Fox News

Trump Misreads Poll on Support for His Impeachment, Posts Absurdly Wrong Numbers

Posted by on July 23, 2019 at 2:47 pm. 1 Comments :

The President of the United States is presently the subject of a rare debate over whether he should be impeached for crimes committed by him and/or his associates. While other presidents have been accused of high crimes and misdemeanors, none have been suspected of treasonous conspiracies in conjunction with foreign enemies. This is a situation unique to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump Impeach

Consequently, public polling on whether Trump should be impeached has emerged as an important gauge of his ability to endure another term in office, or even complete his first. And his historically low approval ratings isn’t helping him any. That may be why he is now disseminating obviously false information that makes his situation appear somewhat less dire. On Tuesday morning Trump tweeted this:

Notice that Trump didn’t bother to provide a link to the poll he referenced. That’s a common tactic he employs to prevent people from discovering that he’s a lying jackal. This tactic works well among his Deplorables who will believe whatever he says, even when there’s proof that he’s lying. But for the rest of us, we have to try harder to find out what the heck he’s talking about.

In this case, there is only one recent poll regarding impeachment with an 11 percent result. It’s the YouGov survey published July 18. This poll asked “Do you think the U.S. House of Representative should or should not try to impeach President Trump?” The overall response was 36 percent YES, and 45 percent NO. So where did Trump get 11 percent? That was the number of Republicans who said that he should be impeached. Democrats favored impeachment by 64 percent. So Trump is trying to pass off the GOP-only number as the number for all Americans.

For a bit of contrast, a Twitter user replied to Trump’s tweet with a Twitter poll of his own. At the time of this writing, 77 percent of more than 22,000 votes favored impeachment, while 22 percent did not. Of course, this is not a scientific poll, but it’s revealing that such a large majority of voters on Trump’s own Twitter feed want to see him impeached.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has gotten poll results horribly wrong. On one occasion, Trump retweeted a Fox News report that put his overall approval at 55 percent. Fox later admitted that they made a mistake and that the real number was 43 percent. In a rare correction Fox took down their story but, three months later, Trump still has not.

On another occasion, Trump bragged about the results of a Fox News poll that doesn’t actually exist. He said that his approval among African-Americans in this imaginary poll among was 40 percent. That’s not even close. It’s actually in single digits. A recent Washington Post poll put the number at three percent.

And then there was the time that Trump boasted about a poll showing him with 52 percent approval. Of course that was also in error. The 52 was really his disapproval. His approval in this case was only 44 percent.

Almost everything else in Trump’s tweets is also wrong. He’s taking credit for economic success that is almost totally attributable to his predecessor, President Obama. Stock market and jobs stats increased more during Obama’s administration than in Trump’s. And his tax cuts, regulatory moves, tariffs, and trade wars, were demonstrably harmful to the economy and particularly working people.

It’s hard to say whether all of this misreporting was the result of his poor comprehension skills or deliberate deception. Neither is a very good option. But we have a very serious problem when the President of the United States can’t grasp the results of a simple survey, and has no interest in ever setting the record straight when he’s wrong.

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

What’s more, his attempt at mockery by saying “Gee, let’s impeach the President,” forms the core of his argument against impeachment. He thinks that if the economy is strong, there is no justification to impeach. But that’s nonsense. Impeachment is called for if the President is found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. And if he is, it doesn’t make any difference what the state of the economy is. A president who breaks the law during good times is still a criminal. But that’s just another simple concept that Trump is incapable of understanding.

SO WHAT? Fox News Trump-Fluffer Read the Mueller Report and (Surprise) Found Nothing

Posted by on July 23, 2019 at 10:32 am. 0 Comments :

The desperation of Donald Trump seems to be escalating with each new day and frantic tweet. This may be exacerbated by the upcoming congressional hearings featuring testimony by special counsel Robert Mueller. That has clearly been dominating what precious little comprehension capability Trump has. It has overtaken his obsession with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “The Squad,” which he has only been exploiting as a method of distraction anyway.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Strange

On Monday Trump demonstrated just how frightened he is of the Mueller hearings. He tweeted a quote from Fox Business anchor Trish Regan that, for some bizarre reason, he thinks should settle the debate on whether Mueller found any evidence of collusion and/or obstruction of justice:

This may be one of the most supremely useless tweets Trump has ever posted. It is substantively vacant, providing no information whatsoever to support its premise. And it’s exactly the sort of biased propaganda that makes Fox News such a disreputable source for anything other than Trump happy talk.

In the segment, Regan summed up her perspective on the entire Mueller investigations saying that it was a “lousy thing to do to the American people and the President of the United States.” And her guests were equally as servile to Trump’s ego. Jenna Ellis Rives, a Trump 2020 campaign advisory board member, said that the 95 Democrats who voted to impeach Trump should all be impeached themselves. For casting votes? Pete Hegseth, of Fox and Friends, said that Democrats are hoping that Mueller will “slip up” during his congressional testimony. How? By letting the truth about Trump’s crimes slip out?

It requires a massive amount of self-delusion to conclude that there is nothing in Mueller’s report that incriminates Trump. There’s plenty. Including evidence of conspiracies by Trump and his associates with unsavory Russian characters. And Mueller enumerated at least ten instances of obstruction of justice. But most damning for Regan – and by extension, Trump – is that even some at Fox News have seen the light. You have to wonder why Trump didn’t post quote-tweets about these comments:

Bret Baier, the Chief Political Anchor on Fox News, offered his analysis after Mueller’s public statement. Baier blasted Barr’s misrepresentation of the Mueller report saying that it was more nuanced than Barr’s portrayal and “In fact, it was almost exactly the opposite.” He elaborated saying:

“I was struck by the tone and tenor of those remarks as he laid out his case wrapping up this report. This was not, as the president says time and time again, ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’ It was much more nuanced than that. […] He said specifically that if they had found that the President did not commit a crime on obstruction, they would have said that.”

Fox News Senior Legal Analyst, Andrew Napolitano, has made a number of observations that provide legal confirmation of Trump’s guilt. For instance:

“Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump […] The president’s job is to enforce federal law. If he had ordered its violation to save innocent life or preserve human freedom, he would have a moral defense. But ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behavior is unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.”

And then there was this:

“While there was some evidence of collaboration between Russian agents and the Trump campaign – like 127 telephone communications between them – there was not enough evidence to establish the crime of conspiracy.” […]

“If the subject of a criminal investigation tells the people that work for him to lie to the FBI and falsify evidence so that the FBI will not find out whatever the subject does not want them to know – as Mueller said Trump did between ten and eleven times – that is obstruction of justice and it is for a corrupt purpose.”

The Chief News Anchor and Managing Editor of the Fox News breaking news division, Shepard Smith, also weighed in with remarks that undermined Trump’s attacks on the Mueller probe. Specifically, Smith pointed out that the dossier by Christopher Steele was not the tainted documented that Sean Hannity and others have tried to paint it as:

“While the U.S. intelligence community has not confirmed parts of the dossier, there are elements of it that are confirmed true. No part of it, to Fox News’ knowledge, has been confirmed false.”

Given those comments by the most senior people at Fox News, Regan’s mushy remarks seem even more absurd and obsequious. And Trump’s promotion of them is simply more proof of the narcissistic fetish that defines his warped personality. It’s a certainty that we will be seeing more of this from Fox StormTrumpers like Sean Hannity as Trump’s fortunes continue to decline. In fact, be prepared for it to get even worse as Trump’s mental state deteriorates.

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

The Fear in Trump’s Tweets is Off the Charts ‘Bonkers’ as the Mueller Hearing Looms

Posted by on July 22, 2019 at 1:43 pm. 1 Comments :

On Wednesday the Congress will finally hear from special counsel Robert Mueller. His first-hand account of the conclusions from the investigation he led should settle the debate on whether Donald Trump’s tedious mantra of “no collusion, no obstruction” has any basis in reality. What are the odds that Mueller will agree with Trump’s assessment of the probe as a “witch hunt” or a hoax?”

Donald Trump, Toilet, Bathrobe

In the runup to the hearings, Trump is behaving with a profound sense of dread. He is lashing out at critics, whining about “presidential harassment,” and reanimating insults and lies directed at Mueller, including those log-ago debunked about Mueller having had business disputes with Trump and being former FBI director James Comey’s best friend. He’s making painfully obvious attempts at distractions with harangues aimed at Democrats and bragging about his imaginary accomplishments. He’s also deploying his extraordinarily lame defense team to take up his cause in the press. Which is doing more harm to him than good.

In the latest Trump tweetstorm, he is proving that anyone who thought he had hit bottom was too optimistic. There either is no bottom for Trump, or he has a remarkable ability to keep digging. He began the morning with this wild-eyed rant:

So Trump is reviving his assault on the Washington Post which, for some reason, he keeps associating with Amazon, an online retailer that most Americans love. And naturally he calls it “fake news” only because he doesn’t like that it is reporting verifiable facts. However, this particular criticism actually boomerangs on him. He’s admitting that he either doesn’t have, or doesn’t listen to, any advisors. And he mocks his own lack of comprehension skills by deny that he reads “reams of paper” to educate himself about presidential matters. Why would he consider that a negative? Clearly he wants to avoid that anyone regard him as thoughtful and informed, which is why asks rhetorically, “does that sound like me?” No, it certainly doesn’t.

Then Trump continues with a tweet that accuses the media of being “out of control” and “bonkers.” He says they “constantly lie and cheat” and “no longer care what is right or wrong.” These, of course are classic examples of projection. They apply more accurately to him than to any of the media he is impotently targeting. And his criticism doesn’t even make sense. He’s complaining that the Democrats are trying hard to “get their views out their (sic) for all to see.” And that’s bad because…? He then follows that up with a tweet that simply repeats his tired Stalinist-inspired rant that the media is “the Enemy of the People!” And finally he gets to the root of his nightmares:

Trump is still afraid to let the American people learn about his potentially treasonous associations with Russia during his campaign and into his presidency. That’s odd considering he insists that Mueller’s report “totally exonerated” him. You would think he would be thrilled to have Mueller tell that story to the public. You might also think he’d tire of his perverse fetish with Hillary Clinton, her emails, and the outright lies about Strzok and Page.

The truth, however, is that the Mueller report did find evidence of conspiracy with Russia and multiple instances of obstruction of justice. No matter how many times he says otherwise, he can’t erase the facts. Even the chief political anchor at Fox News, Bret Baier, said that “This was not, as the president says time and time again, ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’” And Fox’s Senior Legal Analyst, Andrew Napolitano, said that “Mueller laid out at least a half-dozen crimes of obstruction committed by Trump [and that] ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behavior is unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.”

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

That’s why Trump is afraid and flailing with distractions, lies, frothing diatribes, and the desperate embrace of Fox News and other fawning sycophants. He knows what he did. And he knows what the consequences will be when everyone else knows. So he has to shut down any dissent or disagreement with his cult-approved narrative. But unfortunately for Trump, the only people buying this are his Deplorables. The rest of the country is getting closer to demanding impeachment every day.

Trump Flack Giuliani: Mueller Shouldn’t Testify Before Congress Because – Total Exoneration?

Posted by on July 21, 2019 at 10:23 am. 3 Comments :

This coming Wednesday, special counsel Robert Mueller will be testifying before Congress in an effort to bring some clarity to the report that was released three months ago. These hearings are essential for the public to have a complete understanding of Donald Trump’s crimes, particularly considering the flagrantly deceptive summaries and commentaries on the matter by Trump’s lapdog at the Justice Department, William Barr.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump

So naturally Trump and his team of dissemblers is mounting another crusade to prevent the people from learning the truth. His attorney, Rudy Giuliani made the media circuit on Sunday to argue that Mueller should not testify at all:

“‘He shouldn’t really [testify]. He already put out his report. He made his 10-minute statement and then said he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore because it’s not proper,’ Giuliani said Sunday on John Catsimatidis’s radio show, referring to a press conference Mueller gave on his report that he said would be his final word on his two-year probe.

“‘But somebody must’ve persuaded him that he should comment some more. He’s already commented more than any prosecutor has ever commented about a case he didn’t bring.'”

This is a brazenly fear-based attempt to muzzle Mueller. Which is peculiar since Trump has said repeatedly that the special counsel’s report “totally exonerated” him. You have to wonder why Trump is so scared of these hearings that, according to him, would prove his innocence. He even said that Mueller had acted honorably.

Giuliani’s remarks are also packed with lies. While Mueller was reluctant to testify, he never said that it would improper. And he was not “persuaded” to comment. He was subpoenaed. And the notion that he’s commented more than any other prosecutor is simply ludicrous. Every other special counsel has testified to Congress following their investigations.

Of course, Trump has also lashed out at Mueller as a corrupt, conflicted pawn of angry Democrats. He literally can’t keep his stories on Mueller straight. At times he is consumed by a panicky fear of Mueller that manifests itself in crazed tweetstorms wherein he has insisted that Mueller should not testify before Congress. He even went so far as to whine that Congress “has no right” to see the Mueller report at all.

Giuliani’s position is nothing new. Not only has he said this before, Republicans in Congress have actually argued against their own right to interview Mueller. And their constituents, mainly consisting of Trump Deplorables, also expressed their opposition to releasing the full Mueller report. They are, in effect, advocating to remain ignorant. And they are doing a damn good job of that.

There’s a reason that Trump, and Giuliani, and the Deplorables are so frightened. The Mueller report contains abundant evidence of Trump’s guilt. Although it found “insufficient evidence” to bring charges against Trump, that’s very different than finding no evidence. Also, Mueller explicitly declined to clear the president of any wrongdoing over allegations of obstruction of justice, for which he cited ten instances. What’s more, Mueller said in his report that he couldn’t indict Trump due to a dubious Justice Department memo advising against indicting a sitting president. That memo is not law and has never been tested in court.

Finally, Trump’s dread of Mueller, and what he might say, is surely exacerbated by the fact that even some of his confederates at Fox News see guilt in the Mueller report. Fox’s Senior Legal Analyst, Andrew Napolitano, said that “If the subject of a criminal investigation tells the people that work for him to lie to the FBI and falsify evidence … that is obstruction of justice and it is for a corrupt purpose.” On another occasion, Napolitano said that “ordering obstruction to save himself from the consequences of his own behavior is unlawful, defenseless and condemnable.” And Giuliano is utterly incapable of countering these conclusions with his weak, lame, and frantic cry that Mueller be barred from congressional testimony. It’s an a position that is both dishonest and desperate. And it’s all they’ve got.

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

Pro-Trump Fox News Guest Inadvertently Affirms that Trump has Been a Racist All His Life

Posted by on July 19, 2019 at 2:50 pm. 2 Comments :

Ordinarily Donald Trump’s nauseating scandals are quickly pushed out of the ever-shortening news cycle by even worse scandals. It’s a tactic that Trump has studiously employed from the start of his scandal-riddled administration. But the recent ruckus created by his brazenly racist comments about four Democratic congresswomen of color has had real staying power. Mostly because of Trump’s foolishness and flip-flopping.

Donald Trump

The righteous criticism that Trump has received for telling American citizens to “go back” where they came from continues to be a top story. After he tweeted his insults, he presided over one of his cult rallies where the audience chanted “Send he back.” The next day Trump tried to disown those chants by lying about how they started and what his response was. The day after that he tried to disavow his disavowal. Probably because he didn’t want to be seen as disparaging his followers. After all, a recent poll shows that the more racist Trump is, the more Republicans love him.

Throughout this controversy, Trump has been defended by his Republican confederates and the StormTrumping pundits on Fox News. And on Friday he got a testimonial that may not be all that complimentary. Radical Christianist Mike Huckabee (father of former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders) was interviewed by Fox’s Heather Childers when the subject of Trump’s racism was broached. Huckabee’s perverse defense was that…

“If Donald Trump had been a racist all these years, don’t you think it would have come out somewhere in the life that he’s lived which has been about as public as any elected official has ever lived. And the fact is, a person doesn’t just suddenly become a racist at the age of 72, having not been one up until that point.”

That’s exactly right. And what a surprising morsel of insight from such a noxious Trump-fluffing shill. It would be extremely unlikely for a 72 year old like Trump to turn into a flaming bigot overnight. There would have to have been some evidence of it earlier. So what Huckabee is saying is that if Trump was not a racist before, than he isn’t one now. Well, let’s take a look at Trump’s very public life to see for ourselves:

  • He had a strict “no colored people” policy in his apartment buildings.
  • He advocated the death penalty for the Central Park 5, even after they had been found innocent.
  • He told business associates that he didn’t want any black accountants.
  • He was an avid Birther (believing that Obama was not an American).
  • He refused to renounce KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.
  • He said there “fine people on both sides” of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.
  • He imposed a ban on Muslim immigrants.
  • He said that a Latino judge could not be neutral.
  • He called black athletes “sons of bitches.”
  • He labeled Haiti and Africa as “shithole countries.”

That isn’t even a comprehensive list. There are many other examples of Trump’s flagrant bigotry. He has indeed lived a life of personal and professional bias against black and brown people. And the history of that life is confirmation of Huckabee’s assertion Trump did not suddenly become a racist. He has been one for decades. And he follows in the footsteps of his father who attended Klan rallies in New York. This surely was not Huckabee’s point, but it tells the real story of Donald Trump’s long-festering racism.

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

Trump Disavows ‘Send Her Back’ Chant, Throws His Rally Cultists and Fox News Under the Bus

Posted by on July 18, 2019 at 1:05 pm. 5 Comments :

In the topsy turvy world of Donald Trump’s disease riddled brain, we now have another example of the President failing to maintain a coherent thought for more than a few hours. Last Sunday Trump set loose a pack of racist diatribes aimed at four Democratic congresswomen of color, telling them to “go back” where they came from. Everyone with a functioning cerebral cortex knows that’s a well worn racial assault on minorities and immigrants.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Fake

The blowback from his abhorrent comments was swift and broad based. Trump seemed to be stunned by the criticism of what he thought it was a perfectly fine thing to say. He surely considered it a positive step in advancing his political prospects. And since a subsequent poll showed that his approval among Republicans increased, he was right, albeit in a very limited, partisan way. It also showed that the more racist you are, the more Republicans will like you.

However, the near universal condemnation of his remarks must have stung. Trump later rattled off a frantic flurry of tweets defending himself for these bigoted screeds. But rather than mitigating the harm, he only succeeded in extending the scandal. And when it erupted into a full-blown, neo-Nazi style chorus of hatred at his cult rally in North Carolina, he was finally worn down and now seems to have had a change of what’s left of his heart. Which lead to this exchange with the press on Thursday morning (video below):

Reporter: When your supporters were shouting, chanting “send her back,” why didn’t you stop them?
Trump: Well, number one, I think I did. I started speaking very quickly. It was really a loud – I disagree with it by the way – but it was quite a chant. I felt a little bit badly about it. But I will say this…and I did, I started speaking very quickly. But it started up rather fast, as you probably know. […] I was not happy with it. I disagree with it. But, again, I didn’t say that, they did.

First of all, Trump did not try to stop the chanting in any way. He expressly allowed it to simmer to a boil for fifteen seconds before he returned to the mic to continue his speech. He said nothing at all about the bigoted sloganeering he just witnessed.

Secondly, his emotional outpouring of empathy consisted of a rather weak statement that “I felt a little bit badly about it” (such a snowflake). And he dismisses any responsibility for the chanting because “it started up rather fast” and was, therefore, totally out of his control. It was those rowdy rally goers who were saying those despicable things, not him. He after, all, disagreed with it. Or so he says now.

And therein lies the most peculiar part of this commentary. Trump is blaming his cult followers for the loathsome harangue that erupted. It’s all their fault. You have to wonder what they are thinking now that he has accused them of being a racist mob.

Likewise, Trump’s legions of defenders on Fox News had jumped into the fray immediately upon hearing the chant, which they all thought was just awesome. But now their excuses have been cast aside. They spent most of Wednesday night scrubbing Trump clean and praising his speech and the enthusiasm he stirred in his audience. What will they say now that he is distancing himself from the whole affair that in retrospect is being portrayed as ugly?

The reporter that asked Trump about the chant challenged Trump’s sidestepping, noting that the crowd was “echoing what you said in your first tweet.” Trump replied that “I don’t think if you examine it, I don’t think you’ll find that.” So for the record, let’s examine it. What Trump tweeted was “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Those places, of course, are New York, Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota.

So Trump’s flailing attempt to extricate himself from this is just another self-serving, finger-pointing, barrage of lies. But this time he’s throwing his own rally goers and his confederates at Fox News under his wildly careening bus. Which should serve as an object lesson for Trump followers: In the end he will betray anyone and everyone, no matter how devoted they were, if he sees that it’s in his interest to do so. You’ve been warned.

UPDATE: And as expected, Trump is now disavowing his disavowal. He really is brain damaged.

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

On Fox News Kellyanne Conway Calls Democrats a ‘Dark Underbelly’ Who ‘Pal Around with Terrorists’

Posted by on July 16, 2019 at 11:17 am. 2 Comments :

The obvious and nauseating bigotry of Donald Trump has been erupting like a flaming volcano of racism for several days now. The latest Vesuvial blast began with Trump’s heinous demands that a group of four congressional women of color should “go back” to where they came from. Never mind that they are all U.S. citizens, three of whom were born here. He further disparaged these elected representatives and proud Americans as communists who hate the country.

Kellyanne Conway, Fox News

On Tuesday morning Trump responded to the near unanimous condemnation of his hate speech by unleashing one of his typical tweetstorms, doubling down on his abhorrent “love it or leave it” diatribe. He posted seven tweets on this subject alone, exposing how desperately afraid he is and driven to malign anyone who dares to criticize him. He even whined about a proposed bill of censure in congress to denounce his loathsome remarks.

Remember, this is a President who, when asked if he was concerned that white nationalists find common cause with his comments, he replied, “It doesn’t concern me at all because many people agree with me.” He’s right. A lot of white nationalists do agree with him. They are, in fact, his base.

Also on Tuesday morning Trump’s Senior White House Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, managed to make matters even worse. She was “interviewed” on Fox News (video below) where she performed her famous filibuster routine, refusing to allow even the friendly Trump-fluffers of Fox to get a word in. And in this harangue, Conway let loose some more racist dog whistles to earn the affection of Trump and his Deplorables. Referring to the four Democratic women known as “The Squad,” Conway said that…

“They represent a dark underbelly in this country […] We’re tired of some of these women palling around with terrorists.”

The audacity of these people is shocking. Conway had no reservations whatsoever about highlighting the “darkness” of the critics she was so intent on vilifying and dehumanizing. And her reckless accusation of an imaginary terrorist affiliation is the sort of thing generally reserved for fascist propagandists. It is also a retread of Sarah Palin’s slanderous yelping at President Obama. The Fox News hosts didn’t react or follow up on these sick statements at all. Of course, Trump said much the same thing yesterday when he explicitly – and falsely – asserted that Rep. Ilhan Omar expressed pro-Al Qaeda sentiments. But Conway wasn’t finished with her crusade of defamation. She defended Trump’s racist tweet tantrum saying that…

“The President explained what he meant by those. The President explained that if you don’t like it here get out. That, by the way, goes way beyond these four people. That goes to everybody who’s tearing down the American flag and putting up the Mexican flag.”

How does that make anything better? Conway merely expanded the scope of her racism to include even more people. And she did it with a straw man argument that has no basis in reality. None of the Democrats she and Trump have been attacking have ever torn down an American flag or replaced it with any other. She fundamentally misunderstands the principle that dissent is patriotic in a healthy democracy. Trump also doesn’t get it, even though his past is one of unrelenting dissent and disparagement of America. He even called it a “Hell Hole” during his campaign.

Kellyanne might learn something from her husband George Conway, who wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post aptly titled “Trump is a Racist President.” But it is totally implausible that she would grasp the insight her husband is offering. Nevertheless, Conway did hit on a moment of truth during this segment when she complained that “People are analogizing a red hat to a swastika.” However, she utterly missed the fact that this analogy is only being put forth because of how accurate it is.

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

Trump in a Panic Sweat Posts 13 Lie-Riddled Tweets About – Get This – Hillary’s Emails

Posted by on July 13, 2019 at 12:31 pm. 0 Comments :

There is nothing more telling than a Donald Trump Tweetstorm. It reveals what he’s most afraid of and what is consuming his fevered and demented imagination. So it shouldn’t be dismissed when he posts a flurry of thirteen tweets by the disreputable and dishonest StormTrumpers at Judicial Watch. Particularly when the content of those tweets are predominantly the ancient right-wing obsessions over Hillary Clinton’s emails. Are these people serious?

Donald Trump Sweating

Unfortunately, the conservative junkies who are still addicted to fables about Clinton’s emails are deadly serious. They are feeding a fetish that borders on being a psychotic compulsion. And they bring it up whenever they feel threatened by the onslaught of inconvenient facts that challenge their demented world view. And Trump is among those suffering from this manic neurosis.

The symptoms of Trump’s mental disorder were on full display Saturday morning. The thirteen retweets of Judicial Watch propaganda must have seemed like the perfect antidote to the realities in the news that were so unpleasant for him. He just lost another one of his unethical cabinet flunkies (a record breaking achievement), Alexander Acosta, due to his relationship with pedophile rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Of course, Trump had his own relationship with Epstein who he said was a terrific guy.

Trump is also weathering a storm of criticism due his policy of caging children in inhumane conditions. And he is dreading the upcoming congressional testimony of special counsel Robert Mueller. All of this is taking place as the 2020 presidential campaign is beginning with Trump losing in the polls to all of the top Democrats. Consequently, Trump, in a fit of sheer desperation, completes his re-tweetstorm with a comment of his own:

We are sadly witnessing the shameful spectacle of a president making explicit accusations of criminality about an honorable, lifelong public servant in law enforcement. Even worse, this is a charge that has been debunked repeatedly when Trump has made it in the past. Most recently Trump attacked Mueller on this during an “interview” (more of a tongue bath) with Fox News Trump-fluffer Maria Bartiromo in June:

“Mueller terminated them illegally. He terminated the emails, he terminated all of the stuff between Strzok and Page. Robert Mueller terminated their text messages together. He terminated them. They’re gone. And that’s illegal. That’s a crime.”

Setting aside the cognitive dysfunction that Trump thinks texts can be “terminated,” everything else in that comment is provably false. And Trump surely knew that his charges were false because they were refuted when he made the very same remarks last december:

In fact, this lie was shot down by the Inspector General of Trump’s own Justice Department. It was reviewed by fact checkers who unanimously concluded that it was false. And it was rated as “Pants on Fire“ by PolitiFact, who wrote that:

“First, a new report from the Justice Department’s internal watchdog suggests the roughly 19,000 messages slipped through the cracks due to technical glitches with the FBI’s data-collection tool on Samsung devices, not because Strzok and Page went around the system.

“Second, perhaps most importantly, while the messages were initially not captured, they have since been recovered. Trump’s claim gives the false impression the texts are still unaccounted.”

Trump’s fear is obviously getting the better of him. It shows in his rambling, disoriented speeches, his glassy-eyed engagement with the press while his helicopter whirs in the background, and these rabid outbursts on Twitter.

In addition to the Mueller-related tweets, and the Hillary bashing, Trump also posted three tweets that comprised nearly half of Sean Hannity’s Hour of Lies on Friday night. His Twitter feed is becoming the Internet’s channel for Fox News reruns. Which Fox surely appreciates since they stopped posting on Twitter entirely last November. Trump is, in effect, the PR executive for Fox News. And Fox pays him handsomely for that with nauseatingly fawning tributes 24/7. It’s a mutually beneficial, albeit sick and dishonest, arrangement.

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

Trump’s Cowardly Scheme to Upstage the Mueller Hearing is Stymied by House Democrats

Posted by on July 12, 2019 at 12:29 pm. 1 Comments :

For more than two years Donald Trump has exhibited signs of mortal fear whenever the subject of his unsavory connections to Russia were brought up. That’s especially true with regard to mentions of special counsel Robert Mueller and his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Donald Trump Robert Mueller

Most of the time Trump has endeavored to lie about and malign Mueller in the harshest terms, calling him corrupt, conflicted, dishonest, and even treasonous. He tried to prevent Congress from ever seeing the Mueller report (and the public as well). Although on a few peculiar occasions Trump tried to butter up Mueller with faint praise in order to validate his delusional assertion that the final report exonerated him. Never mind that even Fox News’ Senior Legal Analyst and Chief Political Anchor didn’t buy that delusion.

A few weeks ago the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees scheduled hearings to get Mueller’s testimony on the record. It was a necessary step to inform the public, most of whom have not read the Mueller report in full (like many members of Congress) and are not familiar with its conclusions that identify criminal activity on Trump’s part and multiple instances of obstruction of justice. The hearings were set of July 17.

Shortly after that announcement, Trump announced that he would be holding another one of his Deplorable Cult Rallies in North Carolina on the same date. That was surely no coincidence. Trump was plotting to steal the media’s attention from the congressional hearings that he obviously feared. This is a tactic that he has used before. When he refused to participate in a Republican primary debate on Fox News because he was afraid of Megyn Kelly, he held a phony “charitable” event on the same day. And he often tries to manipulate the press with releases intended to distract from coverage of other news that he fears.

Now the Democrats in Congress are discussing delaying the Mueller hearing for one week. That would mean that Trump’s deliberately competing rally would not interfere with the Mueller hearing after all. Trump would either have to reschedule his rally also, or schedule an additional rally a week later. Either way it would make him look brazenly opportunistic and self-serving.

Still, we can’t rule out Trump changing his calendar in order to thwart the congressional testimony of Mueller. His fear is a powerful motivation for much of his behavior as president. He proved that again just yesterday with this trembling tweet:

And last week Trump unleashed this desperate and frightened tweet:

One thing we’ve learned from Trump is that there is no bottom to the barrel of his sleazy behavior. He will pull out all the stops to sabotage the public’s right to know about his criminal activities. If it isn’t a competing rally, it could be an escalation of his abhorrent deportation crusade, or an attack on Iran, or a pardon for Jeffrey Epstein, or an executive order remanding all immigrant children to Epstein’s Palm Beach Detention Center and Spa. Don’t laugh. With Trump anything is possible.

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

Crybaby Trump Hypocritically Calls Boycotts ‘Vicious’ and ‘Crazed’: Here are 10 of His Own

Posted by on July 10, 2019 at 11:23 am. 0 Comments :

One of the most frequent defense tactics employed by Donald Trump is to accuse your accusers of the same thing that you’re guilty of. It mainly serves as a distraction and a method of casting false blame on others. But it’s an irrational tactic that doesn’t actually exonerate the person using it. They remain guilty, but only equally as guilty as the falsely charged victim.

Donald Trump, Boycott

That may be sufficient for Trump’s purposes, which is generally to shift attention away from his crimes until the next scandal erupts. But it also highlights how shallow and deceptive his arguments are. And even more problematic, it showcases his rabid hypocrisy.

Case in point. Trump went off on Twitter about a grassroots boycott of Home Depot after it’s co-founder, Bernie Marcus, announced that he would be donating a large portion of his wealth to reelecting Trump. The President blasted out a three-tweet tirade in defense of Marcus that included an overt threat aimed at his critics:

Naturally, anyone who pays tribute to the Narcissist-and-Thief is regarded as “truly great” and “patriotic.” And it is verboten to disparage him in any way. Those who do are “radicals” with ulterior motives. As opposed to free citizens exercising their constitutional rights.

Also, notice that when Trump refers to “your favorite President” he has to explicitly identify himself. That’s because no one would actually think of him in that context without such prompting. He goes on to malign boycotts as “vicious and totally crazed,” but in the very same tweet calls on his aptly named Deplorables to launch their own. And why wouldn’t he? Crazed viciousness is his trademark.

Finally, Trump dives head first into the “accuse your accusers” maneuver. After describing the strategy of “using Commerce to hurt” others, and acknowledging that it causes indiscriminate pain, he blatantly orders his glassy-eyed disciples to charge ahead with their own assault on commerce.

What’s most disturbing about this is that Trump is either suffering from some form of Alzheimer’s or he is being deliberately dishonest (or both). In this Twitter tantrum Trump fails to mention that boycotts have been a frequent weapon of choice for his own battles. For the record he has called for boycotts at least ten times, mostly against American businesses: Harley-Davidson, CNN, Apple, Macy’s, Fox News, Univision, Mexico, HBO, Rolling Stone, and most recently AT&T. As seen on his own Twitter feed:

This is only a partial list. Other victims of Trump’s boycott frenzy include Starbucks, Oreos, Ford, and many more. Clearly Trump has separate standards for himself and everyone else. But there is a bigger problem here. There’s a significant difference between citizens independently voting with their pocketbooks when there is an issue that they feel strongly about, and a president whose bully pulpit ought to never be used against the companies and workers he was elected to represent. Trump is the one who doesn’t care about who he hurts, and he is deliberately causing harm to the American people and economy when he bashes domestic enterprises.

There has never been an American president who so brazenly sought to damage businesses that are major employers of American workers. No other president would have even thought of such a thing. But Trump only thinks of himself. Even when he attacks foreign businesses he is blinded by his selfishness. He went after products made in China despite the fact that many of his (and Ivanka’s) are manufactured there and his businesses buy Chinese goods by the boatload.

The American people should be concerned that their President will so callously attack the companies that employ them, their families, and neighbors. The next target of Trump’s wrath could very well be their own employer. It is unethical and anti-American for any leader to deliberately try to harm the companies that keep Americans working. But then the president that has called the media “the enemy of the people” obviously couldn’t care less about the damage he does to American workers, even including physical assaults and death threats.

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