New York Times

Morning Psycho? Trump’s Latest Twitter Rampage Reveals Just How Scared He is of Impeachment

Posted by on April 23, 2019 at 1:35 pm. NO Comments :

The signs are becoming more difficult to ignore with each passing day. Donald Trump is losing all control of his mental faculties. This isn’t a new revelation. Those who have been paying close attention to Trump’s deranged behavior, his memory lapses, his reversion to infantilism, and his incoherent tirades, recognized the indicators of psychological infirmity long ago.

Donald Trump

This week Trump has gone farther over the edge than ever before. On Monday he posted a record twenty-four tweets – mostly retweeting Fox News and other sycophantic Trump-fluffers – all with the purpose of exalting himself and salving his fragile ego. And then on Tuesday he unleashed another thirteen tweets (so far) that were even more symptomatic of an unsound mind. The kind of mind that twisted “Morning Joe” Scarborough’s name into “Morning Psycho.” Which, after reading his latest tweetstorm, it’s clear that it applies better to Trump himself.

These tweets also included a swipe at Paul Krugman of the News New York Times for something that Trump never defined. Although he did accuse Krugman of being “obsessed with hatred” just a before saying he was “stupid.” Then he wondered if the Times would apologize to him again, which is weird because they have never apologized to him before. This is a fantasy he’s engaged in several times in the past.

Trump also tweeted his plans to hold a rally rather than attend the annual charity event for the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). He’s skipping this event for the third time due to his abject fear of jokes about him. And then there was this:

So Trump thinks that the Republican agenda is “working” when more than half the country is going insane? That’s a standard that proves that he truly hates this country and most of the people in it. And it’s not the first time he’s said so, either. He also pined for the “old days” when he says president’s were “immune from criticism.” Yeah, right. But then those presidents didn’t conspire with Russia, use the presidency to enrich themselves, lie over 9,000 times, malign others with infantile insults, and attack the free press. Then he whined about Twitter discriminating against him by deleting his followers (who were mainly Russian bots). And naturally, he threw in some promos for State TV (aka Fox News).

The question is: What might be responsible for this eruption of inanity? It has all occurred less than a week after the release of the redacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller. Despite the redactions, there was a surprising amount of evidence of Trump violating the law and obstructing justice. The proof that this evidence exists is in Trump’s own response to the report. At first he insisted that it “totally exonerated” him. But ever since he has lambasted it as a “hoax” perpetrated by “Angry Democrats.” Clearly he is disturbed by the report and feels a need to discredit it. That isn’t something an innocent person does to a document he believes vindicates him.

Trump is also facing new threats arising from congressional oversight. His former White House counsel, Don McGahn, is being subpoenaed to testify. His taxes and other financial records are also being subpoenaed from his banks and accountants. Trump has been frantically trying to keep all of this hidden for years. But those efforts appear to have been exhausted.

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

Now Trump is in a panic because he knows the awful truth about him is about to become public. And the fear that is oozing out of every pore of his thin-skin is manifesting on his Twitter feed. Twitter is his nanny and he’s clinging to it for dear life as he tries to console himself, distract the nation, purge the demons that are feasting on his dread of facing reality, He thinks that these outbursts will calm the anxiety that, by all appearances, is eating him alive. But in all likelihood it will just get even more intense, until he is utterly consumed by it. And that’s actually the best case scenario.

Wannabe Dictator Donald Trump Lusts for the Jobs – and Blood – of American Journalists

Posted by on February 20, 2019 at 12:08 pm. 2 Comments :

It’s been going on for more than two years now. Donald Trump repeatedly refers to the media in Stalinist terms as the “enemy of the people.” He knows when he does this that he is putting people’s lives at risk. He simply doesn’t care. Because his objective is to utterly demolish the credibility of the free press so that people won’t believe their accurate reports of his criminal activities.

Donald Trump Tyrant Dictator

The consequences of Trump’s smears have already been seen in attacks on the staff of the Capital Gazette in Maryland. It’s been seen in the mail bombs sent to multiple people in the media. The press reporting at Trump events are subject to physical assaults. And still Trump persists in inflaming these hostilities with reckless and ignorant messages to his Deplorables:

These Twitter outbursts are typically devoid of any substance. Trump has never proved a single one of his allegations of “fake news.” He just lashes out mindlessly, as if he were having a psychotic reaction to an overdose of PCP. But these mental spasms are not just fear-triggered hate mongering. They are dangerous signals to his deranged base of cult worshiping crackpots. And they are almost certain to incite more violence. That’s a concern that the publisher of the New York Times expressed in his response to these Trump tweets:

“In demonizing the free press as the enemy, simply for performing its role of asking difficult questions and bringing uncomfortable information to light, President Trump is retreating from a distinctly American principle. […] As I have repeatedly told President Trump face to face, there are mounting signs that this incendiary rhetoric is encouraging threats and violence against journalists at home and abroad.”

In addition to Trump’s bloodlust, he is also revealing a noxious yearning for thousands of Americans in the media to lose their jobs. His undisguised pleasure at the notion that all news enterprises will “go BUST” is typical of his disregard for the American people and their families. It is unprecedented for a president to take a position advocating for the loss of thousands of American jobs. But that is precisely the position Trump is taking.

Even worse, Trump’s desire to see thousands of people become unemployed would simultaneously deprive the entire country of any sources of news. At least sources that are credible and independent. We would be left with only the state sanctioned media (i.e. Fox News) that Trump would exempt from his tyrannical suppression the press. This should trouble every citizen.

The lengths that Trump goes to to harm the media spreads throughout Trump World. It is vicious and hateful and exacerbates division. Which is exactly what Trump intends. And you end up with the sort of nauseating discourse exhibited in the grotesque video clip below from the ultra-rightist TruNews. This would be all that’s left if Trump got his way.

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

Clarence Thomas Opinion Would Muzzle the Press for Donald (the Media is the Enemy of the People) Trump

Posted by on February 19, 2019 at 3:34 pm. 2 Comments :

There is much that Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Clarence have in common. For instance, their starkly conservative principles (although Thomas actually believes them, while Trump holds them as long as it’s convenient to do so). And they are also notorious abusers of women who have managed to escape the consequences of their repulsive behavior.

Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump

And now Thomas has written a new opinion that will surely please Trump. In a case involving another sexual predator, Bill Cosby, Thomas called for a total rewrite of a fifty year old precedent that shielded journalists from hostile lawsuits that would impose on their First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. The case is known as “New York Times v. Sullivan,” and it prohibited the recovery of damages for defamation unless it could be shown that the alleged offense was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” As reported by ThinkProgress:

“Truth traditionally was not a defense to libel prosecutions,” the justice writes. “The crime was intended to punish provocations to a breach of the peace, not the falsity of the statement.” Thus, a journalist (or anyone else with a platform, for that matter) could face criminal prosecutions even if their reporting is 100 percent accurate.

Imagine that. A reporter could be held criminally liable for publishing a true story if the truth caused the subject harm. This is something that Trump would absolutely love. He is fond of slandering the media as “fake News” whenever they write accurate stories about what he actually does and says. If the law were rewritten in the manner that Thomas advocates, Trump could then sue the media enterprise that published it.

Trump has literally called for such a change in the law. At his cult rallies he has insisted that he should be able to sue the media when they publish stories that he regards as negative. And in one of his staged photo-op cabinet meetings, Trump said that:

“We are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts. If somebody says something that is totally false, and knowingly false, that the person that has been abused, defamed, libeled, will have meaningful recourse.

“Our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness. So we’re gonna take a strong look at that. We want fairness. You can’t say things that are false, knowingly false, and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account.”

First of all, the law already provides for recourse if someone is “knowingly” and “falsely” maligned. What Trump wants is to be able to sue anyone who criticizes him, even if the criticism is warranted and documented. Ironically, what Trump is calling for would put him in far more legal jeopardy than the journalists he is hoping to punish for being honest. Most reporters make conscious efforts to get their stories right. But Trump cavalierly lies whenever he gets the urge to attack his perceived foes.

This opinion by Thomas could not be more obedient to the whims of the President if were dictated by him. And for all we know it might have been. Trump’s goal has long been to incite hostility toward the press and to diminish its reputation. That’s how Trump seeks to soften the blow from all the deservedly negative press he generates.

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

He isn’t interested in truth. He’s seeking the sort of tyrannical control of the press that all dictators lust after. It’s precisely the same sort of intimidation that he aimed at Saturday Night Live recently when he called for “retribution” against them for a satirical bit featuring Alec Baldwin. If Trump had his way he would revoke the First Amendment. And if Thomas has his way, it will be a big step toward that nightmarish end.

Donald Trump’s Latest Psycho Tweetstorm: The Best Reason Yet to Invoke the 25th Amendment

Posted by on January 12, 2019 at 11:05 am. 1 Comments :

The rapidly declining mental state of Donald Trump has been the subject of untold numbers of articles and analyses, including by professionals who view the President as a malignant narcissist who is a danger to the nation and the world. But there is no better indicator of the hazards Trump’s psychoses represent than his own frenzied ravings on Twitter.

Donald Trump, Padded Cell

When Trump gets a full head of steam, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the tsunami of lunacy that he unleashes. It’s pointless even to try. Take for example his outburst on Saturday morning. He was triggered by a report in the New York Times (which isn’t failing, it’s enjoying record success) that disclosed the existence of an FBI investigation into whether Trump was/is an asset of the Russian government.

There is abundant evidence to support that contention. Including his open infatuation with Vladimir Putin; his attacks on the media; his maligning of our allies in NATO and the European Union; his opposition to sanctions on Russia; his rejection of American intelligence in favor of information from Putin and the Kremlin; his refusal to accept that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election; his firing of FBI Director James Comey and others; his chumminess with Russian operatives in the White House; his threats aimed at his own cabinet for pursuing legitimate investigations into Russian espionage against the U.S.; and so much more.

However, to hear Trump tell it, it’s all a paranoid conspiracy against the greatest president of all time who who is being attacked for his awesomeness and purity of heart. After reading the article in the Times (or having excerpts read to him), Trump mounted his Twitter machine and disgorged a steady stream of manic gibberish, almost all of which he has previously unfurled in numerous episodes of derangement. But reading it all of a piece is shocking, and not a little frightening. So buckle up:

Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!

…Funny thing about James Comey. Everybody wanted him fired, Republican and Democrat alike. After the rigged & botched Crooked Hillary investigation, where she was interviewed on July 4th Weekend, not recorded or sworn in, and where she said she didn’t know anything (a lie),….

….the FBI was in complete turmoil (see N.Y. Post) because of Comey’s poor leadership and the way he handled the Clinton mess (not to mention his usurpation of powers from the Justice Department). My firing of James Comey was a great day for America. He was a Crooked Cop……

…..who is being totally protected by his best friend, Bob Mueller, & the 13 Angry Democrats – leaking machines who have NO interest in going after the Real Collusion (and much more) by Crooked Hillary Clinton, her Campaign, and the Democratic National Committee. Just Watch!

I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!

Lyin’ James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter S and his lover, agent Lisa Page, & more, all disgraced and/or fired and caught in the act. These are just some of the losers that tried to do a number on your President. Part of the Witch Hunt. Remember the “insurance policy?” This is it!

This sounds more like a mental patient who has been hospitalized after running through the streets naked shouting at random cars and store mannequins, than a president. He is consumed with paranoia and a devout belief in his superiority and goodness. And his perceived enemies are unambiguously evil, omnipresent, and determined to destroy him. That isn’t the profile of a world leader. It’s the diagnosis for a psychopath. And for the sake of the nation – and the planet – Trump needs to be removed from office and placed in a facility where he can either get medial attention, and be punished for his obvious crimes.

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

It’s ‘A Sad Day in America’ Trump Whines, as He Yells at ‘Crazed Lunatics’ in the Media

Posted by on January 7, 2019 at 1:33 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s as predictable as the sun rising over lobbyists at Mar-a-Lago. Whenever Donald Trump’s anxiety swells his otherwise empty cranium, he lashes out at the press with hollow insults and reckless characterizations as “enemies of the people,” a line he stole from Joseph Stalin. And now as the Trump Shutdown enters its sixteenth day, Trump is realizing that he has no leverage over the Democrats in Congress, and the American people oppose his vanity wall and the political stunts he employs to secure funding for it.

Donald Trump

Consequently, in his regularly scheduled morning tweetstorm, Trump focused intensely on the press that he despises so vehemently. It was a particularly harsh assault that was riddled with flagrant falsehoods and figments of his tortured imagination. He began, however, with some good old-fashioned (and undeserved) bragging about himself:

What Trump apparently means by “success” is the fact the government that he hates is shut down and hundreds of thousands of Americans are not working, or they are working and not being paid. It’s a condition that Trump absurdly said he can relate to. Really? Then he veers off to accuse the media of being “crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!” That might be a more convincing criticism if Trump weren’t the most dishonest president in history who has told more than 7,500 lies since his inauguration. But he wasn’t through:

Once again, Trump’s idea of “tremendous success” is a stock market that is down over 3,000 points in the last quarter, and was in the red for the year for the first time in a decade. His administration is crumbling with terminations and defections that have resulted in there being six cabinet members who are serving in an “acting” capacity because he can’t find any credible people who will work for him. He also asserts, without any factual basis, that the press is making up sources and publishing fiction.

But Trump is right that this is “a sad day in America.” In fact, it’s been a sad couple of years. That may change now that Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives and there is some real oversight into Trump’s criminal activities. That, of course, is a big contributor to Trump’s ballooning anxieties. And it’s why he’s escalating attacks like these:

Trump is desperately trying to turn the American people against the free press so that they will dismiss reports of his collusion and conspiracy with Russia, his financial corruption, his unlawful initiatives, his submissive foreign policy, and his obstruction of justice. He’s fighting a losing battle on those grounds as most polls show that majorities of the people trust the media more than they trust Trump.

As if to affirm his own untrustworthiness, Trump posted a couple more tweets that were blatantly deceitful. In one he quoted Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) as seemingly siding with Trump’s contention that he can declare a state of emergency as a means of funding the border wall:

However, Trump left out the second part of Smith’s comment wherein he hammered the President saying:

“…but primarily it’s been done to build facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this case, I think the president would be wide open to a court challenge saying, where is the emergency? You have to establish that in order to do this. Beyond that, this would be a terrible use of Department of Defense dollars.”

In the other tweet, Trump went after the New York Times for correctly reporting that his statements regarding the removal troops from Syria changed drastically in a number of days. Unfortunately for Trump, the record of his original statements is preserved in his own Twitter feed:

Finally (we wish), Trump announced that he will “Address the Nation on the Humanitarian and National Security crisis on our Southern Border,” in a televised speech this Tuesday evening. We can expect this to be a thorough rehashing of the lies he has been telling for weeks in his defense of shutting down the government and begging the American people to pay for what he promised would be paid for by Mexico. And never mind that Trump has since insisted that the wall would pay for itself in a year, and that it would be paid for by the USMCA trade deal (that has not been ratified) So it’s actually being paid for twice, but he’s still asking taxpayers to fork over funds for it.

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

The media, however, should take a strong look at refusing to air this blatant propaganda by Trump. These Reality TV-style affairs are generally devoid of news and infected by Trump’s pathological lying. There is no reason they can’t be monitored and aired later with the fact checking that will surely be necessary. The media is under no obligation to grant scarce airtime to liars so that they can dispense fictional and self-serving distortions of reality.

Stop the Presses: Donald Trump Tells a Flaming Whopper, Takes Journalist ‘Totally Out of Context’

Posted by on January 5, 2019 at 11:27 am. 1 Comments :

As Donald Trump warned us all in an ominous Christmas Eve tweet, “Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change.” The truth of that is abundantly evident in the tweets that Trump continues to post in this new year. His fetish for an idiotic vanity wall, that will do nothing but waste money, took up much of Trump’s Saturday morning. And naturally, his whining was filled with lies, insults, and blame for anyone but himself.

Donald Trump

However, after his regularly scheduled manic tweetstorm, Trump decided to return to an old favorite obsession, lashing out with his Stalin-inspired portrayal of the press as “the enemy of the people.” In this episode, Trump is caught (again) regurgitating what he just saw on Fox News. He tweeted that:

Of course, that is a wholly dishonest characterization of what Abramson said. And we know this because Abramson tells us herself in this Twitter reply. And she elaborated in an interview with the Associated Press, rebuking Fox News (and by extension, Trump) for having taken her “totally out of context:”

“Jill Abramson, the former editor of The New York Times, said Thursday that Fox News took her criticism of the newspaper’s Trump coverage in her upcoming book ‘totally out of context’ for a story that appeared this week.” […]

“She said in an email interview with The Associated Press that the Fox article’s author, ‘Media Buzz’ host Howard Kurtz, had ignored compliments that she had for the Times and The Washington Post.

“‘His article is an attempt to Foxify my book, which is full of praise for The Times and The Washington Post and their coverage of Trump,’ she wrote in the email.”

So Trump’s tweet unsurprisingly misrepresented the truth. Although, he did say that Abramson was “100% correct,” so presumably that includes her praise for the paper and her remarks that “the depth and intensity of its accountability coverage of Trump ‘was masterful.'” Trump failed to mention that in his tweet.

The problem with reporting on this President is that there is so much negative news that simply being honest and accurate can appear to be biased. But it isn’t the fault of journalists that Trump lies every time he opens his mouth, or that his presidency is rife with corruption and criminal malfeasance. And it isn’t the fault of reporters that Trump’s incoherent press avails sound more like the ravings of a street-walking schizophrenic screaming absurdities at bewildered passersby and the occasionally unfortunate pigeon.

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

Covering Donald Trump means reporting when he tells lies that have long ago been debunked. It means holding him accountable for his own contradictions. It means disclosing his attempts to deceive and distract from whatever failure is maddening him at the moment. And it means unflinchingly publishing reports about the crimes that he, his associates, and his family have committed. And if Trump, Fox News, and his Deplorable cult followers think that’s biased, too bad? It’s more important to tell the truth than to pacify the fragile sensitivities of politicians and their patsies.

Fox ‘News’ Fluffs Trump in the ‘Bone Spurs’ Debate with Ultra-Biased Headline and Story

Posted by on December 26, 2018 at 1:01 pm. 3 Comments :

From the earliest days of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions he has transparently tried to exploit the men and women of the military for his electoral advantage. Never mind that his actual actions were disrespectful, and even illegal (his charities withheld promised funds) as he insulted veterans like John McCain, Gold Star families, and the fallen who he refused to pay tribute to. And until today, Trump had never even visited the troops in a war zone, and only conceded to take the trip after being shamed into it for months.

Donald Trump, Saving Cadet Bone Spurs

Trump’s visit to Iraq today was a blatantly self-serving affair that appears to have been done for the sole purpose of producing a propaganda video of him cavorting with real life soldiers. The video was just a montage of Trump smiling and shaking hands set to a soundtrack of the right’s favorite syrupy paean to patriotism, “God Bless the U.S.A.”

But perhaps the most notable hypocrisy of the Trump era has been his own evasion of military service via a series of academic deferrals and a highly suspicious medical exemption for “bone spurs” in his heel that never prevented him from playing baseball or golf. On Wednesday the New York Times published a story that examined the bone spurs controversy. They interviewed the daughters of the doctor who is reported to have given Trump his medical excuse to deploy to Manhattan’s Studio 54 instead of Vietnam. The story said in part that the daughters of the doctor…

“…say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“‘I know it was a favor,’ said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.”

The Times found that Dr. Braunstein rented an office in the Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, which was owned by Trump’s father Fred in the 1960s. The daughter’s claimed that their father received special treatment from the Trumps following his “favor” for young Donald.

So naturally, Fox News rushed in to shield Trump from any of the criticism resulting from the article in the Times. On the Fox News website they published a story with an unfair and unbalanced headline stating that: “New York Times tracks down anti-Trump children of deceased doctor to run uncorroborated Vietnam allegations.”

Wow. That really packs in the pro-Trump bias by the shovel full. First, the story attempts to dismiss what the women said by casting them as anti-Trump, implying they did this to deliberately harm the President. However, they have said nothing about this for decades and only spoke after the Times found them and asked for their account of what happened.

Secondly, the story is not uncorroborated. It originated from an anonymous tip that didn’t include any details or names. The Times then did the legwork to fill in the blanks. So what the daughters told them was, in fact, the corroboration of the original tip.

The Fox News article noted that Trump himself has never provided any details of his alleged infirmity because he said that he didn’t recall them. This from the man who says he has the world’s greatest memory (which he later didn’t remember saying). And Fox wasn’t at all curious as to why there was no evidence that the doctor had ever examined Trump before disqualifying him from military service.

Finally, the Fox News article only solicited two other persons for comments on the story. One was Dan Gainor, of the uber-rightist Media Research Center, who said “I’m surprised the paper didn’t arrange a séance and quiz the late doctor, too.” The other was conservative strategist Chris Barron, whose comment attacked the Times saying that “The New York Times is essentially indistinguishable from a gossip rag you’d find in the super market checkout line.” That’s it. No other quotes were provided from any left of center or neutral sources.

Trump’s recent treatment of Secretary of Defense James Mattis is proof of his disrespect for the military. And an interview he did last month on Fox News (wherein he bashed Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy Seal who helped dispose of both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden) shows that he only supports the military when they bow down to him. But on Fox News Trump is still a hero whose evasion of the draft was a trivial matter that shouldn’t be explored by the real news media. And any attempts to do so will be met with biased retorts that offer zero substance to support their claims, but fit nicely in the Trumpian era theme of fake news.

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

Trump Saying ‘People Would Revolt’ if He is Impeached is Not His Opinion, It’s an Instruction

Posted by on December 12, 2018 at 11:02 am. 4 Comments :

The walls are continuing to close in around Donald Trump. And they aren’t border walls. With the sentencing of his former associates, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, there is more information being released that unambiguously implicates Trump in federal crimes. And, as is his customary practice, the more he feels threatened, the more hysterical he gets. He is transparently consumed by fear and desperation.

Donald Trump Revolt

That response was in effect Tuesday when Trump was interviewed by Reuters. The whole interview was woven with lies and nonsense. But one particular part is worthy of notice. When Trump was questioned about talk that he could be impeached for crimes related to his campaign and and his unsavory connections to Russia, he blew up:

“It’s hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and who’s created the greatest economy in the history of our country. “I’m not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened.”

Let’s set aside – after laughing uncontrollably – the patently untrue assertions that Trump has done nothing wrong, or that he’s responsible for the “greatest economy” in history. What is stunning about his comments is his warning that there would be a revolt if he were held accountable for his criminal activities. In fact, this is less a warning than it is instructions to his cult followers. He expects them to resort to violence on his behalf in the event he is impeached by the representatives of the American people.

There are lots of reasons to consider Trump’s impeachment. He shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to his mistresses in order to keep them quiet before the 2016 election. He failed to disclose those expenditures. He has received millions more from foreign operatives funneling money to him through his hotels and other businesses. He and his closest associates have lied repeatedly about his conspiracy to steal the election with his Russian partners. So impeachment is not much of a stretch for such a flagrant law violator, and a bad one at that.

Even more troubling is the fact that this isn’t the first time Trump has threatened violence directed at his critics. Even during his campaign Trump threatened the outbreak of riots if he was denied the nomination. Almost daily he refers to the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He has accused the press of “creating violence by your questions […] The fake news is creating violence.” He accused Democrats in Congress of treason for not applauding him at the State of the Union address. “Can we call that treason?” he said. “Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.” He suggested that the media also committed treason with its coverage of his summit with Kim Jong Un, saying that “It’s a shame the fake news covers it the way they do. It’s really, it’s almost treasonous, you want to know the truth.” Do you detect a pattern?

If you think that this sort of hostile rhetoric is petty trumpery (“worthless nonsense” according to Merriam-Webster), you might want to refer to the polling that shows that one-third of Trump voters say Democrats who didn’t applaud during the State of the Union were “treasonous.”

And you might also note Trump’s obsession with maligning his critics as anti-American. For instance, there was the time he responded to an op-ed in the New York Times by an anonymous White House staffer who called Trump “amoral,” “unstable,” “erratic,” “ill-informed,” and “reckless.” The author further worried that the President has “a preference for autocrats and dictators.” And that other staffers were “working diligently … from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” In response to that article Trump blasted off four tweets attacking the Times, one of which contained a single word:

And that pretty much sums up the position of this wannabe dictator in the White House. He truly believes that any dissent is tantamount to treason, and the consequences of that is death. That’s the message that Trump is sending out to his glassy-eyed cult disciples. And this latest message raising the prospect of “revolt” is another escalation in his war against America, democracy, and freedom.

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

Crybaby Trump Lashes Out at the Media for Accurately Reporting His Frequent Failures

Posted by on October 10, 2018 at 11:06 am. 2 Comments :

With Hurricane Michael bearing down on the Gulf Coast, Donald Trump managed to find time to tweet about the media that he regards as “the enemy of the people.” He’s been doing that most of the last two years, even after the GOP-controlled Senate rebuked him for his blatantly anti-constitutional blather.

Donald Trump

In his latest Twitter tantrum, Trump characteristically whined about what he thinks is biased treatment by the press. He continues to prove that he is a weakling who can’t take the heat of public service like all the presidents who preceded him. So he lashes out incoherently and clings to sycophantic supporters who oblige him with undeserved flattery. Wednesday morning’s rant was especially deranged:

The Media Research Center is a notoriously biased pack of right-wing shills. What they publish as “studies” wouldn’t stand the scrutiny of credible media analysts. And their results are similar to those of dictatorships where the tyrant in residence always seems to get ninety-plus percent in every election. It’s uncanny how much murderous totalitarians like Trump’s pals Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are loved by the people they oppress.

In Trump’s attack on the press he makes a point of calling out all of the broadcast media offenders: ABC, CBS and ABC. He must really hate ABC because he put them in there twice. And surprisingly, he left out NBC, the network he hates more than all the others. Is his hostility just so intense that he can’t even bring himself to utter their name? And Trump’s complaint about negative stories is completely off base. The press is reporting on him accurately, and it isn’t their fault that almost everything he does is negative.

Trump did manage to include his newspaper nemesis, the New York Times, which is hardly failing. Trump is very upset that the Times didn’t put the Kavanaugh “victory” on the front page Tuesday. First, let’s note that Dr. Ford, and millions of American women, don’t think that Kavanaugh’s presence on the Supreme Court is a victory. But more to the point, Trump is once again demonstrating his ignorance and/or dishonesty. That’s because the Senate confirmation vote occurred on Saturday, and it was on the front page of the Times on Sunday:

It continues to boggle the mind how Trump can keep exhibiting ever lower stages of mental infirmity. The simplest things are screwed up to an astonishing degree. And even when he is apprised of his errors, he persists in repeating them. It’s a symptom of his senile dementia and malignant narcissism. And it’s embarrassing to the nation and the majority of its citizens. But what’s even more troubling is that there is a small core of StormTrumpers who eat this up. They are as delusional as he is and are incapable of being corrected no matter how solid the facts. What’s truly frightening is that Trump will eventually be gone, but they will remain.

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

Tucker Carlson of Fox News Confesses that he ‘Can’t Look in the Mirror Without Self Loathing’?

Posted by on October 2, 2018 at 3:14 pm. 3 Comments :

On Tuesday, the morning crew at Fox News invited their primetime colleague, Tucker Carlson, to visit with the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends for a masters class in mind-numbing hypocrisy. Of course, that’s standard fare on Fox News, but this episode stretched the boundaries of the journalistic quackery that Fox is famous for. And it gave Carlson an opportunity to expound on something other than his white nationalist dogma.

Fox News, Tucker Carlson

The segment that featured Carlson was focused on criticizing the New York Times for a recent report about Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. The story concerned an incident in 1985 when Kavanaugh was involved in a bar fight investigation. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt introduced the segment with a graphic showing the Times’ headline: “Kavanaugh was questioned by police after bar fight in 1985.” So it was a pretty straight forward account of something that no one disputes took place.

Nevertheless, Fox and their friends were aghast that anyone would bring up an incident that occurred when Kavanaugh was only twenty years old. As everyone knows, it’s improper to investigate a public figure’s past unless they are Democrats. In which case, you can go all the way back to their birth certificate. Consequently, Carlson reacted with shock and sarcastically proclaimed that “I wish they’d have told me that. I never would’ve supported him.” He dismissed the article as “stupid and irrelevant” and generally mocked the Times for having published it. But the discourse sunk even lower as this exchange with Steve Doocy demonstrates (video below):

Carlson: This is the problem with so much of our coverage, and so much of the way we think about things. No self awareness at all. […] If you’re writing that story does part of you think “Is this why I got into journalism? To carry water for a political party? To be a propagandist? To write something so stupid that I can’t look in the mirror without self loathing?”
Doocy: Don’t you know the answer to that question?
Carlson: Some people never pause to ask “What am I doing with my life?”

Imagine having such a pitiful lack of self awareness that you can ask about the self awareness of others while you’re oblivious to what you’re saying at that exact moment. Tucker Carlson was actually chastising the Times for “carry[ing] water for a political party” and for being “a propagandist.” Those are two things that Fox News in general, and Carlson in particular, are best known for. So if Carlson thinks that someone being that big a suck-up “can’t look in the mirror without self loathing,” then he’ll have to remove every mirror from his home and office in order to get through the day. And knowing his degree of narcissism, that’s a lot of mirrors.

It was also somewhat curious that Doocy asked Carlson if he already knew the answer to his own questions. That sounds like Doocy was accusing Carlson of the political sycophancy he was complaining about. Which would be wildly out of character for Doocy. Regardless, Carlson just laughed it off with his patented smuggery. And in the end, none of them realized that what they were criticizing was what has been the central mission of Fox News for twenty years – if we’re allowed to go back that far.

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