Immigration

Crybaby Don Jr Whines That CNN Refused to Air a Flagrantly Racist Ad By Daddy Trump

Posted by on November 3, 2018 at 10:35 am. 3 Comments :

Apparently the crybaby gene is a dominant component of genetics. It was obviously passed on from Donald Trump to his pampered offspring who do nothing but complain about the awful fate they have suffered by being the spawn of a fake billionaire con man. The latest evidence of that genetic flaw trickling down in the Trump family is a sniveling tweet by Donnie Jr.

Donald Trump

Last Wednesday Trump posted a disgusting video on his Twitter account that accused Democrats of supporting the free access of a Mexican murderer, and others like him, to enter and reside in the U.S. It was the most brazen appeal to racism in a campaign ad since the infamous Willie Horton ad – a creation of the late Roger Ailes of Fox News. Trump received near universal condemnation for having posted the ad, even from many Republicans sickened by its barefaced bigotry.

Subsequently, a similarly repulsive ad was submitted by Trump’s campaign to CNN. The network properly declined to run it. And that act of integrity triggered Donnie Jr to run to his Twitter box and post this:

First of all, what mental sickness would cause someone to ask people to “enjoy” that clip of a nauseating killer? But more to the point, for the Trumpette to describe the contents of this ad as “real threats” demonstrates how far removed he is from reality. The main thrust of the ad is advance Trump’s fear mongering with regard to the refugees marching in Central America. It closes with a message to “Stop the Caravan” by voting Republican. But the “caravan” is at least a month away and is populated by frightened refugees – mostly women and children – fleeing violence and poverty. There is no proof that any villainous stereotypes like the one in Trump’s video are among the migrants.

What’s more, the murderer featured in the ad was actually released from custody by Trump’s pal, and pardoned felon, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And he later re-entered the U.S. during the Bush administration. So if anything, this ad should be advocating voting for Democrats who had nothing to do with this sleazeball.

CNN appropriately declined to run the ad and said so in a direct response to Trump Jr. They called out the obvious and abhorrent racism in the ad and noted that they would not take dirty money to air it. Which raises the question as to whether Fox News was solicited to run this ad. If they were and refused, then why isn’t Donnie Jr whining about that? And if the ad wasn’t taken to Fox, then was this just a publicity stunt to malign CNN?

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

Of course there is still the possibility that Fox News took the ad and is planning to run it prior to election day. Which would be entirely consistent with their racist editorial policy. Their hosts spew bigotry like this all day long, and they do it for free. Why wouldn’t they pocket some of Trump’s cash and profit from spreading more hatred and division?

Fox News ‘Judge’ Wonders If Trump Aides and Republicans Have Infiltrated the Refugee Caravan

Posted by on November 2, 2018 at 12:55 pm. 3 Comments :

As the midterm election gets closer, the deranged conspiracy theories of Fox News Trump-fluffers get more perverse and mired in absurdity. Donald Trump is the point man in this mission with his increasingly offensive, racist, and dishonest ravings from the podium at his cult rallies. But his minions at State TV (aka Fox News) are dutifully backing him up (when they aren’t occasionally repudiating him) with ludicrous fictions aimed at their willfully ignorant audience.

Jeanine Pirro Fox News

On Friday’s episode of Fox and Friends, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes hosted one of their own, “Judge” Jeanine Pirro, the Executive Harpy of Fox’s Libtard Attack Squad. Pirro came prepared with her unique brand of partisan tripe. The panel was discussing the “caravan” of migrants fleeing the violence and poverty in their home countries. However, on Fox News these refugees were portrayed as invaders intent on storming the U.S. borders to rape and pillage innocent Americans. It’s the same noxious bigotry that Trump has been prattling about for weeks as he attempts to exploit the fear and prejudices of his glassy-eyed disciples. But Pirro took it a step further (video below):

“I wanna know who’s in that caravan? Are there pedophiles? Are there career criminals? Are there people who think they can beat their wives without consequence? We don’t know, and that’s the whole issue.”

Indeed. That is the whole issue. We definitely need to know if there are menacing cretins infiltrating the caravaners that mean to harm our families and neighbors. Are there pedophiles like Roy Moore and Strom Thurmond? Are there wife abusers like former Trump staffer Rob Porter? Are there criminals like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Tom Price, and Donald Trump himself? In short, is the entire caravan made up of members of Trump’s Republican Nationalist Party? Because we surely don’t want to allow any of those thugs into the country. They would just being more crime, disease, and probably some Russian subversives to undermine our democracy.

These are good questions that Pirro is raising, and we need to get the answers. But she wasn’t through with her prescient observations. She had some constructive opinions about how to protect us from these foreign threats. And her solutions were tightly intertwined with her infatuation for Trump:

“So the President, by taking a hard line saying look, you can only now seek asylum at ports of entry, and then dealing with the birthright citizenship issue, which has been like an anchor on our necks, is recognizing that this is an issue that we need to address.”

That’s an interesting set of proposals. Except for the fact that the invading refugees have always intended to present themselves to border officials at legal ports of entry to request asylum. And Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship is actually an assault on the U.S. Constitution that he swore to preserve and protect. But other than that, it’s super-keen. Hopefully Fox News will follow up on these questions and get to the bottom of the controversy over the GOP invaders threatening to destroy America. And if they don’t, the people need to take action by voting in massive numbers on November 6.

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

Trump’s Asinine Threat to Send 5,000 Troops to the Border is Savagely Ridiculed on Fox News

Posted by on October 29, 2018 at 3:50 pm. NO Comments :

The news of a so-called “caravan” of Central American migrants marching north toward the United States is tailor made for a Fox News freakout. Which is why Fox News has been freaking out about it for the past couple of weeks. They actually created the story for the express purpose of advancing the prospects of Trump’s Republican Nationalist Party in the upcoming midterm election.

Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child

Donald Trump himself has latched onto the issue in the most nauseating fashion as he falsely maligns these refugees as criminals and gang members. His latest tweet on the subject was a festival of lies and xenophobic hate:

Of course, Trump has zero evidence to support his vicious claims. And he’s ignoring the fact that these peaceful travelers do intend to enter the U.S. legally. Presenting yourself to immigration officials at the border is precisely the legal process for people applying for refugee status. But Trump is determined to slander folks who are already frightened and desperate. What’s more, he has adopted of the language of the murderer who just killed eleven worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue. That’s a real criminal who cited the caravan in hostile messages just before his rampage, and referred to the migrants as “invaders.”

Trump’s request that the migrants “go back” is a peculiar outburst at people he seems to believe are on the road with smart phones reading his tweets. Does he think that they will just turn around and return to homes they reluctantly abandoned because their lives were at risk? But what’s worse is his threat regarding the waiting military. Trump is literally threatening to slaughter these refugees for seeking safety in the land of the free.

Meanwhile at Fox News, the one anchor that occasionally exhibits some measure of sanity, Shepard Smith, took note of Trump’s latest mental breakdown (video below). And Smith was brutal in his assessment of the absurdity in Trump’s plans. Smith said that:

“The U.S. will deploy some 5,000 troops to the U.S. border as early as tomorrow as thousands of migrants make their way north from Mexico. Tomorrow. The migrants, according to Fox News reporting, are more than two months away, if any of them actually come here. But tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about. There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”

So Smith not only pointed out the fallacy in Trump’s deranged policy, but he also identified the real reason that this issue is being discussed. The refugees are a thousand miles from the U.S. and are traveling by foot. They don’t represent any sort of threat whatsoever, and least of all, an imminent one that requires immediate deployment of troops. The only imminent threat is to the Republican Nationalist Party’s grip on political power. And that’s the only reason why Trump is demagoguing this issue and turning refugees into criminal hordes of subhuman invaders. And it’s just the sort of preposterous hate mongering that Trump’s Deplorable cult followers will suck up with relish.

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

Nice work Shep:
https://twitter.com/passantino/status/1057013271859994624

Bring Back Jim Crow? Tucker Carlson of Fox News Accidentally Admits He’s a Straight-Up Racist

Posted by on September 15, 2018 at 1:18 pm. 4 Comments :

The Senior Douchebag of Fox News, and host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, has been making news this week. In an “interview” with Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, Carlson was beaten to a pulp and exposed as an intellectual lightweight who has no grasp of facts or common sense. It was delicious to see him squirm and stutter.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

You would think that after such an embarrassing display, Carlson would try to rehabilitate his tattered reputation. You would be wrong. On Friday’s episode, Carlson hosted Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo for a discussion on immigration. Carlson began his inquisition by framing the entire debate as a measurement of the immigrant population of the country. His premise was that the more immigrants, the worse off the nation is. And he expressed a longing for the past, which he perceives as being more homogeneously white. It wasn’t. It’s just that the majority white population was more in control. But Carlson viewed that as better:

“When I was born in this country, the percentage of people who were living here, who were foreign-born, was under five percent. It’s now about fourteen percent. So that’s a three-fold increase. That’s a huge change – huge change – in less than fifty years. Is the country better or worse for that, would you say?”

Acevedo responded that the country is better off, as is the economy. Well, he tried to respond, but Carlson cut him off after about twelve seconds. Then, when Acevedo tried to inform Carlson that two-thirds of GDP growth since 2011 was due to immigration, he was interrupted again after twelve seconds. Does Carlson have an “interrupter clock”?.

The debate then shifted to the immigrants themselves, and whether they merited entry to America. Carlson argued that most immigrants were poor and undeserving of entry. You know, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He couldn’t comprehend the reality that even poor immigrants contribute to the country, either by filling jobs that Americans won’t do, or by rising up through hard work and innovation to found companies like Apple and Google.

Carlson then asserted that there is something undemocratic about current immigration policy because all the polls say that Americans want less of it. That, however, isn’t true. In fact, most polls show that broad majorities of Americans (75%) favor immigration in general, and are opposed to a border wall in particular.

But Carlson never lets facts get in the way of his rank bigotry. In the following exchange, Carlson let slip that he looks back longingly on a bygone era when white nationalists like himself reigned unencumbered by those pesky minorities demanding civil rights. Acevedo asked Carlson what period in the past he was advocating as superior to the present. Carlson replied:

Carlson: When I was born it was fine. It was a better country than it is now, in a lot of ways.
Acevedo: In what sense was it a better country? By what metric?
Carlson: It was a more cohesive country.
Acevedo: It was a less diverse country, maybe?
Carlson: No. It’s not about race. The middle-class was vibrant when I was born. It’s dying now. And [cutting him off] we’re out of time.

To the extent that the middle-class is less vibrant today, it’s due directly to the policies of Carlson’s Republican Party. Their agenda of tax cuts for the rich and regulation cuts for corporations is the single biggest factor in the shift of wealth from the middle-class to the top one percent. America’s economy is booming, but average Americans aren’t seeing any of the benefits. It’s a certainty that Carlson doesn’t want to roll that back.

As for his nostalgia, Carlson was born in 1969. That was just a few years after the Civil Rights Act was passed. The country was still unwinding the decades of Jim Crow laws that dominated most of the South. Martin Luther King was assassinated only one year prior and his work was far from over, as evidenced by his murder. There was one African-America senator, and only six members of the House. But that’s the wonderfully “cohesive” time that Carlson wishes America would return to. With this rhetoric it seems that he’s not even trying to disguise his racism anymore. And Fox News is apparently cool with that.

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

BURN! Fox News Accidentally Interviews a Candidate Who Tells the Truth About (and to) Trump

Posted by on July 23, 2018 at 11:36 am. NO Comments :

Monday morning on Fox News there was a devastating outbreak of the sort of truth that the network strives so hard to suppress. All of their evil efforts went up in smoke after a booking glitch put a conscientious Democratic candidate on the air instead of their customary crackpots and shills. It was delicious.

Fox News Bozo

On Fox and Friends First co-hosts Jillian Mele and Rob Schmitt introduced Ann Kirkpatrick, someone they thought was a pro-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Democrat that got booed at a candidate forum in Massachusetts. Their intent was to stir up phony dissension within the Democratic Party. That’s a common tactic used by Fox News to falsely infer a party in disarray. They have a bevy of so-called Democrats they can call on to bash the Party.

However, this time someone at Fox screwed up. The guest that appeared on air was not who they thought it was. It turned out to be Barbara L’Italien, a different candidate with an entirely different point of view. She began straight out of the gate with a message for Donald Trump (video below):

Mele: Joining us the candidate, the only democrat on stage to support ICE, Ann Kirkpatrick. Tell us why you do support ICE?
L’Italien: Good morning. I’m actually here to speak directly to Donald Trump. I feel that what’s happening at the border is wrong. I’m a mother of four and I believe that separating kids from their parents is illegal and inhumane. I’m state senator representing a large immigrant community and running for Congress in Massachusetts.

I keep thinking about what we are putting parents through and imagining how terrifying that must be for those families, imagining how it would feel not knowing if I’d ever see my kids again, we have to stop abducting children and ripping them from their parents’ arms. Stop putting kids in cages, stop making 3-year-olds defend themselves in court.

The co-hosts immediately looked confused and struggled to counter L’Italien’s truth with pre-chewed Fox News lies. Schmitt said that the practice of separating and caging children had been stopped. It hasn’t. Then Mele said incorrectly that the kids have been reunited with their families. Only about 500 out of nearly 3,000. That was followed by an awkward exchange wherein the co-hosts wondered “Who is this?” And after cutting the feed to L’Italien, they mused that “That didn’t go as planned. That happens sometimes. Time for a break? Yeah.”

A statement was later released by Desiree Dunne, the executive producer of Fox and Friends First. She tried to explain how the segment got so badly mangled, but failed to miserably. And then she sought to blame L’Italien:

“This morning we invited Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick to appear on Fox & Friends First through her press contact on file […] During the actual segment, Barbara L’Italien, appeared on camera instead of Kirkpatrick. Despite speaking to producers prior to the interview, L’Italien did not identify herself as anything other than Kirkpatrick until she was live on air, at which point we ended the interview.”

Note that Dunne doesn’t say that the producers ever asked L’Italien to identify herself. L’Italien told ThinkProgress that she was merely taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity to communicate with Trump and Fox viewers. She also said that:

“This would not have happened to an actual news station. Fox’s lack of attention to the facts normally is a disaster for the country, it just so happened that today it was embarrassing for them.”

Ann Kirkpatrick also had some harsh words for Fox News, saying that they “put out false reports on my position on ICE, without a single word from me.” So she doesn’t seem particularly disturbed by having been axed from the network’s propaganda programming. But even when the mistake was discovered, why would Fox need to end the interview? Why couldn’t they just continue talking to a candidate with a different perspective?

The answer to that question is obvious. fox News doesn’t tolerate different perspectives in circumstances they aren’t in complete control of. L’Italien was expressing a viewpoint that is shared by a majority of Americans. But since it is contrary to the Trump administration’s viewpoint, and that of the Republican Party, it could not be allowed on their air. But unfortunately for Fox, that happens sometimes.

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

Grumpy Old Trump Yells Impotently at Congress to ‘Get Those Immigrants Off of My Lawn’

Posted by on July 5, 2018 at 11:00 am. 1 Comments :

On the day following America’s birthday, Donald Trump resumes his hostile stance toward immigrants. There is a sad irony to Trump using Independence Day for his relentless attacks on the category of people most responsible for this country’s progress and prosperity. But it’s also as predictable as the sunrise.

Donald Trump, Immigrant, Child

On Thursday morning Trump was doing the critical work of the presidency, as he normally does. Just kidding. He was tweeting, of course. And in this spray of ignorant and agitated nonsense, Trump displayed one of the cliche characteristics of grumpy old men who fear every shadow that approaches. He lashed out frightened and vulnerable people who are seeking the goodness of America’s compassion toward refugees and asylum seekers, and told them to “get off of my lawn.”

Like a broken record, Trump bleats out his typically ill-informed complaints about immigration laws that he says are “insane.” Never mind that he has been the sole obstacle of bipartisan efforts to reform them. He carelessly writes that when people “enter our Country, they must be told to leave.” Notice that he didn’t even say anything about them entering illegally. He’s saying all people. Of course, that was a just mistake of omission on his part. He meant to say all non-white people.

However, the key phrase in Trump’s Twitter tirade came as he sought trivialize the complex issue of immigration. Saying that “they must leave, just as they would if they were standing on your front lawn,” is glaringly stupid. It’s a lame attempt to conflate personal property with the much broader matter of federal immigration laws. Unless he’s suggesting that people from other countries could legally apply with the government for residency on “your front lawn” and eventually become citizens of your house.

Trump went on to whine about the burden of “hiring thousands of ‘judges'” to decide the fate of the families seeking asylum. He made that up. There is no plan – or need – to increase the judiciary for that purpose. Most of these cases have historically been resolved through civil adjudication. It would probably be necessary to provide some more resources to make that process more efficient, but it wouldn’t be by hiring judges or anywhere near thousands of the appropriate arbitrators.

Trump closed his morning catharsis with an all caps demand to Congress that they “FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW!” Does he think that by yelling on Twitter the representatives are going to snap to attention and obey his commands? Well, probably yes, he does think that. But it isn’t true. The problem will be solved when Congress gets the courage to negotiate a fair and bipartisan bill that addresses the issues at hand, and compels the President to sign it under the threat of a veto override.

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

In the meantime, DACA applicants are still living in fear of being deported from the only home they have ever known. And children are still terrified from having been ripped out of their parents arms and sent to virtual prisons, a human rights abuse that they can’t possibly understand. That’s the most pressing “INSANE” policy that needs to be resolved “NOW.” And if necessary, every American should yell at Congress to do it.

Trump’s Child Abuse is Politicized By Fox News Hacks in the Most Idiotic Way Possible

Posted by on June 24, 2018 at 11:46 am. 1 Comments :

The right-wing defense of Donald Trump’s heinous policy of ripping apart families of immigrants is continuing into it’s third week. And as it progresses it gets ever more callous and offensive. Just this week we’ve seen conservatives characterize the baby prisons as “summer camps,” or excusing the horror by saying that the immigrant children “aren’t our kids,” or dismissing these human rights abuses because kids aren’t being gassed, or belittling the harm by comparing them to American urban communities.


The extreme contortions that these shills have to make to twist Trump’s grotesque policy into something that his glassy-eyed disciples will embrace is a feat that defiles humanity. And when they aren’t being overtly racist, they are peddling theories so ludicrous as to be monuments to searing political stupidity.

An example of that was provided on Saturday by Jesse Watters of Fox News. On his program he engaged in an exchange with his Fox colleague Ed Henry (note: both of these paragons of virtue were recently outed for cheating on their wives) that revealed their utter disdain for decency. Henry began by casting immigration as an issue that Trump “can carry into the midterms,” falsely charging that “Democrats care sometimes more about illegal immigrants than citizens.” Then, after trying to conflate the issue of children being separated from their parents with crime, the discussion became even more political (video below):

Henry: The President is on the right side when he is talking about enforcing laws, which is pretty obvious, pretty basic. He got elected on that. And cracking down on illegal immigration. The problem is when you put the kids into the middle of it, it enables Democrats and the media to exploit the policy in a way that blows up in his face. He should have thought through that part a whole lot more.
Watters: I agree. And the Democrats think they can run on these child migrants, but I don’t think it’s necessarily gonna move votes, because it doesn’t necessarily affect the average citizen. Yes, it’s sad. It tugs at your heart strings, but it’s not like gas prices, it’s not like taking away your healthcare, it’s not like jobs. It may make you feel bad for the moment, but this isn’t a major issue that I think people, especially independents, are gonna be voting for in November.

Really? Henry thinks that the problem Republicans have is that abusing the human rights of children and families of immigrants is all about the optics, not the welfare of the children. And that Trump’s mistake was not thinking through how awful tearing families apart would look. But how it looks isn’t what is sickening the American people.

Watters went even further to openly discuss the issue in terms of how it would impact the election. And his conclusion was that it wouldn’t hurt Trump or the GOP because American voters wouldn’t care. It’s just a little heart string tugging is all. Not nearly as important as what they pay for gas, or losing their healthcare.

It’s not bad enough that Watters and Henry regard Americans as so selfish that they care more about a few pennies difference in their gas bill than they do about suffering babies. But apparently they havn’t seen what the price of gas is lately either. The national average has increased by 25.6 percent in the past year. What’s more, Trump’s deliberate sabotage of ObamaCare, combined with the GOP tax plan, is predicted to result in as many as twenty-one million Americans losing their coverage. Then there’s also the Republican efforts to do away with protection for people with preexisting conditions and cut seven billion dollars from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

So Watters and Henry are offering an analysis of the upcoming election that is startling stupid. They are arguing that Americans are heartless heathens who are only interested in their own pocketbooks. But at the same time they ignoring that the pocketbook issues they raised slant heavily against the Republicans and Trump. It’s a good thing that their analysis is only being aired on Fox News, because those viewers are the only ones sufficiently brainwashed to believe any of that crap. The rest of the country is poised to oust Republicans specifically because of their policies that hurt average people, as well as their hideous human rights abuses directed at immigrant families.

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

Fox News Shill Admiringly Compares Trump’s Child Internment Camps to American Ghettos

Posted by on June 22, 2018 at 4:17 pm. 11 Comments :

The flagrant racism of Donald Trump and his cult congregation of glassy-eyed Republicans and wingnut pundits continues to sink ever further into the abyss. On Friday we saw the repulsive spectacle of a Fox News host, Brian Kilmeade, defend Trump by saying that the kids being separated from their families were just foreigners who we can blithely disregard. “Like it or not,” Kilmeade said, “these aren’t our kids. Show them compassion, but it’s not like he’s doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas.” Get it? This would only be a real problem if the kids were from Idaho.

Fox News, Rachel Campos-Duffy

On a day when there are still a couple thousand children being held hostage by Trump’s government, the President held an event at the White House to talk about Americans killed by immigrants. Never mind that there are far more Americans killed by Americans who Trump never bothers to show any sympathy for. Including children at schools like Marjory Stoneman High whose white, Christian murderer is an American citizen. Trump never invited the parents of those victims to the White House.

Fox’s Laura Ingraham has been a reliable spokesperson for the cretins who think that ripping babies from their mothers’ arms is a justifiable form of border security. She recently dismissed the thought of any harm inflicted on the immigrant children by saying that their detention facilities were just like “summer camp.” If she attended summer camps like that it might explain how her mind got so twisted and callous.

On Ingraham’s Thursday program she interviewed Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, who expressed an opinion that is surely widely held among conservative dirtbags. In an attempt to minimize the horror experienced by a kidnapped child, Campos-Duffy compared their incarceration to the conditions at many inner city housing communities (video below):

“I spoke to some African-Americans who say, ‘Gosh, the conditions of the detention centers are better than some of the projects that I grew up in,’ The detention centers are far safer than the journey that these children just came on. People aren’t stupid.”

However, Campos-Duffy just proved that not only are some people stupid, they are also nauseatingly heartless. It is mindnumbingly idiotic to compare urban housing to forced internment camps for children stolen from the loving care of their parents. Campos-Duffy apparently cannot comprehend the terror of a lost child who is being held by strangers who provide no comfort or care. That’s the sort of experience that can literally scar a child for life.

But Campos-Duffy made another point that she is certainly too dense to notice. She inadvertently pointed out the inhumane conditions at some of the “projects” where low income Americans live. She’s admitting, without realizing it, that those living conditions are extraordinarily harsh and that it is shameful that a nation as wealthy as the United States would permit it. That’s something that is not talked about enough in the media, especially the conservative media that Campos-Duffy calls home.

Nevertheless, the comparison is still horribly wrong. To be sure, there are hardships for low income families living in impoverished, and sometimes dangerous, neighborhoods. But they are living there with their families, friends, and other sources of support from the community. They are not minor prisoners in a state facility without parental companionship or security. And the fact that Campos-Duffy and her Fox News cohorts can’t see the difference is a sad testament to their inhumanity.

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

Trump: ‘I’d Rather Be Strong’ and Heartless than Be ‘Overrun With Millions’ of Criminal Immigrants

Posted by on June 20, 2018 at 1:09 pm. 6 Comments :

The president who called immigrants “animals” and described them as “infesting” America has backed down on his abhorrent policy that ripped children from the arms of their mothers and fathers. Never mind that he and his surrogates insisted that this “horrible” policy that doesn’t exist was created by Democrats and was just like “summer camp.”

Donald Trump

Now Donald Trump, who previously said that only Congress could fix this, has allegedly fixed it (see update below). He was adamant that he couldn’t do anything about it, but now he holds a televised ceremony asserting that he is doing something about it. Either he was lying then or he just signed an illegitimate document.

However, we must not forget that Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he implemented the family separation policy. Team Trump repeatedly admitted that it was a deliberate effort to provide a deterrent to immigrants and others seeking asylum. He also tried to use the issue – and the children – as ransom for support for his idiotic border wall. And even as he prepared to sign this executive order, he articulated his view that any expression of compassion was a sign of weakness that he rejected:

“If you’re really, really pathetically weak, the country is going to be overrun with millions of people. And if you’re strong, then you don’t have any heart. That’s a tough dilemma. Perhaps I’d rather be strong.”

It is not surprising that Trump is averse to human empathy. He has demonstrated that amply over the many years of his public life. But his open preference for being strong as a direct alternative to having heart is further evidence of his unfitness to lead a compassionate nation. What’s more, he continues to portray immigrants as invading hordes who aspire to overrun the nation and strip “patriotic” Americans (white Christianists in Trump’s view) of their rights and privileges. The “millions” of invaders, though, are an obvious scare tactic to trigger more hatred from his glassy-eyed disciples.

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

It remains to be seen whether Trump’s temporary “solution” actually solves anything. He will still claim that Democrats are obstructing a more comprehensive reform. And of course, he will try to take all the credit for solving a problem that he created. But that must not be allowed. It’s important to make sure that he doesn’t exalt himself as the savior of the children now that he was forced to reverse his noxious policy. What he did was a moral atrocity. It will have been a moral atrocity after it’s stopped. Some of the damage to these kids will be permanent, and the perpetrators deserve permanent scorn for what they’ve done. We must never forget or forgive this sort of heinous government activity. #BlameTrump

UPDATE: The text of the executive order has been publishes and it’s predictably weak. It has loopholes relating to its implementation only when “appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.” So he could still ignore it by saying that it violated some law (as he has been doing) or he doesn’t have the money.

Fox News Defends Traumatizing Kids Because ‘President Trump is Not Gassing Children’

Posted by on June 19, 2018 at 3:34 pm. 3 Comments :

Ever since the story broke about how Donald Trump is ripping children from the arms of their mothers and fathers, Fox News has been trying very hard to help the President obfuscate the issue. They have been variously claiming that it wasn’t happening, or it that it was happening before Trump, or that it was an act of mercy, or that it was horrible but the fault of Democrats. They have been so shaken by the public reaction that they can’t seem to pick a lie and stick to it.

Fox News Todd Starnes

Now Todd Starnes of Fox News Radio has found a whole new approach to the matter. He’s delighted that he can defend Trump’s child abuse initiative by noting that the President isn’t gassing children. No, really. Here is what he said:

“President Trump is not gassing children. President Trump is not loading up train cars with illegal alien children and sending them to the death camps. Lady Liberty is in tears because the Democrats and the mainstream media would rather side with illegal alien invaders than stand alongside their fellow Americans. That’s treasonous and that’s traitorous in my book.”

When you have to sink to finding the goodness in your policies by being able to say they aren’t as bad as Nazi atrocities, you might want to rethink those policies. Unfortunately for Trump and the Republican Party, it’s too late for that. They are now married to this heinous practice after repeatedly sending out administration officials to defend it.

And Fox News may be the worst among them all. Their hosts from Fox and Friends in the morning, to Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity at night, have all taken Trump’s side. They try to portray the detention centers as “summer camps” where kids are confined by “walls of chain-link fences” which, for some reason, are not cages. They claim the kids have regular meals, televisions, and play sports. That is, when these toddlers aren’t curled up in foil blankets, crying for their mothers.

And Starnes calls critics of this cruelty “treasonous” and “traitorous” based on his perception of them as siding with “illegal alien invaders.” That’s right. He sees these children as warriors from hostile nations, and anyone who has compassion for their suffering is betraying America.

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

For the past week there have been a lot of nauseating efforts to justify what the Trump administration is doing to these kids. But Starnes may have hit peak assholiness. At the same time he has rather succinctly summed up what Trump and the GOP have wrought. They are apparently aiming for a horrendous method of terrorizing children and deterring asylum seekers without quite reaching the depths of the Third Reich. Perhaps we should congratulate them on their success.