George Stephanopoulos

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.

Trump Told Fox News that the U.S. is Just as Bad as Russia and Tried to Make Comey Agree

Posted by on April 16, 2018 at 11:18 am. NO Comments :

The ABC interview of James Comey Sunday night had some juicy quotables. The interview precedes the release of his book, A Higher Loyalty, which is currently number one on Amazon. Comey’s opinion that Donald Trump is “morally unfit to be president” seems to be getting the most play in the morning-after media. But Comey also introduced several “possibilities” that are hard to ignore. He said that it’s possible that Trump is “compromised by the Russians.” He said that there is possible evidence of Trump obstructing justice. And he said that it is possible that Trump “was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow.”

Comey Trump

All of those are harrowing thoughts when applied to the President of the United States. And particularly so when they come from one of the highest law enforcement officials in the American federal government. The harmful prospects implied by those remarks cannot be overstated. And they will surely play a part in the unfolding investigation being conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

In addition, there was a surprising allusion to Trump’s favorite cable news network, Fox News. It reveals the extent to which he is preoccupied with everything he sees and hears from his shadow policy advisors on the network, who too often become his actual White House advisors. The exchange occurred when George Stephanopoulos asked Trump about his relationship with Vladimir Putin, a unambiguously brutal dictator who Trump has never been able to say a single bad word about. This is what ensued (transcript here, video below):

“The Super Bowl pre-game show where– and I hadn’t asked any questions about this, but the president was just talking about it, he had given an answer to Bill O’Reilly that had been much criticized across the political spectrum when he had said, in response to a question, that he respected Vladimir Putin and said, ‘That doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him.’

“And then O’Reilly responded, ‘But he’s a killer.” And the president responded, in substance, “But we’re killers, too. You think our country’s so innocent.’ I forget the exact words, but that’s the gist of it. And that moral equivalence, between the people of our government and Putin’s thugs, had generated a lot of controversy. […]

“He was telling me it was a good answer and then said – gave me an opening by saying, ‘You think it was a great answer. You think it was a good answer.’ And then he was starting to move on. And I jumped in and I said, ‘Mr. President, the first part of the answer was fine, not the second part. We’re not the kind of killers that Putin is.’

And when I said that, the weather changed in the room. And like a shadow crossed his face and his eyes got this strange, kinda hard look. And I thought in that moment, ‘I’ve just done something unusual maybe.’ And then (SNAP) it passed and the meeting was over. And, ‘Thanks for coming in,’ and – and Priebus walked me out.”

Comey regarded that exchange as having an unintended positive result. He said that “by interrupting him and also criticizing him to his face,” it ended any personal relationship between him and Trump. It allowed him to “keep a distance that we need to keep from him.” But it also showed that Trump has an unhealthy obsession with whatever he says on Fox News being validated by everyone with whom he comes into contact. Trump desperately wanted Comey to agree that what he told O’Reilly was brilliant.

Of course, what he told O’Reilly was an insult to America and blatantly unpatriotic. Even O’Reilly thought so. Putin is guilty of murdering his political opponents and critical journalists. He is a cold-blooded tyrant who thirsts for world domination. Whatever flaws the U.S. has, they are not on that level of evil. But Comey’s refusal to suck up to Trump caused the President to freeze up. And it may have been at that moment that he decided that Comey had to go.

The cumulative effect of the Russia investigation and Comey’s lack of adoring fealty to Trump sealed his fate. So ironically, Fox News, the PR division of the Trump White House, may have inadvertently played a role in proving that Trump obstructed justice. Who’da thunk it?

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

BENGHAZI? Watch Kellyanne Conway Resort to Classic Dodge to Avoid Defending Trump’s Lies

Posted by on August 6, 2017 at 2:30 pm. 2 Comments :

The guardians of Donald Trump’s floundering presidency are finding it ever more difficult carry out their task. They now have to deal with a special prosecutor ramping up investigations of the President. Grand juries are being impaneled in Washington, Virginia, and New York. And a flurry of new lies erupt from the White House every day. What’s a dedicated Trump shill supposed to do?

Kellyanne Conway

Well, Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week” we may have found out. Kellyanne Conway was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos about the blatant contradictions by Trump and company about their interactions with Russia. He summarized the situation and asked Conway for her explanation for the various accounts (video below):

“The White House and the President’s surrogates have told conflicting stories. First they said there no contacts with Russians. Then it turned out there were at least eighteen contacts. The story broke in the New York Times saying the President was involved in the drafting of his son Don, Jr.’s misleading response to that meeting he had with Russians during the campaign. And Jay Sekulow, the President’s attorney, came on GMA and told me the President was not involved.”

Stephanopoulos noted that the original statement and the one offered after the Times story were “very different answers in the space of two weeks.” But Conway’s response evaded the question to say that the meeting was of no consequence. She continues to deny the consequences of just agreeing to meet with Russian operatives to obtain campaign information. Even if nothing was obtained, the effort itself was an attempt at collusion. Conway added that Trump’s involvement in drafting Junior’s response was merely “weighing in as a father.” Of course. Every father has had that experience where they help their adult son to lie about meetings with America’s enemies.

Stephanopoulos persisted to challenge her on the shifting facts. He noted that the first statement was totally false and that the President and his lawyers “didn’t tell the truth.” To which Conway replied with a series of alleged falsehoods from the distant past. She raised the matter of whether or not people could keep their doctors under ObamaCare. And then she actually brought up Benghazi and tried to make that relevant to this discussion.

Let’s not get into a debate as to whether those were actually examples of untrue statements. The main point here is that Conway was utterly incapable of defending the lies from Trump’s White House. So reached into the past hoping to grasp a rhetorical lifeline. Stephanopoulos’ complaint that Conway was just changing the subject fell on deaf ears. When he asked if Trump could be truthful about the Russia investigations, Conway swerved to repeat Trump’s baseless assertion that the whole thing was fabricated.

By the end of the interview, Conway didn’t once respond directly to the charge that Trump and his surrogates lied. There are obvious differences between their initial accounts of the meetings and the facts that they later conceded. Plus, the false claim that Trump had nothing to do with Junior’s first statement remains unexplained. And Conway’s flagrant evasions only serve to highlight how overwhelmed she and her associates are.

They are quite simply out of answers. The tsunami of lies that flow from Trump have exhausted his defenders. And since they have emptied their arsenal of arguments, be prepared to hear more from yesteryear’s classics like Benghazi. And if they get desperate enough they might even revive Obama’s birth certificate and Monica Lewinski.

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

HUH? Kellyanne Conway Says Trump’s Medicaid Cuts Are Not Medicaid Cuts

Posted by on June 25, 2017 at 10:47 am. 3 Comments :

Sunday morning the inventor of “alternative facts” was at it again. Donald Trump staffer Kellyanne Conway made an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the Republican effort to repeal ObamaCare. TrumpCare, as it is known, has been widely criticized by a bipartisan array of politicians and pundits. Even Trump tagged the House version of the bill as “mean.”

Kellyanne Conway

Among the complaints are that it would result in higher deductibles and premiums, eliminate protection for preexisting conditions, and throw more than twenty million people off of their health insurance plans. What’s more, it would be paid for by giving billions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthy.

It’s issues like those that have caused at least five GOP senators to announce their opposition to the bill. If those numbers hold the bill cannot pass. Republicans have a two-vote margin and can expect no help from Democrats. Adding to its problems is that TrumpCare would impose severe cuts to Medicaid. Despite repeatedly promising to never cut the program, Trump is nevertheless enthusiastically supporting the bill. This support comes even though the senate version is even meaner than the one the House passed:

“The much more drastic changes in the Senate bill as compared to the House bill come in the realm of Medicaid. The House bill immediately ended enhanced funding for the Medicaid expansion to able-bodied low-income adults under the ACA, while the Senate bill would slowly phase that funding out. This, in theory, would put millions fewer people immediately in the ranks of the uninsured and increase government spending over the House plan.”

Undeterred by reality, Conway addressed the issue in her interview with Stephanopoulos. She was asked directly about the how the bill cuts 800 billion dollars from Medicaid and asked why Trump is going back on his promise. Her lie-riddled, word salad reply was that:

“These are not cuts to Medicaid. This slows the rate for the future and it allows governors more flexibility for the future with Medicaid dollars because they’re closer to the people in need. […] If you are currently in Medicaid, if you became a Medicaid recipient through the Obamacare expansion, you are grandfathered in. We’re talking about in the future.

“You know, ObamaCare took Medicaid, which was designed to help the poor, the needy, the elderly, the sick, the disabled. Also children and pregnant women. It took it and went way above the poverty line. Opened it up to many able-bodied Americans who should probably see if there are other options for them.”

Stephanopoulos deserves some credit for not allowing Conway to advance the falsehood that the bill doesn’t cut Medicaid. He also challenged her baseless assertion that no one on Medicaid now would be affected. He pressed Conway to address the matter of the 800 billion dollars in cuts, to which she replied, “You keep calling them cuts. But we don’t see them as cuts.”

And therein lies the heart of the problem. Trump and his shills have created their own language that ignores the reality of any situation. They will feverishly spin until the rhetoric is hopelessly removed from anything resembling the truth. It’s a strategy that is ultimately aimed at creating confusion and muddying the waters so that a coherent dialog is impossible. And no one is better at that than Conway.

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

Trump’s Campaign Of Lies Is Portrayed As ‘Refreshing’ By His VP Mike Pence

Posted by on December 5, 2016 at 12:54 pm. 6 Comments :

A couple of weeks ago the Oxford Dictionary selected “post-truth” as its Word of the Year for 2016. They define it as the preference for emotion and personal belief over objective facts. That’s been the operative model for Donald Trump’s campaign from the very start. Now his top staff are cementing the strategy into his developing presidency.

Trump/Pence

Trump recently tweeted that he would have won the popular vote but for the “millions of people who voted illegally.” That nonsense won him his 61st Pants-On-Fire lie from PolitiFact. He never bothered to provide any evidence to support the claim. And the evidence provided by his spokespersons didn’t even address the subject.

It’s clear that Trump and his minions have no respect for the truth. One of his most prominent surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes of CNN, came right out and admitted it. In a recent radio interview she said that “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.” We are truly over the rainbow here, folks.

The latest tunnel-blind defense of Trump’s brazen dishonesty goes even further to malign the existence of facts. His Chief of Staff nominee, Reince Priebus, was asked by John Dickerson of CBS’s Face the Nation about Trump’s tweet. Priebus responded saying:

“Here’s the thing, no one really knows. You don’t know. […] I think the president-elect is someone who has pushed the envelope and caused people to think in this country. He’s not taking conventional thought on every single issue.”

Indeed. He has caused people to think – that their President-Elect is a pathological liar. What Priebus is calling “pushing the envelope” and “unconventional thought” are better known to most people as bullshitting. This parade of euphemisms continued on the Sunday TV news circuit with VP-Elect Mike Pence. George Stephanopoulos asked him if Trump had “a right to make false statements.” Pence replied that:

“It’s his right to express his opinion. […] And I think the American people find it very refreshing that they have a president who will tell them what’s on his mind.”

Once again, propagating purposeful falsehoods is framed benignly as expressing an opinion. These people don’t think there’s any difference between a politically partisan spin on a personal belief and a demonstrable fact. They are actually seeking to abolish the concept of facts in order to dispense their fabrications without consequences. It’s the same approach they take to disparaging the media. They don’t do it as responsible criticism, but as a means to eliminate any critical judgment of their deliberate distortions of reality. And to that end, Trump tweeted this defense of his obsession with Twitter:

Of course, what he really objects to are those rare occasions when the press does cover him accurately and honorably. Sad.

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

Tax-Dodger Donald: Trump’s Own Documents Prove He Lied About The Value Of His Properties

Posted by on May 16, 2016 at 7:28 pm. 3 Comments :

Is Donald Trump a billionaire or a world-class grifter?

It has been difficult to pin down Trump’s net worth because he refuses to release his taxes until an alleged audit is complete. That excuse has been ridiculed by experts and even the IRS says there is nothing preventing him from making his own tax information public. Nevertheless, he is continuing to hide behind his lawyers and now says that his returns might not be released until after the election.

Donald Trump

Tax returns have been a staple disclosure in politics for nearly half a century. Hillary Clinton has made more than thirty years of returns available to the public. But Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos this weekend that his tax rate is “none of your business.” However, there is data available through other tax filings that is shedding some light on Trump’s mysterious empire.

ABC News is reporting (video below) that the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, New York, was valued on Trump’s candidate disclosure statement at “more than $50 million.” The high valuation serves Trump’s political purposes to portray himself as a successful businessman. But when he declared the assessment of the resort for tax purposes he claimed that it was worth only $1.75 million. The difference between his tax declaration and his candidate disclosure amounts to a savings of 90% on his tax bill.

When asked by ABC’s Brian Ross to comment on the discrepancy, he was told that the matter was “decades old and not worthy of a response.” He said much the same thing to reporters asking about the recent discovery of an audio tape of him posing as his own fictional press agent when talking to the media. This is a statute of limitations that only applies to Trump, whose obsession with the Clintons’ marital difficulties from the 1990s he still considers fair game.

The ABC story cited several other instances when Trump was less than honest about paying his taxes. One particularly egregious incident was when he purchased the yacht that became his beloved “Trump Princess.” At the time he pretended to have a patriotic incentive for buying the luxury liner. He said:

“I like to see the great jewels of the country being owned by the people of this country. And it had a big play as to why I bought this boat.”

However, as Ross reported, Trump “used off-shore and out-of-state corporations to buy the yacht and saved him a tax bill of some $1.75 million.” What a patriot. Something that Ross left out is that later, when Trump was undergoing a severe financial crisis, he sold the yacht to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. So much for “the great jewels of the country.”

The Trump National property was purchased in foreclosure for $8 million, and he spent another $45 million developing the golf course and the club house. So either this property suffered a massive decline in value and Trump isn’t worth what he says he is, or he is deliberately undervaluing it to avoid his legal tax bill. Either way, one of his public declarations is a flagrant lie. And with this report by ABC News will the media pick up the story and begin to tell the truth about Trump’s dishonesty?

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

Loyalty Loath: The GOP Pledge Of Allegiance Goes Up In Flames

Posted by on March 30, 2016 at 10:18 am. NO Comments :

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy in June of last year it was widely speculated that he would ditch the Republican Party if it failed to give him the party crown to which he feels entitled. That controversy caused the GOP to insist that all candidates sign a “loyalty oath” if they wanted to participate in party sanctioned debates or even get on the primary ballot in some states. The pledge required the candidates to promise allegiance to the party and its eventual nominee and to forswear any future attempt to go independent. It also commenced a roller-coaster ride of concessions and threats by an unstable megalomaniac whose word is worth less than a diploma from Trump University.

Donald Trump

It’s difficult understand how Trump could endorse other Republicans that he has already disparaged as weak, incompetent, corrupt, ugly losers, but then they all have that problem. Nevertheless, under pressure from the party, Trump signed the pledge and tweeted how proud he was of the commitment. He further stated that “I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party,” and that “I see no circumstances under which I would tear up that pledge.”

You’ll never guess what happened next. Just two and a half months later Trump was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week and was asked whether he still intended to honor his pledge. He responded that “I will see what happens. I have to be treated fairly.” Of course Trump’s idea of fair treatment is when everybody stoops to kiss his wrinkled butt. Consequently, anyone who relies on his pledge is asking to be bitch-slapped by the wannabe tyrant who invents his own exceptions to signed contracts. A few days later, Trump’s attorney offered a medieval-flavored affirmation of his threat to bolt the party saying “woe be on them,” who treat The Donald unfairly.

Trump’s vacillation on party allegiance was not matched by his opponents who continued to assert their loyalty. If anyone had justification for abandoning a Trump candidacy, it was the victims of his campaign abuse. What’s more, the disintegration of Trump’s campaign into a neo-fascist movement was all too apparent and did not go unnoticed. President Obama’s press Secretary, Josh Earnest, commented on it after Trump proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. He said that such a blatantly unconstitutional plan “disqualifies him from being president. And for Republican candidates to stand by their pledge to support Mr. Trump, that in and of itself is disqualifying.” Well, not to Republicans.

Trump was asked again during CNN’s GOP debate in December if he was “ready to assure Republicans tonight that you will run as a Republican and abide by the decision of the Republicans?” He answered “I really am. I’ll be honest, I really am.” Oh – so this time he’s being honest (allegedly). Since Trump has already made a public statement that he could renege on the written pledge that he signed, why would anyone trust that he would keep any promises made on a debate stage?

And you’ll never guess what happened next – again. In the midst of an unhinged tirade against Ted Cruz, who Trump accused of using negatively slanted push polls against him in South Carolina, Trump unleashed a flurry of threats to challenge Cruz’s eligibility to run for president with a lawsuit based on the fact that he was born in Canada. And attached to those threats was one aimed at the Republican National Committee warning that “the RNC should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me,” thus, once again, opening the path to his own renunciation of the pledge.

Following the CBS GOP debate in South Carolina, Trump escalated the un-pledging rhetoric with more complaints about the RNC that he said “does a terrible job.” He threw another of his patented tantrums alleging that the party was conspiring against him and that “they’re in default of their pledge.” And yet, the charade that the loyalty pledge remained in effect continued to be played out. Until now.

At a CNN town hall event in Wisconsin yesterday, Anderson Cooper asked Trump outright if he still stood by the pledge. His answer this time was an unequivocal “No, I don’t.” To be fair, both Ted Cruz and John Kasich have indicated that they were also wavering on backing the GOP nominee depending on who it was, a thinly veiled inference that a Trump candidacy would be disavowed.

So now it appears that the entire field of Republican candidates has abandoned the pledge they made such a big deal about signing six months ago. It was a farce from the beginning designed to reign in Trump, which never worked, and now it is crumpled up in the trash along with the GOP’s principles and prospects for a November victory. Among the questions that linger are whether the pledge’s demise means that Trump is again considering a third party run. That would be the ultimate F.U. to the Republican Party that Trump is convinced is his enemy, but it would also bring joy to the Democratic Party.

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

An easier solution, however, is one that I proposed last December. Just let the crybaby Trump have his GOP nomination and then the rest of the party could leave and start a new club minus Trump and his racist, idiot brigade of Storm-Trumpers. Now THAT’S entertainment. It’s a solution that the reality TV celebrity candidate and the ratings hungry news networks could both embrace.

Mein Drumpf: Comparisons To Hitler Should Not Surprise Donald Trump

Posted by on March 8, 2016 at 2:13 pm. 4 Comments :

On Good Morning America today host George Stephanopoulos interviewed Donald Trump and raised the subject of the increasingly common comparisons of him to Adolf Hitler. This, in and of itself, isn’t new, but Trump’s response added another lie to the growing collection of falsehoods that he has accumulated (see the Trump Bullshitopedia).

Stephanopouplos didn’t go into much detail about the many similarities of Trump’s rhetoric to that of the Nazi leader, but he did note that critics as diverse as comedian Louis CK, and the unintentionally funny crackpot Glenn Beck, have both made the association. Then Stephanopoulos hit Trump with a fact that has become inescapable, saying that “The number of prominent people comparing you to Adolf Hitler is growing by the day.” Trump responded saying…

“I don’t know about the Hitler comparison. I hadn’t heard that, but it’s a terrible comparison. I’m not happy about that, certainly. I don’t want that comparison. But we have to be strong.”

Setting aside the perverse argument that being strong is somehow a defense for sounding like a fascist, Trump is flat out lying about not having heard the Hitler comparisons before. In fact, Trump heard these very same comparisons while being interviewed by the very same guy. Last December News Corpse reported on an exchange between Trump and Stephanopoulos that was nearly identical to the one today. The only notable difference is that today Trump feigned being unhappy with the comparison, while previously he said that it didn’t bother him. From News Corpse, Dec. 8, 2015:

It had to come to this. Donald Trump’s affinity for Nazis was always just beneath the diseased skin of his repulsive rhetoric. Now, after months of promulgating brazenly racist views, advocating policies that are indistinguishable from those of history’s fascists, and promising to commit war crimes if elected, will anybody be surprised by it bubbling to the surface? Trump’s true face was exposed today when he was asked a simple question on Good Morning America:

George Stephanopoulos: You’re increasingly compared to Hitler. Does that bother you?
Donald Trump: No, what I’m doing is no different from FDR.

Donald Trump

So there you have it. Donald Trump is not bothered by comparisons to Adolf Hitler. And why should he be? He has been running on the platform of the Nazi Party since he announced his candidacy. What’s more, he justifies his comfort with the association by positively referencing the Japanese internment camps built during the FDR administration, which are universally condemned as one of America’s most shameful actions.

Trump frequently claims that he has “the greatest memory in the world,” but he is now pretending not to recall a recent discussion with the same interviewer on the same subject. Trump’s dishonesty is becoming so flagrant that he is having trouble keeping track of his previous lies. And his pretense that he is suddenly bothered by being associated with a megalomaniacal tyrant is hardly believable. His most recent rallies have been marred by violence that he openly encourages against protesters. He even promises to pay for the legal defense of anyone who assaults a protester. He has hired his own brand of brownshirts to patrol his rallies. And the loyalty pledge ceremonies that he orchestrates eerily resemble the throngs of Germans hailing Hitler with the Nazi salute.

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

So when you hear Trump claim that he is unaware of the comparisons to Hitler, you now know that it is a blatant lie. You also know that when he complains about that comparison, it is obvious that he is simply trying to deny the reality that his entire campaign is grounded in fascistic rhetoric, and worse, behavior. And as bad as it is that Trump would engage in such a repulsive campaign, we must not forget the people that attend his rallies cheering, pledging loyalty, beating protesters, and later voting for this nauseating candidate. It is what the Republican Party has sunk to in this age of rightist hate.

WTF? Donald Trump Doesn’t Deny That He’s “A Racist And A Neo-Fascist” On Fox News

Posted by on December 20, 2015 at 3:03 pm. 1 Comments :

One of Donald Trump’s core personality traits is his resistance to acknowledging when he’s wrong. He will make brazenly false statements that are easily proven to be lies, but when challenged he will stand firmly by them no matter how ridiculous he looks.

Donald Trump

For example, despite that fact that there is no evidence that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey were cheering the fall of the World Trade Center on 9/11, Trump continues to insist that he saw it on a TV news broadcast. Also, he feverishly denied that he had mocked a disabled journalist, even though there is video of him doing so. [There are dozens more examples of Trump’s affinity for lying in the Donald Trump Bullshitopedia] It is due to his affinity for fabrication, even when facts are readily available to expose his deceit, that Bernie Sanders said this about Trump Sunday morning:

“I think you have a pathological liar there. Pathological, I really do. I mean, I think much of what he says are lies or gross distortion of reality.”

Trump’s aggressive defensiveness extends beyond the substance of his lies to the accusations that he is a liar. On Fox News’ MediaBuzz, host Howard Kurtz asked him if it’s his strategy to deliberately make “controversial” statements in order to get more media attention, Trump responded saying that “I have no strategy. You know what my strategy is? Honesty.” Of course, the record shows that that statement is just another helping of hogwash.

However, there was a more important revelation in the MediaBuzz interview. Kurtz questioned Trump about his adversarial relationship with media. He gave several examples of editorial opinions that hammered Trump for his frequently outrageous remarks, including Campbell Brown who referred to his “hateful and harmful demagoguery,” or Ben Smith (Buzzfeed) who called him a “mendacious racist,” or this exchange:

Kurtz: The Daily Beast executive editor Noah Schactman says people should boycott your businesses because he thinks you’re a racist and a neo-fascist. What do you make of this combined artillery?
Trump: I’m the only one that speaks my mind and tells the truth. And everybody knows I’m right.

Really? The man who is best known for his pugnacious self-defense; who viciously attacks anyone who is remotely critical of him; who has banned reporters from his public events because they held him to account for his crackpot rhetoric; that man failed to deny the charge that he is a racist and a neo-fascist? He simply explained that he’s speaking his mind – his a racist, neo-fascist mind.

Anyone else accused of such awful things would very likely lash out at the accuser, deny the scurrilous charges, and demand an apology. Trump, however, appears to take it as a compliment that acknowledges his open and candid expressions of hate. There was nothing in his reaction that indicated that he considered being regarded as a racist, neo-fascist an insult. Which is consistent with his campaign rhetoric that is veritably dripping with fascistic fervor.

Trump has already called for making Muslims wear ID badges, and for loading boxcars with Mexicans to ship them out of the country. He has essentially the same view of gays as his new BFF, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

This isn’t even the first time that Trump has virtually adopted Nazi ideology. Two weeks ago George Stephanopoulos asked him whether it bothered him to be compared to Hitler. Once again the notoriously bellicose candidate was given an opportunity to stand up against a harsh invective, but rather than pushing back he merely said “No, what I’m doing is no different from FDR.” And with that he was not only embracing the Hitler comparison, but he was aligning himself with one of the most shameful episodes of American history, the Japanese internment camps, which Trump refused to say he would have opposed.

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

When someone with the personality of Donald Trump declines to fight back, it can only be because he doesn’t regard the attack as offensive. Being compared to Hitler, or accused of being a racist, neo-fascist, just doesn’t bother him because it’s true and, in his view, flattering. What’s more, he doesn’t want to alienate his supporters, many of whom are affiliated with America’s white supremacists. And by standing with Trump, the Republican Party is latching on to the same affiliation.