Hugh Hewitt

Trump-Humping Hack Wants to Ban Everyone But Peter Doocy of Fox News From White House Press Room

Posted by on December 23, 2024 at 3:32 pm. 0 Comments :

The MAGA media mob is growing more aggressively authoritarian with each passing day. The prospect of Donald Trump reoccupying the White House has them bursting with confidence that their Project 2025 plot to infest the U.S. government with unabridged neo-fascism can proceed unchallenged.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump, Fox News, White House

Leading their agenda for the Trump regime is an effort to purge the White House press corps of any and all reputable journalists and others who are not fully indoctrinated Trump cultists. They are determined to banish reporters who might cause trouble by actually reporting the truth about Trump and his administration’s corruption and malfeasance. And they aren’t shy about their nefarious intentions…

SEE THIS: Trump’s Press Secretary Plans to Turn the WH Briefing Room Into a Pro-Trump Propaganda Mill

Among those seeking to Trump-itize the White House press corps is long-time Trump flunky, Hugh Hewitt. On a recent episode of his podcast, Hewitt floated this preposterous suggestion that is staunchly aligned with the approach to the press that is favored by the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un…

“With the exception of Peter Doocy, I would ban everyone from the White House press room who has been there for the past four years because they are obviously of no use to the country. They didn’t tell us the number one thing, which is that he’s not competent. Why in the world would Trump let them in? […] ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, those five brands are broken beyond broken after this expose. Is there any way you could trust anything that they say?

REALLY? Hewitt thinks that only the most partisan hack in the press room, Peter Doocy of Fox News, should remain there, and everyone else be cast out? That would make for a pretty dull daily press briefing with only Doocy asking questions of Trump’s predictably dishonest press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.

Although they could fill the empty seats with Trump-approved asses such as Hewitt, Joe Rogan, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer, Alex Jones, etc. That way they would be assured of fielding only friendly questions, to which they would still provide non-answers that were mostly lies and smears.

What’s more, Hewitt is so appalled by the media that he can’t understand how anyone “could trust anything that they say.” So his solution is to limit the media outlets to the one that was found to have lied so horribly that they were forced to pay a settlement of nearly a billion dollars.

SEE ALSO: Fox News is Still Pushing the Lie that the 2020 Election Was Stolen that Cost Them $787 Million

The specific complaint that triggered Hewitt’s rant was his view that the media – except for Doocy – didn’t properly cover what he believes was President Biden’s diminished mental capacity. But even if you give him a pass on that brazenly biased perspective, he’s leaving out something that would be just as relevant. And that’s the obviously diminished mental capacity of Trump. Here’s how the Daily Show presented it by using Fox News attacks on Biden, but showing Trump video instead…

These cretins don’t have any appreciation for the traditional purpose of the Press Room, which is to provide journalists with access to the president and his staff in order to inform the public, not to become a partisan propaganda mill where only those who have sworn allegiance to Trump can participate. But that’s precisely what Hewitt wants. And it’s also what the Trump media team want. The only problem they face is that it isn’t what the American people want. But if they pursue this strategy, they will find out soon enough.

RELATED STORIES:

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Twitter and Facebook and Bluesky and Threads.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Master Racist Trump Attacks America: ‘We’ve Got a Lot of Bad Genes in Our Country Right Now’

Posted by on October 7, 2024 at 2:01 pm. 4 Comments :

Just when you thought he couldn’t possibly get any worse, Donald Trump proves that we have all underestimated his ability to dispense noxious bigotry and hateful rhetoric aimed at the nation he aspires to rule as a dictator on day one.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump, Bad Genes

Trump’s overt racism has been a hallmark of his public persona for decades. He famously placed an ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty for five Black men who were found to be innocent. He discriminated against Black applicants at his apartment properties. He began his campaign for president in 2015 by calling immigrants rapists and murderers. He invited notorious White nationalist Nick Fuentes to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago. And more recently…

THERE WAS THIS: Trump Thanks White Nationalist as a ‘Great Journalist’ for His Sexist Attack on Kamala Harris

While Kamala Harris is being interviewed on a variety of television and social media programs, Trump continues to cower behind the sycophantic MAGA media fluffers who he knows will shield him from any challenging questions or humiliating fact checks.

Case in point, on Monday morning Trump did another phone-in chat from his Mar-a-Lago bunker, in his jammies. This time he spoke with right-wing radio hack, Hugh Hewitt. The entire interview was an affirmation of Trump’s ignorance, ego, and deliberate divisiveness. However, he peaked as the discussion turned to immigration, a subject that Trump eagerly assaults with flagrant falsehoods and putrid prejudice.

Trump led into his repugnant remarks with a preface attacking Kamala Harris in terms that have become a tediously routine part of his cult rallies and stump speeches. He raged that…

“She wants to go into government housing. She wants to go into government feeding. She wants to feed people. She wants to feed people governmentally. She wants she wants to go into a Communist Party-type system. When you look at the things that she proposes, they’re so far off. She has no clue.”

OMG! Harris actually wants to feed disadvantaged Americans, including children, who are struggling to overcome the price gouging of the capitalist corporations that Trump favors. What a monster! In Trump’s perverse mind Harris is therefore a {gasp} “Communist.” Why doesn’t she stick to letting her fellow citizens starve, like good MAGA Republicans would do?

Trump went on to repeat a boatload of lies about migrants that he and his crackpot confederates have been telling for several weeks. These are a particular brand of lies intended to malign and dehumanize good people who are desperate to make a better life for themselves. Trump fumed…

“How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States. You know, now a murderer — I believe this — it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now. You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

If Trump is truly concerned about genes, he may want to take a look at his own genetic history. First of all, he is descended from German stock. So is he genetically aligned with Nazis? His father was a KKK member. So does that explain his own racial bigotry? Both the Nazis and the Klan are advocates of violence to achieve their ends. So is that why Trump so often incites violence himself?

The allegation that Trump is making here about immigrants and crime has been thoroughly debunked. His disinformation was drawn from a report that he said reveals shocking statistics. However, as News Corpse reported last month…

Trump, as usual, is lying. As Politico reports, “The majority of these individuals with criminal convictions were already on the non-detained docket and living in the United States before Biden took office.” The “14,000” is actually the total for a period of some 40 years. The number increased by only 5% during Biden’s term. And the increase that occurred during Trump’s term was nearly twice as much.

What’s more, according to Politico’s research, “The numbers also include nonviolent and petty crime — 126,000 are for traffic violations, while 92,000 are for immigration-related crimes (like crossing the border illegally).”

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

Trump’s remarks about genetic predisposition to crime is an old trope employed by racist regimes. As is his embrace of violence. Trump not only incited a deadly insurrection on January 6th, 2021, he has frequently employed the rhetoric of violence to intimidate and fear monger. And this isn’t just remnants from the past. He did it again this past weekend…

UPDATE: White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was asked about Trump’s vile remarks and gave a moving response…

RELATED STORIES:

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Threads.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Trump Says that ‘Absolutely’ He Will Testify at His Trial for Stealing Classified Documents

Posted by on September 6, 2023 at 12:39 pm. 3 Comments :

Next year Donald Trump will undoubtedly be very busy. He’ll be doing interviews on right-wing media, golfing, posting self-exalting comments on his failing social media scam, Truth Social, holding cult rallies, and seated at the defendants table in numerous criminal trials. And, oh yeah, running for president.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump

The demands on Trump’s time will surely be a huge burden. Someone should have warned him that conspiring to illegally steal an election, absconding to Mar-a-Lago with classified documents, and inciting an insurrection, would prevent him from enjoying the life of luxury to which he has become accustomed.

SEE THIS: Poor Trump Whines that His Criminal Cases are Cramping His Jet Setting Golf Tourney Lifestyle

Trump is already engaged in his media tour, having made recent appearances on Fox News and Newsmax. And on Wednesday he visited with conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, to spread some more of his lies and propaganda about the pending legal cases that are driving him to extreme levels of anxiety and fear.

The interview was typically devoid of any substance with regard to the upcoming trials. It was mostly Trump evading questions, repeating himself relentlessly, invoking irrelevant legal excuses, and disgorging utter nonsense that rarely had any resemblance to reality. Two separate times Trump refused to answer direct questions about whether he had “direct[ed] anyone to move the boxes” at Mar-a-Lago to prevent the FBI – or even his own attorneys – from discovering them. “I don’t talk about anything,” Trump lied. “You know why? Because I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”

In the course of the interview Trump was asked about the 91 felony charges against him. He insisted, without any legal reasoning, that “They’ll get dismissed.” He also flagrantly lied that the January 6th Committee had “destroyed and deleted all evidence that they created [because it] was unbelievably bad for crazy Nancy Pelosi.” For the record, all of the materials compiled by the Committee were preserved and are available online.

However, perhaps the most newsworthy item in this interview was Trump’s claim that he would take the stand in his own defense when these cases come to trial. That bold assertion came during the following exchange with Hewitt..

Hewitt: So if you have to go to trial, will you testify in your own defense?
Trump: Oh, yes, absolutely. Oh, on that, that, I would do. That, I look forward to, because [commence rambling] that’s just like Russia, Russia, Russia. That’s all the fake information from Russia, Russia, Russia. Remember when the dossier came out and everyone said oh, that’s so terrible, that’s so terrible, and then it turned out to be it was a political report put out by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. They paid millions for it. They gave it to Christopher Steele. They paid millions and millions of dollars for it, and it was all fake. It was all fake.
Hewitt: Now I think that obstruction charge is going to get to trial, Mr. President.
Trump: So I look forward, I look forward to testifying. At trial, I’ll testify.
Hewitt: I think that – okay, if you do and they ask you on the stand, did you order anyone to move boxes, how will you answer?
Trump: I’m not answering that question for you, but I’m totally covered under the law. If you read the Presidential Records Act, just read it. You take a look at it. I’m totally covered under the law. It’s a civil act. It’s civil. Now Biden had no civil act. The things he did are criminal. But he doesn’t have a deranged person on his case. You know, they gave me Deranged Jack Smith.

Despite Trump’s assurance that he would “absolutely” testify, it is highly unlikely that will actually do so. First of all, because he lies like a rug. Secondly, because doing so would open him up to cross examination which would undoubtedly result in him incriminating himself further. And thirdly, because his lawyers would probably revolt and possibly resign.

Trump frequently references the Presidential Records Act, despite the fact that it affirms his guilt. It literally states that “Presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the [National] Archivist as soon as the President leaves office.”

Furthermore, if Trump is “look[ing] forward to” testifying, why wouldn’t he answer Hewitt’s question? Doesn’t he have the proof that he claims to have that would fully exonerate him? More often than not, what he calls exculpatory evidence is usually just more evidence of his guilt. And, by the way, Trump recently announced that he would hold a press conference to reveal all of that “proof,” but later canceled it, blaming his lawyers for making him back down.

SEE ALSO: YEAH, RIGHT! Trump Promises an ‘Irrefutable,’ ‘Completely Exonerating’ Report on Election Fraud

Later in the interview, Trump interrupted Hewitt to interject what he thought was critical information. “Listen to me for a second,” Trump pressed. He then elaborated saying…

“Do you know that Biden has 20 times the number of boxes that I have? Do you know that he’s got boxes stored in Chinatown? […] And he’s getting a lot of money from, he’s getting a lot from Robert Hur.”

First of all, Biden doesn’t have any boxes of documents, classified or otherwise. He returned whatever were found without obstructing or lying as Trump did. But more troubling is Trump’s accusation that Biden is “getting a lot of money” from Robert Hur, the special counsel who is investigating the circumstances of how some documents came to be stored at Biden properties. That’s a bizarre charge. Why would Hur be paying Biden?

Oh, never mind. Trump has clearly gone off the deep end. He’s reduced to muttering inanities that make no sense, driven by his abject fear of prosecution and eventual conviction and incarceration. At this point, it’s probably useless to try to understand anything he says.

RELATED: Trump is Flush With Fear Over His Dreadful Future and the Deluge of Justice That’s Coming

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Threads.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

HAHAHA: RNC Chair Thinks Trump Would Honor a Pledge to Support the GOP Nominee if it Isn’t Him

Posted by on February 26, 2023 at 11:56 am. 5 Comments :

There is a unique peculiarity of the Republican Party that permits it members, and even its leaders, to willfully accept the most manifestly absurd contrivances coming from within their political ecosphere. They want so desperately to believe their own hype that they swallow whole whatever has been pre-chewed for them.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump

It is that characteristic that explains how Republicans can buy into the nonsense pouring out daily from Donald Trump about everything from his “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” from, to his own alleged mental competency…

RELATED: LOL: Trump Says All Presidential Candidates (Except Himself) Should Take Mental Competency Tests

On Sunday morning the chair of the Republican National Committee provided an outstanding example of her party’s crippling gullibility. During an interview on CNN, Ronna McDaniel was asked by Dana Bash about the upcoming Republican primaries for the 2024 presidential nomination. Her response was painfully naïve and resolutely distanced from reality…

Bash: Will candidates be required to sign a pledge saying that they will support whoever becomes the Republican nominee in order to get on that debate stage?
McDaniel: We haven’t put the criteria out, but I expect the pledge will be part of it. It was part of 2016. I think it’s kind of a no-brainer. If you’re gonna be on the Republican National Committee debate stage asking voters to support you, you should say “I’m gonna support the voters and who they choose as the nominee.”
Bash: I want you to listen to what former president Donald Trump said a couple of weeks ago with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on this very topic:
Hewitt: If you’re not the nominee, will you support whoever the GOP nominee is?
Trump: It would depend. I would give you the same answer I gave in 2016… It would have to depend on who the nominee was.
Bash: So are you prepared to block the former president if he doesn’t sign?
McDaniel: Well, he signed it in 2016. He did. Everybody signed it in 2016. […]
Bash: But this is about the here and the now.
McDaniel: I think they’re all going to sign it. I really do. […]
Bash: You can’t see a scenario where Donald Trump would just skip the debate?
McDaniel: I think President Trump would like to be on the debate stage. That’s what he likes to do.

McDaniel is right that Trump signed a party loyalty pledge in 2016. It required GOP candidates to promise to “endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, regardless of who it is [and] will not seek to run as an independent.”

However, what McDaniel appears to have forgotten – or wiped from her memory – is that Trump never intended to honor the pledge he reluctantly signed. While Trump did sign a similar pledge during the 2016 Republican primary, he quickly reversed himself and made repeated threats to violate the pledge, each time accusing the RNC of sabotaging his campaign.

A paranoid and fearful Trump whined that the RNC “conspired to embarrass him by packing the debate audience with lobbyists and donors to his rivals’ campaigns.” And when asked by George Stephanopoulos if he would keep his promise to back whichever Republican prevailed, Trump replied “I’m going to have to see what happens. I will see what happens. I have to be treated fairly.”

SEE THIS: Donald Trump Moves Closer To A Third (Reich) Party Campaign

So Trump said in 2016 that he wouldn’t honor the pledge that he signed. And a couple of weeks ago he told Hewitt that the same thing would apply to 2024, for which he has not yet signed any pledge. But McDaniel still believes that Trump will sign and keep the pledge so that he can participate in the debates because “That’s what he likes to do.”

Trump also likes to break pledges and rub his critic’s faces in it. What’s more, what would stop him from signing the pledge, participating in the debates, and then if someone else gets the nomination, simply reneging and going his own way? He would just accuse the RNC of being unfair to him and, therefore, it was the RNC who broke the pledge. That is precisely the substance of the threats he used to back out his 2016 pledge.

The truth is that the Republican Party – just like Fox News and the conservative media – fears Trump more than they love their party or their country. They will allow him to get away with any lies or abuse that he inflicts on them in order to keep his glassy-eyed cult followers in line. The GOP needs their votes and their cash. And they will abandon any principle in order to secure them.

The only thing they fear more are fair debates with Democrats. which is why McDaniel has already announced that Republican presidential candidates will not be permitted to appear in any debates sponsored by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates. They know that Trump in particular cannot compete intellectually with his Democratic opponents.

SEE THIS: RNC Doubles Down on Cowardice, Cancels Debates to Shield Snowflake Trump From More Humiliation

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Mastodon.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Trump Claims to Have Magic Words that Will End Ukraine War in 24 Hours, But Won’t Tell Anyone

Posted by on February 4, 2023 at 12:21 pm. 3 Comments :

After several years of Donald Trump making assertions that he routinely fails to back up, most people will rationally dismiss his remarks as the raving lunacy that they are. However, that doesn’t seem to deter him from continuing to disgorge utter nonsense on a regular basis.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump, Padded Cell

Trump has the advantage of having a devoted following of glassy-eyed cultists who will believe whatever he says, no matter how obviously preposterous. That has enabled him to make ridiculous claims to having easy solutions to every problem. They usually include unfilled promises to complete those solutions in two weeks (see his healthcare, infrastructure, and border wall plans).

RELATED: In Jesus’ Name: Messiah Trump Promises Election Fraud ‘Truth’ is Coming Out – In Two Weeks?

On Friday Trump did another of his lazy call-in interviews. This one was with the ultra-rightist Right Side Broadcasting Network. In the course of their friendly chat wherein Trump was never challenged on any of his flagrant lies, Trump disclosed that he has hidden powers to wave a wand and resolve any crisis. Even one as complex and intractable as the Russian war against Ukraine. After being asked about his prior claims to being able to negotiate an end to the war – which centered wholly on appeasing Putin – Trump rambled on saying that…

“Well, first of all it should have never started. It would have never started had I been president. There was no chance of this war starting and, frankly, I don’t think Putin wanted to do it. I think he was sort of forced in by the statements being made by Biden.” […]

“With that being said, I think it can be negotiated within 24 hours.It really has to be done from the office of the president. And you have to get both in a room, and there are things you can say to each one of them, which I won’t reveal now, which will guarantee that this war will end immediately.”

Naturally, there is no world calamity that would have occurred if only Trump were President for Life. What’s more, every catastrophe that befalls America is the fault of President Biden. Never mind that Trump had previously praised Putin as a “genius” for his threats against, and invasion of Ukraine.

More to the point, Trump revealed that he has wizardly ways to invoke some clandestine incantation that would magically produce peace in the region “within 24 hours.” He even suggested that he be dispatched to lead negotiations between Putin and Zelenskyy. However, he isn’t going to disclose the magic words he has unless he is returned to the White House.

In other words, Trump is offering a “guarantee” that he could end the horrific war crimes of his pal Putin, and stop the slaughter of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians, but he isn’t willing to do that for at least another two years because of his megalomaniacal lust for power. He is, in effect, holding the world hostage to his demand to be crowned King of America.

Trump thinks that that expression of callous and deadly self-interest will get him reelected. Of course, Trump’s guarantee is worth about as much as a diploma from Trump University. And Trump couldn’t be relied on to keep his word, even if he had the occult capability he claims. He couldn’t even cast a spell to get reelected in 2020, or to get his candidates elected in 2022. Although he did blame those losses on his evangelical devotees.

RELATED: It’s Time for the Media to Cover Donald Trump as the Messiah of the QAnon Cult

Trump did another call-in interview on Friday wherein he gave right-wing hack Hugh Hewitt an incoherent position on the Ukraine war in which he expresses his desire to see Ukraine and Russia fight. Although he wants to make sure that Russia wins by denying Ukraine any aid. Which pretty well sums up just how ignorant and potentially dangerous Trump is. See if this makes any sense…

Hewitt: Do you want to cut off aid to Ukraine right now, Mr. President?
Trump: I want to make it so that Ukraine and Russia have to fight, and fight for the last time. We gotta make peace. If we won’t make peace…if we just keep sending everything over…you know we’re sending over. We gotta fight for the last day, for the last two days. This thing has to stop. And it’s gotta stop now.

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. And you can follow me on Mastodon here.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

Mary Trump on the ‘Big Problems’ if Donald Trump is Indicted: ‘We’d Probably Run Out of Beer’

Posted by on September 20, 2022 at 5:35 pm. 5 Comments :

Last month Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago bunker was subjected to a search by the FBI. They had a lawful warrant to seek highly sensitive national security materials that Trump had taken illegally from the White House. He later refused to return the documents, hundreds of which were classified Top Secret, even after being subpoenaed.

Click here to Tweet this article

Donald Trump, Fox News, QAnon

Trump made numerous false, bizarre, and often contradictory explanations for the documents being hoarded at his resort/home. He lied about having them, accused the FBI of planting them, and insisted that they were all unclassified by magic.

RELATED: WTF? Now Trump Says the FBI Was Looking for Hillary Clinton’s Emails at Mar-a-Lago

In the weeks since the search, the prospects of Trump being indicted have intensified. So much so that Trump, out of desperation and fear, recently made a thinly veiled threat if an indictment were to be handed down. After returning to the scene of the crime, he told right-wing radio talker, Hugh Hewitt that…

“I don’t think the people are going to stand for it. […] But I think if it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before. I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it. […] I think they’d have big problems, big problems. I just don’t think they’d stand for it. They will not, they will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes.”

Trump’s threat did not sit well with his niece, Mary Trump. On her YouTube program, Ms. Trump put her uncle’s threat in an entirely different perspective, saying that…

“Donald said recently that there will be ‘big problems’ if he’s indicted, and he’s right. There will be big problems. for him. I know that he was in his not-too-subtle way, threatening the rest of us with the violence of his insane followers. But, you know that’s not going to happen. There is not going to be some mass uprising to protest the fact that Donald finally for once in his life is being held accountable. The real problem is that we’re probably going to run out of beer.”

It’s hard to dispute Ms. Trump’s analysis. If there is anything wrong with it, it’s that she may be missing that we would simultaneously run out of champagne, as millions of Americans spontaneously celebrate Trump being brought to justice. Ms. Trump went on to say that…

“By the way, he stole hundreds of highly classified top secret documents that belonged to America. So maybe we should indict him, charge him, convict him, and imprison him.”

Yeah, maybe so. And the sooner the better.

RELATED: SEMI-FASCIST? Trump Wants the FBI to ‘Raid’ the House of Joe Biden – AKA the White House

NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly.

Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse
on Facebook and Instagram.

And check out my books on Amazon:

Fox Nation vs. Reality:
The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.

Thanks so much for your support.

WTF is Going On at MSNBC? Recent Hires Have a Distinctly Fox News Flavor

Posted by on May 9, 2017 at 3:16 pm. 7 Comments :

Three months into Donald Trump’s administration there is more cause than ever for critical analysis of Washington politics. But much of the press is having trouble countering Trump’s “Reality TV” dramatization of news. They attempt to achieve a false balance by presenting opposing views, even if one side is truthful and the other is lying.

Rachel Maddow

Having a president who’s suspected of colluding with Russians to steal an election is hardly the time to go soft. It is not the time to appease those in power or pander to wingnuts who will never tune in anyway. Yet that’s exactly the direction that MSNBC appears to heading.

In recent weeks they have hired or promoted some decidedly right-wing personalities. Former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren now has her own show on MSNBC. Former communications director for George W, Bush, Nicolle Wallace, also just premiered a new program. Likewise conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt. This week MSNBC announced that it has hired old-school conservative George Will away from Fox News.

These roster changes are especially puzzling at this time. MSNBC has built a brand that appeals to a more progressive audience. Despite having a former Republican anchoring three hours in the morning (Joe Scarborough), and a generally straight news profile during the day, their prime time lineup leans openly to the left. Chis Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Laurence O’Donnell are not shy about expressing their liberal opinions.

More importantly, that programming slant has paid off handsomely for MSNBC. They are enjoying their highest ratings in years. Maddow is actually beating her competition on Fox News in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. Not too long ago Fox News was considered unbeatable. But now Adweek’s TVNewser reports that:

“The network also continues to post more year-over-year prime time audience growth than both Fox News and CNN: +82 percent in total viewers and +61 percent in the prime time demo versus April 2016.”

It’s a surprising and inspiring success story. Any network would be turning cartwheels and striving to replicate that success across its dayparts. So why is MSNBC going out of their way to bolster a winning lineup with right-wing losers? None of the new “talent” has demonstrated any appeal to MSNBC’s audience. Van Susteren, in fact, is an obvious hole in the schedule, dipping noticeably between her lead-in and lead-out. And the viewers that might be interested in these new faces are genetically averse to ever tuning in to the radical socialists at MSNBC. Why should they when they can get all the wingnuttery they desire on Fox News? And if it’s caterwauling debates that they want, CNN already has the market cornered on that.

There is no shortage of liberals who could be brought into the MSNBC family. Joy Reid already has a Saturday morning show that gets more viewers than many weekday shows on CNN and Fox. They could have moved her into the time slot they gave to Van Susteren or Wallace. Even Keith Olbermann was in talks to return to MSNBC. His last stint with the network was the last time they challenged Fox. But according to Olbermann, they told him he would have to refrain from his “fiery” commentaries. That was an untenable restraint, so he walked.

It’s hard to know what the suits at MSNBC are thinking. There is clearly an appetite for news commentary that counters the powerful elite in Washington. It’s a programming niche that is unfilled elsewhere. Plus, it’s a necessary defense against the dangerously erratic Trump administration’s assault on America. Where else can we go to get reality-based news about climate change? Who else is covering voter suppression and gerrymandering? Which other network is allotting time to racial and gender discrimination? And what about our President’s potentially treasonous connections to unsavory figures in Russia?

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

Fox News deliberately downplays any unflattering news about Trump. CNN reports it, but puts on crackpots who disseminate absurd justifications. That leaves MSNBC as the one network that honestly covers Trump’s dark side. For that reason alone they should not be adding to the pro-Trump voices in the media. We already have plenty of that and far too little truthful common sense and compassion.

UPDATE: There are rumors that MSNBC may not renew the contract of Lawrence O’Donnell despite the fact that his ratings are at a record high. He is beating CNN, and challenging Fox News. This would be good time to let MSNBC know that we demand they keep O’Donnell and stop sucking up to the right. You can call them at 212-664-4444 and email them at letters@msnbc.com.

Not Satisfied With Destroying The GOP, Donald Trump Is Also Destroying Fox News

Posted by on June 9, 2016 at 12:28 pm. NO Comments :

There is a rapidly escalating sense of desperation on the part of the Republican Party. More and more GOP politicians and pundits are publicly expressing their dismay, if not outright disgust, for Donald Trump as their nominee for president. Conservative radio talker Hugh Hewitt is even advocating that the party dump Trump at their convention next month or “get killed” in the November election.

Fox News Donald Trump

Now there is evidence that it isn’t just the GOP that Trump’s hateful rhetoric and childish demeanor are bringing down. TVNewser is reporting that the Nielsen ratings for last Tuesday’s primary night show Fox News getting knocked off of their top tier status among cable news networks:

“CNN was No. 1 in the key A25-54 demo […] And in a rare occurrence, MSNBC topped Fox News in the demo in both prime time (8 p.m. – 11 p.m.) and extended coverage (7 p.m. – 2 a.m.) MSNBC finished No. 2 in total viewers from 10 – 1 a.m. ET.”

It’s one thing for CNN to rank first in the ratings, which they have done several times in the past year. But for Fox News to be losing to perennial third-placer MSNBC is a monumental failure that indicates much deeper problems for both the network and the Republican Party for which it shills. This upset on primary night is significant because it reveals that the television audience in general is keenly interested in Hillary Clinton’s victory and historic achievement as the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party. At the same time it shows that Fox’s viewers were too depressed to even tune in, except for the brief remarks made by Donald Trump and his new friend, the TelePrompter.

It should come as no surprise that Trump’s affect on Fox News has produced negative results. He has been perhaps the harshest critic of the network, despite the fact that they have coddled him and devoted more of their airtime to him than to any other candidate. For that generosity Trump unleashed a non-stop tirade against numerous Fox News personnel. As News Corpse reported in April:

Ordinarily, any Republican candidate would be conscious of the sway that Fox holds over the party and the fate of anyone hoping to rise up in it. But Trump, with an apparently reckless lack of concern, has spent much of the last nine months mercilessly battering the network and its staff. He said of Megyn Kelly that she “is the worst” and has a “terrible show.” He called Karl Rove a “total fool” and “a biased dope.” He said that George Will is a “broken down political pundit” and “boring.” Chris Stirewalt was deemed “one of the dumbest political pundits on television.” Trump laughed off Charles Krauthammer as “a totally overrated clown,” “a loser,” and “a dummy.” And wrapping up the whole network for his disapproval, he tweeted that he was “having a really hard time watching Fox News.” Then he called on his followers to boycott the network. He even went after one of the major shareholders of Fox’s parent corporation.

Now that Trump is the GOP’s nominee, his legions of glassy-eyed disciples are all too happy to obediently shun Fox News. And the rest of Fox’s audience is cowering under the covers, too afraid to turn on the television and be faced with the reality of an imploding Republican campaign and a Hillary Clinton presidency.

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

Trump’s contribution to the decline of both the Republican Party and its media mouthpiece, Fox News, is certain to exacerbate the anxiety of the nation’s right-wingers. This may not be what Sarah Palin meant when she called Trump “a golden wrecking ball.” But in an oddly ironic twist of fate, America’s Democrats and liberals might want to send The Donald a thank you note.

Criminal Crony Ted Cruz Says Most Violent Criminals Are Democrats

Posted by on December 1, 2015 at 3:15 pm. 8 Comments :

In what can only be described as an episode of acute dementia, Sen. Ted Cruz made an allegation so bizarre that Donald Trump may sue him for infringing on his trademarked persona. Speaking to right-wing radio hack, Hugh Hewitt, Cruz embarked on a rant wherein he claimed that most violent criminals identify as Democrats.

Cruz: Here is the simple and undeniable fact – the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats. […] The Democrats know that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat. The media never reports on any of that.

Ted Cruz

Cruz never explains how he ascertained the voting habits of America’s violent criminals. As “facts” go, his are neither simple nor undeniable. Rather, it is downright loony. Particularly the part where he asserts that by an “overwhelming majority” “convicted felons tend to vote Democrat.” How Cruz determined that is a mystery since most states have some sort of restriction on voting at all for persons convicted of a felony. What’s more, there are no studies that breakout the voting preferences of felons who are violent.

It is possible that more total felons lean Democratic simply because of the demographics of the prison population. More people who are poor or minorities are sent to prison after arrests and convictions. Often it is for non-violent crimes like marijuana possession or shoplifting. In those cases it is backwards to say that upon release these felons vote as Democrats. It is more correct to say that these Democratic leaning offenders are more often subject to prosecution and incarceration by a prejudiced justice system. If bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, corporate executives, and offenders from wealthy families were arrested, convicted, and incarcerated at rates relative to their criminal activity, the situation would be very different.

What Cruz was attempting to do with these remarks was to exonerate violent conservative criminals like Robert Dear, the anti-abortion, Obama-hating wingnut who just murdered three people, and wounded nine others, at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility. Dear is another in a long line of right-wing Christianists who have engaged in violence to advance their radical agenda. And rather than address this weekend’s tragic events, Cruz sought to deflect with a ludicrous accusation against his political foes.

If Ted Cruz is really concerned about violent felons, he might want to stop associating with them. Shortly before the Planned Parenthood attack, Cruz was bragging about having received an endorsement from an activist who has called for the “execution” of abortion providers. Troy Newman, president of the far-right anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, has not only called for such executions, but has come to the defense of several radical Christianists who were convicted of bombings, shootings, and other violence against doctors and clinics. Operation Rescue was founded by Randall Terry, himself a convicted felon.

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

As it turns out, Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican candidate that is saying ridiculous and unsupportable things without consequence. The so-called “liberal” media is utterly useless when it comes to holding people accountable for spewing blatant lies. Ted Cruz should not be able to get away with his hostile rhetoric and his evasion from firmly condemning the domestic terrorism against women’s rights and the senseless violence that took the lives of a police officer, a veteran, and a young mother.

Foxified: CNN Taps Sarah Palin And Hugh Hewitt For 2016 Campaign Coverage

Posted by on September 5, 2015 at 4:14 pm. 21 Comments :

The decline of CNN has been in progress for several years now. It is a network that is struggling with an acute personality disorder. It wants very badly to emulate the ratings success of Fox News, but it has no idea why Fox is popular. They seem to think it has something to do with presenting a conservative slant on the news. But that is not how Fox became king of the cable news hill.

Fox succeeds by seducing the most extreme right-wing viewers with media trickery that mirrors entertainment programming, such as flashy graphics and audio, manufactured conflict, and soft porn in both their stories and anchors. But CNN’s misunderstanding of these tactics has led them to make glaring mistakes that fail to produce any positive results for their ratings or their journalistic integrity. The latest examples of this doomed strategy include the recent announcement of two conservative mouthpieces who will be featured prominently in their election programming.

Sarah Palin CNN

First we have Sarah Palin. That’s right, having been ditched by Fox News, CNN is throwing her a life preserver and bringing her aboard to provide campaign analysis on this Sunday’s “State of the Union.” It’s hard to imagine what insight they think she will bring to the discussion on presidential politics. Her own experience was fraught with embarrassing episodes that only demonstrated how woefully ill-prepared she was for public service at that level. And since then she has only succeeded in distinguishing herself as an ignorant hack with negligible comprehension of the issues that face the nation. Nevertheless, CNN has tapped her to toss her word salad ravings on their network’s signature political program.

Secondly we have Hugh Hewitt, a starkly partisan wingnut who will be featured on CNN’s Republican debate this month. CNN could have selected actual journalists to pose questions to the candidates, but instead they picked only a stalwart Republican radio talk show host (and no one from the left) who will join CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Of course, conservatives are capable of asking tough questions when they want to. However, when they do they will be insulted and dismissed by the candidates and the GOP constituents. Just ask Megyn Kelly. Hewitt himself is taking heat for an interview he did with Donald Trump that demonstrated how ignorant Trump is on foreign affairs. Typical of Trump, he is now hammering Hewitt for what he calls “gotcha” questions. [Note: To Republicans, gotcha questions are any question they are too dumb to answer] In this case, the real problem for Trump was not whether he had been ambushed, but that his answer was at first a lie, followed by obvious ignorance. Check out the first 30 seconds of this video:

Notice how Trump hesitates and stretches the word “Yeessss” when answering whether he was familiar with Quds leader, Gen. Soleimani. Then he adds “Go ahead. Give me a little…go ahead tell me.” Clearly he was lying when he said he knew who Soleimani is and he employed a childish dodge in order to get Hewitt to inform him. That was confirmed when Hewitt told him that Soleimani “runs the Quds forces,” and Trump responded by saying that “the Kurds had been horribly mistreated by us.” Hewitt immediately corrected him, but Trump continued to dissemble. Why would he bring up the Iraqi Kurds in response to a question about the Iranian Revolutionary Army (Quds)? Well, his explanation later in the day was that he misheard Hewitt and thought that Hewitt said “Kurds.” But if that were true then he was asserting that Soleimani was the Kurdish leader (who is actually Masoud Barzani), proving that he doesn’t know anything about the Quds or the Kurds. In the end, Trump’s answers are proof that his ignorance is insufficient to cover up his lies.

To make matters worse, Trump was asked a question about Soleimani by Bret Baier during the first GOP debate on Fox. His answer then also showed that he had no idea who Soleimani is. And after having been queried on that exact subject during a critical debate he never made an attempt to educate himself.

The fairness and degree of difficulty of Hewitt’s questioning notwithstanding, there is still a problem with CNN placing an overtly partisan person on the panel with no balance. Can you imagine Fox News having a GOP debate and getting Rachel Maddow to moderate? And this isn’t a first for CNN. In the 2012 election cycle they co-hosted their debate with Tea Party Express, an organization that was even snubbed for their corruption within the Tea Party community.

News Corpse Presents: The ALL NEW 2nd volume of
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

What CNN is doing with both Palin and Hewitt can only degrade their teetering reputation further. If there is one thing that American media doesn’t need, it’s another Fox News. The first one is already doing a stellar job of misinforming the public and advancing the agenda of the Republican Party. What’s more, emulating Fox has done nothing for CNN’s ratings. Why should it? Viewers who are in the market for dumbed-down histrionics, Democrat bashing, and a steady diet of right-wing falsehoods, already have a proven provider.