Tucker Carlson of Fox News Secretly Lobbied for Trump to Pardon Convicted Felon Roger Stone

The lines dividing Fox News from the ultra-rightist Republican Party and the abominable Cult of Donald Trump were erased long ago. There is no discernible distinction whatsoever between Trump’s GOP and Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda network. They work hand in hand to undermine democracy and advance the authoritarian aspirations and agenda of their Dear Leader Trump.

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Donald Trump, Roger Stone

The latest revelation affirming this nefarious coupling of wingnut media and wretched politicians comes in a passage from the new book by New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.” The book exposes numerous depravities from the Trump presidency, including that Trump “resisted denouncing White supremacists,” “made light of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s declining health, “ and his Chief of Staff John Kelly describing Trump as a “fascist.”

RELATED: Crybaby Trump Dumps on His Favorite New York Times Reporter for Telling the Truth About Him

Haberman recounts Trump’s efforts to absolve his criminal co-conspirators of any responsibility for their crimes. Specifically, she reports that Tucker Carlson of Fox News personally lobbied the White House to pardon convicted felon Roger Stone. According to Rolling Stone

“During Trump’s fourth year in office, Carlson also held a secret meeting at the White House with Jared Kushner as part of a pressure campaign aimed at forcing Trump to pardon Roger Stone, according to the upcoming book Confidence Man.”

Haberman wrote that…

“If Trump failed to deliver, Carlson made clear, he would press the issue publicly. Kushner was noncommittal, and a few days later Carlson launched what became a monthslong campaign on his friend’s behalf.”

So Carlson was going far beyond merely urging the Trump administration to pardon Stone. He was actually extorting them with the threat of using his program to attack them if they didn’t comply with his demand. That says something about the weakness of Trump’s White House, that it could be manipulated so easily, and that squeaky cable pundits weren’t afraid to push them around.

Not that Trump needed much pushing. He was already leaning toward pardoning his accomplice, Stone, who he thought was being treated too harshly by his own Justice Department. And that was after then-Attorney General Bill Barr had overruled and lessened the prosecutors’ penalty recommendation.

Stone had been found guilty of witness tampering and lying to Congress, crimes that carry prison terms of up to nine years. Barr got that reduced to 40 months. But Trump later pardoned Stone, along with his confederates Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Steve Bannon.

RELATED: The REAL Criminal: Roger Stone Was Prosecuted for Covering Up for Trump

Tusker Carlson injecting himself into White House political and criminal matters is blatantly inappropriate. No reputable journalist would ever consider it. So it’s a good thing that Fox News doesn’t consider Carlson to be either reputable or a journalist. In fact, Fox News lawyers argued in court – successfully – that he couldn’t be found to be guilty of defamation because no reasonable person would believe anything he says. Sadly, there are way too many unreasonable persons who watch Fox News every day.

See… Fox News Court Ruling: No ‘Reasonable Viewer’ Takes Tucker Carlson Seriously

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WITCH HUNT? Serial Sexual Predator Trump Defends the Wife Stalker He Pardoned

Donald Trump seems intent on affirming that he couldn’t care less about America or the American people. He proved it this week when he dismissed COVID vaccines as “a money making operation.” He proved it when he released the Taliban leader who is now set to become the president of Afghanistan. And he continually proves it whenever he furthers his “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him.

Donald Trump, Witch Hunt

On Thursday morning Trump issued a flurry of statements via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter’s rules against circumventing a ban). The messages Trump felt so compelled to express concerned subjects as varied as bashing Biden on Afghanistan, Google’s allegedly anti-Trump algorithms, and a ludicrous poll by the ultra-biased Rasmussen claiming that Trump would beat Biden if an election were held today. Notably, not a single statement was made to try to talk down his supporter who was making a bomb threat in Washington, D.C. at the time.

One of the matters that Trump did believe was of critical importance was the news that a close friend of his son-in-law, and former White House advisor, Jared Kushner, was indicted on charges of cyberstalking. According to The Hill

“An associate of former President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was charged Wednesday with eavesdropping and computer trespass for allegedly using spyware to monitor his former wife’s online activity. Ken Kurson, who was pardoned by Trump and is a close friend of Kushner’s, was charged with two felonies by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.”

Kurson was previously charged with federal cyberstalking crimes against several people, including his ex-wife, when Trump pardoned him just before he left office. The pardon does not immunize Kurson from violations of state law. It’s questionable as to whether Trump understands that.

Calling the new indictments a “Witch hunt of Trump allies … as Cy Vance goes after pardoned man,” Trump whined that “Prosecutors are out of control. We are living in a Banana Republic.”

It’s helpful that Trump admits that Kurson is an ally, but he doesn’t specify in what pursuits they are allied. Is that they are both abusers of women? Or is it that they both violate the law whenever they determine that it’s in their interest to do so? Or is it that they both consider themselves above the law as result of their wealth and elitist status? Clearly they have much in common.

Trump is likely frightened by these indictments because they portend imminent legal peril for him. Kurson could cooperate with the authorities by providing evidence of Trump’s political malfeasance and financial misconduct. And Kurson’s indictment could foreshadow others that have yet to be announced.

Now Trump knows that the numerous pardons he dished out to his accomplices (i.e. Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, etc.) will not necessarily shield him from being held accountable for his own transgressions, of which there are many that are already well documented. And judging by his reaction to the Kurson indictment, Trump is shaking in his booties this morning.

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. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

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

Jared Kushner Tells Fox News that 60,000 Dead ‘Is a Great Success Story’

History will record the total absence of “leadership” provided by Donald Trump and his regime as a catastrophic failure. It is unimaginable how thoroughly negligent Trump has been as a deadly pandemic spread across the nation and the world.

Donald Trump, Jared Kushner

Trump’s first inclination was to ignore the coronavirus entirely. He failed to take heed of at least a dozen warnings in his Daily Presidential Briefings. Then he cavalierly dismissed the threat as trivial, saying that it was “totally under control,” that it would “disappear…like a miracle,” and that “you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” It is now more than a million. And through it all he refused to take any responsibility for his negligence and incompetence as he wasted crucial months shifting blame to others.

At the same time, Trump hijacked the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings to cast himself as the star of what became an egocentric reality TV show that functioned more as a Trump 2020 reelection campaign infomercial. Instead of focusing on public education, he disseminated lies, insulted reporters, and bragged about the ratings. It got to the point that even his political allies were grimacing at his bizarre behavior. So he announced that he would cease to attend the briefings. That didn’t last but a couple of days.

Which brings us to Wednesday morning when Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, made an appearance on Fox News for his regular propaganda and happy-talk segment (video below). And he didn’t disappoint his hosts, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. He kept his remarks socially distant from reality by faithfully adhering to pre-established talking points such as his disparagement of health experts as “the eternal lockdown crowd.” Then he elaborated…

“We’re on the other side of the medical aspect of this, and I think that we’ve achieved all the different milestones that are needed. So the federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story.”

Literally every line of that is flagrantly untrue. We are certainly not “on the other side of the medical aspect of this.” To the contrary, the number of infections and fatalities continue to rise. We have not “achieved all the different milestones.” Unless Kushner regards 60,000 deaths an administration milestone. What’s more, we are not even close to the number of Americans tested that experts say are necessary to “flatten the curve.”

Kushner’s assertion that “the federal government rose to the challenge” is not only false considering its tragically poor performance, it contradicts what Trump says is the federal government’s role. Trump has repeatedly insisted that the states have primary responsibility and the feds are are just a backup of last resort.

Finally, Kushner closed by calling the Trump administration’s handling of this crisis “a great success story.” That’s an assessment so preposterous it hardly deserves a response. With tens of thousands of dead Americans, and over a million more suffering, any characterization of this as successful can only come from deranged and callously insensitive mind.

However, Trump is desperate to sell this snake oil story. The American people are not buying his self-serving presentations of an allegedly flawless response to the COVID-19 pandemic, nor his utterly insufficient efforts to bring relief to a nation crippled physically, emotionally, and financially. And he has fallen behind Joe Biden in every national poll, as well as polling in many of the critical swing states. It is in that state of desperation that Trump is frantically struggling to survive politically and psychologically. But with each passing day he seems to be losing both battles.

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

‘You Treat Me Like a Baby,’ Whines an Infantile Donald Trump Before Firing Top Aide

A new book is shedding some light on the inner workings of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. And it isn’t pretty. Journalist Joshua Green’s account of the Trump campaign focuses heavily on his relationship with campaign advisor, and Breitbart News boss, Steve Bannon. Bannon was later hired to serve Trump in the White House as his strategic advisor. The book’s title, “Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency,” says a lot about the nature of Bannon’s odious influence.

Trump/Bannon

The publisher’s description of the book’s contents evoke an unprecedented incursion of far-right fringe politics into the mainstream of the Republican Party. It casts Bannon as “a bomb-throwing pugilist who’d never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike.” Here’s more:

“From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump—the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.”

Excerpts from the book are already beginning to leak into the media. They tell us something about the volatile, profane character of Trump, and his hair-trigger temperament. That’s something he shares with Bannon who, at one point, lambasted House Speaker Paul Ryan as “a limp-d**k motherf**ker.” But some of the most hostile rhetoric was reserved for Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

According to Green, there were episodes when Trump would fly off the handle due some negative press. On one occasion a story revealed the turmoil behind the campaign’s closed doors. “How can anybody allow,” Trump yelled at Manafort, “an article that says your campaign is all f—– up?” On another occasion Trump was upset at reports that some of his team were frustrated that they could not get him to listen. They told reporters that they had to book interviews on television in order to get the TV-obsessed candidate’s attention. This led to an outburst by Trump aimed directly at Manafort:

“Am I like a baby to you? I sit there like a little baby and watch TV and you talk to me? Am I a f—ing baby, Paul?”

Ironically, Trump’s tantrum was proving the accuracy of the criticism he was complaining about. It wasn’t long after that that Manafort was fired. And even that was an ordeal reminiscent of a soap opera. Trump’s son-in-law and consigliere, Jared Kushner, informed Manafort that he was “going to have to go.” Manafort was resistant complaining that a resignation would make it “look like I’m guilty.” But Kushner persisted and told Manafort that a press release would be going out in minutes announcing his resignation.

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

The book promises to be as exciting and erratic as the characters it profiles. It would make a great cinematic thriller. Unfortunately, the plot does not make for a great presidency. It certainly doesn’t do anything to make America great again. But it does underscore the danger of putting a paranoid narcissist with no experience in the White House. And it reinforces the dire necessity of removing Trump from office before he does even more damage.

So NOW Trump LOVES Anonymous Sources Leaking Pro-Trump BS to Fox News

Donald Trump’s endless assault on the free press has been an ever present fixture of his presidency. He broadly classifies all news as “fake” simply because it isn’t blindly flattering. He can’t say “New York Times” without prefacing it (falsely) as “failing.” Never mind that polls show that most Americans trust the media more than they trust him.

Donald Trump

Trump’s favorite complaints often concern the use of unnamed sources. [Note: There is a difference between unnamed and anonymous sources. The identity of an anonymous source is unknown to the reporter. In most cases, journalists cite sources they know who decline to be named]. The President has frequently condemned the use of any source that doesn’t have a name attached to it. He did so most recently last Sunday:

First of all, Trump’s logic wouldn’t stand up to heavy sigh. He starts out complaining about leaks from the White House. But then accuses reporters of making up their sources. In which case there weren’t any leaks. But if there were leaks, then the sources were real. So Trump is raving about imaginary leaks from fake news who make up sources that actually exist. Are you following any of this? Me neither.

What throws this hilariously over the edge is what Trump tweeted Tuesday morning:

Recent reports have alleged that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top advisor, had discussed setting up a covert communications channel with Russian operatives. The ramifications of that are horrifying and could even lead to charges of espionage. So naturally Trump has to mitigate the harm by denigrating the credible journalists who uncovered the story. And now he’s trying to override it with a competing story from Fox News.

Let’s just set aside the inescapable reality that Fox News is the Trump administration’s state-run TV outlet. Of course they will scrape up some positive rebuttal to any story that reflects poorly on this president. What makes this so glaringly ludicrous is that Fox’s story is based entirely on a single unnamed source:

“During the meeting the Russians broached the idea of using a secure line between the Trump administration and Russia, not Kushner, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News. That follows a recent report from The Washington Post alleging that Kushner wanted to develop a secure, private line with Russia.”

So an unnamed “source familiar with the matter” tells Fox News something that exonerates Kushner. How convenient. Perhaps that source is Donald Trump, or his alter-ego, John Barron. Or maybe it’s Reince Pribus or Sean Spicer or Kellyanne Conway, or – you get the idea. There is nothing in the Fox News account that gives any context to the source or its potential ulterior motives for coming forward with this leak. However, it does provide a hook for the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends to regurgitate the same self-serving remarks on their program:

Brian Kilmeade: So there was contact, and the Russians did want a back channel contact […]
Ainsley Earhardt: Everyone is so upset about this. It’s like let him speak, let the investigation go on. If you have questions about what really happened, ask Jared, hear from Jared, and then we’ll discuss it. […]
Pete Hegseth: Well yeah. You want to turn to the The Washington Post and the failing New York Times and say can I have my edition back? Can I have my news back? Because I’m having to read about this every single day. […] There’s no sourcing. It’s all innuendo. It’s all rumor.

Actually, the Fox Friends are making some news themselves here. Prior to this they had not acknowledged that there were discussions of “back-channel” talks. Now they are conceding the point. Also, they had not previously supported the investigation of these matters. But now they are asking that the investigations go forward. Unfortunately, they still don’t grasp that their story is sourced to a single unnamed person when they whine about innuendo and rumor.

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

As for Trump, if he expects people to take him seriously when he condemns the use of unnamed sources, he ought not to use them himself. But expectations of consistency are way out of bounds when it comes to Trump. His hypocrisy quotient is far above that of mere mortals. What’s immensely troubling is how many people blissfully accept whatever flaming nonsense emits from the Trump-hole. It’s a frightening case of mass hypnosis or maybe cult worship gone terribly bad.

France’s Macron Shows the Courage to Confront Putin that Donald Trump Will Never Have

Donald Trump returned from his Embarrass America First Tour to find that the scandals he hoped to escape were all waiting for him. He still has a special prosecutor investigating his links to Russia. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is embroiled in an espionage controversy. His immigration ban on Muslims was struck down by another federal court. And his legislative agenda is non-existent.

Trump Macron

The week Trump spent abroad was filled with blunders and a novice’s inability to grasp international affairs. For instance, our apprentice president didn’t know that Israel was in the Middle East. He failed to uphold a decades long commitment to the defense of our NATO allies. And then there was his awkward photo-op with the Pope that looked like something from the new Twin Peaks.

Despite his own hollow bragging that the trip produced significant rewards for the economy and jobs, there was no real evidence of any tangible benefit. Politifact rated Trump’s boasting as “False,” describing it as “little more than puffery or wishful thinking.” What’s more, he alienated most of America’s allies while sucking up to foreign dictators – as usual.

In a particularly jarring encounter, Trump met briefly with France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron. They shared a handshake wherein Macron stared Trump down and turned his tiny knuckles white. But it was after Trump departed that Macron made a much more profound gesture that exposed Trump’s innate weakness.

Macron invited Vladimir Putin to visit the opulent Palace of Versailles. While there they had frank discussions unlike any that Trump would have with his Russian friend/master. Macron raised contentious issues like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and human rights abuses in Russia and Chechnya. He even directly challenged Putin over Russia’s hacking during the French elections.

When Trump returned to the U.S. he resumed his Twitter addiction with several familiar tweets chastising the media. Like a broken record, Trump railed against them as “fake” without citing any examples of reporting that was untrue. Now contrast that with Macron’s bold confrontation with Putin wherein he slammed the Russian leader’s dishonest media:

“Russia Today and Sputnik have been tools of influence, and they spread untruths about my person and my campaign,” said Macron. “On that point I’m not going to give an inch. Russia Today and Sputnik did not behave like organs of the press and of journalism, but as organs of lying propaganda.”

Had Macron been an American candidate he could have included Fox News. And while Trump forgives Russia’s brazenly false international campaign of slander, Macron comes right out and condemns it. Trump famously begged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, then denied that Russia had anything to do with it. But a real president looked Putin in the eye and told him he wouldn’t stand for such unethical activities.

Having this ability to compare Trump to Macron gives us a rare opportunity to observe what a weasel America’s right-wing has embraced. He’s a coward who talks loudly but carries a big stick that he promptly hands over to our enemies. Anyone who still thinks that Trump is a strong leader is being willfully ignorant. A clear-eyed assessment of Trump in action can only bring a conclusion of fearful frailty in the service of his own selfish interests.

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