Jeff Sessions

Massive Voter Fraud? Via Fox News, 19 Non-Citizens Voted in 2016 – Trump’s Off By Only 2,999,981

Posted by on August 24, 2018 at 3:53 pm. 1 Comments :

This week Donald Trump laid into his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, chastising him for having properly recused himself from the Russia investigation, and for not persecuting Trump’s perceived enemies. In Trump World the Department of Justice is his personal legal team who should be pursuing only those matters that advance his interests. That’s not the way the Constitution sees it.

Vladimir Putin Voted

Perhaps to mollify Trump, Sessions is throwing him bone in the form of a set of indictments for voter fraud. This is an issue that has been close to Trump’s shriveled heart ever since he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by more than 3,000,000 votes. The egocentric President has claimed repeatedly that this loss was the result of millions of illegal Clinton voters. But every study that has researched this has concluded that no such widespread fraud exists. That even includes the commission Trump empaneled, which was quickly disbanded having proved nothing. But none of that stopped Trump from exercising his active imagination:

The charges that Fox News is reporting involve nineteen (19) people who allegedly registered and/or voted in 2016, despite not being American citizens. The accused are from all over the world, including Mexico, Nigeria, Italy, Korea, and Poland. Which puts to rest the right-wing conspiracy theories that Mexicans are swarming into the country to take it over. Additionally, there is no indication who these people voted for, and it is just as likely that some of them supported Trump as Clinton.

Given that Trump has variously claimed that between three and five million people voted illegally, he’s only off by between 2,999,981 and 4,999,981. That’s actually not a bad effort by a president whose record for being 100% wrong (i.e. lying) is unmatched in American history. And while Trump was adamant about stopping non-citizens from south of the border tainting our elections, he had no objections to Vladimir Putin doing it.

To make matters worse, the Republican Party just voted to kill “A bill that would have significantly bolstered the nation’s defenses against electoral interference” and they did so “at the behest of the White House.” So Trump’s GOP cannot credibly claim to be interested in fair elections. And these new charges from the Justice Department really just reaffirm how rarely the sort of voter fraud that has Trump all verklempt actually occurs.

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

By Rudy Giuliani’s Own Standard Donald Trump is Guilty of Obstruction of Justice

Posted by on August 2, 2018 at 5:02 pm. 1 Comments :

It just keeps getting easier and easier to catch Donald Trump and his Merry Band of Incompetents in lies or other nefarious activities that reflect their dishonor and deceit. And the blunder by Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on Thursday is just the latest example of this phenomenon.

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump

If Saturday Night Live wanted to create a satirical character whose practice of the law incriminated his client more often than not, they would only need to transcribe Giuliani’s comments verbatim. In this episode, Giuliani attempted to clean up a Trump tweet that appeared to most people as an obvious effort to obstruct justice with regard to the special counsel probe of Robert Mueller. Trump tweeted:

That sure looks like Trump is directing his Attorney General to halt the investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia. But Giuliani has an alternative interpretation of the tweet that makes it completely innocent. He told CNN’s Dana Bash that Trump was just “expressing his opinion on his favored medium for asserting his First Amendment right of free speech. He said ‘should’ not ‘must.'”

So the use of the word “should” absolves Trump of any culpability for comments that seem to be giving Sessions a direct order. But if your boss told you that you should stop working on a “terrible” project “right now,” would you think he was just expressing an opinion and ignore him? Not if you wanted to keep your job, you wouldn’t. But if Giuliani is so fixated on the words “should” and “must,” then he might want to refer back to this tweet by Trump in April:

That satisfies the Giuliani standard of saying “must” in order for the directive to be considered obstruction of justice. So we all owe Rudy our thanks for making the legal argument so clear and applicable to his client. Now we just need to wait and see how he and/or Trump try to spin this into something that means the opposite of what it obviously means.

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

Shepard Smith of Fox News Untangles the ‘Patently False’ Lies of Trump re: the Russia Probe

Posted by on August 1, 2018 at 3:24 pm. NO Comments :

It’s getting harder and harder to figure out why Fox News is allowing Shepard Smith to remain on the air. In the recent past he has made a some startlingly harsh condemnations of Donald Trump that were rooted in actual facts. You know, the sort of information that Fox News struggles to suppress for the other twenty-three hours of the day. It’s the sort of honest reporting that is contradicted by Fox’s primetime shills Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson.

Fox News, Shepard Smith, Donald Trump

On Wednesday Smith launched into an explanation for Trump’s latest tweetstorm that railed against Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion hoax rigged scam witch hunt (did I get them all in?). Aside from exposing his palpable fear and desperation, Trump is piling up more lies that now even Fox News is finding it hard to excuse. Smith began his take-down of Trump (video below) with an introduction that summed things up nicely saying that:

“The White House today echoed President Trump’s false tweet claiming that the [Steele] dossier was the foundation of the special counsel, Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.”

Then Smith played a clip of press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at today’s press briefing saying that “the entire investigation is based off of a dirty, discredited dossier.” Notice that Sanders has adopted Trump’s speaking patterns. Smith followed that by displaying Trump’s tweet saying that the “rigged witch hunt” by “17 angry Democrats” and “started by a “fraudulent dossier” was “an illegal scam.” You have to give him credit for stuffing so many inane cliches into a single tweet. But it’s Smith who really gets credit for having the courage to tell the truth on Fox News to their audience of glassy-eyed Deplorables:

“in the main, and in its part, that statement is patently false. According to the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee, the feds started the Russia investigation in July of 2016, after then-Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. The diplomat then gave that information over to the FBI.

“And while the U.S. intelligence community has not confirmed parts of the dossier, there are elements of it that are confirmed true. No part of it, to Fox News’ knowledge, has been confirmed false. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is a registered Republican. The Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, is also a Republican. The Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who swore in Rosenstein, is also a Republican. President Trump, a Republican, appointed Sessions [and Rosenstein too].

“The dossier is 35 pages of research memos Christopher Steele wrote during the 2016 campaign. He’s a former British intelligence agent. A research firm called Fusion GPS compiled the memos. They alleged conspiracies between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to help Mr. Trump win the election over Hillary Clinton.”

If just a small bit of this actually got through to Fox News viewers it might have a discernible impact on the nation’s collective ability to recognize the truth. But most of this won’t even get through to Hannity or the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. It’s a sad commentary on the depth of the delusion that the Trump Cult has spread across Republican America. These cretins are actually supportive of Russia’s interference in our democracy. So why would they be bothered by Trump issuing tweet commands to his A.G. to stop the Mueller probe?

In response to that tweet Sanders told the press corps this afternoon that Trump was just expressing his “opinion,” and that it wasn’t an order directed at Sessions. She had to downplay it in this way because otherwise it would be unambiguously obstruction of justice. In fact, it still is. If your boss said that you should stop working on some terrible project right now, would you consider that only his opinion and that you could ignore it? If Trump succeeds in coercing Sessions to stop the Mueller probe it’s just more evidence of his intent to illegally interfere with the administration of justice. And, by the way, there are way more than 17 angry Democrats. There’s at least 65 million (more than voted for Trump), plus a few sane Republicans who can’t stomach his treason.

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

Be Aware: After Trump is Forced to Reverse His Child Abuse Policy, He’ll Take All the Credit

Posted by on June 18, 2018 at 11:14 am. 5 Comments :

There is uncommon agreement across the political spectrum that Donald Trump’s arbitrary and abhorrent policy of ripping children from the arms of their mothers and fathers is unconscionable and unsustainable. At least outside of Congress, where Republicans continue to support this madness. Even former First Lady Laura Bush has condemned the practice, calling it “cruel,” “immoral,” and “heartbreaking.”

Donald Trump, Immigrant Children

But the Trump administration has been twisting itself into ninth level Mobius strips trying to deny, obfuscate, or otherwise absolve themselves of responsibility for the horror they have wrought. Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, had the gall to say flatly that “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.” And that’s after Trump himself admitted to the policy saying that “We have to break up families. The Democrats gave us that law.” Never mind that it has been well documented that there is no such law and that this is wholly a policy of the Trump administration, and the Democrats had nothing to do with it. It could be reversed by the stroke of a pen by Trump alone. Or even by legislation passed by the Republican controlled Congress. Trump doesn’t need the Democratic votes he keeps whining about.

Trump’s own senior staff admit that this is their doing. “If you don’t want your child separated,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “then don’t bring them across the border illegally.” Of course, these asylum seekers are not breaking any laws. And speaking about family separation, Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said “A big name of the game is deterrence [and] it could be a tough deterrent.” In both cases they are advocating cruelty and human rights abuse as a deterrent for a civil border violation.

Trump is still lying about his responsibility. He tweeted Monday morning that “It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security.” Although he isn’t even effective enough to spell “border” correctly. He also tweeted that “Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country.” Actually, he’s close. Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth (Trump and the GOP) as a means to hold them hostage to Republican demands for an idiotic and useless wall along the nation’s southern border.

With the near unanimous revulsion for Trump’s policy, it is inevitable that it will be rescinded. It may come from Congress or the White House, but it seems unthinkable that it would be permitted to continue, even by Republicans who, so far, have shown zero compassion. And with a rescission there will also likely be an attempt on Trump’s part to take credit for it. That’s what he does. He is genetically incapable of taking responsibility for any of his failures, but he is psychotically obsessed with taking credit for everyone else’s achievements (ask Obama).

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

While it’s important to point out that this mess is all Trump’s doing, and that he is lying when he blames Democrats for his own heinous policy, it will be equally important to make sure that he doesn’t exalt himself as the savior of the children once he is forced to reverse his policy. What he’s doing is 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 noxious government activity. #BlameTrump

Sarah Sanders Uses Bible to Defend Trump’s Heinous Policy of Ripping Apart Families Seeking Asylum

Posted by on June 14, 2018 at 3:00 pm. 7 Comments :

The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is best known for her ability to dispassionately lie about any matter that arises in the course of the daily press briefings. It’s a skill that most of the rabid zealots in Donald Trump’s administration sorely lack. But it often comes across as callous when the subject requires some measure of empathy.

Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

That was exhibited in spades on Thursday as Sanders was questioned about the heart-wrenching policy that Trump has enacted to rip crying children from the arms of their terrified parents. This policy has drawn broad condemnation from across the political spectrum, yet Trump and Co. refuse to halt its enforcement. That position took a peculiar turn when Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited a bible verse to justify his nauseating actions. However, the quotation he addressed only referred to obedience of the law, but made no reference to tearing families apart. Even Trump-supporting evangelical Franklin Graham called the policy “disgraceful.” At the daily press briefing, Sanders was asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta to comment on the remarks by Sessions (video below):

Acosta: On these children that are being separated from their families as they come across the border, the Attorney General earlier today said that somehow there is justification for this in the bible. Where does it say in the Bible that it’s moral to take children away from their mothers?
Sanders: I’m not aware of the Attorney General’s comment or what he would be referencing. I can say say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.
Acosta: You just said it’s in the bible to follow the law…
Sanders: That’s not what I said. And I know it’s hard for you to understand even short sentences, I guess.

Huh? That’s exactly what she said just seconds before denying that she said it. This is advanced level gaslighting. And in the process of flagrantly lying about what she just said, Sanders delivers a wholly inappropriate insult with regard to Acosta’s ability to understand her short (dishonest) sentences. It’s notable that other reporters raised the same inquiries, but Acosta, a Latino reporter from CNN, was the only one she insulted. And if Sanders is looking for an appropriate bible verse to quote, she might try this one referring to refugees (sojourners) from Leviticus (19:33-34) which, when President Obama cited it, Fox News went berserk:

“33. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. 34. The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”

Sanders then went on to accuse Democrats of being responsible for the law requiring the separation of undocumented children from their parents. But there is no such law. It is being done as a result of an arbitrary policy implemented solely by the Trump administration. Nevertheless, Sanders said that Trump has called on Democrats to change the (nonexistent) law. But she fails to explain how Democrats could do that when they are in the minority and have no power to introduce or pass such legislation. Likewise, she ignores why Republicans, who do have the power, don’t just change the law themselves. Since they have the majority, they could make this issue go away overnight. What’s stopping them?

Among the other journalists questioning Sanders about this were Paula Reid of CBS, who advised Sanders, in vain, that there was no law mandating the separation of children. Also Brian Karem of Sentinel Newspapers made an impassioned plea asking “Sarah, you’re a parent. Don’t you have empathy for what these people are going through?” Sanders responded by recognizing a different reporter for an unrelated question. And that’s fairly typical of how she and Trump deal with difficult issues that require compassion and some expression of humanity.

Also brought up in the briefing were reports that Sanders and her deputy, Raj Shah, are planning their exit from the White House sometime this year. She would neither confirm nor deny the reports, but still criticized the reporting. We’ll see what she say when she actually leaves, which is all but certain. And we’ll also see what direction Trump will take when he names her replacement. I’m betting on Kimberly Guilfoyle of Fox News since she’s already sleeping with Don, Jr.

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

Fox News Ignores Trump’s Attack on ObamaCare – While Criticizing the Media for Ignoring It

Posted by on June 11, 2018 at 3:30 pm. 2 Comments :

Last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he would not mount a defense of the provision in the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) that prohibits insurance companies from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions. It is now the official position of Donald Trump’s Justice Department that if you have ever been diagnosed as diabetic, a had migraine, been pregnant, taken cholesterol medication, or suffered any of a thousand other common maladies, your insurance company should be allowed to charge you exorbitant rates or refuse to cover you at all.

Fox News, Howard Kurtz

This decision could result in millions of citizens losing their health insurance and risking the lives of themselves and their families. It is a coldhearted and utterly unnecessary action on the part of an administration that long ago proved it doesn’t care about ordinary Americans. The decision was covered by most news organizations last week. Perhaps not with the frequency and urgency it warranted, but there was broad coverage by the likes of the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS. Notice anyone missing?

The conspicuous absence of Fox News in this list should not surprise anybody. The Justice Department, under direction of the White House, has just taken a position that could seriously damage the electoral prospects of dozens of Republican candidates. The provision protecting for preexisting conditions may be the most popular part of ObamaCare. So Fox News appears to have made a deliberate decision to bury the story. And that possibility became more plausible on Monday when Fox’s chief media correspondent addressed the matter in a web-only video. Howard Kurtz, host of Fox News MediaBuzz, acknowledged both the significance of the issue and the limited coverage (video below):

“It was the most important issue in American politics for years. I’m talking here about ObamaCare. You’ll recall that the House Republicans – what – repealed ObamaCare about a thousand times while President Obama was still in office.” […]

“Now the Trump administration seems determined to strangle the law. And this news, it was covered and there’s been some newspaper stories but very little on television. The administration is now going to court – or getting involved in a court suit in which it says it will no longer defend really the pillar of ObamaCare which is no ban on preexisting conditions. This is pretty stunning news because if there’s one thing that almost everybody likes about the law – and lots of things that people did not like about the law – but it was the idea that if you were sick, you had a condition, you had a heart problem, you had cancer, whatever it was, insurance companies could not turn you down or charge you four times as much as any other people who got insurance.”

There’s just one glaring problem with this video. It never aired on Fox News. Kurtz spent four minutes decrying the sparse treatment this issue received on TV, but he said nothing about it on his own hour long media-focused program on Sunday. In this video he says that the “relatively little television coverage” the matter got was “striking” to him. But if he thought it was that important, then why didn’t he bring it up it on his show? And why didn’t he note that every other national television news network did multiple segments on it, but not Fox News? He is as guilty as his colleagues of ignoring this story, and maybe more hypocritical.

However, Kurtz is right about this issue needing more attention from the media. And it will likely get that attention as the November election gets closer and Democrats make an issue of it. Kurtz even pointed out that a recent poll showed that seventy-five percent of Democrats, and sixty-three percent of Republicans, approve of the law protecting people with preexisting conditions. He even noted that Trump had supported it during the 2016 election. But the only coverage you’ll see of this on Fox News will be in the service of Republicans as they attack proponents of healthcare during their upcoming campaigns. Or maybe in web-only videos that most people will never see.

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

Trump DID Collude With Russia – Says Former Fox News Chief Campaign Correspondent

Posted by on June 5, 2018 at 12:25 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s a day that ends with the letter “Y” so obviously Donald Trump is posting on Twitter about how the special counsel’s investigation of him is just a “Russian Witch Hunt Hoax” designed to frame him for crimes that he is totally allowed to pardon himself for (except that he isn’t).

Donald Trump Vladimir Putin

In today’s tweet Trump takes aim at his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions (again). Trump believes Sessions should have told him about his intention to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. Never mind that that would have required Sessions to know the future because there was no investigation at the time. Nor did Sessions have any idea that he would need to recuse himself, because that didn’t become necessary until after he testified at his confirmation hearing about meetings with Russians (which he falsely denied).

Now a new book is providing additional evidence that Trump and his campaign did collude with Russia. What’s makes this book significant is that it contains new revelations by “Campaign Carl” Cameron, formerly of Fox News. Cameron was interviewed by ThinkProgress and elaborated on some the things that are outlined in detail in this book: How To Go Viral and Reach Millions.

Cameron’s account included Trump’s connections to various Russian operatives, Wikileaks, and the corrupt data enterprise, Cambridge Analytica. However, much of the story involves Trump’s close association with the notorious dirty trickster, Roger Stone. According to ThinkProgress:

“‘Trump confidant Roger Stone’s success was having the connections and creating the opportunities for [Russian intelligence officer] Guccifer2.0 and other Russian groups to really start taking advantage of social media and pounding these negative memes that Hillary’s a crook, et cetera,’ Cameron explained to ThinkProgress’ Joe Romm”

It has been well documented that Stone was working with Julian Assange and Wikileaks to disseminate anti-Clinton propaganda and stolen emails. His relationship with the hacker Guccifer only exacerbated his complicity when it became known that Guccifer was a working for the Kremlin. Cameron further revealed that:

“The president, Roger Stone, and other campaign officials have put a lot of effort into lying about their meetings and contact with Russians linked directly to the Kremlin and its cyber attack on the United States. But they put even more effort into coordinating their message with the Russians. It will be up to Mueller to determine just how extensive that coordination was.

“As Cameron explained to ThinkProgress, a key goal of this coordination was to create opportunities for Russian intelligence and Russian trolls. The point was to viralize the anti-Clinton memes and narratives to suppress the vote for her.”

Despite the mantra from right-wing media (especially Fox News) that there hasn’t been any evidence to tie Trump to collusion, the truth is that the evidence is abundant and more than incriminating enough to sink Trump and his whole crime family. And this new contribution from someone who had a place of prominence in the Fox propaganda machine only makes what is already known even more damning and perilous for Trump.

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

Trump Zings AG Sessions with Quote by GOP Chairman that Ignores His Debunking of ‘Spygate’

Posted by on May 30, 2018 at 9:53 am. NO Comments :

Republican House Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy attended a classified Department of Justice briefing last week with the congressional “Gang of Eight” (top members of both parties). The meeting was arranged by Donald Trump to improperly disclose information about an informant used by the FBI during its investigation of suspicious contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. This is the core of the controversy that Trump has been railing against for months as he tries to discredit the FBI and the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump refers to it as a hoax and calls it the “Collusion Witch Hunt.” Never mind that there have already been dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. That’s a lot of witches, and it’s a long way from being over.

Donald Trump Jeff Sessions

Shortly after the meeting Democrat Adam Schiff told the press that there was nothing in the presentation that confirmed Trump’s wild accusations that the FBI planted a “spy” in his campaign. But Republicans said nothing at all, fueling speculation that what Schiff said was accurate. Now Gowdy has come forward and corroborated Schiff’s account. He said that:

“I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”

So Gowdy disagrees completely with Trump’s baseless “spygate” malarkey. However, on Tuesday evening Trump held a rally in Nashville where he brought up the matter and stated as a fact that the FBI had infiltrated his campaign. He offered no further proof of the allegation, but he got the response he expected from the glassy-eyed disciples in his audience. Which is what he was going for on Wednesday morning when he tweeted some remarks from Gowdy that left out entirely the sharp rebuking above. Trump focused on whether or not he should have selected Jeff Sessions to be his Attorney General:

The problem with that version of events is that Sessions could not have known at the time of his appointment that he would have to recuse himself. For one thing, there was no “most important case” in progress at the time of Sessions’ appointment. For another, the reason for the recusal included Sessions’ testimony at his confirmation hearings where he denied having any contact with Russians. That was false. Consequently, he made himself a potential witness in the investigation which required his recusal. So Trump is criticizing Sessions for not having “shared these reasons for recusal before he took the job,” which would have been impossible without being able to see into the future.

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

All of this points to additional evidence of Trump’s guilt and subsequent efforts to obstruct justice. Add to this the new report that Trump tried to get Sessions to reverse his recusal, which would have been a clear violation of legal ethics. Not that ethics ever had anything to do with what Trump does or says. But that attempt has now become another plank in Mueller’s probe.

GOP Dimwits Want 2nd Special Counsel to Probe the Dept of Justice – Why Dems Should Go Along

Posted by on May 22, 2018 at 8:03 pm. 2 Comments :

For months Donald Trump has been attacking special counsel Robert Mueller as hopelessly biased and bent on driving him from the White House. Never mind that he is a life-long Republican who was appointed by the Republican Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein. And both them work closely with Trump’s Republican Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and his Republican FBI Director, Chris Wray.

Donald Trump GOP

Despite that one-sided, right-wing assembly of the top law enforcement officials in the country, Trump continues to whine that he’s a victim of some clandestine, Democratic cabal that’s aligned against him. Clearly he is suffering from a severe case of paranoia, and the deep-seated fear that his criminality will be exposed. That has led to his frantic tweets accusing the FBI of spying on him (they weren’t) and demanding that the Department of Justice investigate:

That “demand” is typical of Trump’s disregard for the independence of the justice system and his compulsion to abuse the power of his office. Not surprisingly, his comrades in the Republican Party are all too willing to go along with this un-American assault on the institutions that protect our nation’s laws. A collection of wingnut GOP’ers have banded together to insist that the Department of Justice appoint a second special counsel. This would be be tasked with investigating the investigators currently investigating the President.

Among those making this demand are Freedom Caucus members of the House, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan who adamantly declare that “The DOJ cannot investigate itself.” So these GOP truthseekers, who have long opposed the very concept of special counsels, are now calling for one of their own. And they should get one.

Think about what they are proposing. They want someone to probe the inquiries regarding Russian collusion with Donald Trump. Therefore, AG Sessions, who recused himself due to his involvement with the Trump campaign, would have to recuse himself from this matter as well. So Deputy AG Rosenstein would be the person to appoint the new special counsel. But these congressional Republicans are already convinced that Rosenstein is part of the “Deep State” conspiracy against Trump.

What’s more, since Rosentstein chose, Mueller, a staunch Republican, to lead the Russia probe, he might be compelled to choose a Democrat for the new counsel post probing Mueller and the FBI. How do you suppose the Freedom Caucus would react to that? Too bad. It’s not their job. Of course the party affiliation of the new counsel wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) guarantee any particular outcome. However, the new counsel would have the authority to probe all matters that involve, or stem from, the operations of the Mueller probe.

The thing that the Republicans demanding a new special counsel are not anticipating, is the possibility that such an investigation would produce even more evidence of wrongdoing by Trump, his family, and his associates. All of that would fall within the scope of the new counsel’s authority. And even if there weren’t new legal pitfalls for Trump, the likelihood that they would find any misconduct on the part of Mueller’s team is minuscule. Which means the new counsel would probably end up validating Mueller’s conclusions.

Of course, any result that proved to be detrimental to Trump would be immediately dismissed by the GOP and attacked for being biased. Even though the whole project was the result of the GOP’s whining in the first place. They could hardly complain that the investigation that they demanded should then be set aside and forgotten. But, of course, they would do just that. So it might be fun to let them have their way with the request and see what a new counsel would turn up. It couldn’t be any more ridiculous than everything that’s happened since Trump announced his candidacy.

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

Fox News Fingers ‘The Single Most Dangerous Person to the Agenda of President Trump’

Posted by on May 20, 2018 at 3:48 pm. 2 Comments :

You can count on Fox News to be on top of any threats to the supremacy of Donald Trump and his totalitarian regime. Since Fox News is the designated media arm of the Trump White House and the President’s most passionate protector, they would naturally be the most ardent champion of Trump’s interests.

Jeanine Pirro Fox News

Consequently, one of Trump’s favorite Fox mouthpieces, “Judge” Jeanine Pirro, went on one of her spittle-inflected rants in defense of the Cheeto Jesus she worships. Her Saturday night massacre was jam-packed with unfounded allegations against Trump foes like James Comey, Hillary Clinton, and the FBI, among others. She bristled at this being “the one year anniversary of the Mueller investigation staffed with the singularly most biased attorneys in American history.” Never mind that special counsel Robert Mueller is a life-long Republican, as is Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General who appointed him.

Pirro’s tantrum then veered off into tales that Democrats “chuckled” when Trump claimed he had been wiretapped. She insists now that the claim was true. But it was widely proven to be just another of his delusional outbursts with no basis in reality. She continued with allegations of a “shadow government” and “deep state” clinging to control, despite the fact that Trump and his appointees have been in power for more than a year. She invented fictional accounts of FBI agents conspiring to interfere with a presidential election and overthrow the President. And ignoring the dozens of indictments along with five guilty pleas by close Trump associates, she swore that he hasn’t been “touched” by any of the ongoing probes. Really? Most legal observers would say that he’s had a full body massage (with no happy ending).

But perhaps the most darkly entertaining portion of this wild-eyed segment was Pirro’s assault on one of Trump’s first and most loyal advocates. Former Senator Jeff Sessions was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump. He faithfully followed the candidate around the country like a devoted puppy. And for his devotion he was given his own Justice Department to play with. However, Pirro sees in him something different and far more ominous:

“What, ladies and gentlemen, is unmistakable in all of this, is that the single most dangerous person to the agenda of President Trump, the Republican party and ultimately to all Americans, is the Attorney General of the Untied States himself, Jeff Sessions.”

The danger that Sessions represents to America is something we can all agree on. But perhaps for different reasons. From Pirro’s perspective he “has done nothing to make anyone responsible for the blatant corruption” she asserts has plagued the FBI. She complains that he has “fought the release of telling documents” that in her cartoon brain would somehow exonerate the President or incriminate his enemies. And by failing to purify Trump’s aura and condemn his foes to purgatory, Sessions, she says, “has done nothing to create confidence that wrongdoers will be accountable.” Of course, her definition of accountability is the incarceration of all Democrats and the observance of the divinity of Trump. She closes with this hallelujah moment:

“With all the power and might of the Department of Justice behind him, he continues to do nothing. He refuses to take them out in cuffs. The most powerful prosecutor in the world, the man who holds the scales of justice in his hands, hides behind the coattails of a Rod Rosenstein – a man we’ve never even heard of – who is in fact behind all of Jeff Sessions decisions, who is in fact running our Department of Justice.”

There really isn’t anything more that could be added to that drooling screed. It proves once again that Fox News is deeply embedded in the inner regions of Trump’s rectal cavity. This assault on Sessions could not have been broadcast without the knowledge and permission of the White House. It signals some tough sledding ahead for Sessions. Which could be dangerous for Trump because Sessions knows where all of the bodies are buried. And if he feels like he’s been rolled over by a convoy of buses, he could easily become the next flipper on Mueller’s plate.

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