Marjory Stoneman Douglas

President Pathological: Donald Trump Dominates PolitiFact’s 2018 Lie of the Year Readers’ Poll

Posted by on December 11, 2018 at 11:18 am. 1 Comments :

If there is one thing that thrills Donald Trump more than anything else, it’s being “Number One” at whatever he is being judged for. So he will undoubtedly be writhing in ecstasy when he hears that the readers of PolitiFact have, once again, singled him out for tribute as America’s most unconstrained liar, even if he isn’t really very good at it.

Donald Trump

PolitiFact’s editors’ choice for Lie of the Year was the “Online Smear Machine” that viciously maligned the Parkland students who survived the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. The story of the conspiracy theorists who invented horrific tales of “crisis actors” was surely worthy of being featured as the year’s worst lie. PolitiFact noted that:

“The students and the country were about to learn a hard lesson about participating in democracy in 2018. That you don’t have to be a politician to be on the receiving end of the internet’s worst hoaxes. That the lies don’t vanish after being debunked. That the same hoaxes will spread again after the next attack.”

However, the site’s readers had a somewhat different take. They clearly saw Trump as the undisputed fountain of untruths that he is now world renowned for. And this isn’t the first time Trump has been “honored” in this manner. He previously won the 2017 Lie of the Year award for repeatedly calling Russia’s election interference a “hoax.” He got an honorable mention of sorts in 2016’s Lie of the Year, “Fake News,” because he was such a frequent contributor to the fakery. And in 2015 Trump won his first Lie of the Year award for “The campaign misstatements of Donald Trump.” They were so numerous the fact-checkers couldn’t settle on a single lie.

However, in PolitiFact’s 2018 Readers Poll, Trump’s lies dominated the contest by taking five of the top ten spots. Here are those five flagrant and deliberate lies that Trump is even now continuing to disseminate:

  • “The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan of illegal aliens into our country. And they want to sign them up for free health care, free welfare, free education, and for the right to vote.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 26, 2018, at a rally – False
  • A “horrible law” requires that children be separated from their parents “once they cross the Border into the U.S.” – Donald Trump on May 28, 2018, in a tweet – False
  • Saudi Arabia has ordered $450 billion, “$110 billion of which is a military order,” producing “over a million jobs.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 20, 2018, to reporters – Pants on Fire
  • “Democrats let him (cop killer Luis Bracamontes) into our country,” and “Democrats let him stay.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 31, 2018, in a tweet – Pants on Fire
  • “U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills.” – Donald Trump on July 31, 2018, at a rally – False

Plus, two others on the list are closely related to Trump and express views that he also holds:

  • “The Russian state has never interfered … into internal American affairs including election process.” – Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018, in a press conference – Pants on Fire
  • “The deficit … is coming down, and it’s coming down rapidly.” – Larry Kudlow on June 29, 2018. in an interview – Pants on Fire

In addition to those, PolitiFact also posted Trump’s Top Ten Falsehoods of 2018. They included some of those chosen in the Readers’ Poll above, plus these flaming whoppers:

  • Says 3,000 people “did not die” in two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico.
  • People “went out in their boats to watch” Hurricane Harvey.
  • “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”
  • “In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say ‘oh that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.”
  • “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records, so okay, they’re at a record level.”
  • “U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills.”
  • Saudi Arabia has ordered $450 billion from the United States, “$110 billion of which is a military order,” producing “over a million jobs.”

The volume and frequency of Trump’s dishonest blathering is not exactly breaking news. The Washington Post has documented more 6,400 instances of his lying since his inauguration in January 2017. But it’s useful to have this compendium of his compulsive aversion to the truth for history’s sake. Plus, it gives him something to brag about since he’s to addle-brained to realize that this isn’t complimentary recognition. It won’t be long before he tweets “Take that Fake News. I’m #1 on PolitiFact.”

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

March Maddow-ness: MSNBC Dominates Fox News in the March Ratings Championship Game

Posted by on March 31, 2018 at 3:14 pm. 4 Comments :

Two years ago, Fox News was the unchallenged king of the cable news networks with ratings that sometimes exceeded the combined total of CNN and MSNBC. Last year, Rachel Maddow showed surprising strength against her competition, Sean Hannity. But now it is becoming a regular occurrence that MSNBC beats Fox News over significant parts of the daily schedule.

Rachel Maddow

MSNBC’s ratings success is driven by Maddow’s continued surge. She is no longer a quirky thorn in Fox’s side. She regularly wins her time period in the coveted advertising demographic of 18-34 year olds. In March she beat Hannity every single day of the month except for one. Her average audience for the month was 651,000. That compares to Hannity’s average of 568,000. But even more impressive is that Maddow also bested Hannity in total viewers fourteen out of the twenty-one weekdays in the month. Her average for total viewers was 2.99 million vs. Hannity’s 2.87 million.

MSNBC should also be proud of having better audience numbers in the demo than Fox News for most of the evening hours including primetime. Their average from 4:00pm to midnight was 458,400 vs. Fox’s 455,800. The Last Word with Lawerence O’Donnell won its time period thirteen of the twenty-one weekdays in March. And The 11th Hour with Brian Williams came out on top on nineteen days. Both of those programs scored higher than their competition (Laura Ingraham and Shannon Bream respectively) for the full month. And although Fox News generally did better during most of the daytime time periods, Deadline with Nicolle Wallace managed to beat Fox’s Neil Cavuto on eight days.

A weak point in MSNBC’s schedule is All In with Chris Hayes. Which is too bad because it’s an excellent show that has been recognized with multiple Emmys. However, it needs some juice if it’s going to be a decent leadin for Maddow and the rest of their primetime. They should think about pairing Hayes with Joy Reid as a co-host. Reid’s weekend program has been showing strength and is popular among MSNBC’s core audience. And it wouldn’t hurt to consider swapping Nicolle Wallace into Chris Matthew’s Hardball slot. Wallace has demonstrated her ability to pull in viewers, and Matthews may play better in the earlier, newsier part of the day.

The bottom line is that Fox News can no longer consider itself the number one network for cable news. It has been declining with each new reporting period. In January Fox News dropped fourteen percent in primetime. And February topped that with an additional fifteen percent decline. Meanwhile, MSNBC gained significantly in both of those months. February’s percentage gains were over twenty percent. Even worse for Fox News was their actual earnings performance. Their revenue rose less than either of their competitors – a measly seventeen percent. CNN’s rise doubled that to thirty-two percent. And MSNBC rocketed up sixty-two percent.

We can expect Fox’s earnings to fall even more in April with the advertiser exodus they are experiencing due to Laura Ingraham’s reprehensible attack on David Hogg, one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. So far there are at least eighteen major advertisers who have pulled their business from her show. And in the midst of that she just announced that she will be on “vacation” all of next week. For the record, that’s the same thing Bill O’Reilly did after his advertisers bailed en masse and just before he was canned by Fox.

UPDATE: Forbes affirms the above ratings analysis.

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

Release the Hounds: Fox News Inadvertently Solves Gun Control and School Security

Posted by on February 25, 2018 at 11:12 am. 2 Comments :

In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, there has been a decidedly lopsided national debate about gun control and the security of America’s schools. Most of the nation overwhelming supports common sense measures like universal background checks and banning assault weapons. Even a hard-bitten military analyst on Fox News described putting AR-15s in the hands of civilians as “absolute madness.”

Rex, the Hero Dog

Nevertheless, Donald Trump and his sycophants in Congress and the media continue to serve as whores to the gun lobbyists at the National Rifle Association (NRA). They ignore the pleas of the student survivors and families of victims from Parkland to Newtown to Sutherland Springs and way too many more massacres. Even worse, they lie about their motives and tell them to shut up.

For his part, Trump has completely avoided the subject of restricting unfettered access to weapons of war. He fervently advocates putting even more guns on school campuses, a thoroughly boneheaded idea. And while doing so he shamelessly denies that he ever said any such thing. It’s a circus of hypocrisy and dishonesty that has become emblematic of the Trump era.

The Republican Party has fully embraced the inadequate proposals from the White House that mainly address the fringes of the issue. They talk disingenuously about banning bump stocks, raising age requirements, and reforming mental health care. But they offer nothing in the way of concrete legislation to accomplish even those minor components of a comprehensive solution. The one constant that is present in nearly every incident of mass murder is the assault weapon chosen by the murderers.

Surprisingly, Fox News covered a story this weekend that could provide a new direction for solving these problems. During a burglary in Des Moines, Washington, a German Shepherd leaped to the defense of the teenager who was home at the time. According to the report:

“A German Shepard is being hailed as a ‘four-legged angel’ after reportedly getting hit by three bullets while protecting his owner during a home invasion attempt this week in Washington.

“Javier Mercado, 16, said the dog, named Rex, came to his rescue after burglars broke into his home Wednesday afternoon in Des Moines.”

“‘I started hearing barking, a lot of barking, and then one of the guys screamed, ‘Get the dog! The dog bit me, the dog bit me!’ Mercado told Q13 Fox.”

Rex was shot three times, but still managed to scare off the intruders. He did what dogs are instinctively inclined to do: protect those they care for and who care for them. Which raises the notion of a far better way to protect schoolchildren than trying to turn schools into prisons and teachers into guards. Just get a few dogs to live on the school grounds and train them to recognize aggressors. The kids could get to know them and treat them as pets. But anyone who presented a threat would be met with a fearless and devoted defender.

Sure, there would be some details to work out with regard to preventing unintended injuries, but probably no more so than would occur with humans. This just seems like a more loving and humanitarian approach and should at least be included in the discussion. But those factors will likely rule that out for Trump and and his band of hateful, inhumane miscreants.

After treatment and surgery, Rex is expected to fully recover. The family has a posting for donations to cover veterinary bills on GoFundMe.

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

LOL: Fox News Host Thinks Students Should Shut Up, Gets (Fact) Checked By Student

Posted by on February 23, 2018 at 12:07 pm. 2 Comments :

There is no one on Fox News who is more devoted to censorship and averse to free speech than primetime host Laura Ingraham. She wrote a book titled “Shut Up and Sing,” an extended diatribe on denying the First Amendment to talented Americans who were smart enough to become successful and popular.

Fox News Laura Ingraham

Ingraham recently expanded on that theme to deliver an overtly racist tantrum aimed at NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Annoyed that they had the audacity to criticize Dear Leader Donald Trump, Ingraham literally told them to “shut up and dribble.” It was just the next step in her crusade to silence anyone with whom she disagreed. Particularly if those dissenters were dark-skinned celebrities. You will never hear her attack crackpots like Ted Nugent or Scott Baio in the same way.

On Friday morning Ingraham lashed again. This time her vitriol was aimed at Sarah Chadwick, a survivor of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And it was typical of her censorial tendencies as she tried to shame Chadwick for speaking out. Ingraham tweeted this:

Seriously? Ingraham is outraged that a young adult with her own opinions would challenge an almighty member of the United States Senate. [Here is Chadwick’s tweet] Not to mention a young adult who just went through a nightmare and lost close friends and classmates. If anyone has the right to express her thoughts about assault weapons and the failure of the political class it’s Chadwick. And she took the opportunity to do so in a delightfully snarky response to Ingraham:

Just brilliant. Chadwick demonstrated that she has far more dignity than Ingraham by not emulating the Fox Host’s crass smear tactics. It was a succinct reply that conveyed the message that Ingraham’s ignorance isn’t really worth wasting time on. And at the same time she trumped the professional “journalist” by correcting her poor reporting.

This conniption fit by the allegedly “mature” Fox News shill adds to the pile of insults and slanders that Fox and other right-wing media hacks have been shoveling. There have been ludicrous accusations that the students were paid actors or professional protesters. They have been criticized for being insolent punks who were raised badly. And worst of all, raving conservatives have insisted that they should be disregarded because they are too emotional or too young to have valid opinions.

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

That’s the perspective of old fogies who wallow in their ageist supremacy and spend their days pulling out what’s left of their hair. There is no one more suitable to comment on the state of our society than those who are about to inherit it – complete with the flaws built in by their predecessors. This is their world. Adults who think that they are leaving it to their children have it backwards. They are just the caretakers for the future owners. And with heirs like Chadwick and her colleagues at Stoneman Douglas, the future has never looked brighter.

Who Was Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Why Would Donald Trump Have Hated Her?

Posted by on February 19, 2018 at 11:05 am. 5 Comments :

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Parkland, Florida school, where fourteen kids and three adults were murdered by a maniac with an AR-15 assault weapon, has become a flash point in the debate for gun safety. That debate has been driven mainly by the student survivors themselves. Their passionate and articulate commitment to finally making change happen is one of the few signs of hope in the aftermath of yet another massacre.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

However, little has been reported about the namesake of the school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas. As it turns out, she was an inspiring woman who was a fierce advocate for speaking out on matters of importance. During a life of activism and personal sacrifice she was quoted as saying “You have to stand up for some things in this world.” She lived those words throughout her life and inspired others to do the same. In 1993 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton. And while in the White House that day she was invited to witness the signing of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill).

But that isn’t the only eerie coincidence about Douglas and the specific focus of her activism. According to a biography on the National Park Service website:

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, born April 7, 1890 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, graduated from Wellesley with straight A’s with the elected honor of “Class Orator.” That title proved to be prophetic.

In 1915, following a brief and calamitous marriage, she arrived in Miami, working for her father at the Miami Herald. She worked first as a society reporter, then as an editorial page columnist, and later established herself as a writer of note. Here she took on the fight for feminism, racial justice, and conservation long before these causes became popular.

So Douglas began her professional career as a journalist. Or as Donald Trump would say “an enemy of the American people.” She went on to champion women’s rights, something Trump has ridiculed and whose personal history of sexual harassment and assault demonstrates extreme disrespect and misogyny. Douglas was also a proponent of civil rights and racial justice. That contrasts with Trump’s overt bigotry and that of his base, which includes KKK and Nazi leaders and organizations. And finally, Douglas was best known for her environmental activism and her work to conserve the Florida Everglades. She wrote a landmark book on the subject titled, The Everglades: River of Grass.

Trump surely doesn’t know anything about Douglas or her lifelong dedication to service and social change. But if he did he would certainly despise her and attack her with a flurry of furious and derogatory tweets. He would insult her and make up stupid nicknames. And he would express his opposition to everything she stood for. All of this adds a rather somber poignancy to the tragedy in Parkland. But it may explain the stirring and righteous reaction from the students who probably do know Douglas and her work. They are likely inspired by quotes like this one: “I believe that life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary.”” And it may explain the heartrending intensity of their oratory as exemplified in this speech by student Emma Gonzalez:

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