George Stephanopoulos

Trump Goes SCHIZO on GOP Senator for Shooting Down His ‘Big Lie’ About Election Fraud

Posted by on January 10, 2022 at 11:47 am. 5 Comments :

One thing you can say for Donald Trump is that he is persistent. Or more accurately, as stubborn as a constipated mule. It’s been more than year that Trump has been flinging his utterly baseless allegations of election fraud. And for all of that time – and through some sixty court cases – he has failed to produce a shred of evidence.

Donald Trump

What Trump has done is to rant hysterically that he is the victim (as always) of the “Crime of the Century.” He has watched as even ultra-partisan “fraudits” proved the election was fairly conducted. And he has chickened out of his own challenge to debate the subject.

On Sunday Trump got another dose of dishonor. During an interview on ABC’s This Week, Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota told George Stephanopoulos that Trump’s “Big Lie” about election fraud was a fallacy, saying that…

“As a part of our due diligence, we looked at over 60 different accusations made in multiple states. While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state. The election was fair — as fair as we’ve seen. We simply did not win the election as Republicans for the presidency.”

As you might imagine, this triggered Trump into another infantile Twitter tirade. In a tweet posted by his (Twitter ban defying spokes-shill), Trump unleashed an extended harangue of hatred aimed at the GOP senator who, in Trump’s view, was committing sacrilege.

Trump seethed that Rounds “just went woke on the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020.” He complained that Rounds ignored the nonexistent election fraud despite what Trump falsely said was “massive evidence to the contrary” Trump whined that Rounds “found the election to be ok—just fine. Is he crazy or just stupid?” And that was just for starters.

Trump continued saying that “The only reason he did this is because he got my endorsement and easily won his state in 2020.” So Trump thinks that he’s responsible for a Republican winning in the blood red state of South Dakota. He went on to affirm the cult status of his “movement,” saying that it’s “only the weak who will break away.” And then Trump dropped the pièce de résistance: “I will never endorse this jerk again. Which probably has the senator from South Dakota shaking in his boots.

Trump unloaded on what he regards as the source of the problem, saying that It’s “The Radical Left Democrats and RINOS, like ‘Senator’ Mike Rounds [who are] destroy[ing] our Nation!” But he may need to broaden his attack to include Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. The ordinarily obsequious Kilmeade told Fox News’ Howard Kurtz (video below) that…

“In life, you have to learn to lose [and that] If you did, in fact, get screwed out of this election, put together an A-team list of lawyers – not the ones we witnessed – and show us the districts and show us how. I have not seen any of that.”

So Kilmeade is maligning not just Trump, but also Rudy Giuliani and the rest of Trump legal hacks. That, however, is not an indication that Kilmeade or Fox News has moderated their partisan biases. Kilmeade also said that…

“It defies logic to think a President could win by seven million votes who never left his basement, who couldn’t put together a clear speech, who never engaged in any challenging interview, who really struggled through every debate, could actually win this election.”

None of that is remotely consistent with reality. But it does show that Kilmeade is still fully on board with Trump’s election fraud lies, despite his admission that there is no evidence of it. That’s exactly how a cult works. Believe whatever you are told to believe and don’t ask questions. And anyone who strays from the orthodoxy is an enemy.

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Liz Cheney Warns America that Trump ‘Can Never Be Anywhere Near the Oval Office Ever Again’

Posted by on January 2, 2022 at 11:27 am. 6 Comments :

In a few days it will be the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s attempted coup and his violent January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C. In that time Trump and his seditionist cult disciples have only become more deranged and hostile toward democracy and America. To commemorate the occasion, Trump has scheduled a “news” conference that will certainly be devoid of both news and conferring.

Donald Trump, Fox News, QAnon

Trump’s media charade was purposefully scheduled as a distraction from the more solemn observances previously announced by Congress and the White House to honor the sacrifices of the heroes who defended the Capitol and democracy. His phony affair should therefore be ignored by the press since they already know that it will be nothing but more of the same self-serving, ego-satiating lies that Trump has been disgorging for the past year. Along with some new lies wherein he is buying into Tucker Carlson’s “false flag” conspiracy theory.

In a pre-anniversary interview on ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Rep. Liz Cheney explicitly articulated some of the reasons that the nation needs to be concerned about Trump and his persistent authoritarian aspirations. Cheney is one of two Republicans on the House Select Committee that is investigating the January 6th insurrection, and which has Trump fulminating in fear of what he childishly calls the Unselect Committee. Cheney’s words need little elaboration (video below):

“The Committee has first hand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred. We know, as you know well, that the Briefing Room at the White House is just a mere few steps from the Oval Office.

“The president could have at any moment walked those very few steps into the Briefing Room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were attacking the Capitol to stop. He could have told them to stand down. He could have told them to go home. And he failed to do so. It’s hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than that.”

Not only did he not immediately tell his StormTrumpers to stand down, instead he waited for three horrifying hours and then told them that they were special and that he loved them. Cheney went on to assert that Trump’s failure to act could constitute criminal negligence. And she also made the point that…

“It’s important for the American people to understand how dangerous Donald Trump was. We know, as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television to tell people to stop. We know Leader McCarthy was pleading with him to do that. We know members of his family – we know his daughter – we have first hand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence.

“Any man who would not do so; any man who would provoke a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes; any man who would watch television as police officers were being beaten as his supporters were invading the Capitol of the Unites States; is clearly unfit for future office. Clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.”

It wasn’t just members of his staff and family who were begging Trump to do the right thing. It was also his Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) who were sending him frantic emails as the invasion was going down. And when asked if she shared Hillary Clinton’s recent statement that if Trump were to win a second term that could be the end of our democracy, Cheney answered simply…

“I do. I think it is critically important, given everything we know about the lines that he was willing to cross – he crossed lines that no American president has ever crossed before.”

There is no question that Trump is both dangerous and criminally negligent. And there is abundant evidence of it. But it’s still good to hear a staunchly conservative Republican saying it on national television. Now all we need is for the Attorney General to get the message and issue some indictments before Trump has a chance to cause more trouble.

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Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham is ‘TERRIFIED’ He’ll Run in 2024 – She’s Not Alone

Posted by on October 4, 2021 at 3:08 pm. 6 Comments :

Donald Trump’s former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, is currently promoting her new book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House,” which comes out October 5, 2021. She was interviewed Monday on ABC’s Good Morning America by George Stephanopoulos, where she revealed some of her experiences as one of Trump’s longest serving aides.

Stephanie Grisham, Fox News

Excerpts from Grisham’s book have already disclosed, such as Trump’s unsavory fealty to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Other reports included descriptions of his bizarre behavior toward his staff, particularly women. But the GMA interview broke new and troubling ground. In it Grisham told Stephanopoulos that “I am terrified of him running for president in 2024.” She’s not the only one. The interview also featured this disturbing exchange:

Stephanopoulos: You were enabling the culture [of casual dishonesty] weren’t you?
Grisham: Yes, I was. And I reflected on that, and I regret that. Especially now watching him and so many people push the false election narrative. I now want to, in whatever way I can, educate the public about the behavior in the White House. Because it does look like he’s gonna try to run in 2024. […]

Grisham: He’s on his revenge tour for people who dared to vote for impeachment. And I want to just warn people that once he takes office, if he were to win, he doesn’t have to worry about reelection anymore. He will be about revenge. He will probably have some pretty draconian policies that go on.

It’s a little late for Grisham to express her regrets when she spent five years enabling the lies and megalomania that led to Trump’s insurrection and attempted coup. She addressed her own failures in the interview and conceded that she was no hero and that she wasn’t looking for praise. She just wants to get the truth out now before Trump has a second chance to complete his authoritarian takeover.

Progressives don’t have to embrace Grisham to appreciate her belated confessional. As someone who has been a long-time, trusted insider in the Trump cult, she has a unique perspective that could reveal further unethical, and potentially illegal, activities. She should be among the first former Trumpsters deposed by prosecutors investigating his administration’s many crimes.

As for Trump, he appears to be spooked by Grisham’s disclosures. He has already lashed out at her with his predictable, infantile insults, saying that it was “obvious from the beginning” that she “didn’t have what it takes.” Which affirms his tendency to staff his White House with “all the best people” that he later deems to have been incompetent all along.

What’s more, Trump complained that her book was put out by a “radical left-leaning publisher.” That would be HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the parent company of Fox News. They have also published books by such radical left wingers as Jared Kushner, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Ted Cruz.

Trump’s customary reaction to criticism is to throw childish tantrums. He literally told Mike Pence that “I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t” usurp power that you don’t have to overturn the election results in Congress. And Trump is going full scorched earth over the revelations in Grisham’s book. Which can only mean that it’s likely all true and that he’s scared witless. As he should be.

UPDATE: Grisham tells CNN that Fox News, OAN, etc., were like state-run TV for Trump and could “potentially cause a lot of damage.”

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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Rand Paul Gets Spanked as He Continues to Push the Big Lie that the Election Was Stolen

Posted by on January 24, 2021 at 10:42 am. 4 Comments :

To Republican deadenders still fighting to overturn Joe Biden’s decisive victory over Donald Trump, there are an endless stream of lies and alternative facts to disseminate. Never mind that doing so incited a violent insurrection in Washington, D.C., by Trump’s glassy-eyed cult disciples. To Republicans the battle to install an authoritarian dictatorship is an overwhelming compulsion.

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Rand Paul, Republican Brand

Confirmation of the GOP’s tyrannical aspirations was provided by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. On Sunday morning he appeared for an interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. And he was as determined as ever to advance the Big Lie that the election was stolen from Trump. Stephanopoulos should have ended this interview after the first thirty seconds.

Paul didn’t add anything new in the six minutes that followed to his primary argument that consisted of two points: 1) There was massive fraud for which there is no evidence, and 2) Liberals are being mean to him by calling him a liar when he lies about there being massive fraud. (Full video below if you have the stomach for it).

Paul repeatedly whined that Stephanopoulos was calling all Republicans who pushed the Big Lie liars. But there’s a simple way to prevent being called a liar: Stop Lying! Paul never considered that option and throughout the interview continually reiterated the Big Lie that the election was stolen. That’s the same lie that resulted in the Capitol riots where five people died, dozens more injured, and American democracy fouled by the stench of Trump and Republican treason. Not that Paul cared about any of that, as demonstrated in this exchange:

Stephanopoulos: I want to begin with a threshold question for you. This election was not stolen. Do you accept that fact?
Paul: Well, what I would say is that the debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur. We never had any presentation in court where we actually looked at the evidence since most of the cases were thrown out for lack of standing, which is a procedural way of not actually hearing the question.

Notice that Paul does not accept the fact that “This election was not stolen.” Even worse, he expands on the lie by asserting that the matter was never adjudicated in court. It is patently false that “most of the cases were thrown out for lack of standing.” In fact, very few were dismissed for that reason. Most of the cases – 86 of them – were thrown out after the evidence was presented and found to be wholly without merit. Paul went on to lie that…

“There were several states in which the law was changed by the Secretary of State, and not the state legislature. To me those are clearly unconstitutional.”

Actually, making decision of that sort is what secretaries of state were elected to do. And Paul is hallucinating if he sees anything in the Constitution that says otherwise. But he still wasn’t through lying…

“Were there people who voted twice? Were there dead people who voted? Were there illegal aliens who voted? Yes, and we should get to the bottom of it.”

There probably were some instances of invalid votes, just as there are in every election. But all fifty states, including those with Republican governors and election officials, certified the election results. Even Trump’s own Attorney General, Bill Barr, said there was no evidence of voter fraud that could have had any impact on the outcome. Yet that wasn’t enough for Paul either. He continued his lying…

“What I would suggest is that if we want greater confidence in our elections – and 75% of Republicans agree with me – is that we do need to look at election integrity, and we do need to see if we can restore confidence in the elections. […] Where you make a mistake is that people coming from the liberal side like you, you immediately say that everything’s a lie instead of saying there are two sides to everything.

First of all, the only reason that 75% of weak and impressionable Republicans agree with Paul and lack confidence in the election is because of Paul and Trump and the rest of the liars who have been hammering the blatantly false conspiracy nonsense that the election was stolen. If he wants to restore the people’s confidence in elections, he should try telling them the truth, that the election was fair and accurate.

Secondly, Paul’s contention that “there are two sides to everything” is pitifully idiotic. There are not two sides to facts. For instance, there isn’t another side to the fact that the Earth is round. And there isn’t another side to the facts that have been established by both Democratic and Republican officials that the election was not altered by fraud.

Paul’s reckless dishonesty is not just another incident of radical right-wing distortions of reality. The deadly consequences of his lies were seen by the world three weeks ago as his confederates sought to invade Congress and assassinate its members. People like Paul need to be held accountable and expelled from Congress for their deliberate and dangerous deceit. And the determination of these cretins to continue to spread their lies makes the impeachment conviction of Trump all the more necessary in order to preserve the integrity of our democracy.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Trump is Advocating ‘Herd Mentality’ Knowing it Will Kill 2 Million Americans

Posted by on September 16, 2020 at 12:23 pm. 2 Comments :

On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump took a rare step outside of his protective Fox News bunker for a town hall style interview on ABC with George Stephanopoulos. It was a pitiful spectacle of prideful ignorance and shameless lying. In other words, business as usual for Trump.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

Among the many dangerously dishonest departures from reality disseminated by The Donald were his bizarre defenses of his incompetent and deadly mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to spreading many of the same falsehoods he’s been putting out for months, Trump contradicted himself by denying that he downplayed the severity of COVID-19 (which he admitted to in the new book, RAGE! by Bob Woodward), while also insisting that he did downplay it in an effort to avoid creating a panic. So Trump was simultaneously downplaying it and not downplaying it, a feat only possible by an acutely disturbed psychotic (which is pretty much what America thinks of Trump).

When the discussion came around to the development of a vaccine, Trump managed to surprise Stephanopoulos with a claim that no public health expert or epidemiologist would give any credibility to. That led to this exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: It would go away without the vaccine?
TRUMP: Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time it goes away.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And many deaths.
TRUMP: And you’ll develop — you’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen.

First of all, Trump’s cognitive infirmity produced a glitch that resulted in his reference to “herd mentality” when he likely meant “herd immunity.” Herd mentality is something completely different, but familiar to those who study cult behaviors. Which may explain why it was on Trump’s mind.

More to the point. Trump is proposing a “solution” to the pandemic that would be nothing less than catastrophic. The herd immunity to which Trump was trying to refer is a process that requires 60-80% of the population to become infected. By even the most conservative estimates, that would result in more than two million American deaths.

What makes this all the worse is that Trump knows this horrifying fact and is apparently comfortable with it. That was not always the case. Back in April Trump addressed this subject and forthrightly rejected the concept of herd immunity:

“At a news briefing centered on the virus, Trump was asked about Sweden’s decision to embrace a ‘herd immunity’ approach to it, allowing it to spread widely enough that there would be enough people with immunity to slow the spread. ‘I think we could have followed that approach,’ Trump said of Sweden’s strategy. ‘And if we did follow that approach, I think we might have 2 million people dead.'”

So five months ago Trump opposed herd immunity and the prospect of millions of fatalities. But now, as the number of American deaths approaches 200,000, he’s embracing it without concern for the victims. And he’s doing everything he can to achieve herd immunity at the expense of his own cult followers. He is gathering them into indoor facilities without adhering to his own CDC guidelines that call for social distancing and face masks.

Unfortunately, the herd/ignoramus mentality practiced by these glassy-eyed Trump disciples will also put the rest of us at risk. As they spread out in the communities where they live and work they will expose people to the virus who would never have attended a Trump revival meeting. So those of us who are not brain damaged StormTrumpers will need to be extra careful in the coming weeks. And hopefully, with determination and hard work, we will evict Trump and his ghoulish confederacy of traitors from our White House.

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

Trump’s Bizarre Reasons for Accusing His White House Counsel McGahn of Lying Under Oath

Posted by on June 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the unique characteristics of Donald Trump’s criminal behavior is that, unlike most other criminals, he actually ends up admitting his wrongdoing in public and insisting that there’s nothing wrong with it. That was surprisingly well demonstrated on Thursday when he told George Stephanopoulos that he would happily accept and disseminate dirt on his political opponents, which is against the law.

Donald Trump

And one of the reasons that Trump is so comfortable making such public confessions is that he knows he has Fox News (aka State TV) to clean up after him. That’s what took place on Friday morning when the President did another call-in interview with the devoted Trump-fluffers on Fox and Friends. It was easily predictable that Trump would book this segment following a gaffe that was essentially an admission of treason.

However, even that brownnosing do-over was stepped on by Trump himself with the release of another clip from the Stephanopoulos interview. In this discussion Trump launched into a familiar and tedious denial that he ever sought to have special counsel Robert Mueller fired. That’s a claim that has been refuted by several of his close aides, including his White House Counsel, Don McGahn. Stephanopoulos noted that McGahn had testified to Mueller that Trump did ask him to talk to the Justice Department and make it clear to them that Mueller “had to go.” Which led to this incriminating exchange (video below):

Trump: I don’t care what he said. It doesn’t matter. That was to show everyone what a good counsel he was.
Stephanopoulos: But why would he lie under oath to Robert Mueller?
Trump: Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer. Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen, including you, including the media, that Robert Mueller was conflicted.

First of all, when Stephanopoulos asked why McGahn would lie under oath, Trump didn’t reject that premise. In fact, he attempted to justify it. So Trump is accusing his White House counsel of committing criminal perjury. It will interesting to see if Attorney General William Barr will now open an investigation into that and issue an indictment for McGahn. (Don’t hold your breath). Because either McGahn is guilty of perjury, or Trump is lying about it.

Secondly, Trump’s first explanation for McGahn’s alleged perjury is that McGahn was seeking to “make himself look like a good lawyer.” How? By lying under oath? How does it burnish his credibility to implicate Trump in a scheme to fire Mueller? Trump is apparently conceding that testimony linking Trump to obstruction of justice is the honorable thing to do. Of course it is. Telling the truth would surely cast a positive glow on McGahn or any other witness. But accusing McGahn of doing the right thing is an odd defense from Trump’s perspective.

Finally, Trump’s other explanation for McGahn’s testimony is that McGahn, and “anybody that would listen,” were deluged with complaints by Trump that Mueller was conflicted. That assertion has always been a deliberate lie on Trump’s part. But his admission here that he has been inundating everyone around him with that allegation could itself be construed as obstruction of justice. He’s trying to materially harm the investigation by falsely impugning the integrity of the special counsel.

So Trump is providing a perverse set of arguments in his defense. On one hand, Trump thinks that his White House counsel is a perjurer for having told the truth about him. On the other, Trump is obstructing justice by lying about Mueller. And if you’re having trouble figuring that out, or why Trump would be asserting such a preposterous defense, it just means that you’re a normal, logical person. Unlike the sociopathic narcissist currently residing in the White House.

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

COLLUSION: Trump is Committing Treason in Order to Resuscitate His Floundering 2020 Campaign

Posted by on June 13, 2019 at 11:57 am. 10 Comments :

It is impossible to understate the profoundly evil nature of what Donald Trump told George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday. In an extended interview, Trump not only justified his prior collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, he also placed an open call for hostile foreign governments to do the same thing in 2020. It’s an unambiguous attempt to seek assistance from America’s enemies. This is Trump’s reelection campaign strategy.

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

The interview was an astonishing performance by an unabashed traitor to American laws and principles. What follows are a few of the most egregious segments that are profoundly disturbing and utterly inexcusable.

Stephanopoulos: But should [Don Jr] have gone to the FBI when he got that email?
Trump: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the FBI? You don’t– I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the FBI. In my whole life. I don’t–you don’t call the FBI.

Actually, Trump has called the FBI at least twice according to FOIA documents, but only when it’s to his personal benefit.

Stephanopoulos: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the FBI.
Trump: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t– this is somebody who said, “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the FBI. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.

It’s not different. The information that Trump was seeking (Clinton’s and DNC emails) was also stolen information on his opponent. And calling the FBI is precisely the way it works, even according to Trump’s own FBI director, Christopher Wray. So Trump responded that…

Trump: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life.

Trump: If somebody comes into your office with oppo research– they call it oppo research–with information that might be good or bad or something, but good for you, bad for your opponent, you don’t call the FBI. I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings–if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected.

Here Trump is trying to conflate normal opposition research with his collusion with foreign governments, which is illegal. Then he cites some statistics that he’s pulled from his – assumptions and justifies the criminality because, as he says, everybody does it. So therefore it’s okay?

Stephanopoulos: Your campaign this time around, if foreigners, if Russia, if China, if someone else offers you information on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the FBI?
Trump: I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, “we have information on your opponent.” Oh, I think I’d want to hear it.

Norway? It’s funny how Trump can’t bring himself to mention Russia. But more to the point, what he’s describing here is collusion, plain and simple. He goes on to say that he wouldn’t report it to the FBI because “the FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it.” Sure, because there are only 13,412 special agents and 20,420 support professionals.

Trump may have point. 33,000 FBI agents might not be enough to investigate all of the crimes that he has committed. In this interview he said once that he might alert the FBI to unlawful communications with foreign governments. But he said four times that he wouldn’t. And he said it again in a series of tweets on Thursday morning:

Notice that the examples he uses are our allies. Once again, he refuses to implicate Vladimir Putin and his pals in the Kremlin. He also fails to mention whether these talks included getting dirt on his opponents. He is deliberately trying to deflect from the real issue. And unfortunately, that will work on his Deplorable followers and his shills at Fox News.

The bottom line is that Trump’s remarks are a direct invitation to our enemies to engage in hacking or other illegal activities and pass along what they steal to Trump. He has already told them that he’d listen. So why wouldn’t they do it? He is unambiguously soliciting a criminal act. And for that alone Trump should be impeached and imprisoned.

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

Trump Confesses Collusion with Russia While His Lawyer Jay Sekulow Lies About Trump Tower Meeting

Posted by on August 5, 2018 at 3:06 pm. 1 Comments :

On Sunday morning’s edition of This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow about his prior statements concerning the infamous meeting in Trump Tower. That was where Don Jr, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and other Trump associates conspired with Russian operatives to acquire emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Donald Trump

As a refresher, what Sekulow said at the time was that the meeting was an innocent gathering to discuss adoption issues. He further said that Donald Trump knew nothing about it and had no role in the false explanations that were disseminated to the press.

Of course, we now know that Trump dictated those phony excuses. And we know it because Sekulow admitted it in a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller. What’s more, Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is said to be ready to testify that Trump was aware of the meeting before they took place, and approved of it. At this point that’s almost academic since the evidence shows that Trump was talking about the ill-gotten fruits of the meeting in public in advance of it.

Remember, this was a meeting in his own building, with his son, his son-in-law, and his campaign manager, to discuss Russian dirt on his opponent, during his campaign. Gee, why would anyone think he knew anything about it? Nevertheless, that was the position of Sekulow and the whole Trump regime. But on This Week Sekulow said this (video below):

“I was in the case at that point a couple of weeks and there was a lot of information that was gathering, and as my colleague Rudy Giuliani said, I had bad information at that time. I made a mistake in my statement. I talked about that before. That happens when you have cases like this.”

Actually, that is most definitely not what happens in cases like this. In cases like this it is imperative that attorneys collect and disseminate only well researched and documented information. Anything less is a flagrant disservice to their client, as is evident by what’s going on now. But that isn’t the worst thing about Sekulow’s remarks.

The worst part is that the entire statement is riddled with lies. If Sekulow had “bad information” at the time, then why didn’t he correct the record after he was able to get good information. He had over a year to do that. He had access to the people who attended the meeting. Why didn’t he get statements from them to set the record straight? In fact, why didn’t they offer corrections themselves without being prodded by Sekulow? They knew what he said on TV and they knew is was false. Every one of them let the lies fester for a year. And, of course, Trump himself knew that what his lawyer said wasn’t true, but he didn’t bother to correct him either.

What’s more, you have to ask why Team Trump told so many lies about the meeting in the first place. If they all considered it to be innocent and legal there should be no reason to invent fictional scenarios that were sure to be uncovered eventually. That’s not the way innocent people behave. And they allowed those lies to gather mold for months, purposefully deceiving the American people as well as the investigating authorities.

And, for the first time, Trump himself has acknowledged that the subject of the Trump Tower meeting was to obtain dirt about Clinton from Russia. That’s a bombshell admission that also reveals that he lied when he told the press that it was about adoptions, and also when he dictated the lies that Don Jr told.

This tweet is confession that Trump colluded with Russia to get dirt on Clinton. It’s as simple as that. Furthermore, it isn’t legal and it isn’t done all the time. To the contrary, this has never been done, that anyone knows of. And it is strictly against the law to conspire with a foreign government to interfere with an election. It’s also illegal to accept cash, or anything of value (like stolen emails), without disclosing it in campaign finance reports.

Since we know that Trump and company have lied about whether there ever was a meeting with Russians, and then lied about the subject of the meeting, and then lied about the participants, and then lied about why they told the previous lies, then it’s a good bet that the lies Trump just told will also be exposed in short order. That being his claim that he didn’t know about the meeting. Anyone who believes that is terminally naive. It’s just a matter of time before the truth about this comes out, just like the truth about the meeting did. And when it does you can expect Trump start tweeting about illegal MS-13 immigrant children on a nationwide killing spree who refuse to stand for the national anthem.

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

Fox News Buries Bombshell on Trump’s Fixer Michael Cohen – Posts Fake Obama/Iran Story Instead

Posted by on July 2, 2018 at 1:13 pm. 3 Comments :

On Monday morning there was one big story that was dominating the news. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s attorney – and self-described fixer – was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos for ABC News. In the interview Cohen pretty clearly indicated that he was no longer willing to “take a bullet” for Trump. He told Stephanopoulos that “My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will.”

Fox News, Michael Cohen, Obama

This development is properly being handled like the bombshell that it is by most of the media. Cohen’s additional announcement that he will no longer participate in a joint defense agreement with Trump is generally regarded as a prelude to flipping on the President and cooperating with prosecutors. Even Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News said Trump should have some “sleepless nights” over this.

However, if you were to visit the Fox News website Monday morning you would have had a hard time finding anything related to this blockbuster story. A long scroll down the front page would have eventually brought you to a single line on the subject that linked to a two minute video clip. Later in the day that was replaced by the Napolitano quote. And on the air, Fox News covered the story on Outnumbered in a segment that cast Cohen as “not credible” because he was “going against” the President. Apparently on Fox News that’s all you need to know to be considered not credible.

Meanwhile, the Fox News website chose to put a story at the top of their page that was somewhat less timely. The headline: “Path to Citizenship? Powerful cleric claims Obama naturalized thousands of Iranian VIPs during nuke talks.” Fox had to reach back three years to pull this story out of the woodwork. And it was still just a jumble of fiercely spinning jabs at President Obama. None of them hit their mark because they were so far fetched and thinly argued. The article said that:

“The Obama administration granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians, including family members of government officials, while negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, a senior cleric and member of parliament has claimed.

“Hojjat al-Islam Mojtaba Zolnour, who is chairman of Iran’s parliamentary nuclear committee and a member of its national security and foreign affairs committee, made the allegations during an interview with the country’s Etemad newspaper, cited by the country’s Fars News agency.

“He claimed it was done as a favor to senior Iranian officials linked to President Hassan Rouhani, and he alleged the move sparked a competition among Iranian officials over whose children would benefit from the scheme.”

First of all, everything being reported here is coming from Iran’s state news operation and a hardliner within the Iranian government. For some reason Fox News is granting them the journalistic legitimacy that they would never give to the New York Times, or CNN. But more to the point, the article actually outlines a story wherein Obama allowed Iranian dissidents to emigrate to the United States where they are reportedly working against the national interests of the theocratic, totalitarians in Iran. But that isn’t revealed until much further down in the article:

“[Zolnour] estimated that between 30 and 60 were studying in the U.S. while the rest of them were working in the country ‘against our national interests.'”

So Fox News is deliberately trying to cast Obama in a negative light as having done favors for the offspring of Iranian dictators. But the truth is that he was securing the freedom of Iranian dissidents who oppose the current regime. And this fake news story was elevated to the top of the page, even while the much more consequential (and truthful) story about Michael Cohen was virtually eliminated. It’s kind of ironic that Fox is offering this lesson in how State TV works in an article about Iran’s state TV. Fox News can teach Iran so much about propaganda.

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

UPDATE: By Monday afternoon Fox News had replaced their Obama/Iran feature story with one about California splitting into three states. That may be even less newsworthy (and extremely unlikely to happen) than the Iran story. And still just one small link to Cohen, this one linking to a video clip with Shepard Smith.

Giuliani Says the Reason Trump Can’t Testify is Because He’s Either a Liar or a Mental Defective

Posted by on June 3, 2018 at 11:53 am. 5 Comments :

Rudy Giuliani continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Every time he appears on television he manages to dig his only client, Donald Trump, into a deeper, more vermin-infested swamp hole. If we didn’t know better, we might be inclined to believe that Giuliani is a part of the “Deep State” that is conspiring to destroy Trump and replace him with a Hillary Clinton lizard clone.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump

Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week, Giuliani was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos. Among the subjects discussed was the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. Despite Trump’s repeated, panicky tweetstorms insisting that he’s innocent, this inquiry has already produced dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. Trump’s painfully obvious consciousness of guilt was on display this week when he accused the Justice Department of leaking a letter to Robert Mueller that Trump or his lawyers most likely leaked themselves.

During the interview Giuliani was asked about the prospects of Trump being questioned by Mueller. For months the Trump team has been wavering on this matter with contradictory assertions that he would love to sit down with the special counsel or that he would foolish to do so. Stephanopoulos eventually asked specifically about the recent discovery that Trump’s lawyers outright lied about whether the President dictated Don, Jr.’s response to his meeting with Russians at Trump Tower. And Giuliani took that as cue to put Trump in a distinctly negative light (video below):

Stephanopoulos: It’s not a complicated thing. The President was there. He was dealing with the letter. First it was all denied. And now you’re saying he dictated it.
Giuliani: Jay [Sekolow] would have to answer that. I think Jay was wrong. This is the reason you don’t let the president testify. Our recollection keeps changing, or we’re not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption.

Well, that clears things up. Giuliani is saying that Trump must not be allowed to testify because he is likely to commit perjury. Either that or he is too mentally impaired to remember critical details of his own behavior. But it’s even worse than having a poor memory. Giuliani is saying that Trump’s recollections of specific events might actually be different depending on when you ask him. That’s an admission that Trump is, in effect, unfit to hold office.

On an interesting side note, Giuliani didn’t say what he thought Sekulow was wrong about: His first statement that Trump had nothing to do with Don, Jr.’s response, or the one in the letter to Mueller saying that Trump dictated it. Either way, the fact that Giuliani also threw his colleague, Jay Sekulow, under the bus is just icing on the psychotic meltdown that Rudy was having on the air. So far Sekulow has not commented on Giuliani’s assertion that he was wrong about – something.

The bottom line here is that Giuliani is actually right. Trump is very likely to either lie or reveal his decaying grasp of reality if he testifies for Mueller. That’s obviously a dangerous course of action for the President. But more troubling is the fact that if Trump is too impaired to meet with Mueller, then he’s also too impaired to meet with Kim Jong Un, or Vladimir Putin, or even members of Congress. How can Republicans – or America – tolerate a president who, by his own attorney’s account, can’t consistently inhabit the real world?

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