Megyn Kelly

Fox News Admits That The Media Is Rooting For Donald Trump

Posted by on March 2, 2016 at 7:30 pm. 2 Comments :

Yesterday News Corpse published an article on The Trump Effect that laid out how the media has a profit motive to keep Donald Trump in the race. The article included a quote from the CEO of CBS who confessed that, with regard to Trump, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” In other words, their lust for profit has a higher priority than their love of country.

Donald Trump News

So what happened on Fox News last night could not have happened at better time. On the Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly did a segment with the Fox News media correspondent and host of Fox’s MediaBuzz, Howard Kurtz. The discussion began with Kelly asserting that “a lot of the media, they love Trump.” That’s an understatement, particularly after exploring the Trump Effect and the profound financial incentive the media has to extend his place in the limelight. They are doing everything they can to keep his face in front of voters and maintain his electoral viability. Which led to this revealing exchange:

Kurtz: Now Cruz has made this argument in recent days, and Marco Rubio as well, that the media has focused so much attention on Donald Trump. They love Donald Trump. They’re rooting for Donald Trump. At least until the fall.
Kelly: But they do. If you look at the numbers even on the nightly newscast — the time they devoted just in the past night — last night to Donald Trump vs the other two, it was six minutes Trump, I think seven seconds, Rubio. I mean, the disparity was remarkable.
Kurtz: There’s a clear imbalance. And we’ve all had banners awaiting Trump news conference, which shows how he can hijack the news cycle. But a lot of that attention has been negative.

Kelly had finally admitted something that has been true for more than half a year – that the coverage of Trump by the media has been wildly out of proportion to the rest of the candidates of both parties. While Kurtz only mentioned that Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had complained about this, last December Bernie Sanders told Chris Cuomo of CNN about a study that showed that Trump received 81 minutes of airtime on ABC News in 2015 while Bernie Sanders got 20 seconds.

The response by Kurtz to Kelly’s revelation, however, was painfully oblivious to reality. First of all, he tried to blame Trump for the imbalance by accusing him of “hijacking the news cycle.” Which makes you wonder if Kurtz knows the definition of “hijack.” Trump did not storm the studio and force the news producers at gunpoint to put him on the air. They did that all of their own accord. It was more of a gift from the press than a hijacking by Trump. If the media didn’t want to put him on then he wouldn’t be on, and there would be nothing he could do about it. Just ask Bernie Sanders.

Following that absurd portrayal of events, Kurtz then attempted to conflate two completely different issues. By veering off to say that “a lot of that attention has been negative,” he was changing the subject from the free airtime that Trump got to the amount of time spent discussing him. But that isn’t the problem that was raised by observing how much time Trump got every time he gave a stump speech. The cable news networks seem to cut to him live whenever he holds a rally. And, of course, they don’t do that for anyone else. That’s the problem, and Kurtz appeared not to want to acknowledge it.

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

The most striking part of this whole segment, though, was how both Kelly and Kurtz spoke about the media as if it were a detached entity that had nothing to do with them. However, the truth is that Fox New is the network that is most responsible for the coverage imbalance that they both concede exists. No network gives Trump more airtime than Fox News. And on Fox, no candidate receives as much airtime as Trump. So it was a bit disorienting to hear these two pretend that the Trump Effect was just some vague theory that was floating around and impacted all of the media equally. They may have come closer to representing reality by admitting that the media roots for Trump, but they continue to lie about their decidedly prominent role in the cheering section.

Really? Fox News Thinks Rachel Maddow Is Too Biased To Moderate A Debate

Posted by on February 5, 2016 at 10:27 pm. 10 Comments :

Howard Kurtz, host of MediaBuzz on Fox News, wrote a column today that might have consumed the world’s supply of chutzpah. In the column Kurtz took MSNBC to task for having the audacity to let their biggest star, Rachel Maddow, co-moderate a Democratic debate. Of course, that’s something that Fox has done itself with their hot property, Megyn Kelly, but never mind that. Kurtz is very upset.

Megyn Kelly

The headline of the article asked this pressing question: “Why did MSNBC put Rachel Maddow on the debate stage?” The question was apparently so easy to answer that Kurtz managed to handle it all by himself.

Kurtz: Rachel Maddow did a pretty good job in questioning Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at MSNBC’s Democratic debate last night. (…) She is smart and passionate, a Rhodes scholar with a deep knowledge of the issues. She did not roll over for Clinton during a recent interview on her prime-time show.

Well, with a track record like that she should never be allowed anywhere near a candidate debate. The last thing Fox would want is a smart, knowledgeable, fair person to facilitate a political discussion. That certainly isn’t the way they do it. Fox has taken great pains to make sure that all of their presenters are cut from the same moldy conservative cloth. And yet, Kurtz can still pose this scenario as if it weren’t utterly oblivious to reality:

“Imagine the reaction on the left if the Fox News moderators at a debate were Bret Baier and Sean Hannity, an unabashed conservative. The criticism of Fox for fielding such a team would have been intense.”

Of course, the truth is that Fox’s moderators are unabashed conservatives, which I’ll get to in a moment. But first it is important to note that Kurtz couldn’t simply praise for Maddow without qualifying it by insisting that, despite her evident skills “she shouldn’t have been on that stage as a moderator,” and that “she should not have been put in that position,” because “she is an unabashedly liberal commentator who rips the Republicans every night on her program.”

If that is their criteria for choosing debate moderators then Fox has some explaining to do. Their own debate moderators have included relentless liberal bashers like Megyn Kelly, one of the most stridently partisan purveyors of propaganda on the Republican PR channel (aka Fox News). She spreads more lies about Benghazi than any of her Fox colleagues (and that’s saying something). She was caught leading a discussion that was based on a series of “Fox Facts” that were cribbed directly from a Republican National Committee press release. She made a point of informing her viewers that it was a fact that both Jesus and Santa Claus were white.

Media Matters did a survey a couple of years back that showed that Kelly “has hosted conservatives (56%) significantly more often than progressives (18%) and has surpassed even Fox’s Hannity in its divide between guests on the left and right.” That’s the same Hannity that Kurtz used in his imaginary scenario about unabashed conservatives. And in March she will host her third debate on Fox News.

Also moderating for Fox was Neil Cavuto, the Glenn Beck of business news. His first question in the debate he moderated asked the candidates which of their economic plans God would endorse. He has made it his mission to castigate low-income Americans as sponges and leeches who are actually living the good life at the expense of the one-percent. He is a committed climate-change denier. And he frequently has segments about alleged government waste that usually turns out to be completely bogus (like this on about the famous shrimp on a treadmill).

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

With blatantly biased moderators like this on Fox, Kurtz has the gall to complain about Maddow, even as he admits that she has all the qualifications for a moderator and that she acquitted herself well. What more does he want? His complaint obviously doesn’t have anything to do with Maddow’s ability to perform with proficiency and fairness, so the only thing left to explain why he would devote a column to this whining is his own bias and partisanship. Or perhaps he was ordered to do it by his boss, Roger Ailes, as a slap at Megyn Kelly’s time period competition. Expect to see more of this Maddow bashing on his Sunday morning program.

The Twitter Feed Of Donald Trump Reeks Of Racism And Misogyny

Posted by on January 28, 2016 at 8:11 pm. 3 Comments :

Tonight Donald Trump is holding a cynical counter-event to the Fox News Republican primary debate where he is insulting America’s veterans by using them as political props. He even admitted that he doesn’t really care about veterans when he walked out onto the stage and the first thing he said was “I didn’t want to be here.” Gee, thanks, Donnie. [And for the record, of the alleged six million dollars raised, four million came from one million dollar donations from four of Trump’s wealthy pals. That’s two-thirds of the total that Trump raised with four phone calls that he could have made at any time, but never bothered. So he didn’t need to stage this phony event at all]

That’s typical of his ego-soaked personality that is only concerned with what advances his interests. And it is expressed frequently in his Twitter feed. Just today there were a couple of tweets that deserve some special recognition due to their grotesque nature. These tweets are emblematic of Trump’s racism and misogyny. And they both attack Fox’s Megyn Kelly, proving that his claim that she had nothing to do with why he skipped the debate was an outright lie.

First there was this tweet that shows Megyn Kelly with Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. It’s purpose is to create a negative association between Kelly and Fox News with Arab royalty, and a Muslim, as if that by itself were some mortal sin. Alwaleed is minority shareholder of 21st Century Fox, the parent corporation of Fox News.


Donald Trump Tweet

There are, however, a couple of problems with that tweet. First of all, it is a fake. Kelly was photoshopped, badly, into the picture. Another problem with it is that @BradCross4, who originally posted the picture, is a raging and unabashed racist whose twitter account is full of repulsive bigotry. Apparently that didn’t bother Trump as he retweeted it. That is something he does frequently. He recently retweeted another racist meme that made ludicrous assertions about African-American crime statistics. Then there was his retweet of an image by someone called @WhiteGenocideTM. It’s hard to pretend he didn’t know what that was about.

Finally, Trump’s complaint about Fox News having a business relationship with Alwaleed is hypocritical in the extreme. Trump has many such relationships with Muslims, which he often brags about. As one example Trump, bought the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan in 1988. After suffering serious financial difficulties he was forced to sell it just seven years later at a loss of nearly 40% to – yep – Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. So in addition to being a huuuge hypocrite, this also reveals another example of his poor business skills.

[Update: Alwaleed replied to Trump’s tweet with one of his own saying “Trump:You base your statements on photoshopped pics?I bailed you out twice;a 3rd time,maybe?” Alwaleed noted the Plaza Hotel deal where he paid off Trump’s debt. He also revealed that he bought Trump’s yacht after it had been turned over to creditors]

The other tweet that Trump promoted today was this one that featured Megyn Kelly from an article in GQ. News Corpse reported on these photos at the time and how inappropriate they were for someone purporting to be a news professional. It not only diminished her as a journalist, but it demonstrated how Fox exploits the women they put on air as sexual objects.

Donald Trump Tweet

The problem with Trump weighing in on this is that it is blatantly hypocritical. The tweet refers to Kelly as a “bimbo” and, therefore, unfit to moderate a debate. However, Trump doesn’t seem to have the same opinion of his wife and daughter, whom he says are both businesswomen deserving of respect. Even though they both have their own photo spreads.

Donald Trump Wife Daughter

These tweets are just further evidence that Donald Trump is a boorish, hypocritical, bigoted cretin whose wealth has never enabled him buy an ounce of integrity or class. The fact that there are people who seriously regard this neanderthal as presidential material is a sad commentary on that small and repugnant sector of America. And don’t forget, Donald Trump wants to bang his daughter, as the video below makes clear.

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

Donald Trump Proves He’s Lying About The Fox News Debate Boycott

Posted by on January 27, 2016 at 4:15 pm. 2 Comments :

Ever since Donald Trump announced that he was too scared of Megyn Kelly to participate in the Fox News debate, he has been attempting to tweak his story to make himself look less like a weasel. That effort has been a hysterical series of blatant lies and distortions. In the process he provided the best evidence that the image he is trying to present is utterly false.

Donald Trump Megyn Kelly

The basis for this feud lies entirely on Trump’s whining about having been asked a question by Kelly about his past derogatory remarks about women. It’s a question that would have come up in the campaign at some point whether by Kelly or a Democratic opponent later on. So Kelly actually gave Trump an opportunity to respond in a friendly environment. However, his gargantuan ego prevented him from seeing the reality of the situation and he has been lashing out at Kelly, with varying levels of profanity, ever since. This culminated with his demand that Fox remove her as a moderator of the upcoming debate.

Fox had no intention of sidelining their anchor and that led Trump, who isn’t accustomed to being told “no,” to throw his hissy fit and bow out of the debate. Today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Trump‘s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was asked to be specific about why Megyn Kelly “rattles Donald Trump’s cage unlike anybody else?” He said that…

“This has nothing to do with Megyn Kelly. What this is about is Fox News, which is making tens of millions of dollars off the debate. It’s Roger Ailes, it’s Fox News, they think they can mess with Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump doesn’t play games.”

Then Trump himself said the same thing in a tweet:

“It was the childishly written & taunting PR statement by Fox that made me not do the debate, more so than lightweight reporter, @megynkelly.”

Nothing to do with Megyn Kelly? That’s a stretch for most people, but Trump is a world-class liar. Trump’s camp is attempting to shift this from the original source of the dispute to a broader field of enemies in order to keep from looking like a big weenie who is afraid to answer questions from a mere woman. It’s going to be difficult for him to escape the truth considering how well documented the record is.

It’s also going to be difficult when he is contradicting himself within a few hours of his claim that it’s Fox, not Kelly, that he is boycotting. That contradiction came today with the notice that he will be a guest on Bill O’Reilly’s program tonight. If his problem is with Fox News, then why he is gracing the O’Reilly Factor, Fox’s top-rated program, with his presence, but he’s still skipping the debate? If he’s upset with the network, shouldn’t he stay off of it? Obviously his anger is not directed at Roger Ailes or the network, it’s directed squarely at Megyn Kelly, the debate moderator.

What’s more, the reason for his original outrage was Kelly’s question that called on him to answer for his fits of misogyny. Well today he added to that record by calling Kelly a “bimbo,” albeit in a classically passive-aggressive manner. Trump tweeted…

“I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”

Of course, in that comment he is indirectly calling Kelly a “bimbo” as well as undoing his carefully crafted image as an opponent of political correctness. Notice that he is not refusing to use the term because it’s wrong, but only because it would not be politically correct. So he obviously believes that shes a bimbo, but is too wimpy to say so. Will his followers stand for that? [Note: His followers will stand for anything, including seeing him commit murder. That’s how stupid he thinks they are, and they even stand for that]

Another example of hypocrisy occurred when Trump said that you can’t mess with him, that he doesn’t play games, and that Fox’s PR statement was “childish” and “taunting.” Then he posts his own childish and taunting tweet in a response to Ted Cruz’s offer to debate one-on-one. Trump said “Ted Cruz wants to debate me again. Can we do it in Canada?” That’s so mature.

So where will Trump be during the debate? He is saying that he might hold a fundraiser for veterans at the same time. As much as some veterans are in need of assistance, it is just disgusting that Trump would use that as a political retaliation. If he sincerely cared about the welfare of veterans why didn’t he schedule a fundraiser last week or last month or at any other time unrelated to this dispute with Fox? Why doesn’t he give some of his billions to them without making it part of his tantrum? The vets should be insulted that he is using them as political props.

Trump is also whining about how the ratings for the debate will suffer without him. That’s probably true, but it demonstrates that all he is interested in is the commercial viability of the event. He doesn’t care about the democratic process, the free press, or accountability to voters. It’s all about money and ego to Trump.

And then there’s this: Trump was interviewed by Megyn Kelly about a debate that he was trying (and failed) to put together with Newsmax in 2011. At that time he could not have been more effusively complimentary to Kelly.

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

Here’s Your Chance To Vote Donald Trump Off Of The Fox News Debate [UPDATE: He’s Out]

Posted by on January 26, 2016 at 3:06 pm. 4 Comments :

[UPDATE: Trump and his campaign are now saying that he will definitely skip the debate. Of course, that may change, but for now he is out. Further updates included below]

ORIGINAL POST: Donald Trump has been been whining about Thursday’s GOP debate on Fox News because he’s afraid to face Megyn Kelly. For the past couple of days he has been hinting that he might boycott the debate unless Kelly is dropped. And today on Twitter he is asking people to vote on whether or not he should show up. This is where you come in.


Fox News Donald Trump

Well now Trump and his campaign are saying that he is definitely out and that it is not negotiable. Assuming that he sticks to this (which is not a particularly solid assumption) Fox News will probably suffer a dip in the ratings for the program. However, they will also have a better chance to produce a more substantive, informative debate (although not much more).

Upon hearing this news Ted Cruz also chided Trump for being afraid of Kelly. Then he challenged Trump to a one-on-one debate with different mocerators. He suggested Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and/or Glenn Beck. Now that would be a real hoot.

There’s just one little problem. The RNC has stated that the candidates may not participate in any debates other than those that they have sanctioned. The consequences if they do include being prohibited from any other sanctioned debate. So we’ll see where that goes.

The Back Story: Recently Trump tweeted this about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly: “Based on @MegynKelly’s conflict of interest and bias she should not be allowed to be a moderator of the next debate.” He seems not to know what a conflict of interest is, but as for bias, he is simply referring to his objection to an entirely appropriate question she asked him in the first GOP debate. She asked him to explain his many derogatory references to women. He dodged the question and complained about political correctness, and after the debate he accused Kelly having been hormonal. That led to a prolonged series of attacks on her.

Trump is saying he might hold his own televised townhall to compete with the debate. Fox is, so far, refusing to capitulate saying “Sooner or later Donald Trump even if he’s president, is going to have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick the journalists. We’re very surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly.” Fox deserves credit for standing firm, and it’s pretty cagey of them to accuse Trump of cowardice. Fox is also responding to Trump’s Twitter poll with this:

“We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

Trump’s response to this:

“I didn’t like the fact that they sent out press releases toying, talking about Putin, and playing games. I don’t know what games Roger Ailes is playing, but what’s wrong over there. Something’s wrong. But when they sent out that press release, … I said, ‘Who are these people playing games?’”

Really? Donald Trump, who has been the biggest clown in the GOP’s circus suddenly doesn’t like playing games? This just keeps getting funnier and funnier. The falling out between Trump and Fox News can only be positive. Let’s hope they keep this feud going.

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

ANOTHER UPDATE: Trump is saying that he might hold a fundraiser for veterans during the debate. As much as some veterans are in need of assistance, it is just disgusting that Trump would use that as a political retaliation. If he sincerely cared about the welfare of veterans why didn’t he schedule a fundraiser last week or last month or at any other time unrelated to this dispute with Fox? Why doesn’t he give some of his billions to them without making it part of his tantrum?

Trump is also whining about how the ratings for the debate will decline without him. That’s probably true, but it demonstrates that all he is interested in is the commercial viability of the event. He doesn’t care about the democratic process or accountability to voters. It’s all about money and ego to Trump.

And then there’s this: Trump was interviewed by Megyn Kelly about a debate that he was trying (and failed) to put together with Newsmax in 2011.

Legal Jiu-Jitsu: Grand Jury Probing Planned Parenthood Indicts Video Hucksters Instead

Posted by on January 26, 2016 at 1:15 pm. 2 Comments :

The Texas legal system delivered a sort of poetic justice yesterday when a grand jury handed down an indictment of David Daleiden, the founder of the anti-choice Center for Medical Progress (CMP), and his associate Sandra Merritt. The charges included “tampering with a governmental record” and “illegally offer[ing] to purchase human organs.” At the same time the grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing.

Fox News

What’s surprising about this is that the grand jury was impaneled by a Republican District Attorney, who was appointed by a Republican governor, with the express purpose of going after Planned Parenthood for offences that were alleged in the deceptively edited CMP videos. From the very beginning Planned Parenthood and independent media demonstrated that the videos were flagrantly fraudulent in their depiction of the women’s health organization. And the members of the grand jury obviously agreed.

Since this news broke, conservative media has reacted with indignant fury declaring that justice was subverted by some undisclosed evil force. Never mind that the anti-choice activists were the ones who pushed for the probe and got everything they asked for in terms of its implementation. Now they are complaining that the charges against CMP are “a political hit job.” Those are exactly the words of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and their resident legal spinner Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Kelly: Now Judge, what does this mean?
Napolitano: This means that a political prosecutor has injected herself in a very serious issue about whether or not Planned Parenthood was profiting from the abortion of babies by selling body parts. […]
Kelly: So does this sound like a political hit job? Or what is this?
Napolitano: Absolutely. This is a political hit job.

They would actually be right if they were talking about why the grand jury was impaneled in the first place. But they have no rational argument for that accusation about the conclusion. It was their case, with their people, but unfortunately for them, the facts weren’t on their side.

What’s more, every federal, congressional, and state investigation into this matter has cleared Planned Parenthood. That includes many agencies in conservative states with Republican governors. Media Matters has been tracking these legal outcomes from the following authorities (so far): U.S. Dept. Of Health And Human Services, Massachusetts Attorney General, Indiana Department of Health, South Dakota Attorney General, Georgia Department of Public Health, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, Missouri Attorney General, Washington State Attorney General, and Kansas State Board of Healing Arts.

The spectacle of having a Republican generated grand jury return indictments against the parties who sought the investigation isn’t really that surprising considering the sordid history of these particular scoundrels. CMP cut their pseudo-journalistic teeth with the notoriously dishonest video hack, James O’Keefe. The legal misadventures of O’Keefe include his having been arrested and convicted for nefarious activities in the office of a U.S. senator. He was also forced to pay a $100,000 judgement to an ACORN employee that he defamed. When a right-wing group tried to get Texas to investigate allegations of voter registration fraud the prosecutors examined O’Keefe’s video “evidence” and concluded that it “was little more than a canard and political disinformation.”

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

This is the predictable result of biased activists masquerading as reporters in order to produce the propaganda necessary to advance their dishonest agenda. They have no respect for journalism or ethical reporting. They are tightly focused on defaming their targets to achieve their purely political goals. And now it is clear that they are so determined to push their campaign of lies that they will violate the law to do so. Fortunately, at least this time, they got caught and are going to suffer the consequences.

The Republican Party Is SCARED WITLESS Of The Donald Trump-enstein They Created

Posted by on January 23, 2016 at 5:46 pm. 3 Comments :

From the earliest planning stages of the 2016 Republican primary, the party has demonstrated a foreboding fear of the public finding out anything useful about their candidates. To the contrary, they are more worried that what voters might learn will only make them nauseous. So the party honchos severely shortened the debate schedule and limited media access to friendly venues, particularly Fox News which was given more of the debates (five in all) than any other network. Additionally, the other networks were required by the Republican National Committee to include conservative co-sponsors and moderators, a requirement to which Fox was not held. This is the unmistakable behavior of a party that’s afraid of American voters.

Donald Trump GOP

Over the course of the campaign the RNC has repeatedly made decisions that affirm their state of fear. RNC chairman Reince Priebus admitted that the party was set on transforming what is supposed to be an open dialog that provides voters with an informative look at the candidates, into a PR vehicle that functions more like propaganda. If Republicans want a fully scripted television farce, they should be forced to buy the time like any other telemarketer. But Priebus was focused on producing GOP infomercials saying that…

“The thing that is ridiculous is allowing moderators, who are not serving the best interests of the candidate and the party, to actually be the people to be deposing our people. And I think that’s totally wrong.”

In his view the debates were there to serve the interests of the party, not the voters. Any attempt to draw out anything substantive from the candidates was frowned upon. That’s why after a contentious debate hosted by CNBC, the RNC revoked the only remaining debate scheduled for NBC. The party was punishing the network for doing its job.

This week National Review published a special issue entitled “Against Trump” that contained a series of short essays making the conservative case for ditching Donald Trump. The issue featured your favorite wingnut authors who were generally opposed to Trump’s lack of conservative credentials, principles, or any platform details. The issue opened saying that…

“Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”

It’s somewhat disarming (and a little heartwarming) to see a right-wing publication describe their party’s front-runner as a strong-man akin to Stalin or Mussolini. But coming from a source with diverse conservative voices like Glenn Beck, Bill Krystal, Erick Erickseon, and John Podhoretz, didn’t stop the RNC from striking back and “disinviting” the magazine from co-sponsoring an upcoming debate with CNN. Since when does a party committee get to decide for a news organization who they partner with? This is an unprecedented intrusion into the jurisdiction of journalism, and CNN is just as complicit for capitulating. It makes you wonder if the RNC is also dictating who the moderators are and what the questions will be.

While the RNC was quick to dump the National Review, their inherent prejudice was illustrated by exempting their friends at Fox News from any retaliation. After all, four of the National Review essays came from Fox News regulars Katie Pavlich, Cal Thomas, Dana Loesch, and Brent Bozell. So if you speak out against Trump you can say goodbye to any debate participation – unless you’re Fox News.

The media is shamefully abdicating their role in these debates while the RNC is bending over backwards to placate one candidate to the detriment of all the others. National Review was jettisoned solely because of the perceived slight of Donald Trump. Trump was also a prominent objector to NBC hosting a debate. He was also the reason that the New Hampshire Union Leader was removed as a co-host for an ABC debate. Perhaps the RNC should change their name to the Trump National Committee. Or maybe the Republican National Wusses.

But that wasn’t the end of it. A few weeks ago Trump tried to get the RNC to cancel a GOP primary debate on Univision, which was a bold move considering that Univision was never scheduled to host one. Trump had already banned all Univision employees from his golf resorts, an optically disturbing action that prohibited minorities from his country clubs. What’s more, Trump has also threatened that if Telemundo was involved with a debate he would walk. It remains to be seen if he will follow through on that threat since Telemundo is currently listed as a co-host for CNN’s debate. If Trump succeeds in getting Telemundo axed there will be no GOP debates at all that included any minority news organization.

Most recently Trump tweeted this about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly: “Based on @MegynKelly’s conflict of interest and bias she should not be allowed to be a moderator of the next debate.” He seems not to know what a conflict of interest is, but as for bias, he is simply referring to his objection to an entirely appropriate question she asked him in the first GOP debate. She asked him to explain his many derogatory references to women. He dodged the question and complained about political correctness, and after the debate he accused Kelly of having been hormonal. That led to a prolonged series of attacks on her. If Kelly worked for some other network it would probably have already been removed as a debate host. However, as established above, Fox News will not likely suffer any consequences.

[Update: Trump is hinting that he might boycott the upcoming GOP debate on Fox News unless they drop Kelly as a moderator. He’s saying he might hold his own televised townhall to compete with it. Fox is, so far, refusing to capitulate saying “Sooner or later Donald Trump even if he’s president, is going to have to learn that he doesn’t get to pick the journalists. We’re very surprised he’s willing to show that much fear about being questioned by Megyn Kelly.” Fox deserves credit for standing firm, and it’s pretty cagey of them to accuse Trump of cowardice, but don’t bet on Trump sitting this out. However, the RNC, which demanded the exclusion of the Union Leader in New Hampshire, has said they are keeping out of this dispute because – well, it’s Fox News]

What this tells us is that Reince Priebus is the weakest Republican Party chairman in decades. He is letting Trump dictate the terms of the campaign. And the other candidates are keeping their mouths shut. They are all too afraid to demand that their primary be conducted with neutrality and integrity. It is a pathetic display of cowardice by a party so feeble it’s at risk of blowing away. And the thought of facing aggressive questions, even from other conservatives, makes them scurry into the crevices in the floorboards like cockroaches surprised by the light.

Good luck to them when they eventually face actual opponents in the general election. They will be utterly unprepared for battle having sheltered themselves in a cocoon of limp rhetoric that all stems from the same cultish mindset. That may be sufficient to draw support from Republican dimwits who thrive in those pools of ignorance, but it is a recipe for crushing defeat when the broader electorate votes in November.

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

Serial Adulterer Donald Trump Threatens To Attack Hillary Clinton’s Family Values

Posted by on December 26, 2015 at 12:32 pm. 1 Comments :

Last week Donald Trump’s mouth erupted in yet another outburst of hate and misogyny. While attempting to disparage Hillary Clinton for losing to President Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, Trump said that “she got schlonged.” He was immediately, and deservedly, repudiated by decent people from all points on the political spectrum.

Donald Trump

However, consistent with his tendency to burrow in deeper after making an ass of himself, Trump refused to concede that his language was sexist or vulgar. He insisted that the word simply meant “beaten badly,” a definition that exists nowhere in reality. This is a favorite tactic of his. A few weeks ago he insulted Carly Fiorina by pointing at her on TV and saying “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?” He responded to the criticism that resulted with the desperate and dishonest explanation that he was talking about her “persona.” Yeah, right.

Trump just likes to redefine words after they get him into trouble. And he doesn’t even do it very well, because everyone knows he’s lying. Since this most recent vulgarity Trump has defended his use of the word by saying that it is “often used” in politics. And he helpfully provided an example from an NPR reporter over thirty years ago. He must also have his own definition of the word “often.”

There is also the matter of Trump’s hypocrisy. In September, following a GOP debate, National Review editor and Fox News contributor Rich Lowry said that Carly Fiorina had schlonged Trump in the debate (actually he said that Fiorina “cut his balls off,” but the message is the same). This shocked Trump’s tender sensitivities and he demanded an apology and called for Lowry to be taken off the air and fined by the FCC. That’s just more evidence that he can dish it out, but crybaby Trump simply can’t take it.

For her part, Clinton gave a composed but forthright response to Trump’s offensive remarks, including his surprise and disgust that she, like all other humans, occasionally visits the restroom. She said that…

“I really deplore the tone of his campaign, the inflammatory rhetoric that he is using to divide people, and his going after groups of people with hateful, incendiary rhetoric. Nothing really surprises me anymore. I don’t know that he has any boundaries at all. His bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign. And he has to keep sort of upping the stakes and going even further.”

Not wanting to be “vagina’ed,” Trump shot back at Clinton in a couple of threatening tweets. The first warned her to “Be careful Hillary as you play the war on women or women being degraded card.” The second similarly snarled “Hillary, when you complain about ‘a penchant for sexism,’ who are you referring to. I have great respect for women. BE CAREFUL!”

Or what? Trump’s threat, as affirmed later by his campaign spokesperson, was aimed at Clinton’s relationship with her husband, Bill. Apparently Trump thinks that by recalling the infidelities of the former President, it will reflect badly on her. However, there are a few problems with that strategy. First, the public doesn’t blame Hillary for the transgressions of her husband and raising the issue is more likely to inspire sympathy than wrath. Secondly, the Clintons managed to restore and maintain their marriage during one of the most difficult periods that any marriage could suffer. That ought to be regarded as a real demonstration of family values and respect for the commitments of matrimony.

Finally, if it’s a war on family values that Trump is itching for, he may be leaving his rear flank exposed (sorry for that inadvertent visual). After all, Trump is a serial adulterer. He is on his third marriage and the public record of his cheating ways is well documented. Here is a man who has broken two marriage vows (so far) while flaunting his flings in the faces of his then-wives. Hillary Clinton, of course, has done none of that.

Trump is demonstrating that he has no friggin’ idea what constitutes women’s issues. He is reducing it to the bad behavior of an individual. However, it must be noted that Bill Clinton supports a woman’s right to choose, equal pay, prohibiting discrimination based on gender, support for victims of abuse, and family leave and child care. Those are actual women’s issues, not some guy being a horndog, and Donald Trump opposes them all – and is also a horndog.

Trump’s values are written as he goes along to allow him whatever perverted privileges he desires. And despite his recent and transparently phony piety, he holds nothing sacred. When asked directly if he had ever asked God for forgiveness, he said “Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if you’re not making mistakes?” [See The Immaculate Birther]

It’s that sort of pathological narcissism that produces Trump’s raging hate-speech. He has already viciously demeaned Latinos, African-American, Muslims, veterans, and the disabled. And through it all his blatant misogyny has never been far from the surface. As Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly noted, Trump has called women “fat pigs,” “slobs,” and “disgusting animals.” For that Kelly herself became the victim of Trump’s tweets, attacking her personally, professionally, and even calling her a “bimbo.”

In closing, if Trump really thinks that he can threaten Clinton on the basis of family values, he better be ready to respond to the numerous accounts of his carnal lust for his own daughter, Ivanka. This grotesque revelation, that he has made repeatedly and publicly, should put to rest the question of which candidate is more respectful of women and morality. So bring it on Donny. But don’t be surprised to keep seeing this video from the Daily Show popping up:

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

ANNOUNCING: The Trump News Channel (Formerly Known As Fox News)

Posted by on December 23, 2015 at 3:03 pm. 6 Comments :

As News Corpse has been reporting for the past seven months, the media has been saturated with Donald Trump in his quest to be crowned King of America. It is a disgraceful display of journalistic malpractice that has provided a racist, neo-fascist demagogue (he doesn’t deny it) an unprecedented platform to compete for residency in what he and his followers wish was a truly “White” House. But as bad as the collective press has been, Fox News is far and away the worst of the lot.

Donald Trump News

Media Matters has been doing monthly analyses of the time distribution on Fox News for the Republican candidates. Every month has produced the same results with Trump far outpacing the rest of the field. At times Trump’s airtime on the network has exceeded ten of his rivals combined. And now, looking at the year-end summation from May to December, the dominance of Trump on Fox News is both astonishing and nauseating. Media Matters notes that…

“Trump’s 22 hours and 46 minutes of airtime was more than twice as much as any other candidate during the period studied. Trump racked up more airtime on the network than Sen. Ted Cruz, former Gov. Jeb Bush, and Sen. Marco Rubio combined.”

Calculating the frequency of Trump’s Fox News appearances reveals that he was on the network for an average of 11.5 minutes every other day for more than seven months. That comes to about 19.5% of the total time given to all sixteen of the GOP candidates. And note that this only represents the amount of time that Trump appeared on Fox. There was much more time spent talking about him, promoting him, and defending him, when he himself was not on the air.

Breaking it down by some of the top Fox programs is equally unfair and imbalanced. Of the amount of time devoted to candidates on Bill O’Reilly’s show, Trump received 37%. Likewise, he received 32% of the total candidate time on Sean Hannity’s show, 30% on Fox & Friends, and 22% on Greta Van Sustern’s show. The only other Fox primetime program is The Kelly File, where Trump appeared only 2% of the time due to his ongoing feud with Megyn Kelly. Is it any wonder that Trump is leading the Republican primary polls? How would the standings be different if Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio had received the amount of airtime that Fox gave to Trump?

Nevertheless, Trump relentlessly bitches about the allegedly unfair treatment he gets from Fox News. What more could he possibly want? And yet, despite the vastly preferential attention he gets, he is never satisfied. In September Trump declared that he had “decided that I won’t be doing any more Fox shows for the foreseeable future.” That was accompanied by retweets of his followers advocating a boycott of Fox. Like most of what Trump says, that obviously wasn’t true.

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

And it’s still going on. In a tweet today Trump whined that “@FoxNews treats me so badly.” That utterly delusional whimpering is typical of Crybaby Trump. I’m sure his opponents would love to be treated so badly. If Trump is so offended by Fox’s treatment of him, why doesn’t he just decline to appear on the network like he threatened to a couple of months ago? Well, because he knows that he’s lying and is feeding off of the constant attention he gets from Fox. Perhaps a better question is why does Fox continue to give Trump so much more attention when all he does is whine about it and insult their anchors and pundits? Certainly the ratings, and corresponding revenue, could have something to do with it. But no reputable news organization would subvert democracy so conspicuously for profit. And that’s the advantage that Fox News has: They don’t have to pretend that they’re reputable.

IT’S OFFICIAL! Donald Trump Has Lost His Freakin’ Mind – Says Fox News Is Not Fair To Him

Posted by on December 15, 2015 at 1:40 pm. 2 Comments :

This morning there is new evidence that Republican front-runner Donald Trump has lost all connection to reality. Of course, that’s not to say that Trump’s mental state was ever particularly stable. But he is now demonstrating with even more certainty that he’s sinking into an abyss of madness that is as deep as the Mariana Trench

Fox News Donald Trump

First of all, Trump is reigniting his on-again, off-again feud with Fox News. Previously he has complained about the network’s coverage of him, even though Fox has been his biggest booster and a provider of tens of millions of dollars in free advertising and promotion. Media Matters has compiled data that shows that Trump has dominated Fox’s airtime despite the feuding. Nevertheless, he has bitterly maligned many of their top presenters, executives and even owners. At the height of the Trump-Fox wars Trump declared that he would no longer appear on the network and advocated a viewer boycott. Fox News, in a display of wholly unethical journalism, capitulated to Trump (what promises were made?) and they continued their shaky relationship. That is, until today.

Upset that Megyn Kelly’s script miscalculated his lead in a new poll from Monmouth University, Trump went haywire on Twitter saying that she’s “overrated,” “dopey,” and that she “lies.” His rant went on to encompass the whole network which he slammed as “not fair.” Well, they’re not balanced either but, so far as Trump is concerned, that’s been to his advantage. Also, it’s kinda cute that in his attack on Kelly and her colleagues over a typo, Trump’s tweet contained its own typo misaddressing the Twitter handle for “deadpan” George Will. Georgina Williams probably never got so much attention.

What’s more, Trump’s focus on the poll from Monmouth has problems of its own. When the outlier poll came out Monday showing Trump far ahead of his rivals, he wrote a special note of thanks saying…

“I wanted to be the first to share the latest national poll results from the highly respected Monmouth University.”

However, just three days earlier, a different poll from Monmouth showing Trump behind in Iowa produced this response:

“There was one poll — Monmouth? I’ve never heard of Monmouth. What the hell is Monmouth? Explain it. I don’t like Monmouth.”

In three days Trump went from never having heard of Monmouth to hailing it as highly respected. This, from the man with (according to him) “the world’s best memory.” Trump has also described himself as the smartest, handsomest, most militaristic, least racist, and best circus clown (OK, I made up that last one, but it’s the most accurate). Now we can also add to his list of self-said superlatives that he is the healthiest candidate for president EVER! That’s according to his personal physician who, like his patient, has the unique ability to engage in communications through his prodigious ass.

It will interesting to see if Fox News has any response to Trump’s latest broadside. Will they pull back on the non-stop coverage? Will Fox & Friends continue to take his regular phone-in interviews? Will Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch still act as if they are his bitches? If the past is any indication, Fox will continue to bend over and take it in order to keep cashing in on the ratings bonanza – journalism and democracy be damned.

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

Tonight there will be another Republican primary debate, offering America another chance to observe a field of candidates who will compete to see who is the most biased against Muslims, Latinos, and African Americans; the most anxious to wage perpetual war with other people’s children; the most insensitive to the poor; the most oblivious to the dangers of Climate Change; the most averse to the equal rights of women and gays; and the most likely to side with corporations to wreck the economy and corrupt democracy. It should be a barrel of laughs.

And just for fun, here is the most accurate representation of Donald Trump I’ve yet to see: