the irrational fears of the conservative outrage machine? Of course not. On the Internet there were frantic tweets from the usual fringy suspects. In addition, the Media Research Center (the ultra-right watchdog group and home of Newsbusters) published an article with a headline that shrieked “FEC Attempting to Kill Fox News, WSJ, NY Post Political Coverage.” Their lede was a false and feverish declaration that “The propaganda machine inside the federal government is in full swing to squelch any conservatives or dissenting views.”

As is apparent from the original memo and the appended affirmation, none of that is true. It’s just another fit of hysteria from right-wing conspiracy kooks. These are the same folks who thought that military exercises in Texas were a prelude to invasion. They worried that Obama was deliberately infecting America with Ebola. Before long these fruitcakes will be clamoring for Hillary Clinton’s impeachment due to her covert lizard identity. In the meantime, Fox & Friends’ Ainsley Earhardt is showing her grit by standing up to the infidels:

“If they want the government to control the media then they can move to North Korea, or Russia, or China. It’s not happening here. No one’s telling us what we can and can’t say.”

Well, no one except for the Fox News executives and the Republican National Committee. It is no accident that there is a uniformity of opinion on Fox. They are presently serving as the Trump PR office. And this latest imaginary atrocity will just be another of their excuses after they lose in November.

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

UPDATE: The real threat to freedom of the press is Donald Trump:

“Mr. Trump, especially given the positions he’s staked out … would represent a really significant threat to the tradition of an independent free press in the United States,” says David Barstow of The New York Times.

“I think Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to the liberties of the people, to the idea of the First Amendment,” agrees David Cay Johnston, now a columnist for The Daily Beast.